A Streetcar Named Expire Read online

  Judith hesitated only a few seconds, then hurried outside as fast as her aching body parts would permit.

  “We’re leaving?” Renie asked in surprise.

  “You bet,” Judith said. “I’ve had it. I find it utterly unbelievable that I could be slandered and come upon a corpse in less than an hour. I’m almost certain it’s a prank, a stunt to promote the tour. Mrs. Carrabas isn’t dead, she just knows how to hold her breath for a long time. So no more bodies, no more insults, no more overbearing reporters for this kid. I’ll deal with Jeremy Lamar later. For now, I’m going home.”

  Renie looked flummoxed. “How?”

  “See these?” Judith pointed to her feet. “Crippled I may be, but it’s only about six blocks to the B&B.”

  “But my car’s down by the opera house,” Renie protested.

  “I’ll drive you down there to get it,” Judith said, already heading across the street.

  “But those six blocks are uphill,” Renie pointed out in a voice that was growing desperate.

  “If I can make it, you can. Anyway,” she added, “it’s only four blocks straight up. The last two are on the flat.”

  Renie made muttering noises, but traipsed behind Judith. After the noisy, crowded, stuffy bedroom with its gruesome remains, the walk uphill was more restorative than demanding. The mountain ash, maple, and chestnut trees were still in full leaf, providing welcome shade. Judith took deep breaths, savoring the blooms of a climbing rose on the wall of a big brick apartment house in the next block. The farther she walked, the more familiar the neighborhood became. The condos and apartments on the south slope of Heraldsgate Hill gave way to duplexes, family homes, and a small park. By the time the cousins reached level ground, they were among old, spacious homes with magnificent views of downtown, the bay, and the mountains to the west.

  “Are you okay?” Judith asked a trailing Renie.

  “No,” Renie replied, huffing and puffing. “I’m dead.”

  “Don’t say that,” Judith shot back. “No more dead, remember?”

  “If that woman really is dead, the police will want to talk to you,” Renie reminded her cousin.

  Judith sighed. “I know. But I just couldn’t face it. Not after the cameras and the mikes and all those journalists.” Waiting for Renie to catch up, Judith brightened. “Maybe they won’t be able to find me. I had to give my name to that TV woman, but I’m not on the tour list.”

  “They’ll find you,” Renie said dryly. “But at least you’ll be able to meet them on your own turf.”

  It was after one o’clock when the cousins arrived at Hillside Manor. Instead of using the usual family entrance at the back, they sneaked through the front, hoping to avoid Gertrude.

  “I need a few minutes to collect myself,” Judith said, collapsing into one of the kitchen chairs. “I also need a drink.”

  “I’ll do the honors while you fill me in on everything—body, treasure, media circus.” Renie was standing on tiptoes, reaching for the bourbon and Scotch.

  “Spirits!” cried Phyliss Rackley, who dropped a bundle of cleaning rags and threw up her hands. “The Devil is at work!”

  “So are you,” Renie retorted, deliberately pouring more than just a shot into each glass. “What’s up, Phyl?”

  “Satan,” Phyliss replied, glaring at Renie. “I’ve always suspected you have cloven hooves and a tail. You’re an evil influence, Mrs. Jones. Haven’t I always said that?”

  “Pretty often,” Renie said, getting ice out of the fridge. “Care for a drink?” She waved the Scotch bottle at the cleaning woman.

  “Ayiee!” Phyliss recoiled, hands in front of her face. “You’re doomed, Mrs. Jones, and you’re taking poor Mrs. Flynn with you!”

  “Let’s hope it’s a big handcart if we’re going to hell in it,” Renie said, handing Judith her drink and sitting down at the kitchen table.

  Phyliss ripped off her apron and glowered at Judith. “I quit. I can’t work in a house where Beelzebub reigns. Good-bye, Mrs. Flynn.”

  “Good-bye, Phyliss,” Judith said. “See you Monday.”

  Renie watched Phyliss flounce out through the back door. “How come she’s leaving early?”

  “She has a two o’clock eye appointment,” Judith said. “The tests she had done yesterday didn’t reveal anything wrong with her brain—medically speaking, of course—so now she thinks she’s going blind.”

  “Why couldn’t she have become a Christian Scientist?” Renie said with a little sigh. “Then you would’ve been spared the hypochondria.”

  “I’d have been spared all of it,” Judith said. “Christian Scientists don’t run around trying to save people all the time. As it is, I’m not spared, and I may not be saved, either.”

  Sipping her bourbon, Renie smiled. “She’s a good worker, though. Except for dumping dirty rags on the floor. I’ll pick them up. You don’t need another fall.”

  Just as Renie got up from the chair, the front doorbell rang. “Shall I?” Renie asked, gathering up the rags.

  “Okay,” Judith sighed. “Let’s hope it’s not guests. Check-in time isn’t until four.”

  Taking another gulp from her Scotch, Judith also stood up and went over to the aspirin bottle on the windowsill. She had just swallowed two tablets when Renie appeared in the swinging door that separated the kitchen from the dining room.

  “You’ve got visitors,” Renie said, her face devoid of expression. “It’s the cops.”

  THREE

  ONLY THEN DID it dawn on Judith that she might have fled a crime scene. So unreal was the discovery of Mrs. Carrabas’s body, so highly suspect, so utterly incredible, that Judith refused to believe any of it was real. Picking up her glass, she swigged down Scotch and tried to collect herself.

  “Was that woman really dead?” she whispered as Renie waited between the swinging doors.

  Renie shrugged. “Nobody’s talking. About that, I mean,” she added cryptically.

  Curious, as well as upset, Judith followed Renie into the entry hall, where two uniformed officers stood outside the near door to the front parlor. That, she realized, was not a good sign. The primaries—the plainclothes detectives—would be waiting inside. Then again, maybe it was the bunco squad, investigating a hoax. Judith squared her wide shoulders and went into the parlor, which suddenly seemed more ominous than cozy.

  When she saw the black man with the walrus mustache, she almost fainted in relief. “Woody!” she cried, and threw her arms around his neck.

  Woodrow Wilson Price had been Joe’s partner for years. He was one of Judith’s favorite people, and had been at Hillside Manor with his family last month for a Fourth of July barbecue. But Judith greeted him as if he’d been away for ten years.

  Her euphoria ebbed when she saw his new partner, Sancha Rael. Detective Rael was young, beautiful, and not inclined to defer to anyone, including the wife of a retired detective.

  “Hello, Mrs. Flynn,” she said, her dark eyes snapping. “I haven’t seen you since my last promotion. In fact, I’ve moved up two notches since you found the other body over at the house on the cul-de-sac.”

  The comment—and what it implied—referred to a hatchet murder that had occurred a few years earlier during the holiday season. “Other body?” Judith said bleakly as she let go of Woody.

  Sancha frowned at Judith. “Are you kidding? With all your experience, I would have thought you’d know a corpse when you saw one. Mrs. Carrabas was shot twice in the chest.”

  “Oh, dear!” Judith half-fell into one of the matching club chairs. “I’m sorry, I was clinging to the hope that it was some kind of publicity stunt for the murder tour.”

  Woody, whose serious demeanor was always in evidence during an investigation, shook his head. “I don’t blame you for wanting to believe that. But the fact is, Mrs. Carrabas hadn’t been dead for more than a few minutes before you found her.” He paused and cleared his throat. “Naturally, we wondered why you left the scene so hurriedly. It didn’t seem like
you. If you know what I mean.” He sounded apologetic.

  “I…” Judith wished she’d brought her drink with her. Renie must have guessed what she was thinking.

  “Hey,” Renie put in, “I’ll make some coffee for you folks. We were just having an adult beverage to restore ourselves. It’s been an awful day, as I’m sure Judith will be able to tell you. I’ll be right back.”

  Trying to unscramble her brain, Judith dredged up her usual logical train of thought and began at the beginning. “So naturally, I was upset,” she said after relating how she and Renie came to be on a sightseeing tour that had kicked off with the dreadful stop at Hillside Manor. “I was upset. I wanted to see Jeremy Lamar so I could tell him to lay off my B&B before I took him to court. I tracked him down, but I didn’t make it in time to the elevator. I saw that he got out on the third floor, so I did, too. The door to the unit where I found Mrs. Carrabas was open. I went in to see if Jeremy was there, but he wasn’t. Instead…I found another damned body.” Judith hung her head. Reality was setting in, and she didn’t much like what she felt. Sick. Stupid. Still incredulous.

  “What did you do then?” Woody asked in his soft, mellifluous voice.

  “Nothing.” Judith gulped. “There wasn’t even time to see if I could find a pulse before all those reporters and cameramen rushed in. The next thing I knew, I was on TV, acting inane. Honestly, I thought it was a hoax.”

  Woody nodded slowly. “Unfortunately, it wasn’t. I gather you’d never seen Mrs. Carrabas before?”

  “Heavens, no,” Judith replied. “I’d never heard of her, either.”

  Sancha leaned forward in the other club chair. “Are you sure? I heard that you’ve been known to hang out with fortune tellers and such.”

  Judith looked askance. “A guest invited a fortune teller to Hillside Manor. I’d never seen her before in my life. What are you implying?”

  Sancha shrugged, the blue-black hair rippling over her shoulders. “It seems strange, that’s all. Fortune tellers, exorcists, mediums—you do meet some odd people.”

  “I’ve never met a medium,” Judith said staunchly. “Besides, as an innkeeper I meet all sorts of people. I suppose it’s why I get mixed up in so many unfortunate situations.”

  Sancha smirked, but said nothing more. Woody leaped in to fill the uncomfortable void. “How much did you know about this mystery tour and the Alhambra Arms before today?”

  “She’s ignorant,” Renie declared as she entered the parlor carrying the cousins’ cocktails. “This was all my doing. In fact, I forced her to go with me.” Pausing, she handed Judith her Scotch. “Coffee will be along shortly. Let me explain about the SOTS auction.”

  “The what?” Sancha asked, wrinkling her nose.

  “It’s their church,” Woody said in an aside to his partner.

  “I don’t doubt it,” Sancha said with another smirk.

  “Anyway,” Renie continued, ignoring the female detective, “we held our annual auction last May, and I sort of got carried away and—”

  “I’ll check on the coffee,” Judith interrupted, going out through the parlor door. In the hallway, she stopped as the arrival of a white van in the cul-de-sac caught her eye. It parked just down the street, in front of the Porters’ house. No one got out, so Judith continued on into the kitchen.

  By the time she returned to the parlor with a tray containing a carafe, mugs, sugar, and cream, Renie had finished the part about the Meacham murder.

  “It was while the guide was finishing her spiel that I noticed Judith was missing,” Renie said. “I was afraid she was in a knock-down-drag-out fight with Jeremy Lamar, so I went looking for her.”

  “Why did you end up in the bedroom?” Sancha inquired, turning to Judith.

  “I was curious,” Judith said, growing defensive. “The apartment hadn’t yet been torn up, so I thought I’d see what the units had been like. The Alhambra is only six blocks from Hillside Manor, but it’s off the beaten path, and I’ve never paid much attention to it.”

  “I have,” Renie put in. “Several years ago, I put together a design package for the Heraldsgate Hill Historical Society. I went all through it then, along with some of the other landmark buildings in the neighborhood. I remembered quite a bit about the place, including the fact that the fountain in the courtyard was once a swimming pool. In its heyday, the Alhambra was a very exclusive apartment complex.”

  “Fascinating,” Sancha declared in a bored voice.

  Woody gave his partner a look of mild reproach. “It is, actually. I heard somewhere that a famous opera singer lived there in retirement. I can’t recall the name offhand, but she was something of a recluse.” He looked at Renie for help. They shared an interest in opera that had created a bond between them over the years.

  “Luisa Della Robbia,” Renie said promptly. “Coloratura, retired young due to vocal troubles. Before the turn of the century, she was heralded as one of the greatest Lucias of the era.”

  Woody snapped his fingers and grinned. “That’s right. Unfortunately, her career was almost over when the phonograph came along. She made only a few recordings. Della Robbia was nicknamed ‘The Diamond Necklace’ because her voice had such sparkle.”

  “Fascinating,” Sancha repeated, still bored. “What did you two know about this so-called treasure?”

  “Nothing,” Judith responded. “I didn’t even know about the Meacham murder.” She turned to Renie. “Did you, coz?”

  Renie shook her head. “No. It was never mentioned. But that was because I did the design project before they started the renovation. At the time, Dorothy Meacham would still have been a missing person.”

  “Is there really a treasure?” Judith asked as unusual noises emanated from outside.

  “Gold and silver jewelry, mostly,” Woody said. “It was under the floor near the exterior wall in the living room. Given that Mrs. Carrabas was killed in that same unit, we’ve bundled it up as possible evidence. Mr. Guthrie wasn’t very happy about it, though. He thinks the stuff is very old and very valuable.”

  “Who’s been living in that apartment?” Judith asked as the noise grew louder.

  “No one,” Woody replied after quickly consulting his notes. “It’s been vacant for several months. A man named Rufus Holmes lived next door until everybody had to leave. It seems that Guthrie has offered the previous rental tenants the opportunity to buy their refurbished units as condos. At a rather high price, of course. Most of the renters have decided to move on, but a few, such as Mr. Holmes and a retired school teacher, Helen Schnell, are staying. Meanwhile, though, they’ve had to move out until the renovation is completed.”

  Judith was on her feet. “Excuse me, there seems to be some commotion out front. Let’s hope the tour bus didn’t come back.”

  The Toujours La Tour trolley wasn’t in evidence, but two more vans were parked in the cul-de-sac, and at least a half-dozen people were swarming across Judith’s lawn.

  “Oh, no!” Judith cried aloud. “It’s the press. Again.”

  Cable cords crawled over the grass like so many snakes. Some of the faces behind the cameras already looked familiar. In fact, the woman who was marching toward the porch came from out of the past: The fine features, the smart blond coiffure, the aura of complete self-confidence might have been reassuring in any other context, but given the circumstances, KINE-TV’s anchorwoman, Mavis Lean-Brodie, appeared like the Angel of Death.

  “M-M-Mavis!” Judith stammered. “How…nice.”

  Mavis’s smile, like the rest of her, was slightly brittle. “I haven’t seen you since the fortune teller got killed here while we were having a not-so-jolly family overnight. I see you’re up to your old tricks.”

  “W-w-well…” Judith was still stammering. “N-n-not exactly. I mean, what’s going on with all these people?”

  Mavis waved a hand over her shoulder. “When Liz Ogilvy came back to the station and mentioned your name, I was sure you must be the same person who had hosted our gruesom
e little gathering several years ago. It occurred to me that you had popped up in connection with some other murders. Judith McMonigle then, Judith Flynn now, right?” Mavis didn’t wait for a response. “So here we are, ready to do an exclusive KINE-TV feature on Heraldsgate Hill’s answer to Nancy Drew.”

  “Oh, no!” Judith protested in horror as the TV crew finished setting up. “Please, Mavis, I’m no sleuth. I just…sort of…you know…fall into things.”

  “Right.” Mavis winked. “Could that be an unmarked police car in your driveway?”

  Judith winced. “Yes, but that’s only because—”

  “Tell you what,” Mavis interrupted in her chummiest manner, “let’s show you coming to the door as if you’re greeting guests.” She turned to one of the cameramen. “Get a close-up of that Hillside Manor sign next to the sidewalk. Very tasteful, very discreet,” she added in approval.

  “Cousin Renie did it,” Judith gulped.

  “Oh, yes—Renie.” Mavis rolled her eyes. “Now—go inside, shut the door, and come out again. Smiling. Got it?”

  As usual, Judith couldn’t say no. With a heavy sigh, she did as she was told. She was certain that the smile she presented for the camera probably looked like a death mask.

  “Now what?” she inquired in a flat tone.

  Mavis was consulting a ringed binder. “Let me think—we’ll need to sit down and talk about some of your other cases. As I recall, your living room is large and very photogenic.”

  This time, Judith held firm. “I have the police inside, remember? We’ll have to do this another time.”

  “The police!” Mavis beamed, then beckoned to her crew. “We’re doing an indoor shoot. Let’s hit it.”

  Before Judith could voice her objections, Mavis led the charge through the front door and into the parlor. Renie, Woody, and Sancha all looked up in surprise.