by Mary Daheim
Or so she thought until Addison entered the kitchen. “The rest of the house is dark and the SUV is gone,” he said. “What do think has happened to the Rankerses?”
Chapter Fourteen
Judith reeled against the refrigerator. “Good God! I can’t stand it! Bill’s missing in action, too. Along with Uncle Al. What . . . should . . .” She staggered over to a kitchen chair and collapsed.
“Hey,” Addison said quietly, “if Carl had to go to the ER, he may have a long wait. It’s Friday night. Casualties pile up. I know, I used to cover the police beat in my younger years.” He eased into a chair opposite Judith. “Where would they have gone?”
For a moment, she couldn’t remember. “Norway General,” she finally recalled. “Not the one on Pill Hill, but across the ship canal. That’s where Carl was taken years ago when he was painting the house and fell off the scaffolding. He broke his arm and his leg.”
“Hmm,” Addison mused, “guess he shouldn’t have stepped back to admire his work. Do you want me to call the ER? I can use my reporter’s credentials.”
Judith tried to get her brain in order. “Let’s wait. You’re right. They probably didn’t leave until after six. We should focus on Bill and Uncle Al.”
Addison glanced at his watch. “It’s just ten. They may’ve gotten stuck in traffic. Maybe one of the bridges was up. I assume Renie is upset. Is she an alarmist by nature?”
“No.” Judith paused, still collecting her thoughts. “Renie’s a lot of things, but not an alarmist. Under that somewhat fiery nature, she’s rather coolheaded. It sounds like a paradox, but it really isn’t.”
A sudden silence fell between them. It seemed to Judith that the tick-tock of the old schoolhouse clock was unusually loud. It also seemed that Renie was right—her brain wasn’t working properly. It was scattered, like Grandma Grover’s broken bowl: fragments of Joe exiled at police headquarters; pieces of Uncle Al and Bill missing in action; shards of Renie pacing the floor; chunks of dead horse in the garage.
Addison finally spoke. “Tell me more about Uncle Al.”
It took a moment for Judith to focus on the query. “Uncle Al? Does the name ‘Al Grover’ mean anything to you?”
After a brief pause, Addison grinned. “Al Grover—a name from my youth. I didn’t realize he was that Al. I guess I never heard you mention his last name. Big high school and college basketball star. Quite a reputation as hotheaded and scrappy. Played football and baseball, too. Coached both college and semipro in the pre-NBA era. Became a referee for college and high school basketball games. Owned a watering hole or two downtown. Active in the Teamsters. Chummy with at least a couple of sheriffs and several cops. I actually saw him ride with the sheriff’s posse in a parade once when I was a kid. Good-looking guy, too. Did he ever get married?”
Judith shook her head. “He’s had a longtime girlfriend, Tess of the Timbervilles, we call her. Really a lovely woman, and an heiress to one of the timber companies around here. Over the years, Uncle Al had women chasing him everywhere he went, but he liked to play the field—in every sense of the word.”
“Interesting,” Addison said thoughtfully. “Maybe this isn’t a coincidence after all.”
Judith stared at him. “I don’t understand.”
Addison made a face. “It’s hard to explain. There’s been a rumor going around City Hall that some strange things have been happening at a fairly high level. Certain records disappear. Personnel changes for no apparent reason. A couple of usually reliable sources clamming up. There’s an aura of unease that raises my reporter’s hackles. I’ve been around long enough to know when something’s brewing. But I can’t nail it down. It’s like catching snowflakes to study before they melt.”
“So where would Uncle Al come in?”
“I don’t know,” Addison admitted, “except he’s always been . . . connected. So to speak.”
Judith took offense at the remark. “Uncle Al has never gotten so much as a traffic ticket!”
“No,” Addison said. “He wouldn’t, would he?”
She lowered her eyes, remembering her uncle telling the other relatives about being stopped for speeding. The patrolman had taken one look at his driver’s license—and apologized. Another time a game warden had discovered an over-the-limit salmon catch in Uncle Al’s boat. He recognized the would-be perp—and winked, adding that it was incredible how fast the other two guys had gotten back to shore. There were more such incidents stored in her memory bank, but Judith didn’t care to retrieve them. Addison had made his point.
“Restaurants,” he said quietly, almost as if he were talking to himself. “Bars. Taverns.” His gaze fixed on Judith. “Do you know anything about the food-and-beverage business?”
Somehow, Judith’s brain seemed to revive. “Are you kidding? I was part of it for a long time—too long. My first husband, Dan McMonigle, owned the Meat & Mingle out in the Thurlow area.”
Addison looked startled. “You’re kidding!”
“Believe me, that’s not a topic I kid about,” she said bitterly. “Dan lost both the business and our house. Then he stopped working altogether and died at forty-nine, leaving Mike and me virtually destitute. Why don’t you just pour a glass of gall and I’ll drink it?”
“God,” Addison said, rubbing his forehead. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I was just . . . surprised. I had no idea.”
Judith leaned forward, one arm resting on the table. “Do you want to tell me that Dan was mixed up in something crooked I didn’t know about? Am I about to get arrested, too?”
“No, no,” he protested. “I mean, even if your late husband had done anything dodgy, the statute of limitations would’ve run out by now.”
“I worked nights tending bar at the Meat & Mingle,” Judith said. “I was never aware of Dan doing anything illegal.”
“You wouldn’t be. I mean,” Addison went on hastily, “it wouldn’t have anything to do with the bar. Not directly, that is. I have to ask, though: Did any cops hang out at your husband’s restaurant?”
Addison’s query annoyed Judith so much that she couldn’t think clearly. “Not in uniform. There may’ve been some county police. We were officially outside of the city. Are you saying there’s a history of corruption on the force?”
“Did Joe ever talk about it?”
“Well . . . nothing that you might call scandalous. He knew certain cops who weren’t above accepting what he’d term more of a thank-you from grateful citizens. Some got caught, some didn’t. I always assumed it was easier for the top dogs to turn a blind eye. Joe never did. Neither did Woody. I’d take an oath on that. There were also a few disciplinary actions taken over the years. Maybe some dismissals. I ran into members of the force who were lazy, stupid, self-aggrandizing, even borderline criminals.” Judith paused, recalling at least two or three incompetent, even bad cops she’d met along the way. “Every so often there’d be a shooting that was questionable in terms of the danger an alleged suspect posed. They always seemed to result in an investigation and in a couple of cases the cops were either suspended or fired. Joe wasn’t one to bad-mouth his fellow law enforcement coworkers, even to me. Of course he held them in contempt, but that didn’t mean he’d rat them out. I suppose there were incidents he never—”
The phone rang. Judith had to get up to retrieve the handset from the counter. Once again, Renie’s number appeared on the screen.
“Yes?” she said, her voice raised.
“I found Bill and Uncle Al,” Renie shouted angrily. “They’re being held at police headquarters. I’m going there now. G’bye.” She hung up before Judith could say another word.
Addison had stood up. “I heard that. Renie didn’t need to use the phone. We could’ve heard her without it. Shall we join her?”
Judith heaved a huge sigh. “Why not? I can’t stay here and walk the floor all night.” She set the phone
back in its cradle. “I should tell Mother we’re leaving. But I don’t know what to say. She’ll have a fit.”
“I’ll tell her,” Addison volunteered, already headed for the back hall. “We can take my car.”
“Okay. Wait—what kind of car is it? I’ve never noticed.”
“An aging Land Rover, tan in color. It’s out front. Meet you there.” He grabbed his jacket and left.
Judith made sure everything in the kitchen was turned off and that the back door was locked. She took two Excedrin for the recurring headache, realized she hadn’t eaten in hours, and grabbed some of the leftover carrots and celery from the platter she’d served to the guests. Finally, she put on her jacket, went out the front door, and took her time walking to the Land Rover. The doors were locked. Judith nibbled on some celery. The air was chilly, but the rain had stopped. A few moments passed before she saw Addison hurrying in her direction.
He unlocked the car without saying anything until they were both inside and he’d turned the ignition key. “I can park in the press area, but I’ll drop you off so you don’t have to walk so far. You can meet me by the elevators.”
“Okay,” Judith said, gripping her purse tightly in her lap. “I suppose Renie’s already there.”
“Probably.” He pulled out of the cul-de-sac and turned onto the cross street leading to Heraldsgate Avenue. “I’m not sure what we can do except find Renie and see what’s up with Bill and Uncle Al.”
“What about Joe?”
“One thing at a time,” he said, waiting for an opening in traffic at the intersection. “We don’t want your cousin to get arrested for assaulting an officer, do we?”
“No.” She paused as Addison turned onto the steep avenue. “What did you tell Mother?”
“That we were going dancing.”
Judith looked at Addison to see if he was kidding, but he was concentrating on the red light three cars ahead of him. “How did she react to that?” she finally asked as the light changed and they continued toward downtown.
“She thought it was great,” he replied. “She started to tell me about how she used to go dancing with your father at that old ballroom down on Second Avenue. Unfortunately, I had to tactfully cut her off. Your mother’s a real treasure trove of local lore.”
Judith considered asking if he’d ever seen the movie that had been loosely based on Gertrude’s life. The old lady had made some money from the moderately successful film, but she’d been rightfully horrified by some of her alleged adventures as “Dirty Gertie.” A different thought sprang into Judith’s mind. “Are you writing a book about the city?”
Addison chuckled. “Not yet. But someday I will. You can’t hang around City Hall for as long as I’ve done and not want to write a book about it, especially what went on around here before I was on the beat. Oh, I’ve done quite a bit of research off and on, but I’ll wait for retirement before I devote the time it’ll take to actually start writing.” As they stopped at another red light, he shot Judith a grim look. “That might come sooner than later. With newspapers losing readers by the cartload, they’ll cut staff—early and forced retirements.”
“That’s sad,” Judith declared. “I can’t imagine life without a newspaper.”
“There are plenty of people who can—and do,” he said. “Newspapers, alas, are dinosaurs.”
They had reached the city’s commercial core, where mannequins in resort clothes stood in the display windows at Donner & Blitzen, Nordquist’s, and I. Magnifique. Judith shivered, but wasn’t sure if it was from anxiety or looking at the skimpy bikinis. With or without snow on the ground, they seemed out of place in early January.
“Say,” she said suddenly, “did the police track down the supposedly paralyzed man’s caregivers?”
“The male one had yet to show up. He replaced a guy who was going off to Chile for a summer vacation. The woman vanished without a trace. Apparently, she never came back from her errands.”
“Good grief!” Judith cried in disbelief. “Doesn’t that make her suspect number one?”
“Possibly,” Addison replied, braking for a midblock red light by a converted movie house where theatergoers were exiting from a stage show. “It’s hard to trace somebody named Beth Johnson, the only name the cops found in the condo, without an address or phone number. The neighbor who heard the shots saw her only once and described her the same way Joe did.”
“That is beyond suspicious,” Judith said. “I don’t suppose the male caregiver knew anything about her.”
“No,” Addison replied, continuing up the avenue. “He came from an agency and had never heard of any Beth Johnson working there. It’s possible she was someone the vic knew, but since nobody knows who the dead man really is, it’s hard to track down.”
Judith sighed. “Somebody has worked very hard to cover their tracks. It’s more than frustrating.” She paused, shaking her head as they continued toward the new courthouse and the refurbished City Hall. “I assume Renie went where I did—directly to the police department.”
“Unless she planted a bomb in the lobby as a distraction.”
“All things are possible,” Judith murmured, glancing out at the gray granite elegance of the Cascadia Hotel, where she and Joe had spent many an evening of formal dress—and informal undress—in the days of their courtship some forty years earlier. “Maybe,” she said, even more softly, “they still are.”
“What?” Addison asked, stopping at the next red light.
Judith couldn’t answer the question. Instead, she blurted one of her own. “How long have you known Paulina Paine?”
“Oh. I should’ve known you’d figure that out, FASTO.” The light changed and he drove the next two blocks in silence before taking a right and then a left to get to City Hall’s main entrance, where he pulled up in a no parking zone. “I met her right after Amalia dumped me,” he said, not looking at Judith but staring straight ahead. “She and Andrew had separated. That was two years ago. She was against buying that big, expensive house in the gated community on the Eastside. They were having money problems as it was, and she wanted to stay in town. Then somehow Andrew managed to get his head above water. He begged her to come back. She reluctantly gave in, mainly because of the twins. Our fling was fairly brief, but it was . . . nice. I swear I didn’t know she was coming to your B&B. While she was separated, she used her maiden name of Markov, probably to show her distance from Andrew and the other Paines.” He finally looked at Judith. “No matter how big this city gets, if you’ve lived here all your life, it’s still a small town.”
“True,” Judith agreed. “I was best friends with a girl in junior high and we didn’t know we were related until I went to her house. I saw a picture of my maternal grandfather on a table in the living room. We were first cousins. I never knew my grandfather because he died fairly young, but Mother had the same picture.”
Addison looked in the rearview mirror. “I’d better move before I get a ticket. We media types have to park in the garage, but it’s closer for you to walk from the front. I’ll meet you in the police department.”
“Got it,” Judith said. She hung on to her purse and made her way into the lobby, where a guard was on duty. She showed him her ID and explained that she was going to find her uncle who had been arrested, and help bail him out. The guard, who was middle-aged and looked bored, nodded, but said nothing. Judith stepped into a waiting elevator and headed up to the fifth floor.
It was still a bit of a trek to her destination, but she remembered the way. The Excedrin had begun to work, but the glare of the overhead lighting bothered her eyes. I’m really tired, she thought, but I have to do this. I can’t let Renie down.
She heard her cousin before she saw her.
“Listen,” Renie yelled, “you poor excuse for a civil servant, if you don’t tell me where my husband and my uncle are, I’ll call Bub!”
“Bub?” the young uniformed officer said. “What’s a bub?”
“Bub’s my brother-in-law! He’s gone one-on-one with those nine senile and stupid Supremes, that’s what Bub is! I mean, who. One phone call and . . . urkk!”
Judith had come behind and put an arm around Renie’s neck. “Calm down, coz. Do you want to get arrested, too?”
“Why not?” Renie demanded, whirling around as Judith let go of her. “We could have a whole damned family reunion if they can find a big enough cell!” She suddenly stopped, blinking several times. “Why are you here?”
Judith glanced at the young officer, who was adjusting his tie and shaking himself. She noticed that his name tag identified him as DOMINGUEZ but she couldn’t make out the rest of it. “To keep you from killing somebody,” Judith replied, giving Renie her most severe stare. “It seems I arrived just in time.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Renie, with an almost imperceptible sheepish expression, turned back to Dominguez. “Sorry about that. Next time I’ll try seduction.”
Dominguez didn’t say anything, but looked as if he thought the alternative might be as horrific as the temper outburst. Judith stepped up to the young man. “My cousin, Mrs. Jones—Mrs. William Jones—is trying to find her husband whose name is—”
“William Jones?” the officer said, blinking several times.
“Yes. Of course.” Judith made a face. “Sorry. I get rattled when I have to subdue the animal. We also want to find out what’s happening to our uncle, Al Grover. He was with Bill Jones.”
Officer Dominguez picked up a phone, but turned away while he spoke softly to whoever was at the other end. Renie glared at Judith; Judith glared back. Addison appeared just as the officer hung up.
“Mr. Jones and Mr. Grover are being interviewed,” Dominguez said. “If you care to wait, there’s a—”
Addison had pulled out his press credentials. “These ladies are with me. We’re all here to see Captain Price.”
Dominguez cleared his throat. “I’m not sure if Captain Price is here. He works out of the—”