Vi Agra Falls

by Mary Daheim

  Judith nodded. “They have family nearby. Sometimes visiting relatives can be stressful.” And deadly, she thought. “I assure all of you that whatever caused their illness didn’t occur here at Hillside Manor. They ate the same breakfast that you had, and I assume none of you are ill.” Judith paused for a response. The little group agreed that they felt fine. “Good,” Judith said with a smile. “I’m sorry for this disruption.”

  “Oh, no,” the other California wife said with a big smile. “It’s kind of exciting, a real icebreaker.” She beamed at the other guests. “Isn’t that so, folks? It gives us something to talk about. Especially,” she added, winking at the newlyweds, “the dead body in the neighbors’ yard.”

  “Uh…yes,” Judith said, feeling the need to fib a bit. “Very unfortunate, very unusual around here.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I think the ambulance is here for Mrs. Buss. Excuse me.”

  Not only had the ambulance arrived, but so had Caitlin, complete with three pieces of luggage.

  “What’s happening?” she asked. “Is someone sick?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Judith admitted, ushering Caitlin inside and away from the ambulance attendants’ path. “Billy’s brother and his wife are quite ill.”

  “Oh, no!” Caitlin exclaimed. “Should I tell Mom and Billy?”

  “Yes.” Judith paused as a gurney was brought up the front steps. “They’ll have to know. Did your mother mention if Frankie and Marva Lou had anything to eat or drink at their house today?”

  Caitlin shook her head. “Mom just said that Marva Lou had a nasty tongue, and Frankie whined all the time. Where shall I put my luggage? After I do that, I’ll go back to Mom’s.”

  “It’s Room One,” Judith said, hurriedly giving Caitlin her keys.

  Unfortunately, Judith recognized one of the ambulance attendants from a previous disaster. The burly man with the blond buzz cut snickered as he passed her in the entry hall. “You got a twofer this time, Mrs. Flynn. Maybe someday we can fix up an old bus just for your guests and haul away a couple of dozen victims all at once. You’re not thinking about opening a hotel, are you? If you do, give us some advance warning, okay?”

  Judith glared at him before going out to the kitchen to rescue her mother’s TV dinner. The timer had just gone off. Renie could handle any details concerning the latest catastrophe.

  Opening the toolshed’s door and seeing Gertrude sitting at the card table playing solitaire somehow comforted Judith. “You’re late,” the old lady snapped.

  Even the reprimand felt reassuring. The world around her might be going to hell in a handcart, but Gertrude Grover remained a fixture, a human lighthouse promising some kind of safe harbor—no matter how rough her tongue might be.

  “A couple of guests got sick,” Judith said. “You have Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans. There’s pudding for dessert.”

  Gertrude studied the food. “Good. You didn’t cook it yourself. Did those guests get sick from your egg mess with the pieces of dried-up fish and toadstools in it?”

  “That omelet recipe has smoked salmon and portobello mushrooms,” Judith said. “My guests love it, but I didn’t make it today.”

  “Maybe it was your French toast,” Gertrude said, cutting her Salisbury steak. “You could use it as carpeting, and then the waffles with fruit—”

  “Mother,” Judith broke in, “I’m kind of tired this evening. And it’s still hot. You didn’t find your ring, by any chance, did you?”

  “No.” Gertrude made a face. “Maybe you cooked it in one of your conglomerations. Whoever ate it wouldn’t know the difference.”

  “If it was stolen,” Judith said, “I should call our insurance agent.”

  “It wasn’t,” Gertrude replied stubbornly. “I lost it, that’s all.”

  Judith scrutinized the old lady’s mulish expression as she added salt and pepper to her mashed potatoes. “Did your visitor take it?”

  Gertrude looked up. “Vivian? Don’t be so dumb. She’s rich now. Done real well for herself. She can buy all the rings she wants and wear ’em in her nose if she feels like it.”

  “Okay, so it wasn’t Vivian,” Judith agreed. “But what about Flora Bunda? Who is she?”

  “Who she said she is,” Gertrude said, stabbing a couple of green beans with her fork. “Now beat it, and leave me in peace.”

  Judith sat on the davenport’s arm. “Please. A man has been killed. Nobody knows who he is or who killed him. You’re fond of Vivian, and since the body was found in her backyard, she’s bound to be a suspect. You’d be glad to help her, wouldn’t you?”

  “I am helping her,” Gertrude replied, darting her daughter an obdurate look. “Let me enjoy my supper.”

  It was useless to badger Gertrude. Once her mother’s mind was made up, the devil himself couldn’t change it. It was only after she got back inside the house that Judith wondered what Gertrude had meant about helping Vivian.

  “The second patient has been carted off,” Renie announced when Judith entered the kitchen. “The guests are having such a good time yakking about the calamities that the social hour is being extended.”

  “Great,” Judith muttered. “They’ll go home and tell everybody they know that I’m a magnet for death and near-death experiences.”

  “You are, actually,” Renie replied. “But they don’t seem scared or upset. Californians are very resilient. So are Alaskans, in a different way. Those twins from Virginia are engineers. They’re taking the situation as a puzzle they could solve.”

  “Good,” Judith retorted, picking up her glass of Scotch and noting that the ice had melted. “They can take over the case so I can back off.”

  “That won’t work,” Renie said, searching through Judith’s freezer compartment. “Mavis called. She wants breaking news for her eleven o’clock broadcast. What are we eating? Steak? Chicken? Oh—you’ve got those big prawns. Yummy! Want me to do tempura?”

  “Whoa!” Judith cried. “What does Mavis mean? I don’t know anything.”

  “Neither does she,” Renie replied, unwrapping the prawns. “That’s the problem. According to her, the detectives are slow but not necessarily sure. They don’t know you’re FATSO, by the way. I mean,” Renie said hastily, “FASTO. No sign of the missing body, nothing new to report. The five o’clock anchor had to bury the story with some mumbo-jumbo about the police continuing their investigation and following up leads. Mavis says that’s guff. They don’t have any leads.”

  Judith sighed. “Neither do I. In fact, I think Mother knows more about what’s going on than I do.”

  Holding an onion in one hand, a yellow bell pepper in the other, Renie stared at her cousin. “You’re serious.”

  “I am. She told me she was helping Vivian—maybe an allusion to the stripper.” Judith opened the cupboard to take out a box of tempura mix and a jar of cooking oil. “Why would Herself protect Flora Bunda?”

  “I can tell you that,” said a voice from the dining room. Caitlin walked into the kitchen. “That’s the name my half-sister, Terri, went by in her days as an exotic dancer.”

  “Terri?” Judith frowned. “Oh!” Her memory kicked into high gear. “Johnny Agra’s daughter! She was a…whatever?”

  Caitlin nodded. “She’s much older. I lost track of her long ago. As a kid, I was impressed when Mom talked about Terri’s show business career—until I found out it involved taking off her clothes.”

  “So,” Judith said in a thoughtful tone, “Terri must be—how old?”

  Caitlin considered the question. “Mid to late forties?”

  “A little long in the tooth and droopy in the whatevers,” Renie murmured. She held up her cocktail glass. “Want a refill on that wine?”

  “Yes,” Caitlin said. “I never finished the original.” She turned back to Judith. “I told Mom about Frankie and Marva Lou.”

  “And?” Judith inquired.

  Caitlin shrugged. “Mom’s kind of foggy this time of day. Billy seemed more u
pset. He mentioned checking with the hospital later on to see if they’re okay.” She paused to accept a fresh glass of wine from Renie. “I asked what they’d had to eat or drink while they were at Mom’s. The only thing, according to Billy, was a drink or two. Marva Lou had some bourbon, and Frankie had a couple of beers straight from the can.” Caitlin regarded Judith with an incredulous expression. “Do you really think someone poisoned them?”

  “I don’t know,” Judith admitted. “We’ll have to wait to hear what the doctors say. Maybe I should go upstairs to their room and see if I can find anything of interest.”

  “Let me,” Renie volunteered. “You’ve climbed enough steps for one day.” She set her glass on the counter and headed for the back stairs.

  Judith scanned the tempura mix directions and got some ice from the fridge to make sure the water for the batter was chilled. “Your mother didn’t mention Terri, I take it.”

  Caitlin shook her head. “She hasn’t mentioned Terri in years. They were never close. Terri was Daddy’s girl. Oddly enough, even though Terri and I had different fathers, we kind of look alike.”

  Judith smiled. “Interesting. When my mother saw you today, she said she knew you—and then changed her mind. That’s because Terri was hiding out in the toolshed yesterday.”

  Caitlin’s green eyes widened. “You’re kidding! Why?”

  “I’m not sure,” Judith replied, adding more ice to her cocktail and topping it with a half inch of Scotch. “My mother’s explanation to Renie was convoluted. It had to do with Flora—I mean, Terri—getting trapped in your mom’s basement. It doesn’t make much sense.”

  Caitlin sighed. “Not making sense is a way of life with Mom.”

  Judith nodded. “That reminds me, did a man named Stokes call on your mother in the last hour or so?”

  “Stokes?” Caitlin looked puzzled. “Not that I know of. Mom was lying down in her bedroom when I talked to her.”

  “Her bedroom?” Judith said.

  “I got the impression she and Billy have separate bedrooms,” Caitlin replied. “That was why I couldn’t stay there. Mom keeps such odd hours, and when she does sleep, she has to go through a big rigmarole with an eye mask and earplugs and a chin strap and I don’t know what all before she actually settles down. Adelita must sleep in the basement. I assume there’s a bedroom down there.”

  Judith recalled that the previous owner had two bedrooms on the main floor and another in the basement that the violinist had converted into a piano studio for his girlfriend, who gave lessons. But there had been no sign of a bed or any other furnishings when Judith and Arlene had been in the basement. “Maybe,” she hedged, and changed the subject. “Can you get in touch with Terri?”

  Caitlin shook her head. “I haven’t had any contact with her for…oh, I don’t know how long. Fifteen years, maybe.”

  Renie returned from Frankie and Marva Lou’s room. “Item one,” she began, raising her index finger. “The letter that arrived via FedEx from Loren Ellsworth in Tushka, Oklahoma, who is on the faculty of Southeastern Agricultural College near Tulsa. Item two,” she went on, raising her middle finger, “another letter dated a week ago from somebody named Jim Dickson who works at the Double UB Ranch and was mailed to Frankie and Marva Lou’s home in Broken Bow. Item three, a box of chocolates with only two left. Number five, a handwritten note that said ‘Could Potsy help?’ and last but most ghastly, the ugliest purple polyester pantsuit I’ve ever seen in my life, size 46 petite. I assume it belongs to Marva Lou.”

  Judith frowned. “Where are the letters?”

  “You think I handled them?” Renie eyed her cousin with reproach. “I know better than that. As for the chocolates, the box was open, and you’re thinking poison. Don’t worry, I didn’t sample the few that were left. I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so I couldn’t read the ingredients to see if they might contain nuts or peanuts and send me into a severe allergy attack. Heck, I wouldn’t even touch that pantsuit. I might contract a disease that would rob me of my fashion sense.”

  “I don’t know how you ever see out of your glasses,” Judith said, “the lenses are always filthy. As for your current attire,” she went on, studying her cousin’s baggy summer slacks and rumpled T-shirt bearing the logo from a Native American casino, “it looks like you already misplaced any notion of fashionable clothes.”

  Renie made a face. “You know I don’t wear my good—and very chic—clothes for every day.”

  “The note about Potsy,” Judith murmured. “How could he help, being dead? Unless Frankie and his wife figured he wasn’t in his right mind when he made the new will.”

  “That’s possible,” Renie allowed. “I would’ve thought they’d already taken that route, though.”

  “True,” Judith conceded. “I wonder if we should tell the cops about the chocolates. Any idea where they came from?”

  Renie shook her head. “They’re a fairly high-end national brand. They could’ve been bought anywhere.”

  “Or sent from anywhere,” Judith murmured. “The FedEx guy dropped off a package along with the letter. I forgot to look at the return address on the box. The letter was on top. I wonder if the FedEx labels are still in the room.”

  “I didn’t see them,” Renie replied. “Phyliss must have thrown them out. I’ll check the recycling bin.” She paused, looking at the unopened box of tempura mix. “You haven’t made much progress with dinner. I’m wasting away.”

  “You were going to fix dinner,” Judith reminded her cousin.

  “So I was. I’ll be right back.” Renie exited through the back door.

  Judith turned to Caitlin. “You’ll join us, of course.”

  “I can’t,” she said apologetically. “I’m meeting an old high school friend for dinner downtown at eight. In fact, I should change and get ready now. Do you really think it’s okay to use Dad’s MG?”

  “Call him,” Judith said, handing over the Atlanta hotel’s number. “He’s probably still up. It’s ten-thirty back there.”

  “Thanks,” Caitlin said. “I’ll do that right now.” She took her wineglass with her and headed for the front stairs.

  Renie came back into the house looking annoyed. “No FedEx packaging. I checked all the bins, in case Phyliss was having a heavenly vision and dumped the wastebasket trash into the wrong receptacle.”

  “That’s strange,” Judith murmured. “It suggests that somebody got rid of it. We don’t have a tracking number, but maybe FedEx can tell us who sent the box. Assuming, of course, that it contained the chocolates. We don’t know if the Busses were poisoned, and even if they were, we don’t know if the chocolates were the cause.”

  Before Renie could respond, the phone rang. “You didn’t return my call,” Mavis Lean-Brodie rebuked Judith. “The clock’s ticking. It’s almost seven-thirty. Give me your latest bulletin ASAP.”

  “I really don’t—”

  Mavis broke into Judith’s response. “You had two people named Buss hauled off from your B&B to Bayview Hospital. You think we don’t keep track of nine-one-one calls at KINE? If that isn’t news, what is?”

  “So call the police,” Judith said. “The Busses were sick. That’s all I know. They weren’t stabbed, shot, bludgeoned, or pushed off a cliff. It could be flu. I’m not a doctor.”

  “Flu!” Mavis guffawed. “That’s good, Judith. Flu!” She repeated the word with scorn. “Since when did anybody connected to you and a murder investigation merely get anything as mundane as the flu?”

  “I’ve no idea why they got sick,” Judith insisted. “If you find anything out from the cops or the hospital, you call me.” She hung up.

  “That’s telling her,” Renie said mildly. “How many prawns can you eat? I’m good for at least five.”

  “There are only eight in the package, Petunia Pig.”

  Renie stared at the prawns. “Hmm. You’re right. I was never good at math. Guess I’ll have to share.”

  Judith ignored her cousin. She wondered if it would
be better to wait to contact the police until she heard from the hospital. Maybe it was the flu that had struck down Frankie and Marva Lou. Viral illnesses kept getting stronger and more varied. Most people would never consider poison as the cause of illness. But experience with unnatural death had made Judith inordinately—and often justifiably—suspicious.

  “I wonder why the cops haven’t been around here today,” she said. “I also wonder if they’ve made any progress.”

  “They should’ve already checked with you,” Renie said, mixing the batter with the ice water. “They must not know your reputation.”

  “That’s just as well if they don’t.” Judith began slicing the bell pepper, but was interrupted by Arlene’s voice coming from the back porch.

  “Yoo-hoo,” Arlene called, moving briskly down the hall. “I just got home from helping Cathy stage a house for sale over on the bluff. Carl told me that you had emergency personnel here a while ago. I can’t believe he didn’t come over to find out why. I’ve never let a broken leg stop me from doing what needs to be done.”

  Judith gaped at Arlene. “Carl broke his leg? How?”

  “He was up on a ladder on the other side of the house after lunch this afternoon and fell when he stepped back to see how the old paint looked in the sunlight,” Arlene explained. “Apparently, he forgot he was ten feet off the ground. I took him to the ER at Norway General, and it’s only a slight fracture. The least he could’ve done was to pick up the phone and call you to find out what was going on here.”

  Renie looked up from the prawns she was dipping into the batter. “How did the paint look?”

  “Carl insists it looks fine,” Arlene retorted. “How would he know? He probably got a concussion, too. Men!” She shook her head in disgust. “Now tell me about your ambulances. If they’d come sooner they might have saved me a trip to the ER.”

  Judith related the sudden illnesses and ensuing emergency runs to the hospital. “I’ve no idea why they both got sick,” she concluded.

  “Oh, Judith,” Arlene said after a slight pause, “surely someone around here is trying to kill them.”