September Mourn Read online

  MARY DAHEIM

  September Mourn

  A BED-AND-BREAKFAST MYSTERY

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  JUDITH MCMONIGLE FLYNN applied the brakes, got no reaction, and…

  TWO

  RENIE WAS INCOHERENT. When she phoned Judith around eight, words…

  THREE

  JUDITH STARTED UP the path. As the cousins drew closer…

  FOUR

  JUDITH FELT THAT the least she could do was explore…

  FIVE

  THE 911 OPERATOR sounded as if she were on another…

  SIX

  DESPITE DOC’S ENCOURAGING words, Judith knew he didn’t think H. Burrell…

  SEVEN

  IT HADN’T BEEN easy for Judith to get up at…

  EIGHT

  RENIE WASN’T ENTHUSIASTIC about Judith’s theory. She all but scoffed…

  NINE

  JUDITH WAS ANGRY with herself. By the time the cousins…

  TEN

  “I DON’T THINK,” Renie remarked dryly, “that Burrell will be…

  ELEVEN

  JUDITH FELT HER spine tingle. Someone had crept into the…

  TWELVE

  THERE WERE NO muffins to bake or baskets to deliver…

  THIRTEEN

  EMERALD GREEN GRASS covered the sloping knoll that led down…

  FOURTEEN

  THE ALDER-SMOKED SALMON had been delicious. Renie raved about it…

  FIFTEEN

  JUDITH’S HOT CHOCOLATE had grown cold by the time she…

  SIXTEEN

  RENIE URGED JUDITH to get a grip on her emotions…

  SEVENTEEN

  “SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLARS?” Renie screamed into the phone at Doc Wicker’s…

  About the Author

  Other Books by Mary Daheim

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  ONE

  JUDITH MCMONIGLE FLYNN applied the brakes, got no reaction, and felt her blue compact crash into the retaining wall at Falstaff’s Market. Jarred, but unhurt, Judith swore under her breath. She knew the brakes weren’t working properly, but she’d put off having them checked. Summer was the busiest season at Hillside Manor, Judith’s bed-and-breakfast establishment. Now it was the Tuesday after Labor Day; she should have gone to the mechanic before she went grocery shopping.

  “Are you okay?” shouted a courtesy clerk who was wheeling a cart back toward the store. The disapproving expression on his youthful face indicated he thought Judith was drunk or stupid, or both.

  Though still shaken, Judith nodded. “I think so, but some of my parts are lying in your parking lot. I heard them fall off.”

  “What?” The courtesy clerk, whose name tag identified him as Skip, seemed to be assessing Judith for missing appendages.

  Seemingly convinced that Judith wasn’t drunk and maybe not stupid, Skip investigated the car’s front end. Judith got out and joined him.

  “Your bumper took most of it,” said Skip, fingering a chin that sprouted a fuzzy hint of beard. “But you wiped out a headlight, and your grill’s mashed in.”

  “Rats,” Judith muttered, trying to ignore the handful of customers who were watching from a discreet distance. Joe had offered to take the compact into the mechanic, but Judith hadn’t wanted to bother her husband. Joe Flynn’s schedule as a homicide detective was unpredictable, since murderers didn’t punch a time clock.

  The BP station on Heraldsgate Hill was located opposite Falstaff’s Market. Judith jaywalked across Heraldsgate Avenue to make arrangements for repairing the brakes. Terry, the young but knowledgeable mechanic, told her she’d better do the bodywork first. Had she called her insurance company? The car should be towed in for an estimate. After the insurance people and the body shop had done their jobs, Terry could tackle the brakes.

  Disconsolately, Judith trudged back across the busy street. She didn’t think the front-end damage was sufficient to warrant all the inconvenience. Now she was stuck without a car. Joe needed his old but reliable MG to drive to work. Her insurance didn’t provide for a rental car. Judith would have to hoof it all over Heraldsgate Hill or borrow a car from her neighbors, Carl and Arlene Rankers. Either way, it would be a bother.

  So caught up in her dilemma was Judith that she didn’t see the oncoming car until it screeched to a stop within a foot of her. The horn blasted as Judith reeled toward a Metro bus that had pulled into the stop by the service station.

  “Coz!” cried a voice that came from the direction of the car. “Get out of the street before you get killed!” Cousin Renie poked her head out of the Chevrolet sedan.

  Judith was caught between the big car and the even bigger bus. With a sheepish expression, she scooted around the front of the Chev and jumped in beside Renie. “My fault,” Judith muttered, arranging her statuesque form in the passenger seat. “I didn’t look.”

  “You sure didn’t,” Renie responded, then again leaned out the window to yell at the impatient drivers who had stopped behind her. “Oh, shut up! None of you are going anywhere except to the liquor store!” Renie goosed the accelerator but had to come to another quick stop, this time at the traffic light by Holiday’s Pharmacy and Moonbeam’s coffee shop. “So what’s wrong? I’m going home, by the way. Are you coming with me?”

  “I might as well,” Judith sighed, smoothing her disheveled silver-streaked hair. As the cousins continued down Heraldsgate Avenue, she explained what had happened to her Nissan.

  “Shoot,” Renie said, braking to a full stop at the four-way arterial by S&M Meats. “Why don’t I just take you home now?”

  Judith gave Renie a slightly embarrassed look. “I still haven’t done my grocery shopping. Would you mind…?”

  There wasn’t much that the cousins minded doing for each other. As only children, they had grown up together, and were as close as sisters. Incapable of keeping secrets from each other, Judith and Renie could almost read each other’s minds. Usually—but not always—that was a good thing.

  “Oh, why not?” Renie replied, turning to head back up the hill. “I could pick up something for dinner. I’m running out of menu ideas with the kids still home for the summer. Next week, all three of them will be off to college, and Bill and I can eat real food, like meat and fish and vegetables. Where do these kids get such weird ideas about nutrition, like a yen for vegetarian chili?”

  “Beats me.” Judith shrugged. “Since Mike went to work for the park service in Idaho, I figure he’s eating berries and nuts and tree bark. If he and Kristin really do get married, I wonder if she can cook. He can’t.”

  “None of our children are ever getting married,” Renie declared, untangling her maze of chestnut curls. “They’re going to stay in school until they have so many initials after their names, it’ll look like a foreign language. Why does Tom need a doctorate in German? He won’t even eat sauerkraut. What will Anne do with an Ed.D? She doesn’t want to teach or be an administrator. And Tony hasn’t announced a major! Jeez, I thought that once they got into their twenties, they’d move out and hold down jobs and get married and have children of their own so that they, too, could be driven crazy! If I didn’t take my estrogen, I’d be in the loony bin by now!”

  Accustomed to Renie’s rantings about her offspring, Judith dwelled instead on her own problems. “You know, I always feel a letdown after the tourist season is over. Oh, I’m glad that things aren’t so hectic, but between now and when the fall weather sets in and we can look forward to the holidays, there’s about a two-week lull where I feel sort of disoriented.”

  “It’s not that I don’t love my kids,” Renie said, waiting to make a left-hand turn into the Falstaff parking lot, “but wouldn’t you think they’d want to get on with their lives? After four y
ears of college, I was sick of the classroom. I couldn’t wait to get out and try my hand at the graphic-design business. And earn some money, too.”

  “Maybe it’s the weather,” Judith remarked. “It stays too warm in September around here. I suppose after Labor Day, I automatically expect rain and cooler temperatures.”

  “It’s because they’re spoiled,” Renie asserted, finally entering the grocery-store lot. “They have everything—we gave it to them, and now we’re paying the price for taking away the need to acquire on their on. At least that’s what Bill says. In our generation, we were still trying to better ourselves and move up another notch from where our parents stood on the economic ladder. But nowadays, according to Bill, we’ve reached a plateau where the next generation feels…”

  “Pathetic,” Judith interrupted, pointing to her blue compact, which was coincidentally parked next to the Chev. “Look, my poor car seems lonely and forsaken. Maybe I’ll call the insurance company from the store.”

  “Save your quarter,” urged Renie, who was used to being interrupted by Judith, especially when Bill’s opinions were being parroted. “Have you got a long list?”

  “Long enough.” Judith sighed, getting out of the car. “It’ll take me about twenty minutes.”

  It took closer to thirty, since Judith ran into three fellow parishioners from Our Lady, Star of the Sea, the local head librarian, and Corinne Dooley, one of her neighbors. Renie whiled away the extra time by racing off to Begelman’s Bakery and Heraldsgate Books. It was exactly 2:00 P.M. when the cousins pulled up in Hillside Manor’s driveway.

  “Hey, noodleheads!” yelled Judith’s mother from the doorway of the toolshed that had been converted into an apartment. “You got any almond clusters in those grocery sacks?”

  “No, Mother,” Judith called across the expanse of yard. “The doctor says you’re not supposed to eat so many sweets. Would you like a nice broccoli casserole for supper tonight?”

  “Broccoli!” screeched Gertrude Grover. “How about bacteria and a couple of viruses? How about vaccinations for the pox? How about turnips and spinach and rutabagas?”

  “I’ve got Brussels sprouts, Aunt Gertrude,” Renie shouted.

  Gertrude, who was wearing an ocelot-print housecoat and a baggy purple sweater, moved her walker closer to the cousins. She was followed by Sweetums, Judith’s malevolent cat. “What’s wrong with you young people these days?” she growled. “Have you forgotten how to eat? Whatever happened to steak and string beans and mashed potatoes? And almond clusters?”

  Renie was bestowing a benign smile on her aunt. “You know, that’s a funny thing—Judith and I were just talking about that very subject. Only we feel that our kids don’t know what’s good for them. Generation gap, huh, Aunt Gertrude?”

  “Generation gap, my butt!” Gertrude snapped, banging her walker on the cement path and narrowly missing Sweetums, who fled into the nearest flower bed. “What’s wrong with red meat and eggs and plenty of butter? How do you think I got to be this old? Protein—that’s the ticket. Plenty of pro-tein.” Gertrude put the emphasis on the second syllable.

  “I have to unload,” Judith said in a faintly feeble voice. “This stuff’s heavy.”

  “Heavy,” muttered Gertrude. “What’s heavy about broccoli?” Clumsily, she turned the walker and stumped back to the converted toolshed.

  Sweetums reappeared, holding something in his mouth. Nudging the screen door open with her elbow, Judith turned to see the cat deposit the object on the small patio and then bounce it in the air with his paws.

  “Damn!” Judith breathed. “He’s got a bird! I hope it’s a starling. They’re a nuisance. They scare the songbirds away.”

  It was indeed a starling which Sweetums was now conveying to the back porch. Just as Judith managed to get through the doorway, the cat angled between her feet and dropped the bird on her left shoe. He then settled his furry orange-and-white-and-gray body directly in front of Judith. His gold eyes gazed up at her, as if seeking approbation.

  Struggling to hold on to the grocery bags, Judith kicked the dead bird out of the way. “Dammit, Sweetums, why can’t you leave your victims outside?”

  Sweetums took umbrage. With a flip of his plumelike tail, he marched into the dining room. Hurriedly, Judith set the grocery bags on the counter, then chased after Sweetums. She reached the dining room just as he was sinking his claws into her new lace curtains.

  Judith grabbed the cat; the cat scratched Judith. Judith let out a little yelp. The cat jumped out of her grasp, arched his back, and hissed. Having vented his spleen, Sweetums tore off into the kitchen, jumped up on the counter, and dived into the bag that contained his weekly ration of cat tuna. He didn’t budge until Judith had opened one of the cans and emptied it in his dish by the back door. Sweetums ignored his prey, which was still lying in the rear hall by the pantry. Satisfied with the havoc he’d wreaked and the reward he’d received, the cat strolled to his feeding area and contentedly began to eat.

  Judith picked up the dead starling in a paper towel and threw it in the garbage. “I’ll bet Mother forgot to feed him. Again,” she sighed, washing her hands at the sink.

  “You’re making excuses for the hideous little beast,” Renie said. “You should get a bunny like ours. Clarence isn’t any trouble, even if Bill does call him Triple D.”

  “Triple D?” inquired Judith as she wiped her hands on a towel.

  “For delicate, dirty, and dumb. I’ll admit Clarence has had some health problems. He goes in for an eye exam tomorrow.”

  Judith didn’t want to hear about Clarence. “I’d cook him in a big pot,” she muttered. “I’d do the same with Sweetums, but he’s too fat to fit in anything but an industrialsized roaster.”

  Renie opened a can of pop while Judith unloaded the groceries. “Do you want me to call the insurance company for you?” Renie asked.

  “I’d better check my phone messages first,” Judith replied, putting fresh halibut and bacon and a small rack of lamb into the refrigerator. “I’ve only got two rooms full tonight, so I can’t afford to ignore any late requests.”

  After loading milk, butter, and eggs into the fridge, Judith crossed the long, high-ceilinged kitchen to her answering machine, which sat near the computer she’d received as a Christmas present from Joe. The red light showed that there were three calls. The first was from a couple in Montana who wanted a reservation for two nights in November. The second was a woman asking if it was true that Judith didn’t allow pets. It seemed she had a hedgehog that went with her everywhere. The third and last message was a voice that mildly startled Judith. She turned up the volume so that Renie could hear, too.

  “Judith, this is Jeanne Barber, Jeanne Clayton Barber. The last time I saw you was at the state B&B association meeting in February.” The voice continued, breathless and shrill. “Before that, we met at our thirtieth high-school reunion a few years back. I won’t say how many years back, ha-ha! You remember that I told you I own a B&B on Chavez Island? Well, I sent you a letter about that the other day. Maybe you haven’t gotten it yet. The mail doesn’t always go off the island every day. So please call me, and I’ll explain. I’m terribly anxious to talk to you. It’s…a matter of life and death. Bye-bye, hear from you soon.” The voice dropped an octave and ended on a hush.

  Renie was fumbling through the sheep-shaped cookie jar on the kitchen table, finding nothing more than crumbs. “Jeannie Clayton, huh? I remember her—she was two years younger than I was and light-years dopier. I didn’t know she owned a B&B. Did she ever get her teeth fixed?”

  “No. Yes.” Judith felt distracted as she tried to pull up a mental portrait of Jeanne Clayton Barber. Tall, though not as tall as Judith. Slim, slimmer than Judith. Pretty in an unremarkable, sort of faded way, not at all like Judith, who hoped that her strong features had better withstood the test of time. “Her teeth are fine. At least they all go in the same direction now. Maybe I’d better check the mail. It hadn’t come when I left for th
e store.”

  Judith had her hand on the swinging door that led into the dining room when her mother banged at the back door. “Hey!” Gertrude yelled, using the walker to push open the screen. “You get any of those almond clusters?”

  Judith glanced at Renie. “Oh, dear!” The words came out in a whisper.

  Turning toward Gertrude, Judith forced a smile. “No, Mother. I think you asked me that when I came home.”

  “Oh.” Gertrude leaned on her walker. Her small, wrinkled face puckered. “Broccoli casserole,” she said, in an apparent non sequitur.

  But Judith knew better. She understood that her mother was racking her brain to remember something not only recent, but of importance. At least to Gertrude.

  “With chicken breasts and rice,” Judith replied, and finally looked fondly at her mother. “Maybe I’ll make biscuits unless it’s too warm to turn on the oven.”

  “Warm?” Gertrude shivered inside the baggy cardigan. “It’s darned cold, if you ask me.”

  Judith wasn’t sure if her mother was kidding or not. A year, even six months ago, Gertrude definitely would have been trying to provoke her daughter. But now Judith didn’t know if her mother was serious. Gertrude’s natural perversity, often feigned, had become all too real.

  “I’ve got to get the mail,” Judith said, changing the subject. “Why don’t you sit down with Renie, Mother, and I’ll pour us some lemonade?”

  “Nope,” Gertrude replied, swinging the walker around. “I’m going back to that cardboard crate you call my apartment. It’s almost warm in there, but that’s because I set fire to my undies. I’d better go put ’em out before the rest of the place goes up in smoke. So long, suckers.”