Nutty As a Fruitcake

by Mary Daheim

  Since lunch was over an hour away, Judith hadn’t thought about it. “Chicken salad sandwiches, pears, and butterscotch pudding,” she said off the top of her head.

  Gertrude nodded as she began building up her aces. “Sounds fine, except for the butterscotch. Make mine chocolate—that dark kind. The pale stuff gives me the willies.”

  Judith agreed, though it meant whipping up a fresh batch of pudding. Leaving her mother to the solitaire game and the radio talk show, she returned to the house. Judith had purposely withheld the part about finding the key and steak knife. She didn’t want Gertrude to think that the killer might not be safely incarcerated. Her mother, like Mrs. Swanson, was too old and vulnerable to live in a state of fear. Gertrude pretended to be tough, but underneath Judith knew she was afraid of many things. Maybe pale pudding reminded her mother of frailty.

  Returning to the kitchen, Judith found a box of deep chocolate pudding mix in the cupboard. As she poured and mixed, she thought about her mother’s reaction to the Goodrich children’s avarice. “Vipers,” she’d called them. “Spoiled brats.” “Selfish.”

  Gertrude was right, of course. All three grandchildren had behaved without the slightest show of compassion, either for their murdered grandmother or their suffering grandfather. But Gertrude had said something else that now pricked at Judith’s brain. Pouring pudding mixture into glass bowls, she tried to recall the exact words. She couldn’t. Gertrude always said so many things, usually critical. Ironically, she was often as accurate as she was harsh.

  Just as Judith put the fresh pudding into the refrigerator, Renie arrived. Instead of her usual disreputable winter sweats, Renie was attired in a smart taupe double-breasted suit with a black mock turtleneck underneath.

  “I’ve got a meeting downtown at one o’clock with the gas company,” she explained. “I may do some more Christmas shopping after I get done.”

  Judith offered Renie the last serving of butterscotch pudding. But for once, her cousin declined. An inelegant eater, Renie frankly admitted she didn’t want to tempt fate and get her suit dirty. She would, however, accept a cup of coffee.

  While Renie sipped, Judith dialed Art and JoAnne Goodrich’s number. JoAnne answered, sounding breathless. “I just got out of the shower,” she said in apology. “My shift at Falstaff’s is eight to five, so I don’t get up until around ten.”

  It occurred to Judith that JoAnne Goodrich was shortchanging herself on sleep. But the question she had for Art’s wife was more pressing: “How is George?”

  “He’s better,” JoAnne replied, suddenly sounding on guard. “They expect to let him out of the hospital tomorrow. We’ll hold the services for Enid Tuesday at the Congregational Church, ten o’clock.”

  “Will George be able to attend?” Judith inquired, hoping that the tactful question might provide some illumination on his legal status.

  “Yes, I think so,” JoAnne answered slowly. “Art figures the police will remand him to our custody. I just wish he weren’t so confused.”

  “How do you mean?” Judith asked, signaling for Renie to go into the living room and pick up the extension.

  “Oh—he keeps saying that he didn’t kill Enid. He talks about somebody else being in the house, but he doesn’t know who it was. Or,” JoAnne continued, even more uncertainly, as a faint click indicated that Renie was listening in, “he won’t say who it was. Plus, he insists he didn’t take those sleeping pills. As I said, poor George is still all mixed up. It must take some time for the effect of the pills to wear off.”

  “That’s possible,” Judith allowed. “Did your father-in-law ever take sleeping pills?”

  “Never.” Now JoAnne sounded emphatic. “He wouldn’t have because he needed to be alert in case Enid woke up and asked for something.”

  Judith realized that was probably, sadly, true. The poor man hadn’t even been able to rest his weary head. “So they’ll have to arraign him?”

  “I guess so.” JoAnne emitted an eloquent sigh. “He’ll plead insanity, I imagine. He should. Poor Gramps must be nutty as a fruitcake.”

  “Have you contacted a lawyer?” Judith asked, sensing that would be Renie’s next question.

  “Glenda’s attorney recommended someone.” JoAnne didn’t sound enthused. “Lawyers cost the world. We’ll probably have to sell Enid and Gramps’s house just to pay the legal fees. It doesn’t seem fair.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Judith agreed. She didn’t add that it would be fair enough if George hadn’t killed Enid. “Say hello to George for us. By the way, what did your boys and Leigh do with the furniture they took out of the house last night?”

  The sudden silence at the other end of the line indicated shock or embarrassment or both. At last, JoAnne spoke: “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Furniture, did you say?”

  It was Judith who now felt faintly embarrassed. “Yes, just a few things. Chairs, lamps, the TV—they put them in that van your boys drive. It…ah…um…had a flat, but they must have fixed it. The van was gone this morning.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” JoAnne said primly. “I was probably at work when they came to the house. As I said, I just got up a short time ago. I haven’t talked to Greg or Dave today. Now that they share an apartment, Art and I try to back off. Children should be independent. You can’t hover or let them lean on you. At least that’s what Art tells me.” The shift in JoAnne’s tone indicated that she and her husband weren’t in complete agreement when it came to parenting.

  “Oh.” Judith cast about for a pertinent phrase. “I was just wondering if they’d come back to the house today. We’re keeping an eye on it, since it’s empty.”

  “The boys are working,” JoAnne said, sounding more at ease. “I suppose we’ll have to get some of Gramps’s things tomorrow.”

  Judith was about to sign off when a question popped into her mind. “What do the boys do, JoAnne? Gabe Porter said one of them worked with him at United Foods.”

  “That’s Greg,” JoAnne answered. “He’s in shipping. Dave got on at Pacific Meat Packing, doing something with computers. Gramps got him the job. But they’re only doing fill-in right now. They’re both commercial fishermen in Alaska during the season.”

  Judith was faintly impressed. Commercial fishing might be seasonal, but it was often lucrative. It was also demanding and sometimes dangerous.

  “I admire them for that,” Judith said sincerely. Indeed, she was surprised that Greg and Dave possessed such initiative and spunk. “Was this past season a good one?”

  The tension returned to JoAnne’s voice. “Not really. That’s why they have to work this winter. The catch was way down. Greg and Dave blame the Japanese for encroaching.”

  It was a familiar story. Judith sympathized briefly, and finally rang off.

  “Let’s go,” she said to Renie as they met in the entry hall. “We’ll use the front door.”

  The cousins were almost to the Goodrich house when a voice called for them to wait up. Dooley came running down the sidewalk, his blond hair flying around his head.

  “O.P.’s still in school, so I was using the telescope,” he said, catching his breath. “I saw you two come out of the B&B. Hi, Mrs. Jones. What’s happening?”

  Renie shrugged. “Just the usual breaking and entering. How are you doing, Dooley? I seem to remember you used to be a teenaged klutz.”

  Dooley grinned. “Maybe I still am. A teenager, that is. But I work out. Coordination cures klutz.”

  “You look great,” Renie said as they progressed along the driveway. “I’m all for physical fitness as long as it doesn’t require any effort more strenuous than opening a can of Pepsi.”

  Judith still kept the back-door key wrapped in tissue. Upon entering the house, she explained the latest developments to Dooley. “All these things make me believe that George is innocent,” she said as they stood in the pristine kitchen. All three of them exchanged nervous looks. Dooley in particular seemed to be ill at ease. “The problem i
s, I don’t know who else had a motive for killing Enid.”

  Renie was cautiously opening cupboards. “Who’d need one? Enid was a motive all by herself.”

  Judith didn’t argue. “What bothers me is that I can’t see Art or Glenda taking a hatchet to their mother. It’s unnatural for children to kill a parent.”

  Renie’s expression was droll. “Unnatural to do it or unnatural to want to? I felt like strangling mine last Sunday. I brought all the fruitcake ingredients to her, but she’d forgotten that the recipe called for booze. The liquor store wasn’t open, so I had to go home to get some. We were out of everything except Bill’s favorite brandy. After he had a mental collapse, I went back to Mom’s apartment, and she didn’t have any aluminum foil to wrap the fruitcakes in, so I had to go to Falstaff’s. Then she got on the phone with Mrs. Parker and talked for half an hour while I cooled my heels. I didn’t get home until almost six, and Bill and the kids were writhing on the kitchen floor, clutching at the refrigerator.” As Renie gave her recital, she checked the medicine bottles that took up most of a single shelf. “No Dalmane here. I suppose the police took it with them.”

  “Probably,” Judith agreed, still feeling a bit anxious as she led the way out of the kitchen. “Let’s take another look at that desk.”

  If the living room had never conveyed a sense of hospitality, it now seemed bereft. Not only were the side chairs, the lamps, and the end table missing, but Leigh had left the plastic-covered armchair at an angle by the front door. The framed photograph of Enid lay facedown on the carpet, and a faintly dusty dried floral arrangement was on its side near the hearth.

  “Mother’s right,” Judith said, her forehead furrowed. “Enid must be turning over in her grave.”

  “She isn’t there yet,” Renie noted, setting the floral arrangement on the mantle. “Wait till Tuesday.”

  Judith snapped her fingers. “That’s it! Let me see that picture of Enid.”

  “Humor her,” Renie advised as Dooley handed Judith the photograph. “If insanity is contagious, it may be going around the neighborhood.”

  Judith paid no attention to her cousin. Rather, she studied the photo, then laid it on the sofa. “I wonder,” she said softly.

  “You wonder what?” Renie followed Judith over to the breakfront with its built-in desk.

  “It’s something Mother mentioned this morning,” Judith said, tugging at the walnut panel. “I thought it was odd at the time, but I couldn’t figure out exactly—ooof!” The desk fell open unexpectedly, banging Judith on the wrist.

  “Here, Mrs. McMonigle,” said Dooley, his tone uncharacteristically tense, “let me grab some of the stuff in those cubbyholes.”

  “She’s Flynn,” Renie corrected, also taking a handful of what looked like household bills.

  Dooley grew sheepish. “Right. Sorry. This looks like business stuff. Income taxes, maybe?” He handed a sheaf to Judith.

  The desk’s contents proved unilluminating. Judith, who had endured her own share of IRS problems while married to Dan, closed her eyes to the ominous government forms. Instead, she concentrated on the more mundane, less threatening domestic records. A passbook showed savings of just under seven thousand dollars; the checking account had a balance of two hundred and fifty-eight dollars and thirty-six cents. George’s term insurance policy had been taken out in 1947, with a face value of ten thousand dollars. Enid apparently had no policy, except for a Purple Cross plan she shared with George to cover their burial arrangements. The accumulation of a lifetime didn’t strike Judith as a motive for murder, at least not by the inflated standard of the late twentieth century. While she envied the Goodriches’ comparatively low utility rates, there was nothing else that piqued her interest. Neither Enid nor George appeared to have corresponded with anyone on a personal basis. The cubbyholes were strictly business, though Judith was mildly puzzled by the largest storage section, which was empty. The space looked as if it could hold a telephone directory.

  “The phone’s in the hall between the bedrooms and the bath, isn’t it?” Judith remarked somewhat absently.

  Warily, Dooley went to check. “Yeah, it’s on a little stand. The phone books are underneath. Here’s an address book, but it’s only got about ten numbers. I was hoping they might be clues. You know, like looking up under ‘M’ for ‘Murderer.’”

  Both cousins chuckled their appreciation, either of Dooley’s wit or his ingenuity. Their laughter eased the sense of tension, but the cousins jumped when Dooley let out a yelp. Judith and Renie hurried into the hallway. The young man had turned red, and his eyes were huge. “Sorry,” he said, running an agitated hand through his hair. ‘I’ve never been at a homicide scene so soon after…” He gulped. “The bedroom’s kind of gross.”

  “Yes, it is,” Judith said solemnly. “Murder is gross.” She steeled herself before entering the room. Renie kept back, but Dooley followed.

  The red stains had turned to brown. For the first time, Judith realized that most of the blood was on Enid’s bedclothes. Maybe she had been asleep when her killer struck. Judith hoped so.

  Gritting her teeth, she slowly prowled around the room. The TV was gone, of course, and she marveled at the audacity of the grandchildren. How could they invade this chamber of horrors to swipe a television set? Were they so callous? Or stupid? Or had they hated their grandmother so much that her manner of passing made no dent?

  Dooley was studying the collection of medicines on Enid’s nightstand. “No Dalmane here either,” he said.

  Judith stood next to George’s bed. While it wasn’t in disarray like Enid’s, it did appear that he had slept in it. How soundly, Judith wondered? She glanced at his matching nightstand. There stood the clock-radio, the antacid, and the spectacles case. The only difference from when Judith had seen the room the previous Sunday was that George’s glasses now reposed in the case.

  Turning away, she caught herself. “The glass,” she said under her breath. “There was a glass, a pretty one, like Waterford crystal.”

  “I saw those in the cupboard,” Renie said from the hall. “They look Czech to me.”

  Judith never quarreled with Renie’s eye for artistry. “Whatever. But there was definitely a glass on the nightstand last Sunday evening. I’ll bet George used it for his antacid.”

  “Maybe,” Renie suggested, still lurking outside of the room, “it got broken during the murder. That might be the glass that cut me.”

  “Maybe,” Judith said distractedly as she moved the window shade just enough to peek outside. “All clear,” she breathed. “I sure wouldn’t want anybody catching us nosing around.”

  Judith proceeded to investigate the clothes closet. Enid’s purse sat on a bottom shelf, half hidden behind a long cotton robe. In the Grover family, snooping in other women’s purses had been a crime almost as great as theft or adultery. Judith winced as she opened the brass clasp.

  A coin purse contained four dollars and some change. Enid hadn’t carried a wallet, but kept her identification in a faux leather case. There were no charge cards. The rest of the handbag contained a comb, a packet of tissues, a mirror, a lipstick, an emery board, two safety pins—but no keys.

  “Somebody took them,” Judith said. “I suppose that’s natural.”

  Thoughtfully, Dooley nodded. “The family would have to get in and out to do stuff. Like for the funeral. Do you suppose Mrs. Goodrich had more than four dollars in there?”

  Judith understood the question. “A couple of twenties would have been tempting to Greg or Dave. Maybe even Art, at this point. Oh, well. This doesn’t tell us much.”

  Still anxious, Judith posted Renie by the living room window, where she had a better view of the cul-de-sac.

  The remaining closet contents proved uninteresting. “We can look at the broken glass in the can on our way out,” Judith said, opening and closing bureau drawers. She waited for Dooley, who had gone through the dressing table and was now lifting the lid of the cedar chest. The smell of mothballs
filled the air.

  “Some kind of fur piece,” Dooley said, holding out a fox boa. The glass eyes glittered at Judith. “Lace tablecloths. Blankets. An old quilt. Ah!” Digging in the bottom of the chest, he exhibited minor excitement. “Photographs, formal ones in folders. Want to see?”

  “Sure,” Judith replied, taking at least a dozen off-white, gray, and brown folders from Dooley. “Good work.”

  “Good grief,” called Renie, who scurried into the hallway on her high heels. Judith and Dooley waited. Renie returned. This time, she dared to poke her head into the bedroom. “It’s the cops. Patches Whoever and the Homicide Vamp. They’re coming in the front, but I shoved that armchair by the door to hold them off. Let’s go!”

  Hastily, Judith and Dooley dumped everything but the photos in the cedar chest. They were going out the back door just as they heard Patches Morgan and Sancha Rael enter the living room.

  Renie’s speed was hampered by her heels, but Dooley was already down the drive and around the corner. Judith couldn’t resist a quick stop at the garbage can: Sure enough, a closer inspection of the broken glass revealed not only an elegant etched pattern but some chalky white residue. Clutching the photographs, Judith galloped after Renie.

  By the time the cousins reached Hillside Manor, Dooley had jumped over the fence. “Lunch!” he shouted after landing on the other side.

  “What a concept,” Renie murmured. “Of course I’d like to join you. But I can’t. I’d dirty myself.” One hand swept the length of her wool suit. “I had a big breakfast.”

  “I’m sure you did,” Judith said dryly. “I’ll eat after you leave, but it’s going on noon, so I’d better get Mother fed. Phyliss must be washing the upstairs windows. I wonder what the police are looking for now?”

  The cousins were back in the kitchen, where Renie sat down at the table and Judith began mixing chicken salad. “I don’t know. Maybe they were looking for what we were looking for. Whatever that might be. They missed the key and the knife.”

  “I don’t know how hard they looked,” Judith said, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Those items weren’t on the Goodrich property. With George volunteering a confession from the start, the police might not have been as thorough.”