by Mary Daheim
Judith had turned thoughtful. “I wonder if they have a second residence.” She picked up the phone. “Maybe I can chat up somebody, too,” she said, flipping through her Rolodex.
“I’m going to get my laptop,” Addison said, rising from the chair. “I want to check our ‘mixed sales’ around here. The Internet listings were all for the next month or so in other parts of the country.” He headed out of the kitchen to the main stairs.
Judith had found the senior Paines’ home number. Norma answered on the third ring. She burst into full-throated throttle before Judith could even identify herself. “I am so eager for a full report on the family’s evening! Have they finished breakfast? What did you serve? Did anyone have a problem with their dietary needs? Were they all pleased with my very generous gift? Please let them know that I must hear all about it as soon as they can get in touch. I’m so thrilled that they could all make it to your luxurious and expensive B&B! I had a feeling that perhaps—” Norma suddenly stopped, coughing into Judith’s ear. “Oh! So . . . sorry . . . I . . .” She coughed some more.
Judith took advantage of Norma’s interrupted discourse. “They left right after dinner. There was a bit of a dustup. I assumed you knew.” She paused. Norma had stopped coughing, but was blowing her nose, a trumpeting sound that made Judith cringe. “I hate to tell you and Wilbur what happened. I gather that you haven’t spoken to anyone in the family this morning.”
“No,” Norma said between sniffs and snorts. “Why . . . what do you mean, they left?”
Judith wasn’t prepared to break the bad, even tragic, news to Norma Paine. “I don’t want to upset you, but you should talk to one of your children as soon as you can. There’s been a serious problem that only they should tell you about. I’m just a bystander. Please. And if there’s any way I can help, let me know. Good-bye, Norma.” Judith hung up. There was nothing more she could do for the senior Paines.
“Awful,” she said out loud, and was startled when the word seemed to echo from the kitchen hall. Swerving around, she saw Renie hurrying in her direction.
“Are you deaf?” her cousin demanded, putting a Tupperware container on the counter by the cupboards.
Judith did her best to regain her composure. “It seemed weird. I heard you say ‘awful’ just when I did.”
Renie scowled. “I didn’t say ‘awful,’ I said ‘waffle.’ ” She pointed to the container. “You keep asking me to bring some of my secret-ingredient waffles to try. I figured this would be a good day to do it because you wouldn’t have to serve your guests breakfast. I brought enough batter so you can make Aunt Gert . . . what’s wrong? You look . . . awful.”
“You already said that,” Judith retorted, squaring her shoulders. “I’m . . . just a little off track. Having a pseudo-homicidal husband can do that to you. Not to mention that the man you thought was your guest is a corpse.”
Renie waved a careless hand. “Like that’s the first time. You should be used to the guest corpse. Want me to make you a waffle?”
“No, thanks. I was eating cornflakes before you came. At least I think I was.” She glanced at the almost-full bowl on the table. “I guess I got distracted. By the way, Carl’s fine. I mean, he’s not fine, but he’s not almost dead. He hurt his back.”
“Oh.” Renie flopped into the chair Addison had vacated. “Eat. I was going to call you back, but I ran out of root beer and had to go to Falstaff’s, so I decided to drop off the waffle batter I made for tomorrow morning so I wouldn’t have to get up early to make them for Bill and I could sleep in and go to noon Mass at—”
“Stop.” Judith stared at Renie over a spoonful of cornflakes. “You really shouldn’t get up before ten. You’re worthless for the rest of the day. You’re like a windup toy, on autopilot. How many cars did you hit on your way to my house?”
“Two.” Renie made a face. “And a truck. No serious damage and I fled the scene. Scenes. I always tell Bill somebody must’ve hit me in the parking lot. You’re right. I have to collect my thoughts. Give me a couple of minutes. Eat.” She ran a hand through her already unruly short chestnut hair. “Or did I say that already?”
Judith munched on some of the now-soggy cornflakes and tried to be patient. At least a couple of minutes passed before Renie seemed to have turned on her brain.
“Okay,” she said, pulling herself closer to the table. “Let’s start with the basketball game.”
It took a couple of seconds for Judith to remember anything about a basketball game. “Oh—you mean the one that Bill and Uncle Al went to but somehow ended up in police custody?”
“Yes, that basketball game,” Renie said. “The old chum Uncle Al ran into was Lloyd Volpe. He needed Uncle Al’s help.”
Judith put down her spoon. “Lloyd Volpe? That name’s familiar.”
“Being Arlene’s next-door neighbor, you’d know him as the Silver Fox, former police chief and captor of the dreaded Underwear Thief. It was possibly his greatest achievement while running the department.”
“Not true,” Judith said. “Volpe was a better police chief than some we’ve had. Joe thought he was okay.”
“Whatever,” Renie remarked with a shrug. “All I know is that when he was chief I got a ticket on my way back from dropping our kids off at SOTS school just because I didn’t stop in an unmarked crosswalk. If it wasn’t marked, why was that gimpy old lady walking across the street? I never did figure that one out. The cop who gave me the ticket told me that the next time I saw somebody jaywalking, I could run ’em down without so much as a ‘ha ha, gotcha!’ ”
“Could we get to the point?”
“Oh, sure.” Renie folded her hands on the table. “Lloyd wanted Uncle Al to unload about some of the gambling operations he knew around town. I’d forgotten that although Volpe is ten or fifteen years younger than Uncle Al, he used to coach high school basketball before he joined the force, so they go way back. Thus both Uncle Al and Bill had to go downtown to talk to Woody and Joe and the young guy, Del.”
Judith frowned. “Why wasn’t Lloyd there when we arrived?”
Renie grinned. “He wanted to stay and yak it up with the coaches after the postgame locker room session. That’s why Uncle Al had to take his own car and why Bill had to go with him.”
“So what beans did Uncle Al spill?”
Renie laughed. “You know how he is. Sometimes I call him Uncle Anecdote. He’s got more stories—most of them true, all of them incredible—and he never answers a question directly. But by the time he’s finished, you’re so entertained that you’ve forgotten what you wanted to know in the first place.”
Judith wasn’t amused. “You mean Joe and Woody got zip?”
“No, but Bill had a lot of laughs.”
Judith’s stern gaze fixed on Renie’s humorous expression. “You’re holding back. You as much as told me so on the phone. Give, coz. Was Dan involved in something illegal when he owned the restaurant?”
Renie sobered at once. “Lord, no! Dan didn’t have that much ambition.”
“He also couldn’t say no to his so-called chums, many of whom were on the seedy side.”
“Yeah, right,” Renie agreed, assuming a less cheerful expression. “Uncle Al talked about the Teamsters, not in the past, but more up-to-date stuff, especially truck drivers on city routes. He keeps up with his old buddy Oly Oldstrom, who’s still working at union headquarters.”
“Oly!” Judith said in mild surprise. “Longshoreman, strong as an ox, worked on the docks until he hit eighty. Former college football player.”
Renie nodded. “Also a basketball ref, along with Mr. Locke, my high school geometry teacher, onetime SOTS PE teacher Tony Morelli, husband of Martha, cookbook maven. And, of course, our former sheriff, Sid Flaherty, who’s been out of jail for ten years and lives in Arizona.”
Judith frowned. “Was Sid the sheriff with the cathouse?”
“No, that was Freddy Ferguson, one county up. He was paroled at least ten, fifteen years ago and died about six months later. I don’t think he was ever a basketball ref. Too tired from hustling his hookers up and down Highway 99.”
Judith shook her head. “Why can’t we elect honest public officials around here?”
“We do,” Renie said, “but they’re so boring. We have lots of rain and gray skies. We need something to pep us up during October, November, December, January—”
“Stop! You like the rain and gray as much as I do. Stick to the point.”
“Two points, actually,” Renie said complacently. “Which is one of them, as in college basketball games. No three-point line back in the old days. How many games were fixed, with the refs in on it? If so, who were the fixers who did the fixing? And that brings us back to former sheriff Sid Flaherty, who was convicted of accepting bribes.”
“On basketball games?”
“No, but he may have done. Uncle Al hedged a bit on that one, though he himself insisted he never did such a thing. Uncle Al, I mean. He was always on the square, as he told Joe and Woody. The bribes were of Teamster truck drivers who were given money to keep their mouths shut about illegal cargo and businesses along their routes.”
“How far back?” Judith inquired—and jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder. “Addison! Have you been eavesdropping?”
“Of course,” he replied, moving behind Judith to sit down in the chair next to her. “Serena saw me come in from the dining room.”
“Sorry,” Renie said with an obvious lack of repentance. “I was fixated on answering Coz’s questions. She seems to think I lack focus.”
“Tell me more about illicit deliveries,” Addison said. “We may be onto something.”
Judith swiveled in her chair to look at Addison. “We may be? How? What did you find out about those mixed sales?”
Addison looked pleased with himself. “The scrap of paper refers to a horse sale in this state last September. All very much on the up-and-up. But I made some phone calls and found out that one of the biggest buyers was Reginald Beard-Smythe.”
Judith was aghast. “Reggie? Why? For the hunt club?”
“Hey,” Renie yipped. “What are you talking about?”
“Horses,” Judith said abruptly. “Addison found a scrap of paper in the garage after we discovered the dead horse was gone.”
Renie looked as if she was about to dive across the table. “What?”
“Never mind,” Judith barked. “I’ll explain later.” She turned back to Addison. “Well?”
“I managed to track somebody on the Eastside who occasionally sends in news items to the paper about the hunt club,” he said, his expression turning grim. “They rarely acquire new horses. The members have their own. In fact, that’s a problem. Once the hunt season is over, the owners often dump their animals. Turns out that one of the dumping grounds is ARBS Food Processing, Incorporated. Guess who owns the company?”
“ARBS . . .” Judith’s dark eyes lit up. “Alicia and Reggie? Are you saying that those horses are . . .” She gulped and couldn’t go on.
Addison nodded. “Yes. Those horses are horse meat.”
Chapter Eighteen
Judith was horrified. Renie looked disgusted. Addison remained grim. “It gets worse,” he said after a long pause. “ARBS supplies some of the local take-out restaurants on and around Heraldsgate Hill. And while Reggie owns the company, it’s actually run by Andrew Paine. Reggie is an airhead and thus a figurehead.”
Judith was holding her head in her hands. “Wait. I can’t take all this in at once. What does any of this have to do with Zachary Conrad getting murdered?”
Renie slumped in her chair. “Holy crap! You don’t care about anything that isn’t connected to a dead body! Lighten up! Isn’t horse meat of at least some diabolical interest? Would you rather we all turned into cannibals?”
Judith went on the defensive. “You seem to forget Joe has indicated that whatever went on at the condo with the murdered man had some tie to the B&B. How could I not believe him or try to make a connection when he’s been set up?”
“Oh.” Renie straightened up in her chair. “Yes, you have a point. But could we please get back to the dead-horse disappearance?”
Before either Judith or Addison could respond, Gertrude burst into the hall, her motorized wheelchair at full speed. “Stop me!” she cried, passing the pantry, the coatrack, and flying into the kitchen. “My brakes are busted!”
Renie leaped up to grab the nearest armrest. One of the wheels banged against a table leg and stopped moving. Gertrude’s gnarled hands were pressed against her breast as she bent over and gasped for breath. Judith slid off her chair, risking her artificial hip as she reached down to put her arms around her mother.
“Are you okay?” she asked breathlessly. “Mother! Stop shaking! You’re safe.” Judith managed to turn the chair’s motor off in the hope that it would ease the old lady’s breathing. “Mother?”
Gertrude slowly lifted her head. To Judith’s shock, the old lady was smiling as the gasps became a cackle. “Dummies!” she croaked, wiping her eyes with a rumpled handkerchief. “Scared you real good, didn’t I?”
Renie was examining the wheelchair. “Aunt Gert, you’re a fraud! You didn’t put the brakes on.” She flipped the switch back and forth. “Why did you try to scare us to death? Doesn’t poor Judith have enough trouble already? Or are you trying to impress Addison with your derring-do so he’ll write you up in the newspaper?”
“Put a sock in it,” Gertrude rasped. “Just because Knucklehead’s in the clink doesn’t mean my little girl can’t have some fun.” She cast her watery eyes at Addison. “That one’s a real improvement. He even makes the furniture look better. But that’s not why I’m here.” She frowned at her daughter. “Stand up, dopey. You’ve got foreigners to see you. Want me to send them in the back way or go around to the front?”
Judith couldn’t help but give her mother a reproachful look before checking the time. It was a few minutes past noon. “The Kentuckians,” she mumbled. “They must not realize check-in isn’t until four. Damn!” Unceremoniously pushing the wheelchair aside, she headed down the hallway to the back door. “If they’re in the yard, they might as well come in this way,” she called over her shoulder.
The door was already open. Judith opened the screen and stared in astonishment at the two people standing by the birdbath.
“Hi,” Geoff Owens said. “We were on our way out of town and wanted to thank you again for your hospitality.”
Foreigners. Judith never thought of Canadians as foreigners. Next-door neighbors was more her style, living closer as she did to Canada than to either of the adjacent states. “That’s very kind of you,” she said with forced enthusiasm. “Won’t you come in?”
“We really shouldn’t,” Cindy Owens said. “There’s snow in the forecast and we want to get back over the border at Sumas before dark. We happened to see your mother coming out of her little cottage.”
“Oh, dear,” Judith said apologetically, “we must not have heard you ring the front doorbell.” She glanced at Renie and Addison who, along with Gertrude, had come out to the porch. “Did either of you hear it?”
“No,” Addison replied.
Renie shook her head. “Shall I go see if it works?”
“Good idea,” Judith said.
“Uh . . . wait.” Geoff looked embarrassed. “We didn’t try the front door. It . . . it seemed wrong when we weren’t official guests, so we decided to come around the other way.”
“That’s right,” Cindy agreed. “We never got a chance to see your garden. It looked so nice in the front, even if it is winter. We wondered what the back was like. It’s charming, with the birdbath and the statue of Saint Franklin.”
“Saint Francis,” Judith said softly.
“Oh!” Cindy exclaimed, pressing her hands against her cheeks. “Of course! I’m Presbyterian. We don’t do saints so much.”
Judith smiled. “He’s the patron saint of animals. I thought you might know of him if you have friends who are into animal rescue.”
The young couple exchanged quick glances. “Well,” Geoff said, “we are, too, in a small way. Your mother told us she’d recently been asked to temporarily keep someone’s horse.”
Gertrude frowned. “I did? Hunh. Oh.” She gazed into her lap and scrunched up her handkerchief. “That was a joke. How could I put a horse in that chicken coop where I live?” She reversed the wheelchair and zipped back into the house.
“It looks very cozy,” Cindy said, taking her husband’s arm. “We should be going now. Thanks again.”
The couple was turning away when Arlene came into the backyard. Seeing the trio on the walk, she stopped. “Oh, Judith, I’m sorry. I was wondering if you had any tomato paste. I’m making a casserole . . .” Her blue eyes widened. “Cindy Rogers!” Arlene rushed forward. “I thought I’d missed you. How wonderful to see you all grown up!” She enveloped the young woman in a smothering embrace.
“Mrs. Rankers?” Cindy said in a muffled voice.
“Of course!” Arlene cried, loosening her hold. “Let me think . . . you were twelve or thirteen when I last saw you at Donner & Blitzen? You’re lovely. But you had promise back then, despite the braces, the orthopedic shoes, and the corrective hat.”
“Thanks,” Cindy said uncertainly. “Do you live around here?”
“Next door,” Arlene replied, keeping her arm around Cindy and drawing her up the porch steps. “Come, sit, tell me about your mother. She mentioned something about foot surgery in her Christmas letter, but I didn’t know if . . .” They disappeared inside.
Geoff looked bewildered. “Who is that?”