Holy Terrors

by Mary Daheim

  The door in the hall opened again. “Coz?” Renie’s voice cut into the silence.

  Clutching the bowl, Judith turned off the kitchen lights and came back into the hall. “Did you come in twice?” asked Judith, noting that her cousin was wearing Bill’s Gortex jacket.

  “Huh? No. Why?” Renie’s brown eyebrows shot up.

  “I heard the door open just a few minutes ago. That wasn’t you?”

  “No, I just got here.” Renie gaped at Judith. “Your hair! It looks terrific! Good grief, you look younger than I do!”

  “I am younger, by two years, dopey.” But Judith was smiling broadly. “Do you really like it?”

  Renie went through the motions of a critical study as Judith whirled and twirled. “Yes, I think it’s really a wonderful change. Not too drastic, either. I won’t ask what your mother thought.” She glanced at her sleeve and gave a start. “Hey, I put on Bill’s jacket by mistake! He’ll shoot me!”

  Accustomed to her cousin’s occasional dressing errors, Judith shrugged. “Maybe Bill will buy you one of your own. Let’s head for Moonbeam’s. Shall we take both cars?”

  Renie’s round face puckered with annoyance. “I don’t have mine. Tony insisted on bringing Anne and me up so he wouldn’t make Rich Beth wait. I told him she could while away the time alphabetizing her stock options. If she knows the alphabet, of course. He was pissed with Mommy, but that’s tough.”

  Judith grinned at her cousin. “Count your blessings. At least Beth doesn’t look like a Viking.”

  “She’s got the horns,” retorted Renie as they started for the door. “Hey, wait—let me have a peek at that nursery. I haven’t seen it in years, not since the kids were small.”

  Judith backpedaled away from the entrance to the hall. “There’s nothing to see. It’s taped off.”

  “I always wanted to tape the kids when I worked there,” remarked Renie, then fixed Judith with narrowed brown eyes. “What’s with you? Are you scared of this case?”

  Judith’s eyebrows shot up. “Of a mere murderer? After eighteen years with Dan, tea with Torquemada wouldn’t faze me.”

  “I know that.” Renie made a wry face. “You could do a snarl-off with Attila the Hun. I meant scared of…Joe.”

  Judith’s black eyes avoided Renie. “Joe? Joe.” She stared at the worn hardwood floor, trying to be honest with her cousin—and herself. “No. I’m scared of me.”

  Renie’s expression was sympathetic. “Are we talking lust—or love?” she asked quietly.

  Judith uttered a heartfelt sigh. “After all these years, I don’t know. I loved Joe way back when. Then I tried to hate him. Next came indifference. And all the while, I was eaten up with jealousy of Herself. Sometimes I think it was all those negative feelings that kept me going.” She gave Renie a shamefaced look.

  “Jealousy is a pretty strong emotion,” allowed Renie. “I wish you’d talked to me more about how you felt then. You usually do.”

  Judith lifted one shoulder in a diffident gesture. “Instead of telling you how I felt about Joe, I bitched about Dan. I couldn’t admit—even to you—that I still cared about Joe.” Her black eyes finally met Renie’s brown gaze. “You wouldn’t believe the lies I told myself. The trouble was, I didn’t believe them. Last Thanksgiving, when my dirty rat of a mother admitted that Joe had called me from Vegas and she’d never told me about it, I felt crummy for cursing him all those years. But whether he phoned or not, he still ran off with Herself. And yet Joe never went out of my mind, not for a minute.” She rubbed her hands against the bowl, as if it were a magic lamp. “Then, when he popped up a year ago, all I could think of was hopping into the sack with him. But now, after so many months, I’m not sure what I really want. I’ve been a widow for four years, but I haven’t really dated. And he’s not going to want to jump from one marriage into another. We need time. Two weeks turns out to be too soon, not too long. There are so many things I don’t understand about him—heck, I don’t even know why he dumped me for Herself.” She shook her head twice, very slowly, still mystified after more than twenty years. “If I keep out of this mess with Sandy, I can buy some extra time to figure out how I feel.”

  “You’ve had plenty for that.” Renie, who often gave the impression of being dizzy, if not a bit dense, was wearing what Judith called her boardroom face. “You want to get to know the man, not the myth. All you had a year ago was twenty-four hours under intense pressure. Sure, he came for Thanksgiving, but family gatherings aren’t conducive to intimate discussions. The way to find the real Joe Flynn is by watching him work in the harsh light of day, not in a candlelit bar when you’re both half swacked.”

  “Well.” Judith cleared her throat and gave Renie a look that was both dubious and grateful. “So much for romance. Let’s face it, murder is a sordid business.”

  Having delivered her lecture, the diminutive Renie seemed to shrink inside Bill’s extra-large Gortex jacket. “Letting somebody get away with it is even more sordid,” she noted.

  Judith grinned at Renie. “What do I do, start dusting for prints?”

  “No,” replied Renie. “Just be helpful. You talked to Sandy shortly before she was killed. You were probably here when the murder took place. Who knows what you saw or heard without realizing it at the time? Face it, coz, you’re good at this sort off thing. You have an ability to win people’s confidence and worm information out of them. You think logically and can fit all the pieces together so they make sense. Why waste your talent?”

  For a moment, Judith was silent. If she’d gained inner strength during eighteen years of marriage, she’d lost self-confidence. Dan had battered her spirit, if not her body. Certainly her success in solving two homicide cases had bolstered her self-esteem as much as the success of the B&B.

  Judith’s statuesque figure stiffened with resignation. “Okay, I’m in. Again. I’ll show you the blasted nursery. But we can’t go inside. It’s off limits.”

  The cousins paused at the open door, contemplating the murder scene in somber silence. Renie’s eyes were riveted on the outline of the body.

  A noise which seemed to emanate from the men’s room across the hall made both women jump. Judith recalled the unexplained sound she’d heard before her cousin’s arrival, and put a finger to her lips. The church had its own rest rooms, off the vestibule of the south transept. It struck Judith as unlikely that anyone attending the vigil Mass would come all the way outside, through the rectory or back across the parking lot to use the bathroom. Still clutching the blue bowl, she tugged at Renie’s overlong jacket sleeve, dragging her cousin into the women’s room.

  They left the door ajar, Judith peeking around the edge and wishing she’d turned off the lights in the school hall. Barely a minute had passed when the men’s room door swung open. A stealthy Norma Paine emerged with Wilbur’s rabbit suit over her arm.

  “Norma!” cried Judith, springing into the corridor. “What’s the matter, is the ladies’ room out of order?”

  Norma gaped at the cousins, who were now in the hallway. Her long face was very pale, except for two spots of bright color on each cheek. “Oh, no,” she replied, forcing a laugh. “I was retrieving Wilbur’s costume. He left it in the men’s room by mistake yesterday, and it has to be back at Arlecchino’s by nine o’clock or they charge double.”

  “I see.” Judith’s expression was pleasantly bland. “He was quite a success. Has he had prior experience as a bunny rabbit?”

  Norma’s customary biting riposte was not forthcoming. Instead, she shifted her imposing weight and scrunched the costume up into a mangled wad. “He’s played Santa Claus up here for the past three Christmases, and he was the April Fool at a law firm party.” With a fixed smile, she nodded at both cousins. “I must run, I’ve only got an hour to get to the rental shop.” Lowering her head like a running back on fourth down and inches, Norma Paine brushed past Judith and Renie, heading for the school hall.

  Renie’s skeptical gaze followed the other woman down
the corridor. “Arlecchino’s is all of a mile away. What’s she going to do, put the suit on and hop over there?”

  Judith was regarding Renie with a cagey expression. “Maybe she’s going to take it to the dry cleaner’s first.” She paused, waiting for a reaction, but Renie displayed only puzzlement. “Didn’t you notice, coz? A new color has been added to Wilbur’s purple and green ensemble.” She arched an eyebrow. “Dark crimson. Not at all an Easter shade.”

  For several minutes, Judith and Renie debated what to do about the alleged bloodstains on Wilbur’s rabbit suit. Chasing Norma across the parking lot didn’t strike them as a likely option. Renie suggested contacting Joe Flynn; Judith demurred, saying it was only a guess, after all. They finally compromised on a phone call to Arlecchino’s.

  “We’ll tell them to hold the costume, that it might be police evidence,” said Judith.

  “That’s assuming Norma doesn’t try to wash the stains out,” countered Renie.

  “Bloodstains are hard to remove, and the dry cleaner isn’t open on Saturday night. Of course Norma could simply burn the thing.” Judith was starting back down the corridor. “Jeez, I don’t see Wilbur as a murderer! It doesn’t make sense!”

  Renie didn’t hear her. She was lagging behind, and suddenly called out to Judith: “Look! Footprints!”

  Judith turned and gave her cousin a look of bemused skepticism. “Aren’t you getting carried away, Sherlock?”

  But Renie was bending over, reminding Judith of a small tent in her husband’s big all-weather jacket. “I’m serious. See here—faint white footprints coming in and out of the nursery. Several, in fact.” Renie stood up with triumph etched on her face.

  Judith could see footprints on the spilled chalk in the nursery, but the light was too dim to discern what kind.

  “Feet?” queried Judith. “Or paws?”

  “Feet,” replied Renie, faintly subdued. “But they could be anybody’s, even the police’s. Yours, too. So where are the paws?”

  “We’re drawing too many conclusions about the rabbit suit,” said Judith. “Joe’s people will deal with that stuff,” she remarked. “Let’s call Arlecchino’s from the rectory office.”

  Renie balked. “What about Joe?”

  Judith kept walking, her long strides forcing Renie into a trot to keep up. “At the moment, my attitude toward Joe is, if he won’t call me, I won’t call him. I forgot to tell you,” she said, glancing at Renie over her shoulder, “he and Woody got a hot flash from the medical examiner. They didn’t say what it was. Now we’ve got something to barter with, okay?”

  They had reached the rectory, which was deserted except for Father Hoyle’s Siamese cat, Pope Urban IV. The elegant animal, which struck Judith as unlike Sweetums as two members of the same species could possibly be, was curled up in the pastor’s swivel chair, eyeing the newcomers with blue-eyed suspicion. Riffling through the pages of the phone book, Judith searched for Arlecchino’s number while Renie made a deferential attempt to pet the cat and grinned mischievously at her cousin.

  “What’s with you?” asked Judith, her finger on the push-button phone.

  “I’m thinking of Bill’s last steelhead trip when he caught that twelve-pounder after getting skunked for over two years. He swore that was the same fish he’d been trying to catch all along.” She tickled Pope Urban IV behind the ears and was rewarded with a faint purr. “Bill swears it’s a question of using the right lure. You, too, dear coz, are hooked—on crime.”

  SIX

  THERE WAS NO answer at Arlecchino’s Costume Shop. Judith checked the yellow pages again and noted that their Saturday hours were from eight a.m. to eight p.m. Norma Paine had lied.

  “So where did Norma go?” asked Renie.

  Judith was sitting on the edge of Father Hoyle’s desk, trying to replace the bulky phone directory in a wire rack. “We should have followed her. Damn! I wonder where Wilbur is?”

  “Out hiding Easter baskets?” Seeing Judith grimace, Renie turned serious. “What about those footprints? Where did that dust come from?”

  “Chalk.” Judith examined a small silver Pieta on the pastor’s desk. The depiction of a sorrowful mother and her crucified son made her think of Mike. “Ungrateful brat,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “Never mind.” Judith was concentrating on the parish layout. “There’s another entrance to the nursery, through the cloakroom. It comes out in the little alcove by the supply closet. But nobody could have gotten into the church that way because the connecting door was locked.”

  “That’s right—I remember one of the Rankers’s kids defecting that way years ago. He went back out through the hall. Kevin, it was,” said Renie, still trying to make friends with Pope Urban IV. “I couldn’t find him, and he ended up on the altar during a visiting missionary’s plea for the starving Ethiopians. The poor guy didn’t see Kevin and couldn’t figure out why everyone seemed to find famine so funny.”

  Judith was absorbed in thought, drawing an imaginary line with her finger across the desk blotter. “So the killer could have come into the nursery that way, or through the main door off the hall.” She shivered a bit. “Maybe while I was in the ladies’ room. Oh!”

  “What?” Renie stopped wooing the Siamese cat.

  “I saw Wilbur go into the men’s room just as I was leaving the church. But then I saw him driving away with Norma as I pulled out of the parking lot.” Judith swung her long legs onto the floor and stood up. “I may be nuts, but I can’t see Wilbur Paine as a cold-blooded murderer.”

  Renie pondered the idea. “He doesn’t quite fit Bill’s psychological profile,” she admitted. “At least not the passionate part. Can you imagine Wilbur in heat?”

  “Yeah, you’re right. No wonder he made such a lousy rabbit.” Judith started for the door. “Come on, let’s see if we can find Norma.”

  Five minutes later, the cousins were heading for the Bluff, with the highest elevation and steepest prices on Heraldsgate Hill. It was almost dark when Judith stopped her car across the street from Norma and Wilbur Paine’s impeccable Cape Cod. The white house with its dark blue trim was set on a rise above a well-tended rockery. Pot-of-gold, alyssum, saxifraga, and candytuft spilled over graceful boulders. Just as Judith shut off the engine, another car careened around the corner and came to a screeching halt in front of the Paine house.

  “The Kramers,” said Renie. “That’s their white Mercedes.” The cousins sat motionless as Eve Kramer leaped out of the car and ran up the stone steps that zigzagged through the rockery.

  Eve was leaning on the doorbell like an impatient customer waiting for the express elevator to take her to a clearance sale. At last the front door opened, and Wilbur appeared in his bathrobe. Judith pressed the automatic button to lower the car windows a couple of inches. So far, neither Eve nor Wilbur had paid any attention to the blue compact parked across the street.

  Eve, wearing her dark trenchcoat and high-heeled boots, seemed agitated. Wilbur acted nonplussed. It was clear that he had no intention of inviting Eve inside. Judith strained to hear the exchange, but couldn’t pick up a single word. At that moment, Norma’s pearl-white sedan came down the street and turned up the incline that led to the double garage. She braked the car at the top of the drive, the door flew open, and her imposing figure emerged in wrathful majesty.

  “What’s going on?” she demanded, marching along the side path to the front porch. In one hand, Norma carried her purse; in the other, a small shopping bag. Despite the oncoming darkness, Judith recognized the distinctive Falstaff’s Market emblem.

  Wilbur’s response could not be heard, but Eve Kramer had now raised her voice, which carried across the street: “Keep out of it, Norma! It’s too damned bad your brain isn’t as big as your boobs! This could be a conspiracy, maybe even fraud! I’ll sue the firm, the estate, every mother-loving son of you cheating crooks!”

  “…Monday, in my office,” came Wilbur’s weary voice. He had shrunk back into the ha
llway, a small candelabra illuminating his pudgy frame. “Please, Eve…” The rest of his words were lost in the night.

  “My husband’s exhausted!” declared Norma, looming over the much smaller Eve. To Judith, they looked like a pair of feisty dogs, a boxer and a Pekingese. “He’s been hopping all over Heraldsgate Hill. Leave him be, and get your vile tongue off our property!” She swung the shopping bag in a menacing manner, but Eve stood her ground.

  “Listen, you self-righteous old bat, nobody makes a chump out of Eve Kramer! If you think you can scare me, you’re crazier than I thought you were!” She whirled around, practically bumping into Norma’s bust. “I’ll be down at Wilbur’s office Monday, and nobody’d better try to stall me!” Eve descended the stone stairs like a soldier on dress parade. Norma watched her go, then stomped into the house and slammed the door.

  “Well.” Judith looked at Renie as Eve started up her car with the ferocity of an entrant in the Daytona 500. “What was that all about?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Renie, “but I don’t think this is the time to call on the Paines and expect tea and cookies.”

  “No,” agreed Judith, turning on the ignition and rolling the windows back up. “She didn’t have the rabbit suit in that shopping bag, either. It was too small. Of course it might be in the car.” She paused with her foot on the brake. “Think we should have a look?”