Just Desserts : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery (8 page)

Back in the empty living room, she turned off all the lights.

The fire was still burning cheerfully, and Judith was grateful to whoever had been kind enough to put on more logs. Sitting on the cushioned window seat across from the flickering hearth always soothed her soul. She propped up a couple of thick embroidered pillows and tipped her head back. The big bay window looked down on a small rose garden and the laurel hedge that separated Hillside Manor from the dizzying planes, angles, and sheets of glass that made up the architect’s house next door. Luckily, the Ericsons were gone for the weekend. Unlike the Rankerss, who had known the Grover family for almost thirty years, the Ericsons were relative newcomers and young enough to be closed-minded.

Rubbing at the back of her neck where a headache was just beginning, Judith tried to collect her thoughts. At least her mother was settled for the night. Renie would no doubt stay over. The Brodies appeared to be stuck, on orders of the police. Judith wondered if Oriana would demand a re-fund. She also wondered if the press had been alerted, either by Mavis or through the regular media channels. That idea made her grit her teeth: Renie was too sanguine
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about negative publicity; Judith could already see the For Sale sign in front of Hillside Manor.

Below in the garden, the carefully pruned rose bushes stood like stalwart soldiers, resisting the rain and wind.

Heavy clouds hung low over the city, nestling against the curve of the bay where the midnight ferry was making its run into town. Judith loved her city, her old neighborhood, her family home. She had made great sacrifices to marry Dan McMonigle, all for naught, except for Mike. Miraculously, she had gotten everything back. But perhaps it was only a temporary miracle, about to be snatched away by ugly circumstances she could not have foreseen in her wildest dreams. There was only one way to save Hillside, not to mention her own reputation, and that was for Joe to solve the case as quickly as possible. Surely he must be a first-rate homicide detective. She had to rely on him to get her out of this grisly dilemma.

A strange little laugh burbled up out of Judith’s throat.

For all she knew, Joe Flynn was the biggest clown in the police department. She had relied on him twenty years ago and had been left holding more than just her flight bag. She didn’t know Joe anymore; she didn’t know if he was married, a father, an Elk, or a transvestite.

The worst part was that she didn’t care what he had become. Joe was still Joe. Judith swore to herself, then at herself, and got up as a noise from the far end of the room caught her attention. Peering into the gloom as the fire began to die down, she saw two figures huddled close together on the other side of the French doors. A man and a woman, she realized, behaving in at least a semi-intimate manner. The man turned just enough so that she could recognize his profile: Dash Subarosa. No doubt he and Gwen had decided to defy the rain and catch a breath of fresh air. Judith was about to tiptoe over to the coffee table and retrieve the cups and saucers when it occurred to her that the woman was much too small to be Guinevere Brodie Tweeks. Pausing in mid-step, Judith squinted at the small square panes of glass.

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The woman in Dash Subarosa’s arms was Ellie Carver, and as far as Judith could tell, Mrs. Do-Good was doing a lot better than might have been expected.

“You won’t believe this!” Judith exclaimed in a stage whisper as she hurtled through the swinging door. “Ellie is out on the back porch necking with Mr. Sleaze!” She stopped dead in her tracks, oblivious to Renie’s gaping reaction.

“What’s that smell? Are you baking a boot?”

“I was just going to check,” said Renie, reaching for the oven door. “We must have left something in there. A pan, maybe.”

Black smoke curled out of the stove, sending both women reeling in the direction of the dishwasher. Waving her hands, Judith ran to the back door and threw it open, but the smoke alarm went off anyway. Out on the porch, two pairs of feet stampeded down the back steps. Joe Flynn flew into the kitchen and made a face.

“What’s on fire?” he yelled over the screech of the alarm.

Renie was poking at the oven with a meat fork. “Oh, dear,”

she gasped. “You won’t believe this, but…” The alarm stopped, leaving her voice pitched at high volume. “But,” she went on, several notes lower, “I think we just roasted the evidence at 350 degrees.”

Smoke was still pouring out of the leather satchel as Renie dangled it from the steel fork. In the doorway, Oriana was clutching at her pearls and emitting a series of shrieks. Judith was at the sink, pouring water into a kettle, but Joe had grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall by the refrigerator.

“You may be up to code, but you aren’t up to snuff with your emergency reactions,” he shouted at Judith.

“Don’t you dare spray that thing all over my kitchen floor!

Stop it, you’re going to zap Renie!” Judith dove in front of Joe and threw the kettle of water onto the satchel which her cousin had dropped unceremoniously at her feet. “There!

The enemy has been subdued.”

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“Oh, good,” remarked Renie, “only my shoes got wet.” She looked again. “Eeeek! The flour I spilled has turned to paste!

I’m glued to the spot!”

At the kitchen door, Oriana had been joined by Otto and what appeared to be the rest of the guest list. Judith noted that Dash and Ellie had taken up the rear. Over the twittering of Gwen, the cries of Oriana, and the vague murmurings of Lance, Otto bellowed the obvious question: “What the hell’s going on now in this loony bin?”

Before anyone could answer, Sweetums streaked through the open back door, flew across the kitchen, and splayed himself against Otto’s pantsleg. “Owr!” yelled Otto, swatting at the cat. “Get this ugly furball out of here!”

Judith charged after Sweetums, slipped on the wet floor, and had to be steadied by Joe. “Thanks,” she gasped, feeling his hands at her arm and waist.

“Take a deep breath,” cautioned Joe, still holding on to Judith. He waited a moment, the magic eyes resting on her startled face.

“I’m okay,” she said, but her voice was shaky. Not, she realized, from the near fall, but from Joe’s touch. She cursed herself and broke free, all atttention riveted on Otto, who was still trying to pry Sweetums loose from his pants.

“He likes you, Daddy,” said Gwen. “Nice kitty, come see Gwenny. Gwenny woves kitty-witties.”

With a spate of apologies, Judith finally broke Sweetums’s hold and carted his hissing form back out through the kitchen. “You’ll be cat soup tomorrow,” she muttered, slamming the door on his yowling face and securing the cat latch as well.

Renie had managed to get herself unstuck and was mopping up the floor while Joe dispersed the Brodies, except for the irate Otto. “Look at the tears in this seven-hundred-dollar suit! I should have brought my Doberman along! Booger shreds cats into confetti! I’m covered with fur! I’ll probably go into a coma!”

“How about the front parlor instead?” suggested Joe, steering Otto out of the kitchen. “If you wait there, I’ll
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be right along. Mrs. McMonigle is just making more coffee.”

“Mrs. McMonigle is making mayhem, if you ask me,”

grumbled Otto, but complied with relative docility.

Joe made sure that Otto was out of earshot, then turned to Judith and Renie. “Put the coffee on and let’s see that satchel.”

“It’s locked,” said Renie, then looked again. “It’s not locked. Somebody pried it open.”

Joe gave Renie a patronizing look. “Of course. What did you expect, they just wanted to braise it for fun?”

A quick search showed some melted cosmetics, scorched store coupons, a ruined hairbrush, and a wallet which was surprisingly intact. “It’s Wanda Rakesh, all right,” said Joe, studying the California driver’s license. “Doesn’t look a lot like Madame Gushenka, but it’s her.”

Judith and Renie stood side by side, scrutinizing the face that smiled back at them. According to the license, Wanda was forty-six years old, five foot eight, a hundred and forty-five pounds, and lived in Culver City. Her hair was brown, her eyes were hazel, and she was nearsighted. She had probably been a pretty woman, at least in her youth, though given the distortion of California Highway Patrol photo-graphy, it was hard to tell. Judith took another look at the smiling face and shuddered.

“Just think, she came in here three hours ago, all full of phony nonsense and bright shiny beads…and now she’s dead. Why?”

Joe was still rummaging in the satchel, extracting hairpins and Band-Aids and paper clips. “Check the rest of the wallet.

It seems as if she was a nurse at St. Peregrine’s Hospital in L.A. Credit cards, too, mostly for California stores. I wonder what else was in here?”

“What do you mean?” Judith asked, flipping through the plastic holder with its passports to poverty for Visa, Master-Card, Bullock’s, Robinson’s and several oil companies.

“I mean,” said Joe, digging even deeper into the
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charred satchel, “that whoever filched this thing must have thought there was something incriminating in it. Not her identity, though. If that had been the case, he—or she—would have gotten rid of the wallet.” He gave the two women a sidelong glance. “There’s no checkbook, you’ll note.”

“You mean,” said Renie, trying to piece his logic together,

“whoever found the satchel wasn’t trying to destroy it, they just wanted to ditch it in a hurry?”

Joe nodded. “The oven was the best place, I suspect.

Whatever they took out of here is somewhere else in this house. Or has been…” He stopped, his hand still inside the satchel. “Hello? What’s this?” Very carefully, he pulled out a Polaroid picture which had been stuck in the recesses of an inside pocket. The edges were curled and the color had faded, but despite the youthful faces, there was no mistaking the two people who beamed at the photographer into the camera.

Judith let out a little shriek. “Wanda and Dash?”

“Or Dash and Wanda. In love, it would appear, judging from the arms wrapped around each other.” Joe turned the picture over. “Just ‘1969.’ That’s all it says, but that’s plenty.”

“Enough to arrest him?” Judith asked eagerly.

“Hardly.” Joe put the satchel in yet another grocery bag.

“But it
is
evidence. Just about anybody could have sneaked into the pantry and even the kitchen in the past couple of hours. At least after the murder. That trail of flour no doubt led the way, just like Hansel and Gretel’s birdseed.”

“Bread crumbs,” corrected Judith absently. She gazed at the floor, noting that most of the flour had been tracked up, spread around, or absorbed. In any event, it was virtually gone. She turned back to Joe. “Could you get any prints?”

“Footprints?” Joe shrugged. “We tried. To be frank, I think the firemen tramped through most of it. Sometimes we seem to work at cross purposes.” He looked faintly
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rueful, then squared his shoulders. “Now I’d better talk to Otto before he busts a gut.”

“Wait!” Unthinking, Judith put a hand on Joe’s arm and brushed aside the thought that it seemed to fit there. “Dash was out on the back porch with Ellie Carver just now. I saw them embracing. Sort of.”

“Sort of?” The red eyebrows lifted as Judith’s hand fell away. “Ellie?”

Judith nodded emphatically. “They suggested intimacy.

And then they ran off after I opened the back door.”

“Dash must be pretty dashing,” mused Joe. “I’d better run him through the computer downtown.” With the garbage bag swinging from his hand, he strolled out of the kitchen.

“Here,” said Renie, pouring out the first of the coffee. “It looks like a long night.”

Judith took the mug and stared with unseeing eyes at the smoke-smudged oven door. “It looks to me like a short career.

I wonder if I can go back to the library?”

Pouring out her own mug, Renie didn’t answer right away, but when she did, her voice was unusually somber. “I don’t know about the library, coz, but you know what they say.”

Her anxious brown eyes met Judith’s bleak black stare over the coffee mugs. “You can’t go back. Not ever.”

SEVEN

THE PROCESSION OF guests pounded up and down the main staircase until almost two a.m. For the first hour, Judith and Renie finished cleaning up from dinner, trying to find comfort in routine. The lights went out at the Rankers’s, the wind died down, the rain slowed to a drizzle and Sweetums made occasional raucous forays at the back door. Resisting the temptation to let the cat in, Judith ignored his indignant yowls. She also resisted the desire to talk about Joe.

Renie didn’t ask. Raised virtually like sisters, the cousins could almost read each other’s minds. Eventually, Renie knew, Judith would talk, would pour it all out in her wry, self-deprecating manner. But not yet. Judith put away the Wedgwood instead, and spoke of murder.

“Dash Subarosa knew Wanda Rakesh,” she remarked, stacking saucers. “But maybe he wasn’t the only one. It’s possible that Otto recognized her and that’s why he high-tailed it out of the kitchen.” She paused and made a face.

“One broken goblet, two smashed dessert plates, plus I’m missing at least two cups and saucers. The police must 61

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have taken them. Do you suppose they think that’s how Madame Gushenka was poisoned?”

Renie slumped into a kitchen chair, her brown curls wilted, dark circles under her eyes. “Let’s bury Madame Gushenka, I mean that name, and call her Wanda. I’ll bet the accent was phony, too.”

“Probably. It sounded like an Early Espionage Movie.” Judith closed the cupboards and joined her cousin at the dinette table. “What do you suppose was in the satchel? And where is it?”

Renie shrugged and brushed crumbs off her bedraggled Notre Dame sweatshirt. They still hadn’t eaten anything except for some stale cookies and limp crackers. “The police can search their rooms, I suppose. Which means the missing whatever may have been destroyed.”

“How?” asked Judith.