I said, “Afraid I’m far too busy to be involved with theater right now.”
“Ah, yes,” he said. “From what I read in the paper, I would imagine you’re in the thick of another murder mystery. Any leads?”
I shrugged. “Just getting started, gathering data, you know. Like Holmes said, ‘Data, data, data, I need bricks to build a wall.’ ”
“I think that’s clay to make bricks.”
“I prefer my wording. Is Milton in?”
I said this as casually as if I regularly dropped by to see Serenity’s wealthiest magnate.
Lee made a sour face. “He is ... but in such foul mood. I doubt he’ll see anyone today.”
“Well, try, would you? It’s important. Milton and I go way back, you know.”
“All right,” Lee said doubtfully, and touched a button on the intercom. “Sorry to disturb you, sir ... but Vivian Borne is here—”
“I have no desire whatsoever to see that old battle-ax! Send her away!”
Lee cringed. He mouthed, Sorry!
I took no offense—the stock market had been bearish—but replied, loud enough for Milton to hear, “Tell the lovely man that the battle-ax has brought him a sampling of her world-famous chocolate mint brownies.”
Half a beat, then: “All right ... send her in—and bring me coffee!”
Silencing the intercom, Lee smiled. “I marvel at your foresight.”
“Everyone has a weakness. And I know what Milton’s is. Or at least one of them.”
As I headed toward the door to Milton’s inner office, Lee spoke. “Vivian?”
I turned, expecting him to ask me what his weakness was (fine clothes and furnishings), but he merely asked, “How about one of those brownies for the guardian at the gate?”
“Anything for you, dear boy.”
And I brought out the tin from my orange tote.
Chocolate Mint Brownies
Brownies:
½ cup butter (softened)
1 cup sugar
4 eggs
1½ cup chocolate syrup
1 cup flour
¼ tsp. baking powder
Cream butter with sugar, add eggs and beat well. Add syrup. Combine flour and baking powder, then add to wet mixture. Bake in greased 11x16 pan at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.
Frosting:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. milk
½ cup butter (softened)
½ tsp. green food coloring
½ tsp. peppermint extract
Cream sugar, milk, and butter, add food coloring and extract. Spread on cool brownies. (If brownies are still warm, spread frosting, then pop into freezer to set.)
Glaze:
1 cup chocolate semi-sweet chips
6 Tbsp. butter
Melt chips and butter over low heat, stirring slowly. Cool. Spread on top of frosting. Let set before cutting. Calories: Y.D.W.T.K. (You Don’t Want to Know).
As I entered Milton’s inner office, Serenity’s wealthiest citizen didn’t bother to get up from behind his large mahogany desk. Once a handsome man, his features had been hardened by years of worshiping Mammon. He, nonetheless, still possessed a commanding presence—tall of stature, with a full head of silver hair, and a striking pair of dark blue, sharply intelligent eyes ... which at the moment were locked in greedy anticipation upon my tin of brownies.
“Milton,” I said, “you’re looking well.”
He grunted only, “Vivian,” never one to acknowledge (much less return) a compliment.
I sat in the black leather visitor’s chair in front of the desk, then opened the tin, allowing the chocolate-minty aroma to waft teasingly toward his helpless nostrils.
Punching an intercom button, Milton snapped, “Lee ... where is that coffee!”
“Almost ready, sir... .”
“Hurry it up. And, uh ... fetch a cup for Vivian, too.”
I called to the intercom, “Black, please!” Then to Milton I said, “You must treasure that man.”
“Why?”
Because he was a saint to have worked for so long for such an egomaniacal taskmaster.
“Oh,” I said, “as the saying goes, ‘A good employee is a thing of beauty.’ ”
He frowned. “Who ever said that?”
“Well, I did. Just now.”
Before this meeting went entirely to heck-and-gone, I placed a gooey brownie on a colorful leaf-print napkin and passed it over to Milton—a sacrifice to a grouchy god.
“I’m not here just to shoot the breeze, Miltie,” I began. “Or to fatten you up. I do have important business.”
(Once I made the mistake of calling him “Uncle Miltie,” and he threw me out of his office. Some of you may be old enough to remember the television comedian Milton Berle, who was America’s Uncle Miltie for a time. But as that Uncle Miltie was a raucous comedian who often dressed in drag, comparisons were not necessarily flattering to a stuffy old coot like Milton Lawrence.)
Of course, there was nothing stuffy about the way Milton took a big bite of that brownie, his eyes rolling back in his head orgasmically.
A tasteless overstatement? You’ve never had my brownies, then! I have been told on good authority that my brownies are better than sex.
(Note from editor: The above passage may offend some of our readers; please soften.)
(Note from Vivian: But it’s the God’s honest truth ... both Harold and Vern said so—of course, their memories may be failing them. How about, “My brownies are better than a roll in the hay?”)
Milton, mouth brimming with brownie (his second), dark frosting smeared above his upper lip, asked pointedly, “What do you want, Vivian? What are these brownies costing me?”
Before I could answer, the door opened and Lee came in balancing a tray like a waiter—impressive, but I’d seen him do that in our production of Weekend at the Waldorf. He set the tray down on the edge of the desk and then, with the same flourish as on stage, poured coffee from a pot into two cups, adding cream to Milton’s, and leaving mine black.
After Lee had departed, I reached into my tote once more, and withdrew the love letters from Stephen to Anna, which I placed upon the desk.
Milton picked up the stack, studied them, flipped through them like he was shuffling cards, then asked sternly, “How do you come to have these, Vivian?”
I told him about winning the storage auction on Anna Armstrong’s unit, concluding with, “I thought you might like to have them, now that the poor woman has passed.”
His answer was another unreadable grunt.
“Were you close to her?” I ventured, bringing the coffee cup to my lips.
Milton set the letters down. “She was around our place a good deal when she and Stephen were dating,” he said. “But after his loss, we ... drifted apart.”
I remained silent, hoping the brownies might have loosened his tongue. A sugar rush has its value.
“I did have some contact with Anna,” he continued, “not terribly long ago. She wanted me to invest in a bed-and-breakfast.”
I sat forward. “The Beiderbecke home in Davenport?”
He gave me a surprised glance. “Why yes. She and the owner—a John Anderson, I believe—were looking for seed money.” He paused, then went on. “At first, I wasn’t interested ... but then Anna mentioned using the downstairs parlor room as a Bix museum.”
In competition with Waldo Hendricks!
Gently I asked, “Did you?”
“Did I what, Vivian?”
“Invest?”
He shook his head. “No. Before it went any further, she was gone.”
She was murdered.
He was saying, “And, of course, without Anna, I lost all interest in the project.”
He took on a melancholy mien, and I wondered if he might not have been in love with Anna himself.
Milton suddenly sat straight in his chair. “Tell me, Vivian—did you happen to find an old cornet among the items in the storage unit?”
&nbs
p; Why deny it?
“I did ... along with the original sales receipt.”
“Then you know”—those dark blue eyes glittered—“know that it once belonged to Bix himself.”
I nodded.
Milton laughed once, silently, then shook his head, and he seemed to drift off somewhere, somewhere not in this room.
He said, “I bought that cornet for Stephen when he was a boy—he played the trumpet in the school band and was quite good. Especially jazz. He had a real interest in jazz, and my old 78s.”
I gestured to the stack of letters. “Apparently he and Anna would listen to them together. In your rec room?”
The sharp eyes narrowed. “What are you planning to do with the cornet?”
“Why, sell it to the highest bidder, of course,” I said. “That’s the little business I’m in with my daughter, you know. That’s why we bought that pig-in-a-poke storage unit.”
“You had no idea that horn was in the unit?”
“None,” I said, and that was technically true, though Big Jim Bob had indicated the unit might hold something valuable.
Then I added, “I do hope you’re not going to challenge my ownership. I won the bid on the unit in good faith, and possession is nine-tenths of the law.” (Ten-tenths in my case. Eleven-tenths.)
He seemed to melt back into the chair. “No, Vivian, of course not. Although I could challenge you on the fact that—if I remember correctly—the cornet was given to Anna not as a gift, but for safekeeping.” He sighed heavily. “I might consider making you an offer. But I’ll need to reflect on that—considering the cornet is something that would bring back sad memories.”
I risked bringing up another memory. Perhaps not sad, but bad. “I apologize for asking, but ... is it true your son James is in town?”
Milton’s face hardened, and he responded tersely, “If he’s here, I’ve had no contact with him.”
“Don’t you think you should? Isn’t it about time that—”
“Vivian.” His body stiffened. “Your brownies will only buy you so much goodwill... .”
I raised a finger. “ ‘The weak can never forgive ... only the strong.’ ”
“Who said that? You?”
“Mahatma Gandhi.”
He closed his eyes. He opened his eyes. “Vivian, I think it’s time for you to go.”
“ ‘Families are like fudge ... mostly sweet with a few nuts.’ Unknown.”
“Go!”
In the outer office, Lee was at a side desk, working on a computer, the beginnings of a letter onscreen.
I asked the back of him: “What are your plans after Milton’s retirement?”
He swiveled, his expression pleasant. “I’m taking mine, too.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Aren’t you a little young for that?”
“Mr. Lawrence has been very generous with my salary over the years ... so why not take a permanent vacation? I’m thinking about either San Francisco or Key West.”
“San Francisco in the summer,” I suggested, “Key West in the winter.”
“Nice notion. And if I get bored, wherever you are, there’s always a community theater.”
I chuckled. “You won’t leave town without saying good-bye, will you?”
“Never. Expect a theatrical exit.”
“Ha!” I smiled at the dear boy. “Do come by the house, anytime. Well ... ta-ta!”
I simply had to find just the right girl for him.
It was late afternoon when I stepped out of the bank building, the autumn sun low in the sky, bright rays spreading a ribbon of gold across the Mississippi waters. (Not bad, huh?)
I hoofed it two blocks to a park bench in front of our beautiful Grecian wedding-cake of a courthouse to wait for the trolley.
As promised, I will now tell my even-better trolley story. There was a spinster in town who bought a chimpanzee to keep her company, and one day she wanted to take it with her on the trolley, but since the driver (the one prior to Maynard Kirby’s most recent return) wouldn’t allow pets on board, she dressed it up as a little girl, complete with a Goldilocks wig. Well, everything was fine until
(Note from editor: Vivian’s strict word count has been reactivated.)
Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
If you are serious about making money from storage unit auctions, be consistent: attend as many as possible. Not just when the mood hits you (like Mother).
Chapter Eight
Scandal, Us?
With Mother off to terrorize downtown Serenity, I took advantage of the solitude around the Borne homestead to indulge in a warm, leisurely shower. Relaxed, even refreshed, I dressed in DKNY jeans and a new burgundy Three Dots tee (which I’d snagged on-line 75% off), slipped into some leopard-print Sam Edelman flats (another sale), and grabbed my mustard-yellow Hobo hobo-style bag. (It’s so liberating that nothing has to match anymore—although Mother sometimes takes this to a what-did-she-do-dress-in-the-dark extreme.)
Before I continue, however, some reality checks are needed after Mother’s marathon chapters: 1) The calliope was playing “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down”—the Looney Tunes theme—at the time of the Boat Club ramming, not “Bim Bam Boom,” which I’m not even sure is a real song, 2) she got catsup from a hotdog on my UGGs, not blood—and she is still forbidden to wear them, and 3) the unruly horses and their unbridled bodily functions had everything to do with Mother’s dismissal as director of the Playhouse.
(Note from Vivian: It’s criminally unfair that Brandy gets to challenge my comments when I don’t have another chapter in which to mount my rebuttal. The calliope was indeed playing “Bim Bam Boom”—a very real and quite catchy song. And I would never put catsup on a hotdog, as I’m a mustard gal all the way—with a little relish. As far as the horses and my Playhouse status are concerned, that is a matter of opinion.)
(Note from editor: Ladies, if you do not stop this squabbling, I will edit out all of your asides.)
(Brandy: Okay.)
(Mother: Ditto.)
With a beautiful fall day awaiting, I left my jacket in the front closet, grabbed a few things Peggy Sue would need for her release from the hospital (change of clothes, small suitcase), then headed out to the battered Buick.
What I wanted to do first was retrieve Sushi from the vet; but considering how Sis reacted to my perceived favoritism toward Soosh post-home invasion, I figured I better rank the human being over the canine.
So I steered the car toward the hospital, and on arrival I took the elevator up to the second floor, stepping off to see—at the end of the hall, in front of Peggy Sue’s room—something that gave me a start.
Two very official-looking men with short hair and dark suits stood a few feet apart, in separate solemn conversations with their respective cell phones. I knew they weren’t policemen, not Serenity ones anyway—the local gendarme didn’t exist with whom Mother and I hadn’t already tangled.
Iowa Bureau of Criminal Investigation maybe?
Federal agents?
Whatever, I dropped the small suitcase and broke into a run—nearly knocking over a medical cart—seized by the sense that something terrible had happened to Peggy Sue!
At the door to Sis’s room, a dark-suited man with a bucket head and crew cut put a “stop” palm up.
“No admittance,” he said in a midrange monotone.
“I’m Brandy Borne, her sister! What’s happened?”
The man spoke into his lapel, putting one hand to his ear. “The sister’s here. Should I let her in?”
I didn’t wait for a response from his lapel, before shoving my way into the room, my heart in my throat, not knowing what to expect—an empty room, Peggy Sue kidnapped. . . or even her lifeless body bludgeoned, our home intruder having returned to finish the job!
But there was Sis, in her cranked-up bed, hair coifed against plumped pillows, make-up perfect, looking rested and lovely in a satin crème-colored robe, its V-neck presenting a generous touch of cleavage.
My imagination—fueled as it was by DNA inherited from Vivian Borne, a theatrical diva capable of transforming a paper cut into an amputation—had run away with itself. Like those loose-boweled horses on the Playhouse stage.
And seated next to Peg, holding one hand, was my biological father, Senator Edward Clark.
Movie-star handsome—think Paul Newman in his early sixties, the light blue eyes and all—the senator was wearing his usual on-the-stump outfit: tailored navy suit, crisp white shirt, red tie, and flag lapel pin. Red, white, blue—not so subtle, huh?
My anxiety flared into irritation. Didn’t the senator realize what he was risking, making this particular hospital visit, with the election a mere month away?
Sis said sweetly, “Why, Brandy, what a nice surprise!”
That was the kind of thing she said to me only when other people were around.
She nodded toward the seated senator, like I might have missed him. “Look who’s been thoughtful enough to come see me.”
I managed a tight-lipped smile and a nod. “Senator.”
“Make it ‘Dad,’ ” he corrected, flashing me the charismatic smile that had won over many a voter.
Me, I was more in the mood for a recount.
I said through clamped teeth, “Might I see you a moment. . . Dad?”
And turned on my heel.
Soon, in a little alcove across the hall, I stood facing the senator. His political advisors—not men from U.N.C.L.E., as I had suspected—kept a watchful eye, if a respectful distance.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded.
He frowned but just a little, keeping his cool. “Just what you see—visiting Peggy Sue.”
“How did you even know—”
“Vivian got word to me.”
Why had I asked?
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