“Yes,” Judith said weakly. “So I have.”
“The patrol car is close by,” the operator assured
her, “and the medics and firefighters have been alerted.
You’re not calling for your mother, are you?”
“No,” Judith whispered, fixated on Joe, whose efforts appeared to be futile. “No.”
“How’s she doing?” the operator inquired. “I hear
she’s quite a character.”
“Fine. Good. I . . . must . . . hang . . . up . . . now.”
Judith clicked off and, with a limp wrist, placed the
phone on the kitchen table.
Panting, Joe looked up from Bruno’s prone form.
“It’s no good. He’s dead.”
Judith crossed herself while Joe hung his head.
“Damn,” he breathed, “how did this happen? Was it an
accident?” His eyes traveled to the light fixture. “Oh,
hell! What’s that thing?” He picked up a long cooking
fork and poked at the spider. “It’s fake.”
“I need a drink,” Judith said, her voice hoarse. She
noticed that the balky cupboard door had swung open
again and closed it with a shaky hand. “I can’t believe
this. Yes, I can believe this. But why me? Why us?”
“Hey,” Joe said, reaching into the Flynns’ private
liquor stash, “it isn’t personal. When I was on the job,
I investigated at least a half-dozen homicides involving
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111
families that had already suffered through at least a
couple of other murders.”
“They were probably all crooks,” Judith pointed
out, wincing as she looked at Bruno, whose face was
an unnatural color. She was about to turn away when
she saw something round and white on the floor next
to his body. Moving carefully so as not to touch the
dead man, Judith fingered the object. “Aspirin,” she
said, holding it between her thumb and index finger.
Not seeing the bottle she kept on the windowsill, she
placed the pill on the counter. “Then you don’t think
it’s all my fault?”
“No.” Joe handed Judith her drink, then stared at
Bruno. “I wish I could figure out what happened. Does
the spider suggest a setup?”
Judith gaped at him. “You mean . . . to scare Bruno
to death?”
“Maybe just to rattle him,” Joe replied, wearing his
deadpan policeman’s face.
As Judith gazed with compassion at Bruno’s lifeless
form, the familiar sound of sirens could be heard in the
distance. “The neighbors.” She sighed. “What will they
think now?” She paused, a hand clutching at the deep
neckline of her Roman gown. “The guests! What shall
I do?”
“Nothing,” Joe replied as the first of the sirens
stopped nearby. “Yet. I’ll get the door. You stay with
the stiff.”
Judith flinched. It was bad enough that she and Joe
were drinking Scotch and standing over a corpse. But
now her husband had reverted to his professional self,
hard-boiled, keeping his distance, just-part-of-the-job.
She, on the other hand, apparently had slipped into the
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role of Joe’s longtime partner, Woody Price. Despite
her not infrequent confrontations with corpses, Judith
wasn’t indifferent to the body on the kitchen floor.
Surely Bruno had family who must be notified.
Winifred would know.
Joe returned with two familiar figures in tow. Darnell
Hicks and Mercedes Berger had been summoned to Hillside Manor before, when a mobster had been gunned
down outside of Gertrude’s toolshed. Over two years
later they still looked young, but not nearly so naive.
“What a shame,” Darnell said, gazing down at
Bruno. “How’d he get so soggy?”
Mercedes glanced at the sink. “What’d he do, stick
his head in there and couldn’t get out?”
Before Judith or Joe could respond, the medics and
the firefighters arrived. “Come on,” Joe said with a
hand on Judith’s elbow, “let’s retreat into the dining
room and give the folks some space.”
swinging doors. “Oh, Joe, I can’t stand it! It’s got to be
an accident, right?”
Joe didn’t answer directly. “We’ll find out more
after the ME gets done. It may be tomorrow afternoon
before we hear anything. Saturday nights can be pretty
busy, especially on a holiday weekend.”
Darnell Hicks gave a tentative rap on the swinging
doors. “May I?”
“Sure,” Joe said, going back into the kitchen.
“What’s up?”
“We’re going to take the body to the morgue.” Darnell’s brown eyes seemed intrigued by the Flynns’ costumes. “Do you or Mrs. Flynn have any idea what
happened to the guy? Was this a Halloween party?”
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113
As Joe started to explain, Winifred appeared in the
dining room. “What’s going on?” she demanded of Judith. “Why are the police here?”
Judith put a hand out to the other woman. “Oh, Ms.
Best, I don’t know how to say this—except that Mr.
Zepf is dead.”
Winifred clutched at the front of her deep blue
bathrobe. “Dead? As in . . . actually dead?”
Judith supposed that to someone in the movie business, dead didn’t always mean losing one’s life. “Yes,
as in expired. We don’t know what happened.” She
glanced over the top of the swinging doors into the
kitchen. “They’re taking him to the morgue. We’ll
know more later.”
“Oh, my God!” Winifred swayed, then caught herself on the big breakfront. “His heart! Maybe he had a
heart attack! He was complaining of a terrible
headache earlier.” She pulled out one of the diningroom chairs and collapsed onto it, her slim body convulsing.
Judith glanced at Joe, who was answering routine
questions in the kitchen. She heard a squeal from Mercedes Berger as Joe mentioned Dirk Farrar’s name.
“Ms. Best,” Judith began, “do you want to have the
medics check you out?”
Winifred shook her head. “I must see Bruno,” she finally said, but couldn’t get to her feet. Winifred fell
back into the chair as a knock at the front door made
Judith jump. She hurried into the entry hall and peered
outside. Under the porch light she could see Dade
Costello, still in his costume and dripping wet.
“Mr. Costello!” she exclaimed, opening the door.
“What are you doing out in this rain?”
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Mary Daheim
Dade made an angry gesture toward the cul-de-sac.
“What are they doing out here?”
Closing the door behind the screenwriter, Judith
glimpsed the emergency vehicles, their lights still
flashing. “I’m afraid I have bad news—”
“I don’t need any more bad news tonight,” Dade
broke in. Without another word, he stomped upstairs.
“Oh, no,” Judith groaned. Glancing at Winifred,
who had her head down on the din
ing-room table, she
hurried into the kitchen but had to step aside as the
medics began to remove Bruno’s body.
“Move, Jude-girl,” Joe said, taking Judith by the
arm. “They’re going out the back way, they need room
for the gurney. I gave them as much information as I
could.”
Mercedes’s blue eyes were huge. “Is it true?” she
asked Judith. “Is Dirk Farrar really under this very
roof?”
“Yes,” Judith answered. “As far as I know.” Nothing
seemed certain on this wretched night. For all she
knew, Dirk could have climbed out a window and been
blown away by the gusting winds.
“What a hunk!” Mercedes was visibly palpitating.
Darnell’s dark skin seemed to glow. “Movie people.
Wow. You know, I hate to bring this up just now, but I’ve
been working on a script, and I wonder if I could—”
“Patrolman Hicks,” Joe interrupted in a solemn
voice, “you’re on duty. Let’s get on with the job.
Maybe I can mention your name to . . .” He paused, apparently wondering which guest would be interested in
a script. “Chips Madigan, the director. Okay?”
“Really?” Darnell looked elated. “Golly. That
would be terrific. Believe me, my script isn’t just an- SILVER SCREAM
115
other piece of junk. I’ve got serious themes.” He turned
to his partner. “Come on, Merce, let’s hit it.”
The kitchen was clearing out. Judith put both hands
to her head and gave Joe a frantic look.
“What do we do now?”
“We wait,” Joe said, sitting down at the kitchen
table. “It may look like some kind of freak accident,
but in fact they’re going to have to send the homicide
’tecs in.”
Judith was aghast. “Tonight?”
“Of course. You know the drill.” He shot her a wry
glance.
“But it’s two in the morning, and we’ve got all these
people upstairs, and—” She stopped, looked out over
the swinging doors, then lowered her voice.
“Winifred’s still at the dining-room table. She either
passed out or she’s asleep.”
But Winifred Best was wide-awake. Her head jerked
up, then she slowly rose to her feet. “Where’s Morris?”
she demanded.
“Morris?” Judith echoed in a dull voice. “Morris . . .
Mayne?”
Winifred thrust open the sliding doors and entered
the kitchen. “Of course I mean Morris Mayne. The
publicist. He must be at the hotel.” She pulled her cell
phone out of her bathrobe pocket and began to dial in
a staccato manner.
Judith felt not only exhausted but helpless. “I’ll
make coffee,” she said, and started for the sink.
“Hold it,” Joe said. “You can’t use the sink, remember?”
“Yes, I can,” Judith shot back. “We’ll plunge it. I
can’t imagine that it’s seriously plugged up. Anyway,
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Mary Daheim
we’ve got a snake. If the plunger doesn’t work, the
snake should clear the line.”
“You’re missing the point,” Joe said, his patience
sounding thin. “The sink may be a crime scene.”
“Oh.” Judith stared into the murky water. “Oh,
damn. You’re right, I should have realized that.” For
the first time she saw something bobbing listlessly
around in the sink. Judith reached out to touch it, then
quickly withdrew her hand. “Evidence,” she murmured. “It looks like my aspirin bottle. I found a pill
on the floor.”
“When I talked to Bruno the last time,” Winifred
said, clicking off the cell phone, “and he complained
of a headache, I told him I’d seen some aspirin in the
kitchen.” For a brief moment she looked as if she were
going to cry, then rallied. “Morris will be issuing a
statement. He’ll hold a press conference later for the
early newscasts.” She looked up at the schoolhouse
clock. “That will be four A.M. our time for the seven
o’clock news on the East Coast. Perhaps I should join
him at the Cascadia. I doubt I can do anything here.
Those cretins upstairs don’t need to be consoled.” With
a swish of her bathrobe, Winifred started to leave the
kitchen, but stopped abruptly. “Where is he?” she
asked in a hollow voice.
Judith was puzzled. “You mean . . . Morris? I
thought you just—”
“No!” Winifred exploded, waving a frantic hand.
“Bruno! Where did you put him?”
In the dishwasher? Judith almost said as the giddiness she’d felt earlier tried to reclaim her emotions.
But Joe intervened. “His body was removed just
minutes ago.”
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117
“Oh.” Winifred’s shoulders slumped. “Of course.”
Without another word, she left the kitchen.
The doorbell sounded. Joe got up to answer it while
Judith gazed at the mess that still hadn’t been—
couldn’t be—cleaned up. She, too, felt like crying.
But there was no time for tears. Joe, whose face had
become so red that he looked as if he might explode,
came storming back into the kitchen.
“It’s Stone Cold Sam,” he said under his breath, and
then swore such a rapid blue streak that Judith—mercifully—could hardly understand him.
“Who,” she finally dared to inquire, “is Stone Cold
Sam?”
Joe stared at her. “You don’t remember? Stone Cold
Sam Cairo, my nemesis in the department? The
world’s biggest pain in the butt?”
“Oh!” Judith did remember. There had been several
occasions when Joe had come home from work fuming because Stone Cold Sam had interfered with an investigation, offered unwanted criticism, and generally
tried to make Joe’s life miserable.
The stocky man with the goatee and mustache
swaggered into the kitchen. Following him was a small
young woman with short blond hair sticking up in
peaks and an intimidated expression on her pretty face.
“You know, Flynn,” the man said in a rough, deep
voice, “it looks like you’ve got everything here, including the kitchen sink. Har, har.”
Joe cradled his drink and leaned against the refrigerator. The gold flecks glinted in his green eyes, but
with malice rather than mischief. “We don’t know if
we have a homicide or not,” he said without inflection.
Stone Cold Sam Cairo chuckled, an unpleasant,
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Mary Daheim
grating sound. “Yeah, I guess it always took you a
while to figure out the facts.”
Judith didn’t know whether to introduce herself or
not. Not, she decided. Any gesture of hospitality would
annoy Joe.
Cairo, however, took matters into his own hairy
hands. “Meet my new partner,” he said, dragging the
small blonde forward by the hand. “Dilys Oaks. Dilys,
this is Joe Flynn, a former colleague, now retired.
Don’t be misled by the choirboy outfit. Joe can’t sing
a lick.�
� Cairo glanced at Judith. “Let me guess. You’re
either a Roman empress, Joe’s wife, or Joe’s slave.
Maybe the last two combined. Har, har.”
“I’m Judith Flynn,” Judith said, as noncommittal as
Joe.
Cairo gave a faint nod. “Okay by me.” He looked at
the sink, and noted the phony spider, which swayed
grotesquely from the overhead light. “Halloween stuff,
huh? Nice touch. What was this movie guy doing, bobbing for apples?”
Joe didn’t respond, which forced Judith to speak. “I
think he was taking some aspirin. He had a headache.”
“Hunh.” Cairo steered Dilys to the sink. “What does
this tell you?”
Dilys’s smoky-gray eyes widened. “That the drain is
plugged?”
Cairo put an avuncular arm around Dilys’s narrow
shoulders. “Think a little harder. Take in the whole picture. Remember, you’re a rookie. This isn’t like your
first two cases with the drunks popping each other and
the spousal murder-suicide.”
“But,” Dilys protested in her little-girl voice, “is it a
homicide?”
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119
Cairo removed his arm and wagged a finger at his
partner. “There you go, young lady. Is it? How can we
tell?”
“We don’t have the body,” Dilys noted. “Shouldn’t
they have waited until we got here before they removed it?”
Cairo nodded approval. “That’s right. Haste makes
waste,” he added with a disapproving glance at Joe,
who remained expressionless.
“I guess,” Dilys said slowly, “you should have told
them we were on our way. Now we’ll have to wait for
the autopsy.”
Cairo shot Dilys a sharp, wary glance. “They should
have known we were coming. But you’re right, only
the ME can tell us for sure how this guy died.” He gave
Joe an even darker look. “You know better, Flynn—
why didn’t you tell them to hold their horses?”
Joe stared up at the ceiling, looking innocent in his
choirboy costume. “I’m retired, I’m old, I forgot.”
Cairo grunted. “If you say so.”
Joe said nothing.
But his former colleague wasn’t giving up. “Hey,”
Cairo urged with an expansive gesture. “Share your
thoughts with us, for old times’ sake. Reach out. We’re
listening.”
“I never speculate,” Joe said quietly.
“No kidding?” Cairo gazed at Joe with feigned