Here Comes the Bribe (16 page)

A
t least,” Joe said, trying to console his irate wife, “they didn't stiff you for the bill, right?”

“That's not the point!” Judith yipped. “They're a bunch of crooks, they're up to something, they're running away!”

“What,” Phyliss demanded, “do you expect of godless people? They probably did in the poor minister.”

Judith shot her cleaning woman a baleful glance. “Hardly. He's as big a criminal as the rest of them. He's a phony.”

Phyliss's face sagged. “That's a terrible thing to say about a man of the cloth! I talked to him. He's a sincere Christian preacher who knows his Bible.” She flounced off in a fit of high dudgeon.

“Face it,” Joe said, still sounding reasonable. “You should be glad they left. You're only upset because you can't grill them to find out who poisoned Millie. If anyone actually did, of course.”

Judith stared at her husband. “You think she poisoned herself?”

“No, not really, but it could've been an accident.”

“I don't encounter accidents, I encounter murder,” Judith declared. “You're a cop. You should know the difference.”

“I may be a
retired
cop,” Joe said, still calm despite the warning look in his green eyes, “but I've always needed evidence before I consider foul play. Woody's hedging his bets, too. Be reasonable.”

“I need to talk to Renie,” Judith muttered.

“You can't. She's still unconscious.”

Judith acknowledged Joe's statement with a faint nod. It wasn't her style to get so upset. There was something about the Schmuck bunch that was—as Renie had put it—unreal. That gave her food for thought. But after mulling while cleaning up from the uneaten guest breakfast, she dismissed the long weekend from her mind. She was never one to dwell on life's more unpleasant aspects.

Y
ou idiot!” Renie yelled over the phone two hours later. “Don't tell me you don't give a hoot about Rodney and his not-so-merry band of loony hangers-on! Have you lost your mind?”

“Of course not,” Judith replied indignantly. “What's the point? They're gone. I'm done.”

Renie was uncustomarily silent for a moment or two. “Okay. You want to have lunch someplace? I skimped on breakfast. I overslept and didn't get up until ten thirty.”

“I'm waiting to hear back from Ingrid Heffelman,” Judith said. “I had her move the four reservations for tonight to other B&Bs. She's supposed to tell me if she has anybody who might want to stay here.”

“So I'm supposed to pass out from malnutrition because of Ms. Heffalump?” Renie grumbled. “She can call on your cell. I'll meet you at Heraldsgate Café in fifteen minutes. Wait. I just realized I'm not dressed. Make that twenty-five. Maybe I'm not really awake yet. I'd better look in the mirror to see if my eyes are open. But if they're still closed, how can I tell?”

“Try pinching yourself. And avoid driving in your sleep.” Judith rang off.

A little after eleven thirty, Judith noticed that it was drizzling again. Sweetums came through the cat door and meandered down the hall, looking miffed. Apparently Gertrude had not granted him admission to the toolshed. Checking to make sure his dish in the pantry had food and the bowl had water, she headed outside.

The Subaru wasn't in the garage. Irked, she went back inside, where Phyliss had just come up from the basement. “Do you know if Joe left?” Judith asked.

“About half an hour ago,” Phyliss replied. “He couldn't find you, so he told me to tell you he had to investigate some evildoers. Oh, he said you'd better fix lunch for your mother because she's on the warpath.”

“About what?”

Phyliss shrugged. “How would I know? Isn't your mother always on the warpath? If you ask me, she's a troubled soul. I've tried to save her, but she resists hearing the Word. She just waves those beads of hers at me and says to get lost. Doesn't she know I've been found?”

Judith didn't attempt to defend her mother. That was a lost cause not unlike Phyliss's appraisal of her mother's soul. Instead, she called Renie. “I have no car,” she told her cousin. “Joe took it. He has to work. Do you want to pick me up or shall we eat here?”

“Ohhhh . . .” Renie's sigh was audible. “Jeez, I'm practically passing out from hunger. Okay, I'll be there as soon as I can. Meet me out front.”

“Don't rush,” Judith said. “I have to make lunch for Mother.”

“In that case, make it for me, too. Forget about the café. I can't wait that long.” Renie slammed down the phone.

Judith took off her jacket. She was making an egg salad sandwich for Gertrude when the phone rang.

“Some rich people,” Mavis Lean-Brodie began, “are starstruck. Or at least they like to get chummy with so-called media celebrities. Mrs. Burnside-Smythe, she of Sunset Cliffs, called minutes ago to tell me that Mrs. Worthman told her she'd seen two carloads of people drive through Heaven's Gate. How's that for breaking news?”

“You mean they went over a cliff?” Judith asked in a shocked voice.

“No, no,” Mavis responded sharply. “That's what the Schmucks call their house.”

“Oh! Well, that solves the puzzle here. They checked out without giving me notice. They're a little short in the consideration department.”

“You mean you got stiffed?”

“No, I have Rodney's credit-card number,” Judith said. “Thanks for letting me know, Mavis. Have you put your story together yet?”

“Are you kidding?” Mavis shot back. “I'm not sure there
is
a story. Your old pal Woody Price isn't calling Millie Schmuck's death a homicide yet. Or do you know something I don't?”

“I don't,” Judith replied. “You're the one with the latest news on the Schmucks. Maybe they got the mansion's saloon furnished. Those people should call it the saloony.”

“I'll take your word for it,” Mavis said. “I won't interview them until it's murder.” She hung up.

Renie showed up right after Judith returned from taking lunch out to Gertrude. “Is my sweatshirt on backward?” she asked Judith. “I got dressed in a hurry.”

“It's blank,” Judith replied. “Both sides.”

“Oh. Then it doesn't matter. I thought it said ‘Something Stupid.'”

Judith frowned at her cousin, “Like what?”

“I've got three purple sweatshirts,” Renie responded. “This one's blank, another one has the University's logo on it, and the one the kids gave me for Mother's Day says ‘Something Stupid.' When they asked me what I wanted, I told all three of them I needed new sweatshirts, but not ones that said something stupid.” She shrugged. “Of course that's what my perverse children had put on the new purple sweatshirt. If Bill and I had any money, we'd disinherit them.”

Judith opened the fridge. “When it comes to being perverse, I don't think your apples fell too far from the tree. I haven't made our lunch yet. Ham, egg salad, tuna, or baloney?”

“Ham, with cheese—Havarti, if you have it.” Renie sat down at the table. “So the guests took off?”

Judith related what Mavis had told her. “I assume,” she concluded, “Woody is investigating, but he probably thinks the guests are still here. Maybe I should call him.”

“Don't bug him,” Renie cautioned. “He'll let you know if he sends a detective to question the loonies. Frankly, I'd try to forget about the Schmucks. I'll bet the Californians are heading back to L.A.”

Judith gave her cousin a sheepish look as she handed her a plate with a sandwich and potato chips. “That may be so, but it's why I can't help dwelling on them. I worry about what will happen to Rodney.”

“Sheesh.” Renie rolled her eyes. “Hey, you're really not his mother.”

“I know,” Judith said, making an egg salad sandwich for herself, “but he's so vulnerable. What if they really do plan to commit him? Maybe one of that bunch is applying for a guardianship or else they're talking him into voluntary commitment.”

“That's not your problem,” Renie declared before taking a giant bite out of her sandwich.

Judith sat down across from her cousin. “You're the one who suggested Rodney might not be drinking as much as it appears. What if he's being drugged?”

Renie started to argue, but frowned instead. “I guess you can't put much past his so-called pals. They have access to drugs—a doctor, a nurse, not to mention Clark and Belle with their dealer connections. Weed may not be the only funny stuff those two do for recreation.”

“I hate to think Belle might be in on a conspiracy against her own father,” Judith said. “She's so spacey that I can't get a handle on her.”

“How upset was Belle over her mother's death?” Renie asked.

Judith considered the question. “At first, she couldn't believe
what I was trying to tell her. Then, when she realized that Millie was in fact dead, she burst into tears. Later, she talked about her mother being too young to die, which, of course, she was. Much of the time Belle wasn't quite planted firmly on the ground. You saw her poem with the allusion to the cloud that my mother dreamed up in her phony séance.”

Renie laughed. “I'd like to have sat in on that.”

Judith remained serious. “I wish I had. It might've revealed a lot of things about the guests. Do you know anyone who lives in Sunset Cliffs?”

“Not offhand,” Renie replied, wiping butter off of her short chin. “I've done some design work for CEOs who might . . .” She stopped and narrowed her eyes at Judith. “Are you looking for an entrée into the gated community? What about the family at Creepers where we got stuck with another corpse?”

“I don't know if any of them are still around,” Judith replied. “After all the awful things that happened there, they might've moved away. Surely you must have a connection to somebody who lives there.”

Renie looked mulish. “I don't think so.”

“You're lying.”

Renie chewed on several potato chips. “Tevah Boy, mehba.”

Judith managed to translate what her cousin said through a mouthful of food. “Trevor Boyd—from Key Largo Bank?”

Renie nodded—and swallowed. “Right. But we aren't exactly close. I designed the bank's calendar two years ago in exchange for wiping out my nine-hundred-dollar overdraft. How was I supposed to know what I had in my account? I'd been Christmas shopping.”

“You can't balance your checkbook when it's Arbor Day,” Judith said.

Renie wrinkled her pug nose. “When
is
Arbor Day? I forget.”

“Never mind. Let me think—what excuse could you give for calling on the Boyds?”

Renie gazed up at the ceiling. “My mind's a blank.”

“Come on, coz,” Judith coaxed. “You don't have to actually go see him, we just need an excuse to get inside the Sunset Cliffs gate.”

“Boyd wouldn't be home during the day anyway,” Renie said, holding her head. “Okay, Mrs. Boyd . . . Have I ever met her? I forget. Oh, right, I had to go to the bank's Christmas cocktail party, where the new calendars were handed out instead of bonuses. Boyd's kind of cheap. Mrs. Boyd has corns. I remember she had to take off her shoes right after her fifth kamikaze. We can be her new podiatrist or some damned thing. I mean, I can be the podiatrist. You're my assistant.”

“Do podiatrists usually have assistants?” Judith asked.

“They do now,” Renie replied. “You're it. Maybe I should use a phony name. Do you remember Dr. Foot? He was Grandma and Grandpa Grover's dentist. I always wondered why he wasn't a podiatrist.”

Judith felt a headache coming on again. Sometimes her cousin had that effect on her. “Are you done eating?”

“Unless you've got dessert,” Renie replied.

“You don't usually eat dessert,” Judith said.

“I do if you have pie. Remember how my dad always asked my mom, ‘What kind of apple pie have you got?' It was his favorite.” Renie stood up. “Never mind. We should go now in case Bill needs the Camry after his walk.”

After checking in with Gertrude, the cousins headed north to Sunset Cliffs. The drizzle had stopped and the sun was flirting with the clouds as the two women avoided the always busy freeway and kept to side streets. Their destination lay just beyond the city limits, overlooking the Sound.

“You,” Renie said, glancing at Judith, “should be telling the lie to the guard. I don't do as well at that sort of thing.”

“I suppose I could lean over to talk to him if you want to pretend you're mute.”

Renie turned off by the golf course, slowing down as they approached the woodsy entrance shielding Sunset Cliffs from prying eyes. The guard stepped out of his booth. He looked as if he was barely old enough to vote, let alone confront troublesome visitors.

“Hi,” Renie said in a bright voice. “We're here to see Rodney Schmuck at Heaven's Gate. My cousin and I want to make sure they're getting settled in, since they only arrived this morning. Rodney drinks, you know, and he doesn't always know what's going on.”

To Judith's amazement, the guard opened the gate and waved them inside. “I don't believe it,” she gasped. “How did that happen?”

“Sometimes telling the truth actually works,” Renie replied. “Now, how do we figure out where Heaven's Gate is located? This is a huge property and most of the houses are tucked away from the road.”

“I remember that. The mailboxes are up ahead,” Judith said. “Maybe we can figure it out from the addresses. Or do they have addresses? As I recall, they're too discreet for anything so intrusive.”

“You're right,” Renie agreed. “We'll have to drive around until we see two cars that look like their rentals. Do you know what they had besides the Honda?”