Major Vices (16 page)

Vivvie arrived just as the cousins sat down at the dining room table. She picked up a linen napkin and fanned herself. “I don't think I can eat a thing! All this ridiculous confusion over the wills! And the jewels! Where can they be?”

The question, Judith thought, was interesting. Aunt Vivvie wasn't as curious about who had taken the jewels as she was about where they had gone. Perhaps she had jumped to the conclusion that Weed Wakefield was the thief.

“How do we know they haven't been missing for some time?” Judith asked, taking the roll basket from Renie.

Vivvie's blue eyes grew wider than usual. “Oh! Why, that's so! We don't.” Disconsolately, she stared at the noodles on her plate.

“Didn't you say Boo showed them to you at Christmas?” Judith prodded. “Is it possible that he might have sent them out to be cleaned or reset?”

A spark of hope flared in Vivvie's eyes; then she drooped again in her chair. “No. Not Boo. It would never occur to the poor dear.”

Even though Renie was stuffing her face with salad, that didn't keep her from speaking up. “Were they insured?”

Fleetingly, the hope rekindled. “I'm sure they were,” Vivvie answered, toying with a slice of avocado. “Boo's father would have seen to that. And even though Rosie didn't like to wear them, she tended to business. Rosie was very capable, you know.”

It occurred to Judith that Rosalinda Lott Major might have been
too
capable. Perhaps her overwhelming efficiency had stripped Boo of whatever self-reliance he had possessed.

Renie was buttering her second roll. “I assume the corporation would keep paying the premiums, so there'll be insurance money. It'll go to the estate, though,” she added with a frown.

Aunt Vivvie grimaced. “The estate! What good is that? Martians! What will they want with my tiara?”

Holly entered the dining room, her delicate features careworn. “This is the most awful weekend I've ever spent,” she declared, pulling out a chair next to her mother-in-law.

Vivvie deterred her with a soft, plump hand. “Holly, dear, would you fetch my antacid from my purse? My stomach is so upset.”

Dutifully, Holly retreated. Judith used the opportunity to ask Vivvie about Boo's brother, Rube. “I didn't realize he had a brother,” Judith said in a conversational tone. “Did you ever meet him and his family?”

Momentarily distracted from her own troubles, Vivvie kneaded the linen napkin and turned reflective. “I must have, at Boo and Rosie's wedding. I know Reuben was there, because no one expected him to come and his arrival was something of a surprise. But my, it's been nearly forty years! And so much strong punch!” She paused, then sadly shook her head. “I honestly can't recall. Perhaps Toadie would remember.”

Judith tried a slightly different tack. “He had a wife, I hear. And a…daughter?”

Vivvie brightened. “Oh, yes! Ramona—I do remember her now! Quite plain, but she had a way about her. Freck
les all across her nose, and the liveliest eyes. Very outgoing.” Under the curling fringes of the wig, Vivvie's forehead creased. “That's strange—I can see her so vividly, yet I don't recollect Reuben at all.”

“Was she…German?” Judith asked.

Vivvie's mouth went round in surprise. “Why, no, she was perfectly normal. An American, I mean, just like you and me.”

“And their daughter?” Judith prompted as Holly hurried into the room with a roll of Tums.

Vivvie tapped her lips. “Hm-mmm. Their daughter…no, she doesn't spring to mind, either. The punch, you know. So mind-fuddling.” She gave a dejected shake of her head and popped a Tums in her mouth.

Judith wasn't quite ready to give up on Vivvie. “Boo didn't speak of his brother much, I take it?”

It was Holly who answered. “Personally, I never heard him mention the brother. But then, I didn't marry into the family until some years after Rube and his wife were killed in that car accident.”

Renie was going for seconds on the creamed chicken. “Surely,” she said, oblivious to the puddle of cream sauce that had landed on her sweatshirt, “Boo and Rosie must have kept track of their niece?”

Vivvie and Holly exchanged mystified looks. “I don't think so,” Vivvie said at last, then made a piteous face for Holly's benefit. “Dear, would you mind getting me a glass of water? That Tums doesn't want to go down by itself.”

Holly went out through the door to the kitchen just as Derek and Jill came in from the hall. Derek's long face was still dark with rage; Jill seemed remarkably calm.

“A court of law will decide this matter,” he announced, as if his mother and the cousins had been waiting for him to speak. “Uncle Boo, bless him, must have been suffering from hardening of the arteries. He certainly wasn't in sound mind when he made that last will, and he was probably almost as unbalanced when he wrote the other one.”

“Ha!” shouted Trixie, who was standing on the threshold. “You wish! Then why not say he was crazy as a bedbug when he made out the will that left everything to
you?” With a smirk, she sat down at one end of the table. “Think about it, Derek. I wouldn't count on some senile old judge saying Uncle Boo was…senile.”

Derek threw Trixie a black look, then stared at his empty plate. “It would be better if he'd never made a will at all,” he murmured. “That way, we would simply divide the estate among his natural heirs.”

Having finished gorging herself, Renie had shifted into her perverse mode. “That could take a while. You'd have to make a search for Boo's niece.” Noting Trixie's startled expression, she smiled blandly. “Reuben's daughter. Boo's blood relation. Gee,” Renie went on in a musing voice, “since she's on his side of the family, she'd get all of it. What a thrill that would be for her!”

Trixie's face had grown blotchy with high color. Judith wondered if she was verging on apoplexy. Derek, on the other hand, was quite pale. Aunt Vivvie started to twitter, but Jill remained composed.

“Nobody,” Trixie began, panting just a bit, “knows…anything…about her. She may be…dead.”

Renie wasn't done with taunting Trixie. “Why should she be? From what I can tell, she'd be about your age, Trixie. Early, mid-fifties.”

Trixie screeched, then leaped from her chair, leaning in Renie's direction. “I'm nowhere near that old! Why do you and Fatso here always pick on me?”

“Fatso?”
Judith bristled. “Listen, Trixie, I'll bet I don't outweigh you by more than ten pounds! At least all of me is real!”

“As if you and Bugs Bunny here couldn't use mega-improvements!” Trixie huffed, strutting a little to show off her augmented body. “
Some
of us care about our personal appearance. It's a measure of self-esteem.”

Renie wasn't impressed. “I'll say one thing for you, Trixie—getting all those nips and tucks for your sags and bags didn't detract from the character in your face. You've never had any.”

Trixie's mouth worked at a frenzied pace, but nothing came out. She whirled away from the table and fled the dining room. Derek's malevolent gaze followed her.

Jill emitted a little snort. “I guess Trixie doesn't like creamed chicken. I think it's kind of tasty.”

Judith gave an absent nod of agreement and rose from the table. “I'm skipping the ice cream,” she said, then caught herself. “I'm
not
dieting. I'm just…full.”

In the entry hall, she encountered Aunt Toadie, heading for lunch. Judith would have preferred passing on without comment, but Toadie stopped her. The older woman's face was stiff with resentment.

“I'll never forgive you for interfering,” she said in a harsh voice. “Why couldn't you have left well enough alone? If there's one thing I cannot abide, it's a meddler!”

After the countless squabbles and endless insults of the past eighteen hours, Judith was getting numb. Instead of offering a sharp riposte, she merely sighed. “I wanted to help all of you. It wasn't my fault that Boo made multiple wills.” Hoping to extricate herself, she gave Toadie a bleak smile. “It'll all work out. You know what Grandma Grover used to say—it'll all be the same a hundred years from now.”

The irony was lost on Toadie. “Your grandmother and her platitudes! Oh, she was a fine one to give advice! Telling me how to cook for Corky and offering her useless old German recipes! And sewing clothes for the children! Did she really think I'd let Trixie and Marty and Cheryl run around in homemade garments looking like hobos?”

Since Grandma Grover's delicious meals and Grandma Grover's homemade dresses and Grandma Grover herself were treasured memories to Judith, Toadie's cutting remarks triggered yet another explosion. “What a wicked thing to say!” Judith fumed. “Grandma had terrible arthritis and it was hard for her to sew clothes for all the grandchildren. But if she made pinafores for Renie and me, she made them for the rest of the girls, too. And overalls for the boys. As for her cooking, you and Uncle Corky would show up for every holiday with your kids and your mother, and not only did you never lift a hand to help, but never once did you bring so much as a jar of peanuts! Rosie and Boo and Vivvie and Mo and the whole damn lot of Lotts would come sometimes, too, and you were all a bunch of
freeloaders!” Judith stopped for breath, certain that Toadie would interrupt. But she didn't; she stared at Judith as if she were watching a natural phenomenon, like an erupting volcano. “As for meddling, that's all you ever do! This,” Judith went on, her voice rising as she waved a hand around the entry hall, “is a perfect example. You've been trying to run Boo's life ever since Rosie passed away. Why, you were interfering right up until the day he died, firing those masons just so Trixie's shady fiancé could get the contract!”

At last Toadie responded, her eyes narrowed and her jaw jutting. “That's nonsense! I did no such thing! How dare you accuse me of…
everything!
” She shook a fist at Judith, setting her charm bracelets a-jangling.

But Judith wasn't finished. “It seems you were the one person who checked on Uncle Boo last night while he was in the den. I presume he was alive and well.”

Toadie's rage diminished only a jot. “Of course he was alive and well! But I didn't go in. I merely asked through the door if he needed anything. He didn't. So I left.”

“What time was it?” Judith's question was phrased in a sharp tone. She was still incensed by Toadie's slur on Grandma Grover.

“I don't know,” Toadie shot back, her temper again rising. “Who do you think you are, asking such questions?” In a fury, she flounced off, not to the dining room, but to the main-floor bathroom. Still fuming, Judith hoped Toadie was going to be sick.

The living room was blessedly empty. Or so Judith thought until she heard Mason Meade moaning on the sofa. Apparently Trixie and Derek were still at logger-heads over who took precedence in the master bedroom. Indeed, it seemed to Judith that the next occupants were likely to be a couple of tourists from Uranus. Unless they made reservations first at the B&B, which wouldn't happen if they heard Hillside Manor's hostess served mush for breakfast.

Still feeling peckish, Judith went to the window to check the weather. The fog was definitely lifting, but as
far as she could tell, the ice remained on the walkway and the small patch of street that was visible from inside.

“I can't sleep. I'm in pain.” Mason Meade's voice was thin and plaintive.

Judith wandered over to the sofa. “You should have stayed in the hospital. In fact,” she said, taking her crankiness out on Mason, “you never should have left this house in the first place. Whatever possessed you to try to get down that horrendous hill?”

Mason averted his eyes, which were about the only exposed parts of his body except for his nose and mouth. “I had an appointment this morning,” he replied in a waspish voice. “I didn't want to miss it.”

“Well, you certainly didn't miss that lamppost.” Judith's tone was prim. She sounded as if she were chiding a raucous library patron. Taking in Mason's obvious misery, she softened her expression. “I'm sorry, I feel edgy. Tell me, Mason, what is your business?”

Trixie's fiancé stopped whimpering. “Concrete. Foundations, mostly, though we do some paving. We're over on the east side of the lake. My sister and I inherited the company from my father. He started out as a bricklayer.”

Judith raised her eyebrows. “You do brickwork, then?”

He offered a feeble smile. “Sometimes. I wanted to change the name to Mason's Masonry, but my sister didn't like it. She thought I was being conceited. So we kept the original name, Eastside Concrete. My first wife owns a third of it now.”

Judith perched on the arm of the sofa, careful not to disturb Mason's inert form. “You seem to have quite a bit of family in the suburbs,” she said lightly. “Is that where you met Trixie?”

Mason shifted the arm that wasn't in a sling. A cup of tea sat on the floor, seemingly untouched. “I met her at the Lexus dealership right before Christmas. She was buying herself a present.” He grew morose. “And now I've totaled the car. I'll bet she hasn't made more than two payments.”

Judith wasn't sure what a new Lexus cost, but she guessed it to be in the forty-thousand-dollar category. Such a high-priced automobile was out of her league, even with
Joe's salary and the B&B earnings combined. She wondered how much Trixie made selling Wear-House Dressing fashions.

“She must have insurance,” Judith pointed out. “It's a state law.”

With difficulty, Mason gave a nod of his bandaged head. “Oh, sure, but that car was a custom job. She wanted all the extras and some special features. As I said, it was her Christmas present to herself.”

Judith's estimate went up another ten grand. She began to wonder if she was in the wrong business. Being a Wear-House Dressing rep must be more lucrative than she thought.