by Mary Daheim
“Hold it,” Judith said. “I’m doing two things at once.” She used her master key to get into Room One. “I suppose you haven’t heard about our latest corpse,” she said, opening the guest room door.
“I sure haven’t, and I don’t want to,” Renie snapped. “I haven’t had breakfast yet. I’m not dressed. I just poured my first cup of—Corpse?”
“Yes, in Herself’s backyard.” Judith went to the closet, where at least half a dozen men’s and women’s suits had been hung. “Strangled. An older guy from Henderson, Nevada. Nobody seems to know him.”
“Good Lord! You are serious?”
“Do I ever kid about dead bodies?” Judith asked, unzipping the first of the garment bags and wishing in vain that Phyliss wouldn’t snoop in the guests’ belongings.
“Of course you’re not kidding about corpses.” Renie paused. “Do you want me to come over after I get myself together?”
“You don’t have to,” Judith said, checking the labels on the suits. “Armani!”
“What?”
“Armani suits owned by a farmer and his wife from Iowa.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t. I’ll see you in about an hour. You’re obviously unhinged.” Renie hung up.
Judith stood still for a few moments. She knew that many farmers were wealthy and could well afford to buy Armani or any other expensive designer’s clothing. But the Griggses didn’t seem like the type. The wardrobe they’d worn since their arrival had been typical of midwestern farm folks—maybe too typical, Judith realized, stereotypes of what urbanites thought a farmer and his wife were expected to wear.
She looked around the room, seeking any other signs of an upscale lifestyle. Their luggage, which consisted of two large and very shabby matching suitcases and an equally well-worn fold-over, didn’t exude prosperity. The bureau drawers revealed nothing of interest, although the couples’ underwear looked new.
Judith checked the closet again. There were six shoe bags. Two of the woman’s pumps were Manolo Blahnik; the third was by a designer Judith had never heard of, Christian Louboutin. All three pairs of the man’s lace-up shoes were from Dolce & Gabbana.
The only item she hadn’t checked was a black leather attaché case propped up next to the room’s only chair, an armless rocker that had belonged to Gertrude’s mother.
The case was locked. Judith was tempted to use her skills at picking locks, but the sound of voices in front of the house diverted her attention. Looking out the window, she saw Joe standing just off the front porch with Arlene and Carl. Arlene was screaming at both men. Judith opened the window as far as it would go and called down to the trio. “What’s wrong?”
Arlene was yelling so loud that Judith couldn’t be heard. She raised her voice and called again—twice. Finally, Joe looked up.
“Never mind,” he shouted. “Everything’s fine.”
Arlene pushed at Joe and looked up to the window. “It’s not fine! The police think I murdered that man in the tree! Help me, Judith! I can’t be arrested and have to wear one of those orange jumpsuits! It’s not my color!”
7
Judith hurried down the front stairs as fast as her artificial hip would permit. Arlene was railing at Joe. Carl had edged away in the direction of the huge laurel hedge. Sweetums sat on the porch steps, watching the human drama with apparent interest—until he yawned, stretched, and slipped back inside before the screen door closed behind Judith.
“Arlene!” Judith exclaimed. “Talk to me!”
“Police brutality!” Arlene cried, hurrying to Judith, who was standing at the bottom of the steps. “And after all the times we’ve called in about suspicious doings in the neighborhood! Don’t they realize I’m the wife of a Block Watch captain? Doesn’t rank mean anything to these monsters? Why can’t Joe make them stop tormenting me?”
Joe had walked away to join Carl. The two men exchanged quick, helpless glances, but didn’t speak.
“Come inside,” Judith urged, noting that the husbands had cleared up most of the junk and filled what looked like all of the neighbors’ garbage cans and bins. “Have some coffee. It’s getting too warm standing here in the sun.”
Arlene stomped up the stairs and into the house. “Am I being followed?” she asked, looking over her shoulder as she continued down the entry hall to the kitchen.
“Not yet,” Judith said. “Have a seat.” She poured Arlene a mug of coffee and one for herself. “Now tell me what happened.”
Arlene sighed. “Someone—I suppose it was the Busses—told those two detectives that I’d tried to attack Vivian. And Billy. And…” She paused, an anxious expression on her pretty face. “Was there anybody else? It was such a muddle. I don’t recall it very clearly.”
“I don’t think so,” Judith said. “Carl stepped in about that time.”
“Oh, yes. Carl. He’s so protective of me. Unless we have an argument and are attacking each other.” She sighed again. “Anyway, the young woman detective came to talk to us a while ago. She was very aggressive, asking all kinds of ridiculous questions about my wooden spoon. It’s a wonder she didn’t take it away from me.”
Judith tried to maintain a noncommittal facade. “You didn’t…ah…threaten her with it, did you?”
“Of course not!” Arlene was indignant. “I was taking it out of the dishwasher when she arrived. What does she think I am? A hooligan?”
“So then what?” Judith inquired.
“She started asking all these questions about how I got along with the neighbors,” Arlene said, her blue eyes snapping at the mere thought of such impertinence. “I told her that everyone in the cul-de-sac liked each other very much, thank you, Ms. Nosey Parker. But,” she went on, wagging a finger, “the Busses do not fit in. They simply aren’t our kind of people.”
An outsider might have thought that Arlene was being a snob, but Judith understood. “I know. Too much flash and dash. And now that Vivian is rich, she intends to ruin our comfy little nest.”
“I shouldn’t say this,” Arlene said, lowering her voice, “but if someone had to get murdered, why wasn’t it her?”
Judith grimaced. “That thought crossed my mind, but I tried to put it aside.” She paused to take a sip of coffee. “That’s a very good question, though.”
Arlene’s blue eyes widened. “You think she may be next?”
“No, no, of course not,” Judith said emphatically. “Let’s hope and pray there is no ‘next.’”
“Really?” Arlene looked disappointed. “Don’t you usually find your dead people in bunches?”
Judith winced. “Not always. What’s odd is that the dead man seems to be a stranger. Strangers rarely come into the cul-de-sac. There’s no reason for them to do that.”
“Your guests are usually strangers,” Arlene pointed out.
“That’s different.” Judith frowned. “It’s not my guests that I’m thinking of in terms of a connection to the corpse. It’s Herself’s guests. Somebody in that crowd may have known him.”
Arlene nodded. “Joe told me he was from out of town. Las Vegas, was it?”
“Henderson,” Judith said. “It’s a suburb, I think.” She smiled at Arlene. “You seem to be recovering from the police brutality.”
“What?” Arlene looked surprised. “Oh, that. I overreacted. I’ve been subject to more grueling questions by our kids at Christmastime when they wanted to find out what they were getting as presents. The year they tied me up to the telephone pole on the corner really annoyed me, especially since it was snowing.” She shrugged. “Still, I very much resent the way that young woman detective spoke to me. It was almost as if she thought I knew everything about everybody in this neighborhood. Cheeky, I thought.”
Judith suppressed a smile. “You do keep an eye out on what goes on around here. Which,” she added quickly, “is good.”
“That’s part of being a Block Watch captain’s wife,” Arlene said.
“Surely the detectives will speak to those awful people the Busses had at their party.”
“Oh, yes,” Judith assured her. “I wouldn’t mind having a look at that guest list myself.”
“Neither would I.” Arlene leaned forward, an eager expression on her face. “How do we do it?”
“Maybe Joe can get it,” Judith said, “either from the cops or Vivian.”
Arlene shook her head. “That sounds too simple. Wouldn’t it be more exciting to break into the Busses’ house?”
Judith burst out laughing. “Arlene! That’s a crime!”
“I suppose,” Arlene said after heaving a resigned sigh. “It sounds like fun, though.”
“It’s not,” Judith said, having broken into one or more residences in the course of her checkered career as an amateur sleuth. “It’s also dangerous. We could get shot. Billy has a gun, remember?”
“True.” Arlene looked thoughtful. “Do we eliminate Billy as the killer because the victim wasn’t shot?”
“Not necessarily,” Judith replied. “Damn. I wish I knew Billy better. I’ve never really talked to him.”
Arlene stood up. “Why not now?”
“I don’t know what’s going on over at their house,” Judith admitted. “It’s still a crime scene.”
“That white car is gone,” Arlene said, heading out of the kitchen. “It belonged to those detectives. Let’s pay a call on the Busses.”
“Well…” Judith wasn’t anxious to see Herself, but decided to humor Arlene. “Okay. I suppose that’s the considerate thing to do.”
As the two women went out onto the front porch, a flatbed truck with a large green Dumpster was pulling into the cul-de-sac. Apparently the driver was honking his horn to warn any bystanders of his approach. When the truck stopped just after clearing the cross street, the driver got out, but the horn kept blaring.
“That horn must be stuck,” Arlene said, wincing at the noise. “Why doesn’t the driver fix it?”
“I don’t know,” Judith said. “It’s really annoying.”
Joe and Carl moved away from the hedge to meet the driver. As Judith and Arlene hesitated on the porch, a car appeared from behind the truck, its right wheels precariously on the sidewalk and the left ones in the street.
“What on earth…?” Judith began as the horn kept beeping. “Oh, no! It’s Renie!”
The Toyota Camry came to an abrupt halt just inches short of ramming the Porters’ recycling bin. “Who’s the idiot blocking my way?” Renie demanded, lurching out of her car.
“Coz!” Judith cried. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Would you mind parking in our driveway?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Renie retorted, “if I could see your driveway. That big clunk of a truck blocked my view.”
“I’ll guide you,” Judith said.
Renie got back in the car. Rochelle Porter had come out of her house and was watching the Camry reverse just enough to avoid hitting her recycling bin.
“Your cousin isn’t much of a driver, is she?” a bemused Rochelle remarked to Judith.
“Let’s say she’s inclined to occasional lapses,” Judith allowed. “By the way, have the police talked to you and Gabe yet?”
Rochelle shook her head. “Gabe’s at work. You know he always leaves before six to make sure all the produce orders are ready to go. If the police came to see me, I wasn’t home. I had a dentist appointment earlier.” She nodded in the direction of the Buss house. “Nasty doings over there. Too much Demon Rum makes for trouble.”
“Absolutely,” Arlene agreed. “There’s a devil in every glass. Except, of course, for the wine at Holy Communion. The devil wouldn’t dare try something with that.”
Rochelle smiled. “To think I always thought that’s why you Catholics called yourselves SOTS!”
“No, no,” Arlene insisted. “That’s the nickname for this parish, Our Lady, Star of the Sea. You should know—” She stopped as Renie hurried toward the trio.
“Where’s the stiff?” Renie asked matter-of-factly.
“Gone,” Judith said. “Or so I assume. The detectives left. They wouldn’t leave the body in the Busses’ backyard.”
Renie looked around the cul-de-sac at the collection of garbage cans and recycling bins. “I thought maybe they just stuffed him into one of those.”
“You are sometimes truly callous,” Judith admonished her cousin, though she noticed that Rochelle had chuckled and Arlene was staring at her own yard waste bin as if wondering if she should check it out.
“So,” Renie said, forced to shout as the big green Dumpster was being unloaded under the supervision of Joe and Carl, “what are we doing?”
“Doing?” Judith glanced at Arlene. “Well, we were thinking about paying a condolence call on Vivian and Billy.”
“Right.” Renie’s brown eyes danced. “Hey, Rochelle, want to make it a foursome?”
Rochelle shrugged. “Why not? There’s safety in numbers.”
The women took the longer route along the sidewalk, not wanting to get in the way of the Dumpster project. As they reached the Busses’ bungalow, Frankie and Marva Lou came out through the front door.
“Are we too late for breakfast?” Marva Lou inquired.
“I’m afraid so,” Judith replied. “It’s almost eleven. I stop serving at ten.”
“Mind if we fix ourselves some eggs?” Frankie asked. “I’m starved. Billy’s wife isn’t much of a cook.”
“Surprise!” Judith said under her breath.
“What?” Marva Lou asked, standing at the edge of the sidewalk.
“Her eyes,” Judith fibbed. “She…um…needs glasses. Vivian has trouble reading recipes.”
“What,” Frankie demanded, “does she need to read to fry an egg? I thought she used to be in the restaurant business.”
“She was,” Judith said, “in a way. One of her former husbands owned a bar and grill downtown. Vivian worked there.” That much was true. It wasn’t necessary to elaborate about how Herself had provided the entertainment, both at the piano in the bar and, so the rumors ran, in other, less musical parts of the establishment.
“Johnny Agra,” Renie murmured. “Wasn’t that the name of Husband Number One? It suddenly came to me that he was an old pal of Uncle Al’s.”
“I think you’re right,” Judith said quietly, but kept her attention fixed on the visitors. “Mrs. Rackley, my cleaning woman, can show you where the skillets are stored. The eggs, of course, are in the fridge, the bread is in the breadbox.”
“Got it,” Frankie said, leading the way to the B&B.
Renie poked Judith. “You never let guests cook. How come?”
“Because,” she said as Arlene and Rochelle started for the front door, “I want to finally meet Billy. Phyliss will watch them like a hawk.”
Arlene rang the doorbell, which played the all-too-familiar notes of “How Dry I Am.” The violinist who had rented the house from Vivian had mercifully changed the chimes to a half-dozen bars of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony. Apparently, Herself had preferred reverting to the tasteless original.
Adelita opened the front door. She seemed surprised to see the four women on the small porch. “Yes?” she said, her brown eyes wary.
Arlene took over as designated spokesperson. “We’ve come to offer our condolences to Mr. and Mrs. Buss for their sad situation. That is, it’s not exactly sad, but then again it’s not happy, either. If they didn’t know the dead man, they shouldn’t be too sad.” She didn’t wait for a response, but barged through the doorway, the others following her lead.
Stepping into the living room, Judith saw Billy Buss lying on the sofa, attired only in a pair of boxer shorts featuring the logo for XXX Tequila. He turned away from the NASCAR channel to gaze blearily at his visitors. “Whassup?” he asked, sounding as if he didn’t much care.
“Mr. Buss,” Arlene said, undaunted, “may we offer our sympathy for your misfortune.” She had moved to the sofa and put out her hand.
Billy looked puzzled. “It’s Vi who’s got the fortune.” He moved slightly and shook Arlene’s hand in an apathetic manner. “Yeah,” he went on, “I guess you could say I missed Pa’s fortune. So did my brother and—” His gaze returned to the TV screen, which was showing a six-car pile-up with flames spurting from the wrecked vehicles. “Wow,” he said softly. “Now, that is bad luck.”
Adelita had left the house as soon as the visitors entered. She hadn’t closed the front door behind her, which, Judith thought, was a good thing since the small, gaudily decorated living room not only felt crowded and airless, but smelled faintly rank.
“Is Mrs. Buss here?” Judith inquired.
Billy didn’t look away from the TV. “Which one?”
“Vivian,” Judith said. “Your wife.”
“In the can, maybe,” he said, running a hand over his blond hair, which was beginning to thin on top. “Or in the cellar. She says it’s cooler there. May well be.” He chuckled. “We got a bunch of coolers down there.” Billy picked up a Miller High Life beer can that was sitting on the floor. “Damn. This sucker’s empty. We’d better not be out of Millers. Those guests really guzzled them down. Where’s Adelita?”
“Adelita ran off with Mr. Dumpster,” Renie said. “She’s got a thing for garbage. Looking around this dump, I can see why.”
Billy eyed Renie curiously. “Who’s Mr. Dumpster? Who are you?”
“Enough’s enough,” Rochelle declared. “I’m getting out of here. This place smells like the disposal bins at Gabe’s warehouse.” She stomped out of the house but left the door open.
“That makes two of us,” Renie said, and followed Rochelle.
Arlene, however, persevered. “As I recall, your basement entrance is off the back porch. Come, Judith, we’ll go through the kitchen.”
The kitchen was even a sorrier sight than the living room. Leftover food from the party was strewn all over the counters, the table, the chairs, and the floor. Dirty dishes, glassware, and a couple of broken bottles were scattered around the small area. Judith and Arlene had to pick their way through the mess to reach the back door.