Dead Man Docking - Mary Daheim [115]
“I understand,” Judith said, “that it takes a while for methanol to do its damage. No wonder Dixie seemed drunk when she showed up at Grandviews to meet Ambrose. Instead of liquor, she must have been drinking bottled water all morning. The symptoms of methanol poisoning are the same as those of any kind of excessive alcohol intake—headache, dizziness, upset stomach, the works. Dixie may have attributed her condition to whatever she’d drunk the previous night, coupled with the shock of Mags’s murder.”
“Very logical,” Rick remarked with a touch of irony. “You have a logical mind, Judith.”
“She’s had it for quite a while,” Renie remarked.
“The question is,” Rhoda said, waving the plastic pick that held the olive from her martini, “why did she meet Ambrose for lunch?”
“It was right after Mags was killed,” Judith said. “What’s the connection between them?”
Rick shrugged. “Other than casual acquaintances, I don’t know.”
Rhoda leaned back in her chair, gazing up as if she could read answers off of the ceiling. “Ambrose is her illegitimate son by Horace Pankhurst. Ambrose is her half brother, abandoned at birth by their hard-drinking Southern belle mama. Ambrose is soliciting money for one of his worthy environmental causes. Ambrose,” she added on a darker note, “is the one who bought the methanol to poison Dixie and thought he’d avoid suspicion by being the last one to see her alive.”
“All possibilities,” Rick remarked airily. “But not terribly plausible, my darling. Except, perhaps, for the last of your bright ideas.”
“Oh, Ricky.” Rhoda sighed. “Do you always have to put a damper on my brainstorms?”
Sitting next to Renie on the sofa, Judith could hear her cousin’s stomach growling. It was clear that the St. Georges planned to drink their dinner. Maybe they considered the cocktail olives as a meal. The happily soused couple did, however, recommend several restaurants, including Ozumo in the Embarcadero district. The cousins took a cab.
“We don’t have a chauffeur,” Rhoda had said as she showed them to the elevator. “I sometimes wonder why we have a car in this city. Parking costs a fortune and is impossible to find when you go anywhere.”
Arriving at the restaurant without a reservation, Judith and Renie had to wait over half an hour in the bar, but nibbled on sushi and sipped just enough warm saki to make them feel a little giddy.
“How many times have we almost been killed?” Renie inquired idly.
“Offhand, I don’t know,” Judith replied. “I’d have to count. It wouldn’t come out even, though. I’ve had more close calls than you.”
“Braggart,” Renie said. “I’ve got more kids than you. Ha ha.”
“I’ve got more grandchildren. Double ha ha.”
“We’ve got Oscar and Clarence. You only have Sweetums.”
“He makes up for any number of animals, real or imaginary.”
“Oscar’s real.”
“Is not.”
“Is, too.”
The conversation deteriorated until they were escorted to their table. With a magnificent view of the bay, a Zen-inspired setting, and a tempting menu, Judith and Renie grew more serious.
“You didn’t mention the blackmail aspect to Rick and Rhoda,” Renie pointed out after she’d ordered a charcoal-broiled fillet of beef with shiitake mushroom Madeira sauce.
“They know,” said Judith, who had requested the big-eye tuna marinated in a sweet soy herb dressing. “I’ll bet the police have discovered that Dixie’s bank account—or wherever she put her money—increased dramatically the past few months. The problem is, I’m not entirely convinced that a twenty-year-old racing scandal in France would be worth that much money or that a mention of the horse’s name would send Connie into a swoon.”
“It’d make more sense if that other owner—the one with the Irish horse—had been someone involved in this case,”