A Streetcar Named Expire Read online

  Gertrude was seated at her cluttered card table, proffering candy. The screen cut to a close-up; Gertrude mugged for the camera. “Sure, my girl’s always had a way with her when it comes to trouble. You should have seen her first…murder. The second one was almost as gruesome. I swore I couldn’t live…without her.”

  Judith gripped Renie’s arm. “Mother’s talking about my husbands, not homicides. They’ve chopped up the quotes. I’ll bet she said she wanted to murder Dan and that she couldn’t live under the same roof as Joe.”

  Renie merely nodded as Mavis resumed speaking. “Like mother like daughter, and both media-friendly. Indeed, our dauntless sleuth understands how the media, especially KINE-TV, can help.”

  On screen, Judith stood in the doorway. “I think you’re an outstanding newswoman,” she said with an earnest expression.

  Mavis, still in the front yard with Hillside Manor behind her, beamed into the camera. “Thanks for those kind words, Judith Flynn. We know you’ll be on top of this investigation, and KINE-TV will keep its viewers informed with every step our supersleuth takes.”

  Judith clicked off the TV, then put her head down and started to cry. “I can’t stand it!” she wept.

  “Hey,” Renie said, putting an arm around Judith’s shoulder, “it’s not that bad, really. You come off as a heroic figure.”

  “Heroic?” With tearstained cheeks, Judith looked up at Renie. “That’s not quite what I meant. I can’t stand up. It’s these damned hips. What am I going to do?”

  FOUR

  RENIE SERVED THE GUESTS their beverages and appetizers while Judith lay on the loveseat with a Scotch at her right hand and a heating pad on her right hip. It was seven o’clock before her cousin returned, bearing a tray with two green salads and two plates smothered in what looked suspiciously like Renie’s infamous shrimp dump. Of a yellow, lumpy, glue-like consistency, a serving had once been used by the Jones’s elder son, Tom, as ski wax. He’d told his mother it had worked quite well, but when it came to food, he’d prefer eating his skis. The rest of the Joneses, including Bill, sided with Tom.

  Judith winced as she examined the glop on her plate. “Did you make this for Mother, too?”

  Renie nodded.

  “What did she say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You mean she ate it?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  Judith winced some more. “What happened?”

  “She gave it to Sweetums. He loved it. I went back into the house and fixed your mother a Hungry Hunk roast beef TV dinner.”

  Judith relaxed a bit. “Good.”

  “How do you feel?” Renie inquired, stuffing her face with shrimp dump.

  “Stiff,” Judith replied. “Sore. Upset. I’ll call Dr. Alfonso first thing Monday for an appointment.”

  “Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’d better,” Renie said in a warning voice. “You keep putting it off in your procrastinating way.”

  “Not this time,” Judith said grimly. “It’s gotten to the point where my hips hurt almost all the time.”

  “I’ll spend the night,” Renie volunteered.

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Of course I don’t have to,” Renie replied with a spark in her eyes. “But you know I will.”

  “How did it go with the guests?” Judith inquired, reluctantly tasting the shrimp dump. Somewhere underneath were two pastry puffs. Amazingly, the concoction was actually palatable.

  “I got along fine with the current batch of visitors,” Renie said. “I kept my mouth shut.”

  “That’s a relief,” Judith said. “Say, this isn’t half-bad.”

  “Of course it’s not,” Renie said indignantly. “It’s like what my father used to say about the singed cat. It tastes better than it looks.”

  “I’ve thought about singeing Sweetums,” Judith said. “Say, did you bring in tonight’s newspaper?”

  “Yes.” Renie gobbled salad.

  “Where is it?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Unease crept over Judith. “What do you mean?”

  Renie avoided Judith’s gaze. “I was in a hurry, I had so much to do. Maybe I lost it.”

  “You did not. What’s in it?” Judith demanded.

  Renie made a face. “A picture? Some copy? The funny papers?”

  “Coz…”

  Renie threw up her hands, sending salad dressing in several directions. “Okay, okay. I’ll go get it. But you’re not going to be happy.”

  “I’m not happy now.” Judith sighed.

  Renie was gone so long that Judith began to wonder if her cousin really had mislaid the newspaper. When she finally came back, Woody Price was with her.

  “Woody!” Judith exclaimed. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon. Have a seat. Have you eaten?”

  Woody cringed slightly as he looked at the remains of the shrimp dump on Judith’s plate. “Er…no, but Sondra’s making manicotti. Or something like that. Thanks anyway.”

  “Have a seat,” Renie offered, pulling out the side chair that matched the loveseat.

  Woody sat down, but he didn’t look very comfortable. “I’m on my way home. In fact,” he said, “I waited for the autopsy report on Mrs. Carrabas. She was shot twice at close range with a 9 mm handgun.”

  “Have you any leads?” Judith asked.

  “Not yet,” Woody admitted. “That apartment house was full of people, between the tour, the construction workers, and some of the residents who were still collecting their belongings from their old units.”

  Judith nodded. “That complicates matters. But certainly most of those people wouldn’t know Mrs. Carrabas, let alone have a motive for killing her.”

  “Exactly.” Woody shifted in the chair. “Which is sort of why I stopped by. Gosh, I’m sorry your hips are giving you trouble. Renie says you may need surgery.”

  “Possibly,” Judith said. “I’m calling the surgeon next week.”

  “That’s smart,” Woody said. “The last time I saw Joe, he mentioned that you’d been having some problems.”

  “They’ve been coming on for quite a while,” Judith began, then narrowed her eyes at Woody. “You’re stalling. What’s going on?”

  Woody folded his hands in his lap and looked unhappy. For the first time, Judith noticed that there were flecks of gray in his dark hair and fine lines around his eyes and mouth. A decade ago, when she’d first met Woodrow Price, he’d been young, in his early thirties, with a new wife and a new partner, Joe Flynn. Now he was reaching middle age. Woody had the same wife, a different partner, and three children. Somehow, since Judith had been reunited with Joe after her unfortunate marriage to Dan, the ensuing years had flown by, like petals on a soft summer wind. She couldn’t stop the bittersweet smile that formed on her lips.

  Woody cleared his throat. “Maybe you’ve heard or read about some of the criticism lately regarding the force.”

  Judith had. Joe found much of the negative media reportage aggravating and unfounded. Still, he’d admitted, there were always chinks in the armor, bad apples in the barrel, and all those other cliché exceptions. What was worse, sometimes good cops got bum raps.

  “Well,” Woody continued, “there’s all this talk about a citizens’ advisory board of some kind. More involvement from the public. It seems,” he said, and his expression was now pained, “that the chief caught that story about you on KINE-TV this evening. He called me in just as I was getting ready to go home. He felt it might be good publicity to get you involved.”

  “Woody…” Judith began.

  He held up a hand. “Wait. Please. I know this is a terrible thing to ask. I know Joe won’t like it, either. But the chief thinks that since you’re the wife of a retired detective and the media are already on to you, it wouldn’t hurt to have you serve in a consulting capacity. A citizens’ advisory board is being set up. The chief would like you to serve on it. Naturally, you wouldn’t have to do any real
investigating, just give us some ideas and suggestions.” Woody’s dark eyes were pleading.

  “Oh, Woody.” Judith slowly shook her head.

  “Hold it,” Renie broke in. “Think this through. This afternoon you were practically foaming at the mouth because Jeremy Lamar painted Hillside Manor as Hotel Homicide. You can put a positive spin on that sorry little episode by taking the ball that Liz and Mavis tossed to you and running all the way to the end zone.”

  Judith glowered at Renie. “You’ve been watching too much preseason football.”

  Renie waved a hand in an impatient gesture. “You know what I mean. This is a golden opportunity. You’re the Mystery Maven, the Queen of Crime, the Duchess of Death. Use it.”

  “That’s absolutely awful,” Judith said.

  “Well, maybe it is a bit strong,” Renie allowed, “but if you’re worried about any bad publicity the tour may have generated, here’s a way to turn it around in your favor.”

  Judith shook her head. “I don’t like it. Not at all.”

  Woody was nodding. “I can understand that.” With apparent effort, he rose from the chair. “I’ll go back to the chief and tell him you refused.”

  Noting Woody’s slumped shoulders, Judith grimaced. “Wait. I don’t want to get you in trouble. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you.” She paused, biting her lip. “Okay—but just in an advisory capacity. And only temporarily. I don’t have much spare time to attend meetings.”

  Woody’s face lit up. “Judith, you’re wonderful.” He hurried over to the loveseat and kissed her cheek.

  “No soft soap,” she warned. “It’s because we’re friends, and you know it. But if Joe disapproves, the deal’s off the table.”

  Woody nodded eagerly. “Of course. But for now, I’ll tell the chief you’re considering it.”

  “Do I get paid?” Judith asked as an afterthought.

  Halfway to the door, Woody stopped. “I don’t know,” he confessed.

  “Check it out,” Judith said with a straight face. “The Monarch of Mayhem doesn’t come cheap.”

  Woody grinned and left the room.

  The only solace Judith could find in the evening newspaper was that she didn’t appear on page one. The story of Aimee Carrabas’s murder did, however, though the account kept to the bare facts:

  “The body of Aimee Carrabas, a self-styled exorcist, was found shot to death this afternoon at the Alhambra Arms on lower Heraldsgate Hill. The fifty-two-year old Carrabas of Studio City, California, had been shot twice in the chest. Police are investigating.”

  The article continued, mostly about the Alhambra condo project and George Guthrie’s attempt to exorcise the ghost of a woman who had been murdered a half-century ago. A brief reference was made to the discovery of “a stash of jewels under the floorboards, the value of which has not yet been determined.” The story jumped to a page toward the rear of the section where Judith gaped at a grainy two-column photograph of herself cowering next to the walnut bureau.

  “I look hysterical, deranged,” she wailed. “All I need is one of those black bandanas and a ragged shawl. I’d be mistaken for the mother of an earthquake victim or the widow of a slain refugee. Have you ever seen me so demented?”

  Considering the question, Renie gazed at the photo for longer than Judith thought was necessary. “Well…Not since your mother dropped her dentures in the blender.”

  “Don’t be such a smart-ass,” Judith snapped. “I mean it—how could I look so crazed?”

  “It’s a bad angle,” Renie replied, flicking at the photo with her finger. “Inadequate lighting, too. At least your pants aren’t falling down.”

  “Thanks.” Judith crumpled the newspaper and tossed it on the floor next to the loveseat. “First I get quoted out of context on TV, then I show up in the paper looking like I should be carted off to the booby hatch.”

  “I believe,” Renie said with irksome calm, “it’s called a mental hospital these days. You sound like your mother.”

  “I feel like my mother,” Judith grumbled. “All stiff and sore and about a hundred years old.”

  “I know,” Renie soothed. “But at least the newspaper story kept your part brief.”

  That much was true. Judith had been relegated to the last paragraph:

  “The body was found by Judith Flynn, a member of the Toujours La Tour group that was visiting the Alhambra as part of its inaugural excursion to various crime-related sites around the city.”

  The caption under the photograph had been only slightly less restrained: “Judith Flynn, a Heraldsgate Hill innkeeper, reacts with horror and dismay after finding the murdered body of Aimee Carrabas at the historic Alhambra Arms.”

  “See?” said Renie. “It could be worse.”

  She was right. Joe Flynn exploded when he spotted a similar, if less hideous, photo of his wife in the Saturday morning paper while en route from Alaska. Bill Jones confided to Renie that if Joe hadn’t been wearing his seatbelt during a bout of turbulence, he might have hit his head on the DC-10’s ceiling.

  “How could you do this?” Joe raged at Judith after Renie had brought the returning fishermen from the airport.

  “Three thirty-pound Kings,” Bill said, smiling at Renie, “all in one morning. We couldn’t believe it.”

  “I can’t believe you could get yourself into a mess like this,” Joe declared. “A tour? Why would you take a tour in your own hometown?”

  “We took a side tour to see the humpback whales,” Bill said, removing Joe’s heavy-duty raingear from the Camry’s trunk. “They’re huge, magnificent. We saw a cow with her calf, both sending up water spouts. It was a truly remarkable sight.”

  “You look like a sight,” Joe asserted, slapping at the picture of Judith on the front page of the local section. “Couldn’t you have ducked away from the camera?”

  “We saw ducks and geese and waterfowl I didn’t even recognize,” Bill said in an awestruck tone. “There were bear and deer, and the other morning we saw a moose wading in…”

  Judith stomped into the house and slammed the door.

  “What the hell’s the matter with her?” Joe asked, suddenly looking puzzled.

  Renie let go of Bill’s arm and faced Joe. “She just realized that there was a jackass in the driveway. I think that’s enough wildlife for Judith.”

  Joe passed a hand over his forehead. “Hey, I didn’t mean to be so rough on her. But my God, I can’t leave my wife alone for a few days without her getting into a big mess. What’s worse, this time she landed in the newspaper.”

  “It’s my fault,” Renie insisted. “She had to be coaxed. Now go be nice to her. She’s had a bad fall and her hips are killing her.”

  Joe scowled at Renie, but finally headed inside. Renie and Bill began unloading Joe’s belongings, including his catch, from the Camry’s trunk.

  Judith was nowhere in sight, so Joe assumed she’d gone up to the family quarters. As he started for the back stairs, however, he heard voices coming from the front of the house.

  Hearing her husband approach, Judith stiffened. She didn’t know which was worse—Joe’s angry outburst or Jeremy Lamar’s attempt at an apology. Gertrude was right. Men were skunks.

  “Please,” Jeremy Lamar was saying, “if you’d let me in, I could explain everything. Please?”

  “You defamed me,” Judith asserted. “I should sue the socks off you. And you weren’t even accurate.”

  Joe put an arm around Judith. “What’s all this?” he asked, scowling at the newcomer in the doorway.

  Judith jerked away from Joe. “It’s a long story. Butt out.”

  “Please,” Jeremy begged, “could I come in so we can sort this out?”

  “What’s the point?” Judith shot back. “Your intentions in stopping at Hillside Manor seemed pretty damned obvious. Not to mention that you got me into a situation where I found a dead body and I ended up on TV and all over the newspapers.” She whirled on Joe. “Which is the reason my husband here
is acting like a big jerk.”

  “Now wait a minute—” Joe began.

  “Butt out, I said,” Judith snapped, turning back to Jeremy Lamar. “Okay, I’ll give you two minutes.”

  Judith led Jeremy into the front parlor. Joe lingered in the entry hall. “Now,” Judith said, gingerly seating herself in one of the armchairs, “make it quick and to the point.”

  Jeremy had also sat down but he leaned way over in his chair, gazing at the door. “If that’s your husband, then it must be Joe Flynn.”

  “Brilliant,” Judith said sarcastically. “You’ve got one minute and forty seconds left.”

  “He’s a private detective, isn’t he?” Jeremy said. “I want to hire him.”

  Judith was taken aback. “You do? Why?”

  “Because I’ve heard he’s good,” Jeremy replied, his boyish face earnest. Indeed, up close and no longer doing his tour guide shtick, he looked much older, perhaps close to forty. “Don’t get me wrong, I respect the police, but I think this case is going to be difficult to solve. I mean, I’ve talked it over with George Guthrie, and we’re both willing to pay Mr. Flynn more than the going rate.”

  Judith glanced into the entry hall. She couldn’t see Joe, but she knew he was there. “You’d have to,” she said. “He’s very busy right now.” That much was true, though Judith knew that the insurance scams, the divorce dirt digging, and the dognappings were wearing thin.

  Jeremy nodded gravely. “I understand. But George and I will pay him enough to make up for any inconvenience. See, we figure an official investigation will go on forever, maybe even fall between the cracks if a bigger case comes along. But speed is of the essence. George can’t sell condos with an unsolved murder on his hands.”

  “And you?” Judith inquired with a slight smile.

  Jeremy’s ruddy skin grew darker. “It’d be a feather in my cap to beat the police to the punch. I mean, here I am, running a murder mystery tour. If I could be in on the investigation—I mean, without interfering—that would be good publicity. As it is, it’s sort of…bad.”