Holy Terrors

by Mary Daheim

  Arlene left to get her casserole while Judith cleaned up the kitchen. In less than fifteen minutes, several things happened: Arlene’s car wouldn’t start, Arlene locked herself out of the house, Arlene got a jump-start from Gabe Porter across the street, Arlene backed out over her casserole, Arlene got a flat tire from the broken oven-proof glass.

  Arlene was fit to be tied. She was forced to stay at home and wait for her son Kevin to come by with a house key and an assist with the tire. Judith tried to soothe her. “I’ve got a crab quiche in the freezer that I can take over to John’s. We’ll dispense with dessert.”

  Arlene, however, was not appeased. Disconsolately, she lifted a limp hand to wave Judith off.

  The Frizzell bungalow looked bleak in the uncertain April sunlight. The drapes were drawn, and the morning paper still reposed on the small front porch. The lawn needed mowing, and the narrow flower beds that ringed the front of the house were choked with weeds. The forlorn old Peugeot stood in the driveway, washed clean, if not fresh, by the weekend rain. Judith parked at the curb just as Renie pulled in behind her.

  “Coz!” Renie sprang out of the Jones sedan, a covered dish cradled against her breast. “Are you being a do-gooder, too?”

  Judith hauled out the chilly crab quiche. “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming over here?”

  “I called, but your mother said you were outside with Arlene, backing her car over a chicken. I figured Aunt Gertrude had finally gotten into the soothing syrup. Where’s Arlene?”

  Judith sighed. “Never mind. What did you bring?”

  “Swedish meatballs.” Renie gave Judith a sidelong glance. “I thought you’d phone last night to tell me about your meeting with Wilbur.”

  Judith kept facing straight ahead as they mounted the three steps up to the porch. “I intended to, but I got busy. Guests are coming this afternoon.” The truth was that she’d refrained from calling Renie because she didn’t want to confess her cowardly refusal of Joe’s invitation.

  “Joe called, right?” Renie shot Judith a sharp look and saw that she’d hit home. “We’ll talk later,” she said, stooping to pick up the newspaper while Judith rang the bell.

  It took quite a while before John Frizzell opened the door. Judith and Renie both knew he’d probably been watching them through the spy hole, deciding whether to let them in.

  “Hi,” said Judith, trying to strike a note between Christian optimism and secular sorrow. “We thought you might like to have some food on hand.”

  “Thanks.” John Frizzell stood uncertainly in the doorway, unshaven and half dressed. His refined features had taken on a murky quality, as if the recent tragedy had already begun to erode his good looks. He wore thongs, a pair of dark slacks with his white undershirt, and a towel slung round his neck. Behind him, in the narrow hall, Judith could see several large packing crates. John followed her gaze and ran a hand over the stubble on his chin. “I’m moving back to New York. There’s no point in staying. Now.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Judith said somewhat vaguely. The still-frozen quiche was turning her fingers numb. “Could we put these in the kitchen for you? Mine should be thawed first.”

  John blinked. “Oh. Of course.” The response was polite, but without enthusiasm. “Follow me,” said John, threading his way between the packing crates. At the end of the hall was a small, outmoded kitchen, at least a generation behind the times. The sole concession to the modern age was a gleaming white espresso machine.

  Judith set the quiche on the worn Formica counter while Renie deposited the meatballs and the morning paper on the round kitchen table. John shifted uneasily, tugging at the towel around his neck.

  “Look,” said Judith, turning to face him, “this is all terribly awkward for you. I don’t understand what your reasons were for Sandy’s impersonation, it’s none of my business, but I want you to know that you have our genuine sympathy in your loss.”

  Slowly, John’s haunted brown eyes veered in Judith’s direction. “Thank you.” He cleared his throat and carefully placed the towel on the back of a chair. “I can’t help but think that most of the parish must despise me.”

  “I can’t speak for most of the parish,” said Judith evenly. “Your way of life is a matter of personal choice. I certainly don’t despise you. Neither, I’m sure, does my cousin.”

  “Live and let live,” chimed in Renie. “My Uncle Fred in Denver is a warlock.”

  Since Uncle Fred was also a cosmonaut, a pirate, and a giraffe, depending upon what medication he took at the Rocky Mountain High Rest Home, Judith couldn’t quite figure out the aptness of Renie’s remark. She concentrated instead on John’s sad face and gave him a kindly smile.

  “I assume you’d been with Sandy a long time?”

  “Twenty-three years,” replied John in a pained voice. “To us, it was a marriage. But I don’t expect you to understand that.” His tone had taken on a defensive edge.

  “I don’t in the way you do,” Judith admitted. Certainly she would be the last to criticize anyone else’s living arrangements. Friends and relations alike had thought she was hurtling down the road toward self-destruction during her eighteen years with Dan McMonigle. “But I do understand that it must have been a deep commitment, based on real feelings.” She saw John relax a bit, and continued: “Love, after all, is love.”

  “Yes, it is,” John agreed. He ran a hand through his uncombed hair. “Aunt Emily would never even have tried to understand any of it,” he said bitterly. “That’s why Sandy had to pretend.”

  Judith nodded. “I thought so. Had Emily known about Sandy all these years?”

  “Yes—and no.” John sighed, moving to the sink with its little window that looked out at the rear of a two-story frame house much in need of paint. “She always assumed Sandy was a woman. And my wife. I never corrected the impression.”

  “What about the children?” Renie blurted.

  John didn’t turn to look at her. His narrow shoulders sagged. “There aren’t any, of course. Not even nieces and nephews. Sandy had no family. He ran away from the orphanage in New Jersey when he was fourteen. I met him in L.A.” John’s thin hands fumbled with a steelwool pot scrubber.

  “I gather,” said Judith, carefully phrasing her next question, “that you’d been afraid to try to visit Emily until she got sick?”

  John put back the scrubber and picked up a potted African violet with foliage that was turning black around the edges. “I suppose everybody on the Hill is accusing me of being a rank opportunist,” he said in a low voice. “I wanted to come—Aunt Emily was my only surviving relative. But to be frank, you’re right, I was afraid. I could have left Sandy back East, but I didn’t want him to think I was ashamed of our…arrangement. Then,” he went on, setting the plant back down on the counter, “when Emily got sick, I knew I had to be with her. Sandy’s…deception was to spare Emily’s feelings. What would have been the point of devastating a dying woman?”

  Judith suppressed an urge to say what popped into her mind, which was that Sandy Frizzell’s presence as George Sanderson would have also upset the will. On the other hand, John had a point. Judith accepted it in good faith. “I’m sure Emily was pleased to have you with her at the end,” she said in a kindly voice.

  John inclined his head. “She was. Thank God, there wasn’t much pain.” He looked away briefly, then straightened his shoulders. “Excuse me, I must get back to my packing. Thanks again.”

  The cousins let themselves out. Judith glimpsed the living room off the hallway, a Spartan affair with tired furniture of the same vintage as the kitchen. Clearly, John and Sandy had rented the house already furnished. Only a seventeenth-century Italian planter with cherubs spoke of John’s expertise in the antiques world.

  As the cousins reached their cars, Dooley came pedaling up like mad on his bike. “Hey, Mrs. McMonigle! Mrs. Jones!” he called out in surprise. “What are you doing here? Sleuthing?” He braked to a halt next to Renie’s car, then pitched a morning
paper onto the porch of a gray stucco house across the street. Dooley grinned. “I forgot the Dowzaks. Again.”

  “We’re just being neighborly,” Judith said, keeping her voice down, lest John be listening through an open window. “Enjoying your vacation?”

  “Sure,” said Dooley, “except for getting up to deliver the papers. But I get to go back to bed.” Following Judith’s lead, he, too, lowered his voice. “I’ve been all over the parish grounds, looking for clues. No luck. Old Eddie chased me off with a hoe. I spied on Mrs. Paine, but all she did was go into Holiday’s and buy flea powder for that ugly little dog of hers. Then I followed Mrs. Duffy, but she was picking up old ladies to take them to an Altar Society meeting. Finally, I stopped by the Kramers to collect for last month. I always wait until she’s home because Mr. Kramer doesn’t tip. Mrs. Kramer was there, but I didn’t see her. Mr. Kramer came to the door, but he never says much.” Dooley looked disappointed, as much with himself as with his suspects.

  “Gosh, Dooley,” said Judith, “you’ve been busy! Is this part of your official Explorers duties?”

  Dooley wore a serious expression under his wayward hair. “No, I’m doing it on my own.”

  The trio paused as a UPS truck lumbered past. Across the street, Mrs. Dowzak, stocky and stern, emerged through her front door. She began to rail at Dooley for his chronic missed deliveries.

  “Cow,” muttered Dooley, but gave his nemesis an innocent smile. “Hey, Mrs. D, I’ve only missed three times since February. And you haven’t paid me since New Year’s!”

  Mrs. Dowzak glared, then tramped back into the house, banging the door. The UPS truck had turned around at the corner and was pulling up behind Judith’s car, apparently headed for John Frizzell’s bungalow. Dooley grinned at the cousins and released the brake. “You meet some really weird people in this business. Like, I think Mrs. Dowzak is nuts. That reminds me,” he said, leaning on the handle-bars, “a couple of times when I was delivering papers I’d forgotten over on Quince Street by those old duplexes, I’ve seen Mrs. Kramer’s car parked there. Do you suppose she’s meeting some guy? A blackmailer, maybe.”

  Judith blinked at Dooley. She knew the location he was referring to: During World War II, a dozen frame duplexes had been thrown up to house defense workers at the nearby naval station. As a small child, she had found them quaint and cozy. But forty years later, the ravages of time and careless tenants had eroded their charm, along with the woodwork. “I doubt it’s a blackmailer,” she murmured. A lover, however, didn’t sound as unlikely. It was hard for Judith to picture the fastidious Eve Kramer carrying on an affair with any of the Quince Street crew. The small enclave, just on the edge of downtown, was made up primarily of the elderly, single parents, and other low-income renters. Judith was puzzled.

  Dooley’s mind was still going a mile a minute. “Drug dealers? An escaped convict, hiding out? Antiques smugglers?” His tufts of fair hair stood up like question marks.

  “Hold it,” said Judith. Dooley’s imagination was making her head spin. “I haven’t any idea,” she admitted, baffled by Eve Kramer’s visits to such a down-at-the-heels area. Dooley, no doubt conjuring up fresh images of evildoers, pedaled off down Crabtree Street. Judith and Renie waved goodbye.

  “Moonbeam’s?” said Renie as they hit the sidewalk.

  “What?” Judith was brought out of her reverie by Renie’s suggestion. “Oh, sure, why not? It’s not even nine-thirty yet. Are you working today?”

  “Later. If I feel creative.” Catching Judith’s mood, Renie was suddenly subdued.

  Moonbeam’s, complete with its neon crescent over the door, stood at one corner of Heraldsgate Hill’s busiest intersection. Indeed, it had become so busy in recent years that a traffic light had finally been installed, causing much confusion and more accidents than it sought to prevent. Accustomed to the four-way stop signs that had cautioned local residents for two generations, the Hill dwellers either braked on red and then kept going despite oncoming traffic from the other direction, or stopped on green and risked getting rear-ended. Judith herself had done both at least twice, but fortunately without incident.

  Moonbeam’s, as always, was crowded with the citizenry taking a break from their daily routine to drain heavy white mugs of at least two dozen types of coffee and twice as many various teas. Joggers recuperated from their workouts, mothers dragged in their baby strollers, and retirees whiled away their leisure time. The shop smelled of fresh-ground coffee, hot muffins, and orange spice. Judith and Renie squeezed in at the counter between a mailman and the local bank president.

  Keeping her voice as low as possible, Judith replayed the scene in Wilbur’s office, the chat with Phyliss Rackley, and the visit from Kurt Kramer. Renie listened attentively, somehow not spilling a drop of chocolate mint mocha on her person.

  “So we still don’t know why Eve was so angry,” Renie said when Judith had concluded her recital.

  “It’s odd,” remarked Judith over her Ethiopian blend. “Either you’re mentioned in a will or you’re not. Kurt says Emily wouldn’t have left him anything, and I believe him. Tresvant Timber must have had hundreds of employees over the years. Why single out Kurt?”

  “So why does Eve single out Wilbur?” queried Renie. “And who is this Stella he mentioned?”

  “That’s a funny thing—somebody else mentioned that name recently. I just can’t remember who.” Judith concentrated on the shining stainless steel coffee urn behind the counter. “I’d guess that Stella might be some neighbor or family friend who called on Emily. Except that it seems hardly anyone ever did, and I certainly don’t know anybody by that name around here. Neither does Mother. I asked her at breakfast.”

  Renie was as puzzled as Judith. “Gee,” she said, changing mental gears, “if John goes back to New York, do you think he’ll take his legal business with him and leave Wilbur high and dry?”

  “Probably.” Judith gave Renie an ironic look. “That’s almost motive enough to do in John. But not Sandy. It’s odd,” she went on, signaling to the freckled waitress to refill her mug. “There are several motives to knock off most of the alleged suspects—but none that I know of for the victim. Who benefits from Sandy’s death?”

  Renie’s brown eyes widened. “John?”

  “Only in the sense that he gets all the money. But he would have anyway. He’s under no legal obligation to share it.” Out of the corner of her vision, she caught Mark and Kate Duffy entering Moonbeam’s. Mark espied the cousins, waved, and came over to sit on the stools vacated by the mailman and the produce manager from Falstaff’s.

  “You’re still on vacation,” Judith commented to Mark. “Any news on your burglary?”

  Mark pulled a face. “The one at our house, or the one I committed?”

  On the far stool, Kate leaned around her husband. “The police haven’t had a chance to do much. They’re so busy with Sandy’s murder and all sorts of other really dreadful crimes that our burglary seems kind of minor. God bless our law enforcement people, they do the best they can. It’s not very often they catch these burglars anyway.”

  “Unless it’s me,” put in Mark dryly.

  “Don’t you have a Neighborhood Block Watch?” inquired Renie. “Bill organized one on our street a couple of years ago after Tom’s car was broken into four times in two weeks.”

  “Yes, we’ve got one,” replied Mark.

  “Mark’s the captain,” said Kate, putting a fond hand on her husband’s arm. “We’ve had very few instances of crime since we organized. Maybe we got complacent. I think the Good Lord just wanted to show us we shouldn’t be smug. He picked a time when we were all caught up in other things and not being vigilant. I mean, it happened on Easter Sunday, you see, and it’s just like God to show us that we should put our trust in Him and not mere mortals like ourselves.”

  Mystified as to how Kate could read God’s mind, Judith asked if the Duffys had inscribed their belongings so that they might turn up later at a pawn shop and be rec
overed. They had, answered Kate, her pretty face very serious. At least the items that lent themselves to identification had been marked.

  “I could describe my pearls and the silverware,” she went on, smiling sweetly at the freckled waitress who was placing two steaming lattes on the counter. “I just wish John would come to his senses and drop the charges against Mark.” She patted her husband’s arm, giving him a look of heartfelt sympathy. “John really wasn’t very nice when I took my beef noodle bake to his house. But I realize he’s still in mourning. Though it’s not as if he really lost a spouse. I mean, I just don’t understand about gays. It all seems very sordid to me.”

  Renie, inexplicably turning pugnacious, leaned around Judith. “John was quite grateful when we brought our dishes over this morning. Maybe he’s allergic to noodles.” To Judith’s surprise, Renie pulled a five-dollar bill out of her wallet, slapped it on the counter, and swiveled around on the stool. “I’ve got a meeting at eleven. Come on, coz, let’s hit the road.” Renie all but bolted out of Moonbeam’s.

  “Since when did you start telling tall tales?” Judith demanded when she’d caught up with Renie on the sidewalk.

  “Since I discovered that Kate Duffy gives me a world-class pain in the butt,” snapped Renie, whose temper was as quickly ignited as it was swiftly doused. “If she believes half that drivel she peddles, she’s an idiot. If she doesn’t, she’s a fraud. I feel sorry for Mark.”

  “Maybe.” Judith wasn’t in wholehearted agreement with her cousin, but she had to concede that Kate’s simpering manner could be irritating. “You really don’t have a meeting, do you?” Judith asked as they reached their cars parked side by side next to the liquor store.

  “No,” admitted Renie, “but I should get home. I’m expecting a call from an ad agency before lunch, and Scooter’s Delivery Service is bringing me a bunch of stuff I have to sign for.”