Holy Terrors

by Mary Daheim

  But Norma was already charging back out of the house, heading for the big sedan. She glanced at Judith’s compact but kept walking toward the driveway.

  “Too late.” Judith sighed. “She’s putting the car in the garage. Let’s go home.”

  “What about Moonbeam’s?” asked Renie. “I could go for some dessert. Vanilla mousse with blackberry syrup, or maybe that chocolate number with the orange filling.” Her voice had taken on a dreamy quality.

  “Look,” said Judith, negotiating the corner, “you talked me into this caper. We’re going to my house. I’ve got some apple strudel left, and I’ll fix us a drink. We don’t need caffeine this late in the evening.”

  Renie didn’t argue. A few blocks later, they were pulling into Judith’s drive. Just ahead, a bicycle swerved, and Judith plied the brake. “Damn! Who’s that fool?”

  The fool was Dooley. He stopped at the edge of the drive and waved. “Hey, Mrs. McMonigle! Hi, Mrs. Jones! Want to know what I got?”

  “Almost killed,” said Judith, getting out of the car. “You could use more lights on that bike of yours.”

  “I was just taking the shortcut to my house,” said Dooley, grabbing a parcel out of the basket on his bike. He saw the cousins eyeing him with curiosity and suddenly turned coy. “Got any more real pop?”

  “Sure.” Judith led the way to the back entrance, dimly aware of a cacophony emanating from the Rankers. Obviously, not all the relatives had gone to the evening Mass, but were keeping their own vigil in the vicinity of Carl’s liquor cabinet.

  Inside, Gertrude was nowhere in evidence. Judith figured she was glued to the John Wayne Guts ’n Glory TV movie festival scheduled for that evening. Getting a can of pop for Dooley, a bourbon for Renie, and a scotch for herself, she went out into the living room. So far, she’d had time to put out only a few Easter decorations—a fake tree branch covered with egg ornaments and lights in the shape of rabbit heads, a ceramic mother hen with her chicks marching across the mantel, and Gertrude’s pride and joy, a late Victorian painting of the Resurrection with Christ rising from the dead using nimble footwork more reminiscent of Fred Astaire than the risen Lord.

  Renie was already settled on one sofa, with Bill’s jacket draped across the back. With studied nonchalance, Dooley was sprawled on the other couch, leafing through a book on the Titanic which he’d picked up from the coffee table. Unlike most teenagers, he wasn’t just scanning the pictures, but actually reading the text. From Judith’s experience in her chosen profession as a librarian, she found Dooley’s love of books not only endearing, but decidedly abnormal.

  “Where’s the strudel?” asked Renie, taking the bourbon from her cousin.

  “Shoot. I forgot.” Judith started back for the kitchen, but Renie called out for her to skip it.

  “I’m thinking of making a BLT when I get home. Or maybe pastrami and Swiss on rye with…”

  As ever, Judith was dismayed by her cousin’s prodigious appetite. Envious, too, since Renie never seemed to gain an ounce. Lenten fasting for Renie meant giving up meals between meals. Judith gave her cousin a baleful glance and flopped down next to her on the sofa.

  “Gee,” exclaimed Dooley, setting the book aside and putting a proprietary hand on his parcel, “did you know the Titanic went down on this same night in 1912?”

  “Spooky,” murmured Judith.

  “Creepy,” agreed Renie.

  “Makes you wonder,” mused Dooley.

  “About what?” inquired Judith.

  Dooley squirmed a bit on the sofa. “Well—you know, Fate and stuff. The planets.”

  Judith made a wry face. “Sandy Frizzell wasn’t killed by an iceberg. What’s in that sack?”

  Dooley’s adolescent face took on an age-old cunning. His sense of drama had run its course. With hands that were too big for the rest of him, he shook out the crumpled paper bag to reveal Wilbur Paine’s rabbit suit. “Well?” His smug expression invited accolades. “What do you think of the Explorers now?”

  Judith and Renie gaped at the gaudy costume spread across the coffee table. “Where did you find it?” breathed Judith, unable to wrench her eyes away from the rust-red stains.

  Dooley swung one long leg over the armrest of the sofa, almost upsetting a vase of daffodils in the process. “The dumpster at Falstaff’s.” Seeing the proper amount of surprise register on his audience’s faces, he grew more earnest. “Earlier, I went up to the store to get some cream cheese for my mom. She’s making cheesecake for tomorrow. I was coming out when Mrs. Paine pulled in. She’s a suspect, since she was up at church this afternoon, right?” He paused, rearranging his unruly fair hair into different, even stranger directions. “Ever since my brother got his bike ripped off at Falstaff’s, I leave mine out of sight by the loading dock behind the dumpster. I was just going to get it when Mrs. Paine came sneaking across the parking lot. She’d waited in her car until she thought nobody else was around. I guess she didn’t see me. Anyway, she went up to the dumpster and hoisted the lid—she’s one strong lady, you know—and threw a package inside. Then she headed on into the store. I looked in the dumpster and sure enough, here’s what I found.” Dooley was looking pleased again, a faint flush on his usually pale cheeks.

  “Amazing, Dooley,” remarked Judith. “We’d better not handle it anymore.” She glanced at Renie. “Should we call Joe?”

  Renie was sipping her bourbon and looking perplexed. “We don’t have a choice. Good Lord, I can’t see Wilbur hurting a fly! But,” she added thoughtfully, “it might explain the ruckus with Eve Kramer.”

  “What about Mrs. K?” asked Dooley, obviously disconcerted at having missed a beat.

  Renie related the incident at Norma and Wilbur’s house while Judith went to the phone on the pedestal table and dialed the homicide division. A bloodless female voice informed her that Joe Flynn and Woody Price were both out of the office until morning.

  “I’m Judith McMonigle. I worked with Lieutenant Flynn and Officer Price on the fortune-teller murder a year ago last January.” Judith was at her most businesslike. “Some important evidence has turned up in the Frizzell case. I must get hold of the detectives as soon as possible.”

  “Why,” drawled the bland voice at the other end of the line, “don’t you give the information to me and I’ll see that it’s passed on.”

  Judith thought she could hear the woman’s fingernails drumming on her desk. “I’d rather not,” said Judith.

  The other voice grew faintly testy. “Why don’t you come down to headquarters then?”

  “What for, if Flynn and Price aren’t there?” Judith could be testy, too. “Can’t you page them or whatever?”

  There was a long pause and the sound of faster drumming. “I could give you Lieutenant Flynn’s home number,” said the woman with the air of a benevolent empress bestowing a favor on a lowly peasant.

  It was Judith’s turn to hesitate. “Well—okay. What is it?” Judith listened closely and jotted the number down on a little pad she kept by the phone. Ringing off, she flipped through the directory, aware that Renie and Dooley were watching her. “Damn!” she breathed. “It’s his home phone number all right.”

  “Why shouldn’t it be?” asked Renie innocently.

  Feeling the old jealousy take hold of her, Judith glared at her cousin. “What’s he doing at home? He’s supposed to be separated. I’ll be damned if I’m going to call there and talk to Herself!”

  It was Dooley who made the next call, at Judith’s urging, to prevent his mother from fretting over her son’s whereabouts. Mrs. Dooley was adamant—her dessert took precedence over Dooley’s efforts at detection, and she needed her cream cheese right now. Judith soothed Dooley by assuring him that, in Joe’s absence, nothing would happen until morning. Meanwhile, she would lock the rabbit suit away in her upstairs safe. Sad experience had taught her that police evidence could mysteriously disappear, even at Hillside Manor.

  Just after Dooley’s reluctant departure, Bill called, wond
ering where his Gortex jacket had gone. And, as an afterthought, his wife. The Jones car situation was now resolved, so Bill said he’d collect Renie about ten, on his way to pick up Anne at church.

  The Rankers’s relatives were going to be out late, so Judith had instructed them to lock up when they got in. After Bill took Renie home, Judith spent a half hour with Gertrude watching John Wayne single-handedly mow down great hordes of Chinese-American actors disguised as Axis Powers. Gertrude insisted that John Wayne wouldn’t have had to go through all that if General MacArthur hadn’t been such a pigheaded jackass. Not inclined to argue the point, Judith just shut up and waited for the eleven o’clock news.

  The story on Sandy Frizzell’s murder came almost at the end of the local segment and contained nothing Judith didn’t already know: A forty-four-year old Heraldsgate Hill woman had been stabbed to death at Our Lady, Star of the Sea Catholic Church following an Easter egg hunt. Police were baffled. The victim and her husband had recently inherited the bulk of the Tresvant Timber estate. Except for a stock shot of the church steeple, there was no other film coverage. Judith was just as well-pleased. Her home parish didn’t need the notoriety.

  Feeling more tired than she realized, Judith put off her shower until morning. In her bedroom, she glanced outside, noting that it had clouded over again and a few drops of rain had splattered the dormer window. Lights were still on all over the house at the Rankers, but the rest of the neighbors in the cul-de-sac and higher up on the Hill appeared to be settling in to await Easter morn.

  Judith’s quarters were located on the third floor of the old house in what had been a servants’ dormitory in the palmier Edwardian era. When Judith had converted the family home into a B&B, she’d found the top floor in a deplorable state. Rotting rafters, falling plaster, and broken floorboards had all but sabotaged her enterprise. It took a retired Swedish carpenter with endless patience and sixty years of know-how to turn the dilapidated space under the eaves into three bedrooms, a small foyer, and an office for Judith. Even Gertrude was pleased, so much so that within two weeks, she had taken over the office as her TV inner sanctum.

  Now, amid yellow chintz with the window open just enough to let in the soft damp air, Judith clicked off the light on the bedside table and luxuriated under the covers. It had been a taxing day, though Judith was no stranger to stress and strain. Just as she closed her eyes, the phone rang. It was Joe.

  “I heard you were trying to track me down,” he said, his voice a bit fuzzy with fatigue. “What’s happening?”

  Judith started to blurt out her response, then turned cagey. “I want some answers from you first.”

  “Like what?” Joe sounded wary.

  Judith propped herself up on one elbow. All thoughts of evidence fled. “Like…where are you?”

  There was silence on the other end of the line before Joe’s voice turned faintly impatient. “At home. Where else would I be at midnight after a fourteen-hour day?”

  “Oh.” Judith slumped back against the pillows. “Your house, you mean.”

  “Yeah, my house. The one I bought twenty-three years ago and have been paying off ever since. Seven years to go. What about it?” He sounded annoyed, but not necessarily with Judith.

  Judith gripped the receiver tight. “Where’s Herself?”

  “Florida.” Joe paused again. “I think. Where are you?”

  Relief flooded over Judith. “In bed. Where else would I be at midnight after a grueling sixteen-hour day?”

  “Gee. Wish I were there.”

  Judith resisted the urge to say, “Me, too.” Instead, she smiled into the phone. “Where are your kids?” She knew he had some, at least two Herself had brought from her earlier marriages.

  “Doug’s married, Terri’s living with some guy in San Francisco, and Caitlin’s got a job with a chemical company in Switzerland. She dropped out of school for a while.”

  Doug and Terri were Herself’s kids by two of her three previous husbands; Joe had fathered Caitlin the year after his marriage. He was alone in his house with the thirty-year mortgage.

  “Where are you going for Easter?” Judith asked.

  “Woody and his wife invited me over. But I’ll spend some time at work.” He uttered a half laugh. “Don’t tell me your mother has had a change of heart?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “I like your hair. I didn’t get a chance to tell you that this afternoon, what with dead bodies and all. When did you have it done?”

  “Oh—not too long ago.” Judith shrugged off the fib.

  “You look like you lost weight, too.”

  “No, I haven’t. Well, a little, during Lent.” She winced at the outright lie.

  “How’s Mike?”

  “Great. He likes forestry.”

  There was another pause at Joe’s end. “The semester will be over in a few weeks. Then he’ll be home.”

  Joe always had a knack for observation, for piecing together fragments of information. No doubt it made him very good at his job in dealing with criminals. It made him even better at understanding ordinary people. “He’ll be gone most of the summer, working for the Forest Service in Montana,” Judith said with a touch of bitterness.

  “Caitlin might get home for Christmas this year.” Joe sounded quite tired now. “She didn’t make it last year. She’d only been on the job three months.”

  “It’s weird—you spend half your life raising them and worrying and agonizing and then—they’re gone.” Judith spoke with wonder, voicing thoughts she’d never even shared with Renie.

  “That’s all part of the job description,” said Joe. “Everything we do is supposed to make them independent, responsible adults. When it works out right, we’re disappointed. But I’ve seen too many of the other kind. They’d break your heart if you didn’t learn to look straight through them.”

  “Can you do that?”

  Joe’s laugh was dry. “Sure. I have to. Then I ask myself if I’ve sold out.”

  The rain was coming down harder, bouncing off the windowsill; the April breeze stirred the chintz curtains. Across the way, the lights were going out at the Rankers. Judith tugged the comforter over her breast. She hadn’t talked like this to a man in years. Not since she’d talked to Joe, in fact. She had bared her body to Dan McMonigle, but not her soul.

  “How much is our fault?” she asked.

  Only Joe would have known what she meant. “More than we like to admit. We are our children’s keepers. That’s our job. If I had my way, I’d fire about half the mothers and fathers out there. They stink. They’ve screwed up posterity.”

  “I don’t know—most people do the best they can with what they’ve got, given the circumstances. You’re getting hard, Joe.”

  The dry laugh came over the line again. “Go to sleep, Jude-girl. It’s late.”

  In the distance, she heard the Rankers clan exchanging raucous good nights. Footsteps tramped across the walk and onto the back porch.

  “Joe…” Judith’s voice was surprisingly small.

  “What?”

  “You’ve grown up.”

  “God, I hope not!” He spoke with fervor. “Have you?”

  Judith thought. “In some ways. I’ve had to.”

  “I suppose.” Joe didn’t sound too pleased at the prospect. “Just don’t grow old, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Judith.

  “Good,” said Joe, and hung up.

  It was some time later when it dawned on Judith that they hadn’t discussed the murder.

  To Judith’s amazement, most of Sunday passed with no further developments in the Frizzell murder. Our Lady, Star of the Sea was packed for the nine o’clock Mass, the aisles crammed with the usual C&Eers, as Judith referred to Catholics who came to church only at Christmas and Easter. Father Hoyle made a tasteful allusion to Sandy in his homily, using her death as the basis for the meaning of the Resurrection. As ever, he was eloquent, dramatic, and witty by turn, climaxing the sermon with a call to walk t
he path of life as if it were the road to Jerusalem where Christ would appear along the way in many guises. Such as, he concluded, the person next to you in the pew.

  Since that happened to be Gertrude in Judith’s case, mother and daughter exchanged faintly sheepish expressions. It had taken half an hour of arguing, the prompting of Arlene, and the assistance of Carl to convince Gertrude that she could make it up to Mass. Her clumping entrance on the walker had turned a few heads, but not as many as she’d have wished.

  “Newcomers,” she’d hissed to Judith as they squeezed into the end of a pew near the side door. “Who are all these people? Why aren’t the women wearing hats?”

  Gertrude was, a twenty-year-old purple straw with floppy pink roses held tight to her head with several hatpins and a thick elastic band. Judith had suggested her mother cut holes in it for her ears. Gertrude had told her to kiss off.

  The family dinner went off in typical style. Not to be outdone by her sister-in-law, Aunt Deb had arrived in a wheelchair. Gertrude undid the brakes and tried to send her flying through the French doors onto the back porch, but Anne threw a timely block in front of her grandmother and prevented disaster. Auntie Vance stopped nagging Uncle Vince—who was asleep anyway—long enough to tell both her sisters-in-law to go soak their addled heads. Bill bet Uncle Al fifty dollars that the Lakers would beat the Pistons by ten. Bill lost. Uncle Al crowed. Rich Beth said she thought gambling was a nasty vice. Renie said that Rich Beth was nasty, period. Tony called his mother a reverse snob. Tom called Tony a dweeb. Mike called Judith just after the family left around eight o’clock.

  “Happy Easter, Mom,” said Mike over a bad connection. “I tried earlier, but the circuits were tied up.”

  Judith was beaming into the phone. “Are you having a good time? What did you eat for dinner? How’s the weather over there? Are Kristin’s parents nice?”

  “What? I can’t hear you, Mom. Kristin and I are going horseback riding. It got up to eighty degrees today on this side of the mountains. Hey, who got killed on the Hill? Anybody we know?”

  “Sort of,” said Judith. “Horseback riding in the dark? Are you nuts?”