by Mary Daheim
Judith did. The cotton garments, with their cheerful patterns, were always sewn with enough seam allowance so that growing girls could wear them for at least a couple of years. Judith had especially loved the rickrack that decorated the shoulder ruffles.
“Is there anything else you remember?” Judith persisted.
Gertrude, who had eaten most of the chicken but virtually none of the greens, was now munching on an oatmeal cookie. “Isn’t that enough?” she snapped. “What’re you doing, writing their life story for The Woman’s Home Companion?”
Judith didn’t bother to tell her mother that The Woman’s Home Companion had ceased publication almost a half-century earlier. Instead, she reflected on everything that Gertrude had told her. Everything fit. Except Beth, who was part of the equation. “Did you ever see her husband with another woman? A tall blond?”
“That would be Beth,” Gertrude said blithely. “She worked at the stationery store. Foreign woman, nice-looking. But I heard she could be difficult, like most foreigners.”
“You knew Beth Ritter?” Judith was dumbfounded.
“Was that her last name?” The lines in Gertrude’s face grew even more wrinkled in concentration. “Hunh. Maybe it was. I don’t know if I ever knew it. And I can’t say I knew her. She waited on me a few times. I knew Mr. Oakley, who owned the store. Nice man, but a strange color, sort of orange. Liver, I suppose.”
“But you knew that Beth and Harry were…a couple?” Judith prodded.
“Yep, your dad and I would see them on the avenue. He must have broken up with Beth to marry Dorothy.” Gertrude paused, rubbing at her forehead. “That’s funny, I thought Harry and Beth were married. Maybe they were. Maybe they got a divorce. No, that doesn’t sound right. I saw them once, after the war, on the bus. Beth was still wearing her wedding ring. It was just a plain gold band, and I thought that was kind of funny. Couldn’t Harry afford a better one? But she’d had it before the war, so I figured he’d bought it for her during the Depression. Maybe he couldn’t afford anything better, like a set, with a diamond.”
“Are you sure about all this?” Judith asked.
Gertrude turned and glowered at her daughter. “Am I sure? Of course I’m sure. Do you think I’ve lost my memory?”
“No,” Judith said slowly, giving her mother a hug. “What I think is that Harry Meacham was a bigamist.”
SEVENTEEN
THAT NIGHT, JUDITH lay awake long past midnight. Partly, it was because of the muggy weather. The main reason, however, was that she was cudgeling her brain to find the missing link in the Meacham and Carrabas murders. For Judith was convinced there was a connection, and that connection was a human being, possibly a killer.
Faces floated before her mind’s eye: Rufus Holmes, Helen Schnell, George Guthrie, Midge and Billy O’Dowd, Nan Leech, Jeremy Lamar, Alfred Ashe.
But nothing inspired her. At last, around one o’clock, she drifted off to sleep. To her utter horror, she awoke at ten minutes to nine. Judith couldn’t remember when she had overslept and neglected her guests’ breakfasts.
Joe was nowhere in sight. Judith limped into the shower, hurried out, and hastily dressed. Between the third and second floors, she discovered she’d put her slacks on backwards. Making the change as quickly as possible, she finally reached the first floor and had to stop in the kitchen hallway because her hips were so painful. Seeing Joe at the sink, Judith heaved a sigh of relief.
“They liked the blueberry pancakes,” he said. “I made the eggs my special way.”
“Oh, Joe!” Judith hugged and kissed her husband.
“You were dead to the world,” Joe said. “You’re wearing yourself out on those bum hips. When’s that appointment with Dr. Alfonso?”
Before Judith could answer, the phone rang. To her surprise, it was Liz Ogilvy.
“Listen up,” Liz said in her aggressive manner, “what have you got for me on this Carrabas thing? I’m sick of Mavis getting all the gravy. Granted, it’s pretty thin stuff, but she’s the one with the police contacts. I’m frozen out, and you can help me.”
Thinking it wise to continue the conversation out of Joe’s hearing range, Judith wandered out into the dining room. Unfortunately, the couple from Wyoming was at the table, along with the husband and wife from Samoa. Flashing a smile, Judith kept going.
“I don’t have much,” she said to Liz when she’d reached the sanctuary of the front parlor. “But that may change in the next twenty-four hours.”
“Really?” Some of the harshness went out of Liz’s voice. “Or are you conning me?”
“Not at all,” Judith said. “However, I would like to cut a deal with you.”
Liz turned suspicious. “I thought so. What is it?”
“If I give you a scoop,” Judith began as she sat down on the windowseat to rest her hips, “will you do a small feature on Hillside Manor showing it as a pleasant, hospitable inn instead of a den of iniquity?”
“It’s the wrong time of year,” Liz declared. “We do travel features in the spring and summer.”
“Oh.” Judith paused. “Then I guess I can’t tell you anything.”
“Hold it,” Liz commanded. “We could do it for Thanksgiving. But you’d have to trust me on that. It wouldn’t air until the third week of November. That’s over two months away.”
Judith considered the offer. She didn’t trust Liz for a variety of reasons, some of which weren’t necessarily personal. “No,” she said in a firm voice. “That won’t do. You don’t produce the shows. You can’t promise anything so far off in the future. Why can’t you make it an end-of-tourist season thing, showing how local residents can get reduced rates for getaways?”
This time it was Liz who paused. “That sounds like an ad, not a feature.”
“Think about it,” Judith said. “Everybody in this town has visitors during the summer. We’re a tourist mecca, we get taken advantage of. By the middle of September, we’re all worn out from hosting friends and relatives. Now it’s our turn to take a break. I think it’d be kind of cute.”
Liz emitted a short, sharp laugh. “Maybe you ought to be a TV producer. That’s not the nuttiest idea I ever heard.”
“Good,” Judith said, pleased with herself. “I’ve got a houseful of guests and my husband’s home today. Why don’t I meet you someplace this afternoon?”
“How about at Toujours La Tour?” Liz suggested. “They’re open, of course, for the holiday weekend. I have to talk to Jeremy Lamar about doing a Halloween feature. You’re not the only one who’s been upset about the mystery bus’s maiden voyage.”
“Yes, I know,” Judith agreed. “Okay, I’ll see you around two.”
Liz was amenable. Judith returned to the kitchen and volunteered to help Joe. He insisted that she go about her other business, since Phyliss had the weekend off.
Judith didn’t argue. But she worried. All she could really offer Liz was the possible connection between the Meacham and the Carrabas homicides. It wouldn’t be breaking trust with Joe, since it was she who had discovered the link. Still, she didn’t feel quite right.
Around ten-thirty, she decided to call Mrs. Hasegawa in San Francisco. The older woman seemed pleased to hear from Judith.
“We’re told Alfred is doing much better,” she said. “Hiroko flew up there last night, but even she isn’t allowed to speak to him until tomorrow.”
Judith had no idea that Mrs. Ashe—or Ms. Hasegawa, as she preferred professionally—had arrived in town. “Do they have children?” Judith inquired.
“Twin boys, not identical in any way,” Mrs. Hasegawa answered with pride in her voice. “They’re college freshman this year, one at Cal, the other at Stanford.”
“They must be very bright,” Judith said, then moved directly to the reason for her call. “You mentioned that there were crooks in the Alhambra. Were you referring to anyone in particular?”
“Indeed I was,” Mrs. Hasegawa responded, sounding indignant. No doubt the memories were as fre
sh in her mind as the morning’s headlines. “Con artists, too. But you have to remember when we first moved in, the Depression was still going on. People had to survive. We owned a small grocery store at the bottom of the hill. So many customers bought on credit, which made it very hard for us. But my husband and I couldn’t say no, especially if there were children.”
“I can imagine your generosity,” Judith remarked. And how the government repaid it, she thought. “I gather some of your neighbors weren’t so kindly disposed. You mentioned scams in the building?”
“More than scams,” Mrs. Hasegawa declared. “That Charlie Schnell was a thief, I’m sure of it. And Orrin Holmes—well, he was the con artist. He sold phony stocks. My husband and I were never gullible enough to buy any, but I figure plenty of the others were. Stupid, too. Several people actually believed him when he said the stocks had collapsed and the money was gone. Orrin Holmes ran off with it.”
“He didn’t run very far,” Judith pointed out. “Didn’t he always live in the Alhambra?”
“That was a manner of speaking,” Mrs. Hasegawa said. “Yes, I believe he died in the Alhambra not too many years after the war. His heart. Not that he had one. Why, I know for a fact that he swindled at least ten thousand dollars from the Whiffels. And the son was a lawyer, too! Wouldn’t you think he’d have sued Orrin Holmes?”
“Why didn’t he?” Judith asked.
“Because,” Mrs. Hasegawa said and then stopped for a moment. “It was ridiculous. Mr. Whiffel—the father—was dead by then, and Ewart just out of law school. Mrs. Whiffel confronted Orrin, and guess what he did? He asked her how he could be saved. Mrs. Whiffel was so overcome that she forgave him and started giving him Bible lessons. I figure those were the most expensive Bible lessons since the Crucifixion. Mrs. Whiffel was a very silly woman, though I shouldn’t say so, being a Congregationalist myself.”
“So Mr. Holmes was never caught,” Judith remarked.
“Not that I ever heard,” Mrs. Hasegawa said. “Maybe it was small potatoes compared to some. You must remember, after the war there was so much else going on, including black market goods and labor unrest and housing shortages and…Well, I figure that even if they were on his trail, the grave robbed the authorities of justice. Consider, too, that so many people are proud. They won’t admit they’ve been taken in.”
“That’s true,” Judith agreed. “It’s embarrassing to be shown up as a pigeon.”
“Pigeon is the word,” Mrs. Hasegawa declared. “We lost so much ourselves, but not through our own fault. We were robbed, even though we weren’t stupid. We were just…Japanese.”
Judith agreed that wasn’t stupid—or a crime. “I hate to be so blunt,” she said in a humble voice, “but did you lose some of your possessions when you were sent away?”
A painful sigh crept over the phone line. “We weren’t able to take everything with us. There wouldn’t be room, we were told, and there wasn’t much time to make arrangements. I had bought a beautiful jewelry case, very cheap, at a pawnshop during the Depression. It was hand-carved, exquisite. I imagine it had originally cost hundreds of dollars, but the pawnshop owner sold it to me for fifty. That was a large sum even then, but the shopkeeper was a customer of ours and we’d been kind to him. The box had been sitting in the shop for five years. He let me pay for it in trade at our grocery store. In it, I kept the pearls my husband had given me on our wedding day and a few less expensive pieces. I asked Mrs. Whiffel to save the case and its contents for me until we returned. Only later did I learn she’d given it to Dorothy Meacham. Mrs. Whiffel, it seemed, thought that jewelry and jewelry cases were vain. That’s really why we had it in for the Meachams, I suppose. When we got out of the camp, they were gone—and so was my jewelry box. It’s never turned up and probably never will. Harry and that Beth must have taken it with them.”
“I see,” Judith said in a saddened voice. “I understand why you might consider them…untrustworthy.”
“And not just them,” Mrs. Hasegawa declared in a heated tone. “My other jewelry just plain disappeared, even before we moved. My husband and I had relatives in the Southwest. I bought some lovely pieces of silver—also quite cheap then—from the Navajos. There were some other gold items and two brooches set with stones and…oh, I forget. Just the kind of things a woman fancies. Remember, prices were very low in the thirties—but those same things today would be worth a great deal of money. Someone stole them from the apartment while we were still living there. We notified the police, but nothing came of it. There had been a number of burglaries in the neighborhood. But that was common, too, with so many people out of work. It was a time of desperation and despair. Still, I had my suspicions, and they weren’t directed at anyone quite so pitiful.”
“Charlie Schnell?” Judith said.
Mrs. Hasegawa sniffed with disdain. “You make a good detective, Mrs. Flynn.”
After hanging up, Judith thought about money. It was always such a good motive. Sitting at the kitchen counter, she began to make a list.
“MONEY OR OTHER SOURCES OF WEALTH,” Judith wrote in capital letters at the top of the legal-sized yellow tablet.
Holmes swindle with bogus stocks—revenge? Who? The Whiffels? No. Too pious, too meek.
Gold and silver jewelry—retrieval, by Alfred Ashe, for the Hasegawas. Revenge? Retribution? No. Too…
Judith paused. The disappearance of the jewelry case and the gold and silver items didn’t seem like a motive for murder. Especially not after more than half a century. Judith thought that Mrs. Hasegawa was wrong about Harry Meacham reporting that they were Japanese spies. It seemed far more likely that their accuser had been Charlie Schnell. If he’d robbed them once while they were still at the Alhambra, he’d have a field day if they were gone and had left valuables behind.
3. Burglaries by Schnell. Hasegawas victims. Who else?
Just about anybody in the building and the surrounding neighborhood, Judith figured. But many of the tenants from sixty years ago were probably dead. Would their descendants seek revenge after all this time? It didn’t seem likely, and why kill Mrs. Carrabas? For all that Judith wanted to see a connection between the two murders in the Alhambra, no real light had been shed by Mrs. Hasegawa’s revelations.
Mrs. Manuaoloposo entered the kitchen with a shy smile on her round, pretty face. “We’re about to leave for the football game,” she said. “I hate to bother you, but…”
The Manuaoloposos had come from Samoa to watch their son play for the university in the team’s season opener. Judith had offered to put a picnic lunch together for the couple.
“Oh, dear!” Judith exclaimed, jumping up from the chair. “Can you give me five minutes?”
Mrs. Manuaoloposos obliged. Hurriedly, Judith used the leftover chicken from the salad of the previous night to make sandwiches, included carrots and celery sticks, a bag of chips, a half-dozen oatmeal cookies, and a thermos of coffee. Feeling guilty for her oversight, she added a bottle of white zinfandel and two plastic glasses.
“Don’t let the ushers catch you with this,” she warned her guest as she handed over the wicker hamper. “They’re cracking down on alcohol in the stadium.”
Mrs. Manuaoloposos nodded. “I understand. Do they really check us old folks?”
Since Mrs. Manuaoloposos looked all of forty, Judith had to smile. “Well…you have player tickets, right? They’re probably more lenient in that section.”
“I hope so,” Mrs. Manuaoloposos replied. “Most of us parents could use a sedative when our sons get hurt or make a mistake on the field. We Samoans set great store by honor. I don’t suppose,” she added, her dark eyes limpid, “that you have just a bit of gin?”
Judith filled a pint jelly jar and tucked it into the picnic hamper. A grateful Mrs. Manuaoloposos graciously thanked her hostess and departed.
Judith returned to her list. Money could be a factor with George Guthrie. He could have been set up. But who would do such a thing? A rival developer or real esta
te magnate? Judith had no idea, but surely Woody and Joe would know.
Money. Who had it, who didn’t? Helen Schnell had enough money to buy a condo in the Alhambra. So did Rufus Holmes. Both had acquired their original nest eggs through ill-gotten gains. It was no wonder that Rufus was reading a book called The Guilty Rich. Would either of them attack Alfred Ashe to keep their fathers’ secrets? Conversely, why would Helen or Rufus kill Aimee Carrabas?
Aimee was coming into money. Aimee was Beth and Harry’s daughter. Elizabeth Ritter had died in a nursing home, which indicated that there must have been a great deal of money in the estate. Judith didn’t know how long the old lady had been there, but if it was more than a few weeks, her bills would have milked the average family’s savings.
Judith went outside where Joe was tinkering with his beloved MG in the garage. “Did Woody check with the California police about an Anne-Marie Ritter?” she asked of Joe’s feet, which stuck out from under the car.
“What?” The response was muffled and irritable.
Judith started to drop down to her knees, felt her hips make odd noises, and stood up again. “What about Anne-Marie Ritter or Anne-Marie Meacham?” Judith persisted.
“Not now,” Joe barked. “I’m busy.”
Judith bit her lip, stomped back into the house, and dialed Renie’s number. “My husband’s an idiot,” she announced.
“Right,” Renie said calmly. “What did he do this time?”
“He won’t come out from under that damned old car of his,” Judith said, pouting a bit. “Do you know how old that thing is? He had it over thirty years ago, before we were engaged.”
“It’s a classic MG,” Renie said, still calm. “Men love cars.”