Here Comes the Bribe

by Mary Daheim

  “My stepdad paid to have two rentals driven here,” Clark explained. “They’re parked out on the street. Stuart didn’t think we should take up space from the neighbors here in the cul-de-sac. He’s a lawyer, so he’s always afraid of getting sued.”

  “Yes,” Judith murmured. “I suppose he would be. Is Mr. Schmuck going with you?”

  “I guess.” Clark made a face. “He’s kind of a drag.”

  “His wife just died,” Judith said, forcing herself to remain cordial. “He’s taken her death very hard.”

  “Yeah, right, it’s a shame.” Clark jammed his hands into the pockets of his designer jeans. “I guess I should cut him some slack.”

  “By the way,” Judith said as Clark started to turn away, “did I hear or see something about you studying to become a minister?”

  “Huh?” Clark looked mystified.

  “I saw one of Reverend Kindred’s flyers,” Judith explained. “There was a mention of your name.”

  Clark laughed in a discordant manner. “Heck, no! I’m getting my Ph.D. in astrophysics. I only help out Kindred with his writing stuff for his sales and church pitches. He not only can’t write, I don’t think he can even spell. The rev dropped out of school in ninth grade. I better find Belle. We’re supposed to leave for the zoo in a few.”

  Judith felt as if she were already there.

  I won’t survive another half hour if you don’t come over here and save my sanity,” she told Renie over the phone. “Even if the guests have left for a few hours, I’m getting by only on fumes.”

  “From what Belle and Clark are smoking?” Renie asked.

  “Unfortunately, no. I might feel better if I smoked some funny stuff. Are you free to spend some time with me?”

  “I just ate breakfast,” Renie replied, “but I’m starting to wake up. Bill’s got a patient coming by at noon, so he won’t need the car.” She paused. “I wonder if I’m supposed to be working on something?”

  “It can wait,” Judith declared. “I can’t. But don’t start out if you’re still half asleep. I don’t want to have to rescue you.”

  “Don’t we always rescue each other?” Renie didn’t wait for an answer, but hung up.

  Judith was setting the phone on the counter when Charlie Crump peered over the half doors. “May I beg a favor?” he asked in a deep, yet uncertain voice that fit his rotund physique.

  “Of course. Come into the kitchen,” Judith said. “How can I help you, Mr. Crump?”

  Charlie opened the half doors to reveal that he was bundled up for a winter day in Nome. Judith tried not to stare at the heavy black overcoat, the beige wool muffler or the thick hand-knit gloves.

  “Would you happen to have any herbal tea?” he inquired. “I’ve run out of my own and didn’t think to buy any when we were out yesterday.”

  Judith grimaced. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any on hand.” Seeing the obvious disappointment on Charlie’s round face, she hastened to continue. “My cousin is stopping by shortly. I could ask her to pick up some at Falstaff’s Market. Do you have a cold?”

  The question may have seemed obvious, since Charlie had so obviously bundled himself. But he looked surprised. “Why, no. I find your climate here very damp. The air itself seems . . . moist.”

  “We do have quite a bit of drizzle,” Judith said. “It rarely rains very hard, really. When are you leaving for the zoo?”

  It was Charlie’s turn for a pained expression. “In about fifteen minutes, I believe.” He glanced at the schoolhouse clock. “Cynthia set eleven as our time of departure. Much of the zoo is outside, I assume?”

  “I believe so,” Judith replied, though she hadn’t been to the zoo for twenty years. “Natural habitats for the animals, when it’s possible.”

  Charlie shuddered. Or Judith thought he did, though it was hard to tell with all his heavy clothing. “Not the lions, I hope,” he said. “I must join Agnes. She’ll be worrying about me.” He plodded out of the kitchen.

  Judith picked up the phone and called Renie. “How soon are you leaving?” she asked her cousin.

  “In about half an hour, I guess,” Renie said. “Why? Are you that desperate for my company?”

  Judith explained about Charlie Crump’s request. Could her cousin come sooner?

  “No, I can’t,” Renie snapped. “Why doesn’t this bozo and the other wackos stop at the store and buy the damned tea? I’m not a shopping service.”

  “Doesn’t Bill drink herbal tea before he goes to bed?”

  “It’s called Sleepytime tea,” Renie declared. “Maybe it’s herbal, maybe it’s not. I don’t drink it and all I know is that it has a bear in a nightshirt on the box. Stop talking to me so I can finish waking up or I won’t be at your place until this afternoon.” She banged down the phone.

  It rang almost immediately. “Judith?” Woody said. “Is Joe there?”

  “No,” she replied. “In fact, he was headed for City Hall. He has a missing persons assignment for someone who works for the city. Did you give him the job?”

  “No, that would come from the department that employed whoever’s missing. I was calling to tell him we got the insurance data on Mrs. Schmuck.”

  “Do you want to give it to me so I can pass it on to Joe?” Judith asked in her most ingenuous voice.

  Woody chuckled softly. “Well . . . oh, why not? She had three different policies, totaling twenty-one million dollars. One policy would’ve been worth three times that much if she’d been dismembered.”

  “Oh, ugh!” Judith cried. “I don’t want to think about that!”

  “Maybe you should,” Woody said somberly. “That is, if foul play was involved.”

  “You mean because . . . Never mind, Woody. I find that idea upsetting.” Judith paused. “I assume you don’t have the autopsy report in yet?”

  “No, but we could get it later this afternoon,” he replied. “If we’re lucky. What time do you expect Joe to come home?”

  “I never know for sure,” Judith said, “but unless he’s on a stakeout probably around five thirty. You know what traffic’s like these days.”

  He assured Judith that he certainly did and rang off.

  Phyliss appeared in the kitchen, wielding a dust mop. “When can I start upstairs? Your heathen guests are milling around in the hall. Do I have to work around them?”

  “Actually, one of them is a minister. In fact, he seems to be highly regarded among the others,” Judith said, unable to resist the opportunity to see how her cleaning woman would react. “You might want to introduce yourself.”

  Phyliss’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of minister?”

  “The Christian kind,” Judith replied.

  The suspicion remained. “I’ll see about that.” Waggling the dust mop, she marched off down the hall. But before Phyliss could go farther than the back stairs, the Schmuck party came down the front stairs—and went out the door. Judith shrugged and thought about what to make for dinner. If the weather held, maybe they could barbecue. That would be Joe’s job. With guests usually arriving and the cocktail hour ritual to oversee, she never had time to get the coals started properly.

  Ten minutes later, Joe came in through the back door. Judith looked up from her recipe file. “What happened?” she asked in surprise.

  “The missing person was found,” Joe replied, shrugging out of his sport coat and coming into the kitchen to kiss his wife’s cheek.

  “Where did they find him?”

  “On the job,” Joe replied, pouring himself a cup of coffee. “He’d taken off early Friday and gone fishing for the weekend over in the eastern part of the state. His wife was out of town visiting her sister, so he decided to take off, too.”

  “Then who reported him missing?”

  “The neighbor. They’d been asked by Mrs. Ethanson to take in the mail. When the wife went over there Saturday, she found Ethanson’s official badge on the front porch. Mrs. Glubbet or whatever the neighbor’s name is thought there was something
sinister about it, so she panicked and called City Hall. Mrs. Ethanson isn’t due back until tonight.”

  Judith stared at Joe. “Ethanson? Ethan Ethanson?

  “Right.” Joe looked puzzled. “How did you know that?”

  “That was the name on the city inspector’s badge who was here Saturday,” Judith replied. “I wondered why he’d come on a weekend. This is all really strange because I think I saw him yesterday sitting in his car outside of the cul-de-sac as if he was keeping an eye on the immediate vicinity. How did he get hold of the real Ethanson’s badge?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t ask. Weird,” Joe muttered. “Why would anybody impersonate a city inspector?”

  Judith shrugged. “I’ve no idea. Unless it somehow involves our peculiar guests.”

  Joe fingered his chin. “Maybe I should track down Ethanson and ask if he knows why his badge ended up on his front porch. Of course he’s probably working in the field today.”

  “Maybe you can leave a call for him,” Judith suggested. “Oh! Woody called about Millie’s insurance policies.” Her dark eyes widened at revealing the large amount. “Twenty million dollars.”

  Joe whistled softly. “The Schmucks must be loaded. How can that be? Inheritance?”

  “That’s possible,” Judith allowed. “I can’t imagine Rodney pulling in big bucks as a motivational speaker.”

  “Those guys do, though,” Joe murmured. “It all sounds like bull to me, but what do I know? I’m a retired cop and a plebeian part-time PI.”

  Judith put her hand on his arm. “But I wouldn’t love you so much if you weren’t. Plebeian, I mean. After Dan died, I felt more like a pauper. He had no insurance and he’d never worked enough to have much Social Security or any kind of pension. You know that’s why I had to turn my family home into a B&B to make a living. Librarians don’t earn large salaries unless they’re administrators. I’d have hated that part. I wanted to help readers, not supervise staff.”

  “That’s because you’re a real person, Jude-girl.” He kissed her gently. “No autopsy report yet?”

  “No. Woody thought maybe this afternoon.”

  “He’ll be lucky if it’s that soon. I’m going to change. Speaking of that, the Subaru needs an oil change. I’ll take it to the Shell station over at MidBay after lunch. It’s too bad we don’t have a gas station on the hill anymore. I guess even the oil companies can’t afford a site around here.” Joe ambled out of the kitchen.

  It occurred to Judith that apparently the Schmucks could afford to buy property on Heraldsgate Hill. She wondered where they got so much money. And, because her mind sometimes worked in devious ways, she realized that how they’d acquired their wealth could be through ill-gotten gains. Often, money was a motive for murder.

  Chapter 14

  Renie arrived shortly after eleven thirty. “Joe’s home? Or did he take the bus to wherever he had to go on the ’tec job?”

  Judith explained what had happened with the not-so-missing city inspector. Renie looked puzzled. “Do you think the real Ethan was set up by the guy who came to the house? Are you sure he was the same man sitting in the car across the street? And why was he doing that?”

  Judith laughed. “You must be awake. You’re asking a lot of questions.”

  “That’s to keep my mind off the fact that you still haven’t made cookies. I already checked.” Renie went to the fridge and took out a can of Pepsi. “I’d cadge lunch off of you if I hadn’t finished breakfast less than an hour ago. Pancakes and lamb kidneys. Yum!”

  “Ick! Innards! How can you eat those things?”

  “As fast as I can get them in my big mouth,” Renie replied. “Well? Are you avoiding my queries?”

  Judith poured a cup of coffee and joined her cousin at the table. “I think that was the phony inspector outside the cul-de-sac. I’m fairly good at recognizing faces—unlike you. Remember years ago when you didn’t recognize your own mother at the Belle Époque Department Store?”

  Renie winced. “Only too late did I realize it was Mom. I was taking back the hideous plaid jacket she and Dad had given me for Christmas. You got one, too. Your mother had gone to the same sale, but you didn’t get caught returning yours. When Aunt Gert asked why you didn’t wear it, you told one of your monster fibs. You said you’d been mugged and the thief had stolen it. Of course she believed you, even though she should’ve known no respectable crook would have been seen in a police lineup wearing that ugly jacket. What were our mothers thinking?”

  “About the sale price,” Judith replied. “They do love a sale.”

  “So do we have a plan?” Renie asked.

  “A plan?” Judith paused. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead. But maybe we should visit some of the stores to see if Clark Stone’s wallet has been turned in. He thinks he lost it while he and Belle were shopping Saturday.”

  Renie seemed disinterested. “So? Why do you care? Let Clark Stone find his own blasted wallet. You’re not his babysitter.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Judith allowed, seeing Phyliss come into the hall from the back stairs.

  “I’m saved again!” she exulted, entering the kitchen. “Hallelujah!”

  “Oh, good grief!” Renie muttered, turning around to look at the cleaning woman. “How many times is this?”

  Phyliss took umbrage. “You Catholics have some strange ideas about being saved,” she declared. “All you do is show up and watch your priest say a lot of mumbo jumbo and make hand jive on the altar. I know, I went to one of your churches years ago. He finally talked in English for a few minutes, but his big message was needing more volunteers for bingo night. If that isn’t gambling and a sin to boot, I don’t know what is.”

  “No, you probably don’t know,” Renie responded. “That must’ve been fifty years ago. The Mass has been in English since the early 1960s. And we never played bingo in Latin.”

  Judith decided to intervene and looked at Phyliss. “I gather you met the Reverend Kindred?”

  “I did for a fact,” Phyliss replied, her gray sausage curls bobbing. “Fine Christian man. We had quite a coming-to-Jesus talk. I saw him before he went to the zoo. He made a comical joke about Noah and the Ark, but I can’t remember how it went. Something to do with aardvarks. Maybe if I prayed on it, I could remember.”

  Renie feigned a yawn. “Spare me. Did the rev offer to buy the apartment house where you live?”

  Phyliss scowled. “No. Why would he do that?”

  The exchange between the two women was giving Judith one of her headaches. “Never mind, Phyliss. Have you made the guest room beds?”

  “Just finished, praise the Lord,” Phyliss replied. “Mrs. . . . Twix?” She shrugged. “Whatever her name is insisted I shouldn’t bother, but I did up the rooms anyway after they went to the zoo.”

  “It’s Mrs. Wicks,” Judith murmured. “That’s fine. By the way, I bought a new ironing-board cover, but I haven’t put it on yet. It’s next to the dryer in the basement.”

  “You should ask Reverend Kindred to bless it,” Phyliss said. “He blessed my dust mop. He told me I reminded him of Martha in the Bible. You know, the one who did all the housework.” Looking pleased with herself, Phyliss stalked off back down the hall.

  Renie was looking bemused. Judith asked her why.

  “Because I know what you plan to do,” her cousin replied. “I’ll help you search their rooms, of course. They can’t stay all day at the zoo.”

  Judith glanced at the old schoolhouse clock. “I have to make Mother’s lunch first. Why don’t you go up to make sure Rodney left with the rest of them? If he stayed here, it doesn’t matter, really. I’ve already gone over Room One.”

  “Sure,” Renie said. “Why don’t you whip up a batch of cookies while you’re at it?”

  Judith didn’t bother to comment, but merely glared at her cousin.

  I’d forgotten how small Room Two is,” Renie remarked, glancing out the window. “When did you put a double bed in here? It barely fits.
Is it made of sponge?”

  “A couple of years ago,” Judith replied, opening the top bureau drawer. “I can put only slim people in here.”

  Renie examined a bong. “Belle and Clark probably don’t notice that the room’s not much bigger than my master bedroom’s closet. They may not know they’re in a room.”

  “Nothing much in these drawers—just clothes,” Judith noted before opening the small wardrobe. “Same here, except for a folder. Can you bend down to pick it up off the floor for me?”

  “Sure.” Renie obliged, but opened the folder before handing it to Judith. “Sheesh. Either Belle or Clark writes poetry—badly.” She paused, scanning the handwritten words. “It must be Belle’s. The first page is an ode to her mother. Oh, double gack! She must’ve been really bombed when she penned this crap. See for yourself.”

  Judith took a couple of sheets from her cousin. “‘Mom has a cloud for her shroud,’” she read to Renie. “‘I’d cry aloud if I didn’t know she’s proud of her cloud.’ I don’t think I can go on. It gets worse.”

  “How could it?”

  Judith took a deep breath. “‘Mom’s proud of her cloud, though it’s not a shroud and the music’s not loud, but sounds like tinkling bells and there are no smells. Sweet release and lots of peace.’ Trust me. It doesn’t get any better. What about the other stuff Belle wrote?”

  Renie scanned a few more pages. “Just more musings, unless you want to hear ‘Ode to Grass’ or ‘What I See When I Get High.’ There are writers who can put together some pithy stuff when they’re smoking weed, but Belle isn’t one of them.”

  “I don’t see anything else of interest in here,” Judith said. “Let’s move on. And remind me to fumigate this room when the Schmuck party leaves or else the next guests could get high just being in here.”

  “It’s a wonder Phyliss didn’t comment about the smell,” Renie said as they went into the hall.

  “She has sinus problems among her many other complaints. Maybe she didn’t notice.”