Legs Benedict

by Mary Daheim

  But Judith had already dialed the shuttle’s number. “Now I’ll have to think of a good fib,” she murmured. “Hello? Yes, this is Judith Grover, of Grand Grove Limo Service. We were supposed to pick up a Ms. Perl and a Ms. Williams yesterday afternoon, but they didn’t show. Do you know if they arrived?”

  The woman at the shuttle service informed Judith that they had indeed landed at Boring Field, shortly before three o’clock.

  Judith made a thumbs-up gesture for Renie’s benefit. “Was that a private flight out of Newark?”

  “Not Newark,” the woman replied. “The flight plan was filed out of Chicago.” She added that the plane was registered to Pamela Perl. Agog, Judith thanked the woman and hung up.

  “Pam has her own plane,” Judith informed Renie. “How does a preschool teacher afford that?”

  “Her parents have money? Or did, before they had children? Think how well off we’d be if we’d been infertile.” Renie jammed a handful of silverware into the dishwasher.

  “I think it’s peculiar,” Judith said.

  “But not impossible,” Renie noted. “Now tell me about the guns.”

  Judith explained about the arsenal that had been found in the guest rooms. Renie seemed more amused than alarmed. “So travelers want to feel safe? Big deal. Isn’t that the reason the Brits drive on the wrong side of the road? In days of yore, they had to whip out their swords to defend themselves while riding on horseback.”

  Judith gave Renie a skeptical glance. “But silencers?”

  “Not on swords.” Renie locked the dishwasher and turned it on. “I’ll admit, that’s harder to explain. Who had the silencers?”

  “The Santoris and Barney Schwartz. That really bothers me. You don’t need a silencer to ward off a mugger.” Suddenly, she snapped her fingers. “The receipts! Let me get them out of the file.”

  Judith’s filing system was reasonably well organized. She kept receipts filed by the month of the actual stay, rather than when payment was received. But since all the prepaid reservations had come in the previous week, the records were in an envelope marked for June.

  “Here’s an Amex receipt for Roland du Turque,” Judith noted. “And a Visa for Pete Santori and another for Pam Perl, who paid for both her and Sandi. But this is odd, now that I think about it—the Schwartzes and the Smiths sent in money orders, and overnighted them so payment would arrive before they did. The deliveries came together by Federal Express Saturday.”

  “From…?” Renie cocked her head to one side.

  “Drat!” Judith rummaged in the wastebasket under the counter that she used as a desk. “Phyliss must have emptied this into the recycling bin. Let’s go outside.”

  Unfazed by the drizzling rain, the cousins went around the side of the house to the big green receptacle that was collected only once a month. One of the uniformed officers, who turned out to be Mercedes Berger, approached Judith.

  “We’ve checked that,” Mercedes said. “Nothing.”

  “I’m looking for something…personal,” Judith explained. “How come you got stuck with watchdog duty?”

  Mercedes wore a rueful look. “Darnell and I officially went off patrol at eleven, so they decided we might as well stay here and work an overtime shift.”

  “Any luck with the search?” Judith asked.

  “I don’t think so,” Mercedes replied, though she didn’t meet Judith’s gaze. “No weapon, at any rate.”

  With a nod, Judith lifted the recycling bin lid. Fortunately, the FedEx envelopes were right on top. Tucking them under her arm, she led the way around the side of the house.

  Renie, however, suddenly grabbed Judith’s sleeve. “Hey,” Renie said under her breath, “check out the garage.”

  On the other side of Judith’s Subaru, in the space reserved for Joe’s beloved MG, Pete Santori was talking earnestly with Sandi Williams. Neither Marie nor Pam was anywhere in sight.

  “Pete and Sandi?” Judith whispered incredulously.

  The couple was so involved in conversation that they didn’t notice the cousins tiptoeing around the corner of the house. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” Judith said when they reached the sanctuary of the back porch. “The Santoris and the teachers know each other from somewhere else. How else would you explain Pam and Sandi’s reaction when they first saw Pete and Marie?”

  “What is this?” Renie asked as they went into the kitchen. “Some kind of rendezvous point?”

  “I wonder.” She hesitated. “I suppose I could ask at some appropriate moment.”

  Renie smiled. “You’ll ask, appropriate or not.”

  “You bet.” Judith smoothed the FedEx envelopes on the counter. “Here’s the one from Barney Schwartz. The return address is in Royal Oak, Michigan. That checks out. And this is John Smith’s. It was sent from…” Judith paused, staring at the printed form. “…Royal Oak, Michigan.”

  Over Judith’s shoulder, Renie looked at the address. “It’s not the same, though. In fact, it’s not really an address, it’s an intersection. But there’s a phone number in the three-one-three area code. I think that’s Detroit and its suburbs, which would include Royal Oak.”

  Judith stared at the two envelopes. “John Smith lived in New York. Or so he said.”

  Renie tapped the number. “Call it. See who answers.”

  Judith dialed the number. After two rings, she heard a hoarse male voice at the other end. “Freddy’s Bar and Grill,” said the man.

  Judith was taken aback. “Freddy?”

  “Naw. This is Jake. Who’s this?”

  “This is a…friend. Do you know John Smith?”

  “C’mon, lady. Don’t piss me off. Who is this?”

  Judith thought rapidly. “Are you at the corner of…” She glanced at the address on the envelope and repeated the street names.

  “Hell, no. That’s out in Royal Oak. You got downtown Detroit. You ain’t even in the right area code. They changed it last month.” Jake hung up.

  Judith replaced the cordless phone in its cradle. “John Smith gave a phony number, probably off the top of his head. He didn’t realize that there’d been an area code change recently and that three-one-three isn’t Royal Oak anymore.”

  “In other words,” Renie said thoughtfully, “John Smith was passing through.”

  Before Judith could respond, Phyliss appeared in the hallway carrying a laundry basket. “I got a note in the pocket of my housedress. You want it?”

  “What are you talking about, Phyliss?” Judith asked, getting up from the counter-cum-desk.

  “I found it under the braided rug in Room Four. You want it or not? Hurry up, this load of wash is heavy.”

  Judith reached around under the plastic hamper and pulled a piece of paper out of Phyliss’s pocket. The cleaning woman’s eyes surveyed Renie over the stack of laundry. “That you, Mrs. Jones? I see you’ve taken up with fiendish tobacco. Tsk, tsk.”

  “Pagan Jones to you,” Renie shot back, picking two bananas out of Judith’s fruit bowl and wiggling them on her head to look like horns. “I’m a lost soul, Phyliss, awash in sin and decadence.”

  “A wash is right,” Phyliss huffed. “And that’s what I’m going to do. You’re doomed, Mrs. Jones. There’s smoke in cigarettes, there’s smoke in Hades. Just wait and see.”

  Renie watched Phyliss’s departing figure. “Does she really think I’m a pagan? Doesn’t she know that we’re both Catholic?”

  “Same thing to Phyliss,” Judith murmured, studying the paper that had been torn off the pads provided in each guest room. “Listen to this—‘Meet me outside in half an hour.’ It’s unsigned, but I’m almost certain this is the same handwriting that was on the note I found under the piano.”

  “Which went unclaimed,” Renie commented.

  “Barney was supposed to meet this person outside,” Judith said, still puzzling over the note. “When?”

  “Half an hour after the note was delivered,” Renie answered in a reasonable tone. “It could have been
at any time, including yesterday or this morning.”

  “But if it was during the night, it might pinpoint the time of the murder,” Judith said in a thoughtful voice. “Maybe John Smith or whoever he is—was—slipped this note under the door.”

  “You told me his name was John Smith.”

  “That was then, this is now.” Judith jutted her chin at Renie.

  “Okay, so maybe John Smith, aka whoever, went outside to wait and somebody else came along and shot him,” said Renie.

  Moving to the work counter by the sink, Judith began dicing cooked chicken breasts. “But Barney doesn’t get the note.” She paused to stare at Renie. “It was under the rug, remember? Barney doesn’t show. Who does?”

  Renie, still in a helpful mode, removed a head of lettuce from the crisper drawer. “Maybe Barney got the note and ditched it.”

  Judith shook her head. “Burn it, tear it, toss it in the wastebasket.” Again she stopped and looked at Renie. “I suppose Joe and Rich Goldman went through the wastebaskets in the guest rooms. But they must not have looked under the rug. You’ve been in Room Four, you know how the rug is almost flush with the door. In fact, we had to take a sixteenth of an inch off the bottom of the door so it would clear the braided rug. Grandma Grover made them thick.”

  “Grandma Grover made everything thick,” Renie remarked in a wistful tone. “Her gravy, her puddings, her noodles. She was a wonderful cook and seamstress and gardener and craftswoman. Where did we go wrong, coz?”

  “We can cook,” Judith pointed out. “We garden. As for the rest—well, it’s a different era. Who has time to braid rugs and make clothes for the whole family?”

  “Who’d wear the stuff if we made it?” Renie made a face.

  “Grandma taught us to sew,” Judith said, getting two cans of fried noodles out of the cupboard.

  “We sucked,” Renie said. “Our mothers weren’t much better. Mine once broke three sewing machines in two weeks. She’s not mechanical.”

  “Maniacal is more like it when it comes to our mothers,” Judith noted. “Or maybe I mean diabolical. My mother isn’t going to like this chicken salad. She’d rather have baloney.”

  “My mother called three times this morning before nine o’clock,” Renie sighed. “That’s why I was quasiconscious when you phoned.”

  Judith was well aware of Aunt Deb’s obsession with the telephone and her daughter, Renie. If Gertrude Grover was sharp-tongued and hard to please, Deborah Grover was a maternal martyr in the making. It was pointless to dwell on the flaws that drove their daughters crazy. Judith changed the subject.

  “Barney and John Smith in Royal Oak, Michigan. Why? John Smith comes from New York—I saw the car, it definitely had New York plates. He and presumably Darlene drive to Detroit’s suburbs. Why? To find Barney? The next thing we know, the Smiths and the Schwartzes head west and end up here. Yet they aren’t traveling together and act as if they have no knowledge of each other.”

  “That’s probably untrue,” Renie noted, tossing the salad greens under the running tap. “It also seems that though the Santoris and the teachers claim not to be acquainted, they obviously are. Where did they come from?”

  “Pam and Sandi are from Newark, New Jersey,” Judith replied. “The Santoris come from Miami.”

  Renie let the lettuce drain in a colander. “What about Roland du Turque?”

  “Kansas City, Missouri, remember?” Judith began to make the dressing for the chicken salad. “The Malones are from Chicago. And, just to add further intrigue, the guy who canceled was from Las Vegas.” Slowly, Judith’s mouth curved into a grim smile. “Doesn’t that mean something to you, coz?”

  “Let me think,” said Renie, leaning against the counter and resting her chin on one hand. “These are American cities with a population over a hundred thousand? They all have tall buildings we can’t leap over in a single bound? I know how to spell each one? Come on, coz, spill it.”

  “Organized crime,” responded Judith. “Where are mob movies set?”

  “I don’t watch many mob movies,” Renie replied. “Bill does, but there’s too much gore. They need to cut out the shootings and all that violence before I go see them. Besides, I don’t think of Kansas City as a hotbed of organized crime.”

  “It has been, though, over the years,” Judith said, getting somewhat sulky.

  “Give it up,” Renie urged. “You’ve never gotten over your Al Capone phase. I still remember your term paper in English. ‘Scar-Face: Robin Hood or Robbing Hood?’ You got a C-minus. The assignment was to write about legendary American heroes.”

  “That was my point,” Judith countered. “Capone did a lot of good with his millions. He was extremely generous to charity, and…”

  “Stick it. Almost forty years later, you know better. Who did you write about in your class on Modern Marriage? Bonnie and Clyde?”

  Judith dumped the chicken in with the lettuce. “The course was Modern Family. I wrote about Ma Barker.” She ignored Renie’s appalled expression. “So explain why these people are armed to the teeth?”

  Renie admitted that was peculiar. “But why here? We definitely don’t live in a city that’s famous for harboring gangsters. Unless you count a rascally union boss or two.”

  “One of whom Uncle Al and Uncle Vince, both being members of said union, thought was a real hero,” Judith said dryly, then snapped her fingers. “Maybe we know why the pages were torn out of the register. Whoever did it, wrote that note to Barney. They didn’t want it traced to them through their signatures.”

  “What if it wasn’t Barney?” Renie said.

  “Huh?”

  “What if the note was intended for Minerva?”

  Judith considered. “Do you think that’s likely?”

  “Likely, no,” Renie replied. “Possible, yes.”

  Unhappily, Judith knew that all things were possible. Especially when it came to murder.

  All of the guests, except for the Malones, were milling around the living room. At 12:10, Judith announced that luncheon was served. Phyliss immediately descended upon the living room, armed with the vacuum cleaner.

  “Hey!” yelled Barney. “We can’t hear ourselves think with that damned thing running.”

  “I didn’t know you were the thinking type,” Pete remarked with a snide expression.

  Sandi leaned forward, her blonde hair highlighted by the unexpected appearance of the sun through the dining room window. “Put magic in your ears, Mr. Schwartz. That’s what we tell our students, don’t we, Pam?”

  Pam nodded. “It means they should listen real hard.”

  “My, my,” said Roland, gazing at Judith. “The rain’s stopped. I believe it’s all right to stroll the garden?”

  “Yes,” Judith replied, placing a basket of hot rolls on the table. The noise of the vacuum cleaner had receded as Phyliss moved to the far end of the living room. “Some of the other guests have already been outside this morning.” Her glance flitted from Pete to Sandi.

  “It’s not cold,” Marie put in.

  “But it’s damp,” Pam added.

  “There’s hardly any humidity, is there?” said Sandi.

  “It’s usually not a problem,” Judith said, seeing an opening. “Most of you come from parts of the country where that’s not the case. Or am I mistaken?”

  “It can get really bad in Miami,” Marie said. Then, as an apparent afterthought, hugged Pete. “Isn’t that true, Clingy-wingy?”

  “It sure is, Jiggles-wiggles. But we worship the old sun god,” said Pete.

  “I’d become depressed with all this rain,” Minerva Schwartz declared. “So much gray. I’m told you have no real change of seasons here.”

  “We don’t,” Renie asserted, entering the dining room with the coffee carafe. “Around here, we call the seasons sort of gray, pretty gray, really gray, and damned gray. Coffee black?”

  Minerva regarded Renie with distaste. “I shouldn’t think you would encourage visitors to this city with
that kind of negative attitude.”

  “I try not to,” said Renie. “But then I’m not in the tourism business.”

  “Attitude,” echoed Barney. “That’s what it takes to sell. See, I’m in the car business, got a dealership in Royal Oak. Take a look at my Seville parked outside. Right away, you’re impressed. That’s a positive, not a negative. Everybody wants a Cadillac—it’s the American dream. So when a guy wanders onto the lot, all I have to do is…”

  Judith wasn’t interested in Barney’s sales pitch. She and Renie returned to the kitchen. “I’m calling Joe,” Judith said. “He must know something by now.”

  “But it’s not his case,” Renie pointed out.

  “Then he can transfer me to J. J. or Rich.” Judith picked up the cordless phone, but her free hand wavered in midair. “Malone,” she mouthed at Renie.

  Mal was on the line, his voice mournful. “Sheesh,” he was saying, “we’ve had more than our share.” He paused, taking in an audible breath. “You hear that? Is somebody else on this line?”

  Judith stood like a statue; mercifully, the man at the other end said his phone had been acting up. Mal continued, “First, it was Tagliavini, then Albanese and McCormack, now Corelli. You tell me who’s out to get us. Talk to ya later.” Mal clicked off the upstairs extension.

  Renie, who had been listening at Judith’s shoulder, asked what the other party had said.

  “Not much,” Judith replied, finally daring to breathe again. “It was a man, and he just made commiserating remarks. But you heard Mal—didn’t that sound like mob members?”

  “I didn’t quite catch the names,” Renie admitted.

  “They were all Italian, except for one Irish or Scottish name. He mentioned Corelli, who the Malones were lamenting earlier as if he were dead,” Judith explained, then saw the skepticism on Renie’s face. “Okay, okay—I know not all Italians are in the Mafia. But given the guns and the fact that Mal and Bea are from Chicago, and we all know that in the past, both Italian and Irish gangsters have been…”

  Renie, who was peeking over the swinging door, raised a hand. “Here they come. The Malones, that is. Do you suppose that was a long-distance call?”