This Old Souse

by Mary Daheim

  Glenn used his scratched and bleeding hands to try to dislodge the cat. But Sweetums seemed intent on smothering his prey. Indeed, the animal was preening a bit, licking his paws and scratching behind one ear.

  Renie had rejoined Judith. “They’re on their way.” A wicked glint shone in her eyes. “I told them, ‘Officer down.’”

  Judith couldn’t help but smile. “Get his gun. It’s probably in a shoulder holster.”

  Renie walked over to the still-struggling Glenn Morris. “Hi, Sweetums,” she said. “Nice work.” For good measure, she put a foot on Glenn’s midsection. “Stop wiggling and stay put or I’ll jump up and down on you until you look like a busted balloon.”

  “By the way,” Judith called to Glenn Morris, “I will fire this gun if I have to. And I won’t hit my cousin.”

  A strangled cry emerged from Glenn’s throat as he finally heaved Sweetums off of his head. The cat landed on his feet, arched his back, hissed, and went right for Glenn’s throat. Renie, meanwhile, had managed to dislodge Glenn’s 9mm Glock from its holster.

  “Check his legs,” Judith said. “He may have another one.”

  “He doesn’t,” Renie replied. “Frankly, he doesn’t have much left in the way of legs—or pants, for that matter. They’re all chewed up from Sweetums’s fangs.”

  The sweet sound of sirens was drawing closer. Glenn, whose face was bleeding, tried to subdue Sweetums. But the cat was persistent, his big plume of a tail swinging like a pendulum as he raked the man’s throat with his sharp claws. Sally still lay on the ground, motionless. Judith began to wonder if the woman was alive.

  Renie looked down at the pistol in her hand. “Should we disarm ourselves? Don’t you think the patrol officers might get the wrong idea?”

  “Let them,” Judith said grimly. “We need to see them in the flesh before we make ourselves vulnerable.” Then, as she heard car doors slamming nearby, she raised her voice as loud as she could: “Backyard! By the back door!”

  The officers—a man and a woman—approached cautiously from around the side of the house, their weapons drawn.

  Judith set the Luger down behind her. “Now drop the gun,” she said to Renie under her breath.

  Sweetums seemed to understand the cease-fire. With one last swipe at Glenn, he jumped off of his victim and padded over to stand by Judith.

  The officers held flashlights along with their weapons. The light blinded Judith. She couldn’t see anything but an outline of the two figures. “The perps are on the ground,” she shouted. “Don’t be fooled, you may know one of them as Detective Glenn Morris.”

  “Who are you?” the male officer demanded. “Identify yourselves, please. Don’t move. Put your hands over your heads.”

  The cousins obeyed, although Renie winced a bit. She’d never quite regained full motion after her shoulder surgery.

  “Wait!” The word seemed torn out of Glenn’s wounded throat. “These women are burglars! Look at them!” He started to get to his knees, crawling painfully toward Sally.

  The male officer swung his light onto Glenn. “I can see that,” the officer said. “Did they attack you?”

  Not only was the patrolman’s voice familiar, but now that Judith could see more clearly, she recognized Darnell Hicks and Mercedes Berger. Their former beat had been Heraldsgate Hill.

  “It’s me!” she screamed as Glenn neared the unconscious woman. “Darnell, Mercedes—it’s Judith Flynn!”

  Darnell kept his high beam on Glenn, but Mercedes focused on the cousins. “Mrs. Flynn! Mrs. Jones! What’s happening?”

  “Come on, people,” Glenn urged, trying to sound nonchalant, but hampered by the cut on his lower lip. “Don’t let these two fool you…”

  “We know them,” Mercedes shot back.

  “You know me, too, don’t you?” Glenn said. “I work homicide, I’ve been on the force for almost a year.”

  “We’ve known Mrs. Flynn and her husband much longer,” Mercedes declared. “Stay where you are,” she ordered Glenn. “I’m calling for backup.”

  “What’s with the woman on the ground?” Darnell asked, catching Sally’s inert form in the circle of his flashlight.

  Sweetums had wandered over to Sally. He sniffed several times, then wrinkled his nose and went back to Judith.

  “She passed out,” Judith said. “Maybe you should send for an ambulance, too.”

  “She’s drunk,” Renie declared. “When I was wrestling with her, I smelled alcohol.”

  “We have an ambulance and other emergency personnel on the way,” Mercedes said.

  “We could use a regiment,” Renie asserted. “I don’t trust this so-called cop an inch.”

  But Glenn Morris no longer looked intimidating. His bleeding legs, face, and neck were taking their toll. So were the guns that were aimed at him. But most of all, he seemed defeated. Renie hadn’t had to jump on him to make the man deflate.

  Glenn’s bleary gaze turned to Sally. “For God’s sake, at least let me see if she’s alive.”

  “I’ll check,” Judith said, moving cautiously in the direction of Sally’s prone form. “Yes, she has a pulse, though it’s quite slow.” Her glance at Glenn was curious. “Why are you suddenly so concerned about anybody but yourself?”

  “Because,” Glenn said in a faint voice, “she’s my mother.”

  TWENTY

  AFTER A HALF century of inertia, the house on Moonfleet Street was suddenly by police, firefighters, medics, and other emergency personnel. No official arrests had been made, but both suspects had been taken to the hospital, with squad cars providing escort. Sally had come to just before the medics arrived, and had babbled like a spring torrent. Judith had been able to catch some of her words, but wasn’t sure how to sort fact from fairy tale.

  The homicide detectives requested that the cousins come into the house and answer questions. Judith and Renie were exhausted, but glad to comply. To their great relief, they knew the team: Edwina Jefferson and Danny Wong had investigated a murder in the gated community of Sunset Cliffs where the cousins had been asked to watch over a wealthy old woman whose life had been threatened.

  Edwina, a plump black woman of fifty, beamed at Judith and shook her head. “I can’t believe we’re meeting up again, girlfriend. Though I’ve heard about some of your escapades since Junior here and I transferred to the city force after they incorporated the area around Sunset Hills.”

  Judith sighed. “If only I’d known you two were at headquarters, I would’ve called to find out what was really going on with this case. Did you have any idea?”

  Edwina shook her head. “Junior and I had our own problems with a nasty triple murder in the south end of town.” She patted Danny on the arm. He was close to thirty now, a slim, good-looking man of Chinese descent, but to Edwina, he’d always be “Junior.” “I didn’t know Morris very well,” Edwina continued, “but I didn’t much like him. Standoffish, cold—and of course, a fairly recent hire. The only good thing was that he took Trash on. Or so I thought at the time. Nobody else wanted to work with Trash after his longtime partner retired. Now I understand why Morris chose him. Trash was too dumb or too indifferent to figure out that Morris was a wrong’un.”

  Judith frowned. She knew that Glenn Morris would give the police department a black eye. “Wasn’t it considered suspicious when the body of Frank—I mean, Fred Pettibone—was secretly released and the story was hushed up?”

  “Oh, no,” Edwina replied. “That part was legit. The feds stepped in to cover the death of one of their own. Glenn wouldn’t have been allowed to talk about it.”

  “The Pettibones were notified right away,” Danny put in. “As far as the government is concerned, Fred died a hero. But any official acknowledgment of his death in the line of duty can’t go public.”

  “It’s a shame, really,” Edwina said with a shake of her head. “Fred Pettibone doesn’t get recognized for what he did, and the police are going to have to suffer some ugly headlines.” She leaned back
on the worn leather sofa. “Okay, hit the high spots on your part in all this. We’ll take a formal, detailed statement at headquarters tomorrow or the next day.”

  It was nearing midnight when Judith finished. “Remember,” she concluded, petting Sweetums, who was asleep on her lap, “some of my conclusions are speculation, especially the part about Glenn trying to scare Anna in the parking garage. I’m guessing that it was an attempt to make sure her husband gave the Moonfleet away. You’ll want to ask Phil about that part.”

  Danny, who had been characteristically silent during Judith’s recital, finally asked a question. “I don’t quite get it. Just after we arrived—before Mrs. Steiner was put in the ambulance—she mentioned that her other son, Luke, was the one who actually sold the artworks. Did the rest of the family share in the profits, too?”

  “Early on, when the children were young, I imagine Sally had someone else as the middleman,” Judith replied. “I suspect Sally was sending art objects to them while she was still in Austria and the Blands were given living expenses. Dick Bland apparently didn’t ever hold down a job—a neighbor told us he’d come back from the war a shattered man. That would explain why the house seemed so moribund. Jane may have been stuck inside, taking care of Dick and ensuring that he lived in a quiet atmosphere. Luke became involved in investments, which might have included money laundering for Sally’s art sales. I figure she couldn’t have left Anna out of the loop. Maybe Sally set Phil up in the tugboat business. But in later years, Dick and Jane may have gotten greedy—or scared. Perhaps they were ill and in misery. I’d like to think that, because then it would be more like a mercy killing. Luke and Anna didn’t dare go to the police if Sally was their source of big income. And, of course, Sally was Luke’s mother.”

  “Not to mention Glenn’s,” Renie put in. “That shocked me.”

  “I heard Sally rambling on about that while they were getting her ready to put in the ambulance,” Judith said. “She hadn’t been raped—she’d been promiscuous. In fact, she bragged about her escapades after she moved in with the Blands. She’d sneak out at night and meet some man for a romp. In Austria, she’d borne two children out of wedlock before she married Franz. Glenn was the elder, and she let an American couple from California adopt him. Apparently, it took years for him to track down his birth mother, but when he did, he came up here to meet her. She couldn’t resist seeing him, which meant he realized right away that something odd was going on and wanted in on it. That’s why he transferred from L.A.”

  “How,” Edwina inquired, “did you figure out that no one but Sally lived here?”

  “It was the groceries,” Judith said. “One box, once a week. There wasn’t enough to feed three people. And while wine was included, I’ll bet somebody in the family made frequent trips to the liquor store. Maybe somewhere, down deep, Sally felt guilty. Or maybe she was just a souse. She’d once left a delivery from Franz on the porch for a couple of days. What else could account for that but a drunken binge?”

  “She was a silly souse,” Edwina said in disapproval. “What good did the money do her? Did she enjoy the art?”

  “I think she was a miser,” Judith said, “but she must have loved the paintings or she would’ve sold more of them. Only about eight were in the parlor. There were other art treasures, too. I assume Franz sent one annual delivery because of the risk factor—not only possible discovery, but damage. Still Sally must have made millions. But as her sight deteriorated, she couldn’t enjoy the remaining paintings, which is why I think she agreed to let Glenn sell them abroad.”

  “While she settled in with Franz and the goats,” Renie put in. “Maybe she thought she’d be safe from the cops in a remote place like Kopfstein. Or she was fantasizing. Alcohol does strange things to people’s brains.”

  “It’d be nice to think those paintings may be returned to their rightful owners,” Edwina said. “Assuming they’re still alive and could be tracked down. Thank goodness that’s not a job for us.”

  Danny was looking somewhat embarrassed. “Let me get this straight—the paintings and the other art stuff was stolen from thieves after World War Two?”

  Edwina offered her partner an amused, if slightly patronizing, look. “Ah, yes, Junior, I keep forgetting you don’t even remember the Vietnam War, let alone Korea or the two world wars. You children are woefully ignorant when it comes to history. By the way, did you ever hear of slavery and the Civil War? Does the name Abe Lincoln ring any gongs?”

  Danny made a face. “At least I don’t think he’s a rock band.”

  “Admittedly,” Edwina said, her pleasant face growing serious, “I was born after the war. But my daddy served in it—even though the military wasn’t desegregated until after the war was over.”

  “Gosh!” Danny exclaimed in amazement.

  “Anyway,” Edwina went on, “a bunch of those Nazi leaders stole all kinds of things including artworks from museums and galleries and individuals. They didn’t just kill the poor Jews, they robbed them of everything they owned. Some were rich, and had fabulous possessions.” She turned to Judith. “Weren’t a lot of those art treasures in Berchtesgaden, where Hitler and his cronies had their vacation hideaways?”

  Judith nodded. “Berchtesgaden was in Germany but right on the Austrian border, near Kopfstein. According to my Uncle Corky, who served in that area, some of the allied soldiers ran amok after the war. Not only were they chasing Nazi holdouts and sympathizers, they were enjoying a victor’s spoils. Of course there were the pro-Nazi Germans and Austrians who were never arrested and managed to end up with plenty of loot. I assume Sally’s husband, Franz, was one of that ilk. His peers may have had some loot, too. Franz may have bartered with them or even outlived them.”

  Danny was looking thoughtful. “You know, they don’t make history very interesting in school.”

  “That,” Renie asserted, “is because texts and teachers don’t realize that history is really old gossip. They don’t give it any personality. History is about people, as far as I’m concerned, which is far more interesting than politics and ideas.”

  “I never thought of that,” Danny admitted.

  “You’re not alone,” Renie remarked before turning to Edwina. “What will happen to the rest of the family?”

  Edwina shrugged. “I leave that stuff up to the prosecutors. Luke and Anna and the others may plea-bargain their way out of it. For all we know, Sally threatened them, told them they’d end up buried in the backyard, too. We’ll start excavating tomorrow. Say,” she said, pointing to the sleeping Sweetums, “is that your cat?”

  Judith grinned. “Yes. I’m not sure how he ended up here, but I figure he was trying to get home from my uncle’s and came this way. The poor little guy was probably hungry. He found a feast of mice and maybe even rats, and settled right in. This house may be a den of iniquity, but it’s also a feline paradise. I assume that Sweetums was the one who kept tripping the alarm while he was prowling around in and out of the house. There must be at least one or two places where raccoons or squirrels have chewed their way inside.”

  Edwina stood up, straightening the navy blue linen skirt that wrapped around her ample hips. “It’s Junior’s bedtime. We’ve got personnel watching the house. And you two must be worn out.” She enfolded Judith and Renie in a big hug. “We’ll be in touch. You take care, you hear?”

  Judith gave Edwina a baleful look. “We usually try.”

  “But not tonight,” Edwina said. “And by the way, try to avoid the breaking-and-entering act. Next time, we might actually have to arrest you.”

  Judith smiled fondly at the other woman. “There is one more thing.”

  Edwina looked curious. “Oh? What’s that?”

  “I want my shoes back.”

  Judith didn’t hear the alarm go off the next morning. When she finally woke up, it was almost ten o’clock. With a shriek, she sat up and took several deep breaths. Her guests must be furious. Gertrude would be wild. In a whirl of activity, she show
ered, dressed, and scurried downstairs.

  But as she was halfway down the second flight that led into the kitchen, she smelled coffee, bacon, and other breakfast aromas. Going along the narrow hallway, she saw Joe hanging up the phone.

  “Hi, sleepyhead,” he said in greeting. “Feeling rested?”

  “Joe!” She flew into his arms, covering his face with kisses. “When did you get home?”

  “Just before six,” he replied, squeezing her waist. “I took the red-eye.”

  Judith glanced at the phone on the counter. “Was that for me?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait,” Joe said, ruffling her salt-and-pepper hair.

  Slipping out of his grasp, Judith peeked into the dining room. Only two guests remained, enjoying coffee and chatting amiably.

  “You got everyone fed? Even Mother?”

  Joe nodded. “Not to mention Sweetums. I understand he’s been missing.”

  “Um…yes, he has.” Judith watched as her husband poured her a mug of coffee. She didn’t know where to start. Joe would have to know. The arrest of two murderers and the discovery of a smuggling operation might not have made the morning paper, but he was bound to find out. Judith sat down at the kitchen table with her coffee while Joe finished loading the dishwasher.

  As the remaining guests left the dining room and went upstairs, Joe sat down across the table from his wife. Gold flecks danced in his green eyes—magic eyes, Judith called them. “Did you get the trunk lid fixed on the Subaru?”

  “Ah…not yet,” Judith replied, avoiding those magic eyes. “I’ve been really busy. We had some problems with a guest who ended up in the hospital. Sweetums took a dislike to him. There was something of a fracas.”

  Joe nodded once. “So that’s why he looks so scruffy. Your mother seems pleased to have him home.”

  “Yes,” Judith said, still not meeting her husband’s gaze. “I had to take him to the vet, and the wife of the man who was…um…scratched didn’t want him at the B & B while she was still here. After I picked Sweetums up from the vet, I took him to Uncle Al’s. But after Mike and the boys went home, Sweetums ran off. Luckily, I found him.”