by Mary Daheim
“And?” Joe prodded as his ex took another sip.
“And there he was,” Herself said with a helpless gesture. “Hanging from that cherry—or apple or whatever it is—tree. I didn’t have to get close to tell he was dead.”
“What did you do then?” Joe inquired.
“I…” Vivian frowned. “I’m not sure. Billy was asleep on the couch. He sort of…wore out after all the commotion. My first thought,” she said somewhat coyly, “was you. After all, you are a detective.”
If, Judith thought, I have to listen to much more of this simpering old tart play games with my husband while some poor soul is hanging from a tree, I’ll run away from home. Or at least go back to bed.
Joe had another question for his ex. “How was he dressed?”
“Dressed?” Herself looked as if she needed a definition of the word. “Oh—I’m not sure. But he was dressed.” She swallowed more bourbon and giggled. “You know me, I would’ve paid attention if he wasn’t.”
“That’s it,” Judith said, getting up and stomping out of the living room. As she reached the entry hall, Wesson appeared at the door. His stolid demeanor hadn’t changed, but he looked pale. Judith wondered if this was the first corpse the young officer had ever seen.
Wesson removed his regulation hat. “My partner is with the body. We’ve sent for someone from the homicide unit.” He cleared his throat. “The deceased may have met with foul play.”
“No kidding!”
Smith nodded solemnly. “It’s a suspicious death. It might be an accident, but it could also be a suicide or a—”
“Homicide!” Judith broke in. “Ha-ha!”
At last, there was a reaction from Wesson. “Ma’am,” he said, sounding alarmed, “are you okay?”
Judith willed herself to behave as if she were a perfectly normal citizen whose encounter with violent death was a shocking occurrence. “I’m stunned, that’s all,” she asserted. “Who is the victim?” She had almost added “this time.”
“We don’t know,” Wesson replied, putting his hat back on as both officers stepped inside. “We followed procedure and didn’t touch the body. Do you know who found him?”
“I certainly do.” Judith grimaced. “Mrs. Buss is a…a neighbor, and she’s in the living room. She’s the one who collapsed.”
“Thank you,” Wesson said. “May I talk to her?”
“Be my…of course,” Judith amended. “Go straight through the arch. She’s with my husband.” Who used to be her husband, Judith thought, and who is also a retired homicide detective, and we both know more about homicide than you two kiddies could ever imagine.
Wesson entered the living room very quietly. Judith heard Joe greet him and introduce Vivian. Not wanting to listen to a rerun of Herself’s grisly discovery, Judith went into the kitchen, poured water into a glass, and added a couple of ice cubes. Standing by the sink, she gazed out into the darkness. It was going on four. Very soon, the first streaks of light would appear in the eastern sky beyond the Rankerses’ house. It was Tuesday morning. In a little over two hours, some of the neighbors would be up and about. The detectives might still be working what was possibly a crime scene. Judith’s only consolation was that at least this time she wasn’t the Mrs. Flynn who had found a dead body.
After a few quiet moments marred only by the ticking of the schoolhouse clock and an occasional snatch of conversation from the living room, Judith took the glass of water with her and went upstairs to bed.
She fell asleep almost at once, waking only when the alarm rang at six. Still exhausted, she tried willing herself to get up, but went back to sleep and didn’t awaken until twenty minutes after seven. Joe’s side of the bed was empty. Maybe he’d gotten up when the alarm went off. Or else he hadn’t come back to bed. As she brushed her teeth and showered, Judith hoped that Joe had already started the guests’ breakfast in time to serve at eight o’clock. She dressed hurriedly, combed her hair, and applied lipstick. It was after seven-thirty when she reached the kitchen.
Joe was nowhere in sight, and the coffeemaker hadn’t been turned on. Rushing around the kitchen to prepare a buffet of ham, bacon, sausages, eggs, toast, pancakes, fruit, and croissants, Judith wondered if Joe had slept on the sofa. After the meats had been put on the stove, she went into the living room. No one was there. The only signs of recent activity were the empty snifter and two cocktail glasses.
Judith opened the front door. A white unmarked car that might have been a police vehicle was parked near the entrance to the cul-de-sac. None of the debris had been removed. The area looked even more unsightly in the bright light of morning.
Ten minutes later, Judith had finished making the pancake batter and prepared the various fresh fruits for presentation. She was setting the bun warmer for the croissants on the oak buffet when Joe, wearing rumpled suntan pants and a T-shirt with a green shamrock and the imprint “Everyone Loves an Irish Boy,” came through the front door.
“Where’ve you been?” Judith asked, surprised.
“At the crime scene,” Joe retorted. “Where the hell else?” He hurried past her and went into the kitchen. “Coffee! Thank God!”
“Crime scene?” Judith echoed as she joined him by the counter. “Really?”
“As if you couldn’t guess,” he growled, sloshing coffee onto the floor—and his pants. “Goddamnit!” He started for the back stairs. “I’m going to take a shower.”
“Hold it!” Judith shouted. “Who’s dead?”
“Who knows?” Joe kept on going.
Judith put her mother’s ham, eggs, toast, and coffee on a tray and took it out to the toolshed. Gertrude was just getting dressed.
“So I’m late this morning,” she snapped. “I don’t get much chance to party these days. Want to make something of it?”
Judith ignored her mother’s pugnacious expression. “Of course not. I’m running late, too.” She hesitated, wondering if she should tell Gertrude about the body in Herself’s yard, but held off. Her mother might not be as deaf as she pretended, but she hadn’t heard or seen any of the activity in the wee small hours of the night. The old lady would eventually find out, but Judith wanted to wait until she had more facts.
“You’re a pickle-puss today,” Gertrude declared. “What is it now?”
“Nothing,” Judith lied. “I told you, I got off to a late start.”
“Hunh,” Gertrude said, zipping up her housecoat. “I suppose you’re all green with envy because Vi had a better party.”
“Not really,” Judith said, resisting the urge to say that at least nobody had been murdered at the Block Watch venue. “I’ll see you later, Mother.” She headed back into the house.
The couple from Iowa had entered the dining room. He wore bib overalls over a T-shirt; she had on a plaid blouse and a denim skirt. They looked like the poster pair for the American Farm Couple. Judith recalled that their last name was Griggs. Or Greggs or Gruggs or possibly even Groggs. Her brain wasn’t working at full bore.
“Good morning,” she said, lugging the coffee urn to the buffet. “Would you like some grapefruit and juice?”
“Florida fresh-squeezed oranges,” the husband said. “Pink grapefruit, and don’t hold the sugar.”
“The sugar’s on the table,” Judith said, a frozen smile in place. She turned to the wife, who was as lean and almost as lanky as her husband. “And you?”
“Toast.” Mrs. Griggs—or whatever her name was—sat down. “I only eat toast for breakfast. Unless you have biscuits.”
“Not this morning,” Judith replied. “Tomorrow, perhaps. The weather’s too warm to turn on the oven.”
The husband gripped the back of the oak captain’s chair that had always been reserved for Grandpa Grover. “Warm? You don’t know what ‘warm’ is. If you lived in Iowa, you’d be wearing a couple of sweaters in this kind of so-called ‘warm.’ Hell’s bells, try working out in the cornfields in August to make danged sure that every ear on every stalk is getting enough dange
d fertilizer to produce every danged kernel without any danged gaps. Then, if it’s still hot—danged hot—in mid-September, that’s when we start the harvest. Now, that can be danged miserable!”
“No doubt,” Judith said. “Excuse me. I have to check the sausages.”
“Tomato juice for me,” the wife called after Judith. “Grapefruit gives me sour stomach.”
The Iowans were souring Judith’s disposition. Back in the kitchen, she brought up the couple’s reservations to memorize their last name: It was Griggs. It should, she thought, have been Gripes.
Judith was removing the bacon from the skillet when she heard the foursome from Bakersfield enter the dining room. They were exchanging pleasantries—or trying to—with the Griggses. By the time Judith had brought out the rest of the buffet items, the young Bostonians arrived at the table. The only parties not yet up and about were the newlyweds and, more ominously, Marva Lou and Frankie Buss.
Just before nine, Joe came downstairs, dressed for the day but still in an edgy mood.
“I don’t suppose,” Judith said drily as she dished up scrambled eggs, sausage, and pancakes for both of them, “you’d care to let me know what’s going on at Herself’s house?”
Joe had refilled his coffee mug and took a big drink before answering. “According to what was found in his wallet, the vic was Charles Brooks, sixty-eight, from Henderson, Nevada. No emergency contact information on him, but there was an address and a phone number in the 702 area code.”
Judith sat down across from Joe. “He really was murdered?”
“He was strangled.” Joe popped a bite of sausage in his mouth.
“You mean hanged?”
Joe shook his head and finished chewing. “Despite Vivian’s description of how she found the guy, he wasn’t hanged. There was a long rope around his neck. The end of it had been tossed over a low-lying limb of the cherry tree, and the vic was propped up against the trunk. I suppose that in the dark it might have looked to Vivian as if he’d been hanged.”
“Especially,” Judith added wryly, “if she was crocked.”
“Back off,” Joe retorted. “Unlike you, Vivian isn’t used to stumbling over corpses. She’s damned upset.”
Judith put her fork down and folded her arms across her chest. “You think I find bodies on purpose. Okay, so the discovery disturbed Vivian. I understand. I’ll try to stop making cracks about her. But remember, I’m the one who worried about her return causing trouble. You can’t say you weren’t warned.”
Joe didn’t reply. Only a flicker of his green eyes indicated that he’d acknowledged his wife’s words.
Judith waited a couple of minutes before she spoke. “Nobody knows this guy?”
Joe shook his head again. “He wasn’t on their guest list. Vivian and Billy didn’t recognize him. Neither did the assistant, Adelita. She wasn’t there last night and only got back this morning just before I left.”
“Why wasn’t she at the party?”
“I gather she had some relatives in town and stayed with them at their motel,” Joe said. “Oh, don’t worry,” he went on in a caustic tone, “the cops will check her out.”
“Who’s in charge of the investigation?” Judith asked.
“They’re new to Homicide,” Joe replied, “but they seem sharp. K. C. Griffin and Jay Almquist, female and male, respectively.”
“Do they know you’re a retired detective?”
A slight smile played at Joe’s mouth. “It seems I’m a Legend in My Own Time.” The smile faded. “So are you.”
Judith frowned. “Are you ready to deliver the cautionary tale?”
“About keeping your nose out of this one?” Joe uttered what sounded like a grunt. “Why bother? You never listen.”
It was useless for Judith to argue, as useless as it was for Joe to warn her of dire consequences. It was also useless for Judith to insist that she never searched for murder. It always found her first.
Wordlessly, she got up to check on the guests. The newlyweds had just come into the dining room, looking distinctly hung-over. The bride fumbled as she tried to pull out a chair; the groom nodded absently at the others before gingerly sitting down.
“Can I get anyone anything?” Judith asked, trying to sound gracious.
“How ’bout a new head?” the groom murmured.
“Toast,” said the bride. “Maybe I could eat some toast.”
Mr. Griggs stood up. “Excess,” he said, “is harmful to the body and the mind. Clean living, hard work, walk the straight and narrow. Come on, Trish, let’s hitch up the wagon and go see some sights.”
“Have a pleasant outing,” Judith called after the couple. They kept going, heading out the front door. They’d arrived in a taxi, so Judith assumed that they’d either already called one or planned to take the bus. Maybe, she thought, being such hearty souls, they planned to walk.
“Has anyone seen Mr. and Mrs. Buss this morning?” she asked of the other guests.
The newlyweds looked blank. The Californians shook their heads. Judith shrugged and went back to the kitchen. It was a quarter after nine. Marva Lou and Frankie still had forty-five minutes before the breakfast service would be cleared away.
Judith had finished pouring more coffee into her mug when her cleaning woman, Phyliss Rackley, came through the back door.
“Armageddon!” she exclaimed. “Repent! The end is near!”
“If,” Judith said wearily, all too familiar with Phyliss’s religious mania, “you’re referring to the mess in the cul-de-sac, it’s left over from the neighbors’ party.”
Phyliss shook her head, the gray sausage curls bobbing up and down. “Not just that. I saw the Grim Reaper out there. Two of them, in fact, male and female, all gaunt and spooky.” She put a hand to her flat bosom. “If they aren’t a sign of doom, I don’t know what is!”
“They’re guests,” Judith said. “Farmers from Iowa. Stop fussing.”
Phyliss was unconvinced. “You can’t fool me. I’ll swear on a stack of Holy Bibles that I smelled the stench of death out there.”
Judith grimaced. “Okay, you might as well know. Somebody did die last night, over at the Buss house.”
“Aha!” Phyliss brightened and squared her shoulders. “Do I or do I not know the Hounds of Hell when I see them? Was it that Jezebel who flaunts her body all over the place?”
“No,” Judith answered. “It was a stranger. Nobody seems to know who he was. I’m afraid that he may have been murdered.”
The cleaning woman’s eyes widened. “Well! Just deserts, maybe. I can only imagine the wickedness that goes on with that shameless hussy! I’ve often marveled at the thought of Mr. Flynn being married to that harlot. He must have been drugged.”
“Perhaps,” Judith murmured. Joe had, in fact, been drunk. His first encounter with dead bodies had occurred when two teenagers overdosed on cocaine. To cope with the tragedy of young lives needlessly cut short, he’d gone to the bar where Herself sang and somehow ended up being hijacked to Las Vegas for a quickie wedding that was only a blur in his memory.
“By the way,” Judith said, changing the subject, “the couple in Room Four haven’t come down yet. The other guests are still at breakfast, except for Room One. They’re the ones you saw heading out for the day.”
Phyliss shuddered. “I’ll make a sign to ward off the Evil Eye when I do that room,” she muttered, heading for the back stairs. “I’m off.”
“In more ways than one,” Judith said under her breath.
By five to ten, the rest of the B&B’s visitors had also left the premises. The young women from Boston had checked out, moving on to British Columbia. Their room would be occupied that night by two single men from Virginia.
Joe, who had joined Carl Rankers in the cul-de-sac to start cleaning up, came back inside. “Carl ordered a Dumpster,” he said, refilling his coffee mug. “I wasn’t sure we should get rid of all that crap until we cleared it with K.C. and Jay, but they had some uniforms go through i
t earlier, just in case there might be something that’d tie in to the Brooks homicide.” He shrugged. “If they found anything, they bagged and tagged it.”
“I assume Vivian and Billy will pay for the Dumpster,” Judith said.
“Probably.” Joe started toward the back door.
“Hey,” Judith called after him, “Frankie Buss and his wife haven’t shown up for breakfast. Do you think we should check on them?”
“They aren’t here,” Joe replied. “They went over to Vivian and Billy’s at the crack of dawn, offering cold comfort.”
“Cold comfort or Southern Comfort?” Judith asked wryly.
Joe narrowed his eyes at his wife. “You’ve been warned.”
“Okay, okay,” Judith said testily, “but how did Frankie and Marva Lou know about the dead man?”
“Billy called his brother on his cell phone,” Joe replied. “You’re too damned suspicious. I’m going back to work with Carl.”
When Phyliss came downstairs with a load of linen for the washer, she paused at the top of the basement stairs. “Those Grim Reapers in Room One are pulling a fast one, if you ask me.”
Judith, who had cleared off the buffet and was putting some of the uneaten fruit in the fridge, took a few steps into the hallway. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Farmers, you say,” Phyliss huffed. “Ha! Since when do farmers and their wives wear fancy Eye-talian clothes?”
Judith was puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” Phyliss declared. “I may be a poor God-fearing cleaning woman, but I know Harmony when I see it. It says so, right on the labels in their closet. His and her suits, of all things.”
“Harmony?” Judith repeated. “Honestly, Phyliss, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“See for yourself,” she said, continuing on to the basement.
Judith finished putting the fruit away, grabbed the cordless phone, and went up the back stairs. It was after ten o’clock. Never a morning person and rarely crawling out of bed before ten, Renie might be up and semi-conscious. She dialed her cousin’s number as soon as she reached the second floor.
“Yeah?” Renie said, sounding surly. “What?”