Just Desserts : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery (15 page)

pered,” said Judith under her breath, holding out the book to Renie, who looked blank.

A sound in the hall froze both women in place. Judith threw the appointment book back into the purse while Renie gave the suitcases a shove in the direction where she’d found them. In virtual unison, the cousins dove under the bed just as the outside door opened.

“Pipe down,” muttered Otto as he trotted across the shag carpet to the bathroom. “Hey, pizza puss, are you coming out or do I have to borrow the other can?”

Oriana let out one last high note and turned off the shower. “I have to put my face on,” she replied in a petulant voice. “Go down the hall.”

In the darkness under the bed, Judith tried to make herself as small as possible, and in the process, bumped rumps with Renie. Grimacing, they held their breath. Otto was moving past the bed, toward the bathroom door. Beneath the flounce that covered the mattress and box springs, the cousins could just make out Otto’s sturdy walking shoes.

“Come on, lasagna lips, we’re blowing this joint. Get your tail in gear.” He rattled the doorknob in impatience.

“I thought we had to stay,” Oriana called back to her husband.

“We do. We won’t. Let’s hit it. I’m about to have a heart attack.”

The clatter of cosmetic implements could be heard in the bathroom. When Oriana spoke, it was in a strained voice.

“What do you mean? Are you ill?” Judith thought she sounded faintly hopeful.

“I’m at death’s door,” he replied jauntily. “Come on, come on, my little cannelloni. The day is dying, and so am I. Or will be shortly.”

“Dio mio!”
exclaimed Oriana, once again the impassioned diva. “You’ve locked the door!”

“Huh?” Otto could be heard jiggling the little bolt. “Didn’t mean to,” he muttered, flinging the door open for his wife.

Judith and Renie watched Oriana’s bare feet
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with their painted toenails pad across the carpet. “Hey,” said Otto as they both moved out of viewing range, “you smell good! You even look good without all that goop. Maybe I better put off my heart attack for a half hour or so. How about it, my ravishing ravioli?”

“Otto!” gasped Oriana in horror. “This is a house of mourning! How can you think such lustful thoughts?”

“Lustful, my butt!” responded Otto as Judith and Renie cringed under the bed. The idea of being captive voyeurs to the Brodies’ lovemaking dismayed both cousins almost to the point of revealing themselves.

But Oriana had taken command even as she stepped into a pair of Midnight Haze stockings. “Now see here, Otto, you’d better explain yourself. What’s this about a heart attack and leaving the house? How do you intend to deceive Harvey and all those policemen?”

“Hell,” said Otto, apparently no longer on the scent of passion, “Harvey couldn’t tell if that fortune-teller died from a stroke or a snakebite! As for the cops, they’ll be too worried about another homicide to cause any problems. All we have to do is get out of here and into a hospital. After that, it’s a cinch—we wait until the doctors and nurses disappear like they always do when you’re really sick, and we sneak off to the airport.”

“The airport!” Oriana dropped her silk blouse, then bent to pick it up a scant six inches from Judith’s left foot. “Why?

Where are we going?”

Otto didn’t answer right away. His feet passed by the bed en route to the window. “It’s clouding over again. Looks like more rain, maybe even snow by tonight. How about Portugal?”

“Otto!” Oriana’s voice was sharp, all affection gone. “What are you running from? Don’t tell me you…you’re implicated in this sorry mess?”

“Hey, relax, pizza puss.” The walking shoes rejoined the sheer stockinged feet. “We’re all implicated just by being here. I didn’t murder the blasted woman, I swear it. But I don’t want to get mixed up in some second-rate
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scandal, okay?” He was talking much faster than usual, his words punctuated by the rocking of his shoes from heel to toe. “Let’s face it, I’m no spring chicken. I came home from California to get off the merry-go-round. All this murder investigation claptrap could give me a coronary, see? Who needs it?”

“Well…” Oriana seemed to be wavering. “I don’t like the idea of running away. It might appear to be an admission of guilt.”

“Bull.” Otto planted his feet flat on the floor, then let out a terrible cry. “Aaaargh! Aaaaarghhh! Ooof!” He crashed onto the bed, sending mattress and springs crunching down on Judith and Renie. They both shuddered from the sensation, silently cursing bumped heads, backs and bottoms.

Oriana danced in place while Otto hissed at her from the bed: “Move it, get help! Aaaargh!” Judith and Renie could feel him writhing above them.

The stockinged feet disappeared but apparently stopped to put on shoes. Then the door banged open and Oriana went into a bravura performance. “Help! Help! My husband’s having a heart attack! Help!”

Officer Price and Gwen were first on the scene. The CPR

that Judith had suggested for Madame Gushenka was attempted by the policeman amid Gwen’s wails of alarm, Oriana’s full-throated lamentations, and Otto’s piteous groans. The bed rocked and quavered, while more pairs of feet appeared beneath the flounce, including Joe Flynn’s loafers.

“Get an ambulance!” he shouted. “Where’s Dr. Carver?”

Mavis’s voice cut across the din. “He’s out in the back yard consulting with that nosy neighbor about her varicose veins.

Ellie’s with him.”

Somebody, probably Lance, judging from the hurried but halting step, went out to use the upstairs phone. The bed had stopped jumping as Otto took to gasping in a manner most feeble. The beleaguered cousins dared to
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catch their collective breaths even as Joe’s right loafer pointed straight at Judith’s nose.

“Everybody out of the room,” Joe ordered. “We need space for the ambulance drivers. Keep the stairs clear. Mrs. Brodie,”

he began, then was forced to raise his voice again over Oriana’s latest howl, “Mrs. Brodie, you can ride with your husband in the ambulance.”

“
Caro mio!
” cried Oriana, dropping to her knees. “Live for your little pizza!” Judith, admiring the red crepe pleated skirt that floated on the carpet, wondered if Oriana had assumed the role of Mozart’s Donna Anna at the side of the stricken Commendatore.

“I should come, too,” insisted a tearful Gwen. “He’s my daddy!”

“What’s happened?” The voice from the vicinity of the door belonged to Harvey Carver. “Let me examine him!

Maybe it’s poison!”

“We’ll ride with them, Harvey,” said Ellie, her voice more wispy than ever. “Oh, poor Uncle Otto! How sad!”

“Out!” bellowed Joe. “We’ll see who goes where when the emergency crew gets here. It’s an ambulance, not a bus.” But before he could further sort out the babbling Brodies, sirens wailed in the distance. Judith offered Renie a heartrending expression: The 911 squads must all know the route to Hillside Manor by rote.

Beneath the flounce, various pairs of feet moved away.

Only Joe’s remained, still too close to Judith for comfort.

Otto’s voice had lapsed into little squawks, resembling a sick chicken. “Check the stairs and hallways,” said Joe, presumably to Price. He shifted his stance, turning his attention to the man on the bed. “Hang in there, help is on the way.”

It was, in the form of two efficient ambulance drivers who gently but swiftly transferred Otto from bed to stretcher. Judith stared quizzically at Renie: Renie shook her head; Judith nodded. Their understanding was perfect.

Otto was already in the hall, but Joe had moved only a few inches, apparently keeping out of the ambulance attendants’

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way. With a mighty heave, Judith scraped herself across the carpet and stuck her head up from under the flounce.

“It’s a fake!” she cried. “Stop him!”

“What the hell?” Joe’s green eyes went wide as he shook himself like someone waking up from a bad dream. “Jeeezus!”

Awkwardly, Judith angled the rest of her body out from under the bed. “It’s a ruse,” she said doggedly. “Otto is headed for Portugal.”

Regaining his composure, Joe grabbed Judith’s arm and hauled her to her feet. His astonishment was giving way to comprehension. “Are you sure of that?”

“Yes,” asserted Judith, dusting herself off. “He told Oriana he didn’t kill Wanda but he wanted to avoid a scandal.

Frankly, I think he’s just hoping nobody finds out that Wanda was his daughter.”

Joe straightened Judith’s sweater, then brushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. “You look beat,” he said. “Did you sleep at all last night?”

“No.” Judith fought down a desire to give in to the luxury of letting someone take care of her. The truth was, she’d forgotten how. The irony was that the only man who had ever taken care of her was Joe. “But I’m okay. I have to be,”

she declared, more to herself than to him. “Hey, do something! Otto’s getting away!”

Joe responded as if someone had broken a spell. He moved easily but swiftly to the hallway, calling for Officer Price.

With a faint smile, Judith watched him disappear. Was Joe just exercising his usual Irish charm, or did he still care about her? He’d always been the kind of man who could make a woman, even a casual acquaintance, feel she was special.

Musing on the mystery of men rather than of murder, Judith wandered to the window where she saw the latest battle erupting on the front walk between the police, the ambulance men, and the Brodies. The small cry for help could have come from any one of them, she thought, leaning on the mahogany headboard.

It actually came from Renie. Judith jumped when she
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realized that her cousin was still under the bed. Dropping down on the carpet, she yanked up the flounce. “What are you doing down there?”

Renie’s brown eyes glared from her flushed face. “I was trying to be tactful. Then I got stuck. My sweatshirt’s caught on a damned nail. I kept waiting for you and Joe to rip off your clothes and bounce up and down on top of me.”

“No such luck,” said Judith, exerting considerable effort to extricate Renie. “The only ripping of clothes is what’s happened to your sweatshirt. Want to borrow one of Mother’s housecoats?”

Renie wriggled across the carpet and sat up, scowling at the jagged tear above the elbow. “Damn. I should have run off to Portugal with Otto. I might have been seduced by life’s exotic pleasures—like food and clothing.” She worked out the kinks in her back and neck, then wagged a finger at Judith. “That was almost as miserable under that bed as the time we shared an upper berth on the Super Chief going to New York.”

“You slept at the head, I slept at the foot, and we kept kicking each other.” Judith shook he head in reminiscence.

“Then you woke me up at four in the morning so I could see Cleveland. I almost killed you.”

“I thought it was interesting,” said Renie, picking lint off her charcoal-gray pants. “I’d never seen Cleveland before.”

Judith sneered. “I still haven’t. I refused to look.” Reluct-antly, she returned to the window. The standardbearers of right seemed to be triumphing over the representatives of wrong. At least the ambulance drivers had stopped trying to stuff Otto into the rear of their vehicle. “Right now,” remarked Judith, heading for the door, “I’d rather see Cleveland than this bunch. Come on, coz, bind up your wounds. We’re heading back down into the fray.”

ELEVEN

TEN MINUTES LATER, a much-chagrined Otto returned to the house. Joe had all but resorted to physical force in prying Otto off the stretcher. Oriana had played her part to the hilt, a regal Isolde flinging herself on her Tristan; Harvey had threatened to sue; and Gwen had succumbed to hysterics.

But Joe prevailed, much to the entertainment of the neighbors, including the Rankers and Gertrude, who watched the latest incident from the front yard. Dooley strolled by, making a halfhearted attempt to conceal himself behind the maple tree’s massive trunk.

“Wow,” he said to Judith, as Otto was finally hauled back inside, “you sure have a lot of excitement around here! It’s better than the movies!”

“I may end up with the only X-rated B&B in town,” Judith muttered. “‘X’ as in ‘ex-owner.’” She gestured discreetly at Lance who was following Mavis back inside the house.

“There’s your mystery man from last night. He hurt his knee playing for the Hollywood Stars. Remember the team?”

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But Dooley was obviously remembering something else.

“That’s not the dude I saw.”

“What?” Judith stared at Dooley, then at Lance’s back. “It has to be!”

“Uh-uh.” Dooley was emphatic. “It was that one, over there.” He nodded toward the ambulance where Dash was comforting a still-hysterical Gwen. “They’re both tall, sure, but the football guy is broader. I don’t make mistakes like that. I’m learning to be a trained observer.” He spoke with pride, his voice cracking in the process.

Judith didn’t doubt him. Maybe Dash had walked funny because it had been cold outside and he wasn’t wearing socks. Obviously, the back yard had been a crowded place.

She wondered how Lance and his business associates had avoided running into Dash and whoever he had been meeting in the dark. But she had to put the question aside for the moment. Otto might be a pain, but he was still a guest. With a weary tread, Judith climbed the four steps to the front porch and went back into the house.

Otto was holding court in the living room, protesting police brutality with as much vigor as Mavis had exhibited the previous night. Not only did he demand to be visited by his personal physician and his attorney, but insisted on breaking into Judith’s liquor supply. His ruse might have been in vain, but he wasn’t surrendering without a struggle.

“While Otto gets blotto, let’s check out those magazines downstairs,” Judith said to Renie. “Joe just told me he’s got some information coming up from L.A. any minute.”

“The hit-and-run and the amnesia story?” Renie asked as they descended to the basement.

“I guess.” Judith flipped on the light switch, revealing a new gas furnace, the laundry area with a hamper full of linens, boxes marked Christmas Decorations, Easter baskets—the whole gamut of life and times in a family home combined with a business enterprise. Judith kept the various kinds of outdated reading material in three cartons next to the freezer. She dug down deep, then shook her head. “These are Mike’s old car magazines and
Sports
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