Legs Benedict

by Mary Daheim

  Little by little, Barney Schwartz relinquished his hold on Judith. He looked shaken, however, and his eyes went straight to his mother, who, along with the other guests, had rushed into the dining room.

  “What is this?” Min demanded, rigid with apprehension. “What have you done to my poor boy?”

  “Not a damned thing,” Joe retorted, finally losing his calm demeanor and reaching out to put an arm around Judith. “Your poor boy tried to take my wife hostage. Guests or no guests, you better have an explanation.”

  Awkwardly, Barney shook himself and gave his mother a sheepish smile. “It’s okay, Ma. I just had a little scare.” He turned back to Joe. “Sorry. I thought you were two other guys.” Barney took Min’s hand and tried to slip it inside his arm. “Come on, let’s get a sherry refill.”

  Min yanked her hand away. “I want to know what’s going on.”

  Barney patted his mother’s cheek. “Nothing, Ma, honest. I just…screwed up. You know how I get…when I don’t take my medicine.”

  “If you say so.” Min appeared skeptical as her cold gray eyes swept from Barney to Joe. “You’re a policeman?”

  “That’s right.” Joe was removing the offending holster and sidearm. “Just an ordinary civil servant, working a dull desk job, and inching toward retirement.”

  Min drew back a step. “You need a gun at your desk?”

  Joe shrugged. “It’s required on the force. What’s this about medication?”

  Barney opened his mouth, but Min elbowed him aside. “My son has some health problems. Occasionally, he becomes delusional, even paranoid. I’ll make certain he takes his pills.”

  Joe appeared to be reflecting upon Min’s words. “Okay,” he finally said. “You do that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going upstairs to change.”

  Judith followed her husband up the back stairs to the family quarters on the third floor. “Nice lie,” she said, and meant it. The Flynns tried to avoid informing guests that Joe was a homicide cop. Somehow, the job didn’t mesh with the romantic image of a B&B.

  “Which one?” Joe asked as he removed his highly-polished loafers and put them on a shoe rack in the closet. “Mine or the old bag’s?”

  “I meant yours,” Judith responded. “It’s possible that Mrs. Schwartz is telling the truth.”

  “I wonder.” Joe started emptying his pockets. “Who is that jerk, anyway?”

  “His name is Barney Schwartz,” Judith answered, sitting down on the bed. “That was his mother, Minerva. They drove here from Royal Oak, outside of Detroit. Other than that, I don’t know anything about them. You know perfectly well I don’t ask for character references when I take reservations.”

  “Right,” Joe said, but he seemed perturbed. “I don’t much like it when a guest sees a gun and thinks there’s a bullet in it with his name on it. It tends to make a fellow suspicious.”

  “I told you,” Judith asserted, “they’re from the Detroit area. Don’t they have a high crime rate? Maybe Barney has been involved in previous incidents.”

  “Previous,” Joe repeated, heading for the bathroom. “That’s okay. I don’t mind previous behavior. It’s priors, as in convictions, that I worry about.” He closed the door, leaving Judith with an uneasy feeling.

  It rained while Joe and Judith ate dinner, but let up shortly after seven. Remembering the cake Renie had left, Judith set it out for her guests on the gateleg table along with a coffee urn. It appeared that everyone had gone out, and the house was quiet. As she tidied up the living room, she noticed a small piece of paper under the piano bench.

  It appeared to have been torn from a little spiral notebook. The handwritten words read, “Legs-Hoffa-Provenzano?”

  Puzzled, Judith slipped the paper into the pocket of her gray slacks. She not only didn’t know what it meant, she wasn’t sure who had dropped it. Judith recalled that Pam, Sandi, and Roland had been at the piano, and so might have Barney and Min or Pete and Marie. If the note was of any importance, Judith told herself, the person who dropped it would ask. Over the years, guests had mislaid an incredible number of items, from a portable toilet to an eight-month-old baby. As Renie had said, there couldn’t be too many surprises left for Judith when it came to innkeeping.

  Then again…Judith smiled to herself as she put on her jacket and went out to the garage. She’d had a quibble with Renie’s remark at the time. Now, as she headed up to Holiday’s Pharmacy on top of the hill, she was anxious to tell her cousin about Barney Schwartz using her as a human shield. If it didn’t take long to pick up Gertrude’s prescriptions, Judith would drive the remaining six blocks to Bill and Renie’s house on the north slope of Heraldsgate Hill.

  At ten to eight, Judith was in the Joneses’ comfortable green, blue, and off-white living room. “Where’s Bill?” Judith asked, surprised at not finding Renie’s mate in his favorite chair in front of the TV.

  “I sent him out to be reupholstered,” Renie said. “After we painted this spring, he was the only thing in the living room that didn’t match.”

  Sitting down in a powder-blue recliner, Judith laughed. “Where is he really?”

  Renie scowled at her cousin. “You think I’m kidding? Maybe I should switch job categories, quit graphic design, and go into interior design. Do you realize that of all the permanent fixtures in a house, women complain most about their husbands? Every time, they tend to screw up the decorating scheme. You’re lucky—you get to keep Joe in the attic.”

  Reaching for the footrest on the recliner, Judith put her feet up. “You don’t sound as sanguine about retirement tonight as you did the other day. Don’t tell me that after only two weeks, you’re having qualms.” Though Joe’s retirement was still months away, Judith already had doubts about a change in lifestyle.

  “Actually,” Renie said, “Bill’s at a meeting. He’s still acting as a consultant to the psychology department at the university. And no, I haven’t any qualms. For one thing, I’m used to having Bill home during summer quarter. For another, we live on different clocks. He’s a morning person, I’m best at night. He goes to bed early, I get up late. It gives us some time to ourselves.”

  Briefly, Judith reflected. She and Joe were forced to get up at the crack of dawn. Maybe that would change when he retired. But Judith didn’t want to think about that now. Though she was a worrier, she sometimes tended to bury her head in the sand and avoid dealing with potential problems.

  “How was dinner?” Judith asked, changing the subject.

  Renie’s eyes roamed the off-white ceiling. “It was something with leeks. One of the kids gave Bill a Welsh cookbook for Christmas last year. Everything in it seems to have leeks. It’s the national fruit or flower or…bulb, I guess, of Wales.”

  Judith gave Renie a knowing smile. “You’re cooking tomorrow night?”

  Renie nodded. “Grandma Grover’s greenie noodles with lamb steaks.”

  “I make that every so often,” Judith replied. “Thick egg noodles fried with cabbage in about half a pound of butter. Mother loves it.”

  “So do Bill and the kids,” Renie said, then tapped her can of Pepsi. “You want something?”

  Judith declined. “I can’t stay, I never like leaving the B&B alone too long when guests are coming in and out. Which is sort of why I came. This is a really odd crew.”

  Since Renie already knew about the preschool teachers’ reaction to Pete and Marie Santori, Judith described Barney Schwartz’s panic and the rude behavior of the Malones, who seemed more than a little interested in Mr. and Mrs. John Smith.

  “Oh,” Judith added, “I almost forgot Mr. du Turque. You met him—it turns out he’s quite a piano player. Jazz, especially Thelonious Monk.”

  “Right up your alley,” Renie commented. “Nice.”

  Judith agreed. “So why do I have the feeling that some of these people know some of the other people from someplace else?”

  “Because you want them to?” Renie paused to light a cigarette. “Solving puzzles is your avoc
ation, coz. Connect the dots.”

  “There may not be any,” Judith admitted. “But almost all of them act strangely. The Smiths, for example, don’t seem anxious to run into the other guests.”

  “I don’t blame them from what you’ve told me,” Renie said dryly. “And yes, I know you’ve had some very peculiar—and dangerous—guests on occasion in the past. Which is why I’m inclined to believe you may be exaggerating. History doesn’t always repeat itself. Pam and Sandi insisted they’d made a mistake. It sounds like Barney Schwartz did, too. Did you say he mentioned taking medication?”

  Slowly, Judith nodded. “Somehow, that didn’t sound right. But I tried to tell Joe that Barney comes from Detroit, and may have met up with some tough customers. I don’t think I convinced Joe, and now I’m not sure I convinced myself. I’d be willing to bet that tomorrow at work, my suspicious husband will run Barney through the computer.”

  “He’s done that before with some of your guests, hasn’t he?” Renie asked, calmly puffing away.

  “Yes. For various reasons.” Judith hesitated. “There’s another thing, which I mentioned to you last week—the time frame in which those reservations were made.”

  Renie glugged down a large portion of Pepsi. “You said they all came in within a couple of hours of each other. But was it all of them?”

  “No,” Judith admitted, “it was only the Smiths, the Schwartzes, the Santoris, Pam and Sandi, and some guy who canceled later. It was an odd name, like a ship. Doria, I think. He was from Las Vegas.”

  Renie waved a hand. “So in reality, only four of the parties who checked in today made their reservations Friday morning.”

  “Well…” Judith cleared her throat. “Yes, that’s true. Roland du Turque called later and the Malones showed up this afternoon without a reservation.”

  “I don’t think that sounds so strange,” Renie said, getting up to adjust the floral drapes at the big front window. “You can’t tell me that over the years you haven’t had other people call in within minutes of each other for the same date.”

  “They probably did. This time it just struck me as…odd.” Judith suddenly snapped her fingers. “How did the Malones know where to find the B&B?”

  Renie wrinkled her pug nose. “Ever hear of the phone book?”

  Judith didn’t let Renie’s comment daunt her. “When they pulled into the cul-de-sac, they didn’t ask for Hillside Manor, they asked if there was a place to stay. Now how would they know such a place existed in a residential neighborhood?”

  “Your point being…?” Renie seemed a bit impatient.

  Judith started to respond, then stopped, apparently losing her zeal. “I’m not sure. It just seems odd.”

  “Naturally.” Renie was obviously humoring her cousin. “Now try to tell me that a month never goes by when you don’t have at least one wacko check into the B&B.”

  “Okay, okay,” Judith said as she stood up. “I’m going now. You make me feel like an idiot.”

  “My pleasure,” Renie said blithely, then put an arm around Judith. “I just hate it when you go off the deep end, imagining stuff that isn’t really there. To me, it’s a sign of some big hole in your life. We all have them, but sometimes I think yours is deeper than most. Maybe it was all those years with Dan. Even Joe can’t make up for two lost decades.”

  Put that way, Judith could offer no argument. Nobody except Renie understood what she’d gone through during her first marriage. Having taken on Dan McMonigle as a sort of consolation prize for losing Joe Flynn, Judith had always felt as if the package had been booby-trapped. But Renie, who was as close, maybe closer than any sister could be, had ended up as Judith’s sole confidante. It would have been impossible for Judith to share the pain—and humiliation—with anybody else.

  “Maybe,” Judith said with a lame little smile, “what’s missing is my common sense.”

  Renie gave Judith a little shake. “Not that. We’re all missing a few things.” Wistfully, she gazed up the stairs in the direction of her children’s bedrooms. “At least you have some hope of posterity. I do not. Yet.”

  Judith broke into a big smile at the reference to her only child’s impending parenthood. “You will. Did I tell you that Mike called over the weekend and said they may have miscalculated, and that Kristin could have the baby a couple of weeks early?”

  Renie beamed. “Great! Grandma Flynn! What’s the revised due date?”

  “July second,” Judith replied. “Of course, you never know with first babies.”

  Mike and his long-time girlfriend, Kristin, had been married exactly two years. As National Park Service forest rangers, they had begun their legal life together in Idaho. But seven months later, the newlyweds had been transferred to a national park site just an hour away from Heraldsgate Hill. They were so close that Judith smiled every time she looked out at the mountain range mere minutes from her doorstep.

  “Tell me,” said Renie, looking troubled, “does the new addition mean a change in your thinking about…you know.”

  Judith shook her head. “I made up my mind about that when Mike and Kristin got married. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again—Dan was a crappy husband, but he was a good father, the only father Mike ever knew. I won’t take that away from Dan—or from Mike.”

  “Still,” Renie sighed, “that’s hard on Joe.”

  Joe hadn’t just left Judith to run off in a drunken stupor with his first wife, Vivian. He had left Judith pregnant; he hadn’t known about Mike until Joe showed up as the investigating officer in a homicide at Hillside Manor over twenty years later. Ever since Joe had reentered Judith’s life, she had agonized over telling Mike the truth. But when he married, it became clear that his love for the man who had helped raise him must never be undermined.

  Judith offered Renie a sad little smile. “You’re right. It’s very hard on Joe. But I think you were the one who said husbands and wives have to live with—and accept—some heavy loads of baggage.”

  Renie made no comment, but gave her cousin an affectionate pat. Judith went out into the June evening. The long days that came with the summer solstice had been foreshortened by the cloudy weather. It was almost dark when Judith arrived home at a quarter of nine.

  Joe was in the kitchen, taking a beer out of the refrigerator. As soon as Judith saw his face, she knew something was wrong. The house, however, seemed quiet.

  “What is it, Joe?” she asked as anxiety roiled up. “Is it Mother?”

  “I wish,” Joe murmured ambiguously. “No. It’s not the old bat. Come upstairs, I’ll show you.”

  Judith practically ran up the two flights to the third floor. She was breathless when her husband joined her in the small sitting room that had originally belonged to Gertrude.

  Joe went to the cherrywood cupboard, removed a false panel, and opened the safe hidden in the wall. As Judith watched with a worried expression, her husband brought out something wrapped in a hand towel. “I decided to do a little checking up on Mr. Schwartz. I went into Room Three and here’s what I found in the drawer of the nightstand.”

  Judith stared at the gun. “Oh, dear! We can’t have that! Firearms are prohibited at the B&B. Except yours, of course.”

  “It’s a nine-millimeter Glock automatic,” Joe said, at his most professional. “It’s a serious sort of gun, and it’s loaded. Tomorrow, I’m going to run Barney through the computer and see what comes up. I can also check out the serial number to see if he stole it or purchased it. I told you there was something damned funny about him.”

  “I guess so.” Judith felt faintly sick. “But it doesn’t mean he’s a crook. I mean, lots of people travel with guns, especially when they’re driving cross-country. What if he has a carry permit?”

  Joe tipped his head to one side. “If he’s from out of state—Michigan?” He paused as Judith nodded. “Then the permit isn’t valid here. But it’s still legal to own a gun in this state.”

  “But I have my own rules,” Judith pointed o
ut. “No firearms or dangerous weapons. I’ll confront him when he and his mother get back from wherever they went. It’s going to be awkward.”

  “I’ll be there,” Joe said, putting the gun back in the safe.

  Judith gave her husband a grateful smile. “Thanks,” she said, rocking back and forth on the red-and white-patterned loveseat. “That’s another thing—Barney must be a decent man. He travels with his mother.”

  Joe’s rust-colored eyebrows twitched. “So? Ever hear of Ma Barker?”

  Judith made a face. “Minerva Schwartz seems like a proper person, not just old-fashioned, but there’s something old world about her. She’s almost regal.”

  “If you say so.” Obviously, Joe wasn’t in the mood for an argument. “As I said, I’ll check her son out first thing tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” Judith tried to resign herself, but she was still fretting. “We still have to confront Barney tonight. Oh! The safe—I just remembered that Pam and Sandi wanted to put something in it.”

  “Like what?” asked Joe, joining Judith on the loveseat.

  “I don’t know,” Judith replied. “They said they’d get back to me on it. I guess they forgot.”

  Turning on the TV, Joe shrugged. “People tend to do that.”

  “Yes. And they seem a bit…ditzy.” Judith decided she might as well forget about the preschool teachers’ request. “Oh, dear—I wish you hadn’t found that gun. I hate making a scene with a guest.”

  “Barney already opened the act,” Joe said, then glanced at his watch. “Some of your motley crew should be coming back soon. I don’t imagine Barney and Ma are night owls.”

  “Probably not,” Judith agreed. “Like so many elderly people, Min isn’t in the best of health. She has arthritis, and also mentioned that she had to be near a…Oh!” Judith snapped her fingers. “I forgot to tell the Smiths about not being able to share the bathroom. Good grief, I’m getting as addled as Mother. Anyway, Mrs. Schwartz wanted the bathroom all to herself.”