Just Desserts : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery (6 page)

“I’m a surgeon,” said Harvey, keeping at Ellie’s side, but withdrawing the protective arm from around her shoulder as if to symbolize his sudden change in status from husband to professional. “Harvey Carver, chief of surgery at Norway General.”

38 / Mary Daheim

“Well.” Kinsella’s horsey face registered respect. “An honor, Dr. Carver. You’re highly regarded in the medical community.” He paused to let the compliment sink in, but Harvey merely inclined his head. “You pronounced the deceased dead, I gather,” said Kinsella.

“Yes.” Harvey frowned. “We thought she’d fainted,” he explained in his dry voice. “Or, given her calling, gone into a trance.” He spoke with a trace of embarrassment. “She was a fortune-teller, you see.”

“So we guessed,” Kinsella said with a straight face. “Exactly what happened, Doctor?”

Harvey tugged at his right ear, looked to Otto for support, found only disgruntlement, and plunged ahead. “She—Madame Gushenka, I think it was—had been reeling off a lot of strange, disconnected gibberish about the past. Then she grabbed at her chest and fell forward.” He pulled at his chin, working over his reconstruction of the scene. “That was it.”

From the armchair nearest the hearth, Mavis waved a hand in protest. “No, no, Harvey. It’s a good thing you never went into journalism. Her voice began to fade, she sort of choked, and then she grabbed her throat and
then
her chest.” Accurate reporting job finished, Mavis sat back smugly.

“I thought it was a fit,” said Gwen, clinging to Dash’s hand. “Epilepsy, maybe. I researched epilepsy for
Fits of
Fancy
. I write books, you see,” she added with a tremulous if coy smile for Kinsella.

“Her readers thought it was ‘tits,’” murmured Mavis.

From the archway between the dining and living rooms, one of the other medics called to Kinsella. He excused himself to join his colleagues for a brief consultation. Judith was standing by the little table with the phone, a bowl of pot-pourri, and a framed photograph of Gertrude and Donald Grover on their honeymoon. She strained to over-hear the whispered discussion, but failed to catch more than a few meaningless words.

JUST DESSERTS / 39

“Okay,” said Kinsella, striding out of the dining room.

“What did Madame Gushenka eat and drink tonight?”

Apparently feeling the burden for the fortune-teller’s demise, Oriana spoke up: “She ate a cream puff and drank some tea. That’s all, unless she nibbled on something in the kitchen.” The sharp gaze she threw at Judith was accusatory.

“I must confess, I knew nothing of any allergies on her part, inasmuch as I was acquainted with the woman only by reputation.”

Judith did her best to ignore Oriana’s insinuation. “Madame Gushenka didn’t eat anything before she got to the table. If she had any allergies, they weren’t to cream puffs or tea, since she expressed great enthusiasm for the former and requested the latter herself. Why,” she inquired pointedly of Kinsella, “do you ask?”

Kinsella didn’t reply at once, but looked first to his fellow emergency personnel and then at his audience. “From a preliminary examination of the body, we’re inclined to rule out heart or other natural causes. We can’t be sure until we get the medical examiner’s report. But for now, it looks as if death was caused by poison. Our next step is to call in the police. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to treat this as a homicide.”

FIVE

NO GREATER FUROR could have been caused by Medic Kinsella’s announcement if he’d declared himself a PLO terrorist with intentions of shooting the lot of them on the spot. Gwen fell into Dash’s arms, Ellie burst into tears over the awkward protestations of Harvey, Oriana began shrieking denials at the top of her ample lungs while Otto threatened her with the fireplace shovel. Mavis tried to battle her way to the phone but was restrained by both Lance and Kinsella.

“Keep the line free for us just now,” ordered Kinsella. “Stay put, all of you, until the police get here.”

Lance, limping slightly from the evening’s exertion, was steering a bellicose Mavis back to the armchair. “Don’t get Dad mad,” he urged. “Remember, this is the night we’re all supposed to be
nice
.”

Apparently, Oriana wasn’t constrained by any cautionary advice. Rounding on Harvey, she shook a fist in his direction.

“You’re some doctor! I hope you diagnose your patients more accurately! I’d hate to see your malpractice insurance rates!”

40

JUST DESSERTS / 41

Harvey froze, his sallow face turned to ash. “I’m a surgeon, not a medical examiner. I haven’t seen a poisoning case since I was in med school at UCLA.”

Judith, who barely noted the battling Brodies, had also become quite shaky and needed to lean against the little table for support. Her whole world, built with such hard work and cold cash, seemed to be crumbling. She could already see the quotes in the guidebooks:

“Hillside Manor—Avoid due to homicidal mania.”

“Skip this particular establishment unless you’re dying for
a good time.”

“Sleep like the dead here. You won’t be the first.”

“If you thought the crab dip was bad, wait until you taste
the cream puffs!”

Renie sidled up to Judith, who knew her cousin could read her mind exactly: “Look at it as positive publicity,” counseled Renie. “People are morbid. You’ll be famous, and thus, rich.”

“Bunk,” muttered Judith, trying to rally. “I’ll be finished, and thus, broke.”

Renie’s further attempts to soothe her cousin were thwarted by the arrival of four uniformed policemen. “Lieutenant Flynn is on his way,” announced one of them, a stolid black man with a walrus moustache.

Judith blinked. “Flynn?”

The walrus moustache barely moved when the policeman spoke. “Joe Flynn. Homicide. Very sharp.”

“Oh.” Judith didn’t dare look at Renie. “Joe Flynn,” she echoed in a voice that sounded dangerously giddy.
“Joe
Flynn!”

Renie had purloined Otto’s Courvoisier when the medics weren’t watching. “Drink this,” she whispered, sloshing brandy into an empty glass from the little bar. Judith obeyed and sat down on an armless rocker, a relic of Grandma Grover’s era.

Across the room, Otto was bickering with Oriana. “That’s not my tea, I had sugar in it. Mine’s the one with the fruity-looking flowers. Where the hell did it go?”

42 / Mary Daheim

“That was Madame Gushenka’s,” Renie put in, a hand steadying Judith’s rocker. “It’s still on the table, but I don’t think we’d better go into the dining room just yet.”

“Bull,” contradicted Otto, “that was my tea. Oh, hell,” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands, “I’d rather have a stiff scotch anyway.”

Ever obliging, Gwen made a rush at the bar, but was stopped by the firemen at the archway. “Please, Daddy needs a little something,” she begged, all fluttering eyelashes and rippling wool jersey.

But the stalwart men in uniform could not be coerced.

Kinsella and the others were conferring over the body, checking forms, and using the phone in the kitchen. Dejected, Gwen backpedaled straight into Renie, who was holding the almost-empty brandy bottle aloft.

“Here,” offered Renie, “let Daddy polish this off. It’s his, anyway.” She gave Gwen a genuine smile, reminding herself that no matter how bizarre the Brodies might be and how disastrous the evening had become, Judith was still the hostess and needed all the cousinly support Renie could muster. And when Joe Flynn showed up, Renie would have to be prepared for just about anything. Like nuclear war, but not as nice.

At the moment, however, Judith was trying to appear be-nign. She couldn’t prevent her gaze from sliding in the direction of the entry hall, and the rocker moved in jerky spasms, but otherwise she hoped she was exhibiting a calm exterior.

Inside was another matter: What, she wondered, would he look like after over twenty years? Would he even recognize her? Did he know her married name? Would he give a rat’s ass? She swallowed more brandy and braced herself as the front door swung open.

For Judith, the years rolled back at a dizzying pace, to bouffant hairdos, stiletto heels, and the Good Wool Suit; to picnics on the Ship Canal Bridge, the sun coming up at the city zoo, and driving a sports car on the pedestrian overpass at the university; to sourdough bread flown in
JUST DESSERTS / 43

fresh from San Francisco, Moscow Mules made out of lab alcohol, and root beer floats at four a.m.

What Judith actually saw was a red-haired, middle-aged man with a receding hairline and just the hint of a paunch.

His shoulders were still broad, the charcoal-gray suit was impeccable, and the green eyes still held those gleaming gold flecks. Magic eyes, she thought, and felt her stomach hop, skip, and jump. At the moment, those eyes were registering the entire tableau, the cluster of Brodies, the medics hovering over the body, the police and firemen on the alert. At last, Joe Flynn’s gaze came to rest on Judith McMonigle.

“I’ll be damned,” he said without inflection, “it’s Jude-girl.”

“And Renie,” said Judith, grabbing her cousin as if she were a lifeline. “Remember Renie, Aunt Deb’s daughter?”

“Sure.” Joe Flynn put out a hand, first to Judith, then to Renie. His smile was as easy as ever, the charm was still intact, if frayed around the edges. “Damn, it’s been a while.

Not exactly the time or place to catch up, though.” He glanced around, exhibiting a professional demeanor. “Where can I get some privacy to interview everybody?”

Summoning up her natural resiliency, Judith moved toward the entry hall. “The front parlor has two doors: one here,”

she said, flipping on a torchère lamp, “and the other one goes back into the living room.”

Joe nodded his approval. It was much smaller than the main parlor, but large enough for intimate parties. The stone fireplace was flanked by converted gaslights with an eighteenth-century hunting print over the mantel. The furniture was solid oak, from the pedestal table to the armoire which housed Judith’s overflow of linens, books, and tapes. Closing the door to the living room, Judith pulled two chairs covered with her mother’s petit point up to the table.

“Shall I light a fire? Get more chairs?” she asked, and
44 / Mary Daheim

inwardly cursed herself for sounding like a twittering ninny.

“Make some coffee?”

“Hang from the chandelier?” Joe Flynn’s green eyes twinkled, and Judith flushed like a schoolgirl. She’d actually done that once, in a semi-drunken stupor at what had then been the city’s most elegant—and staid—hotel. But Joe was already back to business, taking out a small spiral notebook and a red ballpoint pen.

“Price can help me,” he said, and called for the policeman with the walrus moustache and taciturn expression. “I might as well as start with you and Renie. Price, get Mrs.…” He stopped and turned to Judith. “What’s her married name? I assume she’s married, she was engaged the last time we—I saw her.”

“Renie was always engaged,” said Judith dryly. “At one point, she was engaged to three guys at once, all with the same first name.”

Joe shrugged one broad shoulder. “Kept her from making tactless mistakes, anyway. Which one did she marry?”

“None of them,” answered Judith, speaking more naturally now, almost as if she were picking up the threads of a conversation from almost a quarter of a century earlier. “Somebody told her she ought to see a psychiatrist because she must be nuts to keep telling men she’d marry them and then break it off. Renie said shrinks were a bunch of bunk, but finally, on a dare, she went to see some grad student at the university. After the first session, they got engaged. They’ve been married for over twenty years.” She looked up just as Renie entered the room with Officer Price. The foursome arranged themselves at the table, looking like bridge players in search of a tally sheet.

Joe folded his hands over the slight rise of his stomach and nodded at Price. “You take the notes for now. First things first,” he continued, looking back at Judith. “Full name.”

“Mine?” Judith sounded startled, but Joe’s half smile urged her on. “Judith Grover McMonigle. Widow.” Joe’s expression didn’t change. “Owner of Hillside Manor B&B

JUST DESSERTS / 45

since a year ago January after I bought it from Mother, Aunt Deb, and Uncle Al. Mother lives here and so does my son, Mike, when he isn’t away at school. I have the proper licenses and I’m up to code. No, I have no idea who Madame Gushenka really is, and I still can’t comprehend that she was murdered. I think the medics have made a mistake.”

Joe, however, hadn’t seemed to follow Judith’s statement to its conclusion. “So Dan died.” His voice held an undertone of awe. “What did he do, poison himself in one of his ill-fated restaurant ventures?”

Judith’s mouth turned prim. “That’s not funny under the present circumstances. He blew up.”

“No kidding?” Joe was grinning, much to the consternation of Officer Price, who had viewed the entire exchange with veiled curiosity.

Judith’s attempt to look disapproving lost ground. “He weighed four hundred and three pounds when he died. He hadn’t worked in six years, and we were living in a rental out on Thurlow Street. I was working days at the local library and nights at the Meat & Mingle. Life was hard, times were tough, my feet were killing me. What else do you need to know?”

“Gee,” remarked Joe, “and all this time I thought you were shacked up with that Dutch drug czar on the Costa Brava.”

“He dumped me in Rome,” said Judith, only half lying.

“When do I get to ask the questions?”

Joe sobered. “Later.” Scowling, he looked over at Price’s notes. “If you don’t know who this fortune-teller was, who would?”

Judith straightened a lacy doily in the middle of the table and shrugged. “Oriana Brodie, I suppose. She hired her.”

“Brodie?” Joe’s red eyebrows shot up. “As in carpet-sweeper Brodie?” He saw Judith and Renie nod in unison.

“Damn! Then I did recognize the TV star and the ex-jock.”

He let out a big breath and clicked the ballpoint
46 / Mary Daheim

pen several times. “I suppose that’ll mean a lot of pressure from all sides. Did I hear somebody say another one of them is some big-shot doctor?”