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“Quite a vision, that,” Rick murmured.
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But Ambrose wasn’t finished. “Mrs. Giddon may sue the police department and the city as well,” he added before suddenly noticing Judith. “Oh! I beg your pardon! Maybe I shouldn’t be talking about this in front of . . . that is . . .” He ran a finger under his shirt collar.
Rick patted Ambrose’s shoulder. “You’re among friends, young Everhart. In other words, Mrs. Giddon is acting like Mrs. Giddon. Has it occurred to her that in suing the cruise line, she’s suing herself?”
Marco brought the glass of water. Ambrose took a big gulp before he answered. “She resigned from the board this afternoon. Horace Pankhurst is furious.”
Rhoda put both hands on her hips and stared at the private secretary. “No one told me. I should have been notified, since I’m on the board, too.”
Ambrose hung his head. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Truly.”
“It’s not up to you,” Rhoda said. “Erma should have personally informed me.”
Rick leaned toward his wife. “Maybe one of them did call while we were out. I only checked the important messages.”
He winked.
Rhoda looked slightly appeased, but before she could speak, Renie staggered up to the table. “It’s over!” she announced, causing heads to turn at the surrounding tables.
“Oscar’s been freed!”
“Oscar?” Rhoda repeated in a curious voice. “Who is Oscar?”
Judith made a frantic gesture at her cousin. “Never mind,”
she said airily. “It’s a long story, and has nothing to do with what’s going on here. Sit down, coz. Finish your appetizer.”
Renie shot Judith a baleful look, but removed the napkin from her chair and sat. “Ambrose?” she said, noticing the newcomer. “Do you want to hear about Oscar?”
“What?” The young man drank another swig of water. Judith kicked at Renie under the table, but missed and hit the chair leg instead. She winced before speaking up: “Erma Giddon resigned from the cruise-line board this afternoon.”
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“No kidding,” Renie said, gobbling up the rest of her crab.
“Say, Ambrose, do you like animals?”
Ambrose seemed startled by the question. “Yes, certainly, I’m involved with PETA. You know, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.” He avoided looking at the fox pelts that were draped over the back of Rhoda’s chair. Rhoda, however, read his mind. “These little devils,” she said, running her fingers through the luxurious fur, “were tried and convicted of killing four dozen helpless baby chicks—just before Easter. Which comes first, Ambrose—
the chicken or the vixen?”
“Well . . . that’s a good question, ma’am,” Ambrose responded, scratching his head.
“So if you like animals,” Renie said, “you’d enjoy spending time with—”
Judith aimed another kick at Renie. This time she connected. “You haven’t decided on your entrée, coz dear.”
“Oh.” Renie finally took the hint.
“Are you joining us?” Rhoda inquired of Ambrose.
“Oh—no, thank you. I must get back to Mrs. Giddon. Anemone is having quite a time keeping her mother calm. Jim Brooks is there, but he worries more about his fiancée than about his future mother-in-law.”
“I should hope so,” Rhoda remarked. “Run along now, Ambrose, and do your duty. By the way, where is Mr. Pankhurst?”
Ambrose looked pained. “He and Mrs. Giddon had an awful row. She even threatened to fire him as her financial adviser and attorney. I guess he went off with Miss Orr to lick his wounds.”
“Or something like that,” Rick murmured. “My, it sounds as if they had a high old time in the Giddon manse. Report back to us if there’s any serious bloodshed.”
But nobody—not even Rick—cracked a smile.
TWELVE
AMBROSE EVERHART’S DEPARTURE seemed to signal a change in the atmosphere. Rick and Rhoda took eating as seriously as they did drinking, which, Judith calculated, seemed to be about the only things—other than murder—that the couple didn’t dismiss with glib tongues and flippant attitudes. Certainly Farallon’s food was worthy of attention.
“So we’re still landlubbers awaiting anchors aweigh,”
Rick said as they finished their meal with fruit and a cheese tray. “Fortunately, we don’t have schedules to keep. Do you?”
Judith explained that she had a B&B to run; Renie worried that if Cruz Cruises suffered a serious scandal, she’d have to get busy finding another client to fill the void.
“Not to mention,” Judith added, “that our husbands wouldn’t like to have us gone for too long. They miss us. I think.” She omitted mentioning Gertrude, who was probably more anxious for her daughter’s return than she’d ever admit.
Marco had glided up to the table once again. “There’s another gentleman to see you, Mr. St. George,” he said in his soft-spoken manner. “He won’t come into the dining room. He’s not dressed.”
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“At all?” Rick responded casually.
Marco cleared his throat. “I meant to say that he isn’t wearing proper attire. He looks a bit . . . unkempt.”
“Biff,” Rick said, getting up from the table. “Excuse me, ladies. There may be news.”
“Biff,” Rhoda repeated after her husband had gone. “Such a shambles of a man. But he doesn’t mind doing the dog work.”
Judith glanced at her watch. It was after ten o’clock. She was anxious to call Joe, which she’d planned to do when they returned to the hotel. But if Biff McDougal really did have some new information, it might take a while to sort out. Excusing herself, she sought out Marco and asked where the telephones were located. She preferred not using her cell, since she hadn’t taken time to recharge the battery before leaving town.
Marco pointed the way. The booths, which were shaped like seashells, also happened to be near the alcove that led to the restrooms. Rick and Biff could be heard—but not seen—
talking in the open area between the men’s and women’s entrances. Judith couldn’t resist listening in.
“It’s gonna be all over the news tomorrow,” Biff said in a disgusted voice. “That dopey Buzz Cochran let himself get conned by Flakey Smythe.”
“Flakey’s conned more than one cop out of a story, Biff,”
Rick said. “Don’t beat yourself up over that. Buzz is a rookie. Give him some slack. He’s not used to subterfuge from journalists. That’s what makes Flakey a hotshot reporter. He’s sharp, he’s clever, he gets the scoops.”
“Flakey’s drunk half the time,” Biff grumbled. “I ought to know—I run into him all the time at my own hangouts. You can bet he doesn’t get anything out of me, even if he does offer to buy now and then.”
Judith was sitting in the booth at the end of the row. She pretended to dial, just in case the men suddenly came out of the alcove.
“What about Blackie?” Rick asked.
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“He’s up to something, all right,” Biff replied. “But he’s not talking. Not yet. Don’t worry, I’ve got my ways.”
“Of course you do,” Rick said agreeably.
“Anything new on Wilbur?” Biff inquired.
“He’s still missing.”
Biff cursed under his breath. “That Giddon woman’s gonna drive me ’round the bend. C’mon, Rick—you know anything I don’t?”
Judith heard Rick chuckle. “Do you think I’m holding back on you, old son?”
There was a pause. “Well—you do sometimes. I mean, you got all that stuff running around in your head like so many rats in a sewer—no offense, Rick—but you don’t always open up until you’re sure of a thing. You know what I’m saying?”
“Yes, I do, Biff. It’s my way of solving cases. No point in tipping my hand too soon. I may have misread my
cards or misjudged another player. Be patient. I’d better get back to the dining room now. Keep me posted from your end.”
“Right.” There was a brief silence. Judith pretended she was talking into the phone. But Biff spoke again. “I might as well use the facilities while I’m here. Will they throw me out because I’m not dressed like the rest of the swells?”
“Of course not,” Rick said. “I’ll go with you. Say, I hear there’s a horse named Sweet Pea running down at . . .” His voice died away as the pair entered the men’s room. Judith moved to the far end of the phone booths. She misdialed twice before the phone finally rang at Hillside Manor. Wilbur. The name was distracting her. She’d heard it before, but couldn’t recall where or when. The last twenty-four hours had been so full of new names and places and—
“Joe?” she said in a startled voice. “Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me,” he said, sounding hoarse. “I’ve got a cold. Where are you? Where’re the cough drops?”
“I’m still in San Francisco,” Judith replied. “The cough drops are in the medicine closet by the decongestants and the nose drops. How did you get a cold?”
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“Standing out in the rain waiting for Bill’s lunatic to drop that damned Oscar out of the hospital window,” Joe said in an annoyed tone. “It took two hours and four firefighters from Bayview.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course I’m serious. Where’s the decongestant?”
Judith could hear rummaging in the background. Joe must have taken the phone into the bathroom. “The middle shelf,”
she said. “There are two bottles. One’s blue and the other one’s green. Use the blue one. It’s for nighttime symptoms. Is your throat sore?”
“Sore as hell.”
“Gargle with warm salt water.” Judith waited a moment.
“Do you see the cough drops?”
“No. Yes, here they are. Ooof!”
There was a clatter followed by muffled swearwords. “I thought you were at the jail, not the hospital,” she said after the cussing turned into a cough.
“That was later,” Joe croaked. “The nut was at Bayview Hospital for evaluation. Then he got unruly. That’s when he made a dive for Oscar.” Joe sneezed a couple of times. “I still can’t find the cough drops.”
“I told you, they’re by the decongestant.”
Silence. Judith waited, visualizing Joe’s search of the medicine closet. The red-and-gold box was probably right in front of him.
“I found them,” he said, coughing again. “They were on the floor. I guess I knocked them off the shelf.”
“You couldn’t have gotten a cold this fast,” Judith said. “It must have been coming on earlier. Or maybe it’s allergies.”
“Bunk. I don’t have allergies. I know a cold when I get one. It started about two hours ago. We didn’t get back from the jail until almost eight. The rain was coming down in buckets, not like the usual drizzle.”
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“I had to lend Bill twenty bucks,” Joe replied, his speech apparently further hampered by the cough drop he was sucking. “He only had forty and change on him.”
“You mean for Oscar’s ransom?”
“Right.” Joe sneezed some more.
Judith held the receiver away from her ear an inch, as if the germs could travel along the phone line. “What about the helicopter?”
“We tricked Lorenzo on that one,” Joe said. “One of the medevacs landed on the hospital pad and we told him it was his chopper. That’s when he fell out the window.”
“He was threatening to jump again?”
“No, he was trying to look up at the copter on the roof. He leaned too far. Luckily, the firefighters were there and caught him.”
Judith was confused. “Why were they called in if Lorenzo wasn’t going to jump?”
“Because he was going to throw Oscar out the window after the copter got there.” Joe sounded weary. “Hey, I really have to get some sleep. I can’t be sick for the trial when it starts Monday. How come you haven’t left yet?”
“Personnel problems,” Judith said blithely. “Don’t worry, Renie and I are fine. We just had a nice dinner with some new friends. Take care of yourself. I’ll call again tomorrow.”
“If I’m still alive,” Joe said.
Judith liked his chances better than those of some other people she could name.
Dixie Beales had been poisoned. Dr. Selig had passed on the medical examiner’s findings to Biff McDougal around nine o’clock that evening. The exact type of poison had not yet been determined.
“Did it happen at lunch?” Judith asked Rick as they sat in Farallon’s bar having after-dinner drinks.
“Dixie didn’t eat much,” Rick said. “She had drinks instead. We’ll know more details in the morning.”
Rhoda placed a hand on her husband’s arm. “We must go
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to Grandviews and find out who Dixie lunched with. ‘An attractive young man’ is a rather vague description. It needn’t even be anyone we know.”
Rick turned to Judith. “Dominic was the server?”
Judith nodded. “That’s what Amalie told us.”
Rick sighed. “Dominic is over seventy. He’s an institution among San Francisco waiters. He’s amazing, but has the temperament of a prima donna assoluta. I believe Dominic started out at the age of seventeen at either Ernie’s or the Blue Fox. To him, ‘young’ might mean anybody under sixty.”
Rhoda pressed Rick’s arm more firmly. “You forgot to mention that he’s half blind. Dominic is far too vain to wear glasses, and unable to use contact lenses.”
“But his hearing is adequate,” Rick pointed out. “We’ll breakfast there tomorrow, my darling.”
Judith regarded the St. Georges with awe. “Is there anyone in San Francisco you don’t know?”
Rick and Rhoda exchanged bemused glances. “Probably not,” Rhoda said. “At least not anyone we ought to know. My dear husband is particularly democratic. He knows all sorts of people.” Her meaning was quite clear to Judith. Renie failed to suppress a yawn. “I’m beat,” she admitted.
“We should settle the bill.”
Rick smiled. “It was settled long ago.”
The cousins thanked their hosts. But Judith didn’t stir from her chair. “It does begin to sound like a vendetta, doesn’t it?”
Rick maintained his customary urbane manner. But Rhoda frowned. “It does, I suppose.” She again locked glances with her husband. “It’s a bit unsettling, really. After all, darling, I’m on the board. I could be next.”
The cousins woke up to sunshine Saturday morning. Standing by the window, Judith thought the bright day could be deceptive. The tall glass-and-steel buildings that shone so brightly didn’t necessarily mean it was warm outside. There 154
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could be wind. There usually was in San Francisco, whipping off from the bay, swirling up and around and down the many hills.
Renie was in an uncharacteristically good mood, even though it was not quite nine o’clock.
“What’s with you?” Judith asked as her cousin perused the room-service menu.
“I feel so much better since I talked to Bill last night and found out about Oscar,” Renie explained.
Judith sat down on her own bed opposite Renie. “Look at me,” she commanded.
Puzzled, Renie complied. “Do I look funny?”
“No funnier than you usually do in the morning.” But Judith was serious as she studied her cousin’s face. That was the problem—Renie was also serious. There was no indication that she was fantasizing. Oscar was a genuine part of the Jones family. Judith knew that Bill and Renie’s three children—and now
their spouses—all treated Oscar as if he were a real being. Indeed, Judith recalled to her dismay, at least once when visiting the Jones household, she’d almost sat on the stuffed ape—and—without thinking—had apologized to him for the near miss.
“Yes,” Judith said grudgingly, “I’m glad Oscar’s back in his usual place on the sofa. What did you tell Bill about our delay?”
“Nothing.” Renie had gone back to reading the menu, a task she always concentrated on as if she were a scholarly monk studying an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages. “He didn’t ask. But my mother did.”
“You talked to Aunt Deb?” Judith said in surprise. “When was that?”
“After I talked to Bill,” Renie replied, still scouring the breakfast selections. “As usual, the conversation with my husband was brief and to the point. But I knew that Mom would be worrying her head off because I hadn’t called her yet. You know how she is—a day without at least one visit and three phone calls from me is tantamount to my demise.
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So I phoned her, and merely said that the crew was having some problems. That led to the usual cautions about not talking to strangers, not going anywhere without forming a human chain, avoiding lounge lizards, protecting myself against germs, and wearing warm clothing. By the time she finished, I had to get back to the table. But,” Renie added, finally handing the menu to Judith, “the part about warm clothing was apt. We need to go shopping, or we’re going to freeze.”
“You’re thinking Neiman Marcus?”
Renie made a face. “I’d rather go to Saks. It’s right across the street. But if we’re going to sleuth, then it’s Neiman Marcus.”
“Sorry if you have to suffer for the sake of truth,” Judith said, always slightly awed by Renie’s freewheeling ways when it came to buying clothes. Not that her cousin actually spent much on her regular wardrobe, which was basically a ragged collection of old jeans, tees, and sweatshirts. But for professional purposes, Renie splurged a couple of times a year, and had a closet filled with designer items.
“It’s too bad,” Renie said later as they walked past Union Square to the department store’s location on Stockton Street,
