Wed and Buried (21 page)

“No. Yes. Sort of,” Judith hedged.

“And?”

“First of all,” Judith said, taking a deep breath, “he tried to call me from Vegas, but Mother wouldn't let him talk to me. She told him I hated him, or some such thing, which wasn't exactly true. I never knew he'd called until after we met each other again six years ago. I told you all about that.”

“So your mother sabotaged everything?” Renie made a face. “She's capable of it, but Joe gave up too easily. Gave in too easily as well. I've never understood why he stayed married to a woman he hardly knew, and who was a lush even then. I'm sorry, I hold Joe at fault. If he's unhappy about the outcome after all these years, that's too bad. You did the best you could at the time, given the circumstances. That's all anybody can do. Regrets stink.”

Judith knew Renie was right, though it didn't make her feel better. “I don't like having this between us,” she said with a feeble wave for Cecil the mailman who was emptying the storage box on the corner by Moonbeam's. “It's like a big, ugly weight.”

To Judith's surprise, Renie laughed. “You mean it's like Dan?”

Judith bristled. “You told me not to think negative thoughts about him all the time.”

“This isn't all the time, this is now.” Renie was still grinning. “Sorry. But all married couples have baggage they'd like to dump. You and Joe haven't been married long enough to acquire much. Get used to it. Maybe you've been living in a false paradise.”

“We quarrel,” Judith pointed out. “You know that.”

“That's different.” Renie finished her mocha and dabbed at her mouth. “You can make up quarrels and forget about them. Marriage is about more than wrangling. It's about big hurts and old wounds. You can ignore chronic problems in good weather, but when things get chilly, they're just like physical aches and pains that keep
coming back.” With a wry little smile, Renie stood up. “Got to run, coz. I need a bum. See you.”

Judith remained at the small table, sipping her latte, which had now grown cold. Despite the morning sun, she too felt cold. Yes, it was okay to suffer the little flaws, the irksome habits, the minor breakdowns in communication, the disagreements about which TV shows to watch. But heavy, disturbing burdens were another matter. Renie might blame Joe, but Judith blamed herself.

“Hey, Mrs. Flynn,” said Cecil, coming out of Moonbeam's with a steaming cup in his hand, “you're still getting mail for that Mrs. Rackley at your address. Why doesn't she tell whoever is writing to her where she lives? Is it a secret?”

Judith knew that Phyliss had received another letter from the Rundberg clan on Monday. “Is it from Idaho or Montana?”

“I think so.” Cecil patted his mail pouch with his free hand.

“I suspect she forgot to give them her address,” Judith said. “She's probably too wrapped up in exchanging tall tales about the Lord.”

Cecil looked puzzled. “Excuse me?”

Judith smiled, summoning up good cheer from her reserves. “Never mind, Cecil. I'll remind her. Just drop the letter off with the rest of our stuff and I'll give it to her.”

Cecil went off on his route while Judith gathered up her purse, then headed for her car, which was parked a few doors down the street. Ten minutes later she was in the Gem Shop, placing the uncut emeralds on a chamois cloth.

“Good grief,” gasped Donna Weick, who owned the store with her husband, Arnold. “Where on earth did you get
these
?”

Judith winced. “If I said I found them, would you believe me?”

Donna, however, had served Judith and other Grover
family members for almost twenty years. “I guess I'd have to,” she said in an awed tone. “Dare I ask where?”

“No.” Judith flushed a bit. “It has to do with a police investigation. My husband, you know. But they're authentic?”

To Judith's surprise, Donna came out from behind the counter, locked the front door, and hung up the “Closed” sign. “I'm not taking any chances,” she said in a more normal tone. “You might have been followed. Putting these things in a sandwich bag isn't the proper way to transport them.”

“It was all I had,” Judith gulped.

Donna, a big, handsome woman in her late forties, nodded with indulgent good humor. “Okay. Let's go to the back of the shop. Arnie and I are both certified gemologists, so we've got equipment. You know—a refractive index, a polariscope, a special dark field illuminator.”

Judith had no idea what Donna was talking about but docilely followed the store owner. The back room looked like part laboratory, part workshop, and part storage. While Donna examined the stones, Judith stood quietly, with her hands clasped in front of her.

Twenty minutes passed before Donna sat back in her chair, rubbed her eyes, and then put a hand over her heart. “Beautiful,” she breathed. “I can't test for hardness, because we don't have a dichroscope or a spectroscope. You never test cut stones, which is all that Arnie and I usually see. These are really excellent quality. I'd guess that they come from Colombia. Most emeralds do these days, though some have been found in North Carolina. The largest stones are Siberian.”

Judith carefully leaned against the work counter. “Can you give me any idea of what they'd be worth?”

Donna fingered her full upper lip. “Not specifically. But offhand—and this is a very conservative estimate—I'd say that you're looking at close to two million dollars, wholesale.”

“Yikes!” Judith staggered at the sum. “You mean…I've been carrying two million bucks worth of emeralds around in a sandwich bag?”

Donna nodded. “That's why I was so astonished. If I were you, I'd get a police escort to take me home. Or put them in a bank right now. Unless, of course, the police want them back.” Donna's voice sounded dubious.

“Goodness!” Judith paced the small open area. “I don't know what to do.” She glanced at her watch, which told her it was not quite noon. If she had any sense, she'd go straight to headquarters and hand the emeralds over to Joe. “Yes,” she said, more to herself than to Donna, “I'm going to get rid of these right away. Thanks, Donna. I really appreciate your help.”

Donna seemed loathe to part with the uncut stones. “If you—or whoever—wants to unload one or two of those, call me. I'd mortgage the kids to get my hands on emeralds like that. The market's very good. Arnie's been hearing about some big sales in the Bay Area.”

Judith's ears tingled. “Cut or uncut?”

“Both.” Donna was now eyeing the emeralds speculatively. “I wonder.”

So did Judith. But Donna knew nothing more, except that a handful of San Francisco jewelers, both wholesale and retail, had been selling more emeralds than usual. “Not enough to flood the market and devalue the price,” Donna added, “but sufficient to make shop-owners like Arnie and me green with envy. Excuse the expression.”

As Judith headed downtown, she could have sworn that every car that pulled up alongside of her, every pedestrian walking in a crosswalk, every person gazing out of a store-front window was hatching a plan to accost her and steal the emeralds. A gypsy cab with a bearded driver seemed to be following her from the bottom of Heraldsgate Hill, though he finally turned off near Nordquist's. At one long stoplight in midtown, a rowdy group of teenagers pounded on her hood as they danced through the
intersection. They continued on, however, laughing and shouting. Judith arrived at the municipal building safely.

Parking, however, was another matter. The city, in its infinite lack of wisdom, had allotted only a couple of dozen parking places in the small open area between the street and the building itself. Visitors were expected to find a nearby garage or drive around in circles until something opened up on a meter. Judith had always figured it was a cunning plan to discourage citizens from making pests of themselves.

Judith was not going to go around in circles while she had two million dollars worth of emeralds in her purse. Noting a vacant space marked “Deputy Mayor” next to the main entrance, she pulled in and got out of the car. Then, recalling her near-disaster outside of Red Fog recording studios, she scribbled a note and left it on her windshield. “Delivering vital homicide-smuggling evidence,” the note said. She had underlined “vital” three times.

The air-conditioning in the city building never worked properly, or so Joe often complained. Judith noticed that the halls seemed stale, stuffy, and fractionally overwarm. She got into an elevator with a dozen other people, all of whom looked like purse-snatchers or pickpockets, but were probably ordinary city employees who lacked sufficient ambition to commit a felony. Clutching her purse as if it were a newborn baby, she headed for the homicide division.

Joe and Woody were out. Gritting her teeth, Judith said she'd wait. The reception area was a busy place, and Judith recognized several of the police and city personnel who passed by. She was not, however, in a mood to chat. Her fingers dug into the purse's black leather; tension, if not the inadequate air-conditioning, was making her perspire.

“I know you!” exclaimed a vaguely familiar voice.

Judith looked up to see TNT Tenino, wearing shorts
and a tank top that exposed his impressive muscles. “Hello, Mr. Tenino,” she responded nervously. “What are you doing here?”

“I don't know,” TNT answered, gazing vaguely up at the fluorescent lighting that turned him and everyone else a sickly shade of chartreuse. “I was trying to find the divorce filings. But that's the county, not the city, right?”

“I think so,” Judith replied. “Is…are you and your wife divorcing?”

TNT sat down in the chair next to Judith. “I heard she filed yesterday,” he said in a weary voice. “But I haven't been served with any papers. I'd like to know before I leave town.”

“You're going away?” Judith asked in surprise.

TNT nodded. “Business. I'll be gone a couple of weeks. It's a good thing my expenses are covered. Otherwise, I'd be out of luck.”

“I see,” Judith said, though she didn't quite. Still, a glimmer of an idea flickered through her brain. “Where are you going?”

“San Jose,” TNT responded. “There's a good boxing club in the area. I check out promising kids for a couple of local promoters.”

Judith was disappointed. Somehow, she'd expected TNT to say that he was heading for Colombia or Santa Teresa del Fiore or even Siberia. “How interesting,” she said, hoping she sounded more enthusiastic than she felt. “I was wondering—where did you stay after you left Hillside Manor last week?”

“Hillside Manor?” TNT seemed puzzled. “Oh—is that your place? I bunked with a pal for a few days.”

“Ms. Novotny?” Judith murmured.

TNT shook his head. “She picked me up, but that was only because I needed a ride. The pal's a guy who works at KRAS. Darrell Mims—he's filling in for Harley Davidson, I guess. But he doesn't have Harley's style. Style's really important, in boxing, and everything else.
Espy has style. Class, too. It's a shame she can't afford to keep me.”

“I thought she'd been unfaithful,” Judith said, then took in the import of TNT's words. “Are you saying she's no longer rich?”

TNT drooped in the chair, as if his wife's cash flow and his energy were synonymous. “That's what she tells me. Sometimes I don't think she's too bright. At least not when it comes to business stuff. You got to be savvy to be in business, right? I mean, it's like boxing—your fists'll only get you so far. You got to be savvy in the ring. Espy's got a glass jaw when it comes to swimming with the money sharks.”

The mixed metaphor was a little hazy, but Judith knew what TNT was trying to say. As she recalled, Esperanza Highcastle had inherited the hot dog empire. Her father—or maybe it was her grandfather, Judith couldn't remember which—had founded the company and built it into a successful regional concern. Perhaps Esperanza had inherited the business, but not the business sense.

“Surely she must have investments,” Judith offered as more familiar faces trudged past, though none of them belonged to Joe or Woody. “The radio stations are doing okay, aren't they?”

“So-so.” TNT seemed dejected by his wife's broadcasting enterprises. “Without Harley, KRAS'll lose money. Like I said, Darrell's a good guy, but he's no teenage-type DJ. Maybe Espy should switch to a call-in format. A sports show—that'd be good.” TNT brightened at the idea. “I could call in with boxing questions.”

Though not concentrating on the ring, Judith's mind was dancing around in circles. Caught offguard, she noticed that TNT was rising from his chair. “I'd better go across the street to the county building,” he said. “I wish Espy'd just sit down and talk to me about all this. Maybe she could explain about those other guys. I really get con
fused when she talks about getting it on with Babe Ruth and King Tut.”

“Maybe they're just friends,” Judith suggested with a straight face. “By the way, did you know she came to get you at Hillside Manor?”

TNT's close-set eyes sparked with interest. “She did? Was she mad? Or glad?”

Judith thought back to her brief encounter with Esperanza Highcastle. “Neither. She was disappointed, I think. Because you'd left.” Noting that TNT seemed touched by the news, Judith couldn't help but smile kindly. “I doubt that she would have come if she didn't care. But she indicated that she knew where to find you. She said you must have gone to the Belmont. Why would she have thought that?”

TNT rubbed at his low forehead. “Maybe because I told her I'd keep a look-out on that demolition crew. They're stalling, and it bugs Espy. Maybe it's because of the cops.” His eyes darted warily around the waiting room, as if he expected to be arrested for mentioning the police in anything but a laudatory manner.