Broken Serenade

by Dorina Stanciu

  “What in the world happened to them?” Vivien asked curiously.

  “They are Mr. and Mrs. Cohen,” Timothy enlightened her and Clark. “They have problems with their car more often than one can imagine. Last time, Mr. Cohen forgot to buy gasoline, and he ran the fuel tank completely empty. Naturally, the car wouldn’t start. Let’s see what the issue is today!”

  All three of them crossed the street. Mrs. Cohen came to welcome them. The old woman managed to contort her wrinkle-ravaged face into a surprisingly pleasant smile.

  “We need to get to the airport, and our car wouldn’t cooperate. Again,” she informed them, fighting to control her temper.

  “San Francisco Airport?” Clark asked.

  “Yes, of course,” the old woman answered, as if another alternative would have been an unforgivable social faux-pas. “We never ever use San Jose Airport,” she insisted to clarify the matter. Judging by her stiff tone, one could have been misled to believe that the later airport would have been infected with measles, or even worse, with plague!

  “If you don’t have too much luggage, Tim and Vivien can give you a lift,” Clark offered. “They are taking me to San Francisco Airport anyway.”

  Mrs. Cohen began to evaluate her stuff.

  “Well, it’s my valise, his, and ours. Then, it’s my purse, my coat, his…”

  “I will stay home,” Vivien said quickly, resigned. “This way you have another place available in the back.”

  “Vee, sweetheart, sure you’re OK with that?” Timothy asked her. “In fact, there could be enough room. Clark can hold something in his lap.”

  “Of course! I can hold Vivien,” Clark volunteered sky-high.

  “In your dirty dreams only,” Timothy snapped at him. “If you don’t stop blabbing, you’ll end up hugging your oversized valise all the way to the airport.”

  “You wouldn’t do that now, would you?” Clark asked, quite scared. He knew his brother would do anything for his beloved fiancée.

  “Oh, yes I would!” Timothy said convincingly. “Just don’t push me!”

  “Now, Tee darling, really, it’s not necessary,” Vivien spoke calmly, touching his face with a loving gesture. “I’ll go to my house and make arrangements for my piano to be moved here. If you still want us both,” she teased him.

  “What?” Timothy raised an eyebrow. He leaned close to her scented ear again. “I want you very badly, Vee. I’m going to miss you like crazy this hour. Wear something small, very small, for when I’m back, OK?” he whispered.

  “Deal!” Vivien assured him, all smiles.

  She said goodbye to her future brother-in-law, while Timothy loaded his car with the Cohen couple and their luggage.

  “I would ask you to take care of him, but I know that you’ll do it anyway,” Clark whispered very seriously as he embraced her warmly. “He’s a damn lucky guy,” he added aloud.

  “I’m extremely lucky too,” she answered. “You take good care of yourself, Clark.”

  “Do I have a choice?” Clark chuckled sadly.

  “No, you don’t right now,” Vivien admitted. “Try a little harder. You’ll find her too. You just have to look for her more carefully.”

  “Yeah, Vee is right,” Timothy intervened. “I’m actually getting an idea about the Christmas gift for you, Clark. I know exactly what I’m going to buy for you this year: a huge magnifier…”

  “Just because you found your woman, doesn’t mean you have to make fun of less fortunate blokes like me, Tim.”

  “Don’t worry, Clark. You deserve all the kicks coming your way,” Timothy retorted.

  They were ready to depart. Vivien walked to the rolled down window on Timothy’s side. She bent and gave him a short kiss. He took her hand and squeezed it slightly.

  “We see each other in one hour at your place,” he said, with a dreamy glint in his loving brown eyes.

  “You bet,” she replied, accompanying her words with a promising smile.

  “Let’s go, Tim!” Clark urged him. “A couple of seconds more in the company of you two, and I’m getting seriously sick with envy.”

  They all burst into laughter. The Mercedes started to move slowly. Vivien followed them off the driveway, in the street, and she waved goodbye until the car vanished around the corner.

  CHAPTER 33

  It was one of those superb mornings that indulge San Francisco Peninsula every now and then during the late fall.

  All alone, Vivien went back in the house. She took off her dress, her high-heels, and her silk stockings, and she put on a pair of comfortable yoga pants and a hooded sweater. She decided that she would not need more than ten minutes to reach her house if she walked briskly or ran. She grabbed her cellular phone and her keys and took off.

  Soon she entered Flowers Street. The morning crisp breeze cooled off her face and eased her effort. She heard a strange zoom behind her. Before she could turn and check it out, she saw Brad, the helpful teenage neighbor, passing her by like the wind. He was roller skating and listening to his MP3 Player.

  “Good morning, Miss Hopkins,” he saluted politely, a little too loud, and made a U-turn a few yards in front of her.

  “Good morning, Brad!”

  “I haven’t seen you around lately. Are you moving too?” the boy inquired curiously.

  “Something like that,” Vivien gave an ambiguous answer. “Who else is moving from this area?”

  “The old man over there,” Brad informed her, showing a place a few houses further down the street. “The blind sculptor, Mr. Logan,” he cleared that up enthusiastically. “Have you seen his sculptures? They’re awesome!”

  “Not recently, but I know him since my childhood. Back then, I was admiring his gypsum figurines of dwarfs and wild animals.”

  “Well, Miss Hopkins…” Brad chuckled, scratching his head. “What I’ve seen is totally different. Rated R, I would say,” he added, and his face flushed a bright red. “You’ve got to see them. The man is definitely a genius. And he’s always glad to welcome people into his house and show them his works. I swear to God, he’s the coolest old guy I’ve ever met.”

  “You’re right, Brad. I think I should pay him a quick visit too. If you say that he’s leaving, I’d better hurry. I hope the sculptures are still here.”

  “I think they are,” the boy told her. “I’ve seen the U-Haul truck a while earlier. But they were loading heavy furniture only.”

  Vivien evaluated the time she had at hand until Timothy would return from the airport. She estimated that she could afford to spend a few minutes with Mr. Logan.

  The old sculptor’s house was on the other side of the street from hers, just a few blocks to the right.

  Vivien arrived at the address and pressed the dirty doorbell reticently. Not the slightest noise came from the inside. She knocked a few times. Still, no answer. She dared to make a few steps to the corner of the house, and then she advanced timidly toward the backyard, calling cautiously as she walked.

  “Hello! Mr. Logan! Is anybody home?”

  When she reached the back of the house, she stopped, enthralled by the magic show. An army of statues of all sizes populated a modest veranda. A few of them had been already wrapped up in thick brown paper, but the majority stood there entirely exposed to the young woman’s amazed stare. The nudes were predominant, men and women nudes, and Vivien smiled remembering Brad’s abashment. Her smile wasn’t long lived. It faded like a flower on her lips, as she realized that the faces of the statues were reproducing features of people she knew. She easily identified Nadine, Igor, Timothy, and especially Mademoiselle Lili. In a little winged angel, she even recognized herself as a child. As she touched the faces of the statues, spellbound, Vivien understood with sadness that Mr. Logan sculpted from his memories. The thought stirred an amalgam of emotions. It brought tears to her eyes. She could hardly comprehend the miracle that allowed a blind man to produce such exquisite art. She walked from a statue to another like a child in a candy store.


  Soon, Vivien remarked that the back door that opened into the veranda had been left cracked open. She approached it and knocked.

  “Mr. Logan!” she called a few times.

  She pushed the door open and discovered another dozen of statues in the middle of the room that was otherwise empty. Fueled by curiosity, Vivien stepped inside. Even the pictures on the walls had been removed. On the places where they had been, she could distinguish the initial color of the wall paint quite easily now. A nauseating reek of cigarettes smoke and alcohol hang in the room.

  “Is anybody home?” she asked again. As she expected, nobody answered her call.

  She lingered a while around the statues, touching and studying them and marveling at their beauty and perfection. Then she entered the other two rooms and the kitchen. Boxes full of clothes, shoes, dishes, and things that are or are not useful in a house lay everywhere. All doors to rooms and closets were wide open. With one exception. The door of a closet. Vivien tried its knob. It was locked. She quickly remembered Mr. Logan’s favorite place to keep the keys – up on the frame above. As a child, she had seen Mademoiselle Lili taking a key from a place like that so many times. She stood on the tips of her toes and reached on top of the dusty wooden frame. Got it, she whispered satisfied, touching the cold piece of metal. What do keep in here, Mr. Logan? Pornographic statues? With whom did you coupled Tee? Emotion ridden, her palms damp with perspiration, she unlocked that closet and opened its door. She gasped. The discovery flash-froze the blood in her veins.

  * * *

  Frowning, Art Leonard studied the map of the last unusual events in his area of action.

  “Alberman,” he yelled all of a sudden. “Have you found all Logan’s addresses?”

  “Yeah, I was just getting them from my desk,” the police officer answered, as he approached with the list of addresses. “Man, this old guy moved like crazy lately,” he pointed out.

  Detective Leonard took the list and started to pin miniature red flags on his map on the places of each of Logan’s addresses.

  “I’ll be damned if this isn’t fishy!” he muttered anxiously.

  “What’s up, boss?” Alberman came quickly to his side.

  “Look at this! The yellow ones are the addresses of Arlene, Igor, Carol Hopkins, the deceased construction engineers of Miss Lauren’s mansion, Miss Hopkins… The red ones are Logan’s addresses. Suspiciously close by, don’t you think so? If I go back in time… like fifteen years ago, I find him on the street of that murdered plastic surgeon from Woodside. You said he was moving right now again. Where to?”

  “Yes, he was moving his furniture this morning to 1213 Palms Street in Menlo Park. In fact, he’s relocating on a parallel street with the one he lived on as Miss Hopkins’ neighbor.”

  “He’s moving uncomfortably close to the house of Timothy Leigh, Vivien’s fiancée and the architect of Miss Lauren’s mansion,” detective Leonard concluded, dropping the red pen that he had been nervously spinning between his fingers all morning long. “Let’s go! We’ve got to have a tête-à-tête with talented Mr. Logan,” he told Alberman, as he collected his jacket and mobile phone and walked out of his office.

  CHAPTER 34

  The expensive floral scent that came from that closet was enough to set the speed of her pulse dangerously high and to raise gooseflesh all over her body. Vivien leaned closer and swiftly sniffed the man suit neatly arranged on a fancy green hanger. Obsession, the scent that was never missing from Mademoiselle Lili’s perfume collection. She remembered how she loved to play with Lili’s perfumes, as a child. She had tried them all. Terrified, she connected the dots now. She had detected the same unusual floral fragrance around Arlene’s dead body.

  Vivien pulled the small drawer of that antic vanity table, and the mirror on top of it trembled evil-bodingly, ready to drop. Startled, she instinctively held it in place with the other hand. Then she looked inside the drawer, and the discovery turned into a horrifying nightmare. A white manly wig, a few sets of black eyebrows, a couple of man’s handkerchiefs, plastic gloves, a glass make-up jar, a small bottle containing a dubious liquid, and a bistoury were neatly arranged in that old worm-eaten wooden container. An unexpected sensation of nausea made her back up a couple of steps. That very moment she detected the cadenced sound of high heels and a familiar metallic clinking that accompanied it. She regretfully concluded that she had decided to retreat way too late.

  “Curiosity killed the cat, my dear!” A well-known voice reverberated ominously in the room. “You’ve probably heard that many times, didn’t you Vivien? You must’ve, child. With your unusual hobby, you must’ve.”

  Vivien did not turn. The surprise had paralyzed her. She didn’t want to see her face. Not yet. Finally, she inspired deeply and gathered her courage. Then, she turned around and faced her enemy.

  “Did you come to pick up your… instruments, so you can… play again? Do you really think you’re smart, Lili? Do you really think that you can kill and get away with it forever?” Vivien gave a short, mocking laugh.

  “Until now, I’ve done it successfully,” Lili boasted, full of confidence. “I’m not really what you call a hands-on. Doctor Evans used to do it wonderfully. In the past, that is. Lately, he had become… How should I put it? Sloppy would be the right word. The old age is to blame, I suppose.”

  “You killed Arlene, didn’t you?” Vivien asked nauseated. “Why? What could a silly girl like Arlene do to you? She couldn’t even be taken seriously.”

  “First of all, she was a spy. And a lousy one, you should know that. Clark must’ve been quite desperate to trust her. In all my brief encounters with Arlene, I’ve always felt like talking to a brainless combination of a mini-skirt and a push-up bra. Secondly, she helped one of my girls run away with her child, a child that was very important to the organization. But what actually enraged me, it was her circus at the nightclub. That exotic dance… wrapped up only in a yellow scarf… The yellow silk scarf I gave her! How dared she make fun of my Amazons? She was still wet behind the ears…”

  “Exactly! That isn’t a reason to take someone’s life!” Vivien pointed out in a revolted tone.

  “Well, not really,” Lili admitted. “Actually, Arlene was a victim. My intention was to eliminate Andrew Evans. That’s why I placed his DNA at the crime scene. You see, Vivien, this man had become an insufferable cochon. He was waiting for me to offer him my darling little girls. He was lurking around my youngsters like a hyena, craving, watching them with hunger as they grew up and ripped. I couldn’t stand it anymore. Those disgusting thoughts in his head, I could actually read them every day in his eyes. I couldn’t allow him something like that, even though I had been forced to promise it years ago.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Well, what could I do? The shrink likes to meditate. He will have plenty of time for that in the prison. It never occurred to me that he had killed my Nadine,” she hissed, and her eyes flashed with hatred. “My decision would’ve been different, I’m quite sure of it. But at that time, I didn’t know about it, and I wasn’t so cruel as to do him in after all he had done for me. I have a heart, you know!”

  “Seriously!” Vivien mocked her. “Do you really expect me to believe that you have a heart, Mademoiselle Lili? Or maybe I should call you Miss Lauren, or The Queen? What do you prefer?”

  “What if you tried… mother?” Lili suggested with blatant audacity.

  “Only the thought makes me vomit,” Vivien replied. “So Arlene is your only hands-on victim?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You said it earlier: curiosity!”

  “Robert Kane,” Lili said shortly. “Actually, his death was premature. An accident like the one that happened to the construction engineer before him wouldn’t have raised suspicion at all. But so far so good, and believe me, my dear Vivien, everything happened so fast, I had to improvise!”

  “Spare me the morbid details, Mademoiselle Lili. Why the construction engineers? If you’re not happy with
their work, the logical solution is to replace them, find somebody else. Well, of course, to reach such a conclusion you need a healthy mind. Something you painfully lack.”

  “Dear, dear,” Lili laughed evilly. “You do have a sharp tongue. Not really the mousy young lady I expected.”

  “Others made the same mistake. It looks like my reputation always travels ahead of me. Unfortunately, it gets quite distorted by untrue rumors,” Vivien retorted.

  For a brief moment, Lili just watched her daughter, fascinated. Vivien insisted.

  “So you developed a fixation on construction engineers.”

  “Believe it or not, Vivien, I gave this matter a lot of thought. I don’t kill for pleasure. I always have at least one serious reason. The bottom line was that my house should be mine only. I don’t want anybody else to know it entirely, as I know it. Do you imagine how many secret entrances and exits that mansion has? I have to be the only one who knows them all. The only one,” she repeated.

  Vivien turned pale.

  “That means that Tee…”

  “Exactly. Timothy was next in line. Right after Robert Kane,” Lili said sharply. “And he’s still there, as far as I’m concerned.”

  Vivien felt the need to hurt her. She attacked her verbally, with unrestrained vengeance.

  “As much as I adored and loved you as a child, Mademoiselle Lili, lately, I have this strange experience whenever I think of you. I get the same feelings one gets when one thinks of a snake. You don’t want that disgusting creature to cross your path ever, but if it does, you feel the urge to crush its head to death. I’m so ashamed you are my natural parent.”

  Her angry words reached deep and caused the intended damage. Lili’s face became livid.

  “Well, Vivien, you’ll have to live with that, child,” she told her, shaking. “Funny, but as much as I like you now, and I’m obsessed with you, I never wanted to have you either. You were an accident.”

  Vivien ignored her disturbing confession.