Just Desserts : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery (24 page)

“Once it starts snowing on Heraldsgate, we’re marooned,”

said Judith with a trace of gloom. It was all too true. Snow was a local rarity, falling perhaps once or twice a season, and some years, not at all. In a city of steep hills where the natives found snow a novelty rather than a challenge, few knew how to cope. Instead, the entire metropolitan area shut up shop for the duration. The total paralysis caused by two or three inches of snow never failed to make the national news, much to the amusement of East Coast and Midwestern inhabitants. “Snow tires and chains help, but not a lot,” Judith went on in a morose voice. “It’s too hard to get up the Hill.

We were stuck here for five days last February.”

Gwen’s china-blue eyes went wide with alarm. “Five days!

Oh, no! I have a deadline to meet for my publisher! However will I manage?”

“Mike has a word processor upstairs,” said Judith, opening the oven door and noticing that the smell of singed leather still lingered from Wanda’s satchel. “Feel free to use it.”

Gwen hugged the ice bucket to her bulging bosom. “Oh, I couldn’t! I mean, I might not know the program you use.

Oh, dear! This is too dreadful!”

Judith finished putting the steaks under the broiler and stood aside for Renie to drop the diced bacon into a kettle.

“I borrowed one of your books from my neighbor,” said Judith to the agitated Gwen. “
Chastity’s Belt Buckle
. Tell me, do you think North Carolina’s reluctance to join the Confed-eracy stemmed from the same people who supported the Union later on in the war?”

Gwen looked blank. “It’s possible.” The ice rattled against her chest. “I’m sure it was true of some of them. Or at least a few.”

Judith couldn’t hide her puzzlement. “Maybe I put the question badly. What are you working on right now?”

178 / Mary Daheim

Gwen brightened. “It’s a contemporary, about a beautiful young graphics designer who falls in love with a handsome young homeless man. She finds him searching through the office garbage. I don’t know whether to call it
Destiny’s
Dumpster or No Can of Her Own
. What do you think?”

“I can’t,” replied Judith, overwhelmed in more ways than one.

“Gee,” said Renie, “that’s…interesting. How are you researching your heroine’s career?”

A bellow erupted from the living room. Otto was calling for the ice. Gwen jumped, but graciously answered Renie’s question. “I do my homework. I’ve met some of the city’s top designers. They’ve been ever so kind.”

“Who?” asked Renie pointedly.

The blue eyes widened again. “Oh—the cream. They’re the people behind the scenes,” Gwen added loftily. “You wouldn’t know them.”

“But I
am
one,” declared Renie, matching round-eyed stare for stare.

“Oh!” Gwen’s hands fluttered over the ice bucket as if it were a fussy child. “Well! How exciting!” Otto’s trumpeting voice grew even testier. “Excuse me, Daddy is getting a teeny bit restless. I hope he’s not having another spell.”

Watching the door swing shut behind Gwen, Judith reached for the aspirin. “If Otto isn’t having a spell, I am.

My legs hurt, my head aches, and my teeth are driving me nuts. I’ll bet I need about four root canals and I won’t be able to get to the dentist until the snow’s gone.”

“Gwen’s a phony,” said Renie as the bacon sizzled in the kettle. “Or am I being cynical?”

“You’re being unsympathetic. To me,” retorted Judith, swallowing the aspirin. “As for Gwen, you’re right. Something’s wrong there. According to Arlene, Gwen’s books are not only well-written, but painstakingly researched. So who’s her ghost writer?”

JUST DESSERTS / 179

Renie tossed cut-up onion in with the bacon. “It could be anybody. We don’t know who her friends are.”

“But why?” puzzled Judith, opening a jar of green olives.

“I know some writers work as a team and use a single name, but they don’t make any secret of it. Who’d want to remain anonymous, do all the writing, and let someone else get all the glory?”

Renie turned thoughtful, a can of cut beans in one hand.

“Somebody who is very shy, I suppose. Somebody who doesn’t want to meet the public.”

“Maybe. Or somebody who already knows the public too well.” For a few minutes, the cousins toiled in silence, each lost in her own mental machinations. The potatoes were already done, the steaks were broiling away, the beans bubbled with the bacon and onion bits. Judith filled celery stalks with cream cheese and set them out on a serving dish with the olives. It would be a simple, yet satisfying meal, and as far as Judith was concerned, more than the Brodies deserved. She was momentarily pleased until it dawned on her that there was no dessert.

“They polished off the ice cream at lunch,” fretted Judith, frantically searching the refrigerator. “What should we do?”

“Not to worry,” said Renie, flipping a tea towel from a baking dish. “While you were upstairs dallying with Joe Flynn, Woody and I made apple crisp. The whipped cream is in that white bowl on the second shelf.”

Judith gave her cousin a grateful look. “You’re a peach—when you’re not being an idiot.” She picked up the celery and olives, along with a stack of plates, and headed out into the dining room. The silverware and napkins were already on the table, along with a fresh linen cloth from Belgium and the red azalea, which gave Judith a momentary shiver. Trying to ignore the fractious voices in the living room, she finished setting the table just as Oriana approached with quick, high-heeled steps.

“Are you ready to serve?” Oriana asked with a note of anxiety in her voice. “Otto is growing quite…unruly.”

180 / Mary Daheim

Otto wasn’t the only one, Judith thought as she heard Mavis barking at Harvey and Ellie whining at Lance. “Five minutes,” said Judith, aware that Oriana’s makeup was smudged and her usual self-possession was frayed around the edges. “In fact,” Judith said with sudden inspiration, “why don’t you come into the kitchen, and we’ll figure out who likes their steaks how?”

Oriana hesitated. “I’m not sure I know,” she demurred.

But Judith just stood there with a smile on her face. At last, Oriana relented. Nudging Renie out of the way, Judith opened the broiler. “Right now, they all look rare. Who’s for medium or well-done?”

“Otto prefers well-done. I like mine medium. So do Lance and Mavis. Harvey eats his practically raw. I’m not sure about the others.”

“I’ll pull the rarest for Harvey and put it on a warming plate,” said Judith. She picked up a steak knife and plunged it into the thickest portion of T-bone. Red juices spurted out, and Judith nodded. “It’s dead, but barely.” She put the knife down and searched for her meat fork. “We can ask the rest of them or just go for medium. Now where is that blasted fork? Renie, did you see it?”

“The last time I saw your meat fork was five years ago when it was sticking out of your husband’s behind,” Renie said somewhat absently as she piled baked potatoes into an oval dish. “Don’t you remember, Dan threw the Thanksgiving turkey out in the street because Aunt Opal didn’t put enough sage in the dressing? You got mad and stabbed him in the butt.”

“That’s because the coward was waddling away.” Judith gave Oriana a faintly embarrassed glance, then picked up the copy of
Opera News
which she’d left on the kitchen counter by the breadbox. “Guess what, we’ve been reading up on your career. It sounds as if you were a sensation in Milan.”

Oriana’s eyes narrowed as she reached for the magazine.

“Give me that! How did you get hold of it?”

JUST DESSERTS / 181

Judith held the copy at arm’s length from the shorter Oriana. “It’s mine. I save them. Don’t you have your own?” she asked innocently.

Oriana’s sultry mouth tightened and her entire body tensed. For a brief moment, she seemed on the verge of exploding. Then, quite slowly, her shoulders relaxed, her face assumed it’s faintly arrogant yet provocative mask, and she gave a little toss of her head. “I certainly do. That issue chronicles how my star was born. La Scala was the most glorious night of my life. I sang like a goddess.” A patronizing smile played at the smudged lips. Oriana lifted her chin, turned on her high heels, and floated out of the kitchen as if making a stage exit.

“What was that all about?” inquired Renie, draining the beans.

Judith had a strange look on her face. “Coz,” she said, “you read those
Opera News
reviews aloud very well. But you didn’t go quite far enough.” She held out the magazine to Renie. “Look. The critique of
Carmen
from La Scala was submitted by none other than Arturo Allegro. Maybe Dash should have called himself Vocals instead of Ankles.”

SIXTEEN

“HOLD IT!” YELLED Renie, almost dropping the beans as she scanned the signature at the end of the La Scala review.

“Don’t you dare go out in that dining room until you explain!

Are you trying to tell me that Dash worked for
Opera News
under one of his other aliases?”

Judith had stopped at the door. “He admitted he used the name of Allegro at one time. His father, Dukes, was probably still alive then, and he had a lot of money. Maybe he even augmented the Bustamantis’ piggy bank for Oriana’s studies abroad. So here comes her big chance, Cousin Dash—or Artie or Ankles—is on hand, and together they connive at getting Oriana at least one rave review.”

Renie’s mobile face showed the workings of her brain as she digested Judith’s theory. “How? By doping all the real critics? That’s preposterous!”

“But bribing them isn’t.” Judith gave Renie a canny look.

“Dash thinks big. This is the same guy who tried 182

JUST DESSERTS / 183

to buy a Rose Bowl. Would Milan strike him as any more of a challenge than Pasadena?”

“I don’t know.” Renie was still dubious, but open to per-suasion. “I can’t see every critic at La Scala being so venal.”

“They only needed one. At least for American fans. It might have been muscle, not money. Or maybe the real critic got sick—Grace Bumbry did, so there could have been a rampant virus loose in Northern Italy that winter. In any event, our brash Dash filled in, and Oriana got the kind of prestigious review which would bring her other offers. Of course she couldn’t pull something like that off again. That conversation I heard on the stairs makes sense now—Oriana mentioned

‘blackmail’ and ‘sense of family.’ I suspect Dash and Oriana cut a deal, and when she started getting other roles after her La Scala success, he got a chunk of her earnings. Now he wants more.” Judith opened the kitchen door an inch and glanced into the dining room to make sure the Brodies hadn’t yet trooped in to dinner. “But the giveaway was Oriana’s comment about ‘stabbed to the heart.’ It called attention to Carmen’s death scene, and that was the part of the review that sounded so odd. The listeners were so stunned by her magnificent performance—according to Arturo Allegro—that they couldn’t even applaud. Except when she got stabbed and died, they went wild. I figure they didn’t clap after her arias because she stank. But when she finally went sticks up, they roared with approval—or relief.”

Renie was leaning against the counter, still gripping the beans. “Could be.” She looked bemused, her brown eyes roving up into the nether reaches of the high kitchen ceiling.

But both her gaze and her thoughts came quickly down to earth. “So—as we said before, what does Oriana’s phony review have to do with Wanda?”

Judith, hearing the Brodies start a stampede for the dining room, gave an impatient shrug. “I don’t know. The only obvious crime is lousy reporting. We’re only guess-184 / Mary Daheim

ing about the bribes. Maybe Wanda knew the truth. Oriana wouldn’t have liked that.”

“But Oriana would have had to been able to recognize Wanda as Madame Gushenka,” Renie pointed out.

“She might have seen pictures,” said Judith. “We’ve got to talk to Dash again after dinner. But right now we’ve got to
serve
dinner. Let’s hit it.”

Renie dutifully brought out the beans and potatoes. Over the wrangling of the Brodies, Judith was trying to parcel out the steaks. Joe lounged at the door of the entry hall, hands in his pockets; Woody Price was right behind him, standing like a totem.

“Got enough for a pair of working stiffs?” inquired Joe.

“What?” Judith leaned forward to catch his words and was rewarded with a slap on the bottom from Otto. “Hands on the table,” she snarled, forgetting her role of gracious hostess.

“Hey, toots,” said Otto to Judith in a voice blurred by drink, “you wanna play Throb and Thrust?”

“Shut up!” Oriana’s uncustomarily uncouth command cut across the table. “You’re disgusting!”

“Daddy’s under stress,” put in Gwen, giving her father a cloying look. “He’s not a well man.”

“Daddy’s full of hooey,” declared Mavis.

“Daddy’s full of
scotch
,” Lance corrected his wife in a serious voice. “I’ve never seen him drink anything called hooey.”

“He would if it were eighty proof,” muttered Harvey, slit-ting his baked potato as if it were an abdomen.

“Hush!” hissed Ellie. “Uncle Otto does look a bit peaked.”

Only Dash remained silent during this exchange, his attention focused on his plate. Judith managed to avoid further molestation from Otto, and finally escaped back into the kitchen with Renie, Joe, and Woody at her heels.

“There’s enough for all of us tonight,” she assured the others. “But you’ll have to wait for the steaks. I couldn’t
JUST DESSERTS / 185

get more than eight under the broiler at once.” She started to remove the T-bones from a platter on the counter when the phone rang. Renie answered it, but quickly handed it over to Judith.

The caller identified herself as Norma Paine. “Judith,” she said in an incisive manner, “you know Wilbur and me. We’re SOTS.”

“Of course you are, Norma,” said Judith, acknowledging the nickname for parishioners of Our Lady, Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church. “Your youngest went through pa-rochial school with Mike.”

“Yes, that was our Brian. Now, Judith, this is nervy of me under the circumstances, but I know from the news that the Brodies are still at Hillside Manor. We live next door to them, and we wondered if there was anything we should do about their house while they’re…away?”