Nutty As a Fruitcake

by Mary Daheim

  The cousins fell silent, though Judith kept her eye on the floor indicator that marked the elevator’s progress. Sure enough, the car was rising again. It stopped on six.

  At first, Judith wasn’t sure that the patient on the gurney was George Goodrich. The bare, flaccid arms, the pale, drawn face, the sparse, matted hair, and the absence of glasses were all in contrast to George’s usual neat, well-groomed appearance. But the elongated features and the thin nose were still recognizable.

  “George!” Judith’s greeting was effusive. “I’m so relieved! We’ve been waiting for ages. How are you feeling?”

  The two orderlies who were bringing George into the ward stared at Judith and then at each other. “Missus…” said one of them who appeared to be Cambodian.

  Judith gave him a friendly wave. “Never mind. I’m George’s old friend.” The orderlies kept moving, and Judith trotted along at the head of the gurney. “I can’t wait to tell everybody at home that you’re much better,” she said, vaguely aware of Renie shuffling behind her. “The whole neighborhood has been upset.”

  “Señora,” said the other orderly. “Por favor, no es posible…”

  “Look!” Judith cried, pointing to George, whose eyes seemed glazed. “He’s smiling!” He wasn’t. “George,” she went on, her voice now more urgent, “what happened this morning?”

  George closed his eyes. Both orderlies were growing impatient as they approached the door that led into the ward. Judith lowered her head and her voice as she repeated the question.

  “Missus…” pleaded the Cambodian.

  “Señora…” begged the Hispanic.

  George’s eyes flickered open. For just a fleeting moment, he seemed to acknowledge Judith. His head lifted almost imperceptibly from the pillow.

  “I…didn’t…I wouldn’t…I couldn’t…” He fell back, exhausted.

  “What?” Judith frowned as a grim-faced nurse marched into her path. The gurney moved on. “Who?” she called after the little group which was fast disappearing into a room on her left.

  George turned his head just a fraction. A single word slipped between his lips. Judith couldn’t be sure, but she thought it was “key.” Then George was out of sight.

  The nurse was scowling at Judith. “Where did you come from?” she demanded, making it sound as if the expected answer might be a dark and dismal swamp.

  Judith tried to look innocent. “We’re just neighbors. Good neighbors,” she added hastily. “Close.”

  The nurse arched thin, black brows. “‘We’? Are there more of you?”

  Puzzled, Judith turned. Renie was no longer right behind her. Judith gazed down to the other end of the corridor. One of the food carts was standing about twenty yards away. Renie was next to it.

  Ignoring the nurse’s last query, Judith rushed away. This time she was determined not to cause trouble but to prevent it. She caught Renie just as her cousin was about to sample a dish that did indeed look a lot like weasel.

  Joe Flynn was swearing, sweating, and swinging from the ceiling. Or doing a good imitation, since he had refused to use the stepladder in order to hang the pine garlands. When Judith hurried into the living room shortly before eight o’clock that evening, she found her husband with one foot on a side chair and the other braced against a bookcase.

  “You’re going to kill yourself,” Judith warned. “I almost fell out of the pine tree last Sunday. Let me get the ladder.”

  “What’s one more death around this goofy neighborhood?” Joe growled as he swung a hammer to pound in a slightly awry nail. “Damned if I don’t have enough homicides at work. I come home, and instead of my robe and slippers, there’s a—ooops!”

  The nail flipped out of the molding and fell onto the floor. Joe swore again. Judith searched about in the coffee can for another nail, then handed it to her husband.

  “You weren’t that upset when you got here,” she noted. Indeed, Joe had already learned of Enid Goodrich’s death before he left headquarters.

  “That,” Joe said through gritted teeth as he successfully hammered in the new nail, “was before you asked me to swing like a chimpanzee in order to put up these damned decorations. It was also before you decided George didn’t do it.” Panting a bit, Joe asked Judith to hand him the pine garland. “No wonder Renie was annoyed with you. Can’t you leave well enough alone?”

  Judith ignored the irritation in Joe’s voice. She knew it had less to do with her than it did with the garland that refused to stay put on the nail.

  “It isn’t well enough if George didn’t do it,” Judith replied placidly. She had already explained her feelings to both Joe and Renie. Her cousin had only half listened, being intent on coping with rush-hour traffic. Joe had seemed more sympathetic. But then he’d had the advantage of hearing his wife’s theory over a soothing scotch-on-the-rocks.

  Now, however, he appeared to have changed his mind. Or perhaps he was merely trying to distract himself from balancing atop two phone directories piled on the bay window’s cushioned seat.

  “I told you,” Judith was saying in a calm voice that masked her worry for Joe’s safety. “George isn’t a killer. I don’t care how aggravating Enid was—he doesn’t strike me as the sort who’d resort to murder.”

  “That’s bunk,” Joe retorted, managing to strike the last nail evenly. “One thing I’ve learned from my job is that everybody—absolutely everybody—is capable of murder, given certain conditions.”

  Judith took the hammer from Joe in exchange for another length of garland. “Then why didn’t George kill Enid years ago? And why does he deny doing it?”

  Joe got down carefully from the window seat. “Hey, he confessed, didn’t he? Patches Morgan is sharp, even if he does think he’s part pirate. Did he bring his parrot?”

  Judith’s voice took on a dark note. “He brought Sancha Rael.”

  “Rael, huh? She’s new but promising.” Joe stepped back, reluctantly admiring his handiwork. “It looks good, especially with those strands of gold pearls running through it.” In apparent contrition, Joe kissed his wife’s temple. “What next, having me crawl down the chimney to see if Santa can fit?”

  Judith smiled fondly at her husband. “I can do the rest of the house over the next couple of days. Except the tree—we should buy it this weekend so we can let it stand in water outside for a few days.”

  Joe replaced the side chair next to the card table that usually held a jigsaw puzzle in progress. “Why bother? We never did that when I was married to Herself.”

  References to Joe’s first wife occasionally still rankled. “What did she do, pickle the tree along with the rest of her?” Repentance immediately enveloped Judith. She put her hands on Joe’s shoulders. “Sorry. Sometimes I’m kind of mean.”

  Tucking his shirt inside his pants, Joe tipped his head to one side. “Jude-girl—has it ever occurred to you that you don’t need to do every little thing for Christmas that your family has done since 1901? Fifteen boxes of decorations, five of them just for the tree, church activities, presents, cards, letters, books, recordings, baking, cooking, and now the cul-de-sac. Instead of cutting down on your workload, you add to it. You’ve got a job, for God’s sake! Not to mention a husband, a son, a mother, and about four hundred relatives who expect you to put on an annual extravaganza. Give yourself a break.”

  “But I like it,” Judith protested, then realized that Joe might not. Maybe it wasn’t just that he didn’t share her enthusiasm for the holidays but that he resented the time and energy she expended on preparations. “I enjoy doing things for other people,” she said, sounding defensive. “Why else would I run a B&B?”

  Joe looked as if he were trying to understand. But his words conveyed a firm if gentle warning. “All this hustle and bustle wears you down. You get cranky. Face it, Jude-girl, you’re not twenty years old anymore. And you’re only human.”

  “We still should put the tree in water outside.” Judith wasn’t giving in easily. She went over to a big c
arton that sat on the floor by the window seat, then began unwrapping candles of various shapes, including reindeer, bells, snowmen, igloos, and a steepled church. “The Ericsons do it. So do the Rankerses and Bill and Renie. You take a second cut after you get it home, about two inches. Don’t you remember from last year?”

  If Joe did, he wouldn’t admit it. “I sure as hell don’t remember that those candles looked as if the mice had eaten them. What happened?”

  “The mice ate them.” Judith held a white reindeer in her hand. Both its antlers were missing. “Some of these belonged to my grandparents. One year they stored them in the attic instead of the basement. I don’t know why. But the mice got into them, and a few actually melted because the attic got so warm in the summer. That’s why this lamppost tilts.” With a nostalgic smile, Judith displayed a crooked lamp standard made of green, red, white, and yellow wax. “This is older than I am.”

  Joe tried to look impressed. “Cute,” he said. “I think I’ll go upstairs and watch TV. This Shazri case is a drag. I hate it when you know who the perp is but the evidence is shaky. Woody and I feel like we’re walking on eggs.”

  Judith looked up from the carton. “That’s another thing—there were needles all over the living room floor. Nobody ever walks on that carpet. It’s even got a runner.”

  “What?” Halfway to the entry hall, Joe had turned around.

  “The Goodrich house,” Judith said, running a hand through the pile of tissue paper to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. “Why would there be fir needles on the living room rug? Nobody was allowed in that room except extra-special company, which they hadn’t had in years.”

  Joe suppressed a yawn. “The firemen. The medics. The cops. Morgan and Rael.”

  “It wasn’t any of them,” Judith asserted as she placed an Eskimo couple on each side of their igloo. “Art was so rattled that he let the emergency personnel come in the front way. The fir needles were from the noble that Jeanne and Ted Ericson had lying in the joint driveway behind the house.”

  Joe took a couple of steps back into the living room. “What are you trying to say?”

  Judith had gone over to the fireplace, where she was arranging the candles on the mantle. “That maybe somebody else came in the house this morning. Whoever it was entered the usual way, through the back. He or she tracked the needles into the living room and the bedroom. Ted didn’t bring the tree home until after eight.” She lifted her shoulders and gave Joe a quizzical look.

  “Maybe it was George. He went outside, then came back in and went into the living room.” Joe’s round face was ingenuous. “Simple, huh?”

  But Judith didn’t agree. “George never went in the living room. It wasn’t permitted. Of course, if Enid was already dead…” She rubbed at the back of her head. “No, then there would have been blood on the carpet. Art told us there was blood all over both his parents.” Judith winced at the thought.

  “Give it up, Jude-girl.” Joe’s voice had grown tired.

  “This afternoon George said he didn’t kill Enid,” Judith said doggedly. “He also tried to say something else. It sounded like ‘key.’ They kept a key in one of those phony rocks outside. Maybe somebody took it and came in and…”

  Joe threw up his hands. “I’m going to watch something that makes sense, like America’s Favorite Home Videos. I should make one of my wife, going around the neighborhood with a magnifying glass, looking for cigarette butts and scraps of paper with mysterious phone numbers. Scratch the sable coat—I’m getting you a deerstalker for Christmas.” Joe headed upstairs.

  Judith sighed, then returned to her task. She had almost finished when she heard a knock on the French doors. As she crossed the length of the long living room, she could make out the figure behind the rectangular panes: It was a tall, blond male in a down jacket. His hands were shoved inside his pockets, and in the deep December shadows of the porch, he looked vaguely sinister. Suddenly anxious, Judith stood rooted on her side of the double doors. Then she recognized Dooley.

  “Dooley!” she cried, yanking open the right-hand door and beaming. “You’ve grown another foot! Are you home for Christmas?”

  Aloysius Gonzaga Dooley lurched into the room, grinning widely. “I sure am. We start our semester in August. I’m off until January. Hey, Mrs. McMonigle, what’s this about Mrs. Badbitch?”

  In his previous incarnation as the neighborhood paperboy, Dooley had been fascinated by crime. For a couple of years, he had been a member of the police auxiliary. But as he grew up, his interests had widened. This past year he had enrolled at a small private college on the other side of the state. Judith hadn’t seen Dooley since early spring, before she and Joe had gone on their trip to England.

  “Want some pop?” Judith asked after insisting that Dooley sit down on one of the matching sofas. “Or beer,” she added, remembering that her guest was no longer a mere boy.

  “Pop’s fine,” Dooley said, stretching out his long legs under the coffee table. “Mom’s agog. What’s happening?”

  After fetching a soda for Dooley and herself, Judith recounted the terrible tragedy in the cul-de-sac. “I tried to call your mother earlier today, but she wasn’t home,” Judith finally said after she had wrapped up her account. “I didn’t want to leave such a gruesome message on the answering machine.”

  Dooley nodded. “She was probably picking me up at the airport. Wow, this is unreal! That old lady was totally mean. She was always complaining that I threw the paper into her flowers or missed the porch or some dumb thing. She reported me a bunch of times to the local manager, but he knew what she was like. I used to watch her and Mr. Goodrich through my telescope when they were out in the backyard. She was always nagging the poor guy. That’s how I learned to read lips. Sort of.” Dooley tried to look modest.

  “Do you still have the telescope?” Judith remembered it well, particularly from a certain misadventure involving Gertrude in the altogether.

  Dooley chuckled. Maybe he was remembering Gertrude, too. “Oh, yeah. My brother, O.P., uses it a lot. He’s almost twelve.”

  O.P. was Oliver Plunkett Dooley, and, like his brother, he had taken an alias to avoid ridicule as well as comparison to the saints for whom he had been named. While the Dooleys had lived behind Hillside Manor and the Ericsons for almost thirty years, Judith still didn’t know exactly how many children the family had or what their real names were. As soon as a couple of them grew up, new babies seemed to appear. The assumption was that they were grandchildren, but their constant presence at the Dooley house indicated they might as well have been replacements.

  “Well, darn,” Dooley said, leaning his sharp chin on his hand. “It doesn’t sound like there’s any mystery this time.”

  “Don’t tell me you’d want to help solve it if there was,” Judith said, unable to keep from sounding sly.

  Dooley shrugged. “Why not? It’s good exercise for the brain. Oh, I’m not going to go into law enforcement or anything like that. I’d rather study philosophy and teach at the college level.” He suddenly looked older and just a trifle dignified. “But I wouldn’t mind matching wits with a killer. Especially one right here in the neighborhood. Everybody’s involved, right?” As if tugged by a magnet, Dooley’s eyes strayed across the room to the front door. Beyond it lay the Stein house, and the Steins’ enchanting daughter, Brianna.

  “Brianna’s not home from college yet,” Judith said, unable to hold back. “I think the school she’s attending in California is on the quarter system.”

  Dooley flushed ever so slightly. “Could be,” he said, then took a sip of pop and assumed a worldly air. “But the local Methodist university isn’t.”

  Judith’s eyes widened. Naturally, the Porter house was next to the Steins’. “Gabrielle Porter? Dooley, you’re fickle!”

  Dooley grinned. “Brianna’s dating some studly guy she met in California. He’s all bleached out and tanned and buff. Mrs. Stein showed Mom a picture. Besides, Gaby’s quite excellent. Remember
how she used to be all pigtails and big teeth and skinny legs? That changed.”

  Gaby Porter had indeed changed. The little girl known as Lean Bean was now an eighteen-year-old semi-goddess. Fleetingly, Judith thought of Brianna, of Gabrielle, of Leigh. All three were products of the neighborhood, directly or otherwise. Judith hadn’t yet seen the grown-up supermodel Leigh, but it was obvious that the cul-de-sac had produced natural wonders besides splendid trees and lush flowers. Judith felt a pang of envy for the trio’s youth and beauty.

  But Dooley was feeling curious. “So what makes you think Mr. Goodrich is innocent?” he asked, exhibiting more understanding for Judith’s intuition than Joe had.

  “Because he says so,” Judith replied. “Yes, I realize that people who come out of a Dalmane-induced state are often confused, even deluded. But tell me, Dooley, can you see Mr. Goodrich taking a hatchet to Mrs. Goodrich?”

  Dooley was mature enough to reflect on the concept before answering. “Well…maybe. But he’s a really nice guy. O.P. was saying that when he sees Mr. Goodrich through the telescope talking to that Mrs. Swanson his whole face gets full of sunshine. At least,” Dooley added with a shrug, “that’s how O.P. puts it. He’s still a kid.”

  “Really.” Judith’s voice was soft. “That’s interesting.”

  Dooley, however, was concentrating on the murder itself. “If Mr. Goodrich didn’t do it, how come he took those pills?”

  Judith frowned. “I don’t know. Somebody might have given them to him. In coffee, let’s say. There were two empty mugs in the kitchen sink.”

  Dooley drew his long legs up to his chin. “How many would it take?”

  “I don’t know. Enid had all sorts of pills in the cupboard. I assume Dalmane was one of them.”

  Dooley rocked back and forth on the sofa. “Whoever did it—assuming it wasn’t George—would have to come in, drug him, and then kill Enid, right?”