Vi Agra Falls (11 page)

“Rochelle says the media has arrived. I want to avoid them.
You know what it's like if Mavis Lean-Brodie is here from KINE-TV.”

“Mavis has sometimes been your ally,” Renie pointed out. “She's only doing her job.”

“I don't care,” Judith asserted. “That is, I don't want any more exposure about my reputation as FATSO.”

Renie was obviously trying not to smile. “That Web site your admirers set up should be good for business.”

“It's not,” Judith snapped. “I've made darned sure that they don't mention the name of my B&B. That would only bring in the ghouls and thrill-seekers.”

“It annoys you because the acronym got screwed up,” Renie said. “I know, I know—Female Amateur Sleuth Tracking Offenders should be FASTO, but FATSO is easier to remember. Good Lord, you haven't been fat since you were a kid. Get over it.”

Judith scowled at Renie. “You know I've always had to watch my weight. You, on the other hand, could eat your way through six aisles at Falstaff's Grocery and never put on an ounce.”

Renie shrugged. “So? It's my metabolism. How many times do I have to tell you—you're five-nine, you've got a good-sized frame. You can gain or lose twenty pounds, and most people don't notice the difference.”

Judith's expression remained sour. “Look outside and see if Mavis is there. I'll finish fixing Mother's lunch.”

With a resigned sigh, Renie went out the back way, apparently also wanting to avoid the Busses. Judith tiptoed to the swinging half-doors between the kitchen and dining room and peeked in on her guests. The couple looked as if they were almost finished eating their late breakfast.

“What now?” she heard Marva Lou ask softly.

“We wait,” Frankie replied, also in a low voice. “We can't risk anything else.”

Judith moved out of sight, but continued to listen. The Busses, however, remained silent. A couple of minutes passed before they wordlessly left the dining room and headed for the front stairs.

Renie came hurrying in through the back door. “No Mavis,” she announced. “KINE sent a young man I don't recognize. But I almost never watch the TV news. Both the daily papers are here, and a couple of other television vans. I couldn't make out the logos. That Dumpster blocked my view, and I didn't want to be seen.” She stared closely at Judith. “You look weird. What's wrong?”

“The Busses,” she said. “They're up to something. I wish I knew what it is. I hope it doesn't involve murder.”

J
udith related the brief exchange between Marva Lou and Frankie. “I wonder what their real reason was for visiting Billy and Vivian. Could it be about Herself inheriting all that money?”

“That's a good guess,” Renie replied. “As far as Billy's concerned, he married his father's fortune. But Frankie's left out in the cold.”

“True,” Judith agreed, “but Vivian's marital track record isn't very good. If she runs true to form, Billy could find himself dumped after a few years.” She placed some apple slices on Gertrude's tray. “Do you still want to take this out to Mother?”

“Sure. You stay inside, away from prying eyes.” Renie picked up the tray and headed out through the back door.

Joe came into the house a couple of minutes later. “Have you seen the news vultures?”

“No,” Judith said. “And I don't want to.”

“Good thinking.” He picked up the remaining chunk of apple and took a bite. “I crawled through the hedge from the Rankerses to elude the press.”

Judith studied her husband's appearance. “No wonder you've got leaves in your hair.”
At least, the hair that you still have,
she
thought, realizing that Joe's forehead was growing higher and higher at a rather rapid rate. “There's a ladybug on your pants, and some of those little cedar cones on your shoulder.”

Joe brushed himself off. Judith saw the insect drop to the floor. “I'm taking this outside. It's bad luck to kill a ladybug.” She went to the back door and down the steps, gently putting the ladybug in the dirt. As she watched the little creature scurry under a maidenhair fern, Renie came out of the toolshed.

Judith eyed her cousin with curiosity. “That was a quick visit. Did you and Mother get into a row?”

“No,” Renie replied testily. “She has a visitor—Herself.”

“Ah. That's why Arlene and I couldn't get her to come to the basement door.” Judith's gaze took in the little building where her mother had retreated rather than live under the same roof as her son-in-law. “What sort of bunk was Vivian telling Mother? Not about the murder, I hope.”

“I didn't stay long enough to find out,” Renie replied. “They were laughing their heads off. Maybe Aunt Gert and Vivian enjoy an occasional body in a fruit tree.” She folded her arms across her chest and looked disgusted. “Everywhere I go since I got here, I run into somebody or something that annoys me. I'd go home and get some work done on that design project for the city parks brochure, but I don't want to get stopped by the media. I'm trapped. Who shows up next? Osama bin Laden?”

“If you leave now,” Judith pointed out, leading the way into the house, “you're going to have to climb up the hill from our backyard or crawl through the Rankerses' hedge. Which, I might add, Joe just did.”

“I could tunnel.” Renie gazed around the kitchen. “Where
is
Joe?”

“He was here a minute ago. Maybe he went down to the basement. Or up to the family quarters.” Judith opened a can of tuna. “Lunch?”

Renie had sat down on the counter, swinging her feet above the golden oak Pergo flooring. “I finished breakfast at ten-thirty. I'm really not hungry now.”

Judith stared at her cousin in mock amazement. “You? Not hungry? Maybe you should see a doctor.”

“Not funny.” Renie was looking unusually serious. “Why are you making tuna salad when you should be trying to figure out who killed the man nobody knows?”

“Because,” Judith said matter-of-factly, “that's Vivian's problem. I have faith in the police.” She removed the lid from a jar of mayonnaise and scooped out a heaping tablespoon, shaking it vigorously into the bowl where she'd already added the tuna and salt and pepper. “If you think I want to get mixed up with that woman and her awful problems, you're crazy. I knew she'd be trouble when she moved back here. I'm not going to touch this homicide with a ten-foot pole.”

“Okay.” Renie hopped off of the counter. “Got any sweet pickles?”

“Look in the fridge.” Judith added relish and stirred the ingredients with more force than necessary.

“I suppose,” Renie remarked, opening a jar of gherkins, “Joe will be up to his ears in this one.”

“I don't think so.”

“You ought to know.” Renie ate a pickle before she spoke again. “So why did you go to Herself's house?”

“To be polite,” Judith replied. “Arlene wanted to go, too. So did Rochelle.”

“Neighborly of you.” Renie watched Sweetums enter from the hallway. “Too bad Jeanne Ericson and Naomi Stein weren't on hand. Sorry I wasn't a better sub for them, but I couldn't stand looking at all that repulsive stuff in the living room—including Billy.”

Sweetums leaped up onto the counter. Judith whisked the
bowl of tuna salad out of the cat's reach. “What's with you?” she demanded of Renie. “Are you suggesting I'm getting involved in this mess?”

“Coz.” Renie regarded Judith with serious brown eyes. “This is one time you
should
get involved. Whatever else you think about Herself, she's still—sad to say—a neighbor. The body was found only a hundred feet away from your B&B. Besides,” she added with a sly expression, “if you finger her as the killer, she'll have to go to prison. End of annoying situation and vulgar decor.”

“Maybe Billy would go back to Florida or Oklahoma or somewhere else far, far away,” Judith muttered, trying to shake off Sweetums, who was clawing her tan slacks.

Renie popped another gherkin into her mouth before leaning down to grab the cat. “You are a greedy menace,” she declared. “I'm turning you over to the Kitty Kops.”

Sweetums squirmed and hissed as Renie carted him out to the back porch. Just as she was setting him down, he scratched her wrist.

“Damn you!” Renie cried as the cat raced off toward the garage and out of sight. “You'll pay for that!”

“Band-Aids are in the guest bathroom,” Judith said wearily. “You know where to find them. That was a dumb stunt,” she added as Renie went through the dining room to the half-bath off the entry hall. “Sweetums doesn't like to be touched.”

Phyliss Rackley came up from the basement, carrying a big wicker basket full of clean laundry. “Is that heathen cousin of yours still here?”

“Serena's in the guest bathroom,” Judith replied. “And she's not a heathen. She's Catholic, like me.”

“I don't get you people.” Phyliss set the laundry on the counter by the computer. “How come your kind worships skunks?”

“Skunks?” Judith was only mildly surprised at the question.
The cleaning woman had some very peculiar ideas about Catholicism. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Your mother dropped her prayer book this morning when I was cleaning her place,” Phyliss said. “I picked it up for her and saw all those pictures of people with circles around their heads. I handed those to her, then she insisted I didn't give her the one of what she called ‘The Little Flower.' Now, I've seen that movie
Bambi
—it's a clean, wholesome show, not a bit of filth in it—and I know that Little Flower's the skunk in the forest. So what kind of religion is it that people worship a skunk, no matter how cute it might be in the moving picture?”

Judith sighed. “The Little Flower is a name for Saint Thérèse of Lisieux,” she explained. “That's because she promised to send down miracles from heaven like rose petals.”

“Rose petals are a miracle? You people are really crazy! What next? Praying to a heifer so somebody drops a rib roast on your head?”

“No, Phyliss,” Judith said, seeing Renie coming back through the dining room. “I'll explain it to you later.”

“People in India won't even eat a cow,” Phyliss muttered, putting clean dish towels into a drawer under the counter. “No wonder they all starve to death!”

“Hi, Phyliss,” Renie said with forced enthusiasm. “My, but you're looking well today. Great tan!”

“Tan?” Phyliss looked startled. “What do you mean, ‘tan'?”

Renie came closer to the cleaning woman. “Oh—maybe not. Your color is more like jaundice. You'd better have that seen to.” She proffered the gherkin jar. “Want a pickle?”

“Not from you,” Phyliss huffed. She turned to Judith. “Do I look jaundiced to you? It wouldn't be the first time.”

Judith made a show of studying her cleaning woman's appearance. “Well…not really. Maybe it's a trick of the light.”

Phyliss shot Renie an ominous look. “I can't trust either of
you. I'm going to call my doctor as soon as I put the rest of this laundry away.” She picked up the half-empty wicker basket and stomped off down the hallway. “Why,” she called over her shoulder, “don't you two go pray to one of your skunks?”

“Wacko,” Renie muttered.

“You should never comment on Phyliss's health,” Judith admonished. “You know she's a hypochondriac.”

Renie shrugged and put the gherkin jar back in the fridge. “That's why I enjoy needling her. It's payback for all those idiotic questions about Catholics. Skunks, my butt!”

“That reminds me,” Judith said, reaching into the pocket of her slacks and taking out the rose petals she'd found by the Busses' gate. “I found these when Arlene and I went out the back way at Herself's.”

Renie looked at the petals. “So?”

“Nobody around here has pink roses.”

Renie laughed. “And you're not sleuthing!”

Judith shot her cousin a withering glance. “It just seems odd.”

“Does it?” Renie shrugged. “They had a party. Somebody brought flowers as a hostess gift. How many times has that happened here?”

“Did you see any flowers in Herself's living room?”

Renie pondered the question. “I don't think so. All I saw was a muscle-bound lump on the sofa watching what looked like a demolition derby. Not to mention some hideous furniture that insulted my artistic eye. But,” she added, “I wasn't there very long.”

“Arlene and I went through the kitchen to reach the basement door,” Judith recalled. “We didn't see any flowers—let alone roses—there, either. Oh, I know that a bouquet might have been trashed during the various melees, but why did I find these petals—” She stopped speaking as a sudden thought came
to her. “The Dumpster! If a bouquet was thrown away, it'd be in there.”

Renie held up a hand. “If you think I'm going Dumpster-diving, you're really out of your mind.”

Judith shook her head. “Not us. The cops. They should check all that trash anyway. Just in case.”

“Don't you think they already did that?”

“Yes,” Judith replied, buttering four slices of bread. “But they wouldn't consider flowers as evidence.”

“And you do? Hmm.”

Exasperated, Judith waved the butter knife at Renie. “Not necessarily, but the petals seemed out of place. I can't help it if I'm…curious.”

“Okay.” Renie kept a straight face. “So who asks the cops to look for the pretty pink roses?”

“Ah…” Judith paused, frowning. “Joe.”

“Tell him to do it before the garbage is collected,” Renie said.

“We've got the Dumpster until next Tuesday,” Judith pointed out, putting the sandwiches on separate plates. “I'm going to let him know lunch is ready.” She went into the hall by the pantry door and pressed the recently installed intercom to the third-floor family quarters. “Lunch is ready,” she announced and waited for a response. The intercom was silent. “Joe?” Judith said, frowning. She pushed the switch on and off. Not only had it been working properly, but the device was saving her from going up and down two flights of steps when one of them was in the private area and the other was downstairs. Judith repeated the message about lunch. There was still no answer. Shaking her head, she went back into the kitchen.

“Maybe he went outside again,” she said to Renie.

“Um.”

“Coz!” Judith exclaimed. “You're eating Joe's sandwich! I thought you weren't hungry.”

“I wasn't,” Renie said after swallowing. “Then. I am now. Let's say I'm eating
your
sandwich. You can make yourself another one with the rest of the tuna salad.”

“Oooh…” Judith sighed and took out two more slices of bread. “I suppose you want potato chips, too.”

“Right.” Renie gestured with what was left of the sandwich. “I wouldn't mind some lettuce on this.”

“Get it yourself,” Judith snapped.

“Okay.” Renie ripped off half of a romaine leaf and haphazardly stuck it into her sandwich. “I'm going to peek outside and see what the press is doing.”

“I don't care as long as they aren't on our front porch,” Judith asserted, making another sandwich.

By the time she finished, Renie was already back in the kitchen, munching on potato chips.

“Well?” Judith said.

“Well what?” Renie responded.

“What's going on out there?”

“You told me you didn't care.”

Judith sighed. “I care about whether they're still here.”

“They are.”

“But not coming our way?”

“They don't have to.” Renie paused as she polished off the sandwich. “Joe's talking to them.”

“Joe?”
Judith looked appalled. “Damn him! Why's he doing that?”

Renie shrugged. “Maybe he's trying to get equal time. You've certainly been in the news more often than he has over the years.”

“That's ridiculous,” Judith said angrily, shoving Joe's sandwich into the fridge.

“As long as your husband's distracting the media,” Renie said, licking some mayo off of her thumb, “I'm going home.
Color trends of the future—that's my next project after the parks brochure. How do you like Banana Peel? Oscar loves it. He's also crazy about Jungle Green.”