Wed and Buried

by Mary Daheim

  Life had no easy answers. Judith reached into the cloisonne candy box on the sidetable where she’d put the cigars Phyliss had confiscated from Bascombe de Tourville. She juggled what she assumed was first-rate Cuban quality in her hands. “Firm and fully packed”—the phrase from a radio commercial of her youth tripped through her brain.

  But the cigars were no such thing. They felt light and lumpy. Carefully, Judith peeled back a layer of dark brown tobacco leaf. She peeled some more.

  Three small objects fell in her lap. It was growing dark in the family room, and she switched on the table lamp. At first, the objects looked dull and rocklike. Then she held them up to the light.

  They were green, like glass, and under the murky exterior, a dazzling fire struck her eye. She was reminded of the glass chunk she’d collected from the Belmont balcony. A bottle, Woody had suggested, or something equally innocuous.

  They were neither.

  Upon close inspection, Judith knew an emerald when she saw one.

  FIFTEEN

  THE MOMENT OF madness had passed. Judith had caressed the uncut stones, held them under a three-way bulb, laid them against her bare throat and on her finger. The smallest of the emeralds would make a brilliant ring. Chips from any of the gems would look heavenly at her ears. Who would miss one little piece of unpolished rock? Someone with a Uzi, Judith decided, and went downstairs to tell Joe about the emeralds.

  She found him outside on the patio, sitting in a lawn chair and listening to the soft sounds of summer. Approaching quietly, she juggled the three stones she’d found in the first cigar, the four smaller ones from the second, and the chunk she’d saved from the Belmont roof. Judith was about to rouse Joe from his reverie when she heard the phone ring.

  Of course she could let it switch over to the answering machine, but it might be a reservation or a cancellation. Judith darted back into the house and picked up the phone where she’d left it on the kitchen counter next to the computer. If Joe heard or saw her, he didn’t move.

  “I’m in the soup,” Renie declared in a frazzled voice. “I told Morris Mitchell that Billy Big Horn was still around, and now he insists that I find him. Any old bum won’t do for our Morris. Where should we go to hustle the homeless? Bill’s coming with me.”

  The old schoolhouse clock on the kitchen wall said it was almost eight-thirty. “You’re going now?” Judith said in surprise.

  “Immediately,” Renie answered, now sounding testy. “Morris can’t wait. I told him it was useless, because Billy will be holed up for the night, probably under some bridge or maybe the viaduct.”

  “That could be dangerous,” Judith pointed out.

  “I know,” Renie responded. “Which is why we won’t go there. We’re just going to take a swing through downtown, and maybe the hospital district by the Naples. It’ll stay light for another hour, so we can spot Billy if he’s around. At least I can tell Morris that I tried.”

  “Donner & Blitzen’s corner and the Naples are the main places where Billy hung out,” Judith said as she heard Joe come through the back door and go upstairs. “The Belle Epoch, Nordquist’s, and the Cascadia Hotel are popular with panhandlers, too.”

  “I thought of them,” Renie said as her husband’s voice rang out from somewhere in the Jones’s household. “Got to go, Bill’s ready and roaring.”

  Judith clicked off the phone and sank into the chair by the computer. She should take the emeralds to Joe at once. But Renie’s interruption had given her time to think. Maybe this wasn’t the moment to spring the uncut stones on her husband. He had plenty on his mind right now, and his job wasn’t what was troubling him.

  Picking up the phone book, Judith searched for Chuck Rawls’s number. She found Charles Rawls Jr. in a suburb east of the lake. He answered on the first ring.

  “No,” he said after Judith had expressed her dismay about the bombing, “there was no damage except to the lobby. The company that owns the building had insurance, and they’ve just about got everything fixed. There’re a lot of other businesses besides KRAS and KORN at Heraldsgate 400, including the Highcastle Hot Dog administrative offices. If that bomb had been a biggie, there’d be some serious pissing and moaning. Excuse the expression.”

  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Judith recalled the Highcastle Hot Dog sign featuring Willie, the Winking Wienie, atop the actual plant in the city’s industrial section south of downtown. It also occurred to her that she hadn’t seen Willie wink at her lately as she traveled the freeway.

  “I understand that Pork Barrel Meats in Chicago bought Highcastle Hot Dogs,” Judith said in a casual tone. “Did that happen recently?”

  “Oh—about six months ago,” Rawls answered. “Not long after the first of the year. Ms. Highcastle thought they’d keep the operation here going, but all they wanted was the name. So she had to make it up to her employees, buy-outs, severance, all that stuff. That’s why she keeps an office in the 400 building. She’s still writing checks.”

  “All the same,” Judith said in what she hoped was envious amazement, “Ms. Highcastle must have made a bundle off the sale.”

  “You’d figure as much,” Rawls allowed, “but it actually turned into a headache. She owned the building south of town, but not the land. Now that there’s talk of building a new sports stadium in that area, she’s responsible for razing the place. Lately, Ms. Highcastle seems to be in the business of wrack and ruin instead of rock ’n’ roll.”

  “Are you saying that she’s going through hard times?” Judith suggested tentatively.

  “Who knows?” Rawls replied with what sounded like a yawn. “With rich people, it’s tough to tell. When they say they’re broke, they mean they’re down to their last few millions. It’s a funny thing—that’s as hard for them as it is for working stiffs like me who figure we’re broke when the old checking account is overdrawn by a couple of hundred bucks, and the so-called reserves were never there in the first place.”

  “True,” Judith murmured, then changed the subject. “I haven’t heard if the kids who tossed the bomb have been caught. The newspapers have been very quiet on the subject since the initial article.”

  “Right,” Rawls agreed. “No deaths, no serious damage, no real news. We’re just as bad in radio. Heck, we only follow up on stories if it’s a major war, major plane crash, or some major gets caught in bed with another major.” Rawls chuckled at his own twisted humor.

  Judith forced a truncated giggle, but her mind was elsewhere. “Are you keeping Darrell Mims on the air?”

  “We have to.” Rawls now sounded glum. “Our talent search hasn’t turned up anyone else, at least nobody we can afford. And Mims may be pretty bland, but he’s a hell of a lot cheaper than Harley.”

  “What did Harley do with his money?” Judith inquired in a musing tone. “That is, I’m told he didn’t have any sizable savings.”

  “He didn’t?” Rawls sounded genuinely surprised. “He must have. He made big six figures, maybe more.”

  “As a DJ?”

  “Not from KRAS,” Rawls responded slowly. “Oh, he had a good salary, that’s for damned sure, but according to inside-the-industry rumors, the real money came from…other sources.” The producer’s voice lowered a notch.

  “Yes, so I understand,” Judith said in a conspiratorial tone. “So where did it go? Women? Drugs?”

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. “I really don’t know,” Rawls finally answered with what sounded a bit like wonderment. “There were women, sure, but mostly groupies. I’ve been to his apartment, and it was okay, but nothing special. He wasn’t a collector. You know, when a guy can’t see, there isn’t much point in hanging Old Masters on the wall or putting rare stamps in an album. And, as you might have guessed, he didn’t spend it on cars.”

  It hadn’t fully occurred to Judith until now that having impaired sight or no sight at all was bound to limit life’s pleasures. A wave of compassion for Harley Davidson swept over her. As if to prove what
he was missing, she rose from the chair and gazed out the window. Dusk was settling in over Heraldsgate Hill, creating a gray-gold glow behind the maple and evergreen trees. Judith smiled at the often unappreciated sight.

  “So Harley couldn’t see at all?” she asked in a soft voice.

  “Actually, he could see a little. Sort of extreme tunnel vision, just enough that he could get around familiar places by himself. Maybe,” Rawls added in a speculative tone, “that’s why he never had a guide dog.”

  “How did he lose his sight?” Judith inquired, hearing Joe on the stairs.

  “I don’t know,” Rawls admitted. “I gathered it was a birth defect.”

  “Poor man.” Judith turned to see Joe in the hallway. “Thank you. I appreciate your help. I really must run now.”

  Joe went to the refrigerator where he got out a can of diet soda. “Still sleuthing, huh?” His voice held no inflection.

  “Yes,” Judith confessed. “It’s like an addiction. I wanted to stop, I really did, but…I can’t.” She hung her head. “I’m sorry.”

  Joe popped the top of his soda can, gave Judith a pensive look, and went upstairs.

  As expected, Renie and Bill had had no luck searching for Billy Big Horn. They had, however, learned more about what had happened to the harmonica-playing homeless man.

  “It’s a real grapevine among those people,” Renie told Judith Friday morning as the cousins sat at sidewalk tables outside of Moonbeam’s coffee house. The newlyweds had taken off early, long before Judith’s B&B guests had risen. Judith had shed a tear or two as she kissed her son and his bride goodbye. Joe had shaken hands with Mike and bestowed a paternal peck on Kristin’s cheek. The rental car they’d picked up the day before had disappeared out of the cul-de-sac and faded into the gold and purple haze of the summer sunrise. Judith had stayed out on the curb for several minutes, wondering if she’d done the right thing by not doing anything at all.

  “They have their own world,” Renie was saying, and Judith realized she might have missed part of her cousin’s conversation. “The members of the homeless community all know each other. Anyway, it seems that Saturday morning—the day Mike and Kristin were married—somebody from St. Fabiola’s Hospital reported Billy lying across the main entrance. Whoever it was recognized him, and after he—or she, I’m not sure which—figured out that Billy wasn’t sick, he—or she—tried to move him, or get him to move. Billy refused. So he—or she—called the cops. They trotted out the anti-sidewalk sitting ordinance, and hauled Billy away.”

  “He—or she—must be a hard case,” Judith remarked with a puckish smile. “Couldn’t you just have said ‘hospital staffer’?”

  Renie gave a swipe at the mocha mustache she’d created. “Never mind. I have to do all this P.C. crap in my work these days, and it gets to be a habit. Somebody objected to ‘history’ in some text a couple of weeks ago, and insisted on calling it ‘herstory.’ The writer got so mad, he changed it to ‘ustory.’ I didn’t much blame him, except that the typesetter thought it was supposed to be ‘usury’ and the client had a fit, since it was a bank.”

  “‘It’?” Judith lifted her eyebrows.

  “Them. They. Screw it.” Renie took another swig of her mocha. “I’m a designer, not a writer. Anyway, Billy was carted off to jail, and he went most meekly. I suppose those homeless folks don’t mind sometimes, because they get a bed and a food and a roof over their heads.”

  “So where is he now?” Judith asked, sipping her latte.

  Renie shook her head. “Nobody’s seen him since. They—the other bums—figure he left town. Though that’s not like him, I gather. He’s been a fixture around here for the last four or five years.”

  For a few moments, Judith sipped her beverage and kept quiet. As usual, the corner on which Moonbeam’s was located hosted a horde of passersby. The constant parade included mothers pushing babies, couples with dogs on leashes, grocery shoppers carrying Falstaff bags, teenagers on summer break, and children heading for the rec center two blocks away. Judith was an inveterate people-watcher, but on this warm morning in July, she was distracted by her thoughts.

  “How?” she finally asked.

  “How what?” Renie frowned and accidentally sloshed mocha on the table.

  “How would Billy leave town? He’s blind. Wouldn’t that make hitchhiking especially dangerous?”

  Renie used a napkin to wipe up the small puddle. “Look—for all we know, Billy’s a very successful panhandler. Maybe he saved. He could have flown some place, or taken a bus or train. What do sheltered middle-class people like us really know about the homeless?”

  Judith allowed that Renie was right. The subculture comprised of the homeless was as foreign as an African tribe. “So what are you going to do now about your brochure photos?” Judith asked.

  Renie sighed. “Morris insists I spend this afternoon looking for a bum. His underling came up wanting, so I’m stuck. Care to join me?”

  Judith’s hand strayed to her purse, which was resting at her feet. “Well…I was thinking of going to the jeweler’s at the bottom of the hill.” Casting around the vicinity to make sure that no one was watching, Judith dug into her purse and pulled out one of the smaller emeralds. Renie’s eyes grew huge as Judith told her about the discovery in the cigars.

  “But you haven’t shown these to Joe?” Renie asked when Judith had completed her tale.

  “No. I didn’t have a chance.” In a woebegone voice, Judith told her cousin about the previous evening. “I don’t blame Joe, but it makes me unhappy.”

  Elbows on the table and resting her chin on her hands, Renie regarded Judith quite seriously. “Our kids are young enough to still believe in black and white. We know better. It’s very gray out there.”

  “I realize that,” Judith said, still forlorn. “It doesn’t stop me from wanting to make it better.”

  “Yes,” Renie said, now gazing beyond Judith to Begelman’s Bakery across the street. “We don’t want anyone we love to be hurt or sad or upset. But sometimes they are, and there’s not much we can do about it. At some point when Mike was small, you and Dan could have told him the truth. But you chose not to—or maybe, knowing you, dear coz, you let it drift.” Renie was again looking at Judith, and saw her cousin bristle. “Whichever, it doesn’t matter now. The moment passed. You and Joe are both going to have to live with what didn’t happen.”

  “I don’t like it,” Judith said in a flat voice.

  “We don’t like lots of things that we have to live with,” Renie replied, still wearing what Judith called her cousin’s boardroom face. “Joe was the one who ran off. Of course he didn’t know you were pregnant, you didn’t know it, either. So this is the price he pays for a moment of drunken folly. You found Dan on a very hard rebound. I’ll admit that his offer of marriage was uncharacteristically kind, but he had his reasons, which included a meal ticket. Still, before that had to happen, why didn’t Joe come to his senses and get his marriage annulled? Did you ever ask him?”

  “No. Yes. Sort of,” Judith hedged.

  “And?”

  “First of all,” Judith said, taking a deep breath, “he tried to call me from Vegas, but Mother wouldn’t let him talk to me. She told him I hated him, or some such thing, which wasn’t exactly true. I never knew he’d called until after we met each other again six years ago. I told you all about that.”

  “So your mother sabotaged everything?” Renie made a face. “She’s capable of it, but Joe gave up too easily. Gave in too easily as well. I’ve never understood why he stayed married to a woman he hardly knew, and who was a lush even then. I’m sorry, I hold Joe at fault. If he’s unhappy about the outcome after all these years, that’s too bad. You did the best you could at the time, given the circumstances. That’s all anybody can do. Regrets stink.”

  Judith knew Renie was right, though it didn’t make her feel better. “I don’t like having this between us,” she said with a feeble wave for Cecil the mailman who was emptying
the storage box on the corner by Moonbeam’s. “It’s like a big, ugly weight.”

  To Judith’s surprise, Renie laughed. “You mean it’s like Dan?”

  Judith bristled. “You told me not to think negative thoughts about him all the time.”

  “This isn’t all the time, this is now.” Renie was still grinning. “Sorry. But all married couples have baggage they’d like to dump. You and Joe haven’t been married long enough to acquire much. Get used to it. Maybe you’ve been living in a false paradise.”

  “We quarrel,” Judith pointed out. “You know that.”

  “That’s different.” Renie finished her mocha and dabbed at her mouth. “You can make up quarrels and forget about them. Marriage is about more than wrangling. It’s about big hurts and old wounds. You can ignore chronic problems in good weather, but when things get chilly, they’re just like physical aches and pains that keep coming back.” With a wry little smile, Renie stood up. “Got to run, coz. I need a bum. See you.”

  Judith remained at the small table, sipping her latte, which had now grown cold. Despite the morning sun, she too felt cold. Yes, it was okay to suffer the little flaws, the irksome habits, the minor breakdowns in communication, the disagreements about which TV shows to watch. But heavy, disturbing burdens were another matter. Renie might blame Joe, but Judith blamed herself.

  “Hey, Mrs. Flynn,” said Cecil, coming out of Moonbeam’s with a steaming cup in his hand, “you’re still getting mail for that Mrs. Rackley at your address. Why doesn’t she tell whoever is writing to her where she lives? Is it a secret?”

  Judith knew that Phyliss had received another letter from the Rundberg clan on Monday. “Is it from Idaho or Montana?”

  “I think so.” Cecil patted his mail pouch with his free hand.

  “I suspect she forgot to give them her address,” Judith said. “She’s probably too wrapped up in exchanging tall tales about the Lord.”

  Cecil looked puzzled. “Excuse me?”