Holy Terrors Read online

  Keeping to the narrow path that led between house and toolshed, Judith didn’t pause to admire the deep purple of the gnarled old lilac tree or the apple blossoms that were about to bud in what was left of the old Grover orchard. She’d already picked the best of the daffodils and tulips to put in the guest bedrooms and the living room. Next to the toolshed, a blush-pink rhododendron was opening up. Judith reached inside the door and switched on the single bare bulb.

  There, on the top shelf between a container of weed killer and a carton of snail bait, stood the boot box that contained the ashes of her late husband. Judith sighed with relief. One of these days she’d have to find a more suitable resting place for Dan McMonigle.

  Like the local unemployment office.

  TWO

  THE ONE SANCTUARY that Judith could seek where food wouldn’t tempt her was the hair salon. As a hedge against temptation, she had called Chez Steve the previous Monday to make an appointment, preferably in the morning. But they were already booked solid on the eve of the upcoming holiday weekend. Only a phone call around noon reporting a last-minute cancellation had saved the day. Judith could get in with Steve himself at four-thirty. It was perfect: The timing would see her through the dinner hour, which meant she’d not only miss Gertrude’s dreaded clam fritters, but be able instead to have a hearty snack before bedtime.

  In the front entry hall, she paused at the oval mirror with its Della Robbia frame. As ever, she was dissatisfied with her image. The features were strong and straight, the dark eyes still sparkled, the skin tone was really quite good. But the premature gray hair added extra years. Dan had refused to let her use color when the first white strands had shown up over twenty years earlier, soon after their marriage. Maybe, just maybe, she should get a rinse…

  In her mind, she visualized the date on the calendar: April 13. After more than a year, only two more weeks to wait. Was it really possible to get a second chance at happiness? She smiled to herself, then blinked at her reflection. Good Friday. Friday the thirteenth. Judith made a face. She really wasn’t superstitious. Besides, what could go wrong this late in the day? Of course the Rankers’s relatives hadn’t arrived yet…

  “What are you looking at?” Gertrude rasped, clumping into the entry hall. “Just standing there won’t improve your looks, kiddo. You’d better get your butt in gear or you’ll be late at that fancy beauty parlor of yours. I’ll bet they charge by the minute, like a taxi. By the way, Sweetums puked on the rug.”

  “Oh, swell!” Judith mentally cursed the cat and hurried into the pantry to get some rags. She wished Sweetums had simply expired on the spot. But when she got to the living room to clean up the mess, the cat was curled up on the window seat in a halo of sunlight. Judith’s urge to throttle the animal ebbed temporarily.

  Ten minutes later and with no time to spare, she was parked on the street a half block from Chez Steve in the heart of the neighborhood’s business district. Surrounded by half a million people, yet isolated from the bustle, Heraldsgate Hill was something of an anomaly, a small town inside a big city. Its residents thought of themselves as Hill dwellers first, urban citizens second. Their world was self-contained, and it was rumored that a least a dozen natives had never crossed the big bridge that separated the Hill from the rest of the metropolitan area.

  Heraldsgate’s main commerical section ran along the flat across the top of the Hill for about a half mile. Tucked away between a dental lab and an insurance office, Chez Steve overlooked a small bricked courtyard that had once been the bottom of a stairwell in a much larger building. But fire had gutted the place ten years earlier, and an ingenious architect had come up with the idea of building around, rather than over, the ruined core. The result was a charming but expensive little hideaway where neighborhood residents of both sexes could be cut and clipped in more ways than one.

  For once, however, Judith was not going to carp about Chez Steve’s exorbitant prices. Instead, she handed herself over to the owner/operator and let him study her closely in the mirror. “Jeez, Judith, you could use just about everything we’ve got,” Steve said in the gravelly voice that had once served him as a carnival barker after he’d given up his pro wrestling career. “You look like bird crap.”

  Judith was used to his frank manner. “Thanks, Steve. I’m half starved, the cat threw up, and Mother’s going to make clam fritters which will stink up the entire house just before guests arrive from Omaha.”

  “Omaha,” mused Steve, tossing Judith’s limp curls this way and that. “I wrestled there a couple of times. Once, it was a tag-team match with Awesome Baker. You know him, the guy who owns Scooter’s Delivery Service?”

  Judith did. “What do you think about a rinse? I want to look less like James Monroe, and more like Marilyn.”

  “I don’t know why, they’re both dead.” Steve grabbed a color chart from the counter. “Here, have a look. What’ll it be? Amber Passion? Russet Roses? Tequila Sunrise?”

  Judith studied the chart. She was sure that everyone in the busy glass- and chrome-accented salon was watching her make this revolutionary decision. “Gee—they all look sort of…obvious. My own hair used to be more like this one.” She tapped the color key for Earthy Ebony.

  Steve glanced at the chart, then at Judith’s image in the mirror. He twirled her around in the chair with one finger. “Could be a bit harsh on you. Natural’s in. Not that I go by what a bunch of glitzy lamebrains say on the industry grapevine, but at least that’s one fad that makes sense.” Having disposed of the national competition, Steve pointed to a frost sample. “Here’s a compromise you could live with—Silver Streak. We leave half of it natural and color the rest Sable Satin.”

  Judith considered. Maybe Steve was right: A complete change would be too radical. She could hear what Gertrude would say: “Hussy,” “tart,” and “floozy” sprang to mind. “Okay,” she agreed, “let’s go with the frost job.”

  Steve was still regarding her in the mirror. “It’ll take another hour if you’re going to get a perm, too. If I were you, I wouldn’t do both at the same time. You’ll end up looking like Norma Paine’s wire-haired terrier, only taller.”

  Judith decided to go with Steve’s advice and get just the frost job. The Rankers’s relatives were due in around seven-thirty; she didn’t want to miss their arrival. She still had another two weeks in which to get the permanent. Judith was sinking back into the chair, waiting to be trundled off to the shampoo bowl, when she realized that the woman on her left who had previously been covered by a towel was Kate Duffy. Kate, whose good works with Star of the Sea were legendary, was midway through a cut of her honey-colored curls. In charge of the shears was Ginger, Steve’s buxom wife, who was rumored to have been a world-class tassel-twirler in her carnival days.

  “Judith,” exclaimed Kate in her breathless voice. “I don’t have my glasses on. I wasn’t sure it was you!”

  “It almost wasn’t,” responded Judith, smiling at Kate in the mirror. “I got in only because somebody canceled.”

  “That was Sandy Frizzell,” said Kate. “She called Steve and said she hadn’t had her hair professionally cut in years. It’s quite long, you know, and now that she and John have come into money, she really ought to treat herself, but at the last minute she begged off.” Kate’s sweet face clouded over. “Maybe she’s grieving too much.”

  Recalling that Sandy looked not unlike a sheepdog with her heavy mane of blond locks, Judith kept her opinion to herself. “Well, Sandy’s lack of nerve is my good luck. How have you been, Kate?”

  Kate allowed Ginger to snip at her bangs before answering. “Oh, fine, wonderful. I’ve been praying for the Frizzells,” she said, her sweet face turning appropriately pious. “They’re going to need a lot of intercession.”

  “For what?” Judith inquired, swinging around in the swivel chair so that she was talking to Kate instead of her reflection. “They’ve got everything now that Aunt Emily kicked the bucket.”

  Kate cringed at Judith’s
candor. “But that’s it, don’t you see? They need to be guided in the most beneficial way to use their inheritance. There’s so much good they can do! Shelters for the homeless, aid to unwed mothers, a parish food bank, live-in help for the elderly—why, I can think of a dozen projects I’ve been trying to establish all these years, but never could get Father Hoyle or his predecessor to come up with the funding.” She leaned forward as Ginger fluffed up the curls at her neck. “Think of it, Judith, all that money for social action! How would you spend it?”

  “Well, I’d start by giving Steve cash instead of using my Visa card, then I’d pay off the plumber and the electrician. After that, maybe I’d buy a new Mix Master. If I had enough left.”

  “Oh, Judith!” Kate giggled, her dimples deep and even. “You’re such a sketch! Really,” she went on, lowering her breathless voice, “we’re talking about big money here. Very big money. Mark says it’s millions.”

  Judith shrugged. “Millions, billions, jillions—it doesn’t mean anything to me when it’s not mine. Maybe they’ll match Emily’s bequest and give some of their own to the church, too.”

  But Kate was dolefully shaking her head, much to the chagrin of Ginger, who was trying to arrange the curls at her client’s temple. “Sandy is very homesick for New York, I hear. She wants to go back. And who can blame her? I thought it might help if she got more involved in the community, especially in the parish, but just the other day Mark told me that Father Tim had called to ask if Sandy would help decorate the sanctuary for Easter, and John answered and had the most awful fit of temper! Poor Father Tim—he’s going to get the wrong impression of our parishioners.” Eluding Ginger’s ministrations, Kate placed a hand at her breast and leaned toward Judith. Judith’s sympathies lay not only with Ginger, but with Timothy Mills, Star of the Sea’s new assistant pastor. She had no chance to say as much, for Kate kept right on talking: “We really must do our very best to make Tim feel welcome, what with so few priests around these days. I ask the Holy Spirit at least three times a day to inspire young people. As long as they have a true vocation, of course,” she added hastily, then reverted to her original subject. “But Mark consoled Tim and told him he thought John was very protective of Sandy. You know my husband, he’s the soul of tact.” Kate’s eyelashes fluttered as the frustrated Ginger wielded a tall can of hairspray with an expression that suggested she wished it were Mace.

  If nothing else, it occurred to Judith, Kate was right about her spouse—Mark Duffy, who owned a film production company that specialized in TV commercials, was an eminently tactful—and charming—man. As for John Frizzell, Judith didn’t know him well enough to comment. Instead, she steered the subject into slightly different channels: “Whatever became of John Frizzell’s father?”

  Kate took a hand mirror from Ginger and studied the finished product. “I’m not sure,” she said. “He and Emily’s sister, Lucille, were divorced early on, when John was a baby. I think his name was Edgar Frizzell, but I only met Lucille once, after she came back to the family home to live with Emily. Lucille died quite young, you know.”

  “I remember.” Judith turned solemn. Lucille Tresvant Frizzell’s death had occurred the same week Judith and Dan were married. In fact, Lucille’s funeral had been scheduled around the Grover-McMonigle nuptials. The inconvenience had not set well with Emily Tresvant. Gertrude, however, had gloated. “I don’t remember John, though. Did he come to his mother’s funeral?”

  “I’m not sure.” Kate frowned into the mirror, then broke into a sunny smile and looked up at Ginger. “I like it. You do such a nice job, Ginger, dear. Mark will be pleased.” Accepting Ginger’s reciprocal words of appreciation, Kate turned back to Judith. “When Lucille died, Mark and I were back in Wisconsin, visiting his relatives. We hadn’t been married very long. You know, we’ve asked Sandy and John over to dinner twice since they moved here, but both times they had to cancel. Sandy is delicate, I’m afraid. I suppose that’s why he takes such good care of her.”

  Steve had returned, now ready to shampoo Judith’s hair. “You two yapping about the Tresvant dough?” He saw Judith’s little smirk and Kate’s diffident nod. “They won’t spend it here. The old broad had somebody come to the house to fix her hair, and that niece or whoever she is must cut hers with a meat cleaver. I’ve seen her old man go into Snuffy’s Cut-Rate Cut-Rite next to Porco’s Pizza at the bottom of the Hill.” Steve frowned, his leathery face creasing like an old catcher’s mitt. Judith gathered that he took the Tresvant-Frizzell rebuff as a personal affront.

  “Sandy and John only got here this winter,” said Judith, trying to get comfortable over the sink. “They came from New York.”

  “New York!” Steve all but spat in the stainless steel basin. “I wrestled there a few times, at the old Garden. Jeez, what a pit! There I was, walking along Forty-third Street one afternoon when…”

  Judith allowed Steve’s reminiscences to lull her into a semi-somnolent state. It was such a luxury to let someone else take care of her after all those years of ministering to Dan McMonigle, of being the sole wage earner, of trying to keep up with the housework, the cooking, the chores. When Dan died four winters ago at the age of forty-nine, Judith had been more relieved than grief-stricken. He’d been a good father to Mike, but he’d been a rotten husband to Judith. Moving back in with Gertrude had seemed like the only sensible solution at the time. After the first two weeks of listening to Gertrude’s rasping comments, Judith realized it was the second worst idea she’d ever had—the first, of course, being her marriage to Dan McMonigle. But then she’d gotten the wild idea of turning the capacious old family home into a bed-and-breakfast. Gertrude told her she was cracked. Cousin Renie thought it was a stroke of genius. Between them, they had talked Gertrude, Renie’s mother Deb, and their mutual uncle, Al Grover, into selling the house to Judith. To Judith’s amazement and Gertrude’s chagrin, Hillside Manor had become a success. In recent months, she had been elated to receive recommendations in three national travel guides. In her own small way, Judith felt as if she’d finally hit the big time.

  Yet Judith would have been the last person—except maybe for her mother—to give herself the credit she deserved. More than the gracious old house and its tasteful, yet eclectic appointments; more than the hearty, delicious breakfasts; more even than the excellent location with its splendid view of downtown, bay, and mountains; more than all these parts was the sum of Judith McMonigle. A warm, genuine human being, she had a knack with people that raised hospitality into an art form. But Judith persisted in attributing Hillside Manor’s prosperity to hard work and good luck.

  Only half watching Steve pull strands of hair through the cap on her head, Judith mulled over the changes in her life. She hadn’t been able to afford anything but a home permanent in all her years of marriage. She’d worked two jobs, during the day in her chosen profession as a librarian and at night as bartender for the Meat & Mingle. Looking back, Judith knew it had been a rough life, but at the time, she’d been too caught up in just getting from one day to the next to feel sorry for herself. In the four years since Dan had died, she’d been frantically busy, but her emotional energies hadn’t been so drained. She’d been able to reflect, and had come to the conclusion that enduring her unhappy marriage had given her strength. After all, hadn’t somebody once said that anything that didn’t kill you had to be good for you? Or words to that effect, mused Judith, her eyelids beginning to droop.

  The reverie was broken by a waspish voice at Steve’s elbow. Eve Kramer, her artfully tousled curls newly done in what Judith judged to be Earthy Ebony, had paused on her way out of the salon. “Do either of you know anybody who wants a job and has some knowledge of antiques? John Frizzell quit on me. He won’t work past six p.m. today, and he’s picking up his final check tomorrow. You’d think he could at least have offered to stay on until I found someone else,” she complained, rummaging in her oversized snakeskin shoulder bag for her car keys. As usual, Eve carried with her several skei
ns of thread, scissors, and her latest piece of stitchery. “I’ve never understood how acquiring money can wipe out consideration for others,” she asserted, finally producing a set of keys on an enormous silver ring.

  Steve didn’t break stride in plastering something that looked like peach yogurt on Judith’s strands of hair. “The idle rich, huh? Wish I had that problem.”

  “It’s my problem that he’s leaving,” said Eve, a pout puckering her deceptively piquant face. “John was very good. His references from New York were excellent, and he’d worked for one really first-class antiques dealer. He won’t be easy to replace. I need someone thoroughly familiar with old pieces.”

  “How about Mother?” suggested Judith, but noted that while Steve chuckled, Eve was not amused. “Actually, I can’t think of anybody offhand, but I’ll try to keep my ears open,” Judith amended.

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate it,” Eve said in her abrasive manner. “He’s an ingrate, in my opinion. Experience or not, he would have had a rough time getting a job in this town where every pampered dilettante thinks he or she is an expert if they can tell a Sévres tea service from a Bozo the Clown cookie jar. The antiques business is inbred and just as decadent as European nobility.” She adjusted the shoulder bag and flipped a Hermés scarf over the collar of her black trenchcoat. Eve, as always, was expensively groomed. After getting her children virtually raised, she had discovered that a degree in Renaissance art history was worthless outside of academia. Disinclined to teach, she had parlayed her elegant needlework into a business that embraced not only hand-stitched footstool covers and pillowcases and small tapestries, but the furnishings to accommodate them. After less than two years, she had become the Hill’s authority on antiques. And, like Judith, she had proved that middle-aged women could become successful entrepreneurs. Judith wasn’t overly fond of Eve, but she felt a certain kinship with her.