kitchen.”
Gertrude uttered a snort of derision.
“It’s possible that someone—” Judith stopped and
bit her lip. There was no point in alarming her mother.
“We have to get an official verdict from the coroner before I can use the kitchen.”
Gertrude picked up a deck of cards and shoved them
into the automatic shuffler.
She removed the cards and began to lay out a game of
solitaire.
“In about fifteen minutes, Joe will come back with
pastries and hot coffee,” Judith said, then added with a
touch of irony, “I hope the trouble last night didn’t
bother you, Mother.”
Gertrude, who was about to put a red six on a black
seven, turned her small, beady eyes on her daughter. “I
didn’t hear a thing. At least your latest corpse was
quiet about sailing off through the Pearly Gates.”
“Thoughtful of him,” Judith murmured, so low that
her allegedly deaf mother couldn’t hear her.
“What kind of pastries?” Gertrude demanded, playing up an ace. “They’d better have that custard filling I
like. Or apples, with that gooey syrup. The last time,
Lunkhead brought something with apricots. I don’t
like apricots, at least not in my pastries.”
“He’ll do his best,” Judith avowed.
“No blueberries!” Gertrude exclaimed. “They turn
my dentures purple. I’d look like one of those trick-ortreaters who came by last night.”
Judith frowned. “You had kids come to the toolshed?”
“Kids, my hind end! They were as tall as I am. I
didn’t give ’em anything. Nobody eats my candy except me.” Gertrude slapped a deuce on the ace.
“What were they dressed as?” Judith asked, recalling the late arrival of the spaceman and the alligator.
“A cowboy with fancy snakeskin boots and a scarecrow that looked like he came out of
hardly hear a word they said. That’s when I told them
to beat it. They did. They knew better than to mess
with this old lady.” With a savage gesture, she reeled
off a black nine, a red eight, and a black seven.
“What time was that?” Judith asked.
“Time?” Gertrude wrinkled her nose. “What’s time
to an old lady on her last legs? There’s not much of it
left. If you were me, you wouldn’t keep track of time,
either.”
Judith eyed her mother shrewdly. “You seem to keep
track of mealtimes pretty well.”
Gertrude played up several more cards. “What does
it mean?” she said in a musing voice. “Think about it.
