“But I’ve had that horn for ages, dear. It had no connection to the storage unit. Anyway, don’t you think the horn was the blunt instrument used on your sister? And that the miscreant took the evidence with him to dispose of?”
That made sense.
But so, suddenly, did something else.
“Mother—we do have a trumpet that came out of that storage unit! It’s in our garage.”
“Well, that’s right, dear.” Then, as if she’d seen a ghost, she gripped my sleeve. “But it’s not a trumpet, it’s a cornet.”
“Does it matter?”
“It may matter a great deal.”
“Why?”
“Bix played cornet.”
In the car, on the side street, Mother withdrew a photo from the pocket where she’d stowed it. She handed it to me—a picture of a man and two teenage boys.
“Isn’t that Milton Lawrence?” I asked. “A lot younger than I ever remember seeing him. But isn’t that him?”
The photo had been taken decades ago—late 1960s, judging by the boys’ mod clothes and Beatle haircuts.
Lawrence, now in his early eighties, was Serenity’s wealthiest citizen, thanks in part to the money his wife had left him. I had no knowledge of when or how she’d died; I just knew she’d inherited plenty from ancestors who had made a fortune in logging in the early 1800s when Serenity had been known as Bloomington.
“That’s Milton, all right,” Mother said.
So she was on a first-name basis with the wealthy coot. I did not detect any hint of intimacy, however.
“How about the two boys?” I asked her, not recognizing either.
“His sons. One died in Vietnam ... the other lives in Canada ... though, as far as his father is concerned, he might as well be dead, too.”
“What?”
“Nothing, dear.” Returning the photo to her pocket, she asked, “And what did you find? I could tell by your self-satisfied expression that you struck gold.”
“Fool’s gold, maybe. Anyway—this letter.”
Which she took from me, reading aloud, “ ‘Dear Miss Armstrong, I’m sorry I missed you the other day. I hope you’ll reconsider my offer. As you will discover, I don’t give up easily when I set my sights on something. I hope to hear from you soon. Sincerely, Waldo Hendricks.’ ”
“Who the heck’s that?”
Mother dropped the letter in her lap. “Oh, you know, dear—that pompous poop who runs that ridiculous antique store in the Village of East Davenport.”
“Oh! You mean, that guy who overprices everything and won’t haggle?”
She nodded. “Or give us a dealer’s discount.”
Mother never forgot a slight—real or imagined.
“He’s always such a jerk. Please tell me we don’t have to go talk to him.”
“You know we do, dear,” Mother said. “We need to find out what he wanted so badly from Anna.”
The redundantly named Antiquarian Antiques, with its faux-weathered WALDO HENDRICKS, PROPRIETOR sign in the window, was lodged in a three-story Victorian brick building on the corner of Mound and East Eleventh.
Parking was free in the East Village, and we found a place right in front of the shop, where we quickly entered, a tinkling bell above the door announcing our presence.
Mr. Hendricks—late forties, mustached, wearing a dark pinstriped suit more befitting a banker—was seated at a tidy desk just inside the door. He looked up from his Antiques Trader with bored eyes, and intoned, “Oh, it’s you.”
Since I had rarely been in the shop, and exchanged perhaps a dozen words with him, the owner’s displeasure was clearly aimed at Mother, suggesting they had a history of which I was only a small part.
At any rate, Mother tossed her head and said, “And how very nice to see you again, too, Waldo.”
“Always a pleasure, Vivian,” he said, his tone implying the exact opposite. Then, after a perfunctory, barely audible, “If I can be of any help,” he returned to his magazine.
I prowled around, taking in the merchandise, knowing it would reflect the owner’s taste in antiques, in this instance lots of red velvet chairs, massive mahogany beds, and overly ornate lamps with fringes and tassels—what Mother terms Victorian Bordello (and I call San Francisco Whorehouse).
Mother had moved on, through the front room to the second, larger one, where more of the same (to me) tacky furnishings awaited. I caught up with her in front of the last, not terribly large room, entry blocked by a metal turnstile.
A sign posted said:
BIX BEIDERBECKE MUSEUM
Recommended Donation $5.00
Affixed to the wall was a padlocked wooden box with a slit for donations, under a sign stating that all proceeds would benefit the Bix Philanthropic Society.
I asked Mother, “Just who or what is that society?”
She grunted. “You just saw him.”
“Waldo?”
“Waldo.”
And she pushed through the metal gate without paying.
As museums went, this one was pretty darn sparse, running to photos of the young musician (circa the 1920s), some sheet music, and a few old-time records—in various glass display cases, of course. There was even a rather embarrassing store manikin dressed in a twenties tux meant to represent Bix, but Madame Tussauds had nothing to worry about.
Still, one display had earned Mother’s attention—an old, gold cornet, labeled with a white placard: SIMILAR TO THE CORNET USED BY BIX.
“And isn’t that similar to the one we just got?” I asked.
“Now we know what Waldo wanted from Anna,” Mother said.
She turned abruptly, and I had to hurry to catch up as she made a beeline back to Waldo Hendricks.
“We have Anna’s cornet,” Mother told him, laying all her cards on the table.
Hendricks looked up again from his periodical; but his eyes were not so bored this time. “Indeed? And where did you get it?”
With admirable lack of embellishment or melodrama, Mother told him about winning the storage unit auction, and running across his letter to Anna, although she did imply the missive had been among the contents of the unit.
Hendricks sat forward, elbows on the desk, hands tented. “Tell me—what kind of cornet is it? The brand name, I mean... .”
Mother didn’t miss a beat: “A Bach. Stradivarius.”
Hendricks sat back, the bored eyes returning. “It’s of no import, now. My museum already has a Bach Stradivarius. When Miss Armstrong wouldn’t part with hers, I found one on the Internet.”
Mother was not good enough an actress to disguise her crestfallen reaction.
I tried to salvage the situation. “The one we have is in better condition—almost good as new, without the dings and dents. How much had you offered Anna for it?”
“Two hundred fifty.”
Something jumped in Mother’s eyes. She had that expression whenever she’d connected the dots. “What if that horn belonged to Bix himself? It came from the Bix mansion, after all!”
The dealer’s expression could not have been more bored, his eyes lidded, his response almost drowsy. “That is not the ‘Bix mansion,’ Vivian, it’s Bix’s grandparents’ home. And in any event, it did not come from there.”
“Well, it certainly did!”
“It came from Anna Armstrong, who told me it was a gift from an old boyfriend. She was merely a woman with an old cornet who happened to live in a home with a connection to Bix Beiderbecke.”
The dots disconnected and Mother’s eyes lost their spark. Momentarily. Then they and she came alive again, and she blurted, “You can have it for two hundred! It’s still a better example than the one you have.”
His mouth moving as if trying to taste the memory of a meal, Hendricks contemplated our offer.
“Well,” he said slowly, “I’d have to see the cornet first. I might be in the market for a nicer example. Can you bring it in tomorrow morning?”
“Certainly!” Mother chirped in a high-pitched ma
nner worthy of Curly Howard.
And then she did something silly but very much in character: she saluted him.
And before she could do further damage, I pulled her out the door by her sleeve.
Out on the sidewalk, Mother asked, “Why the long face, dear? If Waldo takes our offer, we’ll have doubled what we paid for the storage unit on that one item alone.”
“I know ... I just thought ... after that Bix house? That we’d get more. And I thought we’d figured out what the valuable item was that our intruder was after—and Anna’s.”
Mother put a finger to her chin. “It does seem like we should get a better price—collectible cornets aren’t exactly plentiful, having gone out of fashion when Harry James traded his in for a trumpet.”
I mused, “What do you suppose it would be worth, if it had belonged to Bix?”
Mother thought for a moment. “I would imagine quite a lot. Why, the right Bix Beiderbecke collector might pay a small fortune for such a thing—perhaps thousands. You know, some of those antiquing people are bonkers!”
We arrived back in Serenity by early dusk, an orange harvest moon hanging low in the sky, having usurped a yellow sun.
The first thing I did was head to the garage to retrieve Anna’s cornet, which I then brought into the music room.
Mother appeared and, taking the gold-plated horn from me, said, “You know, I used to play a pretty mean ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B.’ ”
I had heard this proclamation a hundred times, and so far had been able to avoid any such performance. This time, however, I decided to put an end to it.
“Go ahead,” I challenged her, settling into an armchair.
Mother immediately backpedaled. “Of course, it has been a while ... the old embouchure ain’t what she used to be! That’s ‘lip,’ dear, in musician speak.”
“Oh ... I think you still have plenty of lip left.”
Ignoring that, she said, “Well, here goes... .”
She brought the mouthpiece up and blew into the little horn.
Nothing came out.
Not even a sour note.
“Maybe the valves are in wrong,” Mother said.
She unscrewed the trio of cylinders, and withdrew them one at a time, checking.
“No,” she said, puzzled. “They’re in correctly. They could use some valve oil, but they’re in, all right.”
“Try again,” I encouraged. “Blow harder.”
Mother did ...
. . . and two projectiles flew out of the horn’s bell.
I bent over them, where they landed—pieces of folded paper, one small and yellowed with age, the other white with the appearance of stationery.
“What are those, dear?” Mother asked. “Music?”
I picked them up, unfolding the white one first.
“ ‘November 25, 1969,’ ” I read. “ ‘My darling Anna, please keep this cornet for me until I return. It once belonged to the great Bix Beiderbecke, and it may have some value one day. It sure holds sentimental value for me, thinking of the nights we spent listening to old jazz 78s in the rec room. I hope to come home on leave for Christmas. All my love ... Stephen.’ ”
Mother’s jaw hung loose by its hinges, her eyes wide and wild—and if my expression mirrored hers, I wouldn’t be surprised.
She pointed excitedly to the smaller paper in my hand. “And that?”
I unfolded it.
“It’s a receipt for the horn,” I said, “from a music store on West 48th Street in New York.” My jaw dropped. “And signed by Bix himself!”
“Good Lord,” Mother cried, then spat, “Two hundred bucks, my sweet patootie! Darling, we’ve hit the jackpot!”
“Yeah,” I said, my smile morphing into a frown. “And the murder motive... .”
A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
Keep in mind that many delinquent storage unit tenants often wait until the last minute to pay their back rent, which is why it’s best to plan on attending several different auctions. Mother calls this hedging a bet, but I call it not wasting your time.
Chapter Six
A Snitch in Time
Vivian speaking, or that is, writing. Today I will be doing some investigating on my own—and you’re invited! Brandy will be occupied with bringing Peggy Sue home from the hospital, and Sushi back from the veterinarian. More of that later... .
But before we begin our inquiries, I must digress momentarily to defend myself from unfair accusations and depictions, and set a few things straight with you, dear reader.
First of all, I would like to thank those who have taken of your precious time to contact our publisher requesting that more of my literary stylings be included in these volumes. As of this book, however, I am still confined to one paltry chapter (not counting the half chapter at the start that I managed to finesse), so keep those e-mails and letters a-comin’, friends and neighbors!
(And you will be relieved to learn that I am no longer to be regulated to a strict word count. Honestly, who counts words! As the old saying goes, it’s the thought that counts, and besides, it’s not as if a few meager sentences would save a tree. What good was accomplished by cutting me off in midsentence in Antiques Flee Market? I ask you!)
Secondly, some of the glass-half-empty types among my followers wrote to express disappointment when—after four books—I was finally allowed to complete my hilarious, heartwarming story about little Billy Buckly, whose grandfather was one of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz (standing right behind Judy Garland in “The Lollipop Guild” number). Well, much as it pains me not to please you, surely you can understand that the buildup over so long a time was simply too much for the story to live up to your great expectations. (To make amends, I have another trolley tale—even more amusing—which I will soon share with you ... without interruption!)
Thirdly, I do not feel that I am responsible for the departure of former chief Tony Cassato. How could I have guessed that the story I concocted and disseminated throughout our community might accidentally contain elements of truth? Who could have guessed that the New Jersey mob really did have a contract out on the chief? Certainly not moi!
I’d merely been trying to flush out (and flesh out) the mysterious past of that tight-lipped enigma, and had no intention of putting him—much less Brandy—in any real danger, or even to bust up their romance. My goodness, don’t you think I would have relished having that balding Brando (middle period) for a son-in-law? Why, I get all goose pimply just thinking about the classified police information I could have pried out of him via Brandy!
Yes, if it came to that, Brian Lawson would also make a good son-in-law (should his renewed relationship with Brandy ever come to fruition), and he treats me with (marginally) more respect than his predecessor. Plus, he would make a passable permanent chief of police—ripe for putty-in-my-hands molding, though Vivian Borne would much prefer more of a challenge.
For those of you reading this book in a creative writing class (what a wretchedly redundant name for such a class—of course it’s creative!)—keep in mind that what I’ve written here so far serves two purposes: backstory and characterization. Any complaints that I’m not moving the story along fast enough (Brandy) are balderdash (a perfectly good word not used near enough these days).
On this beautiful, warm Indian summer day, I quickly dressed in one of my colorful fall outfits (can’t go wrong with Breckenridge!) (particularly not if you go to Ingram’s Department Store on Wednesday Senior’s Day, plus take a coupon, and use their store credit card, getting 20% off 20% off 20%—it’s worth admitting you’re over sixty-five!).
I packed a large orange tote with a few items, then headed out the door to catch the gas-powered trolley due momentarily, just down the block.
The reconverted trolley car (sponsored by the downtown merchants to fight customer exodus to the mall) was a fine, free way for me to get around without being beholden to Brandy. Everything of importance in Serenity was within a four-block radius: the
magnificent old courthouse and city hall, the new police station and fire department, the newer county jail. But today, I wasn’t interested in any of those municipalities.
Like any good detective, I was on my way to get the latest skinny from my snitches.
The trolley ran a tad late, and as I stepped onboard I could see that the driver, Maynard Kirby, looked a little grumpy, so I chose not to berate him for his tardiness.
Maynard had been through much personal strife these past few years. When his wife, Phyllis, lost his fish-hatchery pension playing blackjack on the gambling boat, he was forced to take a post-retirement job driving the trolley. Then a few months later, Phyllis won a bundle on a slot machine at a casino, and he was able to quit the trolley. But soon she lost that money playing on-line poker, so after so much financial yo-yoing, it was no wonder poor Maynard was down in the dumps.
Maynard—late sixties, bespectacled, his salt-and-pepper hair matching a trim beard—eyed me warily as I took a front seat (most likely fearful I might ask him the favor of deviating from his designated route to drop me somewhere or other).
But I merely said, “Main Street ... Hunter’s Hardware, to be specific.”
He nodded curtly, and closed the trolley door. I settled back for the picturesque drive down Mulberry Avenue, and soon we were passing some of the grandest old homes in Serenity, their manicured lawns speared with colorful trees, porches bedecked with potted fall mums.
The trolley was nearly empty—just a few people in the back—so I felt it well within my purview to raise my voice a trifle over the motor rumble and say, “I heard Phyllis made another killing.”
Maynard took his eyes off the road for a second. “You heard right.”
“Casino, was it?”
“Lottery.”
“So will you be leaving the trolley again?”
“No. She already lost it all.”
“Heavens to Betsy. How?”
“Roulette.”
“My goodness, she certainly likes a variety of the games.”
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