Wed and Buried (23 page)

“Poor coz,” Judith said in a meek voice. “I guess you won't be taking me to Tow ‘N' Stow. Maybe I can work
up enough courage to ask Joe when he gets home. That is, if he's speaking to me yet.”

“Ohhh…” Renie sounded as if she might be beating her head against her desk. “All right, I'll pick you up in ten minutes. I've done all I can on this blasted design until Morris gets his bum and sorts out his photos.”

On the way across town, Judith regaled Renie with her emerald adventure. Renie was suitably impressed. In fact, she almost wiped out two pedestrians in a crosswalk when she heard the value that Donna Weick had put on the uncut stones.

“So de Tourville was smuggling emeralds inside the Cuban cigars,” Renie mused after the pedestrians had scattered and their obscene shouts hung on the air. “Clever.”

“Maybe not,” Judith responded. “That is, Woody isn't sure that de Tourville is a smuggler or if he's just a con man. It'll be interesting to hear what he and Joe find out after they question him. If,” she added wanly, “Joe will deign to tell me.”

“He'd better,” Renie said darkly. “You were the one who found the emeralds.”

“I'm not sure Joe's in a grateful mood,” Judith said as they began to wend their way through some of the city's meaner streets. Boarded-up buildings, clusters of restless young people on street corners, wary and weary adults pushing grocery carts earmarked the less prosperous neighborhood. And though Renie had turned the Chev's air-conditioner on full blast, the crumbling vista looked, even if it didn't feel, hotter than Heraldsgate Hill.

“Joe'll get over his fit of pique,” Renie asserted blithely. “Is that Tow ‘N' Stow a couple of blocks on the left beyond the mission sign?”

Judith leaned forward, straining against the seatbelt. “I think so. Gee, look at all those poor men waiting outside that mission. It must be awful to be hot and hungry.”

“Not as awful as being cold and hungry,” Renie re
marked, glancing at the dozen or more homeless persons of every age, race, and state of despair. “Winter must be even…Yikes!” Renie hit the brakes, almost causing a rear-end collision with the green beater just behind the Chev. “Look!” she cried, ignoring the horn that was honking loudly. “Over there, at the mission! See the guy in the blue bathrobe? That's Uncle Gurd!”

Judith gaped. “That's my bathrobe! Let's get him!”

Renie pulled over, double-parking. Judith rolled down the window and shouted Gurd's name.

He ran.

 

The cousins cut off Uncle Gurd at the entrance to a dead-end alley. The old man danced around piles of trash, ducked behind a garbage can, and tried to climb into a dumpster.

“Cut it out, Uncle Gurd,” Judith called through the open car window. “Please get in. We've been worried about you.”

“You're the feds!” Gurd shouted, his back plastered against the dumpster. “Don't kid me! They always drive big blue cars like this!”

Judith was losing patience. “You know better,” she snapped. “I'm Kristin's mother-in-law.” The words struggled in Judith's throat; she had not yet taken in the concept of her new role:
Mother-in-law
. With Dan, she'd had Effie McMonigle, who wasn't inclined to venture beyond the well-manicured grounds of her Arizona retirement home. Joe's mother had died when he was in his teens. But the specter of Gertrude loomed over Judith's husband. It was not a pretty sight.

“Do you want us to run you down?” Judith asked in an unusually menacing voice. “We will, if you don't get in this car right now!”

Gurd's bony body seemed to collapse under Judith's soiled chenille bathrobe. “Okay, okay,” he grumbled, trying to open the rear door before Renie could exercise the
power locks. “But I need my stuff. I stashed it at the mission.”

Backing the car out of the alley, Renie waited with uncharacteristic patience for an opening in traffic. After they had returned to the mission and Uncle Gurd had retrieved his belongings, which appeared to consist of a large grocery bag, the trio headed for the towing impound.

Since Uncle Gurd didn't smell exactly fresh, Renie had been forced to turn off the air-conditioning and roll down the windows. She was slowing to search for the correct address when a series of jarring musical notes came from the back seat.

Judith turned. Uncle Gurd was playing a harmonica. Badly. “Do you mind?” Judith winced, her good humor not yet regained.

“I mind a lot,” Gurd replied, then gave four loud toots on the harmonica. “You don't like music?”

“I haven't heard any,” Judith retorted. “Where did you get…”

Renie had pulled up in front of the towing company's office. “Here you go, coz,” she said with forced cheer. “You can take your new best friend with you.”

Halfway out of the car, Judith turned to glare at Renie. “You take him.
You're
the one who wanted a bum.”

“I didn't want this one,” Renie responded as Uncle Gurd played the opening bars of what might have been Beethoven's Fifth. Or “Dixie.” “He lives in
your
hedge,” Renie added darkly.

“It's Rankers's hedge,” Judith retorted. “Drop him off at Arlene and Carl's. They seem to like him.”

Put off-guard by Judith's unusually harsh tone, Renie gave in. “Okay, I'll meet you at your place.” Tromping on the accelerator, Renie swung out from the curb and barreled up the hill that led away from the towing site.

After paying her fee and claiming her car, Judith drove home in a glum mood. Nothing seemed to be going right for her lately. Not with Joe, not with her mother, not with
her finances, not even with her feeble attempts at amateur sleuthing. Discouragement covered her like the ruined chenille bathrobe enveloped Uncle Gurd.

It was going on four, the hottest part of the day, when Judith got out of the car in her driveway. Renie was sitting on the back porch steps, tapping her foot.

“Morris wants Gurd to audition,” Renie said, sounding as morose as Judith felt. “I called from the Rankers's house. Gurd's there now, eating left-over barbecued pork ribs. Here,” she added, handing Gurd's harmonica over to Judith. “He left this in my car.”

The instrument was worn and battered, with signs of rust. “That's funny,” Judith remarked. “I never saw this or heard him play it while he was living in the hedge.” She paused, fingering the marred metal. “Does it look familiar?”

Renie curled her lip. “Are you kidding? Why should it? I don't hang out with Uncle Gurd at the mission.”

Suddenly, Judith's eyes brightened. “Uncle Gurd can't play this. It's not his. I wonder…” She got up from where she had been sitting next to Renie and stared in the direction of the Rankers house.

Just then, Uncle Gurd came through the hedge. He still wore Judith's bathrobe but had a big red- and white-checked napkin tied around his neck. “Yep, that woman makes mighty fine pork ribs,” Gurd asserted, then turned to Renie. “When do I get my picture took?”

Renie let out a tortured sigh. “Tomorrow, at ten. I'll pick you up around nine-thirty. Be ready, or become dead.”

Judith knew how much her cousin hated to work on a Saturday, not to mention being forced to turn her brain on before ten o'clock in the morning.

Gurd took umbrage with Renie. “Say, you're kind of ornery.” His eyes narrowed as his gaze took in Judith. “You, too. You made it seem like I wore out my welcome. Over at that mission, they made me feel right at
home. Now where's that good-looker with the blond hair? I haven't seen her for quite a spell. That's one real pleasant female. Good figger, too, plenty of curves.”

“Vivian?” Judith tried not to blanch at Gurd's over-enthusiastic description. “She went to Florida.”

“Florida, huh?” Gurd grimaced. “Never been there. Now why would anybody go to Florida for the
summer
?”

Judith started to reply, but suddenly changed topics. “Where did you get this harmonica, Gurd?” Her tone had softened.

Gurd turned defensive. “I found it. Why? You lose one?”

Judith shook her head. “No.
Where
did you find it?”

Gurd's wrinkled face grew wary. “Why you askin'?”

“Because,” Judith said evenly, “I know who it belongs to. I've seen it before, many times.”

Apparently assuaged by Judith's matter-of-fact manner, Gurd shrugged. “It was in that fish pond thing at the hotel where you folks had the big do.”

Judith gazed questioningly at Renie, but her cousin's face was blank. She looked again at Gurd. “You found it the night of the rehearsal dinner?”

“Nope, I found it a couple of days ago. I was tryin' out Billy Big Horn's other spot.”

Judith frowned. “Billy's other…? What are you talking about?”

Both cousins were now on their feet, watching Gurd with interest. “That bum who used to hang out at the hotel and by the department store downtown,” Uncle Gurd responded. “Some other bums told me he skipped town. I decided I'd try his spot, see if I could pick up some pin money. The department store was a bust, so I went up to the hotel. I didn't like that much either, but while I was hangin' around, I saw that harmonica in the fish pond. I'd heard Billy played such a thing, so I figgered it must be his. I took it out, but the water didn't do it no good. It sounds kinda sour. 'Course I'm no expert.”

“That's correct,” Renie breathed.

There was something wrong about Gurd's recital, Judith was certain of it. Not in the facts as he told them, but the actual discovery. “You say you heard Billy wasn't coming back? Do you mean from jail or not at all?”

For an alarming instant, the bathrobe fell open, and both cousins averted their eyes. But Gurd quickly retied the sash. “How do I know? I never knew this Billy guy. But it didn't seem right to leave his harmonica in that fish pond.”

“It isn't,” Judith said abruptly. “It's all wrong.” She whirled on Renie who was drooping under the late afternoon sun. “Don't you see? Billy was arrested across the street at the hospital entrance. He would never have left his harmonica behind, let alone in the Naples Hotel fountain.”

Understanding began to dawn on Renie. “You're right. Billy always had that thing with him. He played beautifully. Once, Bill gave him a twenty-dollar bill after he performed ‘Danny Boy' for my mother-in-law.”

Pacing the walkway, Judith tried to keep in the shade. “I've got to ask Joe about Billy's arrest. It just doesn't sound right. It never did.”

Renie patted Judith's arm, then headed towards the driveway. “You do that. You've got evidence. Joe will really like having a harmonica thrown into the case. ‘Bye, coz.” She swerved on her heel and stared Uncle Gurd down. “Nine-thirty, remember? And don't wear that bathrobe. I never liked it, not even on my cousin.”

Judith barely heard Renie's remark. She didn't care that Uncle Gurd was waggling his fingers in his ears and sticking his tongue out at Renie's retreating form. She was indifferent to the appearance of Gertrude, who was clumping her way out of the toolshed, yelling that Uncle Gurd was either a woman or a pervert, and that he'd better hightail it out of her back yard or she'd turn the hose on him. Didn't he know she was a life-long
Democrat
?

Judith ignored them all. For the first time since seeing the man push the woman off the roof of the Belmont Hotel, she had a real insight into the case.

Harley Davidson wasn't the only victim. Judith was sure that Billy Big Horn was dead, too.

 

Joe arrived home shortly before six-thirty looking hot, tired, and subdued. Judith greeted him with a tentative kiss and proffered cold beer. Her husband accepted and collapsed at the kitchen table. His tie had already come off and now he pulled his shirt out of confinement. With one ear attuned to her guests in the living room, Judith fussed over dinner preparations and waited for Joe to speak first.

At last, he did. “You're really something,” he said in a strange tone that Judith found indecipherable.

“Ummm…You'd be speaking of the emeralds?” she said, hazarding a guess.

Joe nodded. “That, and Esperanza Highcastle filing a complaint against you. She says you attacked her at headquarters today.”

Judith's jaw dropped. “That's absurd! She tripped. Besides, I thought she left after I talked to her.”

“She came back. I guess she ran into TNT somewhere, and they got into it, which made her mad, so she stomped into the chief's office and claimed you were stalking her.” Joe's tone was weary.

Judith slammed a package of boneless chicken breasts down on the kitchen counter. “She's a liar! I've seen the woman twice in my entire life. Well, three times, maybe. I…ah…ran into her one day at the radio station. Did you talk to the chief?”

Joe nodded slowly. “He really wishes you'd keep out of official investigations. Frankly, it's embarrassing.”

Feeling suddenly weak at the knees, Judith sat down opposite Joe. “But…what about the emeralds? Aren't they a help?”

Taking a big swallow of beer, Joe clutched the glass stein as if it were an anchor—or maybe the remnants of his career. “Yes, they are. But Woody and I might have made the same discovery. The point is, the emeralds may have nothing to do with the murder investigation.”

“But they must have something to do with Bascombe de Tourville,” Judith countered. “Did you arrest him?”

“No. His scams aren't in our jurisdiction.” Joe's expression was bleak. “He clammed up, claimed he knew nothing about cigars or emeralds. The most we can do is turn him over to Immigration and see if they can get him deported.”

“I see.” Judith had folded her hands in her lap and assumed a humble manner. “Joe, I have a big favor to ask. Just one, and then I won't ever bother you again.” She finally had the temerity to seek Joe's face.