“Vivian Borne!” Rudder shouted. “Get back in your car—and get out of here.”
Mother looked hurt, the sister, startled, the brother confused.
The sheriff gestured forcefully to the highway. “Now!”
“Leave the crime scene? Without making a statement?” She turned to the brother and sister for support. “I found the body in the antique sleigh. Or anyway, my daughter’s dog did. Is it really responsible police procedure to send me away?”
Rudder could only have turned a deeper shade of red if he were Elmer Fudd in a Technicolor cartoon from 1945. “Vivian! Goddamnit!”
“Language, Sheriff! I presume I should not leave town.”
“Oh, leave town. Please! By all means, leave town!”
I powered up my window, and clicked on my seat belt.
I was pretty sure we were leaving.
But not town.
Chapter Three
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Murder
This is Vivian taking the reins, dears, because after we had returned to our domicile, Brandy went straight back up to bed—so, for the nonce, she is no help either as detective or as narrator!
But I ask you, how could the girl sleep after what had just happened? Is she really that cold-blooded? Or perhaps narcoleptic? Topics for discussion at a later date.
For now, I grabbed my coat and purse again, and after borrowing Brandy’s oh-so-warm new UGG boots, I headed out into the gently falling snow to catch a ride downtown. For reasons too numerous and unfair to go into, I have been deprived of my driver’s license. So when Brandy is not available as my chauffeur, I make use of a certain public conveyance—a gas-converted trolley car, provided free by the downtown merchants, which makes regular stops around Serenity, including one a mere block away from the Borne hacienda.
Once again, Maynard Kirby was behind the wheel, having returned to work after his wife lost their latest lottery winnings. I greeted him warmly, and he reciprocated.
My dears, I would love to regale you with some wonderfully witty stories about the trolley passengers—especially tales about the midget and the monkey (two separate incidents); but time is of the essence, as is word count, since both Brandy and our New York editor have made the unwise decision to limit my participation as coauthor. They claim that, unbridled, I would contribute (to quote our editor) “enough excessive discursive material to require decimating a forest to provide the paper.” I put it to you: have I gotten off the track? No—I got on the trolley, and I even resisted sharing the midget and monkey stories with you.
But I digress.
Soon I was disembarking in front of the Riverview Restaurant, where I knew the Romeos (Retired Old Men Eating Out) would be holding court, consuming the kind of fattening comfort-food lunch that their wives wouldn’t cook for them anymore, due to health concerns. (Some of the men were widowers, but obviously their wives weren’t cooking for them anymore, either.)
I would also love to give you a description of the quaint, riverboat-themed restaurant on the first floor of a restored Victorian building, but I can’t, due to this restricted format. Wait a minute—I just did! And without going on and on and on about it. Perhaps sometimes less is more.
As usual, the Romeos were at their customary round table in back, which could seat six, though three of the chairs were empty today, probably due to the cold and flu season, not to mention the Grim Reaper, who had claimed a few of their members this year.
Normally, the Romeos were a closed boys’ club, but I was an exception, sort of the Shirley MacLaine to their Rat Pack. I was especially welcome if I brought along some juicy tidbit of news to pass around the table, to season their meals. These old codgers were worse gossips than any of my lady friends. Granted, they were more subtle about it—that is, they kept their voices down.
Unfortunately, the gents had already been served the blue plate special (mashed potatoes, green peas, and meatloaf), which meant I’d have to watch them eat—never a pretty sight, as more food seemed to go on their faces than within. Add to that the clacking of plates, and I don’t mean dishes (I mean dentures) (in case you weren’t following).
But again I digress.
I gave the trio my best Mae West, “Hell-low, boy-ez.”
Harold said, “ ’lo Viv, what’s new, my little chickadee?” The latter might have been amusing had Harold been able to do a passable W. C. Fields impression, but though the ex–army captain resembled the older Bob Hope, he wasn’t nearly as funny.
I laughed anyway. That’s what a female does when a man thinks he’s being clever. Anyway, it’s what I do, and it’s served me well.
After Harold’s wife died, he’d asked me out several times, and hinted from the start at matrimony; but I broke it off after a few weeks because he barked orders at me. Actually, he barked everything at me—Sushi’s yapping can get on my nerves, too, but this was more like a rabid bulldog. Seems you can take the man out of the army, but not the army out of the man, and Vivian Borne doesn’t take orders from anybody.
“Vivian!” Vern blurted pleasantly. “Come and join us!” The retired chiropractor looked vaguely like Clark Gable, minus the ears sticking out.
Vern, too, had wanted to marry me, but I threw cold water on his ardor, which coincidentally was what the fire department had also had to do at his place of business when the building spontaneously combusted due to the stacks of outdated magazines piling up in his waiting room. What a cheapskate! Which was another reason to say fiddle dee dee to Vern and his intentions.
The third gentleman, Wendell, was a former Mississippi River tugboat pilot, and a ringer for Leo Gorcey (you youngsters can check with the good folks at Wikipedia for information on the gifted thespian who brought Slip Mahoney to life—or you could just Google the Dead End Kids).
As for Wendell’s husband potential, the point was moot. First of all, Wendell was not available. But even if he were, I would take a pass, because despite his Old Spice aftershave, the bouquet of fish seemed always to cling to him. He was still hanging out on the river after he’d been forced to retire when his tugboat rammed the Delta Queen paddleboat, whose calliope at that very moment had been playing “Bim Bam Boom.”
Wendell gestured to the vacant chair next to him, and, since my nose was stopped up with a seasonal cold, what the hey, I just plopped myself down.
Pretty, dark-haired Susan, one of the best waitresses in town, had seen me come in, and efficiently placed a cup of java before me, just the way I like it: one sugar, two creams.
Susan and I exchanged smiles. She knew I would soon have these old boys eating out of my hand. So to speak.
“Well,” I said, settling in, “guess where I’ve been this morning?”
They all looked at me, though no one stopped shoveling chow-filled spoons into their open maws to risk a guess.
I went on: “I just came from Bernie Watkins’s place.”
The men paused, forks frozen in midair—did they have competition for the favors of Vivian Borne by way of Bernard Watkins?
No, they didn’t, and I explained why. “Poor Bernie’s been murdered.”
Harold began to choke on his meatloaf, the ex–army captain never having learned the first rule of battle: do not have a mouthful of food during Vivian Borne’s opening salvo.
“Good Lord,” gasped Wendell. “Not another murder! How many does that make in this town, over the last couple years?”
I said, “Who’s counting?”
Vern asked, “How did you know he’d been murdered, Viv?”
The chiro obviously assumed I’d heard about Bernie’s murder and had gone out there to offer my services as an amateur sleuth. After all, I had (with some assistance from Brandy) solved all of those murders Wendell referred to. And yet the local police viewed me as a nuisance!
“Yeah, Vivian,” Harold said. “How did you hear that? You buy yourself a police scanner or something?”
Excellent idea!
Pausing for effect, I took a dai
nty sip of my coffee, little finger extended, then said nonchalantly, “Why, I didn’t hear it anywhere, dear—’twas I who found the body.”
You might think that was a little arch, but with my understated line reading, it played just fine. They were all ears and eyes—albeit ears that could use some trimming of unnecessary hair, and eyes that were bloodshot and rheumy.
Then I regaled my audience with the gory details, omitting only Brandy’s and Sushi’s presence, for conciseness and word count.
(Brandy to Mother: Bull-hockey. You just wanted to hog all the glory in front of the old boys. And, by the way? That calliope was playing “Come To Me My Melancholy Baby,” not “Bim Bam Boom”—which I refuse to believe is a real song.)
(Mother to Brandy: The calliope was too playing “Bim Bam Boom”! And it is a real song, by the El Dorados, a doo-wop group from the 1950s. Look it up, dear.)
(Brandy to Mother: I did look it up. According to the “good folks at Wikipedia,” the tune was called “At My Back Door,” not “Bim Bam Boom.”)
(Mother to Brandy: That’s a technicality! The chorus goes “bim bam boom,” which is how all of us who loved the tune remember it. Funny how it rarely turns up on Oldies radio....)
(Editor to Vivian and Brandy: Ladies, this squabbling must stop—you’re looking foolish and unprofessional. Get back on point—don’t you have a murder to solve? Or would you like to have your short-story contract cancelled?)
(Vivian to Editor: What about our novels?)
(Editor to Vivian: Perhaps those, as well.)
(Vivian to Editor: We’ll behave.)
(Brandy to Editor: Ditto.)
Harold, his coughing fit curtailed, windpipe cleared, grunted, “I bet those no-good stepkids of his killed ol’ Bernie.”
“Oh?” I said, liking the direction this was going.
He nodded. “After Emma died, they only came back to town to get their hands on his money.”
Wendell said, “Christmas around Serenity won’t be the same without Bernie’s display.”
“He was already planning not to decorate this year,” I said. Then I turned back to Harold. “Those stepchildren—where was their home before moving here?”
Harold shrugged. “Burlington, I think.”
Wendell said, “Just not the same, Christmas in Serenity.”
Vern nodded. “Neither one of those two lowlifes could hold onto a job or a marriage for very long.”
“Is that why they moved up here from Burlington?”
After a sip (more like a slurp) of coffee, Vern continued. “Maybe partly. But after Emma’s funeral, they moved in with Bernie—supposedly to take care of him in his golden years.”
Wendell said, “Just not the same.”
I asked, “Did they? Take care of him?”
“Naw,” Vern said. “Wasn’t long before he tossed them out on their collective behind.”
Harold snorted. “Seems the pair ran up a whole mess of bills Bernie had to cover.”
Wendell said, “A tradition, driving out there and seeing all those decorations. Not the same.”
I asked, “So where are they staying now?”
“Rivercrest Apartments, I think,” Vern said, adding, “The female anyway—don’t know about that bum.”
“Why a ‘bum’?”
“Not the same,” Wendell said. He looked a little teary eyed.
“Well,” Vern said, drawing the word out, “the brother—Bo-Bo? Served time down in Fort Madison.”
That perked my interest. “What was the charge?”
“Assault and battery. Some bar fight down there. Hurt somebody real bad. Fool was damn lucky it wasn’t manslaughter.”
“That’s what I heard,” Harold said, nodding. “And his sister, that loose gal Tanya? Not much better than Bo-Bo.” He glanced around at his fellow Romeos. “Didn’t I see her name in the paper for DUI?”
Nods all around the table, except for me, since I’d dropped the Serenity Sentinel after that mean-spirited review of my lead performance in Everybody Loves Opal. A prophet is never appreciated in her hometown.
I asked them collectively, “What sort of an estate do you suppose Bernie has?”
The trio looked at each other, exchanging shrugs.
Harold offered, “Well, he was a retired teacher, of course. And I never heard of him having inherited money from any relative or anything. There is the house, and about an acre of land.”
Vern added, “And all those Christmas collectibles and antiques, acquired over, oh, four or five decades. That could be worth more than the property.”
Wendell said, “Won’t be the same at Christmastime.”
“Yes, yes,” I said impatiently, but then Wendell surprised me, saying, “You know, Bernie didn’t want any of his Christmas things going to those two wastes of skin.”
I frowned. “You know this for a fact, Wendell?”
“Oh, yes. Bernie and me were pals. We had coffee once a month or so. He told me he planned on changing his will so the antiques would go to a museum, where they’d be appreciated. There’s a Christmas museum in Pella that he was talking to.”
“You suppose Bernie’s will reflected that?”
Wendell shrugged. “That I don’t know. But I do know who his lawyer was, if that helps.”
It did.
I thanked the boys for my coffee—the dears always picked up my check—gathered my coat and purse, and headed out into the pleasantly wintery afternoon.
A few blocks away, on Main Street, was the Laurel Building, an eight-story Art Deco edifice whose upper floors once housed the thriving practice of Wayne Ekhardt, one of the Midwest’s most famous criminal lawyers. In a town the size of Serenity, however, Ekhardt and his firm had needed to take on all other sorts of legal work, too. As Wendell had said, Ekhardt had been Bernie’s lawyer.
And he was mine.
Ekhardt’s fame began in the 1950s when he got a woman off scot-free for shooting her abusive husband in self-defense. In the back. Five times. For a good while after that, husbands around here really went out of their way to be especially nice to their better halves.
Wayne, now approaching a spry ninety, was semi-semi-retired, retaining only a few valued clients, whom he saw by appointment only (on Wednesdays) in the small office he retained on the top floor.
I took the elevator up there, then stepped off into a world that hadn’t changed since I was in diapers (and I will truck with no smart comments about Depends). The floor’s tiny black-and-white tiles, marble gray walls, pebble-glass-and-wood office doors, and even Deco water fountain dated at least to the 1930s.
Wayne’s office was at the end of the long hallway, a corner room with a magnificent view of the river, which unfortunately he could little appreciate these days, due to his cataracts.
This being Monday, the door was locked, but that didn’t stop Vivian Borne from entering by way of one of Wayne’s extra keys, borrowed from his desk for just such an occasion. Soon I was entering what could have been the professional digs of Philip Marlowe or Mike Hammer, albeit without an outer desk for a sexy secretary to sit behind, or maybe on, filing her nails and showing off her gams.
Zeroing in on an old wooden file cabinet, I rifled through it, withdrew the manila folder labeled BERNIE WATKINS, copied the contents at a nearby Xerox machine, then put the file back.
Quick as Old Saint Nick going up a chimney, I put the copies in my purse, and dashed away, dashed away, dashed away out of there!
No need to make Sheriff Rudder’s Christmas wish come true and provide him cause to book me into one of his “suites” to greet the New Year behind bars.
Chapter Four
Christmas Crookies
Brandy again.
Do you need a deep breath or two, to clear your head after that? I can wait. Okay?
After Mother left, I couldn’t get back to sleep, wondering what she might be up to somewhere out there in the world. So I wandered downstairs to the kitchen for something to eat, where I no
ticed my cell on the counter. A text from her was waiting:
Dear, take some Christmas cookies to Tanya and Bo-Bo at Rivercrest Apartments, and apologize for my bad behavior at the SOTC (scene of the crime). Find out anything you can.
I tossed the cell back on the counter, muttering, “Like I’m doing that.”
But deep down I knew that I was doing that; otherwise she might retaliate by going off her medication—which can only lead to disastrous consequences. (See Antiques Knock-Off.)
After icing and decorating a dozen of the cookies we’d already baked several days ago, I put them on a Christmasy paper plate, covering them with plastic wrap.
Sugar Cookies
1 cup butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
3 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. nutmeg
Powdered sugar (for rolling out)
Canned frosting
Cream butter and sugar; add egg and blend. Sift dry ingredients together, and add to wet mixture, mixing well. Roll out dough inch thin on powdered sugar. Cut out and bake for 5–6 minutes at 400 degrees. Note: For crisp cookies, keep them unfrosted in a tight tin until ready to decorate.
I would have been out the door and on my way sooner, except that I couldn’t find my new UGG boots, forcing me to dig out an old pair.
Rivercrest was located down in the flood plain, within reach of the river’s crest during spring flooding, and as such, the inhabitants were mostly low-income renters who didn’t mind getting their stuff water damaged, or anyway couldn’t afford to mind. But Rivercrest was nonetheless a decent-looking modern apartment complex.
I pulled the Buick into the parking lot, wondering which of the three three-story buildings was Tanya and Bo-Bo’s. My eyes lingered over a red truck—the red truck.
A mailbox inside Building Two led me up to the second floor.
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