by Mary Daheim
Renie looked disturbed. “I’m afraid so. Ugh, I don’t like it. Riley was so convincing when he talked about painters seeking Truth. I hate to think that he didn’t just paint a lie, but was actually living one. It’s possible, I suppose.”
Judith began to set the table. “There was a chance Ward might see Lark’s work out in the world and recognize it. But Ward’s not a well man. In the natural scheme of things, Riley would have outlived Ward. He might have counted on Ward pegging out very soon.” Judith flung herself onto the chair as Renie speared hot dogs out of the kettle. “Now think about it, coz. It’s one thing for Ward to be outraged because Riley seduced his—Ward’s—daughter. It’s something else for Riley to lead Lark on if she was in fact his daughter. What do you suppose those two men were really quarreling about?”
“Whew!” Renie handed Judith the mustard. “This gets uglier by the minute.” She chewed at her lower lip. “It sure doesn’t get any clearer.”
Judith took a bite of hot dog. “Think motive. Ward might not be Lark’s biological father, but he’s been a father to her, if you know what I mean.”
Renie gazed with unblinking brown eyes at Judith. “I do know. But not as well as you do.”
To her dismay, Judith flushed. The subject of Mike’s father was still touchy. She and Joe had not felt it was yet time to tell Mike the truth. He had grown up believing that Dan McMonigle was his father, and perhaps it was best to leave well enough alone. The priority was for Mike to accept Joe first as his stepfather. The rest might—or might not—come later. “Let’s leave my problems out of this. Ward must have been absolutely wild about Riley’s seduction. In fact, it makes me wild, too. We’re talking incest, coz. That’s nasty.”
“Not as nasty as these hot dogs. Do they look a little green to you?”
Judith gave Renie a look of reproach. “Knock it off. Can’t you ever take life seriously?”
Renie’s brown eyes danced. “Not when I’m eating. Go on.”
“Next, we’ve got Iris. She gets the property, which is, frankly, minimal, and not worth killing for. But she’s head of the Riley Tobias Foundation. What does that mean? Does that enable her to dispose of Riley’s estate at her whim? Is it a power trip?”
“We can discount Iris,” Renie said. “We were with her when she found Riley. Besides, Iris knew Lark was no real threat, at least not in the long run.”
Judith nodded over her glass of orange juice. “Remember what that tape said—‘Be my lover, my etc.’ Riley was urging Lark to do something in the future. At least you could interpret it that way. Lark claimed they were lovers. What does that mean? They snuggled? They kissed? They canoodled? In less explicit days, it didn’t necessarily mean they were jumping in and out of the sack.”
“True,” Renie agreed. “So we cross out jealousy and insert money and possibly power as far as Iris is concerned. What about Good Ol’ Clive?”
“We already talked about him, as well as Dewitt and, by implication, Erica. A failing artist wasn’t worth as much to Clive Silvanus as a dead genius. And Clive was reportedly seeking out new clients.” Judith snapped off a carrot stick.
“Something else bothers me,” Renie remarked, lavishly salting her celery. “Why would Erica—who seems like a shrewd cookie—permit seventy grand to be paid out for a painting she hasn’t got?”
Judith gave up trying to get any more catsup out of the squeeze bottle. “Maybe she gave her husband carte blanche while she was in Europe. If she was in Europe. As for the Dixons’ motive, individually or collectively, I don’t know. They purchase a very expensive painting from an artist who used to be married to Ms. Dixon. Money exchanges hands, the artist is murdered, and the painting supposedly disappears. What’s the connection with Riley’s death? Maybe…” Judith bit her lip, not quite ready to spin out the thought that was beating at her brain.
“You’re forgetting Lazlo Gamm,” Renie reminded Judith.
“It’s not hard. Lazlo is a phantom. I’d dismiss him entirely if I wasn’t sure I’d seen him hiding behind the Berkmans’ A-frame.” Judith sighed. “There’s another fine point. While we were at Riley’s just now, I was marveling at his collection of art objects. Everybody has gotten robbed around here—except Riley. Yet he was accustomed to leaving the floor unlocked despite having a fortune sitting around the house. What kind of thieves would steal our old Victrola but pass over a seventeenth-century bronze of the Three Graces? Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
Renie, who had been struggling with the cap of her cream soda, finally got the bottle open. “Now that you mention it, yes. But Riley rarely left the place. Maybe that explains it.”
“Maybe.” Judith didn’t appear convinced.
Taking a deep swig of soda, Renie sighed appreciatively. “Speaking of Riley’s place, I noticed something over there just now.” For once, she looked unusually diffident. “It’s probably dumb, but you know that box of paints?”
“Right. What about it?”
Renie set the soda bottle down. “There wasn’t any orange.”
Judith peered closely at Renie. “No orange?”
“Not the color or kind of orange we saw under Riley’s body. To dry that fast, it had to be tempera. Oil and acrylic take longer, especially oil. Riley hadn’t used watercolors in years. He was working in acrylic, if you recall.”
Judith did, vaguely. She didn’t, however, possess Renie’s professional expertise on the subject. “So elucidate, coz. What are you getting at?”
Renie gave an uncertain shake of her whole body. “I don’t know. Except that there was no reason for Riley to spill tempera paint on the floor. It comes in jars, usually, which shouldn’t have been open. Where did that orange tempera come from? You’ve got the logical mind—you figure it out.”
But Judith couldn’t. The cousins returned to ruminating. Renie asked Judith if she even faintly considered Nella a suspect.
Judith wore an exasperated look. “I never considered Nella. Not for that. I’m just curious about why she’s so disinclined to talk about her trip. Nella’s never been the evasive type. If,” Judith continued, speaking more slowly, “she went to Europe and gave Erica an alibi, then I’d have to figure Erica is the guilty party. But a motive eludes me, and I certainly don’t see Nella in collusion with a murderer. Not knowingly, at any rate.”
“I think you’ve gone round the bend on that theory,” Renie declared. “Passports have pictures. How could Nella pass as Erica? There must be a fifty-year age difference. And they don’t look at all alike.”
“There’s such a thing as forgery,” Judith pointed out. “Eat up, coz. You’re right, we have to call on Nella again.”
As usual, Renie needed no urging when it came to eating. Ten minutes later, the cousins were back on the shoulder of the highway, heading for Nella Lablatt’s house and returning the ladder. Midway, they saw Iris getting into a green Acura. Judith waved.
“I’m off to Glacier Falls,” Iris called. “I have to make the final arrangements with the undertaker.”
Judith nodded. Across the road, the four redheaded children were gathered next to the Mortons’ mailbox. “Sweet-Stix, Sweet-Stix, give us Sweet-Stix!” they called.
Iris got into her car and reversed out of the drive. The cousins kept walking, the ladder between them. The children went running off toward the cabins, chasing their dog. The dog ran, disappearing around the side of the filling station. Chickens squawked and the children cut short their chase. Glancing behind her, Judith saw them swarming over the Dixons’ white Mercedes. She imagined there would be lots of brown patches left on the gleaming finish when they were done.
Nella Lablatt was doing aerobic exercises to a videotape. “Almost finished,” she shouted as the cousins came through her open front door. “Want some more sherry? Or is it time for a blast from the past?”
“Huh?” Judith stepped over the threshold with Renie in her wake.
Nella didn’t respond, but huffed and puffed in time to a vigorous young hu
nk on the screen. “Sex,” Nella shouted. “Sex sells anything. Even…health.” The video ended, and Nella shook herself. “I sent a picture to Photo-Date last month. I haven’t had an answer yet. Do you know that there are a hundred thousand people over a century old in this country? And that number is growing by the day. Not,” she added hastily as she switched off the VCR, “that I qualify. But it’s interesting, huh? How about that sack?”
“Sack?” Judith looked startled.
“Right,” Nella replied, removing the tape. “Sack. It’s an old-fashioned drink, and I’ve got some. Care to try it?”
“Why not?” murmured Judith. “Can you get in the bag by getting into the sack?”
“You can if you drink enough,” Nella responded cheerfully. “Originally, it came from Spain and the Canary Islands. It’s a wine, I guess you’d call it.” She had gone to the wet bar, where she seemed to have stored an endless array of bottles, domestic and imported, humble and exotic. “All that exercise makes me thirsty. The secret of drinking is moderation. I never have more than four glasses of three different things a day.”
“Really.” Judith spoke with awe. Her own private peak had already been reached. If achieving Nella’s advanced age—whatever it might be—involved such rigorous rules of imbibing, she figured she’d just as soon have three scotches in a row and pass out permanently. A hot cup of tea would have served her better.
“We’re curious, Nella,” Judith said, reluctantly accepting a glass of sack. “Did Lark take her painting home with her?”
Nella squatted on a footstool. “Nope. Ward came to collect her and she didn’t want to explain to him about Riley bringing it over here. In fact, she told me I could have it.” Nella gestured with her glass at the wall where President Eisenhower’s photograph hung. “I think I’ll pull that thing down and put Lark’s picture there. I’ll have to move those samplers, though.”
Judith’s gaze tracked the pair of samplers with their homely cross-stitched verses. She wondered how Nella would react if she knew that Lark’s “Morning” had fetched an asking price of seventy thousand dollars. She also wonered if she should tell Nella the truth. But prudence advised her to keep quiet—for now. The cousins could be wrong about Riley substituting Lark’s painting for his. And if they were right, Judith might trust Nella, but she wasn’t so sure about anybody else along the South Fork.
“Can you lock your icehouse?” Judith asked.
Nella looked surprised. “Sure. It’s been broken into a couple of times. Thieves love my quince jelly. Why do you ask?”
“If you’ve got room, you might put Lark’s painting in the safe,” Judith said. “I’m not exactly certain, but I think someone might want to steal her canvas.”
Nella seemed undisturbed by the idea. “Well, they take everything else. Why not that? If it’d make you feel better, I’ll put it in the post office safe. Really, it’s quite roomy. In the old days, I had to keep all sorts of parcels there. Tools, clothes, even small appliances. At Christmas-time, I’d run out of room. I always felt like Mrs. Claus. And Herman thought he was Santa. Or was that Delmar? I forget.” Nella drank deeply from her glass of sack.
“Say, Nella,” Judith began, tasting her wine and finding it very dry and probably potent, “we heard something startling today. Did you ever pick up on any rumors about Riley and Ward’s late wife?”
“Felice Kimball?” Nella laughed. “Heavens, no! Felice was so prim and proper that she wasn’t sure I was fit company. Too fast for her, I guess. Anyway, Riley would have been young enough to be her son. Who’s been spreading stories about poor Felice? She’s been dead for over twenty years. She passed away about the same time that I lost Seldon, my last husband.”
Judith’s brow furrowed. Something was wrong. She wasn’t quite sure what it was, but for the first time, she saw a glimmer of light. Certain images flashed before her mind’s eye, disconnected, seemingly irrelevant, yet somehow leading her in a logical, if as yet unclear, direction.
“Did you and Lark resolve your argument?” Judith inquired, wanting to steer the conversation on a different course.
Nella nodded emphatically. “That girl needs a mother to talk turkey to her. Sometimes I try to fill the bill. Lark finally listened up. What’s to be gained by her and Iris feuding now that Riley’s dead?”
Renie was discreetly trying to dump her drink into a potted fern. “So there was a feud between them?”
“Ohhh…” Nella’s eyes roamed around the knotty pine ceiling. Renie hastily emptied her glass. “Maybe that’s too strong a word,” Nella continued. “They never had words, that I know of. But Iris couldn’t warm to Lark, and Lark just plain didn’t like Iris. The Old Green Monster, if you ask me.”
“Jealous of Riley’s affections?” asked Judith, wishing she had Renie’s nerve. In her place on the love seat, she didn’t have access to a potted plant.
“Typical,” Nella replied. “You know what men are—they think all the women are crazy about them. And if they play around a bit, no harm done. Doesn’t mean a thing. I caught Crosley in bed with Mrs. Burgess once, and I threatened to shoot them both.” She frowned, and shook her head. “Or did I catch him with Herman? I forget.”
Eventually, the talk had moved on from straying spouses and masculine failings to preserves, petit point, and paintings. The cousins helped Nella move Lark’s canvas into the safe. Feeling relieved, they started to make their farewells. Judith, however, could not quite give up on her theory about Nella’s recent vacation.
“I noticed those postcards of Venice on the love seat,” she remarked as the three women stood on Nella’s front porch. “I haven’t been to Italy in years, but I thought Venice was sadly decayed and awfully dirty. I wonder how their plans are coming to keep the city from sinking.”
Nella took a flyswatter from a nail and swung with vigor. Her victim, which was actually a mosquito, found itself splayed against a cedar shake. “You can’t go to Europe and not expect to find old things. Most of those churches and castles and such are older than I am.” She laughed richly and replaced the flyswatter. “You met the Morton kiddies? Aren’t they something? I lost track of how many they got. You wouldn’t think he had it in him. Or that he had it in—”
“I liked Venice,” Renie interrupted. “I loved the gondolas. I was never so relaxed in my life.”
Judith waited for Nella’s reply, but when it came, it had nothing to do with murky canals and singing gondoliers. “You two used to have a lot of fun going down the river on old inner tubes. Didn’t you get your butts full of bugs one summer?”
Judith allowed that had indeed happened, and in the process, had cured them of inner tubing. “The river was too low that year,” she said, mentally running up a white flag. “We’ll see you, Nella. Thanks again for everything.”
Despite having been forced to give up prying about Nella’s travels, Judith felt triumphant. “You see? She won’t say where she’s been. Doesn’t that strike you as suspicious?”
“So?” Renie followed Judith around the wooden gate. “Even if Nella went to Europe instead of Erica, does that necessarily make Mrs. Dixon a killer?”
“No,” Judith admitted. She punched her fist into her palm. “Damn! I wish we could sneak into Nella’s and find her passport.”
“She may not have one. If your theory is right, she used Erica’s, or a phony variation of same.”
“I know, I know.” Her small victory fading fast, Judith stood next to the cabin with her hands on her hips. “Okay, we’ve got four more hours. What should we tackle next?”
“What—or who?” Renie asked. “We’ve done about all we can do to this place. The work that’s left is mostly structural. Unless you want to drive into Glacier Falls and get new gutters.”
“I’ll leave that for Mike,” Judith said. “He may have time after—if—he graduates.” She turned to Renie. “Did you notice if the Dixons’ car was at the auto court?”
“Yeah, I think the kids were still horsing around ther
e. Why?”
Judith sat down on a moss-covered stump, the remnant of an autumn storm that had left a large cedar threatening to crash into the roof. “I can’t figure out a motive for Erica, unless she stood to gain financially by Riley’s death. You know, an insurance policy or something he made out to her when they were married. But Riley was broke then, and probably didn’t have any insurance. Plus, I got the impression that Erica came from money. Remember her remark about the family having a decorator? She also referred to the seventy grand as money she’d spent—not we.”
Renie leaned against an alder tree. “That’s right. Maybe Dewitt doesn’t have any money of his own.”
“You’re the one who knows him,” Judith pointed out.
“Not well. I don’t think Dewitt and I have ever talked about anything except art and design. Until now, that is.”
Judith got up from the stump. “Let’s talk some more.”
Renie didn’t argue. They were back at the wooden gate when they heard screams, followed by a crash. Then there were more screams. The cousins ran out to the road, frantically looking in both directions.
At the edge of the Woodchuck Auto Court’s property, they could see the white Mercedes lying on its side in the ditch. Erica Dixon and Carrie Mae Morton were both screaming, their arms waving wildly, their legs pumping over the tarmac.
Judith and Renie tore down the highway, raced across the road, and leaped into the breach.
THIRTEEN
JUDITH AND RENIE weren’t sure what was more miraculous: that the Morton children hadn’t been seriously hurt in their attempt to drive the Mercedes, or that Erica Dixon hadn’t strangled all four of them for tampering with her expensive car.