All the Pretty Hearses

All the Pretty Hearses

A Bed-and-Breakfast Mystery

Mary Daheim

Dedication

To all my children,

who return the love I’ve given them with interest

Author’s Note

The action of this book takes place in early
2005.

Contents

Chapter One

J
udith McMonigle Flynn flinched, winced, and wondered why Cousin Renie was screaming her head off while trying to batter down the back door of Hillside Manor.

“What’s wrong with you?” Judith demanded, opening the door. “Are you insane or being chased by ravenous wolves?”

Renie virtually fell across the threshold. “Both,” she gasped, leaning against the wall next to the pantry. “That’s the last time I ever stop by the parish school office to drop off my Campbell’s Soup labels.”

Judith gestured for Renie to follow her into the kitchen. “I didn’t realize you still saved them after all these years. You haven’t had a kid at Our Lady, Star of the Sea School for twenty-five years.” She pulled out a kitchen chair for her cousin. “Sit. Stop hyperventilating. Coffee?”

Renie shook her head as she flopped into the chair. “Old habits die hard. Old SOTS just die,” she went on, using the acronym for her fellow parishioners, “but not before they can avoid falling into the clutches of younger parents who are active school fund-raisers.”

“Oh.” Judith sat down across from Renie. “I managed to avoid some of that by going into exile out on Thurlow Street with Dan. My son’s tenure at SOTS was all too brief before he had to attend public school. Since I held down two jobs, I was rarely an active parent except when I’d try to find where he’d hidden his latest report card.”

“Count your blessings,” Renie murmured. She twisted around to look at the old schoolhouse clock. “Almost noon. I could’ve sworn it was five o’clock. The last twenty minutes seemed like hours.” She reached for the sheep-shaped cookie jar on the table. “I’m hungry. They’re having hamburger lunch today at school. I was tempted to wait for the delivery from Doc’s Burgers and steal one.” She tapped the cookie jar’s lid. “What’s in here?”

“Stale Christmas cookies,” Judith responded. “I vowed not to bake again until January tenth. Between running the B&B and all the holiday goodies, I’m tapped.”

“Hmm.” Renie’s brown eyes twinkled. “You, too, will be dragooned into this charitable work. You’re a parishioner. Contributors aren’t limited to school parents. In fact, you don’t even have to be a SOT.”

“If you told me what it is,” Judith said, “I’d know how to avoid it.”

“Martha Morelli has the last of her five kids in eighth grade this year,” Renie said. “You know what a demon she is for fund-raising. It’s not enough to have the annual auction, the crab dinner, the St. Patrick’s Day dinner, the Italian dinner, the sauerkraut dinner, the First Martyrs of the Church of Rome dinner . . .”

Judith held up a hand. “Whoa. We don’t have a . . . what did you just say?”

“Oh.” Renie held her head. “That’s right. Bridget McDonough suggested that event a couple of years ago, but Father Hoyle pointed out that the First Martyrs in Rome
were
dinner. For the lions, that is. Nero’s Circus Maximus was short on clowns and trained seals.”

“Not all the fund-raisers are for the school, though,” Judith remarked. “Yes, they had the Christmas wreath and poinsettia sale in early December, but the spring auction is the major source of school funding. It’s been enormously successful.”

Renie nodded. “We lucked out with some of the city’s high-profile athletes moving to Heraldsgate Hill and joining the parish. But now they’ve either retired or been traded. That’s part of the problem, so they’re looking at additional revenue producers. Martha wants to put a cookbook together. Guess who she wants to design it.”

Judith laughed. “That’s logical. You
are
a graphic designer.”

“Yes,” Renie conceded with a longing look at the cookie jar. “But I’m trying to scale down. This year I’m only taking on the gas company’s annual report, but my deadline is late January. Plus I’m doing a brochure for Key Largo Bank and reworking somebody’s in-house botched newsletter for retired city lighting employees. Both are due in mid-February, the same as the cookbook. Martha should’ve asked me sooner, like in the fall.”

“Why didn’t she?”

“She insists she tried to get hold of me in early November, but we’d all gone on our Boston trip,” Renie explained. “By the time you and I got back, it was mid-November, and Martha was caught up with Thanksgiving and Christmas. So were we, for that matter.”

Judith got up from the chair. “I’ve got to start making Mother’s lunch. If you’re hungry enough to eat the sheep’s head on the cookie jar, I’ll make you a sandwich, too.”

“No, thanks,” Renie said. “I should go home. Oh—by the way, we’re all supposed to contribute cookbook recipes. That includes you.”

“I can do that,” Judith said. “What are you going to offer?”

Renie was on her feet, rummaging in the new—and huge—handbag Bill had given her for Christmas. “Shrimp Dump.”

Judith almost dropped the mustard jar she’d taken out of the fridge. “I hope you’re kidding.”

“No. Hey, I like it.”

“Nobody else does.”

“You mean like you and the rest of my family?”

“More like the rest of the world. Why not offer your Bean Glop and Clam Doodoo, too? The names alone would make most people gag.”

“Hey—have you forgotten that at one of my bridal showers the guests were asked to bring their two favorite recipes and your contributions were Pottsfield Pickles and How to Can a Tuna Fish?”

“That was over forty years ago,” Judith said, placing two ham slices on the cutting block in the middle of the kitchen. “Well . . . you knew I was joking. You aren’t.”

“That’s right.” Renie clutched her key ring and slung the handbag over her shoulder. “Oh—there’s another new parish event on the schedule for next fall. This one you’ll love.”

Judith regarded her cousin warily. “What?”

“Alicia and Reggie Beard-Smythe want to sponsor a hunt-club outing. Shall I sign you up now?”

“Very funny,” Judith said drily. “Will my horse have an artificial hip like mine?”

“I’m sure that could be arranged.” Renie headed through the hallway to the back door. “See ya.”

“Wait,” Judith called. “Is this hunt-club thing serious?”

Renie turned around. “Yes. There’s a new hunt club over on the Eastside. The Beard-Smythes are avid hunters. For a mere three hundred bucks apiece, parishioners can take part in a hunt. Horse provided, bad riding habits optional. The money goes to SOTS.”

“It’s a good thing all those dot-com zillionaires have moved to Heraldsgate Hill in recent years,” Judith said. “The Beard-Smythes might get some of them to sign up. I assume you won’t be one of them.”

“Correct. As you may recall, I was the first person to ride a horse on the I-5 Interstate before it was completed. I did not want to do that, but my horse did. I never got on a horse again and don’t intend to.”

“Good thinking,” Judith said.

“Which reminds me,” Renie said, “when do the guests arrive for their free overnight?”

Judith clapped a hand to her cheek. “Oh my God! I forgot about them. Let me check my schedule.”

Renie followed her cousin back into the kitchen. “The auction was in May,” Judith said, sitting down at her computer on the counter. “I completely forgot I’d offered that overnight during the slow January season.” She paused, scrolling through Hillside Manor’s January confirmations. “This Friday, January seventh. Norma and Wilbur Paine bought it for their children and grandchildren. I can’t believe they have grandchildren old enough to stay at a B&B.”

“I could never believe they had children,” Renie remarked. “Nobody as homely as the Paines should’ve been allowed to procreate.”

Judith pointed at the names with her cursor. “Andrew and Paulina Paine, Walter and Sonya Paine, Sarah and Dennis Blair, Hannah and Zachary Conrad, Chad and Chase Paine, Zoë Paine and Octavia Blair. Does that sound right to you?”

Renie shrugged. “The Paines had kids in the school, but they were older than ours. I vaguely recall that Hannah was a year ahead of Tony—or was it Tom?”

“So Chad and Chase—I assume they’re both boys—must belong to either Andrew or Walter Paine,” Judith said. “Oh— Zoë, too. Octavia has to be Sarah’s daughter.”

“Was dinner included?”

“I’m afraid it was,” Judith replied. “I must’ve had a weak moment.”

“Does it say where these Paines live? If I’ve seen them at Mass, I haven’t recognized them.”

“No,” Judith said, turning away from the monitor. “The only contact information is for Norma and Wilbur. I don’t recall running into any of their offspring at church. Maybe they all moved away.”

“Good thinking on their part,” Renie remarked, once again heading for the back door. “I’d move, too, if Norma was my mother.” She stopped suddenly, a stunned expression on her round face. “My God—do you think that’s why all three of our kids live so far away?”

“Probably. If I were you, I’d blame it on the Shrimp Dump.”

Renie glowered at Judith. “Right. I now formally withdraw my offer to help you with the dinner Friday night.”

“You didn’t volunteer.”

“I didn’t?” Renie shrugged. “It crossed my mind. Say, maybe the Paines would like Shrimp Dump for dinner.”

“I’m not that desperate.”

“Let me know if you change your mind.” Renie made her exit.

“Not a chance,” Judith murmured under her breath, keeping an eye on Sweetums, the orange-and-white feline whose legal human and kindred spirit was Judith’s mother. The cat had entered the house before Renie closed the door behind her.

Ten minutes later, Judith went out to the converted toolshed that served as her mother’s apartment. Gertrude Grover peered suspiciously at the sandwich her daughter set on the cluttered card table. “You call this ham?” the old lady rasped. “It looks like linoleum to me.”

“It’s the ham we had for New Year’s Day dinner,” Judith informed her mother.

“Which New Year’s?” Gertrude snapped. “How about 1995?”

“The New Year’s dinner we had Saturday,” Judith said patiently. “It’s Tuesday. You’re the one who kept ham until it turned blue.”

Gertrude poked a gnarled finger at the newspaper in front of her. “You see this? Elder abuse, that’s what. This is part two of a series on how children torture their aging parents. Spoiled pork must be one of the ways they do it. It gives old folks like me trigonomosis.”

“You mean trichinosis,” Judith said.

Gertrude glared at her daughter. “Isn’t that what I just told you? You must be going deaf, too. You’re already daffy.”

“Do you want me to take a bite first?”

Gertrude snatched up the plate. “Aha! Now you want to starve me! By the time I get through to the last part of this series on Friday, I may be dead. And where’s the rest of that cheesecake you bought at Begelman’s Bakery for New Year’s Eve?”

“We ate it,” Judith replied. “Do you want some of Kristin’s Fattigmann Bakkels?”

“I don’t like bagels,” Gertrude declared. “Especially fat ones. They’re too hard to chew with my dentures.”

“They’re not bagels,” Judith said. “They’re Norwegian Christmas . . . never mind.” The old lady was chomping away at the ham sandwich. Kristin’s colossal output of holiday foodstuffs was probably past its pull date. Judith never ceased to be awed by her daughter-in-law’s prodigious domestic enterprises. “If you want a sweet, Mother, you must’ve gotten ten pounds of Granny Goodness chocolates for Christmas. I assume you haven’t eaten all of them in ten days.”

“Ten days of what?” Gertrude asked, stabbing a fork into one of the gherkins on her plate. “I thought there were twelve days of Christmas. Or have the lunkheads in the Vatican changed that with everything else, too? And whatever happened to those two old saps, the Ringos?”

“They died,” Judith said. “They were almost as old as you are. Your new Eucharistic minister is Kate Duffy, remember? She’s been coming by every week for the past two years.”

“I wish I could forget Kate Duffy,” Gertrude muttered. “She’s as bad as the Ringos. She always wants to pray with me. The last time, I told her I’d been praying for her not to come. All that phony-baloney pious claptrap is as bad as your screwball cleaning lady, but in the other direction. ‘Born again,’ huh? Once was enough for Phyliss Rackley.”

Judith sighed. “I know Phyliss can be a trial, but she’s a good cleaning woman. And Kate means well. She’s sincere, if misguided. Our family managed to keep our feet planted firmly on the ground.”

“That’s because us old folks went to the School of Hard Knocks,” Gertrude asserted. “Common sense, that’s what it is, not Satan hiding behind every bush like Phyliss says, or hearing the Holy Ghost whisper in Kate’s ear. When she came by after Christmas, she told me the Holy Ghost wanted her to go to Nordquist’s designer clearance.”

“Ah . . . well . . . I hope the Holy Ghost gave Kate an increase in her credit limit,” Judith said, edging toward the converted toolshed’s door. “If I have time tomorrow, I’ll bake some gingersnaps.”

“Then snap to it,” Gertrude said, spearing another gherkin.

Judith promised she’d try. Halfway down the walk to the house, Arlene Rankers popped out of the massive laurel hedge that separated the two properties.

“Is Serena still here?” she asked, calling Renie by her given name.

“No,” Judith replied. “She’s probably home by now. Did you want to talk to her?”

Arlene didn’t answer right away. In fact, her pretty face looked troubled. “I don’t really know.”

Judith couldn’t keep from smiling. “In that case, you probably should wait until you remember why you wanted to see her.”

“I didn’t,” Arlene said. “That is, I just got a call from Mary Lou Daniels at the school.” She nodded in the direction of the hill behind the Flynns’ garden. The church and school were three steep blocks away, but out of sight. “She called to tell me Brooks was sick and she couldn’t get hold of Meagan or Noah at work, so Carl just left to pick him up.”

Judith knew that two of the Rankerses’ grandchildren attended the parish school. Brooks and his younger sister, Jade, had been enrolled in the fall after Meagan and her husband, Noah, had moved from Eugene, Oregon, to Heraldsgate Hill the previous summer. But she couldn’t make any connection between Renie and the sick grandson. Unless, she mused, Renie had already donated her recipe for Shrimp Dump to the school. “What’s wrong with Brooks?” she asked.