Here Comes the Bribe

by Mary Daheim

  “Ha! From the looks of this salmon, it wasn’t caught, it was executed. How can you ruin a perfectly good piece of fish?”

  Judith ignored the criticism. As she left the toolshed, she saw Sweetums sitting by the birdbath. She paused to stare at the cat. “If only,” she said out loud, “you could talk, you’d be a good witness.”

  Sweetums responded by swinging his big orange plume of a tail and licking one of his paws.

  What the hell . . .” Joe began when Judith came back inside. But he stopped and waited for her to enter the kitchen. Voices could be heard from the living room. “The guests did come down for the social hour,” he said quietly. “Is that Millie’s purse?”

  “It must be,” Judith replied, sitting down and opening the clasp. She removed a faux-leather packet to reveal credit cards and a local driver’s license. “Her address is a street I don’t recognize, but the zip code is in the north end. Is Rodney’s license a phony?”

  “Maybe,” Joe allowed. “Or they could’ve recently moved here. What’s the issue date on Millie’s license?”

  “March thirtieth of this year,” Judith replied, “which is also her birthday. They could have moved here recently from California. A lot of people do that these days.”

  “Woody will check out the license Rodney showed you, of course,” Joe murmured. “Are you joining the guests for the social hour?”

  Judith shook her head. “No. I’m tired, I’m hungry, and I want to eat before the salmon gets dried out. Let’s do it.”

  By some sort of minor miracle, the Flynns managed to get through dinner without discussing the murder case. But as soon as the table was cleared, Judith resumed her search of Millie’s purse. She found a folded sheet of typewritten paper in a side pocket. Expecting something semisensational, she was disappointed.

  “This is only a list of . . . I’m not sure what it is,” Judith said, still keeping her voice down. The guests were still in the living room. “Take a look. Could it be medications?”

  Joe studied the dozen unfamiliar words. “Temodar? It sounds like a title of some Mideastern potentate. Beats me.” He handed the piece of paper back to Judith.

  “I’ll look up some of these on the computer later.” She craned her neck to hear what was going on with the guests. “I think they’re taking off for dinner. I hope they come back earlier than they did last night. Wondering about their return gave me minor nightmares. Of course what really happened this morning was much worse.”

  Joe didn’t argue.

  A little after seven, Judith called Renie to explain about finding Millie’s purse and the list of exotic words. “I tried checking them out on the Internet,” she went on, “but all I could find were warnings about side effects including everything but having your arms and legs fall off.”

  “The suits,” Renie said. “Pharmaceutical-company lawyers are more concerned about being dragged into court than they are about helping patients.”

  “Being so breezy about it doesn’t help me, coz,” Judith admonished. “I could use a little empathy here.”

  “It’s after hours,” Renie said. “Bill and I are about to shut down our brains and watch mindless TV. Unless somebody else gets killed at your place tonight, do not disturb us.”

  “That’s fine,” Judith retorted. “I’ve got Tyler Dooley on the case.” She sucked in her breath. “Oh, dear—I should tell him the purse has been found. Otherwise, his poor dog will end up trying to follow the scent to the toolshed and then into the house.”

  “Don’t spoil the kid’s fun—or Barley’s. It gives them both something to do besides try to find sleeping space in the Dooley house.”

  “They have beds. Well, cots, anyway. Or sleeping bags. And it’s Farley, not Barley.”

  “Whatever,” Renie said airily. “Got to go watch some dumb movie I’ll hate. Try not to let anybody kill you during the night. I’ll see you in church.”

  Judith dialed the Dooleys’ number. Someone other than Corinne answered. “Is Mrs. Dooley there?” she asked.

  “Which one?” the youthful voice replied. “We got at least five of them.”

  “Never mind,” Judith said. “Just tell Tyler that the purse has been found. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. Or after Mass.”

  “Got it,” the voice responded—and hung up.

  The Schmuck entourage came back from dinner shortly after eight thirty. Feeling faintly guilty about her negative attitude toward the current guests, Judith got up from the living room sofa to greet the last trio of the group—Dr. Sophie and husband, Clayton, with a subdued Rodney in tow.

  “Your cabdrivers take too many chances,” Dr. Sophie declared. “Are they all Ethiopians? Don’t they have real streets in Addis Ababa?”

  “I’m sure they do,” Judith said. “It’s a huge city.”

  Clayton woefully shook his head. “I’ll blog tomorrow about dangerous drivers. Especially the ones who take the wheel in a taxi. My nerves are shredded.”

  Judith didn’t offer him any sympathy. Instead, she turned to Rodney, whose pallor worried her. “Are you feeling any better this evening?”

  “Kind of,” he replied. “Before dinner, I had a bit of the hair of the dog, as they say. But not too much. I’m still worn out. Dang, Mama, but all this stuff with Millie has upset your little boy. You and me are gonna have a little talk first thing tomorrow, okay?”

  Judith’s compassion took a hit. “That’s fine, but I won’t be able to do that until after I get home from church around eleven thirty. Of course, breakfast will be served as usual.”

  “Haven’t got much appetite,” Rodney muttered, clutching the banister as he followed his companions upstairs. “G’night, Mama.”

  Judith returned to the living room. Joe looked up from the spy novel he’d been reading. “I heard that,” he remarked with a grin. “I should be disturbed. Rodney doesn’t claim that I’m his father.”

  Judith sat down opposite her husband. “I thought maybe he’d given up on that ‘Mama’ part of their game. But the worrisome thing is how dreadful he looks. I wonder if he didn’t drink some of the same juice Millie did.”

  Joe grew serious. “We don’t know it was the juice, do we?”

  “Well . . .” Judith’s dark eyes were fixed on Joe’s face. “Do you have a reason to believe otherwise?”

  “We can’t assume the juice contained the poison,” Joe replied in his usual mellow, reasonable tone. “The autopsy results may indicate that’s how the lethal stuff was ingested. But Woody won’t have that information until at least Tuesday or Wednesday. Millie’s death probably isn’t the only suspicious one that will have happened over the weekend in a city this large. Keep in mind that a lot of relatives of people who apparently die of natural causes request an autopsy. That’s becoming more common because of genetics and the need to know your immediate relatives’ medical history. Of course, that’s not a problem for you, because your mother will never die.”

  “Joe!” But Judith didn’t want to get diverted from the original subject. “Is it possible that any of those drugs on that list I found in Millie’s purse could have killed her?”

  “Of course,” Joe said. “But where are those meds? The cops didn’t find any prescription drugs. Of course the killer may have disposed of whatever was used.”

  Judith’s wide shoulders slumped. “I feel silly. I’ve been considering that Millie was poisoned by whatever must’ve been in the juice. I guess that was stupid of me.”

  Joe shrugged. “No, it was a logical conclusion. And God knows you’re a logical person. But it’s probably not what happened.”

  “Maybe,” Judith said, “I should have stuck to my vow not to sleuth anymore. I think I’ve lost my knack.”

  Joe laughed. “You got sidetracked. You always have gone about solving cases by trying on one idea, finding out it’s wrong, discarding it, and then moving on. It’s sort of the way you buy your clothes.”

  Judith narrowed her eyes at her husband. “Are you discouraging or e
ncouraging me?”

  “Neither one,” Joe asserted. “I know you, Jude-girl. You’re going to do exactly what you want.”

  Judith didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Maybe,” she finally murmured, “I followed the wrong trail because that’s what the killer wanted me—and the police—to do. What does Woody think?”

  “Early days,” Joe said. “You know Woody. He keeps his own counsel. He probably won’t speak out until he gets the autopsy results.”

  “So what do we do about the guests? We can’t keep them here under wraps.”

  Joe stretched and yawned as the grandfather clock struck nine. “You seem to think they actually live in the area. Let them check out Monday morning. It’s too bad you didn’t take a picture of Rodney’s driver’s license. I don’t suppose you noticed if it had expired.”

  “I didn’t.” Judith was sinking into unaccustomed gloom, her eyes focused on the Persian carpet under the coffee table. She suddenly lifted her head and fixed Joe with a hard stare. “Go upstairs and ask Rodney for the damned license. Then you can see for yourself.”

  “No thanks,” he replied. “Dealing with guests is your job, not mine. Except for making their breakfast, of course. Talk to him in the morning. He’s probably already asleep. Rodney looked dead on his feet.”

  The description made Judith shiver.

  As tired as she felt, Judith had trouble getting to sleep. Around midnight, she got out of bed and went into the den, where she called her cousin. Bill Jones went to bed around ten thirty, but his wife stayed up much later, often until going on 1 A.M. Renie swore that the later it got, the more creative she became.

  “Is your house on fire—again?” she asked instead of saying hello.

  “No,” Judith said glumly. “Let me explain why I’m an idiot.”

  “I’ve known that since I was six,” Renie shot back. “You couldn’t play Monopoly with me because you couldn’t read any of the cards. I had to wait a couple of years until you got to kindergarten.”

  “That was then, this is now,” Judith said, mildly annoyed. “Although mentioning Monopoly is appropriate in regard to the Schmuck bunch. They seem to be all about real estate. Meanwhile, I realized tonight that I went off on a tangent.”

  “Not one of those 1961 Tangents. They ran backward, you know.”

  “Coz . . . don’t joke. It’s late, I’m tired and frustrated. Let me pass on what Joe said about the poison source.”

  “Okay,” Renie responded. “I’ll assume my professional mien and hear you out.”

  Judith unloaded. “Be honest,” she added after finishing her spiel. “Am I getting too old to sleuth?”

  “You’re too old to run very fast from a killer,” Renie said, “but you can still think just fine. So you got off on the wrong track. So did the cops if they thought the poison might’ve been in the juice. In retrospect, that was probably the wrong reaction. Millie probably wasn’t the only one to drink whatever was on the table. Nobody else got sick, did they?”

  “Rodney still isn’t feeling very good,” Judith pointed out, “but he drank a lot yesterday and probably the night before. Heck, he could even have flu. It goes around in good as well as bad weather.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Renie agreed. “I had it for three days last June.”

  “Speaking of being sick,” Judith said, “I found a list of about twenty drugs I’ve never heard of in Millie’s purse. Why would she be carrying something like that around with her?”

  “For her alleged project? Maybe she planned to open a health spa.”

  The idea made some sense to Judith. “I’ll ask Belle about that tomorrow. She must know. She might’ve been involved in the project.” She winced, thinking of Millie’s plans. Whatever was in the works, getting murdered hadn’t been on the agenda.

  Chapter 9

  On Sunday morning, Judith felt as if she were operating in a fog instead of the off-and-on rain that spattered the kitchen window. The guests seemed subdued. Reverend Kindred and his wife, Elsie, had been the first to come into the dining room. He’d asked if he could hold a prayer service in the parlor after breakfast. Judith told him she thought that would be . . . nice. She couldn’t think of a better word.

  Joe, however, was chipper. “I slept like a log,” he told Judith. “You shouldn’t get yourself all worked up over this latest disaster. You should be used to mayhem by now.”

  “I’m used to mayhem,” Judith responded, “but how do you get used to murder? Even I can’t do that.”

  “I did,” Joe said. “I had to, working as a homicide detective. Woody and I both developed the skill of treating dead people as part of the human condition as well as part of the evidence. If we hadn’t, we’d never have been able to solve our cases.”

  Judith didn’t comment. She tried to smile when she brought the various breakfast items out to the dining room, but didn’t engage the guests in conversation. She noted that Belle and Clark were the last to arrive, straggling in just as the reverend and his wife were almost finished. Judith overheard him tell the young couple that they might want to join the rest of the group for prayers. Belle rejected the invitation.

  “What good will praying do for Mom?” she demanded. “If prayers didn’t help her stay alive, they won’t be of any use now.”

  “That’s not the point,” Elsie Kindred declared. “They’re for the rest of us to know that our only help is with the Lord.”

  Belle laughed. “Hey, Nerd,” she said to Clark, “I don’t think the Lord can help us. We need help to find where we can get some more weed. Let’s hit the stores on the top of the hill. There’s got to be someplace that does pot business on the side.”

  Judith and Joe had overheard the conversation. “If,” he murmured, “they have to go looking for pot, we can rule out drugs as part of the Schmuck scheme.”

  “I suppose,” Judith said. “I’m going to ask Belle about Millie’s project. I doubt it had anything to do with drugs, though I can’t figure out why Millie carried around a list of meds I didn’t even recognize. Maybe she planned to do something in the health field. For all we know, she may’ve had a medical background.”

  Joe chuckled. “Or she was a hypochondriac and knew a lot of doctors. The Schmucks brought one with them, after all.” He glanced in the direction of the dining room. “I’ll check Rodney’s driver’s license before we go to church. I can try one of your devious stunts and ask if he has a favorite photo of Millie in his wallet.”

  “As if,” Judith sniffed, “you didn’t have enough tricks of your own as a cop. I’ll do it. Did you forget you don’t like dealing with the guests?”

  Joe shrugged. “You’re right. They’re all yours.”

  She had her chance when Rodney ambled into the kitchen fifteen minutes later. “Hey, Mama,” he said, “any chance I can cadge a beer? It help settles my stomach.”

  “I’ve got some better remedies than that,” she replied. “How about Mylanta?”

  Rodney looked dubious. “Can you pour it in the beer?”

  Judith refrained from rolling her eyes. “You don’t need beer at nine thirty in the morning. Frankly, Rodney, you need to take care of yourself, especially now that poor Millie is gone. Would your prefer the Mylanta in liquid or tablet form?”

  “Awww . . .” Rodney turned sheepish. “You’re a good mother, Mama. Why weren’t you around when I was growin’ up?”

  It wasn’t easy for Judith to hold on to her patience, but she did it. “Sit down,” she said, indicating a kitchen chair and realizing Joe had gone upstairs to change into his churchgoing clothes. “Let me get you a couple of the chewable tablets from the drawer. You must be overcome with grief, but drinking too much won’t make it go away.”

  “It kinda does,” Rodney murmured. “At least for a little while.” He held out his hand for the tablets. “Okay, I’ll do this cold turkey.”

  Judith sat down at the table and waited for him to swallow the meds. She decided to skip the ruse for looking at Rodney
’s wallet and cut to the chase. “Where did you get that California driver’s license?”

  “In California,” Rodney replied with a flicker of indignation.

  “Is it valid?”

  “It was,” he mumbled. “It expired at the end of March.”

  “Have you been driving with it?”

  “Mama . . .” Rodney’s expression was reproachful. “I’d never do that.”

  Judith smiled. “That’s reassuring. So how do you get around?”

  Rodney turned away. “Well . . . I have another driver’s license. For this state.”

  “Is that because you actually live here?”

  He grimaced. “We do now. I mean . . .” Rodney had turned back to look at Judith. “That is, I do now. Poor Millie doesn’t.”

  “So you moved here recently,” Judith said.

  He nodded. “Earlier this month. I was born here, of course. Heck, you know that, Mama. But I moved to L.A. a long time ago. I had kind of a rough childhood without you.”

  Judith opened her mouth to insist that Rodney stop pretending she was his mother. But it occurred to her that maybe he really believed it. Rodney wasn’t the first person she’d met who was delusional. After all, Renie and Bill insisted that Oscar, their stuffed ape, was real. Or so they claimed. Judith decided to shift the subject away from Rodney’s youth.

  “Do any of the other guests actually live in L.A.?”

  “They all do,” Rodney replied. “They’re old friends of ours.” His pallor took on a touch of pink. “It might sound dumb, but I thought it’d make more of a splash around here if Millie and I were still living in L.A., too. It does have what do you call it? Something like pancake, except in French.”

  “Panache?” Judith suggested.

  “Yeah, right. That’s the word.” He hung his head. “Maybe that wasn’t a good idea. I mean, it seems kinda silly now.”

  Judith glanced at the schoolhouse clock and stood up. “I’m leaving for church. I’m glad you told me the truth. That is, I was really confused about certain things. It made me uneasy.”