by Mary Daheim
“No,” she answered—and kept on going. Sometimes, Judith thought, the usually reticent Woody Price talked too much.
After a stop for lunch to shut up a suddenly hungry Renie, Judith got home a little after three. She immediately checked phone messages. The first was for a reservation in late June. The second was from Belle.
“Dad and I checked out of the hotel,” she said. “I tried to call Clark, but I got a recording. Then I phoned Heaven’s Gate. Nobody answered. Oh, well. I’m taking Dad back there anyway. It is his home and we have to plan Mom’s services. They’ll be private, though. I don’t want to see any of those other people ever again, not even Clark. Hey, you were really nice to both of us. Dad misses you and told me to give Mama his love.”
Judith had barely hung up the phone when Joe came through the back door. “What on earth . . . ?” she cried. “Did the MG break down?”
“No,” he replied, putting his arms around her and grinning. “You’re in one piece. I’m only semisurprised.”
Judith assumed an innocent expression. “I told you I wouldn’t do anything that might upset you. Renie and I had lunch at . . .” She saw the glint in Joe’s green eyes. “Magic eyes,” she’d always called them. “What?”
“I went to see Woody,” Joe said. “How were things at Heaven’s Gate?”
Judith stepped away from her husband and glared at him. “You didn’t go to the state capital.”
“I didn’t have to,” he replied airily. “Woody called them, along with some other law enforcement types. The California cops and the feds have been onto your former guests for some time. They make a nasty habit of trying to scam people out of their property all over the West.”
Judith slumped onto a kitchen chair. “But their backgrounds were checked.”
Joe sat down on the other side of the table. “That’s right. They’re who they say they are. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t a bunch of crooks. Ever hear of white-collar crime?”
“Of course I have,” Judith retorted. “I thought you’d disassociated yourself from what was going on, especially after you told me to butt out. How long have you been working this case behind my back?”
“Oh . . .” Joe ran a hand over his high forehead. “Only since Monday, really. That is, after I talked to Woody. He’d heard something about the gang’s operations. This was the first time they tried to pull anything around here, though.”
Judith was still annoyed. “How come you didn’t start interviewing them while they were still here? I mean, in a casual way.”
Joe shrugged. “I hadn’t been really chummy with that bunch from the start. Switching gears and chatting with them might’ve made them suspicious. Besides, they were gone by Tuesday morning.”
“Were Millie and Rodney part of the scam?” Judith asked, beginning to simmer down.
Joe shook his head. “They always pick a pair of local pigeons as a front. Maybe they had to wait until somebody they knew who had money moved here from L.A. The Schmucks suited their purposes to a T.”
“T for Traitors,” Judith murmured. “Belle didn’t know, did she?”
“No,” Joe said, “but she was still in L.A. finishing up her last college semester down there. Belle was their link to the Schmucks.”
Arlene burst through the back door. “I’m furious! I took the Wickses’ check to the bank. I asked the teller to make sure it was good. But it wasn’t.”
Judith forced herself not to laugh. “They suckered you, too?”
“Yes,” Arlene said. “Imagine! All that hard work we put in out there! They even wanted me to polish the heirloom sterling silverware.”
“Did you?”
“No,” Arlene replied indignantly. Her blue eyes suddenly sparked. “I decided to bring it with us instead.”
Judith couldn’t hide her surprise. “To clean it?”
Arlene shook her head. “To keep it.” She glanced at Joe. “Of course you might call that stealing.” She paused. “Or not.”
Just before the guests started arriving, the phone rang. “Mama!” Rodney shouted. “Guess what? Everybody’s gone from our house! What happened? Never mind, you probably don’t know. But I wanted to tell you that it’s really great to be living so close to you, Mama, and I hope we can see a lot of—hold on, Belle’s calling to me . . .”
Judith took a deep breath and shook her head. Would she never get rid of Rodney and his misconception about her identity? She could hear faint voices in the background, and after a couple of minutes, she was tempted to hang up. Or have her phone number changed. But that would be bad for business. She was still mulling over her options when Rodney came back on the line.
“The dangedest thing just happened,” he said in a wondering voice. “Somebody who calls herself Judith Grover just showed up and says she can prove she’s my mother. How can that be? Wait, she’s got a birth certificate . . . Well, I’ll be a . . . Hold it . . .”
He turned away from the phone. “Coins? . . . No kidding! For me, Mama? Oh, wow! Hey,” he said into Judith’s ear, “gotta go! But I’ll always remember you, even if I’m not your little boy!”
“That’s so kind of you, Rodney. It was nice to meet . . .”
But Rodney had hung up. Judith smiled ironically as she set the receiver on the counter. Yes, it was sweet of him to say he’d remember her.
But Judith would prefer to forget.
About the Author
MARY RICHARDSON DAHEIM is a Seattle native with a degree in communications from the University of Washington. Realizing at an early age that getting published in books with real covers might elude her for years, she worked on daily newspapers and in public relations to help avoid her creditors. She lives in her hometown in a century-old house not unlike Hillside Manor, except for the body count. Daheim is also the author of the Alpine mystery series and the mother of three daughters.
www.marydaheimauthor.com
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Also by Mary Daheim
Clam Wake
Gone with the Win
The Wurst Is Yet to Come
All the Pretty Hearses
Loco Motive
Vi Agra Falls
Scots on the Rocks
Saks & Violins
Dead Man Docking
This Old Souse
Hocus Croakus
Silver Scream
Suture Self
A Streetcar Named Expire
Creeps Suzette
Legs Benedict
Snow Place to Die
Wed and Buried
September Mourn
Nutty as a Fruitcake
Auntie Mayhem
Murder, My Suite
Major Vices
A Fit of Tempera
Bantam of the Opera
Dune to Death
Holy Terrors
Fowl Prey
Just Desserts
Credits
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover illustration © Bill Mayer
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
HERE COMES THE BRIBE. Copyright © 2016 by Mary Daheim. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN 978-0-06-231829-9
EPub Edition APRIL 2016 ISBN: 9780062318312
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