by Mary Daheim
“Oh, dear. Who found him?”
“Arlene,” Joe replied. “This morning, while she was making French toast for the guests.”
“What…did…Arlene…do?” Judith asked with trepidation.
“She grabbed the snake and turned the clothes basket upside down on him,” Joe explained. “Then she went back to fixing French toast.”
Judith had a feeling that the story wasn’t over. “What about Ernest’s owners, the Pettigrews?”
“Well…They were worried, of course.” Joe paused. “But they were waiting for breakfast and I guess Arlene sort of forgot to tell them about Ernest. Phyliss Rackley showed up about then, and the first thing she did was—Hold it.” Joe went away from the phone, and Judith heard voices in the background. She could barely make out her husband’s words but she caught fragments that sounded like “…can’t make it…let the medics walk…only five blocks…chains? Oh, good.”
“Joe?” Judith called into the phone. “Joe!”
“What?”
“What’s going on, Joe?” Judith demanded. “Did something happen to Phyliss? I can’t afford to lose my cleaning woman when I’m laid up like this.”
“Well…It seems that Phyliss grabbed the laundry basket to take upstairs so she could strip the beds, and as you might imagine, the snake got loose, and—” Joe stopped speaking as Judith heard the cleaning woman shriek in the background:
“Lucifer! Satan! Beelzebub! He’s on the loose, tempting sinners! Look out, Lord, he may be coming after me! Keep him away, Lord! I don’t want to wear scanty underwear and dance to suggestive music!”
“You hear that?” Joe asked. “Phyliss passed out cold when she saw the snake, but she’s come to now.”
“Oh, good grief!” Judith cried, raking her fingers over her scalp. “Is she okay?”
“Not exactly,” Joe replied calmly as voices continued to sound in the background. “She came to, but she swears she’s having a heart attack. Arlene says it’s just gas, but you know Phyliss, she’s kind of a hypochondriac.”
Phyliss Rackley was indeed a hypochondriac as well as a religious zealot. But she was also a terrific cleaning woman. Judith hung her head. “What’s happening now? Did you say ‘medics’?”
“Yes, yes, I did,” Joe replied, still keeping his voice calm. “Phyliss insisted we call an ambulance. But the medics were having trouble getting up the hill with all this snow. Even with chains, they had trouble, but they think they can make it if they give it another try.”
“Where is Phyliss?” Judith asked, aware that a global-sized headache was setting in.
“On the sofa in the living room,” Joe said. “Really, she seems okay. I wish Arlene wasn’t trying to get her to take all that Gas-X, though. That can produce some pretty revolting results with somebody like Phyliss.”
“What about the damned snake?”
“The snake?” Joe hesitated. “A good question. I’m not sure.”
“Joe…”
“I’ll check. Right away. Hey, I really called to see how you were feeling this morning.”
“How do you think I feel?” Judith retorted. “I feel absolutely awful. I’m hanging up now so you can straighten out this horrible mess. I’m not even going to ask how the rest of the guests are managing. Good-bye.” Judith slammed down the phone with a big bang.
Bob Randall Jr. stood in the doorway. “Excuse me,” he said in a diffident voice, “have you seen my sister, Nancy?”
“Yes,” Judith said in a testy voice. “She was here and then she left. She couldn’t find your mother’s worry beads.”
“Oh.” Bob Jr. looked forlorn. “Darn.”
Judith regretted her sharp tone. It wasn’t Bob Jr.’s fault that she was in a bad mood. “I imagine Nancy went off to search wherever else your mother had been after she’d called on us.”
But Bob Jr. shook his head. “Mom wasn’t anywhere else after we met her in this room. We went straight down to the staff lounge.”
“What about before your mother came in here?” Judith asked, making an effort to be helpful.
Bob Jr. had moved closer to the bed, and appeared as if he’d like to sit down. “Do you mind?” he asked, pointing to the chair and panting a bit.
“Not at all,” Judith replied. “Do you feel ill?”
“Sometimes.” Bob Jr. sat down with a heavy sigh. “I think Mom called on Mr. Kirby before she came to see you and that other lady. I’ll check in there as soon as I catch my breath. He’s close by, right?”
Judith nodded. “Next door.”
Bob Jr. also nodded, but didn’t speak.
“Have you been hurrying?” Judith asked, still feeling a need to make up for her previous curt manner.
Bob Jr. shook his head. “No. It’s my condition.”
“Oh?” Judith put on her most sympathetic expression. “Would it be rude to ask what that might be?”
“Yes.” The young man took a deep breath, then got to his feet.
“I’m sorry,” Judith apologized. “I won’t pry anymore.” She paused, hoping that Bob Jr. might give her a hint. But he just stood there, looking desolate. “How is your mother doing with the funeral plans? It must be very hard for her.”
“It is,” Bob Jr. said, very solemn. “Sometimes she feels like she’s responsible for all these deaths.”
“Why is that?” Judith inquired.
“Because,” Bob Jr. said, “she thinks she was the vessel.” Anxiously, he looked over his shoulder, toward the hallway. “I’ll check with Mr. Kirby now. I should have done that first before coming in here. I know how anxious my mother was to see him.”
Bob Randall Jr. made his exit, leaving Judith puzzled. And very curious.
ELEVEN
BOB JR. HAD scarcely been gone more than a few seconds when Renie returned. “In the nick of time,” she said. “I just met Bob Jr. going into Addison Kirby’s room as I was leaving.” Renie stopped at the end of Judith’s bed and peered at her cousin. “What’s wrong? You look miffed.”
“I am miffed,” Judith declared. “My replacements are running amok.”
Renie tipped her head and gazed at Judith’s left hip. “I thought you only had one.”
“I don’t mean that,” Judith said with a wave of her arm. “I mean, my replacements at the B&B. It’s that damned snake they let in.”
“Enough with the snakes!” Renie cried, yanking the blanket from Judith’s bed and putting it over her head. “You know I hate snakes. I don’t want to hear another word about that creepy thing.”
Judith, however, prevailed, her attitude conveying just how sorry she felt for herself and how little sympathy she had for Renie. As for Hillside Manor’s reputation, Judith was certain that it was hopelessly tarnished.
When Judith had finished her tale of woe, Renie peeked out from under the blanket. “Phyliss,” she declared, “is not having a heart attack or whatever she claims. She’s merely trying to get attention.”
“That’s the least of my worries. Marooned guests, reptiles on the loose, whoopee cushions, emergency vehicles in the cul-de-sac—why can’t I be allowed an unencumbered recovery?” Judith reached for her water glass, took a big swallow, and choked.
Renie replaced the blanket, doing her best to tuck in the corners. “Are you okay?”
Between splutters, Judith nodded. “Yes,” she gasped. “I’m just frustrated. For about a hundred reasons. Tell me about Addison Kirby and I’ll tell you about the younger Randall twins.”
“Twins?” Renie looked intrigued.
“Yes, but not identical,” Judith deadpanned.
“No, I guess not.” Renie shifted around on the bed, trying to make herself more comfortable while not disturbing Judith’s leg and hip. “Addison’s in pretty good shape this morning. Or, as he put it, he’s still alive, which I gather sort of surprised him.”
“I can imagine,” Judith said. “He may have thought he’d end up like his wife, Joan.”
“Right. Anyway, he was reluctant
to talk at first, not that I blame him. He doesn’t know me, I could be a maniacal killer.” Renie stopped as her phone rang. “Drat. Let’s hope it’s not my mother.” She managed to grab the receiver on the fourth ring. “Hi!” she said with a big smile, propping the phone between her chin and shoulder. “Yes, I’m feeling better…Don’t feel bad about not being able to come see me, Tom…No, I realize you can’t go to work. Oh?…Then ask your dad…He’s what?” Renie’s jaw had dropped and she was staring at Judith.
“To what purpose?” Renie said into the phone as her good hand clawed at her hair. “Why? Where? Don’t you dare let them near Clarence!…What? How much smaller? What are they, rats or dogs? Oh, good night!”
There was a long pause as her son apparently offered some sort of explanation. At last Renie spoke again. “If you find out, let me know. Or call for the men with the white coats and the butterfly net. Meanwhile, I don’t know why you need money—you can’t go anywhere…Oh, good grief! If you can ski down Heraldsgate Hill, you could get to work. Really, you’re thirty-one years old and it’s about time you got a serious job instead of making tacos at Miguel’s Muncheria. Good-bye, my son. I’m having a relapse.” With a weary expression, Renie replaced the receiver. “Bill found two Chihuahuas, lost in the snow up at the park by our house. He’s taken them in and has dressed one in a tuxedo and the other in University of Wisconsin sweats.”
It was Judith’s turn to stare. “What?”
“I don’t know why,” Renie responded, holding her head. “My husband’s a psychologist. Therefore, he can’t possibly be crazy. Can he?”
“Dare I ask where he got a tuxedo that would fit a Chihuahua?”
Renie glanced at Archie the doll. “It’s Archie’s formal wear. The dogs are very small, not as big as Clarence,” she added, referring to the Joneses’ lop-eared rabbit. “In fact, the sweats belong to Clarence, but he never wears them. The last time we dressed him in them, he ate the Badger logo off the front.” She paused, holding her head. “I should never leave Bill alone for too long, especially now that he’s retired.”
Judith didn’t feel up to making sense out of her cousin’s report. Renie and Bill had a strange menagerie of creatures, both living and stuffed. Sometimes it was best not to ask too many questions. “Could we go back to Addison Kirby?” Judith pleaded. “You’d begun to get something useful out of him.”
“I had?” Renie pulled the covers up to her neck. “Brrr…it’s cold in here. I don’t think Clarabelle is working full-time, either.” She glanced at the radiator, which was emitting asthmatic hissing sounds. “Yes, Addison definitely thinks that his wife, Somosa, and Randall were murdered. However, he has absolutely no idea who did it.”
Judith frowned. “Was he going to write up his suspicions for the paper?”
“He can’t,” Renie said. “He has to have facts, evidence, just like a cop. That’s what he was trying to gather when he got hit by the car. He’d talked to the Randall kids, but they weren’t much help. He’d interviewed Somosa’s widow in the Dominican Republic via long distance a couple of days ago, before Bob Randall died. Addison said she wasn’t much help. Her English is almost nonexistent and she seemed inclined to blame her husband’s death on God’s will. Addison doesn’t agree, and neither do I. It’d be more likely that the teams in the rest of our division did Somosa in. But that’s not realistic, either.”
“What about Tubby Turnbull?” Judith asked. “Did Addison find him helpful?”
Renie gave Judith a sardonic look. “Has Tubby ever been helpful to anyone? After hemming and hawing and trying to figure out if he’d put his pants on backwards, Tubby insisted he couldn’t think of anyone connected to the team who’d want Joaquin out of the way. He was popular with the other players, the press liked him, management considered him a huge part of the franchise, and even his agent is a good guy—as sports agents go. Anyway, the agent works out of New York. He hasn’t been out this way since the end of last season.”
Judith gave a faint nod. “Nothing there, as far as we can tell.” She pondered the matter of Joaquin Somosa for a few moments. “The bear,” she said suddenly. “What did he mean by saying ‘a bear’ and pointing to the TV?”
Renie frowned at Judith. “I told you, he must have been hallucinating. Why else would he keep saying ‘a bear, a bear, a bear’?” Renie’s scowl faded as she clapped her hand to her head. “A bear—in Spanish, that would be aver, to see. Maybe he couldn’t see—the TV or anything else. The drugs might have been taking effect. Doesn’t Ecstasy blind you?”
“I’m not sure,” Judith said, “but it would fit. All I really know is that it does terrible things, including making you crazy. Joaquin must have ingested it just before the repairman, Curly, got to his room. I wonder who’d been there ahead of him?”
“We don’t know,” Renie responded with a helpless look.
“That’s the trouble,” Judith said. “We weren’t around when these other deaths occurred and it’s almost impossible to get any concrete information out of the staff. I sure wish Maya was still here.” She sighed and rearranged herself on the pillows. “What about Joan Fremont? Did she and Addison sound like a happy couple?”
“Yes,” Renie responded, delving into her goodies stash and hauling out some cheese and crackers. “Want some?”
“No, thanks.”
“Addison didn’t make a big deal of it,” Renie continued, “which indicated to me that the marriage must have been solid. You know, if he’d gone on and on about how devoted they were and all that junk, I’d have figured him for a phony.”
“What about their kids?” inquired Judith.
Renie shrugged and chewed on her crackers. “They haven’t been in town since Thanksgiving, which, alas, was the last time they saw their mother alive. I mean, they came for the funeral. But I got the impression they were a close family, emotionally, if not geographically.”
“What about Joan’s colleagues at Le Repertoire?”
Renie shrugged again. “By and large, she got along with most of them. Addison indicated that she wasn’t happy with the direction the theater was going—too much emphasis on social issues, rather than good drama. But he didn’t know of any big rift. As for so-called rivals, he said that there were always some of those. The theater is full of big egos. But Joan knew how to handle them. She was a veteran, a real pro.”
“Gosh,” Judith said in a bleak voice, “it sounds as if the community has lost more than just talent. Both Joan and Joaquin sound like decent, upstanding human beings. Did Addison say anything about Bob Randall? We know he was brave both on and off the field. Bob saved some lives, as well as games.”
“Addison hadn’t had time to do more than speak with Nancy and Bob Jr.,” Renie responded after she’d devoured two crackers and another chunk of cheese. “As you might guess from the looks of them, they weren’t a lot of help. Like their mother, they seem ineffectual and unable to cope with the rest of the world. I sure wish Bill would open the vault on his blasted patient confidentiality and let us know what’s going on.”
“Tell me,” Judith said, making yet another attempt to get comfortable in the bed, “does Addison know why there isn’t a full-fledged homicide investigation going on around here?”
Renie shook her head. “That’s where he sort of clammed up. I suspect he knows more about that than he’s saying.”
“But does he agree that the police aren’t involved?” Judith persisted.
“He told me he’d gotten nowhere going to his usual sources at city hall, including the police department.” Renie shot Judith a cryptic glance. “Think about it—Addison Kirby has been covering city hall for ten, fifteen years. He must have cultivated all sorts of people who can help him. But not this time. Why? Could it be Blanche Van Boeck on the city council? She who would be mayor?”
“Drat,” said Judith. “That woman has clout.”
Judith had opened her mouth to tell Renie about the Randall twins’ visits when Corinne Appleby entered th
e room, looking determined and pushing a wheelchair. “You’re getting up today, Mrs. Flynn. We’re going to put you in this swift little number.”
“That’s good—I think,” Judith responded.
But she was not without trepidation, especially when Corinne didn’t request any help with the lifting process.
“Just take your time,” Corinne said, exuding more confidence than Judith felt. “I’m used to doing this. My mother is very crippled with arthritis and can’t stand without assistance.”
“My mother also has arthritis,” Judith said, sitting up and struggling to swing her legs over the side of the bed. “Unfortunately, it’s often just part of old age.”
“My mother’s not quite sixty,” Corinne said, her freckled face clouding over. “She developed arthritis in her early twenties. It was terrible. She’d planned to become a concert pianist.”
“Oh, that is awful!” Renie exclaimed. “We had a dear family friend, we called her Auntie May, who played beautifully, but she had arthritis, too, and all her professional dreams were dashed at a very young age. Can your mother play at all?”
Corinne shook her head as she put her arms under Judith’s. “No. She hasn’t played in almost thirty years. We sold the piano when I was still a child. Mummy couldn’t bear to have it in the house.”
“That’s very sad,” Judith said, gritting her teeth. “Oooh…I don’t know if I…”
“You’re doing fine,” Corinne said. “Just keep coming up. Be thankful that eventually you’ll be mobile again. Not everyone is so lucky. There. You’re on your feet. Don’t move for a few seconds. Steady…”
Judith wasn’t steady. In fact, she was swaying. But after focusing her eyes on the bathroom doorknob, she began to get her bearings.
“Good,” Corinne said, slowly letting go of Judith. “Now try to take a step toward me. Don’t worry—if you fall, I’ll catch you.”
Judith inched her way forward on her good leg, though most of her weight was against the bed. Then, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she tried to move her left leg. It hurt, but not as much as she’d feared. Corinne gave her a nod of encouragement. Judith gently tested putting weight on the hip replacement. She felt unsure of herself and gritted her teeth.