Nutty As a Fruitcake

by Mary Daheim

  Joe filled his voice with reassurance. “That van belongs to the Goodrich grandsons. They’ve had a flat tire.”

  “Yes, yes,” Mrs. Swanson replied, betraying a touch of impatience. “I recognize it, as well as the young people. I speak rather of the trucks.”

  As Judith drew closer to her husband, she could see his puzzled expression. “What trucks?” Joe asked.

  Mrs. Swanson clasped and unclasped her hands. “An older truck, for one. For the past week, it has been parked across the street by the Álvarez house. But Mr. and Mrs. Álvarez are not at home. Each year, they visit their son and his family in San Diego from Thanksgiving to late January.”

  Joe, Judith, and Renie all gazed in the direction of the corner house across from the cul-de-sac. Judith knew Mr. and Mrs. Álvarez only slightly, from spotting them at church.

  “I saw that orange pickup a couple of times, too,” Judith said. “So did Renie.” She turned to her cousin. “Last Sunday?”

  Renie nodded. “It had Oregon plates.”

  “I think I saw it at least once after that,” Judith added. “I drove a pickup the other day. I borrowed it from Kevin, one of the Rankers’ sons.”

  Mrs. Swanson nodded once. “I know that truck. It’s a deep green. I see Kevin driving it often. It’s the ones I do not know that disturb me.”

  Joe was again offering Mrs. Swanson reassurance. “Don’t worry about it. Whoever owns it is probably visiting somebody down the street and wants to keep their hosts’ parking clear. You know the problem on Heraldsgate Hill—all the new apartments and condos, and so many of the houses are old and have only one garage. But most families own at least two cars. They have to park on the street.”

  Mrs. Swanson still wore a troubled expression. “We have had too much happen that is bad lately. I will never forget all those emergency vehicles yesterday morning. I was uneasy from the start, when the first red truck stopped on the other side of my house.” She made a small gesture, again pointing to the main thoroughfare. “It awoke me. Usually, I rise early, but I’d had trouble getting to sleep. I thought the red truck was the fire department. But it wasn’t. They came later, almost two hours.”

  Judith frowned at Mrs. Swanson. “What kind of truck?” Her curiosity was aroused. There was no reason for a commercial truck to stop in the residential neighborhood. If Mrs. Swanson was accurate about the time, it would have been seven-thirty in the morning, too early for service technicians or deliverymen.

  “I couldn’t see,” Mrs. Swanson said, “except that it was red and big. I did not have on my eyeglasses, and the shrubs outside the bedroom window impair my view.”

  Joe took Mrs. Swanson by the arm. “I don’t blame you for being upset. But this time of year, there are a lot of unusual comings and goings. Maybe whoever was driving the red truck stopped on a quiet corner to drink a cup of coffee. I take it you haven’t seen the big red truck since yesterday morning?”

  “No,” Mrs. Swanson replied, letting Joe escort her onto the porch. “Only one time. It stayed for ten, maybe fifteen minutes. Perhaps you are right—someone was drinking coffee.” The idea seemed to cheer Mrs. Swanson. “Thank you, Mr. Flynn. I should not be afraid with you as my neighbor.” With a charming smile, Mrs. Swanson glided into the house.

  Joe joined the cousins, rubbing his hands together. “B-r-r-r,” he said. “It’s going to freeze tonight. Come on, Jude-girl, let’s go in. I’ve got a fire going in the den.”

  “Too bad you don’t have a fireplace,” Renie remarked. “Ha-ha.”

  Joe grinned at Renie’s teasing. The third floor fireplace had not been in the original remodeling plans for the attic. But during the previous summer, Joe had lobbied for the luxury of a hearth in his home quarters. Judith’s opposition had been minimal, though the cost had been large. She knew that it wasn’t easy for Joe to live in a house that was partially overrun by strangers. The fireplace had seemed like a small concession to her husband’s comfort.

  “I’ll be along in just a minute,” Judith said. “I’m seeing Renie off.”

  Briefly, Joe eyed his wife with suspicion, but the chilling wind was cutting through his barn jacket. He shrugged, then trotted down the driveway to the back door. Judith and Renie lingered in front of the Ericson house.

  “Show me that knife,” Judith said as soon as her husband was out of earshot.

  Renie led Judith to the curb on the Ericsons’ side of the driveway. “I know I shouldn’t have touched it,” Renie said, “but I had to use something to puncture that tire.”

  The knife lay exposed, though just as Judith reached for the tip of the blade, it was covered by dried leaves that swirled around the street. “It looks like a steak knife,” Judith said. “Have you got that sack with the key?”

  “Here,” said Renie, handing over the plastic bag that Gabe Porter had given her. “Will the knife fit?”

  “Barely,” Judith replied. “I wish I’d thought to bring a flashlight when I went to get Joe. But I was counting on using Gabe’s. Come on,” she said, standing up and turning into the shared driveway. “Let’s see if we can find that phony rock.”

  “In the dark?” Renie’s tone was dubious.

  But when the cousins reached the Goodrich backyard, they saw that the spotlight on the Ericsons’ deck had been turned on. No doubt it was a safety precaution, Judith thought, caused by the problems next door at the Goodrich house.

  Still, it was difficult to find the fake rock. Judith’s hands were growing numb with cold as she concentrated on the strip of garden next to the house. Renie, meanwhile, poked about in the small plot next to the garbage can and the recycling bins. At first, Judith thought the sudden yelp from Renie was evoked by discovery. When Renie started swearing and clutching her index finger, Judith realized it was a cry of pain.

  “What’s wrong?” she said in a low voice as she hurried to Renie’s side. “Don’t yell—you’ll scare Mrs. Swanson.”

  “Screw Mrs. Swanson,” Renie retorted in a cross voice. “I cut myself. Some damned fool dropped a piece of glass next to the garbage can.”

  As Renie rummaged in her purse for a Band-Aid, Judith dropped down on her haunches. Sure enough, there was a two-inch sliver of glass. Gingerly, she picked it up and lifted the garbage can lid. She recalled finding another shard earlier in the day.

  “The rest of the glass is in here. Whoever broke it and threw it out must have dropped a piece. Are you okay, coz?”

  “I’m wonderful,” Renie snarled, as she wrapped the Band-Aid around her finger. “Honest to God, the things I do for—ooops!”

  Having taken a backward step, Renie’s foot encountered an unexpected object that caused her to lose her balance. She grabbed the recycling bin just in time to save herself from a fall.

  “Gee, coz,” Judith said, with real concern in her voice, “you’re having kind of a rough time. Maybe you should go home.”

  But Renie was now looking down at the offending object. “Well, well,” she said, pain and anger fading. “This rock looks a little too smooth to be the real thing.”

  Judith looked, too. Then she picked up the dark gray ersatz rock and turned it over. Sure enough, the bottom was flat, with a small tab that slipped open to reveal a hiding place for a key.

  Except that there was no key. The cousins stared at each other. Judith reached into her pocket and brought out the plastic Baggie. She extracted a Kleenex from another pocket, then removed the key that Renie had found in the street.

  “Shall we?” she said, holding the key in the tissue.

  “We shall,” Renie replied, only a trifle reluctantly.

  The cousins mounted the back steps. Judith inserted the key. The lock turned. The cousins stared at each other again.

  “Do you still think I’m nuts?” Judith whispered.

  “Sure,” Renie answered promptly. “But I’m beginning to think you’re also right about George. Maybe he didn’t do it after all.”

  If not triumphant, Judith’s smile was self-righ
teous. “I’m glad to have you on the team, coz. Now that we know who didn’t do it, we have to figure out who did.”

  Renie groaned.

  EIGHT

  BY FRIDAY MORNING, Judith wasn’t feeling so sanguine. Since it had been almost eleven o’clock when she finally reached the family quarters Thursday night, she’d found Joe half asleep. Early mornings were not a good time for the Flynns to exchange confidences: Judith had to make breakfast for her guests, play the cheerful hostess, and get Gertrude set for the day. While Judith rose at six, it was usually nine o’clock before she sat down at the kitchen table to enjoy a quiet cup of coffee. By then, Joe had been at work for almost an hour.

  Thus, she discovered herself in a quandary about the key and the knife that Renie had found in the gutter. She supposed that she should turn both items over to Patches Morgan immediately. But she wanted to confer with Joe first.

  “I’ll wait until he comes home tonight,” she said to Renie over the phone.

  “Unhhh,” Renie replied. It was nine-fifteen, and Renie might be out of bed, but she was rarely fully conscious before ten.

  “Somebody used that key to the Goodrich back door, and then dropped it,” Judith said, content to bounce her thoughts off the drowsy Renie. “The question is, why?”

  “Zzzrghhh,” said Renie.

  “Who knew about the hidden key except Glenda and Art and maybe JoAnne? And why was it needed?” Judith poured herself another mug of coffee.

  “Nmphhh,” said Renie.

  “When? That’s another point. What caused the person who used the key not to put it back where it belonged? And that steak knife—how did it end up in the street, too? Enid was killed with a hatchet, not a knife. Joe finally verified that much for me. But there are too many unanswered questions, coz. Glenda said her father insisted he didn’t own a hatchet. Somehow, that bothers me. Last Sunday George or Enid mentioned a hatchet, but I can’t exactly recall the context. I was too busy being irked by Enid. I’m going to phone Art this morning and see what’s going on with his dad.”

  “Grsky,” said Renie.

  “What? Wayne Gretzky? Coz, I can’t understand a word you’re saying. Is there something wrong with your phone?”

  There was a pause at the other end, then an enormous, wrenching sigh. Obviously, Renie was trying to rally. “George’s key,” she said in reasonably clear tones. “How did those grandchildren get into the house last night?”

  “Oh!” Strangely, the question had eluded Judith. Too much had occurred in the cul-de-sac during the evening. “Of course! They went in the back way but came out the front. They might have gotten George’s keys. He probably had them in his pocket when he was hauled off to the hospital. Enid’s would still be at home.”

  Renie was making slurping noises at the other end, apparently infusing herself with massive doses of caffeine. “Enid’s purse,” Renie blurted. “Where is it?”

  Judith didn’t know. “It might still be at the house. Glenda or Art could have taken it for safekeeping.”

  “Maybe the hospital staff turned George’s personal belongings over to his family,” Renie said, sounding almost like herself. “Maybe Leigh got the keys from Glenda. Or one of the boys got it from Art or JoAnne. The question then becomes, Did the grandkids know about the back-door key hidden in the rock? If they did, why didn’t they use it? Was it because one of them already knew it wasn’t there?” Renie let out a little cry of agony. “Oh, good Lord, I don’t believe I’m being rational and it’s not yet nine-thirty! What will become of my reputation for morning stupor?”

  Judith ignored Renie’s attempt at self-congratulation or self-pity or whatever facet of self she was trying to convey. “You’re absolutely right. I don’t know the answer, but what it does mean,” Judith went on, allowing her natural aptitude for logic to function, “is that something happened at the Goodrich house before Enid was killed. We know there was a quarrel, but we don’t know what it was about. We know that Glenda and Gary Meyers broke up the night before the murder. We know that Leigh has caused some kind of rift within the family. What this looks like is a buildup to a climax that featured somebody taking a hatchet to Enid and maybe trying to poison George.” Judith stopped for breath.

  “Maybe?” Renie echoed. “Why maybe?”

  “Well…” Judith paced in a small circle by the kitchen sink. “Why didn’t the killer use the hatchet on George, too? Or was George given the sleeping pills so that he would be unconscious when the killer struck? That makes more sense—it’s possible that the murderer never intended to do in George. Whoever it was misjudged the dosage. I wish we’d had the nerve to go inside the Goodrich house last night and do some serious snooping.”

  “You know we didn’t dare turn on the lights for fear of upsetting Mrs. Swanson,” Renie countered.

  “It’s daylight now,” Judith noted, gazing out the window where a heavy frost still glistened under ominous gray clouds.

  “I’ve got work to do,” Renie said. “December isn’t just Christmas for me, it’s also annual report season.”

  “You never get creative until noon,” Judith pointed out. “As long as we’ve got the key, we might as well make use of it.”

  Renie let out another big sigh. “Okay, but give me an hour or two. I’ve got to stop at the post office to get stamps for my Christmas cards and mail a package off to Aunt Ellen and Uncle Win in Nebraska. The line may take forever.”

  Judith yielded, though with a pang of guilt. She had addressed only a dozen of her sixty cards and had not yet readied any out-of-town parcels for mailing. Furthermore, she had forgotten to get her mother’s approval on the purchase of Mike’s Christmas gift. Judith was going out the back door just as Phyliss Rackley was coming in.

  “Satan’s at work on the Metro buses,” Phyliss announced in a dark tone. “Our church took out one of those ads they have inside the buses. It’s to remind people what Christmas is all about, and it said ‘Jesus Is Lord’. Some pagan made the ‘o’ in ‘Lord’ into an ‘a.’ Blasphemous, I call it.” Phyliss bristled with indignation.

  “It’s…silly,” Judith conceded, thinking that Jesus undoubtedly had a better sense of humor than Phyliss. “Can you do the inside windows today? I’ve got a call in for Moonshine Cleaners to do the outside.”

  Phyliss mulled over the request. “It depends. My rheumatism is acting up something fierce.”

  Coaxing was never effective with Phyliss, so Judith dropped the subject. Still feeling guilt-ridden, she put off going to see her mother and got out the Christmas cards instead. Upon finishing another dozen, she grabbed her jacket and headed for the toolshed. The clouds were lifting and the frost was disappearing. The forecast called for overcast with a 30 percent chance of rain, high of fifty-two, low during the night of thirty-four. The threat of snow was still remote.

  Gertrude was sitting in her favorite chair with the usual clutter in front of her on a rickety card table. Jumble puzzles, snapshots, medicine bottles, circulars, and candy boxes were piled high, within easy reach. Gertrude was playing solitaire and listening to a call-in radio program.

  “Spiders,” she said, not looking up from the layout of cards. “Somebody found a spider in their bananas, one of those tarantella things.”

  “Tarantula,” Judith said absently. “Mother, are you willing to buy Mike a backpack for Christmas?”

  Gertrude put a red eight on a black nine. “A backpack? What does he need a backpack for? He’s not Santa Claus. Tell him to wait until the day after Christmas. Maybe Santa can give him his old one.” She moved up the ace of diamonds, then plastered it with the deuce. “How much?” she asked in her raspy voice when Judith failed to respond.

  “A good one runs about sixty dollars.” Judith gulped and waited for her mother’s reaction.

  “Sixty dollars?” Several cards flew into the air, some landing on the table, others drifting to the floor. “I could buy a new back for sixty dollars! And couldn’t I use one? New legs, too. Sixty dollars for a backpa
ck to carry around old underwear? What’s wrong with a suitcase? You’ve still got your father’s old one in the basement. Let Mike use that when he goes gallivanting.”

  “It’s for hiking,” Judith explained, bending down to pick up the fallen cards. “He carries a lot of things in it, like water and food and…”

  “Fripperies,” Gertrude put in. “Why does he need to hike when he works in the woods all the time as a forest ranger? Why can’t he go see a picture show or visit the zoo on his days off? A show would cost him less than a dollar and the zoo is free.”

  It was pointless to remind Gertrude that the price of a movie had risen or that there was now a charge for the zoo. If her mother knew that the dollar wouldn’t buy what it did in 1930, she would never admit it.

  “How about a cooler then?” Judith asked hopefully. “I could buy one of those for you to give him for around twenty dollars on sale.”

  Frustrated by trying to figure out where the fallen cards belonged, Gertrude swept up the current game. “What do you mean, a cooler? In my day, a cooler was an icebox. We had one in this house until we got a refrigerator after the First World War. A Frigidaire it was, with a fan on top. You’re right; it cost around twenty bucks. I’ll do it.” Gertrude placed the deck in her card shuffler and turned the crank.

  “Good,” Judith said, hoping that her mother wouldn’t ask a lot of embarrassing questions when Mike opened his portable cooler chest at Christmas. “I’ll get it this afternoon.” She would also buy the backpack.

  “Say,” Gertrude said, carefully laying out a new hand, “what was all that commotion last night around nine? I would have come out, but it was too cold.”

  Perching on the arm of Gertrude’s small sofa, Judith told her mother about the intrusion of the Goodrich grandchildren. Gertrude was appropriately appalled.

  “Their grandmother must be turning in her grave,” Gertrude said, reaching for a chocolate-covered peanut that resided in a glass dish. “She had manners; I’ll give her that. Say, kiddo, what’s for lunch?”