by Mary Daheim
“Does he know who ’me’ is?” the desk clerk inquired.
“I’m his ex-wife,” Judith said, and wondered what on earth had prompted her to say such an outrageous thing.
“Okay,” the desk clerk said. “But you oughtta know Rufus don’t get out much. I ain’t guaranteein’ he’ll show.”
Judith decided to take the chance. Traffic was heavy as she drove into downtown. It was after ten, which meant that Rufus had probably eaten breakfast. If he ate breakfast. She couldn’t be certain that he’d fall for the ruse. The O’Dowds had mentioned a brief marriage, but they’d been vague and could be mistaken. She supposed that if Rufus didn’t come to the café, she could somehow manage to see him in the hotel. But she preferred not to: The building was on the fringe of respectability, and she’d rather stay in a safer area.
The Commercial Café was a venerable landmark, dating back to the turn of the century. Like much of the surrounding neighborhood, it had been refurbished in the past two decades. What was once a seedy, run-down district had become fashionable and gentrified. The red and brown and cream-colored brick buildings had been restored to their former glory, and now housed shops, offices and condominiums.
Like the Alhambra, the café retained its original period features. A massive oak bar, supposedly brought ’round the Horn from Boston, covered one entire wall. The wooden tables and booths looked as if they’d been there forever, though they were highly polished and well-sanded.
Midway between breakfast and lunch, the restaurant was virtually empty this time of day. Judith sat down in one of the booths with her eyes on the entrance. After telling the waiter that she was meeting a Mr. Holmes who wouldn’t recognize her, she ordered coffee and waited.
And waited. Twenty minutes later, she was about to give up and make the sacrifice of walking the four blocks to the old hotel. But just as she was trying to get her server’s attention, a tall, gaunt man of sixty came through the door. He stopped to speak to the waiter just as Judith accidentally knocked her purse on the floor. She was bending down to retrieve it when she heard a terrible moan.
Judith looked up just in time to see the man in the doorway collapse in a dead faint.
The waiter, who was young and apparently inexperienced in the ways of the world, called out into the back room for the manager. Instead, the cook, a chubby black woman, came racing out from the kitchen.
“Don’t just stand there, Greg, call 911,” she ordered.
Judith had gotten out of the booth and was standing by the fallen man. “Do you know him?” she asked of the cook and the waiter.
Greg looked vague; the cook gave a slight nod. “Occasionally, at least in the past couple of months.” She waved a dimpled hand at Greg. “Call 911! Move it!”
The man was coming around, however, one thin hand suddenly flung over his face. He groaned. Greg went off to the phone.
“You know this guy?” the cook asked.
“Not exactly,” Judith replied, feeling awkward.
The man moved his hand away from his face. His gray eyes were open and so was his mouth. “My love…” he moaned, then blinked up at Judith, and passed out again.
“You sure you don’t know him?” the cook persisted, her dark eyes suspicious.
“I think I know who he is,” Judith said. “His name is Rufus Holmes.”
“Well,” the cook said, folding her arms across her big bosom, “he sure took one look at you and passed right out. If you don’t know each other, how come? You don’t have a face that would stop any clock I’ve ever seen.”
“Thanks,” Judith murmured. “Honestly, I don’t know why he fainted.”
Greg had returned from the phone. “The medics are on their way, Alva,” he said to the cook. “Where’s Phil?”
“Phil went out for a smoke,” Alva replied, then glanced at Judith. “Phil’s the manager. He won’t like all this commotion one bit.”
“It’s not my fault,” Judith insisted. “For all I know, this man isn’t the person I was supposed to…”
Even as Judith spoke, the man began to revive again. He strained his eyes at Judith, gave a little shake of his head, and, with Greg’s help, struggled to sit up.
Alva brought him a glass of water. “Here, sir,” she said, at her most polite, “take a sip.”
The man started to refuse, then apparently thought better of it, and duly swallowed a small amount from the glass. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded, glaring at Judith.
“I’m Judith Flynn,” she replied in what she hoped was a soothing tone. “Are you Rufus Holmes?”
“Hell, no,” the man shouted, scrambling to his feet. “Never heard of him.” With that, he raced out of the café.
Judith rummaged in her purse, found her wallet, and shoved a twenty-dollar bill into Alva’s hand. “Thanks,” she said. “Bye.”
She ran as fast as she could out onto the sidewalk. The gaunt man was also running, faster than Judith. At the corner, he just managed to get across the street before the light changed and a medic’s van came tearing around the corner. When the van had passed on toward the café, the man had disappeared. Judith went limp, her hips hurting, her head suddenly aching.
“They should have come for me,” she said under her breath, and leaned against a storefront.
The hotel where Rufus lived was three blocks east and one block south. Judith didn’t know if she could walk that far. Maybe the man who had come into the Commercial Café wasn’t Rufus Holmes. Maybe Rufus was still holed up in his hotel room. There probably wouldn’t be any parking nearby. Surrendering to pain, Judith walked the block and a half to the public garage where she’d left the Subaru.
Renie was just about to go down into the basement to start her workday when Judith showed up at the Jones residence.
“You look like bird poop,” Renie said. “What’s wrong?”
“Can you make tea?” Judith begged. “Please? I’ve had too much coffee for one morning.”
“Sure, come in, sit down in the dinette, tell your loving cousin everything,” Renie said, leading the way into the kitchen.
“Where’s Bill?” Judith asked, collapsing into one of the oak chairs at the butcher-block kitchen table.
“One of his old patients had some kind of spell,” Renie answered as she turned the water on under the cow-shaped tea kettle. “Mr. Burpee thinks he’s been captured by Amazons.”
“He’s complaining?” Judith asked.
“No, but Mrs. Burpee is,” Renie said, sitting down at the table across from Judith. “Bill went over there to calm them both down.”
Judith began her account of the morning’s adventures, pausing when the tea kettle sang and Renie got up. “I like your deck a lot,” Judith remarked. “I don’t see any way we could have one at our house.”
“You’ve got a patio,” Renie replied. “Besides, your backyard is on the level. Ours drops down not only from the house but further out in the yard.”
“I know,” Judith said, admiring the lush late summer growth of the evergreens and fruit trees. “You have a much larger yard, all the way back to the next street.”
“You bet,” Renie said, gloating a little as she handed Judith her tea. “A second legal lot. We’re sitting on a gold mine.”
“Speaking of which,” Judith said, “I was about to get to the part about the swastikas on the earrings.”
Renie stared. “Huh?”
Judith recounted what George Guthrie had told her. “What I was wondering,” she went on, “is if all that jewelry could be treasure stolen from the Nazis?”
Renie drew back in her chair. “Huh?” she repeated.
“Think about it,” Judith said. “We don’t know about all the people who lived in the Alhambra before and during and after the war, but we do know that Harry Meacham served in Europe, the Epsteins were Jewish refugees, and apparently Mr. Schnell was killed in the war. We also know that the second Mrs. Meacham was probably a woman from northern Europe, maybe even Germany.”
“You’re off somewhere with Mr. Burpee and the Amazons,” Renie remarked, adding a large amount of sugar to her tea.
Judith looked askance. “No, I’m not. There are all sorts of tales about the looting of Nazi treasures after Germany was defeated. Who else but Nazis would have swastikas on their jewelry?”
Renie started to open her mouth to reply when a large shadow seemed to hover outside on the deck. She leaned toward the window as footsteps could be heard close by. Suddenly, a form appeared on the deck outside the window. “Yikes!” Renie cried. “It’s Emil!”
The ostrich flapped its wings and thrust its beak at the glass. Both cousins leaped out of their chairs and backpedaled away from the table. Emil seemed very angry.
“Where’s the damned phone?” Renie exclaimed, her head turning every which way. “Ah! There it is, on the counter.” She grabbed the receiver and began punching in numbers.
“Who’re you calling?” Judith asked as Emil continued to flap and thrust.
“The cops,” Renie replied. “We’re being attacked, aren’t—Hello, yes, this is Mrs. Jones at—”
Judith lunged at Renie and wrested the phone out of her hand. “You idiot!” she cried, disconnecting the receiver. “We need to call Mr. and Mrs. Baines. This stupid ostrich belongs to them, remember?”
“Oh.” Renie looked sheepish. “I forgot. Let me get the phone book so I can find their number.” She reached under a counter by the back door and pulled out the white pages. “Do you know either of their first names?”
“Dave and Emily,” Judith replied promptly. “Isn’t that what Midge O’Dowd told us?”
“I guess.” Renie was down on the floor, scanning the listings under Baines. “Here they are, over on your side of the hill. That’s right isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Judith said, gazing at the window, “but it’s wrong to call them.”
Renie looked up. “Huh?”
“Emil’s gone.” She pointed out beyond the backyard where Emil could be seen running down the street.
“Shouldn’t we let his owners know he’s alive and flapping?” Renie asked.
“Yes,” Judith said, sitting back down at the table. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”
Renie started to dial the Baineses’ number.
“Wait!” Judith called out sharply.
“What now?” Renie looked annoyed.
“They live near the O’Dowds, right?” Seeing Renie give a faint nod, she went on: “Let’s drop in on them when we go see the O’Dowds. Now.”
“Now?” Renie replaced the phone book and stood up. “I have to go to work.”
“It’s not quite noon,” Judith said. “You never start until after that.”
Renie sighed. “Okay. I’ll leave a note for Bill. But we’d better be back here no later than one-thirty. I’ve got a deadline, you know.”
To Judith’s consternation, Dave and Emily Baines weren’t home in their one-story Roman brick house four blocks from the O’Dowds and three blocks from Hillside Manor. Leaving a note under the welcome mat about the second sighting of Emil, the cousins drove to the O’Dowds’ apartment, where Billy answered the door.
“Not you again,” he said with something akin to aversion.
Judith presented her most winning smile. “Please, we just have a couple of questions.”
Midge appeared behind Billy. “Ask now,” she commanded, jaw jutting. “It’s a nice day, you can stand outside.”
“All right,” Judith said calmly. “We’re here to warn you. The police may be about to arrest you for withholding evidence and obstructing justice.”
“What?” shrieked Midge, her face turning a deep red.
Judith nodded solemnly. “This is a murder investigation, after all.”
“We don’t know anything about any wizards and such,” Billy declared.
Midge rammed an elbow into her husband’s arm. “That woman was a conjurer, not a wizard, you dummy.”
Billy shook himself. “Whatever.”
“She was an exorcist,” Judith said, still very calm. “But that’s not the point. I’m talking about Mrs. Meacham, not Mrs. Carrabas.”
“Mrs. Meacham!” Midge’s high color began to fade. “Why, that was a million years ago. What’re you talking about?”
“The two homicides may be linked,” Judith said, trying to squelch any doubts in her own mind. “You didn’t tell us—that is, the police or my husband—that you not only knew the Meachams, but that you were the ones who were taking care of Anne-Marie the day that her mother disappeared.”
“A lot you know,” Midge shot back. “We told the police all that stuff when Dotty didn’t show up back in forty-six. As for now, nobody’s asked us. Except you two pests.”
“You’re missing the point,” Judith said, her calm fraying a bit. “I mentioned that the two crimes may be connected. All we want is some information about Anne-Marie. For instance, how long did you take care of her after her mother disappeared?”
Instead of finally inviting the cousins in, as Judith had hoped, the O’Dowds both moved out onto the small porch, which forced Judith and Renie to descend the single step to the path.
“She stayed two nights,” Midge said.
“She only stayed one,” Billy put in.
“You’re crazy,” Midge retorted. “She stayed the night before and the next night, after Dotty disappeared. Don’t you remember? The first night, I couldn’t get her and Frankie to go to sleep. It was the first time Anne-Marie had ever stayed over. Besides, Danny kept bugging them.”
Billy didn’t argue this time, and Judith took Midge at her word. Mothers had better memories than fathers when it came to recollections of their children.
“Was it your idea to invite Anne-Marie for the night?” Judith inquired.
Midge grimaced. “I guess so. Or maybe Harry or Dotty suggested it. Honest, I forget.”
On the sidewalk a few feet away, a young couple walked by with two pugs on leashes. The morning cloud cover had broken, and the first day of September promised to be warm.
“By the way,” Judith asked, “are Frankie and Danny both boys?”
Midge let out a hoot of laughter. “They’re girls. Francesca and Danielle.”
Billy gave his wife a baleful glance. “Mrs. Fancy Pants here. She had to come up with these high class names. So they end up being Frankie and Danny. Sheesh.”
“They got those nicknames because you couldn’t spell their given names,” Midge asserted. “You can’t spell ‘cat’.”
“I can, too,” Billy countered, looking belligerent. “C-A—”
“T,” Renie put in, a bored expression on her face. “Can we move along here? I’ve got work to do.”
“That’s a good idea,” Judith said quickly. “I only have a couple of other questions. Did you ever take care of Anne-Marie after her mother disappeared?”
“No,” Midge replied. “Harry sent her to live with an aunt or somebody. What was her name, Billy? I forget.”
“Cat,” Billy retorted, still belligerent.
“Beth,” Midge said, looking triumphant. “Aunt Beth. It just came back to me.”
“On which side?” Judith inquired. “Harry’s or Dorothy’s?”
The O’Dowds exchanged glances: Midge’s was puzzled; Billy’s was blank. “I’m not sure,” Midge said at last. “I never heard Dotty speak of having a sister. Or a brother, either. I think Harry’s family was all back east. Ohio, maybe.”
“Iowa,” Billy put in.
“Perhaps,” Judith suggested, “it was a close friend that Anne-Marie called aunt.”
Again, the O’Dowds looked at each other, but this time they both appeared troubled.
Midge turned back to the cousins and sighed. “I doubt it. Poor Dotty didn’t have any friends, except maybe me. She was kind of…odd.”
“In what way?” Renie asked.
“Paranoid,” Billy said. “At least that’s what they used to call it. She thought people were out to get her
.”
“Now Billy…” Midge began.
“Don’t try to dress it up,” Billy interrupted. “Dotty was dotty and that’s it. She thought everybody in that apartment house was trying to steal from her. Not that she had much to take. Oh, there were plenty of jobs for women during the war, but Dotty couldn’t work because she wasn’t right in her head. Besides, she had to stay home with the little girl.”
For once, Midge agreed with her spouse. “That’s so. Dotty and Harry got married just before the war. They didn’t have much, just newlyweds starting out. Anne-Marie was born right after Harry went in the army. Not that we knew them then—that came later, when our little girls got acquainted in the park.”
“But Harry must have had friends,” Judith pointed out.
Midge frowned. “I’m not so sure he did. He was going to school on the GI bill and working part-time. Harry was hardly ever home. Maybe that was part of it with Dotty. She was alone too much with Anne-Marie. That trip downtown the day she disappeared was a big outing for her. She was pretty nervous about it, too. I guess that’s why I thought it’d be nice for Anne-Marie to sleep over another night. It’d give Harry and Dotty an evening together for his birthday.”
“Bull,” Billy sneered. “Harry asked you to keep Anne-Marie. He said he couldn’t let her see how upset he was about Dorothy.”
Midge went on the defensive. “So? I still felt sorry for Dotty.”
A picture of Dorothy Meacham was beginning to form in Judith’s mind’s eye. Young, naïve, afraid, alone. Harry was away in the service for over four years. Dorothy stayed home with their child, going out only for groceries or to the park. The Meachams probably didn’t have a car. Not all women drove in those days anyway, and gas was rationed. Judith felt a pang for the lonely woman, waiting for the occasional censored letter to come through from Europe.
“Where was Dorothy from?” Judith asked.
“Here,” Midge responded.
“Denver,” Billy said, almost in unison with his wife.
They glared at each other. “Actually,” Midge said, “I think it was more like Reno.”
“Las Vegas,” Billy put in.
“Nevada, anyway,” Midge said, apparently allowing for compromise. “Yes, that was it, someplace in Nevada. Not Reno, not Vegas, a funny name that began with a ‘T.’ Harry met her on his travels. He sort of worked his way west and they settled here.”