by Mary Daheim
“It’s not in the bank,” Gertrude replied. “I said I had her cash it, not put it in the bank.”
“What do you mean?” Judith asked, startled.
“I mean I wanted the money, dummy,” Gertrude snapped.
“For what?” Judith asked, starting to worry anew.
“None of your beeswax. I’m hanging up now. Arlene and Carl are coming to play gin rummy with me.” Gertrude banged down the phone.
Renie eyed Judith with sympathy. “What did she do, cash the check and send the money out to the track with Uncle Al?”
“She cashed it all right,” Judith said angrily. “But she won’t tell me what she’s doing with it.”
“Humor her,” Renie soothed. “Maybe she just wants to count it. You know how people of her generation are. They still have that Depression-era mentality. Some of them don’t trust banks because so many failed back then and their customers lost all their money.”
“Mother’s not that nutty,” Judith replied. “She’s got something up the sleeve of her housecoat. Damn, I hope she isn’t being victimized by some scam artist.”
“Your mother?” Renie laughed. “Neither of our mothers are sucker bait. Maybe she wants to buy some things. Like a new card table.”
“Maybe.” Judith gave herself a good shake. “There’s nothing I can do about it from here. I’d better check those other messages.”
Flakey Smythe informed the cousins that the interview he’d done with them wouldn’t run for a day or so, probably not until after Magglio Cruz’s funeral. He also wanted to do 254
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a follow-up—a sidebar, he called it—about their interview with the police.
“Double damn!” Judith swore. “I was afraid of that! We won’t talk to him again. Maybe he’ll forget about the whole thing if we stall.”
“Don’t count on it,” Renie said. “Would you rather he made up something?”
Judith didn’t respond. Instead, she listened to Rhoda’s message. “We must compare notes. Dinner? I’m feeling Italian. Ricky’s feeling—stop that, darling!” A giggle interrupted the message. “Ricky has a yen for Japanese, excuse the pun. Call us.”
Judith dialed the St. Georges’ number. Once again, it was Rhoda who answered. “Oh, Judith,” she said in a forlorn voice, “we can’t do dinner after all. Rick is sleuthing in a most serious way. Methanol and all that scientific mumbo jumbo I don’t pretend to understand. I’m even surprised that he knows about more than one kind of alcohol.”
“You mean the poison that was used to kill Dixie?” Judith asked.
“Yes,” Rhoda replied. “Lab alcohol. It sounds so crude. Whatever happened to classics like arsenic and cyanide?”
“I assume,” Judith said, “that they’re harder to obtain. Can’t you buy methanol without raising suspicion?”
“That’s what Ricky tells me,” Rhoda said. “He’s with Biff right now, checking recent sales from local chemical companies. Honestly, I can’t remember when Biff worked on a weekend. In fact, I can barely remember Biff working.” She laughed. “Oh, I shouldn’t say that. He does work, in his own peculiar fashion. It’s just that Ricky has to prod him. Do you know anything we don’t?”
Judith recapitulated the visit with Connie and Paul. “They seem very comfortable together,” she added. “I mean, it’s nice that she has someone she can rely on now that Mags is dead.”
“Lie and re-lie on?” Rhoda remarked in a provocative tone.
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“I wondered,” Judith said.
“So have we,” Rhoda responded. “The fact is, I don’t think they’re lovers. Connie was crazy about Mags, and vice versa. But Paul has always been the faithful puppy type. I think he adores her. But he was very loyal to Mags in every way.”
From embarrassment, Judith held back about going through Connie’s bank accounts. But she no longer felt obligated to keep Anemone’s secret, since Jim’s obsession with CeeCee was known at least to some of the others involved. Rhoda, however, professed mild surprise. “I’ve noticed that Jimmy has trouble keeping his eyes off of CeeCee, but most men do. Maybe it’s not as serious as it seems. Poor Anemone. She’s definitely the jealous type.”
“So I gathered,” Judith said, hearing Asthma bark in the background. “What do you make of Anemone, CeeCee, and perhaps Jim being at Neiman Marcus when Émile was strangled?”
“A quartet became a trio,” Rhoda murmured. “It’s even possible that they weren’t the only ones. Horace may have accompanied CeeCee. Erma might have been lurking in Large Sizes. Ambrose may be stalking Jim. You see how my devious mind works?”
“Yes,” Judith said. “Mine works the same way.”
“I’m glad I didn’t return that laptop when we left to see Connie,” Judith said, booting up the PC. “I’m going to research horse racing.”
“Starting with Montespan?” Renie inquired, leaning over Judith’s shoulder.
“Exactly.” The first screen of listings all referred to the famous courtesan, Françoise-Athénaïs de Montespan, Louis XIV’s brilliant and beautiful mistress. On the second and third screens, there were more references. On the fourth try, portraits of the lady commingled with china, flowers, and even furniture named for her. But no horses.
“I’ll try Thoroughbreds,” Judith said.
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“Or try another search engine,” Renie suggested, stretching out on the sofa.
“I’ll do both.” Judith stared in confusion as the first results came up. There were too many sites from too many sources. Trusting to luck—which was usually the way she bet the ponies—she typed in Montespan again. Three references came up—all in French. “You’d better take a look at this, coz. I think there are mentions of Montespan in some newspaper articles, but they’re from Le Monde and Agence France-Presse.”
Renie took Judith’s place at the computer. “Too bad we don’t have a printer,” she said. “I hope I can translate this accurately, but I’m not making any promises. My Spanish is better than my French.” She clicked on the first article, dated some twenty years earlier. “Ah! You can read this headline as well as I can.”
Judith peered over her cousin’s shoulder. “Scandale,” she said. “Coupled with Montespan. What do you make of it?”
For several moments, Renie didn’t speak. Slowly, she scrolled through the article, occasionally shaking her head.
“It’s about a big-stakes race for fillies and mares that Montespan was in. She won the race, but there was an inquiry. I think her jockey was accused of bumping another horse. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time that a Guillermo de Fuentes horse—
Connie’s dad—had been involved in that kind of incident. But the inquiry was disallowed.” She kept reading. Suddenly she gasped. “Good grief! The jockey was Émile Grenier!”
“Émile!” Judith practically fell on top of Renie as she saw his name at the bottom of the screen. “It makes sense, though. He was built like a jockey. In fact,” she added in a rush, “he was in one of those photographs at Connie’s place. I thought he looked familiar just because . . . well . . .”
“All jockeys look alike?” Renie nodded. “They do from a distance unless you know them really well. They have to stay so lean, and their caps hide their faces.”
“So how did Émile go from jockey to purser?” Judith mused.
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“Maybe we can find out,” Renie said, moving on to the next story.
Judith noted the date, which was a week later than the first article. There was nothing in the headline about a scandal.
“What does it say?” she asked her cousin, who was scratching her head and grimacing.
“I’m kind of rusty,” Renie confessed. “Montespan was in the race at Longchamps but didn’t finish because—” She shut up and concentrated. “There was an accident on the rail,” Renie finally said. “Montespan threw her rider—
/> Émile—who was badly injured. Montespan was disqualified, and there was another objection, this time from de Fuentes—I think—but that was overruled, too. The winning horse was owned by the same person who’d been edged out in the stakes race. The owner was somebody named Liam Ford Mackey, with a horse called Green Colleen. The trainer was L. C. O’Leary.”
“A grudge match?” Judith suggested.
“Could be,” Renie said. “Mackey may have thought he’d been screwed in the previous race, which was for some big bucks. Let’s look at that last story.”
This time, Renie translated with relative ease. “Émile got really banged up in that fall. This is two weeks later, and he’s out of the hospital, but has to retire.”
“He did have a limp,” Judith pointed out. “Maybe the purser job was a consolation prize.”
“Émile earned it,” Renie said. “He broke his leg, his collarbone, and his ankle. Ah! De Fuentes also retired from racing, citing . . . I can’t quite get this quote, but it’s something to the effect that he didn’t want to endanger his horses and riders any further.”
“That sounds very noble,” Judith said.
“Maybe not.” Renie paused, still translating. “The article states that people in the know believe that de Fuentes may have been involved in—bribes, I guess—with the stewards and other officials. It sounds as if he left the sport under a cloud.”
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“Hunh.” Judith leaned against the desk. “Is that blackmail-worthy?”
“Could be,” Renie responded. “It certainly wouldn’t be good publicity for Cruz Cruises if it got out that Mrs. Cruz’s father is a crook.”
“It’s no big secret,” Judith objected. “I mean, here we are, reading all about it on the Internet.”
“True,” Renie agreed. “But how many people have done that?”
“At least one,” Judith said. “Dixie. Is that why she was killed?”
Renie considered. “It’d make sense if Dixie and Émile had been the only victims. They may have been in cahoots. But why murder Mags? There’s no mention of his name in these articles, and I’m not even sure if he and Connie were married back then. What’s more, I never heard him talk about horses or gambling—except, of course, for the casinos he had on his ships.”
“That’s odd,” Judith said in a distant voice.
“What do you mean?”
“Mags’s wife had a living room full of horse pictures, yet he never mentioned anything about it?”
Renie shrugged. “I was always at business meetings with him, except for the occasional lunch or cocktail party. The subject probably never came up.”
“Maybe.” Judith sounded vague.
“Well?”
“Nothing,” Judith said, shaking her head. “Nothing important, anyway. Let’s get back to basics. Like weapons.”
“I thought we knew what the weapons were,” Renie said, signing out from the Internet. “Knife sharpener, methanol, decorative cord.”
“Two out of three are right.” Judith was pacing, arms folded across her chest. “Either Rick is holding out on us—
or Biff’s not telling Rick everything he knows. I don’t like it.”
“So which of the three weapons is wrong?” Renie inquired, but held up a hand before her cousin could answer.
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“The knife sharpener. There can’t be any doubt about the poison because of the lab results, and we saw the cord for ourselves. But whatever killed Mags wasn’t found.”
Judith nodded. “That’s why I think there’s something the cops know—and maybe Rick does, too—that we don’t.” She sat down on the sofa. “Think back to the cabaret, the cocktail party, everything that led up to Mags’s murder. You have a visual memory, what do you see?”
One elbow resting on the desk, Renie closed her eyes.
“Food.”
“Naturally.” Judith’s tone was dry.
“Beverages, the bar, the buffet, the cigarette and cigar smoke.” She stood up and went to the honor bar. “Which reminds me, I need another Pepsi.” Opening the door of the small fridge, Renie swore. “We’re out. They must have forgotten to restock today. I’m going down the hall to the pop machine.”
Judith sighed. “I thought we were sleuthing.”
“Not without Pepsi,” Renie replied, heading out the door. Judith drummed her nails on the sofa arm. Just when she felt they were getting somewhere, the train of thought had been broken by her cousin’s Pepsi addiction. But Renie was back in two minutes, carrying a can of Pepsi and a plastic bucket.
“Ice,” she said. “I have to have ice for my Pepsi.”
“Of course,” Judith said with a tinge of sarcasm. “Okay, where were we?”
Renie, however, had gone back to the honor bar. “Hold on. Let me pour the Pepsi and some ice in a glass like a real person. Then I’m putting the ice in the fridge so it won’t melt. I’ll have to take out some of these snack foods to make room. Want some pretzels?”
“No, thanks,” Judith snapped. “You’re driving me—” She stopped, leaning forward on the sofa and staring at Renie.
“That’s it! Coz, you’re a genius!”
“Huh?” Renie, who was on her knees tossing small bags of chips, nuts, and other snacks onto the floor, looked over her shoulder. “What are you talking about?”
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“Ice,” Judith said, standing up. “The pheasant ice sculpture with long sharply pointed tail feathers.”
“Oh, come on!” Renie cried, closing the honor bar door and also getting to her feet. “Explain yourself.”
“I will,” Judith said reasonably. “It’s been done before, with icicles. The weapon melts and disappears. No fingerprints. That’s why the floor around the piano was slippery, why Dixie’s bag fell off the bench and skidded. The ship was rocking a bit, remember? The deck couldn’t have been even.”
Renie was looking very dubious. “So nobody notices the killer breaking a piece off the ice sculpture?”
“It could be managed,” Judith asserted. “When you’re at a buffet, what are you looking at?”
“The food,” Renie admitted. “You’re right—nobody has eyes for anything else. But there were servers there.”
“Servers serving very demanding people,” Judith pointed out. “I realize whoever did it had to act fast before the ice melted. But think about it. It’s possible.”
“It had to be fast,” Renie allowed, “no matter what the weapon. There must have been people backstage getting ready for Dixie’s recital.”
“That’s true,” Judith agreed. “Not to mention that you’d have to act fast before the ice began to melt. Now who in that gathering suddenly realized that Mags had to die? And why?” She glanced out the window, noting that the fog was rolling in once more. “My brain’s fogged,” she said. “Besides basic information, there’s something we’re missing.”
“Like Erma’s jewels,” Renie said. “I wonder where they are.”
Judith stopped in the middle of the room. “Coz! We’ve been idiots!”
“What? A minute ago, I was a genius.”
“That was then, this is now,” Judith said in a disgusted voice. “Do you realize that if our fingerprints were on the stuff they found in our safe aboard ship . . .”
“The ones we looked at in her suite were fake,” Renie finished for her. “Erma never had the jewels in the first place when she was on the San Rafael.”
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“And we didn’t know the difference because we aren’t used to diamonds and emeralds and rubies and such.” Judith came to rest on the sofa’s arm. “The others might have noticed, but we wouldn’t, not even up close.”
“And everybody else was so used to seeing Erma all decked out in her gem-laden glory that they wouldn’t pay much attention.” Renie got up from the chair and returned to the honor bar. “I’m hungry. Shall I n
ibble or should we consider dinner?”
“Only you could think of food at a time like this.” Judith glanced at her watch. “It’s not even five-thirty.”
“It’s always time to think of food,” Renie grumbled. “I’m going to eat those pretzels.”
“Do that,” Judith said as the phone rang. “Joe?” She moved to the desk and picked up the receiver.
“You must come by for a drink,” Rhoda said in less than her usual nonchalant manner. “Ricky is so brilliant I can hardly stand it. He has news.”
“What is it?” Judith asked.
“I can’t tell you over the phone,” Rhoda said. “We’ll send a car. You must be absolutely worn out from all those reckless cabdrivers in this town.”
“That’s really not necessary,” Judith replied. “It’s only a short ride to your place.”
“But it’s all uphill,” Rhoda asserted. “I must insist. Is fifteen minutes enough time?”
“Well . . . yes,” Judith said, glancing at Renie, who was slurping Pepsi and stuffing her face with pretzels. “We’ll be out front at”—she checked her watch—“five forty-five.”
“Perfect. See you soon.” Rhoda hung up.
“Do you suppose they’ll have hors d’oeuvres?” Renie asked wistfully.
“We can eat dinner afterward,” Judith replied, with an anxious gaze at the phone. “I wish Joe would call back before we leave. I should have told him to reach me on my cell.”
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pretzel bag into the wastebasket. “I never turn mine on either, unless there’s an emergency. It took me three years to memorize my own number.”
“You never were good at numbers,” Judith said absently. Her mind was elsewhere, going over her theory about the weapon that had killed Mags. Surely the forensics experts had figured it out. Maybe that was Rick’s big news. The cousins headed out, arriving at the curb a couple of minutes before the appointed time. Judith, wearing her new gray suit, felt the damp chill through the jacket.
“Don’t they ever have spring around here?” Renie demanded. “I was here in June once when it was so foggy I got lost in Maiden Lane, and it’s only two blocks long.”