First Chapter

Hocus Croakus
A Bed-and-Breakfast Mystery

Chapter One

Judith McMonigle Flynn staggered out of the car, dumped a foil-lined paper cup of cigarette butts into a big stone ashtray, and found herself looking up at an imposing white-haired Native-American man who was wearing more gold braid than General Douglas MacArthur.

"I'm Bob Bearclaw, the doorman here at the Stillasnowamish casino," the big man announced in a deep, pleasing voice. "Welcome to our resort. May I help you, young lady?"

Judith smiled. "You can help my mother. She's in the backseat and is rather crippled. She'll need a wheelchair, if you have one available."

"Of course we do," Bob replied. "I'll get it right away." He snapped his fingers and made a complicated gesture with his hand. A young valet with a long black braid nodded deferentially before racing inside the casino.

Joe Flynn had finished speaking with a bellman who was now unloading the family's luggage from the Subaru.

"They're getting a wheelchair for Mother," she told her husband.

Joe scowled. "You mean we have to let her out of the car?"

"Don't be mean," Judith scolded. "We don't want to get off to a bad start on our vacation. I'm the one who could hardly breathe with Mother smoking her head off in the backseat."

"And bitching the whole way because there wasn't an ashtray there," Joe grumbled. "She should have thanked me for fixing that cup for her."

Judith refused to argue further. Besides, Joe had to deal with the parking attendant as well as the bellman. And Judith had to deal with her mother.

"A wheelchair is on its way," Judith said, poking her head into the smoky car.

"Don't let Lunkhead push me around in it," Gertrude Grover snapped. "I wouldn't let him haul me from a burning building."

"Don't mention that!" Judith exclaimed. "And stop calling Joe 'Lunkhead.' He's the one who had to load the car and drive for almost two hours to get to Lake Stillasnowamish."

Gertrude hadn't budged from her place in the backseat. In fact, she was lighting another cigarette. "Two hours, my foot. What was he doing, pedaling with his feet? I can move faster with my walker. It used to take us only an hour and a half to get to the family cabin. And that was before they put in the freeway."

"It was the freeway construction that held us up," Judith replied, gnashing her teeth. "Besides, we're ten miles from the cabin." She glanced behind her where the doorman was approaching with a shiny yellow wheelchair. "Here, Mother, I can help you."

"No, you can't," Gertrude retorted. "You'll pop your phony hip. At least my joints are the originals. Not that I couldn't use a few spare parts."

The reference to the artificial hip rankled with Judith. It had been over a year since the replacement surgery, and though she had to be careful not to dislocate it, Judith felt she was getting back to normal. Gertrude, however, liked to remind her daughter that she wasn't normal and never had been.

Judith felt a gentle tap on her shoulder.

"Mrs. Flynn, isn't it?" Bob Bearclaw asked. Seeing Judith give a jerky nod, he leaned into the car. "Then you must be Mrs. Grover. Wait until you see the speedy little number I've got for you. Here, let me help you get out."

A moment later, Gertrude emerged, still smoking, but far from fuming. "You're a good boy," she said to the doorman, who was probably close to seventy. "Your mother must have raised you right."

With remarkable ease, the doorman put Gertrude into the shiny yellow wheelchair and began pushing her up the handicapped ramp. Joe finished his business with the attendants just as his mother-in-law disappeared inside the glass doors of the casino. Judith took a deep breath and surveyed her surroundings.

The Lake Stillasnowamish Resort Casino was located in a spectacular setting. In early March, the cottonwood, alder, and vine maples were just beginning to bud. But the stately evergreens were reflected in the jade-green lake that nestled in the bosom of Mount Nugget. Although Judith had never visited the resort complex before, she knew the area well. Every year until her first marriage, she and the rest of the Grover clan had spent their summers at the family cabins ten miles west of Lake Stillasnowamish. In those days, no one would have dreamed of a gambling establishment in the area, let alone one owned by members of the Stillasnowamish tribe.

"Are you ready?" Judith asked Joe, who was putting the luggage and parking receipts into his wallet.

"Let's wait," Joe said. "If we stay out here for another, oh, twenty minutes, the casino might have raffled off your mother."

"Joe!" Judith exclaimed, but her exasperation was halfhearted. "Please stop making those remarks. You know I didn't want to bring Mother with us, but we had no choice since the toolshed is being renovated along with the bed-and-breakfast. She couldn't stay with Aunt Deb. We tried that once, and they almost killed each other."

"It was sheer perversity of the Rankerses to go to Palm Springs in March this year instead of January or February," Joe declared, referring to the Flynns' next-door neighbors. "Carl and Arlene actually enjoy your mother's company. I've never been able to figure out why. That's perversity, too."

"They're good people," Judith said, starting up the stone steps to the casino entrance. "Besides, they had a problem with the time-share. That's why they had to change their plans."

"Why," Joe mused, "can't they have places to board old people when their kids want to get away? You know, like a kennel. When the Steins on the corner take a trip, they always put Rosie in a boarding -- "

Hocus Croakus
A Bed-and-Breakfast Mystery. Copyright © by Mary Daheim. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.