A Streetcar Named Expire

by Mary Daheim

“You don’t eat the stick, Mother,” Judith said. “It’s just for serving purposes.”

  “What purpose?” Gertrude demanded. “Stabbing the beef after it’s already dead? It’s too big to be a toothpick.”

  “It’s not to be used after the meal is served.” Judith sighed. “It’s part of the presentation.”

  “Tommyrot,” Gertrude snapped. “Why waste a good stick?” She flipped the skewer in the direction of the patio, backed into the toolshed, and slammed the door.

  “Bill thinks you’re nuts,” Renie said after Judith had picked up her cousin fifteen minutes later.

  “You told him what we’re doing?” Judith asked in surprise.

  “Sure,” Renie said. “He won’t tell Joe. You know how closemouthed Bill is. Besides, he tends to forget.”

  “Maybe I am nuts,” Judith allowed as the cousins cruised through the commercial district on top of the hill. “But somehow I have this weird feeling that Joe missed something in that bureau.”

  “But he told you it was empty,” Renie pointed out. “What could you possibly expect to find?”

  “I don’t know,” Judith admitted. “Certainly Woody and his people searched the unit. Maybe it’s just that I feel like I bonded with that damned bureau. I was stuck there long enough.”

  “Maybe,” Renie said with a wry expression, “you just want another look inside the Alhambra.”

  Judith gave Renie a sheepish glance. “Maybe you’re right.”

  The two uniformed officers, both young and looking bored, were skeptical at first. But Judith showed her ID and promised not to stay inside for more than ten minutes.

  “Since Joe retired from the force,” she explained, “he’s gotten a trifle careless. He tends to drop things or just leave them lying around. To tell the truth”—she winced a bit, since she was lying through her teeth—“I can’t imagine how he left his wallet here this afternoon.”

  The taller of the two officers shrugged. “Okay, but one of us will have to go with you. And no going beyond the third floor. That’s been pretty well searched, but Detective Price hasn’t finished with the top floors yet.”

  The shorter officer, whose name was Petrovich, dutifully led the way up the staircase. “If your husband left his wallet on one of the other floors, he’s going to have to wait until tomorrow,” Petrovich warned Judith. “Detective Price will get here early, though.”

  “That’s fine,” Judith replied as they reached the third floor and headed for the scene of the crime.

  “In here,” Petrovich said, opening the door.

  “I know.” Judith offered the young man her most winsome smile. “I found the body.”

  “You did?” Petrovich’s dark eyes bulged. “Are you a suspect?”

  “Hardly.” Judith laughed. “I guess you didn’t see me on TV.”

  “I only watch sports,” Petrovich responded.

  They were in the living room, where both cousins made a cursory effort at searching behind what furniture remained in place. Then they moved on to the bedroom.

  “Joe mentioned looking in this bureau,” Judith said, pulling out drawers one at a time. When she reached the fourth and bottom drawer, she asked Renie to help her. “My hips, you know. It’s hard to bend.”

  Renie knew her cue. Apparently stumbling over the carpet, she fell against Petrovich. “Oof!” she cried, steadying herself with the young man’s help. “Sorry. I’m kind of awkward.”

  “I got it open,” Judith exclaimed in triumph. “Here’s the wallet. Oh, I’m so relieved!”

  Renie joined Judith, staring into the empty drawer. The wallet was in Judith’s hand. Renie helped her cousin stand up. “You sure are lucky,” she remarked.

  Out on the sidewalk, Judith paused, staring up at the third floor. “Remember when I said someone was watching us from that middle balcony window? It was on the third floor. Now which unit would that have been?”

  “It’s not a unit, it’s the open area,” Renie replied. “See, the middle windows on each floor have balconets, not balconies. A balconet is just decor, with no floor jutting out. Anyway, let me congratulate you on your sleight of hand.”

  “I hope Joe doesn’t look for his wallet before we get back,” Judith said, as they reached the Subaru. “It wasn’t easy to pick his pocket. I had to wait until he was bending over to load the dishwasher. He thought I was trying to give him a wedgie.”

  Renie grinned at Judith. “As I said, very adroit. But the drawers were definitely empty. Are you disappointed?”

  “No,” Judith replied smugly. “Not at all. What did you smell?”

  Renie stared at Judith. “There were some bits of what looked like sachet in the bottom drawer.”

  “Sachet—or incense?” Judith queried, heading back to the main avenue.

  Renie grinned again, this time more slowly. “Yes, it could have been incense. But the scent that predominated was something else. What was it?”

  “Beeswax,” Judith said. “As in candles.” She braked at the four-way stop at the top of the hill. “As in what Mrs. Carrabas might have had in her briefcase. Now why was it important to hide the briefcase and then make off with it before the police could search the room?”

  Renie had no explanation. “What about the gun? Has Woody found it?”

  “No,” Judith said. “Or if he has, he didn’t tell Joe. Or if Woody told Joe, Joe didn’t tell me. Goodness, I hate all this second-and third-hand passing of information.”

  “I suppose nobody heard the shots because of all the construction noise,” Renie mused as they drove past Falstaff’s customary smug reader board, which currently proclaimed, “Peaches from Paradise” and “Corn from Mr. Elysian’s Fields.”

  “Exactly,” Judith agreed. “Say, I wonder if we should talk to Mr. and Mrs. O’Dowd.”

  “The ones who recommended Mrs. Carrabas?”

  “Right. I’m going around the block to use the pay phone at Falstaff’s so we can find out where they live and if they’ll see us.”

  Renie balked. “I told Bill I wouldn’t be gone more than half an hour. He’ll worry.”

  “Call him,” Judith suggested. “Tell him we’ve been detained.”

  “I can’t call him,” Renie replied. “I always turn the ringer off when I leave. You know how Bill hates the telephone, even more than your mother does.”

  Judith sighed. “Okay, I’ll go alone. But if Joe calls to see where I am, don’t answer it. You’ve got Caller ID, right?”

  Renie did. Judith used the Joneses’ phone to call directory assistance, then dialed the O’Dowds’ number. Mr. O’Dowd seemed wary at first, then, after Judith had explained how she and Joe were involved in the murder investigation, he finally yielded.

  “They’re Billy and Midge O’Dowd,” Judith told Renie in the Joneses’ entry hall. “He sounded rather nice. I’m heading there now.”

  “So am I,” said Renie, picking up her huge purse which looked very much like a feed bag for horses. She glanced into the living room where Bill was seated in his favorite chair, eyes glued to the TV set. “I can only take so much of Clint Eastwood making my day.”

  The apartment house where the O’Dowds lived was an older one-story building that took up half a block. Each unit in the half-timbered Tudor-style structure had its own garage, which meant that Judith had to find on-street parking. Given that it was a Sunday night and most of the neighborhood’s residents were home, the cousins were forced to walk almost two blocks from where Judith finally found a space for the Subaru.

  “We’re only two or three blocks west of the Alhambra,” Renie pointed out. “The O’Dowds didn’t move very far.”

  “I’m sure they liked the neighborhood,” Judith said. “Who wouldn’t? It’s so convenient, and this far down the hill they’re virtually on the flat.”

  The grounds were beautifully landscaped, and each unit had its own entrance. Only the omnipresent electioneering signs marred the surroundings, with their garish colors and alarming slogans such as �
�End the Violence!” and “Keep Your Arms to Yourself!”

  No such political messages were planted in the O’Dowds’ front yard, however. They were in Number Five, near the far end of the building. Judith pressed the buzzer, and the door opened almost immediately.

  “Good Lord!” the man on the threshold exclaimed. “It’s you!”

  Judith gaped and Renie let out a little squawk. Billy O’Dowd was the man who had sat in front of them on the tour trolley. His wife, Midge, stalked into the hallway, gaping incredulously.

  “Are you here to apologize?” she demanded. “You better be. You just about ruined the tour for us.”

  “I thought the dead body might have done that,” Renie said, firmly planting one foot inside the door.

  Hoping to defuse the situation, Judith tried to edge Renie out of the way. “I am sorry,” Judith said. “It was a terribly upsetting day for us from the start. If you’d be so kind as to let us in, I could explain everything.”

  “I thought,” Billy O’Dowd said with suspicion in his dark blue eyes, “you called yourself a detective.”

  “My husband is a detective,” Judith replied. “He’s investigating the murder at the Alhambra. I’m helping him. As I mentioned on the phone, I found Mrs. Carrabas’s body.”

  Midge O’Dowd stuck her broad, homely face out from around her husband’s shoulder. “How do we know you didn’t kill her?”

  “I didn’t,” Judith said simply. “If I did, my husband would’ve had me arrested by now. He’s a very good detective.”

  Apparently, this explanation made some sort of sense to Billy. “Okay.” He sighed. “We agreed to see you, so we will. But make it quick.”

  “Hold it!” Midge burst out. “Did I say I agreed? Since when do you make all the rules?”

  “Come off it, Midge,” Billy said in a weary voice. “They’re here, they look harmless.”

  “They weren’t harmless on the bus,” Midge declared with a bulldog expression. “They were a couple of nuisances.” Although she stepped aside, her expression exuded distrust.

  The O’Dowd living room was rather small, dark, and crowded. Still, the furnishings were tasteful, if modest, and despite the hostility of their hosts, the atmosphere seemed comfortable.

  “This is nice,” Judith said. “I’ve driven by these apartments many times. They always look cozy.”

  “They suit us just fine,” Midge declared, indicating that the cousins should sit on the navy blue loveseat. “We don’t have as much room as we had in the Alhambra, though. Then again, we sure didn’t have the space there that we had in our family home up the hill.”

  Judith nodded in sympathy. “It’s hard, isn’t it? To move, especially when you have to get rid of beloved possessions. When I was widowed a few years ago, I had to give up our family home.” She tried not to wince. The only home that she and Dan had ever owned had been repossessed. “It broke my heart to part with some of the things I couldn’t take with me when I moved in with my mother.” The seedy rental out in the city’s south end had been crammed with junk, mostly Dan’s so-called bargain appliances and gadgets that had long since broken or become obsolete. Judith had jubilantly flung them all into a Dumpster, wishing she could do the same with her unhappy memories. “It’s hard work, too,” she added on a final note of truth.

  “You bet,” Midge said, then looked at Renie. “You haven’t apologized. What’s wrong, you only talk when you’re not supposed to?”

  Judith watched Renie out of the corner of her eye, hoping her cousin would play along and at least feign repentance.

  “I’m overcome,” Renie said, and let it go at that.

  Apparently, the O’Dowds interpreted the remark as an apology. “I suppose,” Midge said, “you’re wondering why we took that tour. We knew the Alhambra was part of it, and we wanted to see what that crook, George Guthrie, was doing to the place. You wouldn’t believe the prices he’s asking for those condos.”

  “Staggering,” Judith agreed. “Or so I’ve heard.”

  Billy O’Dowd nodded, a shock of silver hair falling onto his forehead. “That’s right. At our age, it didn’t make sense. The wife and I are almost eighty. Why would we want to pay three, four hundred thousand dollars just to stay put?”

  “We’re not poor,” Midge said with a scowl for her husband. “Don’t make us out to be some kind of broken-down old coots. We’re not foolish, that’s all.”

  “I didn’t say we were foolish,” Billy shot back. “Did I say that? Did I?”

  “You better not,” Midge snapped, then folded her arms across her heavy bosom, sat back in the armchair, and dug her heels into the shag carpet.

  “I gather that only a few of the former tenants have agreed to buy in,” Judith commented.

  The O’Dowds exchanged glances. “That’s right,” Billy said. “The schoolteacher and Rufus Holmes. Hell’s bells, Miss Schnell never lived anyplace else and hardly ever spent a dime. No wonder she can afford to buy a condo. And Rufus—well, he’s crazy.”

  “Crazy like a fox,” Midge put in. “You just think he’s crazy because he didn’t always agree with you.”

  “Heck,” Billy responded, “Rufus hardly ever talked to me. Or to anybody else, either.”

  “Who’s Rufus?” Renie asked.

  “Who I said he was,” Billy responded. “Rufus Holmes. He’s another one who never lived anywhere else. He never goes anywhere, never does anything. Never worked, either. I’ll be darned if I know where he gets his money.”

  “Stocks,” Midge put in. “I heard he has lots of stocks and such. Helen Schnell told me once that he had a knack for picking winners, just like my cousin Bernie has for handicapping horses.”

  “If your cousin Bernie is so smart, why is he always asking us for money?” Billy demanded. “Bernie’s only handicap is his brain. It broke a long time ago, if you ask me.”

  “I didn’t ask,” Midge shot back.

  “Is Rufus a recluse?” Judith asked, trying to steer the O’Dowds back on track.

  Billy nodded. “I’d say so. I guess he got married once, but it didn’t last long. He probably wouldn’t take her anywhere.”

  “I wouldn’t blame her,” Midge said, then turned to Billy. “When was the last time we went anywhere? I haven’t seen a movie since The Sound of Music.”

  “How long did you live at the Alhambra?” Renie inquired, now settling into the spirit of things.

  “Over ten years,” Midge answered. “We sold the house a couple of years after Billy retired from the postal service. We should have waited because prices on the hill started going sky-high about then. But Billy knew it all, he was suddenly a real estate genius.”

  Billy glared at Midge. “We got a good price. It would’ve been silly to stay put. Heck, the kids were raised, with families of their own.”

  “Yes,” Judith said with a smile, “I understand one of your children lives in California.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” Midge demanded.

  “From George Guthrie, I think,” Judith said. “He mentioned that one of them recommended Mrs. Carrabas.”

  The O’Dowds exchanged glances again, this time looking mystified. “No such thing,” Midge asserted. “Why would Frankie or Danny do that? They don’t know any exercisers.”

  “We haven’t even talked to Guthrie since we moved out six months ago,” Billy said. “Where’d he get such a damned fool notion?”

  “It sounds like him,” Midge huffed. “All hot air—and sly. Did you know that he couldn’t raise the rent on the apartments? It’s one of those historical landmarks, so he had to follow some kind of formula with only small increases allowed for inflation. But then he figured out a way to get around the building codes and such by turning the place into condominiums. All he had to do was keep the outside the same and not mess with the courtyard. That’s why I think he’s a big crook. I’ll bet he bribed somebody down at city hall.”

  “How long has he owned the property?” Renie inquired.


  “Not long,” Billy replied. “A year or two, I think.”

  “Two years and seven months,” Midge interjected. “Don’t think, Billy. You’ll wear out your brain.”

  “Like cousin Bernie?” Billy retorted.

  Midge ignored the barb. “Guthrie bought the building from Mrs. Folger. She and her husband had owned and managed it for years. Then Mr. Folger died, so Mrs. Folger sold it to Guthrie. She passed on last winter. Pneumonia took her.”

  “It wasn’t pneumonia,” Billy countered. “It was emphysema.”

  Judith quickly jumped in before the O’Dowds could start another argument. “You didn’t live at the Alhambra when the Meachams did, of course. But how many of the tenants who were renters back then are still around?”

  “You mean who still lived in the building when Guthrie decided to renovate it?” Midge asked.

  “Yes,” Judith said. “You mentioned Miss Schnell and Mr. Holmes. Who else?”

  “That’s it,” Midge responded. “Oh, several of the renters had lived at the Alhambra for years and years, but nobody else going back that far. The reason so many people stayed put is because of the low rent. Then Guthrie pulls this condo stunt, so just about everybody had to find another place. Like us.”

  “Rufus didn’t leave right away,” Billy noted. “They had to haul him out. It took three men to do it.”

  Midge shot her husband an incredulous look. “I never heard any such thing. Why would he do that?”

  “Because,” Billy retorted with his jaw thrust out, “he’s crazy. Isn’t that what I said a minute ago?”

  “Where’s Rufus now?” Judith asked.

  “In some fleabag hotel downtown,” Midge said. “He’s cheap.”

  Billy glared at his wife. “How can he be cheap when he’s shelling out four hundred grand for a condo?”

  Midge didn’t reply, but sat stonily in her chair. Billy again addressed the cousins. “What does all this have to do with that woman who got herself killed?”

  “I don’t know,” Judith admitted. “I’m just trying to get some background on the building itself. Was there anything unusual about any of the other tenants?”

  “The two girls next door smoked pot,” Midge said. “Awful smell. What’s wrong with young people these days? Why can’t they get drunk like the rest of us?”