Wed and Buried

by Mary Daheim

  “Really.” Judith tried to look ingenuous. “Goodness, how did he do that?”

  Woody, however, remained discreet. “Let’s just say he’s a real pro. The fact is, we don’t know all the details, which is why Joe and I are questioning him. Excuse me, but I’d better get that coffee I promised your husband. We may be in for a long haul.”

  Judith pointed to the emeralds. “What will you do with them? I’m told they’re worth a small fortune.”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll put them in the evidence room. They’ll be safe.” Woody grinned. “We have a stash of coke in there that would buy these emeralds and much, much more.”

  As Woody walked away, Judith’s shoulders slumped. The emeralds were in good hands, proper hands. She needn’t fuss about them any more. “Thank you,” she called to Officer Reyes. With a lightened step, she headed for the elevators.

  It took almost three full minutes before a down elevator arrived. It was jammed, and Judith had to wedge herself in between two burly city workers who grumbled at the inconvenience. The doors began to close just as Esperanza Highcastle rushed through the reception area.

  “Hold, please!” she commanded in her imperious voice.

  Amazingly, someone hit the right button and the doors reopened. There were no protests when Esperanza squeezed into the elevator. Apparently her manner, which was accustomed to sacrifice on the part of others, had negated any complaints. She and Judith stood so close that their shoulders were pressing against each other. Judith felt compelled to say something to mitigate the awkwardness.

  “Did everything go well for you?” she asked in an undertone.

  Esperanza, apparently not used to being addressed so casually, gave a little start. “Yes. Certainly.”

  “Good.” The elevator stopped and the burly men got out, easing the crush. “Let’s hope those youngsters learn a lesson.”

  “Oh, no!” Esperanza sounded shocked. “They didn’t do it. I spoke with them, and they’re quite innocent. I insisted they be released.”

  The elevator had arrived on the main floor. Judith kept step with Esperanza in her flowing Grecian chiton. “But I thought they were IDed and that somebody caught part of the license…”

  “A mistake,” Esperanza responded. “People make very poor observers.”

  Judith felt like asking as opposed to what? but Esperanza was already out the door and headed for her pearl-gray Lexus. With a sigh, Judith trudged into the small parking area to seek out her blue Subaru.

  The car was gone.

  Not having enough cash on her, Judith was forced to take the bus home. Not familiar with the schedule, she had to walk three blocks uphill to find the stop for the Heraldsgate Hill numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 13. Not feeling terribly lucky at this point, it was only natural that the 13 would be the first to come along. Judith got on, only to discover that the 13 didn’t go all the way up the hill. She had to walk the last six blocks under a sweltering sun.

  “Hey, nitwit,” called Gertrude from the door of the toolshed, “where’ve you been? I didn’t get my lunch.”

  Frazzled, Judith paused to catch her breath and check her temper. “I’m sorry, Mother,” she finally said in measured tones. “I had to go downtown. Would you like a tuna sandwich?”

  “I had tuna yesterday,” Gertrude replied. “I’m in the mood for tongue.”

  “I don’t have any tongue,” Judith answered, still clutching at her patience. “What about egg salad?”

  “Ugh.” Gertrude made a face. “The last egg salad you made was all squishy and slimy and icky and there were shells in it. I practically puked. Why can’t you make good egg salad, like I used to?”

  Judith didn’t recall ever having made an egg salad sandwich the way her mother so loathsomely described. “Baloney?”

  “The same to you,” Gertrude said, flipping Judith off. “Boy, are you ornery!” She leaned on her walker and clumped back into the toolshed.

  “Mother…” The cry was weary, and Judith started to follow Gertrude but thought better of it. Instead, she went inside and opened a can of Spam. It was the closest thing to tongue that she had on hand.

  Five minutes later, she was at the toolshed door, carrying a tray which included a Spam sandwich, three kinds of sliced fresh fruit, a mound of potato chips, and a glass of lemonade. “Here’s your lunch,” she called when there was no response to her knock. “Mother?”

  Nothing but silence met Judith’s ears. “Mother?” she repeated, as a note of worry crept into her voice. “Mother?”

  “Go away,” Gertrude rasped. “I already ate.”

  Judith clenched her teeth. “You told me you had no lunch.”

  “No, I didn’t,” came the muffled response. “I said you didn’t bring me my lunch.”

  Trying to calm herself under the hot sun, Judith forced herself to reflect. “You did not. You said you didn’t get your lunch.”

  There was a pause while Gertrude presumably thought through her daughter’s words. “Right, I didn’t get it from you. So I got it myself.”

  “What did you have?” Judith inquired, fully expecting the Spam to start sizzling on the plate.

  “Candy,” Gertrude replied. “Lots of candy. It filled me up.”

  “Swell.” Judith sighed. Gertrude always kept a large stash of sweets in her apartment. She nibbled constantly on an assortment of chocolate-covered peanuts, chocolate creams, chocolate truffles, and chocolate bars. Her mother’s sweet tooth drove Judith crazy. “That’s not wholesome. You need something more nourishing. Open the door and let me give you this tray.”

  “Nope. I’m full.” Gertrude let out an artificial belch to prove the point.

  Argument was useless. Judith started back for the house. She was putting the fruit and the Spam away when her early visitors arrived. They had started out at 4 A.M. to beat the heat, and had driven all the way from southern Oregon. Both husband and wife, who were about Judith’s age, were in a cantankerous mood.

  “This place isn’t air-conditioned?” the wife asked in shocked tones. “We’re from Chula Vista where everything is air-conditioned. What’s wrong with you people?”

  “Stairs?” the husband gasped, gazing up to the second landing. “How come you don’t put in an elevator? Do you expect us to haul these bags to our rooms?”

  The bags included three large suitcases and two sets of golf clubs. With an inward groan, Judith offered to help. The guests responded by going upstairs empty-handed. It took Judith three trips to deliver their luggage.

  At last, she sat down to call about her car. The name of the towing company had been posted in the city hall lot. Yes, they had Judith’s Subaru. It would cost her eighty-five dollars to claim it. The parking fine was extra. To add insult to injury, their holding area was located clear across town in a slightly seedy neighborhood.

  Judith called Renie, who was not in a charitable mood. “I found six bums, but Morris doesn’t like any of them. ‘Too prosaic,’ ‘too nondescript,’ ‘no visible character.’ What does he want, some USC film grad out of central casting? I told him to go hustle his own damned bums. It’s too hot to be combing the streets for people who are even more miserable than I am.”

  “Poor coz,” Judith said in a meek voice. “I guess you won’t be taking me to Tow ‘N’ Stow. Maybe I can work up enough courage to ask Joe when he gets home. That is, if he’s speaking to me yet.”

  “Ohhh…” Renie sounded as if she might be beating her head against her desk. “All right, I’ll pick you up in ten minutes. I’ve done all I can on this blasted design until Morris gets his bum and sorts out his photos.”

  On the way across town, Judith regaled Renie with her emerald adventure. Renie was suitably impressed. In fact, she almost wiped out two pedestrians in a crosswalk when she heard the value that Donna Weick had put on the uncut stones.

  “So de Tourville was smuggling emeralds inside the Cuban cigars,” Renie mused after the pedestrians had scattered and their obscene shouts hung on the air. “Cle
ver.”

  “Maybe not,” Judith responded. “That is, Woody isn’t sure that de Tourville is a smuggler or if he’s just a con man. It’ll be interesting to hear what he and Joe find out after they question him. If,” she added wanly, “Joe will deign to tell me.”

  “He’d better,” Renie said darkly. “You were the one who found the emeralds.”

  “I’m not sure Joe’s in a grateful mood,” Judith said as they began to wend their way through some of the city’s meaner streets. Boarded-up buildings, clusters of restless young people on street corners, wary and weary adults pushing grocery carts earmarked the less prosperous neighborhood. And though Renie had turned the Chev’s air-conditioner on full blast, the crumbling vista looked, even if it didn’t feel, hotter than Heraldsgate Hill.

  “Joe’ll get over his fit of pique,” Renie asserted blithely. “Is that Tow ‘N’ Stow a couple of blocks on the left beyond the mission sign?”

  Judith leaned forward, straining against the seatbelt. “I think so. Gee, look at all those poor men waiting outside that mission. It must be awful to be hot and hungry.”

  “Not as awful as being cold and hungry,” Renie remarked, glancing at the dozen or more homeless persons of every age, race, and state of despair. “Winter must be even…Yikes!” Renie hit the brakes, almost causing a rear-end collision with the green beater just behind the Chev. “Look!” she cried, ignoring the horn that was honking loudly. “Over there, at the mission! See the guy in the blue bathrobe? That’s Uncle Gurd!”

  Judith gaped. “That’s my bathrobe! Let’s get him!”

  Renie pulled over, double-parking. Judith rolled down the window and shouted Gurd’s name.

  He ran.

  The cousins cut off Uncle Gurd at the entrance to a dead-end alley. The old man danced around piles of trash, ducked behind a garbage can, and tried to climb into a dumpster.

  “Cut it out, Uncle Gurd,” Judith called through the open car window. “Please get in. We’ve been worried about you.”

  “You’re the feds!” Gurd shouted, his back plastered against the dumpster. “Don’t kid me! They always drive big blue cars like this!”

  Judith was losing patience. “You know better,” she snapped. “I’m Kristin’s mother-in-law.” The words struggled in Judith’s throat; she had not yet taken in the concept of her new role: Mother-in-law. With Dan, she’d had Effie McMonigle, who wasn’t inclined to venture beyond the well-manicured grounds of her Arizona retirement home. Joe’s mother had died when he was in his teens. But the specter of Gertrude loomed over Judith’s husband. It was not a pretty sight.

  “Do you want us to run you down?” Judith asked in an unusually menacing voice. “We will, if you don’t get in this car right now!”

  Gurd’s bony body seemed to collapse under Judith’s soiled chenille bathrobe. “Okay, okay,” he grumbled, trying to open the rear door before Renie could exercise the power locks. “But I need my stuff. I stashed it at the mission.”

  Backing the car out of the alley, Renie waited with uncharacteristic patience for an opening in traffic. After they had returned to the mission and Uncle Gurd had retrieved his belongings, which appeared to consist of a large grocery bag, the trio headed for the towing impound.

  Since Uncle Gurd didn’t smell exactly fresh, Renie had been forced to turn off the air-conditioning and roll down the windows. She was slowing to search for the correct address when a series of jarring musical notes came from the back seat.

  Judith turned. Uncle Gurd was playing a harmonica. Badly. “Do you mind?” Judith winced, her good humor not yet regained.

  “I mind a lot,” Gurd replied, then gave four loud toots on the harmonica. “You don’t like music?”

  “I haven’t heard any,” Judith retorted. “Where did you get…”

  Renie had pulled up in front of the towing company’s office. “Here you go, coz,” she said with forced cheer. “You can take your new best friend with you.”

  Halfway out of the car, Judith turned to glare at Renie. “You take him. You’re the one who wanted a bum.”

  “I didn’t want this one,” Renie responded as Uncle Gurd played the opening bars of what might have been Beethoven’s Fifth. Or “Dixie.” “He lives in your hedge,” Renie added darkly.

  “It’s Rankers’s hedge,” Judith retorted. “Drop him off at Arlene and Carl’s. They seem to like him.”

  Put off-guard by Judith’s unusually harsh tone, Renie gave in. “Okay, I’ll meet you at your place.” Tromping on the accelerator, Renie swung out from the curb and barreled up the hill that led away from the towing site.

  After paying her fee and claiming her car, Judith drove home in a glum mood. Nothing seemed to be going right for her lately. Not with Joe, not with her mother, not with her finances, not even with her feeble attempts at amateur sleuthing. Discouragement covered her like the ruined chenille bathrobe enveloped Uncle Gurd.

  It was going on four, the hottest part of the day, when Judith got out of the car in her driveway. Renie was sitting on the back porch steps, tapping her foot.

  “Morris wants Gurd to audition,” Renie said, sounding as morose as Judith felt. “I called from the Rankers’s house. Gurd’s there now, eating left-over barbecued pork ribs. Here,” she added, handing Gurd’s harmonica over to Judith. “He left this in my car.”

  The instrument was worn and battered, with signs of rust. “That’s funny,” Judith remarked. “I never saw this or heard him play it while he was living in the hedge.” She paused, fingering the marred metal. “Does it look familiar?”

  Renie curled her lip. “Are you kidding? Why should it? I don’t hang out with Uncle Gurd at the mission.”

  Suddenly, Judith’s eyes brightened. “Uncle Gurd can’t play this. It’s not his. I wonder…” She got up from where she had been sitting next to Renie and stared in the direction of the Rankers house.

  Just then, Uncle Gurd came through the hedge. He still wore Judith’s bathrobe but had a big red- and white-checked napkin tied around his neck. “Yep, that woman makes mighty fine pork ribs,” Gurd asserted, then turned to Renie. “When do I get my picture took?”

  Renie let out a tortured sigh. “Tomorrow, at ten. I’ll pick you up around nine-thirty. Be ready, or become dead.”

  Judith knew how much her cousin hated to work on a Saturday, not to mention being forced to turn her brain on before ten o’clock in the morning.

  Gurd took umbrage with Renie. “Say, you’re kind of ornery.” His eyes narrowed as his gaze took in Judith. “You, too. You made it seem like I wore out my welcome. Over at that mission, they made me feel right at home. Now where’s that good-looker with the blond hair? I haven’t seen her for quite a spell. That’s one real pleasant female. Good figger, too, plenty of curves.”

  “Vivian?” Judith tried not to blanch at Gurd’s over-enthusiastic description. “She went to Florida.”

  “Florida, huh?” Gurd grimaced. “Never been there. Now why would anybody go to Florida for the summer?”

  Judith started to reply, but suddenly changed topics. “Where did you get this harmonica, Gurd?” Her tone had softened.

  Gurd turned defensive. “I found it. Why? You lose one?”

  Judith shook her head. “No. Where did you find it?”

  Gurd’s wrinkled face grew wary. “Why you askin’?”

  “Because,” Judith said evenly, “I know who it belongs to. I’ve seen it before, many times.”

  Apparently assuaged by Judith’s matter-of-fact manner, Gurd shrugged. “It was in that fish pond thing at the hotel where you folks had the big do.”

  Judith gazed questioningly at Renie, but her cousin’s face was blank. She looked again at Gurd. “You found it the night of the rehearsal dinner?”

  “Nope, I found it a couple of days ago. I was tryin’ out Billy Big Horn’s other spot.”

  Judith frowned. “Billy’s other…? What are you talking about?”

  Both cousins were now on their feet, watching Gurd with
interest. “That bum who used to hang out at the hotel and by the department store downtown,” Uncle Gurd responded. “Some other bums told me he skipped town. I decided I’d try his spot, see if I could pick up some pin money. The department store was a bust, so I went up to the hotel. I didn’t like that much either, but while I was hangin’ around, I saw that harmonica in the fish pond. I’d heard Billy played such a thing, so I figgered it must be his. I took it out, but the water didn’t do it no good. It sounds kinda sour. ’Course I’m no expert.”

  “That’s correct,” Renie breathed.

  There was something wrong about Gurd’s recital, Judith was certain of it. Not in the facts as he told them, but the actual discovery. “You say you heard Billy wasn’t coming back? Do you mean from jail or not at all?”

  For an alarming instant, the bathrobe fell open, and both cousins averted their eyes. But Gurd quickly retied the sash. “How do I know? I never knew this Billy guy. But it didn’t seem right to leave his harmonica in that fish pond.”

  “It isn’t,” Judith said abruptly. “It’s all wrong.” She whirled on Renie who was drooping under the late afternoon sun. “Don’t you see? Billy was arrested across the street at the hospital entrance. He would never have left his harmonica behind, let alone in the Naples Hotel fountain.”

  Understanding began to dawn on Renie. “You’re right. Billy always had that thing with him. He played beautifully. Once, Bill gave him a twenty-dollar bill after he performed ‘Danny Boy’ for my mother-in-law.”

  Pacing the walkway, Judith tried to keep in the shade. “I’ve got to ask Joe about Billy’s arrest. It just doesn’t sound right. It never did.”

  Renie patted Judith’s arm, then headed towards the driveway. “You do that. You’ve got evidence. Joe will really like having a harmonica thrown into the case. ‘Bye, coz.” She swerved on her heel and stared Uncle Gurd down. “Nine-thirty, remember? And don’t wear that bathrobe. I never liked it, not even on my cousin.”