The Wurst Is Yet to Come (19 page)

Renie looked out her window. “Franz. Why not? He
is
her ex.”

“True. I doubt Suzie would mind if we drove to the town hall. I'm not used to walking on pavement this much. It wears me down.”

Renie checked her watch. “It's only one-thirty. As Suzie said, she's not going anywhere. We, however, are.”

“Good point.”

As they approached the high school, traffic once again came to a virtual halt. A crowd had formed on both sides of the playing field. Lanes had been outlined in chalk, apparently for some kind of race. Judith didn't dare take her eyes off of the pickup ahead of her lest she rear-end the vehicle. “What is it? A beer-barrel race?”

Renie laughed. “It's a dozen dachshunds, wearing Bavarian hats and waiting to run a fifty-yard dash.”

Judith laughed, too. “I don't remember that event, but there are so many on the list. We missed the keg-tapping for the festival opening.”

“Isn't that where some local bigwig shouts
‘O'zapft is'
? Or however you say ‘let's get wasted' in German?”

“Probably,” Judith said, inching forward.

“And there they go!” Renie shouted.

The pickup gained some speed. Judith had to move on to keep from getting Suzie's car hit by the SUV behind her. “I hope the dogs know when to stop or they might become Wiener schnitzel.”

Turning onto the main street, Judith and the cars in front of her were forced to come to a dead halt. At least forty or more young people were dancing, singing, and forming conga lines. The unruly crowd appeared to be headed for the beer garden.

“I think they've already had enough for this early in the day,” Judith said, looking dismayed. “College kids, I suspect.”

“I thought the beer garden was open only in the evening,” Renie said as a couple of young men waved to her on the passenger-side window. In retaliation, she made an obscene gesture. Laughing good-naturedly, the pair returned the favor and moved on. “Jackasses,” Renie muttered. “They'll regret it when they're puking up their innards.”

“I'll regret it if we don't get out of this mob. Where's crowd control? Is Fat Matt sitting on his rear end having a midafternoon snack?”

“Drive up on the sidewalk and turn the corner. All the pedestrians seem to be in the street.”

Judith was aghast. “I can't do that! I'll get arrested.”

“By who? I don't see any cops. For all we know, they're dancing with the college kids. Gun it.”

“Oh, for . . .” But Judith didn't have much choice as a roaring group of young sots began jumping on the cars in front of them. “Hang on!”

She turned the wheel with all her might, barely missing the pickup that was still in front her. It was just in time. A couple of girls and a trio of boys climbed onto the back of the truck, shrieking with glee. With a jolt, the Ford Escort mounted the curb to reach the sidewalk. Seeing no one in front of her in the thirty-odd feet ahead, Judith hit the gas, slowing only at the corner. Taking a right, she gently let the car slip onto the street where stragglers from the raucous crowd were catching their breath. Looking surprised, they scurried to get out of the way.

“That,” Judith declared, easing off the gas, “is the nuttiest driving I've done since Mike missed the school bus and I had to pick him up before the Thurlow neighborhood hookers started pestering him.”

“Gee, he was twelve,” Renie said. “You were a really overprotective mom. Hey, I think I left my nerves back in the street.”

“This was your idea,” Judith reminded her.

“I've had worse ones, but I can't remember when. Going this way we'll end up in back of the town hall by the police station.”

“I'd rather not get arrested for breaking and entering.”

“Are you kidding? If the cops aren't out controlling that riot on the main drag, they're probably asleep under a pile of pastry.”

“The action is behind us. It's almost deserted here.”

“Everybody's having fun. I'm not sure I am.”

“You'd prefer joining The Young and The Loutish?” Judith inquired, noticing only one squad car parked by headquarters.

“No!” Renie exclaimed. “I'm not sure I was ever
that
young.”

Judith pulled up at the rear of the town hall. “Should we check the front to see if they might be open?”

“Doesn't that ruin your fun? On the other hand, we might get crushed by the mob that may have spread to that part of town.”

Judith considered their options. “You're right. Besides, we probably can't park on the main street. Let's try the easy way.”

The cousins got out of the car, making a quick surveillance of the side street, which appeared relatively deserted. The only living creatures they could see were a pair of crows teetering on a nearby power line.

“Locked,” Judith announced as she tried the brass knob. “Okay, let's see if I can remember how to do this.” She rummaged in her purse and found a paper clip, which she twisted into a single long wire. “You bend better than I do,” she said to Renie. “Listen for a click. But keep one eye on the street.”

“If I do that, I'll be wall-eyed.”

“Shut up. Just do it.”

Judith poked, twisted, jiggled, and turned. The only thing she heard besides the faint roar of the crowd and a couple of brass horns from the other street was Renie yawning. “Cut it out,” Judith snapped.

“Here,” said a male voice right behind her. “You need a key?”

Judith almost dropped the makeshift wire. “Major Schwartz! I didn't hear you yawn. I mean, I thought it was . . .”

The sleepy-eyed policeman nudged her aside and inserted a key. “The chief thought you might need help. We're headed out to bust some drunken kids. Can't they learn in college how to hold their liquor? Why pay tuition just to study?” He pushed the door open. “I assume you're sleuthing. Good luck.” He sauntered off to the patrol car.

“Well!” Judith exclaimed under her breath. “That was lucky! Didn't you see him coming?”

“Sure,” Renie replied as they entered a small hall that led to another door. “But you told me to be quiet. Anyway, I thought Ernie was sleepwalking. Look, there goes the boar.”

Judith saw the man—or woman—in the boar suit chasing some laughing children down the side street in the next block. She suddenly shivered. “That thing creeps me out.”

“Why? He's just another boring boar.”

Judith forced a smile. “I know. But for some reason I had this sudden thought—about the Dead walking. Stupid, huh?”

Renie shrugged, but didn't comment.

 

Chapter Thirteen

T
he cousins found themselves in the main hall, where the previous night's festivities had been held. They went out through the front, where a list of the town's departments was carved into a wooden cedar slab on the wall. Public records were in room three across the lobby.

The pine-paneled room wasn't much bigger than Judith's dining room. “I keep forgetting how small this town is,” she said. “I suppose we should start with deaths.”

“Why don't you do deaths while I do births?” Renie suggested.

“Good plan.” Judith found the filing cabinet containing deaths right next to births.

“They can computerize this,” Renie said, opening the top drawer.

“Maybe it's part of the old-world atmosphere,” Judith said, trying to figure out if she should go by date or name. The filing system didn't seem to be in any particular order. “How are you doing with births?”

“Okay,” Renie replied, “except for the three I birthed always being broke. Why?”

“I mean these records,” Judith said, trying not to sound impatient.

“Oh. They're in chronological order so far. The most recent one was born September nineteenth, a boy. That must be Suzie's waitress's kid. Remember—she's short a couple of servers.”

“Right,” Judith murmured. “But, to quote your dad, these files look like a bear with a crosscut saw went through them. There doesn't seem to be any order or sequence.”

Renie leaned against the open drawer of her filing cabinet. “You're theorizing that somebody's gone through these files in a hurry or they want to stymie a snoop like you?”

“Yes, it might be one or the other, or both.” Judith tapped the top of the cabinet with her nails. “Why? And when?”

“Rhetorical or serious question?”

“The latter. Wessler's certificate isn't here because the cause of death hasn't been officially determined. Even if Doc Frolander has finished the autopsy report, it won't be filed until Monday. I'm starting with his wife and child.” Judith sighed. “The top-drawer records seem random by date and initials of last names.”

“Maybe I should help you with dead people,” Renie said. “I don't see how births matter so much in terms of satisfying your curiosity.”

“Okay. Let's each pull out a drawer and sit down at the desk. There are two chairs, so we might as well be comfortable.”

Fifteen minutes later, the cousins hadn't found anything remotely pertinent to the Wessler family—or to anyone else whose name they recognized. Renie, in fact, had found several nondeath certificates in the drawer she was perusing.

“I've seen at least a half-dozen divorces and twice that many marriage licenses,” she said in exasperation. “Can't these people file things in their proper places?”

“Maybe the town clerk is another one of Herr Wessler's kids.”

Renie paused, one arm draped over the filing cabinet on the desk. “It's sick,” she declared. “All of this Wessler offspring stuff could lead to inbreeding like some of those Appalachian enclaves where everybody is related to everybody else and they all turn out weird.”

Judith considered her cousin's words. “Well . . . not at this point. It's no secret when it comes to the locals acknowledging Herr Wessler's paternity. From what Chief Duomo told me, there are probably only a few of his illegitimate kids still around here. Now that he's dead, I assume there aren't any more on the way. Most of the people Fat Matt talked about are middle-aged.”

“Given Wessler's vigor and good health,” Renie said, flipping through more files, “I'm surprised there aren't dozens. Speaking of youth, small-town people marry young. I've just come across two certificates for teenagers. Guess there wasn't much to do before they went Bavarian.”

“That's generally true of small towns, or at least it used to be,” Judith agreed. “You're right, their system is really . . . hey,” she said, turning to Renie, “what year was that? The teenage marriages, I mean?”

“Years,” Renie corrected after going back to look at the marriage documents. “One was in 1980 and the other was”—she grinned—“in 1985. Groom's name was Albert Edward Plebuck and the bride's name was Eleanor Jean Wessler. How did I miss that the first time? I must've been too caught up in their ages.”

Judith was smiling. “Well, well. Ellie's secret past. Whatever happened to Plebuck?”

“Should we search for a divorce?”

“Fat Matt told me she moved away right after high school. He didn't say she got married first. Maybe they eloped and left town.”

Renie shook her head in mock dismay. “I don't know what the first husband looked like, but if Delmar Denkel is an improvement, then I marvel that Plebuck was ever allowed to cross the county line. Do the Denkels have children? I mean the kind that they don't have to hide in a root cellar because they're really terrifying?”

“I don't really know Ellie. Which is good—until now.”

“You're considering another motive for murder by Ellie?”

“No, nothing like that. Do you see a phone book anywhere?”

Renie gazed around, came up empty, and started opening drawers in the desk. “Here's one. It's tiny. What am I searching for? Plebuck?”

“Right. He must've had parents.”

“One would hope so . . .” Renie scanned the listings. “No Plebucks.”

“Maybe they're in the cemetery,” Judith said, tapping a pencil on the desk in an effort to ward off chewing her fingernails. “It probably doesn't mean anything. Let's keep looking for those death certificates.” A sudden thought occurred to her. “If Ellie's maiden name is Wessler, where's the third brother? She's in her forties. Franz is younger than Josef, who apparently had no children. I don't get it. Even if Josef had kids who moved away, who is that third brother? We haven't come across any offspring of his.”

Renie shrugged. “Then the unknown brother is Ellie's father.”

“We'll ask Duomo,” Judith said.

The cousins worked in silence until they heard the clock tower chime two. Judith finally found something of interest. “Ah! Bob Stafford's death certificate!”

“I didn't know we were looking for Bob,” Renie said.

“It's sort of a bonus.” Judith frowned. “Nothing we didn't already know. Blow to the head by person or persons unknown. Death placed between two
P.M.
and four
P.M.
on Friday, August nineteenth, 2005.”

“That's it?” Renie asked.

Judith didn't answer right away. “Just attached notes from Doc Frolander's autopsy. Frankie Duomo was going fishing when he found the body around seven
P.M
. Frankie's the baker in the family. Initial reaction was that Bob had drowned . . . autopsy proved otherwise. Keep searching.”

Renie heaved a sigh. “If I must. The divorce file is thin. I don't see anybody interesting. Mostly default decrees. ‘De fault' of which spouse?”

Judith ignored the comment. Another five minutes passed before she hit pay dirt. “Here's Josef Wessler's death certificate.” She frowned. “He died from complications of a fall off the balcony of Hanover Haus, of which he was the owner. That's our inn.”

“Our in to what?”

“The B&B where we're . . . you know damned well what I mean.”

Renie shrugged. “Sure, but so what? The Wessler family's a big deal around here. Why shouldn't Dietrich's son own a local hostelry?”

“He wasn't very old when he died.”

“You think he was pushed? Of course you'd think that.”

“Okay, so I let my imagination run away with me,” Judith conceded. “Still, I'm going to take another look at that balcony.”

“I could push you and see what happens.”

Judith shot Renie a dark glance. “Just keep searching.”

Only a couple of minutes passed before Judith found Julia and Anna Wessler's death certificates. “Oh, no! They both drowned!”

Renie stared. “On Christmas Eve day? That's awful!”

Judith nodded absently as she read what few details were in the document. “The river might've flooded, if a sudden warming spell melted the mountain snow-pack. But why would a mother take her baby to the river in that kind of a situation? Some kind of weird flash flood?”

“We rarely have those around here,” Renie said. “That's usually triggered by a dam bursting or someone using dynamite improperly.”

Judith nodded. “Which makes this sound suspicious. I wonder who runs the local newspaper?”

Renie's shoulders sagged. “Gee—just when I thought
this
was tedious. What about the other Mrs. Wessler? Do we need to find her death certificate or assume she died of natural causes, like a runaway roller coaster or trampled by a herd of giant tortoises?”

“As long as we've gone this far, we might as well check Clotilde,” Judith said. “And yes, I'll humor you. I think Clotilde is a classy name.”

“You would,” Renie mumbled, flipping through more documents. “Didn't you want to name Mike ‘Balthazar'?”

“I did not,” Judith replied indignantly. “It was ‘Melchior.' ”

“I knew it was one of the Three Wise Men. Why not ‘Casper'? And if they were so wise, how come they didn't have better names? You know—like ‘Tom,' ‘Dick,' and ‘Harry' or ‘Groucho,' ‘Harpo,' and ‘Zeppo'?”

“I wish you'd been named ‘Harpo,' ” Judith said. “Then I wouldn't have to listen to you jabber.”

Renie scowled. “I'm trying to liven things up.”

“You aren't. Ta-da!” Judith cried, holding up a sheet of paper. “Perseverance. I found Clotilde.”

Renie made a lethargic “yippee” motion with one finger. “I'm thrilled,” she murmured. “Who done her in?”

Judith scanned the certificate. “Ovarian cancer. She died at home, not in the hospital. Home was . . . Hanover Haus. She must have taken over running it after Josef died.”

“Family quarters downstairs? They'd have room since the lobby's small. Do you know where the bridal suite is?”

Judith shook her head. “Judging from the layout, it may be on the main floor, too. Maybe it was originally part of where Josef and Clotilde lived. Franz would know, of course.”

“Ah! Guess who I found? Henry Rupert Hellman, suicide, born 1919, died 1979.” Renie waited for Judith's reaction.

“The marker by the river,” she said in wonder. “So is he buried there instead of in the cemetery because he killed himself?”

“Maybe, maybe not,” Renie said. “Henry's suicide probably wouldn't have prevented him from being buried there, though I don't recall when the Church stopped banning people who offed themselves.”

“I don't either,” Judith murmured. “But why bury him by the river? Unless he did it by drowning.”

“That wouldn't be as easy as you'd think,” Renie said. “If the river's high enough, you get swept off your feet. Then you'd flop around and bump into rocks and fallen branches and make a big mess. It'd be way too much of a bother. Wet, too. You might catch cold.”

Judith's shoulders slumped. “Your logic is so weird.”

“My logic may not be as logical as yours, but it works for me.” Renie began straightening the files in the drawer she'd been searching. “If the guy shot himself at home, they couldn't put him in the armoire. Can we get a snack or do we have to visit the weekly
Blatt
?”

“The newspaper can't be far from here,” Judith said, tidying up her own portion of documents. “I'm kind of hungry, too, but at least we can find out where the paper is located while we still have Suzie's car.”

“Too bad those dogs ate your leftovers,” Renie said, shoving her drawer back into the filing cabinet. “Here, I'll put yours back, too.”

“Thanks.” Judith stood up, moving this way and that to work out the kinks in her neck, shoulders, and back. “I have to admit those other drowning deaths bother me.”

“For once, I don't blame you,” Renie said, putting on her jacket.

“That's why I'd like to see the back issues.” Judith paused to make sure they'd left everything in good order. “It's so tragic.”

Renie opened the first door and led the way to the outside entrance. “I wonder if they had a newspaper before the town became Little Bavaria, USA.”

“I never thought of that,” Judith said as they stepped onto the sidewalk. “They must have had . . . hey, where's the car?”

“You mean the one you parked in the no-parking zone?

“What?”

“Didn't you see the sign?”

Judith was flabbergasted. “I see it
now
. Why didn't you tell me?”

“I didn't realize you were blind,” Renie said. “I thought you figured the cops would let you get away with it. I guess Schwartz didn't realize the Ford Escort was driven by you.”

“Ohhh . . .” Judith stared across the street at the police station. “Somebody must be on duty.” She paused, trying to hear if any noise was coming from the main street. “It's quiet around here. Let's see if Fat Matt is back from arresting a few dozen unruly beer-crazed kids.”

“Where would he put them?” Renie asked as they crossed the street. “He can't have very many cells.”

“I don't care if he put them in a bus and drove them across the county line. What do we tell Suzie if we can't get the car back?”

“You could tell her the truth,” Renie said. “I know it's not your style, but just for once . . .” She shrugged as they entered the station.

To Judith's surprise, a redheaded young woman in uniform was behind the reception counter. “Yes?” she said in a brisk tone.

“You're . . .” Judith stopped. The officer wasn't wearing a nametag.