by Mary Daheim
“I need a real barracuda,” TNT declared, swallowing his third Jose Cuervo in one gulp. He lowered his head and his voice. “Hey, Mrs. Flynn, can I go home with you?”
NINE
JUDITH REALLY WASN’T sure how she ended up bringing TNT Tenino to Hillside Manor. Barry had tactfully refused to serve the ex-boxer another tequila, and after Judith had departed Ron’s Bar and Grill, she realized she was being followed. At first, she thought it must be Uncle Gurd. But the old man had vacated the front of the restaurant and was nowhere in sight. Moments later TNT caught up with her while she waited to cross the street between I. Magnifique and the Donner & Blitzen parking garage. By that time, he was virtually in tears. Down to his last fifty dollars, he had nowhere to go. Did Mrs. Flynn know of a cheap motel?
She did, but wouldn’t recommend such a seedy establishment to anyone, not even TNT Tenino. The B&B was full on this Thursday night, but Mike’s bedroom on the third floor was available. Judith’s soft heart melted. Maybe fate was paying her back for ditching Uncle Gurd. If she could put up with him in the hedge, she could suffer through a night with TNT. Besides, she really wanted to know more about Esperanza Highcastle and her employee, Harley Davidson.
“Has your wife had a lot of problems with Harley?” she’d asked TNT as they drove up the south side of Heraldsgate Hill.
TNT, who was now exhibiting the effects of his three shots of tequila, had mumbled that Esperanza had problems with everyone and everything. As for Harley, he had a dirty mouth; he’d get the station’s license yanked. “Punk. Radio punk,” he muttered. “Rocker punk. I hate him.”
“But he’s dead,” Judith had pointed out.
“Good,” TNT had said, and passed out.
Half an hour later, TNT was still sleeping it off in the Subaru while Judith questioned her sanity.
“You what?” Renie demanded over the phone. “Never mind, I’m coming over. I have to drop off a casserole for the funeral freezer.”
Arlene Rankers and a couple of other SOTS, as Our Lady, Star of the Sea’s parishioners were known, were in charge of keeping the church supplied with food for funeral receptions. Judith did her share, but the rotation was alphabetical. Last names beginning with F wouldn’t be called on until the first week of September.
Renie arrived shortly before two. When she pulled the big blue Chev into the driveway, she saw TNT Tenino’s head lolling against the passenger seat’s upholstery.
“You better give him an eight count,” Renie advised Judith as the cousins sat down in the living room. “How long has he been out?”
Judith considered. “An hour? Hour and a half? Really, I think he was tired. It sounds as if he’s been through a rough patch with Esperanza. Or Espy, as he calls her.”
“I don’t doubt that,” Renie allowed. “But I honestly can’t see how you could…” She stopped, a hand at her tousled chestnut curls. “Yes, I can. You do some of the weirdest things, just because you can’t say no.”
“I said no to Uncle Gurd,” Judith declared, recounting the meeting on the sidewalk. “But I felt bad about it. Why do I care what people think?”
“Because you own your own business and have to keep up a public image? That’s good enough for me,” Renie asserted, then changed the subject. “What about your visit to Artemis Bohl?”
Judith related what had happened, and in the process, tried to sort through the exchange for anything that might clarify the mystery. “Tara came back with the dress, so we know she was seen that night after I spotted her with Harley on the roof. We also know that she and Harley were not a romantic duo—though I thought I detected a note of doubt in Mr. Artemis’s manner. What I’d like to find out is who stood to gain by Harley’s death. Did you ask Kip about family or friends?”
“I asked Kerri to ask him,” Renie replied, sipping a large Pepsi. “Kip told her that Harley was an orphan. He was born blind and abandoned by his unwed mother. Finding adoptive parents for a blind child is pretty hard. Harley went from orphanage to foster home and back again until he ran away when he was about fifteen. That was in the Midwest, Indiana, I think. He was fascinated with radio, and sort of bummed his way west, working for small stations. Eventually, he landed in L.A., and finally got a shot at being on the air. Harley was a big deal down there, but came a cropper and headed north. He’d been with KRAS-FM for almost five years, which is almost a record in radio. And yes,” Renie added with a smirk, “his real name is John Smith.”
“So,” Judith sighed, “no relatives. Friends? Girlfriends? Wives? Ex-wives?”
“He never married, though there have been girlfriends,” Renie answered. “And I do mean girl friends. Harley rarely went out with any female who was old enough to drive. He had a penchant for fifteen-year-olds.”
“Oh, dear.” Judith grimaced. “That’s illegal. Groupies, I suppose.”
“No doubt.” Renie drank thirstily. The afternoon had grown very warm, and though the doors and windows were open, the living room felt stuffy. “I don’t envy Joe and Woody trying to track down all those teenaged girls and then interviewing them.” Despite the heat, Renie shuddered.
“Hmmm,” Judith murmured. “Yes, that could be a pain. So who gets his money? According to Darrell, Harley had pots of it, especially under-the-table payoffs.”
“If that’s true, the IRS will get most of it,” Renie said. “Don’t they always?”
“They sure do,” Judith said with bitterness. And then she launched into her conversation with Merle Rundberg.
Renie was appalled, as well as sympathetic. “Try Sig. Men are often more reasonable about money than women,” Renie counseled. “Or maybe it’s that they have a better sense of fair play.”
“Maybe.” Judith couldn’t help but sound dubious. “Drat. I was hoping that money could be a motive. But under the circumstances, I don’t see how.”
“Maybe it is, in a different way,” Renie suggested. “You know, someone who wanted to take over from Harley.”
Judith only half heard Renie. “I don’t believe that Harley and Tara were strangers to each other. Maybe they weren’t lovers, but nobody pulls a stunt like that one on the Belmont roof unless there’s some sort of history.”
Renie inclined her head. “You’re right. Why were they there in the first place? Has Joe asked that question?”
“I don’t know,” Judith admitted. “Maybe not, since he didn’t believe I saw them in the first place.”
Renie put her feet up on the coffee table. “I believe you saw Harley and Tara. Where do you suppose she’s gone?”
“Where isn’t as important as why,” Judith responded, nibbling on her forefinger. “She’s the key.”
“Maybe,” Renie allowed as Sweetums sauntered in from the parlor and collapsed in front of the empty fireplace. “But why the Belmont? What was the attraction?”
Judith’s dark eyes lighted on Renie’s face. “I’ve wondered. We know it wasn’t locked up tight. Apparently, anyone could have gone inside. But to what purpose? All I can think of are transients, looking for an empty bed.”
Renie got to her feet. “Speaking of transients, I’d better scoot. I had a rush project dumped on me by the local council of churches this morning. They’re putting out a brochure to make the public more aware of the homeless. Unfortunately, they had to fire the first two designers. So guess who has to bail them out?” Renie made a self-deprecating face.
“You could start with TNT Tenino,” Judith said dryly, as she walked her cousin through the open French doors. “How about a picture of him sleeping in my car?”
But TNT wasn’t sleeping. Gertrude was standing beside the Subaru, using her walker as a weapon.
“Hey, you bum!” she yelled. “Get the hell out of my daughter’s car! Come on, or I’m calling the cops!”
“Hi, Aunt Gertrude, bye, Aunt Gertrude.” Renie raced for the Chev.
TNT was struggling to sit up. “Where am I? What happened? Did I lose the fight?”
“You lost your mind,
you moron!” shouted Gertrude. “It’s bad enough we’ve got some crazy old fart living in the hedge, now we got some knothead sleeping in the driveway!” As soon as TNT stuck his legs outside of the car, Gertrude hit him with the walker.
“Stop that!” Judith rushed to restrain her mother. “Mr. Tenino is a guest. Leave him alone, he’s…tired.”
“What?” Gertrude’s small eyes got even smaller. “This is one of your lame-brained B&B guests? So why isn’t he sleeping in a bed or eating breakfast?”
“He should be. He will be.” Judith beckoned to TNT. “Come on, Mr. Tenino, I’ll show you to your room.”
A bleary-eyed TNT shot Gertrude a wary glance, then followed Judith into the house. “I could eat a horse,” he announced as he stepped into the hallway that led to the kitchen.
“I’ll make you some lunch,” Judith said wearily. “There, sit at the table. How about ham and cheese?”
“A ham would be great,” TNT said, flopping into a chair. “You can skip the cheese.”
Judith began slicing slabs of ham, added bread, and despite TNT’s exhortation, threw in some Havarti for good measure. The ex-boxer ate ravenously.
“I’m so sorry about your marital problems,” Judith said, sitting down on the opposite side of the table. “What caused the break-up?”
“Huh?” TNT looked up from his third slice of ham. “Sex. Money. The usual stuff. Espy liked to get it on with other guys, like George Washington and Admiral Byrd. There are limits to what a man should put up with, right?” TNT stuffed a piece of bread in his mouth. “I wondered about her and that Davidson sometimes, but I don’t know for sure. I threatened to deck him once, but it didn’t seem fair, him being blind. So I just shook him a little. He laughed. Boy, did that tick me off!”
“Oh? When was that?” Judith proffered a jar of dill pickles.
Digging around inside the pickle jar, TNT considered. “What’s today?”
Judith said it was Thursday.
“Last Friday,” TNT asserted, crunching a pickle between his teeth. “Around noon. Harley had wound up his stupid show, and started needling me about Espy. I told him if he ever touched her, I’d kill him.”
“So,” Judith said slowly, “you were sort of…ah…gratified when you heard Harley had been killed.”
TNT seemed puzzled by the remark. “Gratified? You mean as in grateful? Well, yeah, I guess so, but that won’t stop Espy from getting her hooks into some other poor sap, like Chuck Rawls or Julius Caesar.”
It occurred to Judith that no one showed any regret over Harley’s demise. Despite the fact that the late disc jockey sounded like a reprehensible person, she was starting to feel sorry for him.
“Do you have any idea who might have stabbed Harley?” she inquired in what she hoped was a conversational tone.
TNT was eating more ham. “Naw. It could have been anybody with a creep like him. Maybe it was the drugs. It usually is.”
Judith tried to conceal her surprise. “What drugs?”
“I heard he got busted in L.A. for selling drugs to teenagers.” TNT had finally gotten around to the Havarti cheese. “That’s why he came up here. Somebody at the station told me that. I forget who.”
“Did Harley do drugs?” Judith asked.
TNT shrugged. “Maybe. All those radio guys act like they’re high, at least when they’re on the air. You got any ice cream? I really like ice cream.”
Judith had rocky road, blackberry ribbon, and french vanilla. TNT said he’d try all of them. She was dishing each variety into separate bowls when Uncle Gurd came into the kitchen. He was now wearing only plaid boxer shorts.
“Ice cream!” Gurd exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. “Now I’m one for ice cream. Why didn’t you tell me you had all these fancy kinds?”
Judith cleaned out the cartons of rocky road and french vanilla. She had just enough blackberry ribbon left over for Gertrude’s dessert. “Are you going to eat it here or in the hedge?” Judith asked somewhat sharply.
Uncle Gurd considered. “The hedge. It’s real nice in there, except for the bees.” Carrying his two bowls, he exited the kitchen.
“Is that your father?” TNT inquired with mild interest.
“No!” Judith was horrified. “I hardly know him. He just…showed up, with some other people.”
“You’ve got some real characters around here,” TNT mused. “That old lady with the walker, this bald guy in his underwear—who else is wandering around this place?”
Judith declined to answer.
Joe was wild. He couldn’t understand how Judith had been soft-hearted enough or sufficiently gullible or just plain stupid to let TNT Tenino stay at Hillside Manor. It wasn’t merely that Joe felt an insolvent hard-drinking ex-boxer who’d been thrown out by his wife could cause some problems: Joe pointedly reminded Judith that TNT was also a suspect in the murder investigation.
“You never said he was a suspect,” Judith asserted as Joe paced the kitchen. “If you’d tell me these things, I’d be able to…”
Joe stomped off through the narrow hallway that led to the back porch. “I’m going for a walk. Don’t hold dinner.” The screen slammed behind him.
“I don’t think the case is going well,” Judith confided to Renie an hour later on the phone. “Joe’s really crabby.”
“Will TNT leave tomorrow?” Renie asked, raising her voice over the shouts of various Jones offspring who wanted to use the phone.
“I hope so,” Judith said in a worried tone. “But if he’s only got fifty dollars, where can he go?”
“He must have access to money,” Renie said after an aside to her children to shut up or she’d yank the phone out of the wall. “Bill says he made a good living as a boxer. Unless he’s blown it. Even so, this is a community property state. TNT ought to be able to get his hands on some cash. Esperanza Highcastle is stinking rich.”
“Maybe they had a pre-nup,” Judith suggested. “Wealthy people know how to tie up their money. I really have to get him out of here by tomorrow or Joe will blow a gasket.”
“Don’t look at me,” Renie warned. “With the kids home for the summer, we’re full up. How about putting TNT in the hedge with Uncle Gurd? Just think, coz, before the summer is over, you could have an entire colony living in there.”
“Very funny,” Judith snarled. Then she paused, and her voice softened. “Will you go with me to take a look at the Belmont tomorrow before we meet with Chuck Rawls?”
“Ohhh…” Renie was sounding irked. “I’ve got this damned brochure design to finish. If I work late tonight…Dammit, coz, it’s a stupid idea. What’s the point?”
“Please? I’m drowning in dilemmas. There’s Uncle Gurd and TNT and the Rundbergs trying to stiff me for the wedding bills and the lost evening gown and Joe acting like a jerk and…Mother. There’s always Mother.”
“Yes, there is,” Renie said, calming down. “Mine had me driving all over town this morning trying to find a certain color of tan thread. Not a true tan, not a deep tan, not a light tan, but one with just a hint of gold. And do you know why? She wanted to mend her nylons. Who the hell wears nylon stockings these days? Who the hell mends nylons?”
“Your mother?” said Judith meekly.
“Aaargh,” said Renie, and hung up.
When Joe returned from his long walk around seven-thirty, he was in a slightly better mood. Though she had a million questions, Judith decided not to mention the murder investigation. Fortunately, Uncle Gurd had settled in for the night, and TNT hadn’t reappeared since Judith had shown him to his third-floor room and provided him with a huge plate of food.
In the morning, Judith couldn’t resist posing one query for her husband: “Have you and Woody talked to Tara Novotny again?” she inquired after Joe had finished his second cup of coffee.
“The model?” Joe looked up from the morning paper. “No. She’s playing hard to get.”
“Isn’t she an important witness?” Judith hoped she wasn’t pushing her luck.
“You don’t think she’s a serious suspect then?” Judith obligingly poured more coffee for Joe.
Joe didn’t look up from the paper. “No. That wedding dress had some dirt on it, but there weren’t any bloodstains. She couldn’t have stabbed Davidson and not gotten blood on that white dress.”
“Do you think she’s in danger?” Judith inquired, hearing some of her guests arrive in the adjacent dining room.
“What? No, why should she be? I doubt that she was around when the murder took place. Now what kind of an ERA is 5.86?” Joe demanded, finally lifting his head. “You don’t win baseball games with hitting, you win with pitching, dammit.”
Judith decided not to ask any more questions. Instead, she took a basket of hot scones into the dining room, and played the gracious hostess. It was a job she understood. Joe was the detective, Judith was the innkeeper. She had to keep remembering those facts of life.
Renie picked up Judith at twelve-thirty. “We’re meeting Rawls first,” she told her cousin. “He wants to see us on his lunch break. We’ll do a quick trip to the Belmont afterwards, but I can only spare you ninety minutes, tops. How’s TNT this morning? Did he get up at the bell?”
“He left,” Judith said, exuding a sigh of relief. “When I tapped on his door around nine, there wasn’t any response. I assumed he was still asleep, so I peeked inside. He wasn’t there. I guess he went out via the back stairs while I was with Phyliss in the living room.”
“He might have thanked you,” Renie noted as she eased the big Chev down the steep south side of Heraldsgate Hill. Clouds were moving in over the bay, and the temperature had dropped. Much to the relief of the natives, the forecast called for possible showers.
“I don’t care if he didn’t thank me,” Judith said. “I’m just glad he’s gone. Now to get rid of Uncle Gurd.”