Legs Benedict

by Mary Daheim

  But she wondered just how confused Gertrude really was.

  According to J. J., Agent Dunleavy had been shot from a distance of at least thirty feet. That meant, Joe explained, that his killer probably had been standing in the driveway or even on the sidewalk further down the cul-de-sac.

  “I don’t get it,” Judith said. “How many shots were fired?”

  “One,” Joe replied. “It went straight to the heart.”

  Judith shook her head. “That’s not true. I mean, I heard more than one pop. Or shot. Three, maybe.”

  Joe stared at Judith. “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Nobody asked me,” Judith said, annoyed. “I haven’t even talked to J. J. yet.”

  J. J. was still outside. Joe hurried from the kitchen, apparently seeking his fellow homicide detective. Judith resumed frying bacon. All the guests had now gathered in the living room, including an astonished Roland du Turque. They were drinking coffee and engaging in bewildered conversation.

  Five minutes later, just as Judith was dishing up fried eggs, Joe and J. J. returned. “Can you wait?” she asked. “I’d like to get these people fed. It’ll only take three minutes.”

  Joe poured coffee for J. J. while Judith served breakfast in the dining room. Then she begged for another two minutes while she took Gertrude’s plate out to the toolshed. At precisely seven-thirty, she was back in the kitchen, having seen the ambulance carry away Agent Dunleavy’s corpse.

  Since neither Joe nor J. J. had eaten, she served them as well. Grabbing a piece of toast and a rasher of bacon, she finally sat down at the kitchen table.

  “Three shots?” J. J. asked. “You sure?”

  “I’m sure there were more than two,” Judith said. “There might even have been four.”

  “Weird,” J. J. remarked. “Got the uniforms combing the area for stray bullets. We’ll see. Tell me exactly what happened.” His knee was jiggling so hard that he actually raised the table.

  Judith recounted the morning’s events. To her surprise, J. J. and Joe didn’t seem surprised when she told them how Dunleavy had seemed to threaten her when she’d found him in the loft.

  “It was like he was a different person,” Judith said, then noticed J. J.’s eyes snap. She leaned across the table. “What do you know that I don’t?”

  Joe and J. J. exchanged quick glances. “Not much,” J. J. answered. “When I called the local FBI office to tell them that Dunleavy had been killed, they told me they’d never heard of him.”

  It was Bruce Dunleavy who had told Judith several times that papers and documents could easily be forged. Maybe she should have guessed. Had he not been on a fool’s errand after all? Or had Judith been the fool? Why had he come to Hillside Manor in the first place? Judging from Marie’s attitude, Judith suspected it had nothing to do with Gertrude.

  “All right,” she said, gazing from Joe to J. J., “who was he? If he was a phony, then questioning Mother was just an excuse to hang out on the premises. Do you two have any ideas?”

  Joe was shaking his head and J. J. started to answer when Judith heard another siren.

  “What’s that?” J. J. jumped out of his chair, dropping his napkin.

  “It sounds like an ambulance,” Joe said. “Maybe they dispatched a second crew by mistake.”

  “Why not a fleet?” Judith asked, her voice unnaturally high. “The Red Cross, too, with field tents and truckloads of wounded and…”

  Reaching across the table, Joe put a firm hand on Judith’s arm. “Calm down,” he said in what Judith assumed was the voice he used on hysterical witnesses.

  “I’m calm,” Judith said, swallowing hard and feeling bug-eyed. “I’m very calm.”

  The siren stopped short of Hillside Manor. “It’s somewhere out in the cul-de-sac,” Judith squeaked, then managed to lower her voice. “I’m going out the back way so I don’t have to answer the guests’ questions.”

  J. J., however, was already in the lead. Judith and Joe followed. Berger and Hicks were running down the street, past the Ericsons’ front gate. The ambulance had stopped in front of Herself’s house, and the attendants were hurrying inside with a gurney. As Judith, Joe, and J. J. began to run, yet another siren sounded, and a medic van roared into the cul-de-sac.

  Judith’s initial reaction was to burst into gales of laughter. Then, struggling for control, she visualized Vivian Flynn, drinking herself into a coma. But Vivian was standing on the back porch, frantically waving her arms.

  Joe held Judith and J. J. back to allow the medics to precede them. Once again, Judith recognized Ray Kinsella. With a sinking feeling, she felt he’d become a regular in the neighborhood, like O. P. Dooley or Cecil, the mailman.

  Vivian started to follow the medics inside, but Joe yelled to her. “Hey! What happened?”

  Wringing her hands, Herself leaned over the porch railing. “It’s DeeDee. She’s been shot.”

  Herself disappeared through the back door.

  Joe and J. J. took the steps two at a time. Judith followed them, but Joe barred the way. “Stay put. That’s an order.”

  For once, Judith didn’t argue. Her head was swimming and her eyes seemed out of focus. She leaned against the wall next to the back door and took several deep breaths. Mercedes Berger and Darnell Hicks were nowhere in sight. Maybe they had gone inside, too. Judith felt faint.

  Mercedes Berger was the first person to come back outside. She glanced at Judith and kept going. Stopping by the driveway that Herself shared with the Ericsons, Mercedes bent down and picked something up. Judith tried to focus. The officer turned around and Judith saw that her index finger was balancing a gun by its trigger guard.

  “Mrs. Flynn?” Mercedes said in a tentative voice, now recognizing Judith. “Are you okay?”

  Judith gave a slight nod. “I think so. It’s just that I’m so mixed up. Where did that gun come from?”

  “I don’t know,” Mercedes replied. “But Darnell thought I should see if there was a weapon around here someplace. I’m not even sure what happened. Darnell’s inside.” She nodded at the house. “Maybe he knows.”

  The exchange with Mercedes had given Judith an opportunity to collect herself. “You’d better give that gun to J. J. Martinez,” Judith said.

  “Of course,” Mercedes responded, her blue eyes widening as she saw Rich Goldman hit the brakes in the middle of the cul-de-sac. “Or to Detective Goldman. Gosh, I’m glad he and Detective Martinez are here. Darnell and I aren’t used to…you know…like…real crime. This is usually such a…”

  “…Quiet neighborhood,” Judith finished. “Yes. Usually.” She stared at Herself’s back door. Vivian Flynn had bought the place at a bargain price because a particularly grisly crime had been committed there three and a half years earlier. Judith wondered if the house was hexed.

  Rich Goldman practically flew up to the porch. “J. J. told me to get here ASAP,” he panted, then saw the gun dangling from Mercedes’s finger. “Whoa. Let me get an evidence bag for that. Where’d you find it?”

  As Rich and Mercedes exchanged information, Judith slipped inside the house.

  A tiny entranceway led into the kitchen and down the basement stairs. Judith stood on the top step and peered around the corner. A smear of blood marred the floor between the back door and the middle of the kitchen. The ambulance attendants were standing by the sink, the gurney supported between them. Ray Kinsella and the other medic were working over a prone form that Judith assumed was DeeDee. J. J. and Darnell Hicks stood by the kitchen table. Judith could hear Joe and Herself’s voices coming from the living room.

  “Okay,” Ray was saying, as he stood up. “That’s it for now. Let’s get her to the hospital. I think she’s going to be okay.”

  The medics stepped aside as the ambulance attendants took over. Judith could hear DeeDee’s soft moans as she was moved onto the gurney. Moments later, the injured woman was being rolled out the door. Judith glanced down at her face.

  Several sensations simultane
ously assaulted Judith. The scent of jasmine, the sound of pain, the expression of misery on the victim’s face.

  The face. It didn’t belong to a stranger, as Judith had assumed. She stared at the gurney.

  It was Darlene Smith.

  Herself was trying to explain. “She’s Darlene Daniels,” Vivian insisted, clutching a Bloody Mary that Joe had fixed for her. “I met her eight, nine years ago, when she was working her way through college. She liked to be called DeeDee. It was a childhood nickname. How was I supposed to know she was some kind of suspect? She’s an old friend, we sang together, we did the circuit, we were a hit along the Gulf and in the Florida Keys.”

  Joe was looking grave. “Okay, okay. So what happened this morning?” He looked up as J. J. and Rich Goldman entered the living room. “This is official, Viv. Take your time.”

  “I don’t know what happened,” Herself pouted. “I was in bed.” She ran her hand the length of the deep blue silk robe. “I woke up when I heard DeeDee scream. I came out of the bedroom—it’s right there,” she noted, pointing to the little hall which, as Judith well remembered, led to two bedrooms and the bathroom, “and saw DeeDee crawling across the kitchen floor, bleeding and looking like death. I called nine-one-one, and did my best to stanch the bleeding in her shoulder. I didn’t know she’d been shot then.”

  “She say anything?” J. J. asked, pacing back and forth in front of the fireplace.

  “Yes.” Herself paused to take a deep drink. “She said she’d been shot.”

  “Anything else?” J. J. queried, as Rich Goldman took notes.

  “Umm…” Herself ran an agitated hand through her disheveled platinum locks. “Yes. Just before she passed out, DeeDee said she’d been shot by someone named—this sounds so silly, maybe she was delirious—by someone named Baby Face Doria.”

  Judith had the feeling that things should be coming together. But she didn’t know what it all meant. The logic of the case still proved elusive. Herself’s account seemed to puzzle J. J., who promptly went out into the kitchen and used his cell phone to get in touch with the FBI.

  Judith couldn’t hear what he was saying. She turned to Joe, who was sitting next to Herself on a black leather couch. “I must tell J. J. about Doria,” Judith said.

  “What?” Joe gave a little shake of his head, as if he hadn’t heard properly.

  “Someone by that name made a reservation for last Monday and then canceled,” Judith explained. “That someone is known to Pam and Sandi and…I’m not sure who else.”

  Joe swore. “Did you ever, even for two seconds, think of telling J. J. this before?” He was all but shouting by the time he finished the question.

  Judith drew back in the rattan armchair where she was sitting. “There was never a reason to tell him. Doria’s name didn’t come up in the official investigation.” She jabbed a finger in the direction of the kitchen. “J. J. didn’t know anything about a man named Doria. He just said as much.”

  “How many times,” Joe said, his expression severe, “have I warned you about the dangers of playing detective?”

  Herself placed a hand on Joe’s arm. “Now, Joe,” she purred, “don’t go off on your poor wife. Can’t you see she’s been sick? She’s aged ten years in the last few days.”

  Judith felt a low, angry growl trying to escape. She suppressed the urge, however. “Don’t worry about me, Vivian,” she said. “I’m fine. When did Darlene get here?”

  “DeeDee?” Herself paused to put a cigarette in a long ebony holder. “What’s today? Thursday? It was Tuesday then, well before noon. I’d just gotten up. She came in a cab.”

  “Did you see the cab?” Judith asked.

  Herself was inhaling deeply. “No.” She blew four perfect smoke rings, then looked at Joe as if for approval. He smiled. Thinly, Judith thought. “The cab had left, I guess,” Herself went on. “DeeDee insisted it took forever for me to come to the door.”

  “There was no cab,” Judith put in. “DeeDee’s car—Legs Benedict’s car—was parked by Dooleys’,” Judith said. “DeeDee simply drove around the block—or maybe she cruised the neighborhood for awhile—and ditched the car before she came back here. I’ll bet she came in through the backyard. There’s a fence, but it’s not very high.”

  Joe appeared glum; Herself was looking aghast. “She drove Legs Benedict’s car? The man who was murdered?” Vivian chewed on the cigarette holder. “What next, musicians who aren’t on drugs? Hookers who give it away? Men who like women for their personalities?” Dazed, Herself shook her head over and over.

  J. J. returned to the living room and addressed Vivian. “Agents Terrill and Rosenblatt are on their way. They’ll question you about DeeDee, aka Darlene. Got to hold off talking to her until she’s out of surgery. Okay?”

  Herself blew some more smoke rings. “I’m available,” she said, blinking several times before she realized her false eyelashes hadn’t yet been attached. “As I recall, J. J.,” she continued, running her fingers through her hair, “you’re partial to blondes.”

  J. J. jigged a bit on the hearth. “Wife’s a blonde. Married for thirty years. Happy. Very happy.”

  “Marvelous.” Herself beamed at J. J., then patted the leather cushion next to her. “Now why don’t you sit here and we’ll talk about DeeDee.”

  Judith rose from the rattan chair and left the room. She caught a faint whiff of Herself’s latest perfume. She realized it was jasmine, and felt like a fool for not having made the connection between Darlene Smith and DeeDee Daniels. Darlene had been wearing the scent when she’d stayed at Hillside Manor. Obviously, she had lent some of it to Vivian. Maybe, Judith thought disconsolately, she really wasn’t much of a detective after all.

  The guests had barricaded themselves in the front parlor. Chairs had been shoved against both doors and a fire had been lighted in the grate, lest someone try to come down the chimney. Apparently led by Bea and Mal Malone, they refused to be questioned again by the police or the FBI.

  “We were told we could leave this morning,” Pam shouted at Judith through the locked door. “We either want our lawyers or we’re out of here.”

  “It’s not my fault,” Judith yelled back. “Is Marie in there?”

  “Yes. So what?” retorted Pam.

  “I’d like to speak with her for a moment. Please.” Judith winced at the whining tone in her voice.

  “Screw it,” Marie said, yanking the door open. “I’m tired of being undercover. It doesn’t matter anymore. What do you want?”

  “Just that,” Judith gulped. “I mean, why can’t you leave?”

  “Because I haven’t discharged my duty,” Marie snapped with a glance in Rick Perl’s direction. “I have to see what this idiot plans to do next.”

  The phone rang. Judith hesitated, then dashed into the kitchen. It was Phyliss, declaring that she was about to meet the Lord.

  “Pain. Suffering. Agony,” the cleaning woman groaned. “I can hear angel wings flapping over my bed.”

  “That’s too bad, Phyliss,” Judith said in a distracted manner. “Do you think you’ll be resurrected by tomorrow?”

  Phyliss was indignant. “What? Are you blaspheming?”

  “No, but with the weekend coming up, it would be nice if you could make it since your regular day doesn’t come again until Monday.”

  “I won’t be alive by Monday,” Phyliss snapped. “I told you, the Lord is reaching down to me. I can hear the trumpets.”

  “That’s someone honking in the cul-de-sac, Phyliss.” Rich Goldman hadn’t yet moved his car out of the middle of the street. “Okay, if you can’t come, that’s it. Let me know if you ever recover.” Judith hung up in an uncharacteristic show of impatience.

  Joe was in the kitchen, making a pot of coffee. He had called in to say he’d be late, perhaps not arriving until noon. It was now nine-fifteen. To Judith, the day already seemed like it should be ending.

  “What did you find out?” she asked. “I couldn’t bear to stay and watch He
rself vamp J. J.”

  “We came up with the obvious conjecture,” Joe replied, pouring coffee for both of them. “DeeDee must have seen Dunleavy approach the driveway. We assume she recognized him as Baby Face Doria. She got her gun, which I suppose she’d managed to sneak out of the B&B before she went on the run Tuesday morning and before J. J. and Rich searched the guest rooms. Anyway, DeeDee must have gone outside where she spotted Doria in the garage—as you know, there’s a direct line of sight between that loft and the sidewalk and street in front of Herself’s. Or, he saw her, opened fire, and she returned it. She’s a hell of a shot, but after listening to Vivian and checking with the national criminal information records, I can see why.”

  “What do you mean?” Judith asked with a puzzled frown.

  Joe sat back in his captain’s chair and shook his head. “Darlene Daniels, aka DeeDee aka Darlene Smith aka about five other names, is a hit woman for the Fusilli family. Now tell me, Jude-Girl, had you already managed to deduce that one?”

  Judith hadn’t. Her sense of failure soared while her self-confidence plunged to a big, fat goose egg.

  Herself had some vague idea that her friend DeeDee’s singing career was merely a blind. During her senior year at Florida State, the younger woman had far too much spending money at her disposal. Since Vivian knew precisely how much their act was bringing in, she had wondered at first if DeeDee came from a rich family. Later, she had learned that DeeDee had no family. She was an orphan, from New York.

  “It was none of my business what she did on the side,” Herself had told Joe and J. J. “A bit of lucrative naughtiness is small potatoes compared to getting an education. I wish I’d had the chance to go to college. It makes one even more…well rounded.”

  When told what her old friend actually had done to pay for books and tuition, Herself had laughed uproariously. “Think of the money she’s saved the police and the courts by getting rid of all those crooks,” Vivian had said between bursts of husky laughter. “She’s a one-woman social service. Bless her heart!”