Hocus Croakus

by Mary Daheim

  “Can it,” Bill said under his breath.

  Renie made a face at her husband. “You don’t know how good a rainbow trout can be. You’re from Wisconsin. You people eat awful things, like sunfish and Midwestern pike.”

  “That’s Northern pike,” Bill corrected.

  “So what?” Renie said with a sneer. “They swim in all those mosquito-infested lakes in the upper Midwest. That can’t make them tasty or healthy.”

  “I’ve never seen a fish with mosquito bites,” Bill countered. “Shut up and order the crab. It suits you.”

  Judith decided it was time to intervene. “Bill, tell Joe about the reaction you got at the cabin today.”

  While Bill related his visit to the cabin and the waitress took the foursome’s orders, Judith’s mind drifted. So did her eyes, which scanned the coffee shop, trying to locate any members of the Mandolini troupe. It was only when she was finishing her entrée of halibut cheeks that she spotted Lloyd Watts, by himself, being seated across the room.

  “I have to go to the bathroom,” Judith announced, gobbling up the last two bites of halibut. “Excuse me.”

  She dashed away before anyone could say anything. Making an end run at the front of the coffee shop, Judith came back to approach Freddy Polson’s associate.

  Lloyd was absorbed in reading the menu. Cautiously, Judith pulled out the empty chair from the table for two. “May I?”

  The young man gave a start, then frowned before recognition dawned. “Mrs. Flynn? Sure, go ahead.”

  Judith explained that she and Joe and their relatives were seated at another table. “I just happened to notice you when I came back from the rest room,” she fibbed. “I thought I’d stop by to ask how everyone in the troupe is doing.”

  Shrugging, Lloyd set the menu down. “How you would expect. Everybody—well, almost everybody—liked Sally. Had a way about her, she did.”

  “I met her shortly before she was killed,” Judith said. “Sally seemed very pleasant.”

  “Pleasant. Yes, she was that. And more.” Lloyd looked wistful.

  Judith spoke softly. “You were fond of her, I take it?”

  “Yes.”

  Judith tried to remember what little she knew so far about Lloyd Watts. “You must have met Sally and Freddy about the time their marriage was breaking up.”

  Lloyd gave a single nod.

  “In Sun Valley, right?”

  He nodded again.

  “That must have been a difficult time for them both,” Judith remarked.

  He opened his mouth to answer, but the waiter interrupted. After ordering chicken-fried steak and a green salad, Lloyd resumed answering Judith’s question. “In a way.” He paused. “It was…how do you say it? Amicable, eh?”

  “Yes,” Judith agreed. “That’s the term. Sally and Freddy were fortunate. So many marriages end in rancor and hostility.”

  Lloyd said nothing. Instead, he picked up the plastic salt and pepper shakers and covered them with a paper napkin. With a quick glance at Judith, he removed the napkin to reveal a deck of cards split into four piles divided by suit. As Judith gasped, Lloyd hid the cards with the napkin, waited a couple of seconds, and then removed it again. The salt and pepper shakers reappeared; the cards were gone.

  “Look under the menu,” he said.

  Carefully, Judith lifted the menu that Lloyd had earlier placed to his right. Sure enough, the cards were there.

  Judith grinned at Lloyd. “I won’t ask how you did that. You wouldn’t tell me.”

  “Can’t,” Lloyd said with a helpless gesture. “Trick of the trade.”

  “And a fairly easy one, I’ll bet,” Judith remarked. “If you know how.”

  Lloyd nodded in an offhand manner. “Parlor tricks. I could teach—”

  The coffee shop was plunged into darkness. Judith was so shocked that she couldn’t utter a sound. Others, however, cried out in surprise and fear. A clatter of plates and the breaking of glassware sounded nearby. Someone—a man with an accent—uttered obscenities.

  Judith finally found her voice. “How can this happen twice?” She stopped speaking as a sense of dread overwhelmed her. She was certain that the first outage had been caused deliberately to mask the dreadful deeds surrounding Sally’s murder. Was this an encore? Perhaps the restoration after the original failure had gone awry. A plain old-fashioned short circuit would be reassuring.

  The familiar shouts and sounds of scurrying feet could be heard in the darkness. So could a strident female voice issuing a threat: “Touch that last Dungeness crab leg and prepare to die!”

  Renie, Judith thought with a small sense of relief. At least something was still normal out there in the midnight gloom.

  Judith felt someone jostle her arm and grunt in what sounded like an apology. She said nothing for a few moments, until lighted candles began appearing like so many fireflies around the room. As a waiter placed one of the candles on the table across the aisle, Judith adjusted her eyes to the flame’s amber glow.

  “Weird, eh?” Lloyd wore a wry expression, his fists propping up his chin.

  “Very weird,” Judith replied. “Scary, too.” She turned to look behind her, toward the front of the coffee shop. Near one of the bussing stations, broken glass caught the flickering candlelight like diamonds in a tiara. Or rhinestones on a poodle, Judith thought.

  Beyond the scattered glass and china shards, the blonde from the bar stood frozen. Fou-Fou the poodle panted at her owner’s side, then let out a high-pitched, haunting howl.

  The blonde turned slowly toward the dog, and as she did, the candlelight bounced off the object she held in her hand.

  Judith gasped. It was a saber, and it dripped with blood.

  Two seconds later, the lights came back on. Judith stood up to look across the room. Joe was also on his feet, his eyes fixed on the blonde who was holding the bloody saber.

  “Stay in your places, please,” Joe ordered as he moved swiftly toward the woman, who appeared to be dazed. His voice was calm but carried to the farthest reaches of the coffee shop. Even the chef and his cooks stood at attention behind the service counter. The hostess, however, had taken a few hesitant steps in the blonde’s direction.

  Joe raised a hand to forestall her. “I’m Detective Joe Flynn. Let me handle this.”

  The poodle was pawing the tiled floor even as his mistress stared blankly into the coffee shop. Judith strained across the distance of thirty feet to see what was happening. Joe didn’t touch the woman, but spoke so softly that Judith couldn’t hear. The woman was unresponsive; the poodle was still agitated.

  Joe turned, his gaze traveling around the big room as if he were trying to memorize each face and reaction. “We have to make sure the restaurant is secure, so please be patient,” he requested as his discerning eye stopped at the rear exit. Jack Jackrabbit had just come through the door. “Here’s the tribal detective now,” Joe announced. “He’ll be able to make sure everything is all right. Meanwhile, enjoy your meal.”

  Excited, even frenzied voices erupted at table after table. Jack joined Joe just as a woman’s piercing scream could be heard in the distance.

  Judith couldn’t stand it. She jumped to her feet, heedless of Joe’s warning, careless of the crumbs on her black slacks, oblivious to the frightened diners who gaped at her temerity.

  “Hey,” Lloyd said in a worried tone, “shouldn’t you…sit?”

  “I’ve sat long enough,” Judith said grimly. “This place is out of control.”

  But even as she advanced, Pancho Green and Dr. Engelman were hurrying toward the coffee shop. Jack Jackrabbit indicated the immobile blonde, then raced after Joe in the direction of the rest rooms just beyond the cashier’s counter.

  Pancho was seething. “What the hell is going on around here?” he demanded under his breath as he pointed to the woman, who still clutched the saber. “What is this?”

  Judith opened her mouth to answer, but gave a start when Bill moved quietly to intervene. “This
person appears to be in a catatonic state.”

  Pancho stared at Bill, then looked at Judith. “She is?”

  “No,” Bill answered patiently, “not her. The blonde.”

  “Who are you?” Pancho asked, his chin thrust out at Bill.

  “I’m a doctor,” he replied, “of psychology. Let me be more specific. I believe she’s suffering from organic psychosis, which often produces the same symptoms as schizophrenia.”

  “That’s true,” Dr. Engelman put in.

  Renie had come up behind Bill. “Can you help her?”

  “Not at this point.” Bill turned to Dr. Engelman. “Have you got gloves with you?”

  “No,” Engelman replied, “but I can get some from the chef’s crew.” A tall, lean man of about seventy, the physician strode off to the kitchen.

  For lack of anything better to do, Judith tried to comfort the poodle. “There, there, Fou-Fou,” she whispered, “it’s going to be fine. Dr. Bill is here.”

  “Ah!” Pancho exclaimed, wagging a finger at Bill. “I remember! You’re somehow related to Joe Flynn.”

  Bill acknowledged that that was so. Two of the security guards appeared with a gurney, apparently having been summoned by the restaurant hostess. Dr. Engelman returned, holding several pairs of sanitary gloves in his hand.

  “Two for you, two for me,” the doctor said, handing a pair to Bill.

  After slipping on the gloves, Bill slowly began prying the blonde’s fingers from around the saber’s hilt. Thumb, forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, pinky. Judith held her breath. One of the guards produced a large plastic bag. Bill now held the saber, and was frowning at the blood. With a careful, deliberate motion, he slipped the weapon into the bag.

  The blonde collapsed onto the tiles like a rag doll.

  Judith and the others stared at the motionless body on the floor. Bill told the guards to put her on the gurney. Pancho asked if an ambulance had been called. One of the guards said that it had.

  Bill, however, shook his head, then glanced at Dr. Engelman. “Do you think she needs to be hospitalized?”

  Engelman stroked his goatee as he studied the blonde’s inert form. “Not really,” he replied as he turned to Pancho. “Except for liability reasons, she could probably stay here.”

  “But obviously something’s wrong with her,” Pancho declared. “I’ll make the call. She goes to the hospital in Glacier Falls. It’s small, but they can handle it. If not, down the line, they’ll send her on to a bigger hospital.”

  Engelman shrugged his sloping shoulders. “That’s up to you. Better safe than sorry, of course.” He looked at Bill again. So did the others.

  “How do you know there’s nothing seriously wrong with her?” Renie asked. “You said yourself she’s suffering from…what was it? Organic psychosis?”

  “That’s right,” Bill agreed, removing the gloves. “Which is another way of saying she’s dead drunk.”

  Dr. Engelman opted to accompany the woman to the hospital. Feeling bewildered as well as worried about what had happened to Joe and Jack in the rest room area, Judith idly brushed the crumbs from her slacks. They felt gritty, like sand.

  “Drat,” she murmured to Renie, “I can’t get this stuff off my…” It suddenly dawned on Judith that she hadn’t eaten anything while she was seated with Lloyd Watts.

  “You’re all sparkly,” Renie said. “What have you’ve got all over yourself? It looks like that glitter stuff women wear for festive occasions.”

  Judith studied both her hands and her slacks. “It is glitter stuff. Where’d it come from?” She looked around the coffee shop, where the guests were still abuzz. “There aren’t any decorations with gold glitter. Hunh. I don’t get it.”

  She was still puzzling over the glitter and trying to wipe it off with a damp napkin from the bussing station when Joe came out of the rest room area. Judith saw at once that he was wearing his professional expression. But instead of joining his wife, he went straight to Pancho Green. With Renie at her side, Judith moved forward a few steps to hear.

  Neither of the cousins could make out what Joe said. But Pancho’s voice rang out clear and horrified.

  “No! How can that be? Not another murder!”

  TEN

  JUDITH WAS ALMOST crushed by the panicky guests, who started a stampede out of the coffee shop. Chairs and tables were overturned, glassware crashed, silver rattled, and china shattered as at least three dozen diners made their way toward the exit.

  They didn’t get very far. Someone had already roped off the entrance from the casino floor to the coffee shop. Emily and her fellow security guard, Amos, maintained an implacable stance, arms folded across their chests and feet planted firmly apart.

  Nudging and shoving, Judith managed to worm her way out of the crowd. Finally reaching the upholstered bench where guests waited to be called to a table, she collapsed. Her hip seemed intact, but her nerves were frazzled. There was no sign of Joe, who was undoubtedly surrounded by the crowd that scrambled around the restaurant entrance.

  But Judith did see her cousin weaving her way toward the bench. Being small, Renie was able to wind between tall legs and slip through minute gaps between people. A pinch here, a poke there, and an occasional “Lady-with-a-baby-coming-through” abetted her progress. She was also prone to swear, which she was now doing, an ear-jarring stream of obscenities that caused human obstacles to give way.

  “I thought you were being trampled,” Renie panted as she flopped down on the bench next to Judith. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” Judith retorted. “How could I be okay? This is the worst vacation I’ve ever taken.”

  “I know,” Renie agreed. “But this little mob isn’t anything like our audience with the pope in Rome almost forty years ago. At the time, I was sure we’d be killed by devout Christians of every color and country.”

  “You hid in a confessional, as I recall.”

  “With an African-American schoolteacher from Tennessee who was a Methodist.” Renie took a deep breath. “We bonded.”

  “So who’s dead now?” Judith asked as the crowd began to quiet.

  “I don’t know,” Renie replied. “When I saw you getting swept away, I took the low road to your battered side.”

  “Whoever it was,” Judith said, “must have been killed in one of the rest rooms. I’d like to find out who has the savvy to turn off the power in this place.”

  “Maybe you just throw a switch,” Renie suggested. “You know, like at home, when you hit the one marked Main on your fuse box.”

  “I wonder,” Judith murmured. For a moment she regarded the milling crowd with an eye of detachment. “Are we the only ones here who aren’t freaking out?”

  “We,” Renie reminded Judith, “are probably the only ones who have had encounters with multiple corpses. We’re numb.”

  “I don’t want to be that way,” Judith countered. “I want to care. I want to feel the senselessness of it, the tragedy.”

  “Right.” Renie looked up at the ceiling.

  Judith poked her cousin in the arm. “I mean it. Let’s face it, you’re kind of hard-hearted. That is, you’re more like my mother and I’m more like yours. Aunt Deb and I can empathize with the pain of others. You and Mother—well, you’re both tougher.”

  “It’s armor,” Renie said. “Aunt Gert and I shield ourselves from life’s horrors. It’s the only way we can survive. Who knows? Maybe deep down, we’re more sympathetic, but we have to act tough to keep from going under.”

  Judith studied Renie’s profile, pug nose, short chin, and all. “Maybe.”

  It appeared that Emily and Amos were allowing diners to leave after giving names and room numbers or local addresses. The crowd thinned out. But Judith still couldn’t see Joe. The two security guards remained in charge of the area outside the rest rooms, conducting their duties in a professional manner.

  “Joe and the others must be in one of the rest rooms with the body. Let’s go look,” Judith said, st
anding up. She had taken only a step when she espied G. D. Fromm, Freddy’s manager, coming out of the coffee shop. “Odd,” Judith whispered, “I don’t recall seeing him before the lights went out.”

  “Were you looking for him?” Renie asked, then answered her own question. “Of course you were. Or for any of the other Mandolini act hangers-on. I saw you come from Lloyd’s table.”

  Judith spotted Lloyd, still at his table, calmly eating chicken-fried steak. Of all the customers in the coffee shop, he looked the least affected by the shocking events of the past quarter hour. His demeanor struck Judith as odd. Or maybe not. Lloyd was a bit different, no doubt because of his creative nature. Judith figured he must have the ability to become totally focused in order to develop and carry out his illusions.

  She watched Fromm pass muster with the security guards and bustle out of the coffee shop area. Just as she and Renie crossed over to the rest rooms, Bill emerged, looking grim.

  “You don’t want to go in there,” he said to the cousins. “It’s not a pretty sight. Joe’s still with the victim.”

  “Who is it?” Judith asked, her voice strident.

  Bill removed a small notebook from his pocket. A deliberate man who gave life to the cliché “absentminded professor,” he tended to write everything down, including the names of his children.

  “Micaela Consuela Mendoza.”

  “Micki!” Judith cried. “But I spoke with her just a few minutes before we came down to dinner!”

  “Apparently,” Bill noted dryly, “whatever you said didn’t prevent her from being stabbed to death.”

  Judith waved her hand in a frustrated manner. “You know what I mean. She was alive. She certainly didn’t act as if she was afraid of anything or anyone.”

  Bill frowned. “Irrelevant.”

  “No,” Judith said sharply. “Maybe not.” She lowered her voice so that only Bill and Renie could hear. “Micki was in our room when I got back before dinner. She was about to tell me who killed Sally when Joe interrupted her. At that point, she left.”