by Mary Daheim
“George!” Judith cried in astonishment. “What are you doing out in this weather? Did you come all the way from Art and JoAnne’s?”
George looked a little sheepish. “I did. It was so pretty out, I thought I’d take a walk. I ended up here.” As Judith approached him, he nodded at the real estate sign. “Isn’t that something? A month ago, who would’ve thought it?”
Up close, Judith tried to see if the idea disturbed George. But his wrinkled face was unreadable. In fact, it was virtually blank.
“Is that what you want?” Judith asked, pointing to the sign.
George gave a minimal shrug. “It’s the right thing to do, isn’t it?”
“I can’t answer that.” She took George by the arm. “Why don’t you come over to our house and have something hot to drink? Two miles is a long walk.”
George’s tired eyes strayed to Hillside Manor. The snow was coming down so hard that only the amber lights of the village could be seen from the sidewalk.
“No, thank you, Judith.” His attempt at a smile was pathetic. But as he turned toward his own house, he brightened almost imperceptibly. “Would you like to come in…here?”
Judith noted that he avoided referring to the house as his. No doubt he already felt dispossessed. But in retrospect, Judith realized that nothing had seemed to belong to George. It was Enid’s house, Enid’s garden, Enid’s living room, Enid’s furniture. George had lived at the same address for almost sixty years, but Judith guessed that after he married Enid, the house never felt like home.
“Sure,” Judith said, still holding George’s arm. “It’s getting really cold. I’ll come in for a few minutes.” She paused as George led the way around to the back. “Have you been inside since…we cleaned?”
“I just was.” He started up the porch steps, treading carefully. “Thank you for taking care of things, Judith. It was awfully kind.”
Judith began to say that she and Phyliss had been paid for their efforts. Maybe George knew as much. If not, Judith would let him think they had done it out of kindness. It occurred to her that she would have, if she hadn’t felt it necessary to secure police sanction.
George went straight to one of the kitchen cupboards. “I’m not sure what’s on hand. Coffee, tea, maybe some juice in the refrigerator…”
“Don’t bother,” Judith said, sitting at the kitchen table. “Have a seat, George. You must be tired.”
Woodenly, George obeyed. Judith was reminded of his son, also acting as if he’d lost his will.
“I am tired,” he admitted. “I suppose I was foolish, walking clear over here in this snow. Now I’ll have to figure out how to get back.” Ironically, George didn’t seem perturbed by the problem.
Judith, however, was perturbed by George. For a long moment, they sat in silence. The north wind was blowing hard and the snow was piling up outside on the kitchen windowsill. Judith watched the swirling flakes, then turned to George. He was watching Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, their small ceramic figures caught forever in an attitude of grace.
“George,” Judith began, the unsteadiness of her voice surprising her, “why now?”
George had removed his fisherman’s hat when he entered the house. He picked it off the table and wrung it in his hands. “Now?”
Judith nodded. “Over the years, there must have been a hundred occasions when Enid drove you to the breaking point. What finally put you over the edge? Why now?”
The question didn’t seem to shock George. He placed the crumpled hat on one knee and picked up Ginger Rogers. “Enid wasn’t the one who was supposed to die,” he said, his voice surprisingly strong. “I was. I’d thought about it for a long time, especially after Art got laid off. But it wasn’t right.”
Judith nodded again, more slowly. “That’s why you bought a book on poison?”
George raised his white eyebrows. “You knew about that? Did you take it?”
“No, of course not. Art did. He was afraid for you.”
“Ah!” George seemed both relieved and somehow pleased. “I wondered. It was gone when I looked for it that morning.” With almost reverent fingers, he turned Ginger Rogers upside down.
“What was wrong about killing yourself, George?” Judith asked quietly. “The morality of it?”
“Oh, certainly. Suicide’s a terrible thing. It’s so selfish. But that wasn’t all. I may not be much of a man, but I always tried to serve as a buffer.” He righted Ginger, set her on the table, and moved Fred to stand in front of her. “If I died and Enid lived on she would only have made life even more miserable for the rest of the family.” Apologetically, George gazed at Judith. “Am I making sense?”
“You always did.” Judith smiled feebly. “That’s why I had trouble believing that your mind was going. You couldn’t have worked on those accounts if you were muddled or forgetful.”
A hint of pride shone in George’s eyes. “I kept my hand in. They trusted me at Pacific Meats, for almost fifty years. I wish I could say the same for my grandson.”
“Dave?” Judith had seen George’s sense of pride replaced by chagrin. But this wasn’t the time or place to discuss Dave and Greg’s scam. It was sufficient to acknowledge that George apparently had caught some discrepancies. “I still wonder what set you off, George. After Enid died, everybody marveled that you hadn’t…acted sooner.”
Another silence filled the kitchen. At last, George stood up and walked to the window. “You and your husband asked us to put up those decorations. It was a nice idea, I thought. But Enid didn’t agree—as usual. She turned you down. That bothered me—I always tried to be a good neighbor. Oh, I did my best to make her change her mind, but she was impossible. She always was.”
He stopped speaking, then turned to beckon Judith. “Look out here. You can’t see much with all this snow, I’m afraid.”
Judith joined George at the window. He was right: She couldn’t see any further than the driveway. Their footprints were already obliterated.
“I’d worked late that night, trying to go over the November figures, which they’d just sent me Tuesday afternoon. It was the thirtieth, you see. I don’t think I went to sleep until after four. Usually, I’m up by seven, to fix Enid’s breakfast and dispense her medicine by eight. But I must have been awfully tired. Tuesday night had been very upsetting, what with Enid and Glenda fighting, and both Art and Greg asking for money. As a matter of fact, I dropped off right after nine-thirty, when we usually went to bed. But then Greg came back and let himself in—I suppose his mother told him where to find the extra key—and the noise disturbed Enid. I don’t know what he wanted—looking for money, I suppose. Anyway, Enid scared him off. That woke me, and then I laid awake for a long time until I decided I might as well use the time to do the books.” He stopped, staring out into the world of white.
“So I slept in.” The statement sounded like the toll of doom. Which, Judith realized, it was. “In the morning, somebody came to the door—Enid later told me it was Gary Meyers. But she couldn’t rouse me then, so she went to answer it. Except for Art, it’s unusual to have anyone call that early. After she got rid of Gary, she made sure I woke up. Enid was furious. I needn’t go into it. I dressed and got her medicine and was going to start breakfast when I saw Ted Ericson pull into the driveway.” George pointed through the window. “He took a tree out of his car. Now Ted’s no handyman, and I knew he didn’t have any tools to speak of, so I thought I’d offer him Mrs. Swanson’s hatchet to take a two-inch cut off the trunk. I’d borrowed the hatchet again the day before to split some kindling. I put on my jacket and gloves before I went outside to get the hatchet. By then, Ted was driving away. I hurried down the driveway to stop him, but he didn’t see me.” George’s voice began to drag. “Even in the morning, the rest of the cul-de-sac looked so pretty. All of a sudden, I had this strange feeling, the one you get when you’re a little kid and you still believe in Santa Claus and being happy and everything in the world is wonderful…I’d forgotten what that w
as like.
“And then I saw the Ericsons’ tree. It was beautiful. It was fresh and green and fragrant. It was the perfect Noble fir.”
George lifted his chin, the haunted eyes still gazing into the snow-covered driveway. “I went back into the house. With the hatchet.”
He turned away from Judith and walked into the living room.
NINETEEN
ONE OF JUDITH’S favorite Christmas traditions was lunching with Renie at Papaya Pete’s. The holiday decor never quite worked among the tiki gods and coral reefs, but the food was always wonderful. The cousins sipped their beverages of choice as Bing Crosby sang on a background tape about Christmas in Hawaii.
“Admit it, coz,” Renie chided over her bourbon. “You were wrong. Excuse the expression, but you were dead wrong.”
Judith winced. “Okay, okay, Still, I finally got it right. I never took into account George’s…wiliness. But he had to have some survival skills or he would have killed Enid forty years ago.”
It was Wednesday, the twenty-second of December. The snow had fallen through Sunday, but a warming trend had set in Monday afternoon. Rain had returned. By Tuesday, the snow was almost gone, though there was more in the forecast for the Christmas weekend. Judith had mixed emotions about the weather: Mike and Kristin were due at four in the afternoon. They would have no trouble driving from the eastern part of the state, where Mike was meeting his longtime girlfriend on his way from Idaho. But the following day, Herself was scheduled to land at the airport. Judith would have wished for a blizzard—except that Caitlin was also coming in from Switzerland.
“So George confessed,” Renie remarked, digging into the rich dark bread that had been brought along with the drinks. “Why, I wonder.”
Judith’s expression was rueful. “He didn’t want to cause trouble. I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but I got a Christmas card from him in the mail just before we left for lunch. It was a beautiful card, showing a lovely home all decorated for Christmas, and it said, ‘neighbor to neighbor’ on the front. I should have brought it with me. Inside, George had written, ‘Thank you, Judith, for understanding. Wherever I go, I’ll finally be free.’” Judith’s eyes misted over.
“Jeez.” Renie gulped at her bourbon. “Where will he go?”
Regaining control, Judith shrugged. “At his age, maybe a mental hospital. But, of course, he’s as sane as we are.”
Renie cocked her head to one side. “Is he? Why did he take the Dalmane, confess, and then deny he did it? That sounds daffy to me.”
“Not really. George panicked. Imagine the scene.” She saw Renie blanch. “Okay, don’t imagine it. He’d killed his wife in a horrible manner. Then he ran into the living room to get the poison book—that’s how those needles got tracked all over the house. Apparently, George only got blood on his shirt, so there were no traces anywhere outside the bedroom. Once he reached the living room, he discovered the book was gone. Without it, George couldn’t be sure of the dosage. He didn’t intend to kill himself. But he had to guess how many pills would merely knock him out. So he swigged down some sleeping pills with his antacid, then took the glass outside, broke it, and threw it in the garbage.”
Renie didn’t respond until after the waiter had delivered their salads. “Why break the glass?”
Judith set her scotch aside and picked up a fork. “It was typically George. His first thought was for the rest of the family. They’d suffer badly if their father was a murderer. He wanted to make it look as if a third party had tried to kill both of them and wanted to get rid of some of the evidence. In fact, what George did was set up a frame—for himself.”
Renie stared. “You mean he made it look as if somebody else had set him up to do exactly what he actually did? But who?”
Judith made a helpless gesture with her free hand. “I don’t know. I don’t think he knew. Anybody, as long as it wasn’t family. Or Mrs. Swanson. A robber, maybe, though robbers don’t usually poison their victims. But George wasn’t thinking clearly at this point. Everything happened very fast, in that brief span of time after Ted went back up to the top of the Hill and before Art started calling his parents.”
Renie was applying extra salt and pepper to her fresh Bibb lettuce. “So why did he confess?”
“George hadn’t considered his reaction to Dalmane,” Judith said with a wry expression. “It can cause hallucinations, but mostly it triggers confusion. In George’s case, it made him blurt out the truth. Think of the shock to his system. He’d obviously taken more than he meant to. When his brain began to clear, he had to retract his confession and play the part he’d concocted earlier.”
Stuffing salad in her mouth, Renie shook her head. “Wild. And he almost got away with it because everybody thought he was nuts.”
Judith smiled at Renie. “I thought so, too—at first. That was the problem—I didn’t want to believe George was the killer, yet the more I considered the man himself, the more I realized he wasn’t nutty at all. He was like your mother’s fruitcake—it’s still fruitcake, but there aren’t any nuts.”
Renie rolled her eyes. “You’re nuts. What did he mean when he said ‘key’ at the hospital? Are you sure he wasn’t saying ‘kiwi’ just to throw everybody off the track?”
“George’s brain was still a little foggy,” Judith replied, unperturbed by Renie’s incredulity. “I honestly don’t know what he said. Maybe it was ‘tree.’ The Ericsons’ tree set him off that morning. But ‘key’ stuck in my mind anyway. I kept saying that Gary Meyers was the key to the mystery, which he was. He saw Enid alive at seven-thirty. No one else was seen coming to their house after that. Oh, it was possible, but unlikely, given that everybody else had an alibi. Except Mrs. Swanson.”
“Who wouldn’t smack a bug,” Renie put in. “What about those grandsons and their larcenous ways?”
Judith used a piece of bread to soak up the last drops of tangy salad dressing. “Gabe Porter alerted United Foods’ meat manager. No doubt they’re passing the word on to Pacific Meats. George had already questioned some of the November entries. Greg may have come back to the house that night to get money, but I think Dave wanted the ledger. He knew his grandfather would find the discrepancies. Of course, Dave never got in the house, because his brother had taken the key and dropped it after Enid frightened him away.”
The salad plates were removed. In keeping with tradition, the cousins ordered a second round of drinks.
“Why did those two need so much money?” Renie asked, though she knew that Judith hadn’t figured it out. “I’m guessing it was gambling. It suits their so-called mentality—always looking for the big score, never accepting that their luck can’t change.”
“Could be,” Judith allowed. “As a family, the Goodriches are a disaster. Maybe Glenda will take Gary back. Art and JoAnne probably will get some of the money from George to tide them over. Leigh always stuck up for her father, and now she’s stuck with him.”
“Art may find another job,” Renie pointed out. “That would be the best thing for him.”
“True.” Judith smiled at the waiter as he brought their fresh drinks. “Remember how I thought Art might have killed Enid because she had destroyed George? I realize that works both ways—George saw Art turning into himself—that is, his father. Art was becoming downtrodden, defeated, ineffectual. I’m convinced that preyed on George’s mind.”
Apparently, Renie agreed. At least she didn’t argue as the cousins sipped their drinks in companionable silence. The restaurant was busy. It looked as if several large tables were hosting office parties. Barbra Streisand’s voice on the background tape was almost drowned out by the cheerful din.
“Speaking of screwed-up relatives,” Renie said at last, “how are you and Joe coping with Herself’s imminent arrival?”
Judith gazed up at a cluster of glass balls held in place by fishnet. “Okay, I think. I keep trying not to dwell on it. It’s easy, because there’s so much else to do. I just wish she weren’t coming—for Joe
’s sake. Let’s face it: He doesn’t have the Christmas spirit. Not like you and I do, anyway.”
Renie shrugged off Judith’s words. “I told you, that’s okay. Nobody gets graded on Christmas spirit. Sometimes I think Bill’s greatest Christmas gift is that he lets me do all the crazy things I go through every December. That’s real generosity.”
Judith looked up from her drink. “You have a point. And I can’t begrudge Herself visiting us. Joe—and Bill—have to put up with our goofy relatives for all the holidays.”
“So do we.” Renie grimaced. “But you’re right. Some of the best presents don’t come in boxes.”
Judith lifted her glass. “Amen. Here’s to you, coz. You’ve been a favorite gift for over fifty years.”
Renie touched Judith’s glass with hers. “Ditto, coz. Merry Christmas. Where’s our food?”
Renie was never one for sentiment. But Judith didn’t doubt her cousin’s feelings. Both women took a long sip, and smiled.
It had stopped raining by the time Judith returned home at two-thirty. Since a UPS truck was parked in the middle of the cul-de-sac, Renie let Judith out at the corner. The big blue Chev had just driven off when Mrs. Swanson called to Judith from her front porch.
“I feel very sad,” Mrs. Swanson said as Judith joined her on the walkway. “Poor Mr. Goodrich. I’d so hoped it wasn’t true.”
Judith smiled kindly at the older woman. “He doesn’t seem to mind as much as you’d think,” she said. The words were inadequate, but there wasn’t much else to say.
“Wherever he goes, I’ll visit him,” Mrs. Swanson declared. “I shall certainly miss having him next door. Despite the terrible thing he did, I believe Mr. Goodrich is a fine, decent man.”
Judith agreed. “You’ve been a good friend to him,” she added.
A tiny smile touched Mrs. Swanson’s lips. “I hope so. I even lied for him. Can you forgive me?”
Judith, who had been known to tell a few fibs in her time, laughed lightly. “About the hatchet? Don’t worry—I admire your loyalty. I’m sure George does, too.”