Gone With the Win: A Bed-And-Breakfast Mystery (4 page)

“It must be,” Arlene said. She hurried off to the kitchen.

Ruby was groaning and had flung a hand over her eyes. “Oooh . . . what . . . ?”

“It’s me . . . Judith. You’re at our neighbors’ house. You’ll be fine.”

“Huh?” Ruby removed her arm and blinked several times. “That light . . . can you turn it down?”

“Sure.” Judith reached around to click off the lamp on the end table. “Coffee’s coming.”

“Coffee.” Ruby uttered the word as if it were foreign to her.

“Can you sit up if I help you?”

“Not sure.” Ruby licked her dry lips. “What happened? I feel like I was run over by a truck.”

“You’re lucky you weren’t,” Judith said, but immediately felt repentant. “I mean, how did you get here?”

Ruby had raised her head and her bloodshot eyes were wide open. “I’m not sure. Where did you say we are?”

Arlene appeared with a tray, three mugs, cream, sugar, and artificial sweetener. “You’re at our house,” she said, setting the tray on the end table. “I’m Arlene. Carl is downstairs with Joe watching tall men in long shorts with names like Dako and Manu and Nazr and Beno and Radoslav and Tim. Wouldn’t you think Tim would feel out of place? And Tony, too.” She shook her head.

Ruby looked justifiably confused. She stared at Judith. “Are you sure you know where we are?”

Judith nodded. “Yes.”

“Does it matter?” Arlene asked. “
We
know where you are. Have some coffee. It’s Sully’s. Carl and I like it very much. For all I know, Tim and Tony do, too.” She poured coffee into a mug. “Sugar? Cream?”

“Black,” Ruby answered, still looking dazed as she turned from Arlene to Judith. “Do you know what happened to me?”

“No,” Judith replied. “Do you mean you don’t remember anything?”

Ruby inched her way up on the throw pillows and took the coffee mug from Arlene. “I’m not sure. I took the bus downtown and transferred to the one that went out to the Thurlow District. I found our old house, but I almost didn’t recognize the place. It’s been updated.” She blew on the coffee before taking a sip. “Then I walked around the block. No vacant lots, condos instead. Most of the houses looked like they’d been fixed up. At least one had been torn down and a real modern glass thing had been built in its place. Kind of ugly.” She put a hand to her head. “Anybody got aspirin?”

“I’ll get some,” Arlene volunteered. “And water.” She dashed back to the kitchen.

Judith helped Ruby sit up straighter. “Did you walk through the business district?”

Ruby nodded. “It’s only three blocks from where I grew up at the end of the bus line. Man, but it’s grown! I had lunch at a real nice café not far from where The Meat & Mingle used to be. That’s where I met . . .” Her face scrunched up in confusion. “Who was it?”

Arlene had returned with the aspirin and water. “Nazr? Manu? Tim?” She made a self-deprecating gesture. “I’m just throwing out names. You never know when one will hit home.”

“None of the above,” Ruby replied glumly, swallowing the aspirin with a gulp of water. “Damn! I can’t remember anything!”

Judith pointed to Ruby’s cheek. “Somehow you got a bruise. Did you fall? Or . . . ?” She left the query unfinished.

Ruby scowled. “Did somebody slug me? I’m blank. Could I have a concussion?”

Judith grimaced. “You might. Maybe we should go to the ER.”

But Ruby emphatically shook her head. “Forget it. All I want to do is sleep. If I’ve got a headache, it’s from a hangover. I ought to know—I’ve done it before.”

Judith hesitated, but decided not to argue. “Okay. Finish your coffee while I get Joe.”

“I’ll do that,” Arlene said, already heading toward the hall. “I’d like to see if Tony and Tim have adjusted to playing with those people who have such peculiar names. And why are those shorts so long? They aren’t at all short. They look like
frocks
to me.”

Ruby turned to Judith. “Is she for real?”

Judith smiled. “Arlene is one of the most real people on the planet. She’s the best neighbor and a very good friend. She just has a different way of making people think about things.”

“If you say so,” Ruby remarked doubtfully before she took another swig from her mug. “She makes damned good coffee, I’ll say that.”

Joe and Carl reappeared with Arlene. “Let’s take Ruby to our house,” Joe said. “It’s still raining hard.”

Ruby offered Joe a weak smile. “Thanks. You guys are great. I’m not used to people looking out for me.”

Five minutes later, Joe, Judith, and Ruby arrived at Hillside Manor’s back door. “Go ahead,” Joe said to Judith. “I’ve got Ruby.”

As usual, the back door was unlocked until ten o’clock. Judith stepped inside and thought the hallway seemed strangely cool. After hanging her jacket on a peg, she entered the kitchen. The usually pristine floor was tracked with dark patches.

“Joe?” she said, turning around to see him helping Ruby down the hall. “Did you come back over here?”

“No,” he said. “Has your mother vandalized the place?”

“It’s not Mother . . . her wheelchair would leave long tracks. Look.”

Joe kept his arm around Ruby. “Jesus!” he said under his breath. “Did a guest . . .” He steered Ruby into a kitchen chair. “Stay here. Both of you,” he ordered, suddenly the brisk, controlled policeman that Judith remembered from their first meeting forty years earlier. She stood motionless as he brushed past her, through the swinging half doors, and presumably into the front hall.

Ruby propped her head up on one hand. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Judith said, but jumped when she heard Joe swear again. “Something’s not quite right.”

“One of your guests?” Ruby inquired.

Judith shook her head. She couldn’t hear any further sound from Joe. Growing more anxious by the second, she was about to head for the front of the house when he returned to the kitchen, cell phone at his ear. “That’s right. The cul-de-sac. You make one smart-ass comment about 911 being called to this address and I’ll give you the address of the unemployment office.” He clicked off.

“What is it?” Judith asked.

Joe grimaced. “Lippy 911 operator,” he muttered, putting the cell back in his shirt pocket. “Okay,” he finally said, leaning on the back of an empty kitchen chair. “We probably had an intruder. Whoever it was came in through the back door but didn’t go out that way. Instead—I don’t know this for sure—whoever it was probably went to another part of the house because the wet marks end in the front hall.”

Judith shivered. “Is the intruder still here?”

Joe shook his head. “No, because the front door was open. I suspect whoever it was left when he—or she—heard us coming through the back. Until the cops get here, we don’t leave the kitchen.” He gave both Judith and Ruby a dour look. “Relax, ladies. Pretend you can enjoy yourselves. For now, Hillside Manor is a crime scene. What else is new?”

Chapter 4

T
he patrol officers who arrived within five minutes were known to the Flynns. They were also known to each other as an old and tired joke. The tall, lanky female was Smith; her short, stocky male partner was Wesson. After two years on the Heraldsgate Hill beat, Smith and Wesson had heard it all and laughed at none of it.

Judith remained in the kitchen with Ruby, but recognized the voices of the officers talking to Joe in the entry hall. “These cops are rather young, but they know what they’re doing,” she assured her bleary-eyed guest. “I’m glad they didn’t use their siren. Are you sure I can’t get you something to drink?”

“I feel like I’ve had plenty to drink,” Ruby replied, “but I don’t remember doing it. If I’m hungover, I’d like to know if I had fun.”

“Don’t push yourself,” Judith cautioned. “You may be in shock. After a good night’s sleep, things may start coming back to you.” She paused, hearing the voices of the trio grow fainter. “Joe must be going around the house with them. I wonder if they went into the living room or upstairs.”

Ruby looked up at the kitchen’s high ceiling. “Can you hear them walking around up there?”

Judith shook her head. “Not unless they tromp. As you may’ve noticed, the hall is carpeted.” She paused again. “Yes, they have gone upstairs. If they’d stayed on this floor, we could still hear them. I imagine Joe checked out the parlor and the living and dining rooms while he was waiting, so I assume nothing was amiss. I wonder if I should check on Mother. Do you mind if I run out to make sure she’s okay?”

Ruby shrugged. “Go ahead.”

Judith grabbed her jacket to ward off the rain. To her relief, Gertrude was at the card table, playing solitaire. “Well?” the old lady said. “To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?”

“I just thought I’d see if you were all right,” Judith explained. “Sometimes an accident like yours has a delayed reaction.”

Gertrude narrowed her faded blue eyes. “Like death?”

Judith expelled an exasperated sigh. “No, Mother. You know I worry about you.”

“Okay, Toots, I’ll give you credit for that much.” She slapped an ace on a deuce and palmed a string of clubs. “Gotcha! I win this game.”

“Good for you. It’s been quiet around here tonight, right? I mean, so you could focus on the cards.”

Gertrude scowled. “I can always focus on the cards. It’s your aunt Deb who drives me nuts when we play bridge. She likes to gab, and then we get into it when she’s my partner. I’m not there to visit, I’m there to . . .” Her eyes narrowed. “What’s going on? You find another stiff on the front porch?”

“Of course not!” Judith winced. Gertrude was the only person who could see through her daughter’s so-called fibs. “Okay, okay. Someone apparently came in the back door and walked through the house. It could’ve been a guest, but they usually use the front door because they have a key and know we don’t lock up until ten.”

“Did you call the cops or is Lunkhead pretending he remembers how to figure out how his pants got stolen while he was wearing them?”

“Two patrol officers are going through the house now.”

“So Dim Bulb doesn’t remember,” Gertrude said, putting the deck into her card shuffler. “I hope he’s not running around in his BVDs.”

“He’s not.” Judith remained patient. “Just make sure you’re locked in, and if you hear anything unusual, let me know.”

“Like your so-called better half’s brain working? If that happens, I won’t call you, I’ll call the
Times
and the TV stations. That’s
news
.”

Judith leaned down to kiss her mother’s cheek. “Fine. Just be careful.” She hurried out of the toolshed, but made sure that the door was securely locked behind her.

When she returned to the kitchen, Joe was coming through the half doors from the dining room. “I used your master key so Smith and Wesson could check all the rooms,” he said, looking grim. “Only one was disturbed.” His gaze turned to Ruby. “You’re in Room Two, right?” He didn’t wait for a response. “It’s been trashed. What have you got that somebody wants?”

Ruby looked startled. “Nothing. I travel light. Besides, I don’t have anything worth stealing. Not even over-the-counter meds.”

Joe nodded once. “Okay, you can check to see if anything’s missing as soon as the cops finish processing the room. They don’t expect to find much, but you never know. I’m making sure they vacuum.”

“Vacuum?” Ruby was obviously puzzled.

“For hair, fibers, whatever,” Joe said . . . and grinned. “Don’t you watch crime shows on TV?”

Ruby shook her head. “I’ve seen enough crime in real life.”

Joe leaned against the fridge. “It’s how they collect samples for DNA. That’s what piqued your interest in your mother’s case, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ruby agreed, “but I don’t know how it works. I mean, I don’t know how they find the stuff they use to figure out that somebody was the wrong perp or the real one wasn’t caught in the first place.”

“Technology moves fast these days,” Joe said, his head cocked in the direction of the entry hall. “The patrol officers aren’t equipped to do a thorough job, so they’ve called in the forensics specialists. It may take a while before you can go up to your room, but can you tell me what you left behind here?”

Ruby looked askance. “You’re lucky I can tell you my name right now.” She put her elbows on the table and cradled her head in her hands. “One travel bag with nightgown, underwear, a sweater, a couple of pairs of socks, jeans, a sweatshirt . . . oh, travel slippers. Some makeup. A toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, birth control pills . . .” She paused, apparently expecting some kind of reaction from the Flynns. There was none. Ruby continued with her recital. “Travel alarm clock, heavy-duty nail file, and Fermin the Vermin, my stuffed hamster. He’s my good-luck charm. Oh—my journal. I started keeping one after I moved to Little Bavaria. It helped me get over the ski bum who dumped me.”

Joe’s expression hadn’t change. “Okay. No camera?”

“No. I’ve got one on my cell.”

“Is that in your purse?” Joe asked.

“Yes.” Ruby looked around. “Where
is
my purse?”

Judith also gave the kitchen a quick check. “I don’t think you had it with you. It must be at the Rankerses’ house. I’ll call them.” She stood up to get the phone from the counter. Joe left the kitchen, presumably to check on Smith and Wesson.

Arlene answered. “Goodness,” she said in response to the question, “I don’t think Ruby had a purse with her. Or maybe Carl put it somewhere after he helped her get inside. Let me ask him. He’s still downstairs watching the tall shorts people with the peculiar names.”

Hearing a door open, Judith realized that Arlene was taking the phone with her. Soft footsteps followed, then the faint voice of a sportscaster saying, “Duncan grabs the rebound, passes off to Barry . . .” Arlene spoke to Carl, but Judith couldn’t quite make out what she said or what he responded.

Arlene was back upstairs. “Ruby didn’t have a purse,” she said. “She must’ve lost it. Carl checked the porch and the walk. No luck, I’m afraid. Was she mugged?”

“I don’t know,” Judith answered slowly, her back turned to Ruby.
Drugged,
she thought,
might be more like it
. “Thanks, Ar—”

“Exactly. Are they making a social call or . . . you know.”

“Uh—know what?”

“What I was going to ask. Are the police just in the neighborhood and happened to drop by or did you find another . . . how should I put it? Future obituary?”

“No!” Judith winced, but kept her back turned. “We may have had a prowler.”

“Oh.” Arlene sounded disappointed. “Here comes Carl. The game must be over. I’m glad. I feel embarrassed for those poor young men who have to wear frocks on TV. Maybe their names are so odd because they use aliases. I would. Or would I? I do wear a frock for the right occasion, but basketball isn’t one of them.” She rang off.

Judith finally sat back down and looked at Ruby. “You didn’t have a purse with you.”

The bald statement clearly stunned the other woman. “Damn! You mean it got snatched?”

“Maybe,” Judith allowed. “Or you dropped it somewhere.”

Ruby held her head again. “What the hell is going on?”

Judith didn’t respond. She heard the front door open and Joe speak to a woman . . . and then a man. The voices were swallowed up in the stairwell as they moved to the second floor,

“The forensics specialists,” Judith murmured. “They’ll collect the specimens. If there are any.”

“I wish they could find my money, my credit cards, my cell phone, my ID, my . . .” Ruby’s bloodshot eyes welled up with tears. “Why do I always have such rotten luck?”

Judith reached across the table to put her hand on Ruby’s arm. “Hey—don’t make yourself sick. You’re here with us. We’ll get this sorted out somehow. You need to rest. As soon as they finish in your room, I’m going to put you to bed. Unless you’re hungry. Are you?”

Ruby wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “I’m empty, but I’m not hungry.”

“I saved you some spare ribs.”

Ruby looked surprised. “You did? That was real nice of you. But maybe I’ll just have some toast.”

“Sure.” Judith got up. A glance at the old schoolhouse clock told her it was going on nine. Some of the guests would be returning soon. She grimaced, wondering how to explain the cruiser and a police department van parked by the B&B. “Maybe,” she said, after putting a slice of bread in the toaster, “you’ll remember some of what happened to you in the morning. Trauma often causes temporary amnesia.”

“Do I want to remember?” Ruby asked grimly.

“It might not be pleasant, but it
is
important, especially if a crime has been committed.”

Ruby looked jarred. “You mean maybe I was raped?”

“No,” Judith said quietly, “but somebody may have stolen your purse. How much money did you have in it?”

“A little over two hundred bucks,” Ruby replied. “Hey, wouldn’t somebody at that café know something? It’s the last thing I do remember.” She made a face. “Damn. I don’t recall the name . . . something about a cat, maybe.”

“That won’t be hard to find if it’s near the site of The Meat & Mingle.” She removed the toast and buttered it. “Jam? Jelly?”

“Why not?”

“Raspberry, strawberry, or blackberry?”

Ruby smiled. “Blackberry. If I didn’t feel so crappy, this would be kind of fun. Somebody’s waiting on me for a change instead of the other way around.”

Judith spread a thick layer of jelly on the toast, set it on a plate, and handed it to Ruby. “You may think of me as a sleuth or a tourist or a business owner, but basically, I’m just a glorified waitress and housekeeper. Oh—and a bartender when Dan and I owned The Meat & Mingle. But my real career used to be as a librarian. Let me check the computer for that restaurant.”

Ruby hadn’t eaten half the toast before Judith came up with a name. “The Persian Cat?”

“That’s right,” Ruby said, grinning. “The guy who seemed to be running it wore a turban. Maybe he’s Persian. Or would that be Indian? All those countries over there confuse me.”

“For all I know, he may’ve been born in the Thurlow District,” Judith said, jotting down the phone number. “That might explain his confusion about headgear. They could be closing about now. I think I’ll let Joe call the restaurant when he’s done with the police work. Assuming, of course, they’ll answer if it’s after hours. It’s best to get information as soon as possible from witnesses.”

“You sound like a cop.”

Judith shrugged. “I’ve lived with one for fifteen years.”

“That’s great. You guys seem happy.”

“We are.” She sat down. “We both had unhappy first marriages. We’d been engaged before we . . . got offtrack.” She grew silent, hearing voices in the entry hall. “The police may be leaving,” she said softly.

Judith was right. Joe came back into the kitchen. “All clear. Feeling better, Ruby?”

“A little. Your wife is great.”

Joe moved behind Judith’s chair and put his hands on her shoulders. “I know that. She comes from great stock. Just like her mother.”

“Joe . . .” Judith made a face. “Don’t listen to him. He and my mother don’t get along.” She craned her neck to give Joe a dirty look.

He squeezed Judith’s shoulders, but ignored her reaction. “Can you describe your journal?”

Ruby frowned. “Nothing fancy. Dark green cover, drawing of trees and mountains with the word ‘Musings.’ ”

Joe shook his head. “I’m afraid we didn’t see it. Did you have anything else in the room with personal information?”

Ruby reflected briefly. “No. But my purse is missing. My ID and credit cards and my cell are in it.”

Joe nodded. “Right.”

Judith and Ruby waited for Joe to elaborate, but he didn’t. Instead, he removed his hands from his wife’s shoulders and started down the back hall. “I’m going up to my office for a few minutes.”

Ruby frowned at Judith. “What does that mean?”

“He wants to think,” Judith said. “Did you tell anybody what you planned to do while you were in the city? About your mom, I mean.”

“No. It was none of their business. I told my boss at the restaurant that I wanted to get away for a few days. I had the time coming, so it wasn’t a big deal.”

It was Judith’s turn to mull. “Did you talk to anyone in the old neighborhood? Before you got to The Persian Cat, I mean?”

“I didn’t run into anybody I knew. I planned to check out a couple of old pals, but I never got around to it. Are you going to ask Mr. Flynn to call the restaurant?”

“Maybe I should do that,” Judith said, noting that the schoolhouse clock was ticking its way toward 9:20. “I don’t know how long Joe’s going to be upstairs. And please call us by our first names. You’re not a stranger.”

Ruby’s smile lighted up her tired face. “I doubt you’ve ever met a stranger.”

Judith smiled back, though a bit ruefully. “That’s what my first husband’s mother said about me. It was grudging—and about the only nice thing she ever did say to me.”