Just Desserts : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery (19 page)

Oriana bridled. “It wasn’t a fat farm. It was a health spa, solely for muscle and tone.”

“Okay, okay, whatever. Anyway, my testy tortellini, it was the summer before this last one. I’d just come in from the golf course and here was this woman waiting for me. I’d never seen her before, right? Raul didn’t want to let her in, but she told him she was family.” He stopped, stared first at Judith, then at Renie, as if noticing them for the first time.

“Hey, beat it, you two. This is a private conversation.”

Fleetingly, Judith considered telling Otto she wasn’t accus-tomed to being ejected from her own kitchen, but decided to save her breath. The Brodies would simply go elsewhere to talk, no doubt to their own room, where the eavesdropping possibilities were more limited without another session hiding under the bed. Leading the way for Renie, Judith headed for the back stairs. Their pause on the first landing drew only silence; Judith gestured for Renie to continue upstairs. The sound of ascending feet seemed to satisfy Otto, for he began to speak again:

“So this broad told me she was Wanda Brodie Rakesh, a nurse at an L.A. hospital, and that she was my daughter! I was floored. In fact, I told her to go, uh, chase herself. But she had a birth certificate, and my marriage license for the Vegas wedding with Gloria. I swear to God, pizza puss, I never knew a damned thing about any kid! You could have knocked me over with a feather!”

To Judith, plastered against the wall of the stairwell, the image evoked by Otto had its comic aspect. He was still talking, and Judith could imagine the grim-faced Oriana, listening with a jaundiced ear.

“She gave me a lot of guff about wanting to meet me after all these years, of not knowing where I’d gone before she was born, of tracking down the records and making some kind of search. She couldn’t get a thing out of Gloria, who’s nuttier than a squirrel’s nest. She’d had no luck
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for a long time, then some blabbermouth patient from Palm Springs mentioned my name and that’s how she found me.”

His voice had dropped, making it somewhat more difficult for Judith to hear. “She wrote three letters I never answered, all full of mush and gush about wanting to meet her pop.

She was all steamed up on getting herself acknowledged, or some such swill, but I’ll admit she didn’t ask for money.

Then
. But when she finally showed up and got all sentimental—which I admit was beginning to put a lump in the old throat—the grabby woman puts the squeeze on me! She said I owed it to her, for having abandoned her and her mother!

She wanted to set Gloria up in some swishy place with big ferns and her own set of streetlights! Bull, I told her, take a hike! We had a real row and she finally left. Good riddance, I said, and it was. At least I thought so at the time.” Otto was sounding as if he’d cornered the market on self-pity.

“So that’s why we went on that world cruise,” said Oriana in a musing, if tart voice. “Well, well, Otto. I also assume that’s why we moved to this rainy backwater.”

There was a sheepish note in Otto’s reply: “Hey, it was blackmail, extortion, a real squeeze play! I couldn’t sit around and let the woman bleed me dry. Besides, this is my home.

Don’t knock it, fettucine face.”

“Except that flight didn’t prove to be the solution.” Oriana sounded almost as if she were enjoying Otto’s misery. “Tell me, did this Wanda person mention that her mother had neglected to get a divorce?”

There was a noticeable pause. Judith glanced up the staircase, where she could see Renie peeking around the corner of the second landing.

“No. I suppose she was going to spring that on me last night.” His manner took a sudden sharp turn: “Or did she tell you when you were up to your snooty nose in putting this fiasco together?”

“Of course not.” Oriana was disdainful. “She revealed absolutely nothing about herself, except for her successes
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as a fortune-teller. And I only gave her some basic, if damaging, facts about your dear family.”

“Such as?”

Another pause ensued. “I forget.”

“Like hell you do,” growled Otto, sounding more like himself. “You were supposed to have her needle ’em, not get herself killed! I just wanted to have a little fun and make that bunch of parasites squirm.”

“What about the cyanide?” countered Oriana.

“Oh, that!” Otto sputtered a bit. “Well, see, after I recognized this Madame babe as Wanda, I slipped a little cyanide in my tea. I got it from the fumigators—Ralph, who owns Bugs Ahoy!, is an old pal. I told him it was a joke. So then I switched cups. Nothing to really hurt her, just to knock her out. I was sure she was going to blab everything right then and there. I should have just bribed her out in the kitchen but those two goofy dames were hanging around like the Bobbsey Twins. I guess I panicked. But there was only a teeny-weeny bit of cyanide. I know a lot about the stuff, I used it in the armaments business during the war. In fact, I was going to take it myself.”

“Otto!” For once, Oriana’s astonishment sounded genuine.

“Sure, to scare the hell out of that crew of vultures. Remember, when I threatened to fall down in the salad with a heart attack? Well, I’d planned on doing something like it later on, just to see how they’d react.”

“That’s ridiculous! You saw how they behaved when you pulled that stunt this morning.”

“Yeah. I was disappointed, too. They all acted normal—for them.” He uttered a deep sigh that floated out of the kitchen and all the way up to Judith and Renie. “But don’t you see, the cops will figure I killed her. My own daughter! I might have wanted to get rid of her, but not permanently!”

“It doesn’t look good,” Oriana admitted. Judith wondered if it would have looked better to the would-be Mrs.

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Brodie if Gloria weren’t still around. “Your other children are bastards.”

“Oh, sure, I know that,” he said in an offhand manner. “I mean, they’re a bunch of…oh,
bastards!
You’re right,” Otto remarked in wonderment.

“Gwen,” said Oriana, presumably in greeting as a new set of footsteps entered the kitchen. “Do sit. There’s tea.”

“I couldn’t,” moaned Gwen, apparently in great distress.

“They’re giving Dash the third degree! Do you suppose the police use rubber hoses?”

“I hope so,” muttered Otto, his chair scraping on the kitchen floor. “Come on, Oriana, let’s go upstairs and try some of that thrusting and throbbing Gwen’s always writing about.”

“Otto!” exclaimed Oriana. “What an idea!” Her tea-cup rattled in its saucer. “Have you forgotten? I’m not your wife.”

“Holy meatballs!” The pause which followed was accom-panied by Gwen’s nervous titter. Otto started to rant in a voice that made both cousins wince, then he slammed out of the kitchen. Judith could imagine the swinging door all but dropping from its hinges.

“Daddy!” cried Gwen, hesitating. “I must console him,”

she announced in noble tones, presumably to Oriana. What was left of the swinging door swung shut again.

Judith motioned to Renie, then started up the stairs. Oriana might decide to exit the kitchen from the rear. The cousins scrambled ever upward until they reached the third floor and Judith’s bedroom. They were only mildly surprised to find Harvey Carver sprawled on Grandmother Grover’s braided rug.

THIRTEEN

“DR. CARVER!” CRIED Judith, “are you all right?”

A sullen Harvey looked up at her from his awkward position on the floor. “Does it look like it? I’m having a spasm in my back.”

“You’re also having it in my bedroom.” Judith spoke with bite, then felt immediately repentant. “I’m sorry, but guests aren’t permitted up here. The outer door is clearly marked Private.”

Harvey wallowed around on the old rug, then put out an importunate hand. “Help me up. I’ve got to walk this off.”

Judith and Renie obliged, carefully hauling Harvey to his feet. The Brodie men struck Judith as unusually accident-prone; but then again, the Brodies were all unusual, period.

“Ah!” Harvey emitted a sigh of relief as he staggered around the room, one hand at his back. “That’s not recom-mended treatment. But it works for me.”

“That’s great,” said Judith dryly. “Would you mind explaining why you’re up here, Doctor?”

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Harvey straightened up slowly, tipped back his head, and flexed his knees. “The police let me in. They couldn’t find you.” His black eyes accused Judith of shirking her duties.

“So?” Harvey’s I.Q. might be several notches higher than his cousin Lance’s, but he was equally hard to draw out.

“For what purpose did the police let you come into our private rooms?”

Harvey’s thin lips tightened. Judith realized that he wasn’t used to being held accountable for his actions. She assumed that, like all great surgeons, he thought he was God. “I don’t see any reason to tell you, Mrs. McMonigle. It’s between the detectives and me.” His highly polished wingtips pawed at the rug like the hooves of an impatient pony.

Judith shrugged. “Lieutenant Flynn will tell me,” she asserted with considerably more confidence than she felt. “The explanation had better put hair on my chest.”

After a flash of anger, Harvey relented. “Very well,” he replied in his sulky manner. “It had to do with my medical kit. When I took it back upstairs, I checked to see if I had any anti-inflammatory medication for Uncle Otto’s chin. I sensed that things had been moved. I can’t be absolutely certain, but there may be a couple of items missing. With a poisoner loose, I decided to search the house from top to bottom.”

Harvey’s story sounded a trifle lame to Judith. “Couldn’t the police conduct the search?” she asked, glancing around the room but finding no sign of a wholesale scouring. The afternoon shadows had grown long and deep, and the threatening sky promised a snowfall.

“They don’t know what to look for,” Harvey replied defensively. “I’m not sure myself—I don’t take a daily inventory.”

He dusted off his tweed jacket and smoothed his unruly gray hair. “I could be wrong, of course.” The admission sounded unnatural. “Still, it doesn’t hurt to take precautions.”

“True.” Judith was vacillating between belief and skep-JUST DESSERTS / 145

ticism. She caught Renie’s eye, saw her cousin curl her lip at Harvey’s back, and looked away. She was standing by the dressing table, watching both the real Harvey and his mirror image The first impression of a weasel hadn’t been quite accurate, Judith decided: He was a more of a gnome, in some ways resembling a slender version of Otto far more than Lance or Gwen—or even Wanda—did. His long, sallow face had a melancholy quality and his black eyes seemed ever-vi-gilant. Now poised for his exit, Harvey was deterred by Judith’s seemingly casual question:

“Tell me, Doctor, did you know Wanda Rakesh when she worked at St. Peregrine’s?”

Harvey gave a little start. “I don’t think so. She may have come after I left.”

But Judith shook her head. “I gather she’d been there several years.”

“Could be.” Harvey shrugged. “At the risk of sounding arrogant, all nurses look alike, especially in the O.R. All you can see is their eyes. Most of us are too busy concentrating on our work to indulge in studying the staff.” He was edging for the door, but Judith and Renie were closing in.

“You must have known Dr. Jack O’Doul,” Judith said, aware of how dark the room had become as the lead-gray clouds settled in over the rooftops.

Harvey’s face registered surprise. “O’Doul? Of course! He was chief of surgery at St. Peregrine’s. A brilliant man. He was my mentor.” For the first time, Harvey showed a shred of warmth. “Why do you ask? Did you know him?”

“In a way,” Judith answered vaguely. “My mother-in-law used to be a nurse.” That much was true, thought Judith, though Effie McMonigle had been strictly ob-gyn and had worked in Arizona. “His death in that plane crash was certainly a great loss.”

Harvey looked properly solemn. “It was. Ironic, too.” The black eyes flickered with some emotion Judith couldn’t fathom. “I took the offer at Norway General because I realized I could never become chief of surgery at St. Per-146 / Mary Daheim

egrine’s as long as Jack was there. I didn’t want to, mind you, he was the ideal person for the job, but I felt I had to move up. Three months after I left St. Peregrine’s, Jack was killed.” He spoke with a certain amount of awe, as if he still couldn’t believe it.

“What about Stanley Edelstein?” queried Judith. “Do you remember him from St. Peregrine’s?”

“Stanley Edelstein?” Harvey mulled over the name. “There was somebody with a name like that,” he conceded, “but it doesn’t sound quite right. Edelmann, maybe, or Millstein.”

Judith adopted a confused expression. She was aware that Harvey was again growing restive. She also realized that he wasn’t used to talking so freely in front of others, especially strangers. “Odd…for some reason, I had the idea that Edelstein operated on Lance’s knee.” She’d only just thought of it, but having done so, decided it didn’t qualify as an outright lie.

“No, no,” said Harvey with a scowl. “That was Jack O’Doul. The Hollywood Stars’ owners insisted that Lance have the very best.”

Renie looked stunned. “But how could such an outstanding surgeon flub such a simple operation?”

Harvey hitched up his belt and gave Renie a scornful glance. “No surgical procedure can be called ‘simple’. And even the best surgeons can have an off day. We’re not infallible.” He made the statement as if he were.

“Were you there?” Judith asked, as the glimmer of an idea danced in her mind’s eye.

“No. Jack felt that since Lance was family, it would be better for me not to assist. Too emotional, you see.” He paused as Judith flipped on a floor lamp and tried to imagine an overwrought Harvey Carver, flooding the O.R. with tears.

“I remember talking to O’Doul afterward,” Harvey went on,

“and how upset he was. Jack told me he’d like to erase the whole thing from his mind. He apologized over and over to Lance and the other players and the team
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owners. He thought the failure was divine retribution for not renewing his Hollywood Stars’ season tickets.”