Dead Man Docking - Mary Daheim [3]
“I don’t use a magnifying glass to do it,” Judith huffed. “Furthermore, you know perfectly well that I’m not a real sleuth. I’ve just had a run of bad luck getting involved in…unpleasant situations.”
Joe was looking askance. “It’s a hobby you should give up. How many times have I told you it’s damned dangerous?”
Her husband’s recurrent nagging about her involvement in crime and her mother’s constant verbal abuse of Joe irritated Judith. “Skip it,” she said stiffly. “It’s been almost a year since I had a…problem.”
“At least,” Joe remarked, “when I was a homicide detective, I got paid for solving cases.”
“Joe!” Judith glared at her husband. “Drop it!”
Joe, whose temper was usually more easily triggered than his wife’s, knew when it was unwise to push her too far. “Okay.” He nodded in the direction of the dining room. “We have some guests still eating breakfast. I’ll see how they’re doing.”
“Thanks.” Judith’s tone was terse.
“I can’t find it,” Gertrude declared. “When’s lunch?”
Judith pointed to the old schoolhouse clock on the wall. “It’s not even eleven-thirty. Can you wait an hour?”
“Noon. You know I like my lunch at noon.”
“I have to clear up from breakfast first,” Judith said, still sounding cross. “The magnifying glass is in the junk drawer, next to the stapler.”
“I already looked,” Gertrude said. “There’s so much junk, I couldn’t find it.”
Judith let out an impatient sigh. “That’s why it’s a drunk jawer. I mean, junk drawer. Honestly,” she complained, “between you and Joe, I get so rattled, it’s a wonder I can find the kitchen.” She rummaged through the assortment of rubber bands, meat skewers, Band-Aids, batteries, Scotch tape, mailing tape, strapping tape, and tape measures. “Here,” she said, handing the magnifying glass to Gertrude. “It was under the take-out menus. Why do you need it?”
Gertrude examined the glass as if it were a mirror. “It’s my movie script,” she said. “They’ve made so many changes—revisions, they call them—that I can’t read the handwriting in the margins. And I sure don’t like the new title, Dirty Gertie Does Düsseldorf. Granted, as the Greatest Generation, we didn’t have all these fancy appliances, but I wasn’t ever dirty. We washed our clothes, ran them through the wringer, and hung them on the clothesline. Then we put them in the mangle for ironing. And starch. We had starch in those days, boiled outside and stirred with a wooden ladle. How could I be dirty after all that?”
Judith hadn’t heard much of what her mother had said beyond the movie’s title. “When did you learn that they weren’t going to call the film Gertrude the Great?”
“Friday,” her mother replied. “I got one of those FedEx or UPS or whatever packages. Your crazy cleaning woman, Phyliss Rackley, brought it to me. She talked my ear off—as usual—about being saved. Saved from what? I told her to save her breath. She stayed so long I forgot she’d brought the package. ’Course, half the time, I don’t open those things. Ever since they decided to make my life into a moving picture they send all this stuff on a truck. But I decided to open this one. Those packages are piling up, in case you haven’t noticed.”
Judith had seen at least a half-dozen overnight parcels in the toolshed. She’d even mentioned their presence a couple of times to her mother, but Gertrude had ignored her.
“Isn’t the movie coming out in a few months?” Judith asked.
Gertrude nodded. “June, I think. Or is it July?” She shrugged. “As long as they pay me, they can show it anytime they want. But I don’t get this new title. I’ve never been to Düsseldorf. Or have I?” Gertrude frowned. She was frequently forgetful—or pretended to be.
“Maybe I should take a look at those packages,” Judith suggested. There was no annoyance in her voice now. She was too concerned about the detour that her mother’s life story might have taken.
“I already got a big chunk of my money up front when they optioned my story,”