Just Desserts : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery (4 page)

“This,” declared Renie after they had delivered all the food to the table, “is a group to tax even your vaunted prowess as a hostess. By the way, where are the cream puffs?”

Judith moved slowly but surely to the far end of the
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cluttered counter and flipped over a tea towel like a magician uncovering a rabbit. “
Voilà!
Aren’t they lovely?”

Renie’s brown eyes widened. “They sure are! But only nine? What about us?”

“We don’t count. Besides, I could only induce Mother to make that many.”

“Your mother made them?” Renie’s surprise was as genuine as it was short-lived. “I suppose she did. I keep forgetting that behind that steel wall of a walker lurks one of the great cooks of the Western world. But I still wish she’d made two more.”

Judith checked the cream puffs for cat hair and cigarette ash, then re-covered them. “Are you that hungry?”

“I’m starved,” said Renie, loading the dishwasher. “Right about now I could eat Otto.”

“There ought to be some leftovers,” Judith said none too certainly. As she plugged in the coffee maker, the phone rang again. This time it was for Lance Brodie. “What is this?” Judith demanded after she’d sent a mystified Lance off to the phone in the living room. “Nobody ever calls guests here.”

“Why don’t we get a pizza?” Renie offered, obviously less concerned with the popularity of Judith’s guests than her own raging hunger pangs. “Jeez, they ate all the potato rolls!”

“Have some cheese. Get some Grape-nuts. Peel a carrot.

Just shut up while I get the dessert plates out and put on the hot water. Oh, and get down the cups and saucers. You’ll have to use one of the English bone china collection for Madame Garbanzo or whatever her name is. They’re in the breakfront.”

Renie looked mock-horrified. “You mean I have to go back out there with those animals? Otto tried to grab my leg when I put out the gravy boat.”

“I have a feeling Otto is trying to pull everybody’s leg. Or maybe it’s Oriana.” Judith gave her cousin a wry glance as she turned the heat on under the tea kettle.

“Actually,” Renie recalled, “he was whispering sweet
22 / Mary Daheim

somethings into my ear, about talking to the Madame before she goes into her act. I guess he wants to coach her a bit. I told him he could sneak in here by going up the main stairs and then down the back way by the pantry.”

Judith considered. “It’s his nickel. He and Oriana can form a tap dancing trio with the fortune-teller for all I care.” Putting some of the dirty pots and pans in the sink to soak, she gave a little shake of her head.” I’ve had an Irish wake, a bar mitzvah, a Cinco de Mayo fiesta, a divorce celebration for two couples who were switching partners, and a bunch of crazy Welshmen who came wearing necklaces made out of leeks. So why does this group make me edgy? They’re probably not any screwier than our own relatives.”

“Hey, now you’ve got me worried!” But Renie laughed when she said it.

Judith took heart from her cousin’s good-humored response. “You’re right, I’m being sappy. I’d better get the extra cup and saucer. It’s already after eight-thirty.”

Halfway through their meal, the Brodies had turned faintly maudlin. Lance, of all people, was relating an anecdote about his cousin which somehow showed that Harvey had always been inclined to medical practice.

“But I was worried because Harvey had taken all the arms and legs off our stuffed animals. So then Gwen said she bet she knew where Spot was because she’d seen Harvey playing with him and what do you know, sure enough, we found Spot all right, he was on the patio…and under the hedge…and in the driveway.” Lance laughed, but the sound carried a note of pain. Several others professed varying degrees of mirth except Gwen, who clucked with sympathy, and Harvey, who looked embarrassed.

“I was only seven,” he protested. “I thought dissection was part of medical science. Besides,” he added with a dark glance at his cousin, “you always seemed too busy playing ball to care about your dog. Or anything else.” Harvey’s fine hands pleated his napkin into knifelike folds.

Gwen leaned across the table, her chin almost crushing
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the azalea. “Harvey wasn’t good at sports, you see,” she explained to Dash, who was looking bemused. “He was always more of a student. He got wonderful grades.”

Otto’s small mouth turned down. “Lance’s report cards looked like a tic-tac-toe game. Remember, son, how I tried to bribe you into studying by tearing down the old playhouse and putting in a basketball court?”

“That was
my
playhouse,” said Harvey. “I used it for my laboratory.”

“Harvey was always very scientific,” said Gwen, again for Dash’s benefit. “Not in the least like Lance and me. He was a real loner. And much quieter.”

“That came from being orphaned very young,” Ellie put in, showing a lot more spunk than Judith would have credited her with. “His father died in World War II and his mother just…pined away.” The last phrase came out on a wispy little sigh.

“It was tragic, yet romantic,” agreed Gwen. “Poor Aunt Irma just couldn’t live without Uncle Jake. At least she had the comfort of knowing he died defending his country.”

“What’re you talking about, sweetie pie?” growled Otto, pouring more wine with a lavish hand. “Jake died of food poisoning at Camp Riley in Kansas and Irma had the clap.

She couldn’t live without him, all right, so she found about forty other guys who were all 4-F. And,” he noted with a leer that traveled around the table, “for those of you who are too young to remember, I won’t tell you what the ‘F’ stood for, at least as far as my sister was concerned.”

“Otto!” remonstrated Oriana as Mavis’s face tightened and Ellie put a hand over her mouth. “We’re eating! Nor is this the time to air family scandals!”

“Oh?” Otto shot his wife a dry look that suggested he wasn’t quite as drunk as he should have been, all things considered. “Funny, somehow I thought this was the time—and the place—for it. Ever occur to you that our house isn’t the only thing that needs fumigating?”

24 / Mary Daheim

Judith, who had been trying to squeeze in behind Ellie, Gwen, and Harvey to get at the breakfront while avoiding Otto’s roaming hands, almost dropped the Royal Worcester cup with its pattern of pink tea roses. It rattled dangerously against the saucer, causing her guests to turn and stare.

“Excuse me,” she apologized. “Dessert is coming. We’ll clear those dinner things away right now.”

Otto went for the last piece of meat and knocked over his inhaler in the process. “Get that contraption out of here!” he snarled at no one in particular. “I didn’t need it in the first place! What’s one little sneeze?” He swerved in his chair as Judith passed, catching her by the arm. “Clear the table, you bet, but if you want to earn your money, you could clear the air, too.”

“So I could,” Judith smiled, backpedaling into the kitchen.

“Maybe there’s some dust.”

“Hell, no,” grinned Otto wickedly. “The dust hasn’t settled.

Not by a long shot.”

THREE

AN EXTRA CHAIR had been brought in from the living room to accommodate Madame Gushenka. Judith had set a place for her between Otto and Mavis, which pleased the daughter-in-law far more than the father-in-law.

“Awww—now we can’t play kneesies any more,” Otto lamented in mock despair. Mavis gave him a picture-perfect profile of displeasure.

Out in the kitchen, Judith ticked off her latest duties on her fingers: “I dimmed the chandelier halfway for now, more later, coffee and tea are ready, sugar and cream, forks and spoons are already on, let’s take out the cream puffs.”

Renie nodded in semi-military fashion. “Ever organized.

You amaze me, coz. You were such a slob as a kid. Life with Dan sure shaped you up.” Obviously resisting the urge to dip her finger in the cream puff filling, Renie hesitated, then marched into the dining room.

Her cousin was right: Being sole provider, nurse-25

26 / Mary Daheim

maid, housewife and mother had brought out Judith’s un-tapped talents. She’d had no choice, or so it had seemed.

She’d also not had the luxury of time to think, but only to do. Judith was reaching for another set of plates when a rapping at the back door caught her attention. For a brief moment, she thought she’d gone back in time to Halloween, then realized that the long black hair, the flurry of colored veils, and the shimmer of golden earrings she saw through the square window in the door belonged to Madame Gushenka. The rain was still coming down, almost obscuring the stark branches of the three apple trees which were all that remained of the original Grover orchard. The wind was up, rattling the windows and shaking the bird feeder which had been placed well out of Sweetums’s reach. The figure at the little window knocked again, this time more preemptorily.

As Judith hurried to open the door, she half expected a black cat to slither in behind the fortune-teller.

“Meezus MigMonickal?” came a throaty voice through crimson lips. Not waiting for a reply, the seeress sailed past the pantry and came to a halt in the middle of the kitchen just as Renie returned.

“Oh!” cried Renie, her jaw dropping. “Oh, you’re the fortune-teller! I hope,” she added.

“Of course, of course,” Madame Gushenka responded in a thick accent. “I am here for to tell the future. And eat delicious cream puffs.” Her dark eyes lingered covetously on the plate Judith had been about to deliver to the dining room.

“I tell you now, without the cards, those will taste mar-velous!”

“About now I could eat the cards,” muttered Renie, but stoically resumed her duties as Judith took Madame Gushenka’s purple cape.

“And this,” said the fortune-teller, thrusting a large brown handbag at Judith. “You keep. For now. Most important.

Where is safe place?”

The house’s best security was a safe Judith had installed in her bedroom, but she didn’t want to take the time or
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make the effort to go all the way up to the third floor. Nor could she imagine that Madame Gushenka was carrying anything of real value, except to herself.

“The freezer?” Judith suggested. She used it herself as a hiding place, especially when she forgot the safe’s combina-tion, which happened rather often. Her logical mind did not extend to numbers. “It’s in the basement.”

But Madame Gushenka was dubious. “Your pantry—it has flour bin?” She saw Judith nod. “Wrap in plastic grocery sack, put there, please.”

It was Renie who acted on the instructions, returning with patches of flour all over her Notre Dame sweatshirt just as Judith came back in from the dining room. Madame Gushenka was smoothing her multicolored veils over the masses of black hair. A wig, Judith decided, and wondered how much of the fortune-teller was authentic. If Oriana’s makeup was artful and Gwen’s was overdone, Madame Gushenka’s was outlandish. The crimson lipstick had been applied to reshape her mouth, the eyebrows had been darkened and plucked to give a slanted effect to her hazel eyes, and the green eyeshadow was extended almost to her temples to widen her long face. Up close, she appeared younger than Judith had guessed at first, perhaps no more than her early forties. One thing was certain, however: In her green and gold satin robes and flowing motley veils, Madame Gushenka wasn’t just another pretty face.

“They’re ready,” Judith announced. “Renie, we’ve got five coffees and three teas. What will you have, Madame Gushenka?”

“Is coffee Turkish?” inquired the fortune-teller with a jangle of bracelets.

Judith shook her head. “It’s Colombian.”

“I have tea, then. No, I don’t read leaves, just use a bag.”

A noise from the pantry area startled all three women.

Turning, they saw Otto, poised pigeon-toed on the threshold of the kitchen, a finger at his lips.

28 / Mary Daheim

“Madame…” he began in a pale imitation of his usual bluster.

“Gushenka,” rumbled the fortune-teller, who was taller than Otto by a good two inches. “What you want? I prepare for Big Moment.”

Advancing into the kitchen, Otto held his hands out, signaling for quiet. “I don’t want them to know I’m here,” he whispered, “because I’ve got something I’d like you to say to sort of, well, you know, put the fear of God into…”

Within three feet of Madame Gushenka, he stopped abruptly.

His little eyes widened, then narrowed as he rocked on the balls of his feet. “Skip it,” he said gruffly, and wheeled out of the kitchen, his exit much faster then his entrance.

The fortune-teller rolled her eyes. “Funny man! Does Madame Gushenka frighten him? If he had hair, it would fall out!” She threw back her head and laughed, a frankly tri-umphant sound.

Wincing, Judith fought down the tide of uneasiness that had begun to rise again. “Maybe after he saw you, he figured you knew what you were doing,” she offered.

Madame Gushenka shot her a dubious glance. “Maybe he saw I could see through him, eh? Often what happens to those who scoff.” With a toss of her head, she pulled out a single veil from behind one ear, draped it across her nose, and secured the other side with a jeweled clasp. “There!

Element of mystery, at least until I’m eating cream puff.” She spoke through the green veil, which fluttered at every syllable, while her expressive eyes narrowed in apparent concentration.

“One more cup of tea coming up,” chirped Renie, delving into one of four canisters shaped like toadstools. Having already squeezed the first three cups out of a single bag in one of her rare attempts at economy, she was faintly resentful.

“Go ahead,” she said to her cousin, “I’ll bring it all out after Madame Gushenka sits down.”

Feeling vaguely like a White House press aide about to announce the President of the United States, Judith swung
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open the dining room door. “Ladies and gentleman, Madame Gushenka!”

Already into the cream puffs, the Brodie clan looked up expectantly. In the dim light, Judith could see Oriana’s tri-umphant smile, Ellie’s nervous fidgeting, Harvey’s frown, Mavis’s skepticism, Lance’s blank face, Gwen’s high color, and Dash’s curious gaze. Otto had not yet returned to his seat. The lace curtains fluttered in the draft at the bay window. Somebody, probably Ellie, clattered a fork against a plate. Lance’s chair creaked under his weight, and Dash did his best to suppress a cough. It was Oriana who broke the uneasy silence, her hands clasped at her bosom.