Wed and Buried (20 page)

“It's going on ten years since Dan died,” Renie continued. “I'm guessing you've forgotten some of the bad stuff.”

Judith made a face. “I think I've forgotten some of the good stuff, too. Like how Dan and Mike actually got along pretty well. I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, both while I was married, and then after Dan died. When Joe came back into my life, I sort of erased everything that had gone before. It was as if my marriage to Dan was an intermission between the first and second acts with Joe.”

Dodging a bee, Renie gave a little sigh. “It's true, Dan spent more time raising Mike than you did. It had to be that way, of course. None of the rest of the family knew what was going on—except what you told us—because Dan wouldn't let us commingle. What we heard was when you were upset and he'd done something awful, like when he ‘allowed'”—Renie made quote marks with her fingers—“you to come to the family Thanksgiving as long as you made him his own dinner complete with all the trimmings, and when you got back, you found the turkey in the birdbath.”

“It was the mailbox,” Judith corrected. “We were too poor to have a birdbath. The birds used to bring
us
food.”

Renie poked her cousin in the arm. “See? There you go—I mean, it's basically true, but you're making it out to be worse than it really was.
Ergo
, our sympathy mounts for you, and our antipathy escalates for Dan.”

“That's so,” Judith admitted. “I needed all the sympathy I could get—then. But I don't now. That's where I've been unfair. That's why I'm letting Dan keep the one thing he did well—raising Mike. It's like a memorial, and I don't think it will matter that much to Joe. After all, he went along for over twenty years not even knowing he had a son.”

“So you haven't told Joe about your decision not to tell Mike?” Renie inquired.

Judith shook her head. “I haven't had a chance. Mike showed me the tattoo this morning. The only time I've seen Joe since is at Red Fog studios. It wasn't exactly a propitious moment.”

Renie inclined her head in tacit agreement. “What about the dress? Did you decide to report it as stolen?”

Judith grimaced. “Do I dare? Then I have to admit I bought it.”

“Well…” Renie rubbed her short chin. “It could be evidence, if you're right about the smuggling.”

Judith brightened. “You don't think I'm crazy?”

Renie tugged at the short, shapeless shift that served as part of her rag-tag stay-at-home wardrobe. “Not exactly. There has to be something clandestine going on to tie Tara and TNT and de Tourville together. I doubt if it's a prayer group.”

Glancing at her watch, Judith saw that it was almost five. Discovering that she was low on rum, she had made an emergency run to the liquor store on top of the hill. Since she was halfway to Renie's at that point, she decided to chance calling on her cousin. Judith had definitely felt the need for a convivial ear.

“I'd better head home,” she said, rising from the chaise longue. “I'm glad I didn't interrupt you today.”

Renie wrinkled her pug nose. “I'm stuck until we find a bum. Morris has an underling out looking. I suppose you didn't ask Joe about Billy Big Horn being in the slammer?”

Judith snapped her fingers. “I don't have to bother him about that. We can call. Here, give me the phone.”

Renie handed over the cordless model that had been resting next to her lawn chair. It took Judith so long to get through to someone who could give her the information that Renie began arranging shish-kabobs in the kitchen. Following her cousin inside, Judith finally made contact just as Renie was drizzling melted butter on top
of the prawns, mushrooms, baby tomatoes, green peppers, and onions.

“Yes, that's right, Billy Big Horn…It's the only name I know him by…Well, I suppose it would be loitering or vagrancy or whatever they call that new law where you can't sit or lie down on the sidewalk…But if you don't enforce it often, what good is…? Oh—yes, thank you. Yes, that's it. He what? I see. Okay, thank you very much.”

Judith put the phone down on the kitchen counter and beamed at Renie. “It's true—Billy was picked up a week ago Saturday for violating that new sidewalk ordinance. He spent ten days in jail, and was released Monday.”

Renie looked up from the roll of aluminum foil she was using to wrap the shish-kabobs. “Hunh. I didn't think they really arrested homeless people for that.”

“They don't unless they're making a pest of themselves,” Judith replied. “Which, I gather, is what Billy Big Horn did. It sounded as if he was lying around all over the place, creating quite a nuisance. Maybe they wanted to make an example.”

“Poor Billy,” Renie remarked. “He seems such a harmless sort. Did you say he got out Monday?”

Judith nodded. “It's now Thursday. He hasn't been at the Naples, and nobody's seen him at his usual spot downtown. I wonder where he went?”

“He might have gotten disgusted and left town,” Renie suggested. “I suppose Morris can find another bum. Let's face it, to the general public, all homeless people look alike.”

“That's because we don't see them as individuals,” Judith pointed out, “only as a symptom of society's ills.”

“And,” Renie added, getting out a kettle from the cupboard under the counter, “it's a problem the rest of us don't want to think about. It's hard to be reminded that you have a snug home and enough to eat while hungry people are sleeping under a bridge.”

“Which,” Judith said in wispy voice as she headed for the front door, “is where I used to think I'd end up when I was married to Dan.”

Renie paused in the act of opening a canister of rice. “Hey—there you go again. You were never homeless.”

“That's because after Dan died I came back to live with Mother.” Judith waved goodbye from the doorway. “For awhile there were times when the bridge looked good.”

 

To Judith's surprise, Phyliss was waiting for her in the driveway. In her long black raincoat and matching gloves, she looked overdressed for what had become a warm, sunny afternoon.

“Where've you been?” the cleaning woman demanded. “I got here half an hour ago. Your crabby old mother told me you were out picking up sailors, but I doubted that. Or were you? She's kind of convincing when she takes out her teeth.”

“I had to go to the…” Judith cut herself off. Even though Phyliss knew that the Flynns kept alcohol in the house, it didn't do to advertise the fact. “…store,” Judith gulped. “What is it, Phyliss? Did you forget something this morning?”

Phyliss shook her head. “No. It's that de Tooleyville. He had some crazy notion that I'd been in the hospital. I didn't set him straight, 'cause that's where I should have been the past couple of days. I could see that he was sorry for me, which was kind of surprising, him being such a hoity-toity foreigner and all. He asked a trillion questions, and you can be sure I answered every one and then some, right down to my liver complaint and the uncertainty of my bowels. Then he had to go out all of a sudden, so I started looking for that cummerbund stuff. Though how you can figure what's cummerbund and what isn't with all them fancy doo-dads and fripperies and whatnot, I don't know. So,” Phyliss went on, pausing only for a deep breath, “I sort of kept my eye out for cigars. Lo and
behold,” she declared, reaching into the pocket of her raincoat, “I found a couple. They were in the guest bedroom, under the brocade dust ruffle.” In triumph, Phyliss held out two fat, brown cigars.

“I'll be darned,” Judith murmured. “Good work, Phyliss. Thank you very much.”

Phyliss bestowed a sour look on Judith. “You won't be smoking these, I hope?”

“Of course not, Phyliss.” She gave the cleaning woman's bony shoulder a grateful squeeze. “Thank you. Ah…do you want a ride home?”

Phyliss shook her head. “I can take the bus, like I always do. I got nobody waiting for me. Except Jesus.” She tromped off down the drive, the black coat swinging behind her.

 

If the temperature had grown warmer, the atmosphere inside Hillside Manor had gotten cooler. When Joe arrived home shortly after six, he greeted his wife with a cursory peck on the cheek, and headed straight upstairs to change. Busy serving her guests, Judith tried to put her husband's aloof manner out of her mind. But when he remained detached throughout dinner and even after they had adjourned to the third-floor family quarters, she could stand it no longer. Judith unleashed an avalanche of explanations, excuses, and apologies.

“So it was because I was upset about you and Mike,” she concluded, wringing her hands. “I had to focus on something else. The wedding was over, so the murder was it. Did I do the right thing?” She turned a tearful face to Joe, who was sitting next to her on the sofa in the family room.

After a long day, Joe was understandably worn out. The last thing he needed was an emotional outburst from his wife. But it had been building, ever since the wedding, and it would be cowardly to dismiss either Judith's dilemma or her contrition.

On the other hand, he, too, had feelings, though they were often kept under wraps. “I have a daughter,” he said slowly. “Caitlin means the world to me. She was the one good thing that came out of my marriage to Vivian. For a long time, I thought she was my sole claim to immortality. Then, when I met you again six years ago, I found out that wasn't so. I had a son, a son I didn't know existed—a son I just plain didn't know.” Joe passed a hand over his graying red hair. “I still don't know him, not really. He's been away at college or working in Idaho all the time we've been together. I've tried…” Joe paused, cleared his throat, and shifted his gaze to the blank TV set across the room. “I tried to get to know him, man-to-man. Not father-to-son, you'll note. Maybe I made some inroads, maybe not. Frankly, I don't feel any closer to him than I do to Bill and Renie's kids. We pass like ships in the night, at family gatherings, in and out of town, whenever.”

As Joe hesitated with his green eyes in shadow, Judith put a hand on his arm. “He likes you. I know he does. Mike admires you and respects you. What more could you ask?”

It was a stupid question, and Judith immediately regretted it. “Love,” Joe said simply, finally meeting his wife's anxious gaze. “Caitlin loves me. It's natural for a child to love a parent. It's not natural to love a stepfather. It has to be cultivated. I resent that.”

Judith bit her lip. “Oh, Joe! I'm so sorry!”

“You made your decision,” he said quietly. “It was probably the right thing to do. The truth would upset Mike, put him in therapy, screw up his marriage, his career, whatever. That's the way it is with kids today, isn't it?”

“Are you saying Mike's not man enough to handle it?”

Joe stood up, making for the door. “No. I didn't say it—you did.” He left Judith alone in the family room.

 

She hadn't had a chance to ask him about new developments in the case or what he and Woody had learned at Red Fog studios or if he'd enjoy a cigar. Maybe he didn't intend to talk about the Harley Davidson investigation any more. Certainly there were things, lots of things, he hadn't been telling her along the way. Judith turned on the TV, gazed with unseeing eyes at a series of banal, meaningless programs as she channel-surfed, and finally clicked off the remote control.

She'd blown it. Lacking the courage to tell Mike the truth, she'd forever condemned her husband and his son to casual friendship. And all for Dan, that big, worthless lump who'd made her miserable for most of their eighteen years together.

Except she hadn't done it only for Dan. She'd done it for Mike, too. When Mike needed a father, Dan was there. To Mike, Dan
was
his father. Joe didn't even know Mike existed. He was living with Herself, doting on Caitlin, and playing stepfather to the sons that his first wife had borne to previous mates.

Life had no easy answers. Judith reached into the cloisonne candy box on the sidetable where she'd put the cigars Phyliss had confiscated from Bascombe de Tourville. She juggled what she assumed was first-rate Cuban quality in her hands. “Firm and fully packed”—the phrase from a radio commercial of her youth tripped through her brain.

But the cigars were no such thing. They felt light and lumpy. Carefully, Judith peeled back a layer of dark brown tobacco leaf. She peeled some more.

Three small objects fell in her lap. It was growing dark in the family room, and she switched on the table lamp. At first, the objects looked dull and rocklike. Then she held them up to the light.

They were green, like glass, and under the murky exterior, a dazzling fire struck her eye. She was reminded of the glass chunk she'd collected from the Belmont bal
cony. A bottle, Woody had suggested, or something equally innocuous.

They were neither.

Upon close inspection, Judith knew an emerald when she saw one.

T
HE MOMENT OF
madness had passed. Judith had caressed the uncut stones, held them under a three-way bulb, laid them against her bare throat and on her finger. The smallest of the emeralds would make a brilliant ring. Chips from any of the gems would look heavenly at her ears. Who would miss one little piece of unpolished rock? Someone with a Uzi, Judith decided, and went downstairs to tell Joe about the emeralds.

She found him outside on the patio, sitting in a lawn chair and listening to the soft sounds of summer. Approaching quietly, she juggled the three stones she'd found in the first cigar, the four smaller ones from the second, and the chunk she'd saved from the Belmont roof. Judith was about to rouse Joe from his reverie when she heard the phone ring.

Of course she could let it switch over to the answering machine, but it might be a reservation or a cancellation. Judith darted back into the house and picked up the phone where she'd left it on the kitchen counter next to the computer. If Joe heard or saw her, he didn't move.

“I'm in the soup,” Renie declared in a frazzled voice. “I told Morris Mitchell that Billy Big Horn was
still around, and now he insists that I find him. Any old bum won't do for our Morris. Where should we go to hustle the homeless? Bill's coming with me.”

The old schoolhouse clock on the kitchen wall said it was almost eight-thirty. “You're going now?” Judith said in surprise.

“Immediately,” Renie answered, now sounding testy. “Morris can't wait. I told him it was useless, because Billy will be holed up for the night, probably under some bridge or maybe the viaduct.”

“That could be dangerous,” Judith pointed out.

“I know,” Renie responded. “Which is why we won't go there. We're just going to take a swing through downtown, and maybe the hospital district by the Naples. It'll stay light for another hour, so we can spot Billy if he's around. At least I can tell Morris that I tried.”

“Donner & Blitzen's corner and the Naples are the main places where Billy hung out,” Judith said as she heard Joe come through the back door and go upstairs. “The Belle Epoch, Nordquist's, and the Cascadia Hotel are popular with panhandlers, too.”

“I thought of them,” Renie said as her husband's voice rang out from somewhere in the Jones's household. “Got to go, Bill's ready and roaring.”

Judith clicked off the phone and sank into the chair by the computer. She should take the emeralds to Joe at once. But Renie's interruption had given her time to think. Maybe this wasn't the moment to spring the uncut stones on her husband. He had plenty on his mind right now, and his job wasn't what was troubling him.

Picking up the phone book, Judith searched for Chuck Rawls's number. She found Charles Rawls Jr. in a suburb east of the lake. He answered on the first ring.

“No,” he said after Judith had expressed her dismay about the bombing, “there was no damage except to the lobby. The company that owns the building had insurance, and they've just about got everything fixed. There're a lot
of other businesses besides KRAS and KORN at Heraldsgate 400, including the Highcastle Hot Dog administrative offices. If that bomb had been a biggie, there'd be some serious pissing and moaning. Excuse the expression.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Judith recalled the Highcastle Hot Dog sign featuring Willie, the Winking Wienie, atop the actual plant in the city's industrial section south of downtown. It also occurred to her that she hadn't seen Willie wink at her lately as she traveled the freeway.

“I understand that Pork Barrel Meats in Chicago bought Highcastle Hot Dogs,” Judith said in a casual tone. “Did that happen recently?”

“Oh—about six months ago,” Rawls answered. “Not long after the first of the year. Ms. Highcastle thought they'd keep the operation here going, but all they wanted was the name. So she had to make it up to her employees, buy-outs, severance, all that stuff. That's why she keeps an office in the 400 building. She's still writing checks.”

“All the same,” Judith said in what she hoped was envious amazement, “Ms. Highcastle must have made a bundle off the sale.”

“You'd figure as much,” Rawls allowed, “but it actually turned into a headache. She owned the building south of town, but not the land. Now that there's talk of building a new sports stadium in that area, she's responsible for razing the place. Lately, Ms. Highcastle seems to be in the business of wrack and ruin instead of rock 'n' roll.”

“Are you saying that she's going through hard times?” Judith suggested tentatively.

“Who knows?” Rawls replied with what sounded like a yawn. “With rich people, it's tough to tell. When they say they're broke, they mean they're down to their last few millions. It's a funny thing—that's as hard for them as it is for working stiffs like me who figure we're broke
when the old checking account is overdrawn by a couple of hundred bucks, and the so-called reserves were never there in the first place.”

“True,” Judith murmured, then changed the subject. “I haven't heard if the kids who tossed the bomb have been caught. The newspapers have been very quiet on the subject since the initial article.”

“Right,” Rawls agreed. “No deaths, no serious damage, no real news. We're just as bad in radio. Heck, we only follow up on stories if it's a major war, major plane crash, or some major gets caught in bed with another major.” Rawls chuckled at his own twisted humor.

Judith forced a truncated giggle, but her mind was elsewhere. “Are you keeping Darrell Mims on the air?”

“We have to.” Rawls now sounded glum. “Our talent search hasn't turned up anyone else, at least nobody we can afford. And Mims may be pretty bland, but he's a hell of a lot cheaper than Harley.”

“What did Harley do with his money?” Judith inquired in a musing tone. “That is, I'm told he didn't have any sizable savings.”

“He didn't?” Rawls sounded genuinely surprised. “He must have. He made big six figures, maybe more.”

“As a DJ?”

“Not from KRAS,” Rawls responded slowly. “Oh, he had a good salary, that's for damned sure, but according to inside-the-industry rumors, the real money came from…other sources.” The producer's voice lowered a notch.

“Yes, so I understand,” Judith said in a conspiratorial tone. “So where did it go? Women? Drugs?”

There was a pause at the other end of the line. “I really don't know,” Rawls finally answered with what sounded a bit like wonderment. “There were women, sure, but mostly groupies. I've been to his apartment, and it was okay, but nothing special. He wasn't a collector. You know, when a guy can't see, there isn't much point in hanging Old Masters on the wall or putting rare stamps
in an album. And, as you might have guessed, he didn't spend it on cars.”

It hadn't fully occurred to Judith until now that having impaired sight or no sight at all was bound to limit life's pleasures. A wave of compassion for Harley Davidson swept over her. As if to prove what he was missing, she rose from the chair and gazed out the window. Dusk was settling in over Heraldsgate Hill, creating a gray-gold glow behind the maple and evergreen trees. Judith smiled at the often unappreciated sight.

“So Harley couldn't see at all?” she asked in a soft voice.

“Actually, he could see a little. Sort of extreme tunnel vision, just enough that he could get around familiar places by himself. Maybe,” Rawls added in a speculative tone, “that's why he never had a guide dog.”

“How did he lose his sight?” Judith inquired, hearing Joe on the stairs.

“I don't know,” Rawls admitted. “I gathered it was a birth defect.”

“Poor man.” Judith turned to see Joe in the hallway. “Thank you. I appreciate your help. I really must run now.”

Joe went to the refrigerator where he got out a can of diet soda. “Still sleuthing, huh?” His voice held no inflection.

“Yes,” Judith confessed. “It's like an addiction. I wanted to stop, I really did, but…I can't.” She hung her head. “I'm sorry.”

Joe popped the top of his soda can, gave Judith a pensive look, and went upstairs.

 

As expected, Renie and Bill had had no luck searching for Billy Big Horn. They had, however, learned more about what had happened to the harmonica-playing homeless man.

“It's a real grapevine among those people,” Renie told
Judith Friday morning as the cousins sat at sidewalk tables outside of Moonbeam's coffee house. The newlyweds had taken off early, long before Judith's B&B guests had risen. Judith had shed a tear or two as she kissed her son and his bride goodbye. Joe had shaken hands with Mike and bestowed a paternal peck on Kristin's cheek. The rental car they'd picked up the day before had disappeared out of the cul-de-sac and faded into the gold and purple haze of the summer sunrise. Judith had stayed out on the curb for several minutes, wondering if she'd done the right thing by not doing anything at all.

“They have their own world,” Renie was saying, and Judith realized she might have missed part of her cousin's conversation. “The members of the homeless community all know each other. Anyway, it seems that Saturday morning—the day Mike and Kristin were married—somebody from St. Fabiola's Hospital reported Billy lying across the main entrance. Whoever it was recognized him, and after he—or she, I'm not sure which—figured out that Billy wasn't sick, he—or she—tried to move him, or get him to move. Billy refused. So he—or she—called the cops. They trotted out the anti-sidewalk sitting ordinance, and hauled Billy away.”

“He—or she—must be a hard case,” Judith remarked with a puckish smile. “Couldn't you just have said ‘hospital staffer'?”

Renie gave a swipe at the mocha mustache she'd created. “Never mind. I have to do all this P.C. crap in my work these days, and it gets to be a habit. Somebody objected to ‘history' in some text a couple of weeks ago, and insisted on calling it ‘herstory.' The writer got so mad, he changed it to ‘ustory.' I didn't much blame him, except that the typesetter thought it was supposed to be ‘usury' and the client had a fit, since it was a bank.”

“‘It'?” Judith lifted her eyebrows.

“Them. They. Screw it.” Renie took another swig of her mocha. “I'm a designer, not a writer. Anyway, Billy
was carted off to jail, and he went most meekly. I suppose those homeless folks don't mind sometimes, because they get a bed and a food and a roof over their heads.”

“So where is he now?” Judith asked, sipping her latte.

Renie shook her head. “Nobody's seen him since. They—the other bums—figure he left town. Though that's not like him, I gather. He's been a fixture around here for the last four or five years.”

For a few moments, Judith sipped her beverage and kept quiet. As usual, the corner on which Moonbeam's was located hosted a horde of passersby. The constant parade included mothers pushing babies, couples with dogs on leashes, grocery shoppers carrying Falstaff bags, teenagers on summer break, and children heading for the rec center two blocks away. Judith was an inveterate people-watcher, but on this warm morning in July, she was distracted by her thoughts.

“How?” she finally asked.

“How what?” Renie frowned and accidentally sloshed mocha on the table.

“How would Billy leave town? He's blind. Wouldn't that make hitchhiking especially dangerous?”

Renie used a napkin to wipe up the small puddle. “Look—for all we know, Billy's a very successful panhandler. Maybe he saved. He could have flown some place, or taken a bus or train. What do sheltered middle-class people like us really know about the homeless?”

Judith allowed that Renie was right. The subculture comprised of the homeless was as foreign as an African tribe. “So what are you going to do now about your brochure photos?” Judith asked.

Renie sighed. “Morris insists I spend this afternoon looking for a bum. His underling came up wanting, so I'm stuck. Care to join me?”

Judith's hand strayed to her purse, which was resting at her feet. “Well…I was thinking of going to the jeweler's at the bottom of the hill.” Casting around the vi
cinity to make sure that no one was watching, Judith dug into her purse and pulled out one of the smaller emeralds. Renie's eyes grew huge as Judith told her about the discovery in the cigars.

“But you haven't shown these to Joe?” Renie asked when Judith had completed her tale.

“No. I didn't have a chance.” In a woebegone voice, Judith told her cousin about the previous evening. “I don't blame Joe, but it makes me unhappy.”

Elbows on the table and resting her chin on her hands, Renie regarded Judith quite seriously. “Our kids are young enough to still believe in black and white. We know better. It's very gray out there.”

“I realize that,” Judith said, still forlorn. “It doesn't stop me from wanting to make it better.”

“Yes,” Renie said, now gazing beyond Judith to Begelman's Bakery across the street. “We don't want anyone we love to be hurt or sad or upset. But sometimes they are, and there's not much we can do about it. At some point when Mike was small, you and Dan could have told him the truth. But you chose not to—or maybe, knowing you, dear coz, you let it drift.” Renie was again looking at Judith, and saw her cousin bristle. “Whichever, it doesn't matter now. The moment passed. You and Joe are both going to have to live with what didn't happen.”

“I don't like it,” Judith said in a flat voice.

“We don't like lots of things that we have to live with,” Renie replied, still wearing what Judith called her cousin's boardroom face. “Joe was the one who ran off. Of course he didn't know you were pregnant, you didn't know it, either. So this is the price he pays for a moment of drunken folly. You found Dan on a very hard rebound. I'll admit that his offer of marriage was uncharacteristically kind, but he had his reasons, which included a meal ticket. Still, before that had to happen, why didn't Joe come to his senses and get his marriage annulled? Did you ever ask him?”