Vi Agra Falls by Mary Daheim Page A

had already started the guests’ breakfast in time to serve at eight o’clock. She dressed hurriedly, combed her hair, and applied lipstick. It was after seven-thirty when she reached the kitchen.
    Joe was nowhere in sight, and the coffeemaker hadn’t been turned on. Rushing around the kitchen to prepare a buffet of ham, bacon, sausages, eggs, toast, pancakes, fruit, and croissants, Judith wondered if Joe had slept on the sofa. After the meats had been put on the stove, she went into the living room. No one was there. The only signs of recent activity were the empty snifter and two cocktail glasses.
    Judith opened the front door. A white unmarked car that might have been a police vehicle was parked near the entrance to the cul-de-sac. None of the debris had been removed. The area looked even more unsightly in the bright light of morning.
    Ten minutes later, Judith had finished making the pancake batter and prepared the various fresh fruits for presentation. She was setting the bun warmer for the croissants on the oak buffet when Joe, wearing rumpled suntan pants and a T-shirt with a green shamrock and the imprint “Everyone Loves an Irish Boy,” came through the front door.
    â€œWhere’ve you been?” Judith asked, surprised.
    â€œAt the crime scene,” Joe retorted. “Where the hell else?” He hurried past her and went into the kitchen. “Coffee! Thank God!”
    â€œCrime scene?” Judith echoed as she joined him by the counter. “Really?”
    â€œAs if you couldn’t guess,” he growled, sloshing coffee onto the floor—and his pants. “Goddamnit!” He started for the back stairs. “I’m going to take a shower.”
    â€œHold it!” Judith shouted. “Who’s dead?”
    â€œWho knows?” Joe kept on going.
    Judith put her mother’s ham, eggs, toast, and coffee on a tray and took it out to the toolshed. Gertrude was just getting dressed.
    â€œSo I’m late this morning,” she snapped. “I don’t get much chance to party these days. Want to make something of it?”
    Judith ignored her mother’s pugnacious expression. “Of course not. I’m running late, too.” She hesitated, wondering if she should tell Gertrude about the body in Herself’s yard, but held off. Her mother might not be as deaf as she pretended, but she hadn’t heard or seen any of the activity in the wee small hours of the night. The old lady would eventually find out, but Judith wanted to wait until she had more facts.
    â€œYou’re a pickle-puss today,” Gertrude declared. “What is it now?”
    â€œNothing,” Judith lied. “I told you, I got off to a late start.”
    â€œHunh,” Gertrude said, zipping up her housecoat. “I suppose you’re all green with envy because Vi had a better party.”
    â€œNot really,” Judith said, resisting the urge to say that at least nobody had been murdered at the Block Watch venue. “I’ll see you later, Mother.” She headed back into the house.
    The couple from Iowa had entered the dining room. He wore bib overalls over a T-shirt; she had on a plaid blouse and adenim skirt. They looked like the poster pair for the American Farm Couple. Judith recalled that their last name was Griggs. Or Greggs or Gruggs or possibly even Groggs. Her brain wasn’t working at full bore.
    â€œGood morning,” she said, lugging the coffee urn to the buffet. “Would you like some grapefruit and juice?”
    â€œFlorida fresh-squeezed oranges,” the husband said. “Pink grapefruit, and don’t hold the sugar.”
    â€œThe sugar’s on the table,” Judith said, a frozen smile in place. She turned to the wife, who was as lean and almost as lanky as her husband. “And you?”
    â€œToast.” Mrs. Griggs—or whatever her name was—sat down. “I only eat toast for breakfast. Unless you