The senator jumped in. “I take full responsibility for my actions, and had I known, thirty years ago, that Peggy was with child, I would have taken care of her and our daughter, Brandy.”
“What about your daughter?” someone shouted. “When did she find out you were her parents?”
Peggy Sue lifted a manicured finger. “You may ask anything about Edward and me, but please respect our daughter’s privacy. Brandy was recently a surrogate mother for her best friend and husband, who couldn’t conceive—the friend is a cervical cancer survivor—and Brandy is still recovering, physically and emotionally.”
I muttered, “Nicely played, Sis.”
Mother seemed to be watching Peggy Sue with a combination of pride and envy. “You know,” she said slowly, “I may not be the only actress in this house.”
“You’re not even the best actress in the house.”
She flashed me a frown, then returned her attention to the melodrama on screen.
I’d had plenty. Of press conference. Of popcorn. I got up and headed to the kitchen to check on Rocky, who was sleeping peacefully on his side, Sushi snuggled against his belly.
Upon hearing me, Soosh raised her head and gave a low growl, as if to say, “Hey, dummy, don’t wake him!”
So I tiptoed out.
Retrieving my cell phone from my purse, I dialed Brian’s number, and he picked right up.
“How ’bout that date?” I asked.
“Tonight?” He sounded surprised, but pleasantly so.
“If you’re not doing anything.”
“Well, I’m a very popular guy, you know.”
“I’m sure.”
“But as it happens ... I’m free.”
“Your place?”
“Okay. Give me an hour. Do you want me to pick you up?”
“No. I’ll find my way there.”
“Brandy?”
“Yes, Brian?”
“I’m glad you called.”
An hour later, freshly showered and pampered, wearing a green military-type shirt-dress, tan western booties, and a black leather jacket (mixing up styles keeps ’em guessing), I headed downstairs to tell Mother I was leaving, and where I’d be, in case Rocky regressed and needed the vet.
Mother was in the music room, straightening up. “What wonderful timing, dear.”
“What is?”
“That you happen to be seeing Brian. I want you to do something for me... .”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m listening.”
“You must convince him to come here tomorrow at one in the afternoon—precisely.”
“Why, precisely?”
“Because that, dear child, is when I will be gathering all the suspects—under the guise of auctioning off the Bix cornet—and will reveal who the murderer is.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Then ... you know?”
Because I sure didn’t.
“Not exactly,” she admitted. “But I do have a key witness in my pocket.”
“Who?”
“Never mind, dear—I’ll tell you later. Now, run along and don’t keep the interim chief of police waiting ... and remember, he must be present tomorrow to assist me in making the collar!”
Brian lived in a nice bungalow in a neighborhood of nice bungalows not far from downtown. I sat in the Buick out front, getting cold feet—this was no time to be renewing an old relationship, and there was the added pressure of Mother’s request.
Several minutes must have passed, before Brian rapped on the window, scaring me just a little.
As I opened the car door, he said, “Hey, it’s not that terrifying inside. I hope you weren’t sitting there trying to decide whether to come in or not.”
I smiled as I climbed out. “It’s not that ... I’ve just been through a lot lately.”
“I know. But then it seems like that’s always the case.”
“Not by plan.”
He took my arm. “You can unload on me, if you want.”
“Thanks. I may take you up on that.”
Inside, the living area had a hurriedly straightened up look, but was cozy and masculine, with brown faux-leather couch, tan recliner, and touches of sports memorabilia. A small gas fireplace was going, and an oak coffee table offered an assortment of cubed cheese and crackers, along with a bottle of white zinfandel (my fave, next to champagne).
Brian, in a pullover blue sweater and tan slacks, said sheepishly as I eyed the setup, “Too obvious?”
“Maybe a little,” I said with a smile. “But flattering.”
“We could go out for some dinner, only ... I thought maybe you would want some privacy, after, you know ...”
“The press conference?”
He nodded, puppy-dog brown eyes sympathetic.
“You got that right,” I said glumly. “Not much fun being the little girl who isn’t there.”
I plopped down on the couch and helped myself to a tall glass of wine.
For much of the next hour, between bites of cheese and crackers and sips of wine, I did indeed unload on poor Brian, and when I had finally run out of steam, and was sitting there sulking, he asked kindly, “Anything I can do?”
I set the wineglass down. “Yes.”
“Name it.”
“You can shut me up.”
“How exactly?”
“You might kiss me.”
So he did, a kiss that started soft and sweet, then turned as hot as the flames dancing in the fireplace (okay, it had been a while since I’d been kissed).
But before things could get hotter, I drew back.
“Brian,” I said, “there’s one thing ...”
“Yes?”
“It’s about Mother... .”
He groaned and leaned back. “You always did know how to kill a mood... .”
I told him about her request to be at our house the following afternoon at one.
To my surprise, he said, “Sure, fine, great, I’ll be there. I’ll do that for her.”
My eyes were popping. “Really?”
He nodded. “But she has to do something for me.”
And he told me about the single as-yet-unidentified print found on the steel cutter used to bludgeon Big Jim Bob, and how we could help him.
“Now,” he said, slipping an arm around me, “can we stop talking about mothers and murders?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
We kissed.
Fade to black.
A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
Often, appliances and furniture found in storage units need repairs or refinishing in order to be saleable; that’s when being a handyman (or woman) can be ... handy. But if you don’t have a knack for home repair, don’t risk anything valuable with your early efforts. This is where I would insert a humorous anecdote about Mother, if the piece she ruined hadn’t been so valuable... .
Chapter Eleven
Horn of Plenty
The morning of the gathering of suspects—under the guise of auctioning off the Bix Beiderbecke cornet—found Mother busy turning the library / music room into an unreasonable facsimile of Nero Wolfe’s office.
I asked, “What happened to us being Watson and Holmes?”
“Holmes and Watson,” Mother corrected. “Here’s a trivia question, dear. In what story did the Great Sleuth of Baker Street ever stage a drawing-room who-done-it finale in his messy flat?”
“I can’t think of one.”
“Right. Holmes had attempts on his life in his digs, plenty of times—but never a gathering of suspects! That technique was perhaps best utilized by Christie’s Poirot and by the movie version of Charlie Chan ... though they never held those gatherings in their respective abodes, either.”
“But Nero Wolfe did,” I said.
“Yes! Almost always, his office at home was where he conducted his ‘charades.’ ”
“So now I’m Archie Goodwin.”
“That’s right, darling.”
“Just checking.”
Still, Mothe
r seemed excessive in her elaborate rearranging of the furniture, though I did understand that she needed a stage and props for what was to be the first-ever performance designed to trap a killer right here at the Borne homestead. I would have rather held it on an ocean cruise like Charlie or in some exotic locale like Hercule. But you take what you can get.
We moved the Oriental rug in from the living room (“The Persian simply won’t do!”), and Mother—while less than overjoyed about it—consented to use the large library table as her / Wolfe’s desk, with an overstuffed chair behind. The books on the built-in wall shelves had been rearranged in a more orderly, librarylike fashion, and her ragtag collection of musical instruments had been stored away ...
. . . with one notable exception—the horn of the hour, the Bix cornet she’d retrieved from our booth at the antiques mall. She had reassembled it, returning valve and mouthpiece to their rightful position. The horn and its papers of authenticity she placed out of sight.
Mother got into a particular tizzy when she realized we had nothing handy to fill in for Wolfe’s mammoth, magnificent world globe, until I remembered a smaller one languishing in the garage, among the hundreds of yard sale treasures patiently awaiting repairs.
When I brought the slightly dented globe in, Mother at first balked at the sight of it, wobbling on a thin pole (the globe, not Mother). Her first complaint was that the map was so old Israel wasn’t a country yet, but I countered that by reminding her that Israel hadn’t been a country yet in plenty of Wolfe novels.
“Mother, we are running out of time. You have to accept that this is not a Broadway production, and that you—like many a great actress—must use your gifts to make magic out of a few secondhand props.”
I think I threw up a little in my mouth toward the end there.
“You are correct!” Mother said, raising a finger skyward much as she had when playing the world’s tallest Mammy Yokum in the Playhouse production of Li’l Abner. “A great actress must make the most of it, no matter what the deficiencies of her stage crew might be!”
That wasn’t terribly gracious of her, was it? But at least my tactic worked.
The only staging left to do was the manner of seating the suspects before the “desk.” Specifically, the two well-known (to Nero Wolfe readers, anyway) leather chairs: one red, the other yellow, for important guests. Well, we didn’t have any leather chairs, red, yellow or chartreuse. Again I solved the problem by covering a pair of Queen Annes with a yellow sheet and red blanket.
By this time I was exhausted by Mother’s inane demands, and almost cried in happiness when she finally shooed me offstage so she could rehearse, closing the library doors behind me. If she really had a good idea who our killer was, maybe all this foolishness would prove worthwhile.
I went into the kitchen to check on Sushi and Rocky, the dogs having been kept out from underfoot, behind closed doors. Rocky was up and around, sniffing at the floor, no doubt finding a few errant Froot Loops that had escaped my cereal bowl; Sushi was curled up on the blanket, pooped from her stint as night nurse.
Since it was a warm, sunny fall day, I put the two dogs outside on separate chains that would no doubt get tangled as soon as I turned my back.
About a quarter to one, Brian arrived with his apparel as casually handsome as he was—sky-blue button-down with sleeves rolled up, gray slacks, and black shoes. He did have his revolver on his hip. Well, even men accessorize.
As I let him in the front door, he shook his head and said, “Wild one down at the station this morning—almost couldn’t get away.” Then: “Everything all right? You look like you fell off the back of a truck.”
I cocked my head, smirking cutely (I hope). “Gee, you sure do know just the right thing to say to a girl, the day after.”
He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry. Just trying to be funny.”
“I’ll do the jokes, thanks.”
“But you do look frazzled.”
“Don’t I know it. I’m just a poor old clapboard house that got picked up and tossed around by Mother’s tornado.”
“Was that one of the jokes?”
“Shut up.”
“Just wondering. Where is la Diva Borne?”
I nodded toward the library / music room. “Rehearsing for the matinee performance.”
His sigh started at his belt buckle. “Well, I just hope this stunt of hers works ... otherwise we’ve got nothing else to go on.”
“Not a stunt—a charade. Like in Rex Stout.”
“Who’s Rex Stout?”
I liked him anyway.
As I went to inform Mother that Brian was here, I noticed out the window that the first of our suspects—that is, guests—had also arrived: Milton Lawrence himself. His black sedan, chauffeured by his secretary / assistant Lee Hamilton, was just pulling into the drive.
Mother, face flushed, flew out of the library like a flustered hen from a henhouse. And she was now wearing a pair of men’s yellow silk pajamas!
Brian clutched my arm. “What the hell ... ?”
“That’s something Nero Wolfe wears,” I said.
“Who’s Nero Wolfe?”
Mother approached, gestured to herself, and quipped, “These are the most notable attire Nero wears in the books.”
“Yeah,” I countered. “To bed!”
Brian’s mouth was hanging like the hinges had stopped working properly—he just had to be having second thoughts about being here, and particularly about endorsing Mother’s charade. The Girl in the Yellow Silk Pajamas (watch for the new bestseller from Sweden) seemed to sense this, and latched on to his arm, before he could bolt.
To me she said, “Dear, escort Milton in, after I get Brian into his proper position.” Then to no one in particular, she added, “Oh, I do wish we had our own Fritz to answer the door, dear, but you’re needed as Archie. But then, I guess sometimes Archie does answer the door, when Fritz is busy... .”
As she hauled him away, Brian called back to me, “Who is—”
“Fritz is Nero Wolfe’s cook / butler!” I said, “I’m Archie Goodwin, by the way. And before you ask, Archie is Wolfe’s secretary and leg man.”
Brian’s expression was caught between tears and laughter. “I’m kind of a leg man myself,” he said.
Hauling Brian into the music room, Mother called to me, “Don’t forget, you’re to join me when the last suspect arrives!”
Brian gave me the fish-eye before disappearing, and I went out to greet Milton Lawrence, whom Lee Hamilton was escorting up the front steps.
The elderly millionaire looked like at least a million—dark suit, gray shirt, and silver-and-red striped tie, conservative but beautifully cut. The assistant was allowed to dress more casually—a pale blue Ralph Lauren polo shirt and navy slacks and Italian loafers. Still pricey.
I instructed our wealthy guest to go on in, and as he did, his man Lee paused at the door to ask, “Any idea how long the auction will last, Brandy? I have some errands to run for Mr. Lawrence.”
“Better allow an hour,” I said. “You know my mother—she has her own way in mind of running it. Let’s just say she has some ... entertainment ... prepared.”
“Oh, I know.” He grinned. “Where do you think she got the silk pajamas?”
I should have guessed.
He winked, then disappeared down the walk.
One by one, the rest of the guests arrived: John Anderson, owner of the Beiderbecke house and landlord of the late Anna Armstrong; Waldo Hendricks, antiques shop proprietor and Beiderbecke collector; Travis Taylor, ex-partner of Big Jim Bob; and James Lawrence, Canadian cable TV mogul and disinherited son of Milton.
There was enough time between arrivals for me to escort each guest individually to the library—Mother instructing them where to sit (Milton was to have the red chair, James the yellow). Consequently, the suspects only discovered who the other bidders were as I brought them in.
Some tension developed when Waldo Hendricks spotted the already-seated John An
derson—the antiques dealer stiffened and grumbled to himself, though neither man made a move to leave. The Bix horn trumped their animosity.
When the final guest, James Lawrence, was ushered to the remaining chair, Milton—seated nearby reacted at once. He might have needed Lee Hamilton to help him up the walk, but he sure didn’t need any help flying to his feet.
He glared at Mother, and began to sputter: “You ... you ... didn’t tell me ... he ... was coming!”
Yellow-pajamaed Mother, seated behind the library desk, in full Nero Wolfe mode, bellowed in a bassy male manner, “Sit down, sir! I prefer people at eye level. I do not confer with one guest to ask for the approval of inviting another. At any rate, this is a business transaction, the auction of a valuable collectible, and if it has inadvertently led to an awkward family reunion as well, that is beside the point. Now ... this can take a short time, or a long one—you decide.”
Milton Lawrence, flabbergasted, sat. James Lawrence crossed his legs, amused.
Mother leaned forward, elbows on the table, tenting her hands. In her basso profundo, she said, “Before we begin,” and then she started coughing. It lasted a while.
Everybody looked at each other, even Milton and James.
Then Mother started again, in just as pretentious a tone but abandoning her efforts to sound like a male.
“Before we begin,” she said, “I would like to offer refreshment. Will you join me? Archie?”
I gave her a sharp look. “Mother, I’m only going to answer to ‘Brandy.’ ”
She nodded. “Refreshment, Brandy?”
Now I was willing to pick up on my cue, which was to pass out glasses of iced tea (for fingerprint I.D., the reason Brian had been willing to go along with the charade). I did this using a silver tray, each guest taking the glass, except for Travis, who declined ... but I went out to the kitchen and returned with the tray and a bottle of beer for him, and that he took.
(We had the beer on hand because Mother wanted to empty a bottle to use as a prop, since beer was Nero Wolfe’s beverage of choice, and she would on occasion pretend to take a sip from it.)
I took my place to Mother’s right at an old metal typing stand with a manual typewriter, meant to represent Archie’s desk.
Antiques Disposal Page 18
