by Mary Daheim
“The airport?” Judith said in surprise. “You mean some of them are leaving town?”
“All of them, from what I happened to overhear through the keyhole while I was down on my hands and knees dusting the door to the parlor. It sounded as if they planned to take a flight this evening.”
“Oh, no!” Judith cried. “I mean . . . I’m not sure what I mean. Maybe I figured they were in for the long haul here.”
Arlene seemed puzzled. “What do you think they plan to haul?”
“I mean I thought they were going to stay . . .” Judith shook herself. “Never mind. The main thing is that you and Carl are safe.”
“I think we always were,” Arlene said. “But that doesn’t mean we weren’t concerned at first about their intentions. It was rather rude of them to insist we stay until Carl finished the yard and I cooked and cleaned the house. Of course, it was a change of pace to be undercover servants. Mrs. Kindred gave us a very nice check.”
“That’s great,” Judith said. “I’ve been feeling guilty for putting you and Carl in harm’s way.”
“Nonsense,” Arlene asserted. “It was a break in our routine. That’s always good. Unless it’s bad. Aren’t you going to do something about your cat? He was making quite a mess with that crow.”
“I thought it was a seagull,” Judith said.
Arlene frowned. “Maybe it was. As I just told you, it was quite a mess.”
“I’ll tell Joe about it,” Judith said vaguely. “Oh—do your kids know you’re home?”
“Yes.” Arlene looked disgusted. “I wondered why the mailbox was empty, so I figured one of them must’ve stopped by. I called Cathy right away. Honestly, why must children fuss so? It wasn’t as if we’d fallen into a den of thieves.”
Judith didn’t contradict her. But she felt Arlene was wrong.
Ten minutes later, Joe came downstairs. He set his valise by the back door and came into the kitchen. “I really hate leaving you alone for so long,” he said, putting his arms around Judith. “Promise you won’t do anything reckless while I’m gone?”
Leaning her head on his shoulder, she avoided looking in her husband’s eyes. “I won’t. You be careful, too.”
“Sure.” He kissed her lingeringly before letting go. “You make me want to get back home in a hurry.”
“Do that,” she said, smiling. “I’m already missing you.”
An hour later, she picked up Renie. “We’re not going to the shopping mall,” Judith told her cousin.
“We’re not? How come?”
“Apparently the nut jobs are leaving town,” Judith declared, and related the rest of her evening and morning conversations.
“Wow,” Renie said softly. “You get a lot done, even when you’re at home. Hey—does this detour mean we aren’t having lunch?”
“We’ll have a late lunch,” Judith responded.
“What if we’re dead?”
Judith glanced at Renie. “That’s about the only thing that could make you stop eating.”
“I plan on eating in heaven. If I get there, of course. I’d rather not go to hell, because of all the fires. The meat there must be really well done. So overcooked, no natural juices. I wonder if they have waiters in hell. I’ve known some who should be there.”
“Stop it,” Judith said. “I’m not in a very upbeat mood.”
“Okay.” Renie yawned. “Do you have an attack plan for the residents of Heaven’s Gate?”
“No. I plan to play it by ear.”
“Hmm. Playing things by ear always sounds odd to me. Have you ever tried to strum a guitar with one of your ears? Or put your head on the piano keys and just thump away?”
“Please don’t try to cheer me up,” Judith snapped.
“You couldn’t strum a guitar with both of your ears. At the same time, I mean.”
“Stop. Now. Just be quiet.”
Somewhat to Judith’s surprise, Renie shut up until they were turning off to Sunset Hills. The guard at the kiosk was the one who’d been on duty the first time they’d arrived. Judith rolled down the window. “Mr. and Mrs. Wicks at Heaven’s Gate,” she announced. “We’re here for a business meeting.”
To Judith’s relief, he nodded and opened the gates.
“No call to the house?” Renie said as they moved on.
“Maybe he remembered us from before,” Judith replied.
“But you lied about why we were here.”
“I did not lie,” Judith asserted. “I told a slight fib. The guard probably remembered only that we’d been here recently. He’s not about to ask for ID or pat us down.”
Renie squirmed in her seat. “I’m not sure I like doing this.”
“Then you should’ve stayed home.”
“I thought we were going shopping. And out to lunch. You deceived me. See? More lies.”
Judith slowed down as they approached Heaven’s Gate. “Only one car parked in the drive, which means they should be on the premises.”
“Which also means we’re outnumbered,” Renie muttered. “Why aren’t we armed? I could’ve brought one of Bill’s guns.”
“You’d end up shooting yourself. Or me. Please get out of the car.”
Renie complied, but let Judith go first. They waited a full minute before the door was opened.
“Mrs. Flynn!” Agnes Crump exclaimed, clutching her throat. “I thought you were the police!”
“What? Why?” Judith asked, startled.
“Because . . .” Agnes lowered her eyes. “I confessed.”
Judith wondered if the poor woman had lost her mind. “Confessed to what?”
Agnes stepped aside. “Come in. Please.” She didn’t close the door behind the cousins until she’d scanned the roadway. “No police cars in sight. Oh, dear. Maybe we should go into the study.”
Judith and Renie followed Agnes. The study was halfway down the hall on the left. It was a fairly small room, with bookcases lining both walls. Except for a few reference volumes and some popular paperback novels, the shelves were bare. Apparently Rodney and Millie Schmuck weren’t avid readers.
The only furnishings consisted of a bare table, a desk with a serviceable office chair, and two upholstered armchairs. Agnes moved behind the desk, indicating that her visitors should sit in the armchairs. When Judith and Renie were seated, Agnes sank into the office chair, clutching its arms as if she were afraid of sliding onto the floor.
“It’s terrible,” she said through lips that barely moved. Taking a deep breath, she turned her cornflower-blue eyes first on Judith, then on Renie, and back again to Judith. “I killed Millie.”
Judith forced herself to sound casual. “Why did you do that?”
Briefly, Agnes closd her eyes and her lips moved slightly, as if in prayer. “Millie didn’t know she was dying of brain cancer. Rodney took her to a clinic in Switzerland, but told her it was for him—he said he was having dizzy spells and the doctors he’d gone to here and in L.A. were no help. He told Millie she might as well get checked out while they were at the Swiss clinic. The doctors told him there was nothing they could do. Of course Millie had no idea she was so sick. It wasn’t until lately that her headaches really bothered her. She’d hardly slept the last few nights, I guess. I just wanted to help ease her pain.”
Judith nodded. “So how did you help her?”
Agnes flexed her fingers. “With wolfsbane. I take it for my arthritis. It’s an old-fashioned remedy. But honestly, it helps.”
“Wolfsbane,” Judith murmured. “Aconitum, right?”
“What?” Agnes looked blank.
“The scientific name for wolfsbane or monkshood is aconitum,” Judith said, still in a conversational tone. “Why did you give it to Millie?”
“She’d complained of a headache from the time she and Mr. Schmuck met us with that big limousine,” Agnes explained, flexing and unflexing her fingers. “I’ve used wolfsbane because it helps me. I know it’s an old-fashioned idea, but it really does. After we arrived at your
B&B, I asked Millie if her headache was better. She told me she still had it. I told her about wolfsbane, but she dismissed it as folklore.”
Judith didn’t argue the point. “So what did you do then?”
“I went out in your garden while the others were drinking wine in the living room,” Agnes replied. “I used to work in my garden for hours until my hands became so crippled. I saw that you had wolfsbane growing there, so I picked some.”
“I do?” Judith felt a twinge of guilt for having the lethal plant in her garden. But that was hard to avoid when so many common plants, shrubs, flowers, and trees were poisonous. “Go on,” she urged Agnes.
“The next morning when Millie went upstairs to see to her husband, I followed after her to ask if she still had her headache. I didn’t want to embarrass her in front of the others. I had the wolfsbane in my pocket and told her to mix some in water if she hadn’t gotten rid of the headache. She just laughed, so I left, thinking the headache must’ve gone away overnight. But I guess it hadn’t. Millie wasn’t one to complain.” Agnes lowered her eyes and started to cry.
Judith patted Agnes’s arm. “You meant to help, not harm her. In the long run, it was a mercy killing. Don’t feel guilty. Please, Agnes.”
“But . . . ,” Agnes snuffled, “she’s still dead!”
“You spared her a lot of misery,” Judith asserted. “Think of what you did as a blessing. Where was Rodney when this happened?”
Agnes sniffed some more and wiped her eyes with a rumpled handkerchief. “In the bathroom, I guess. He wasn’t in the room.”
“I thought the juice was for Rodney,” Judith said. “I don’t know why Millie drank it. If the amount was lethal, then either Rodney refused . . .” She stopped. “Any way you look at it, it was an accident.”
“I should go to confession,” Agnes declared, still dabbing at her eyes. “In fact, I thought maybe there’d be a priest hearing confessions at your church last Sunday.”
“No,” Judith replied. “With the priest shortage, we only have our pastor, Father Hoyle, at the rectory. But there’s a parish a mile north of here. Tomorrow’s Saturday, so they’ll probably have confessions.”
Agnes looked bleak. “We’re leaving tonight. What if the plane crashes and I die with this sin on my soul?”
Renie, who had grown restless in the armchair, waved a hand. “It’s not a sin to make a mistake. Get over it. If you’re worried about flying, get loaded like I do.”
“Coz!” Judith cried. “Don’t offer bad advice. It’s embarrassing when you stagger onto an airplane and cackle like a chicken.” She turned back to Agnes. “Why are you all leaving now?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Charlie told me it was time to go home. He said we were finished here.” She blew her nose before tucking the handkerchief back in her pocket. “I suppose I should pack.”
“Do that, Agnes,” Judith advised, standing up. “Keep busy. My cousin’s right, if a bit blunt. You performed a merciful act, so you have to stop feeling guilty. Please.”
Agnes didn’t say anything. Realizing there was nothing more she could add, Judith started out of the room with Renie right behind her.
“Poor woman,” Judith murmured when they were out in the hall.
“Cut it,” Renie snapped. “She’s one of those gloomy Catholics who enjoys wallowing in guilt. You’re right to tell her to go to confession. The priest will be bored and half asleep. He’ll give her some prayers to say as penance and send her on her way. Maybe then she’ll feel better. Or not.”
“Now you sound like Arlene,” Judith chided.
“Arlene’s contagious,” Renie said. “In a good way, of course.”
“Right.” She grinned at Renie. “Or not.”
Renie laughed. “Now who do we confront?”
“Whoever we see first. I wonder where the rest of them are?”
She’d barely gotten the words out when Elsie Kindred appeared from a room off to their right. “What are you doing here?” she asked in an anxious voice.
Judith chose candor. “Your group reneged on the payment to the B&B. I’d like to get a cashier’s check. I’m not leaving without being paid. Where’s Stuart Wicks?”
Elsie’s dark eyes darted in every direction. “He . . . he left a few minutes ago. With some of the others. They had some business to do.”
“What kind of business?” Judith asked.
“Outside.” Elsie frowned and bit her lip.
“You mean in the garden?”
“Well . . . in a way. But they went somewhere else first.”
“How come?”
The color rose in Elsie’s face. “To get some equipment.”
“Equipment?” Judith glanced at Renie.
Her cousin took the cue. “What kind of equipment?”
“I don’t know for sure,” she replied. “Clayton mentioned renting a truck—a pickup truck, I think.” Elsie grimaced. “As the Good Lord is my witness, I’m not sure what they’re doing.”
Judith nodded faintly. “Who else is here now?”
“My husband, George; Sophie, along with Agnes,” Elsie replied.
“Yes, we talked to Agnes,” Judith said. “You’re a nurse, Elsie. I’m curious about Rodney’s drinking. It bothers me. Has he been addicted to alcohol for a long time or were his current bouts with the bottle triggered by Millie’s death?”
Elsie frowned. “I haven’t really known the Schmucks for all that long,” she said, nervously rubbing her upper arms. “Of course George and I rarely imbibe except for a glass of wine on social occasions. Now that I think about it, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Rodney take more than one drink of any kind.”
“So,” Judith suggested, “his recent drinking is an aberration.”
“I guess so,” Elsie allowed. “When I mentioned it to Sophie—since she’s a doctor—she told me it was good for him, given his grief. A temporary release from reality, is the way she put it. In fact, Sophie seemed to encourage him, now that I look back on the last few days.”
“Sophie’s another self-serving twit,” Renie declared. “You all used both Millie and Rodney in your real estate schemes.”
Elsie’s face crumpled. “That’s harsh,” she asserted in a tremulous voice. “Despite what you may think, George does try to be a good Christian. He discovered that Rodney still had the Swiss clinic’s findings in his luggage. None of us wanted Millie to realize she was so ill. My husband destroyed the official diagnosis and removed what was left from the premises.”
Judith thought back to the residue Carl and Arlene had found in their garbage. “I wondered what had been . . .” she began, but stopped as she heard a commotion outside.
The front door flew open. A dozen men, half of them armed and in uniform, charged into the house. “Police!” they shouted. “Please stand against the wall.”
Renie moved closer to Judith. “Does that mean us?” she whispered.
“I guess,” Judith said—and followed instructions.
The uniformed cops began opening doors. Judith realized they were state patrol officers. Two men in plainclothes asked Elsie to identify herself and if she was a resident of the house. In a nervous voice, she told them she was a visitor. The men moved on to the cousins.
“And you?” the taller of the two men said to Judith.
“Judith Flynn,” she said. “I’m also visiting.”
“Me, too,” Renie chimed in, at her most ingenuous. “I’m Serena Jones and I reserve the right to talk as much as I want. But not right now.” She gave the officer her cheesiest grin.
“Idiot,” Judith growled at Renie out of the corner of her mouth as the duo kept going down the hall.
Elsie turned to the cousins. “Where is Agnes?” she asked in a worried voice.
Judith gestured at the study. “In there. Maybe you should get her to come out.”
Elsie looked at the half-dozen cops who were by the front door. “Dare I move?”
Judith shrugged. “I don’t see why n
ot. We’ve identified ourselves. Do you know why they’re here?”
“I don’t want to know,” the preacher’s wife said grimly. “I’d better see to Agnes. She’s been rather upset lately.” Elsie headed for the study,
Renie stared at Judith. “Well? What’s next on your battle plan?”
Judith smiled. “I think our work here is done.”
“What grounds are they busted on?”
“The grounds,” Judith replied. “As in digging up that chest of coins, for one thing. I hope they catch them in the act. I’m guessing that’s why they rented a truck. But there may be other, more serious charges. Extortion, maybe fraud.”
“You mean trying to inveigle people out of their property for unfair prices?”
“That’s my other guess,” Judith said. “I suppose we could ask.”
Renie looked skeptical, but she followed her cousin to the front door. Judith approached one of the state patrolmen.
“What’s the problem here?” she inquired.
“Sorry,” the dark-skinned young man replied. “We’re not allowed to give out information.”
Judith nodded, noting that the officer’s nameplate identified him as L. B. Hermanson. “I understand. But would you call Captain Woodrow Price in the city’s first precinct? I can give you his direct number.”
Hermanson seemed taken aback. “Captain Price? You know him?”
“Yes,” Judith said. “He used to be my husband’s partner when they worked as homicide detectives.”
“Excuse me,” the officer murmured. “I have to check with someone.” He walked over to another state patrolman who, judging from his brass, slashes, and the two bars on his uniform, was his superior. The senior officer stared at Judith, then spoke into his cell. After a brief exchange, he motioned for the cousins to come down from the porch.
“You’re free to leave,” he said. “We’ve been in touch with Captain Price as well as the chief of police.”
Judith smiled. “Thank you.” She started down the steps.
The captain turned as she walked past him. “Are you really FATSO?” he inquired under his breath.