“An omelet,” Mother said proudly. “Just like the one my dear grandma-mah used to make for me.”
As I mentioned before, Mother had always been a wonderful cook of indigenous Danish dishes. Her culinary skills were excellent, as long as she stuck to the recipe. Mine were spotty.
BACON AND EGG OMELET
(Flaeskeaeggekage)
(I can’t pronounce it, either.)
½ pound sliced bacon
6 eggs
½ cup milk or cream
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon minced chives
½ teaspoon salt
Fry the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until golden brown. Remove the bacon to a plate lined with paper towels and drain. Retain the bacon fat (no more than 3 to 4 tablespoons) in the skillet. Crumble the bacon and set aside.
Beat the eggs with the milk or cream, flour, chives, and salt in a medium bowl until well combined.
Heat the reserved bacon fat in the skillet over medium heat, and when it is hot, pour in the egg mixture. When the omelet begins to set, sprinkle the reserved crumbled bacon on top. Cook until golden brown. Fold the omelet and serve hot.
Yield: 4 servings
While Mother poured the egg mixture into the hot skillet, I sat on our vintage red step-stool chair to watch.
After a moment, I asked, “Did you speak to Tony about the fingerprint evidence?”
Mother, vigilantly keeping an eye on the eggs, said, “No, I didn’t, dear. He was in route to New Jersey but was keeping in touch with the CDC, who told him of their findings . . . and that they were forwarding the lab results to the county attorney.” She used a spatula to fold the omelet. “Of course, I hurried right down to the jail.”
“Who drove our car there for you? Since clearly, you’re not allowed to drive.”
“I plead nolo contendere. But, as it happens, I essentially have been enjoying special dispensation in that area.”
I had no idea what she was talking about, and had no desire to find out.
She scooped the omelet onto a dish and handed it to me. “Here’s a plate of heaven, dear.”
“You’re not having any?” I asked.
“I’ve already eaten. But I will join you in the dining room for coffee. I have much to share with you.”
I sat at the Duncan Phyfe table, with a pot of coffee, a pitcher of orange juice, crisp bacon, toast, and the omelet before me, a virtual feast.
Mother, across from me, steaming cup of java in one hand, asked, “Did you learn anything in jail, dear? In regard to Camilla’s murder?”
In between bites of the yummy omelet, I told her what Three-Fingered Frieda had told me, and my theory that Camilla might have been running a fencing operation with a man named Rodney Evans.
“Interesting,” Mother replied, filing that away but making no further comment.
“What about you?” I asked. She’d said she had much to share. “Find out anything while I was doing hard time?”
“Well,” she said cagily, “I had a most interesting conversation with the Romeos yesterday.”
Mother had a love/hate relationship with those men. She loved them for giving her juicy information but hated that they knew so much information before she did.
She was saying, “Randall . . . You know which one he is, don’t you, dear?”
“The pig-farmer guy?”
“Former farmer. Now, where was I? I’m afraid I’ve lost my train of thought. . . .”
Mother’s preferred railway line was the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe, because she’d dreamed as a child of becoming a Harvey Girl.
“Randall,” I prompted.
“Yes, Randall! He still lives on the farm next to Alma O’Grady, source of our infamous corn husker. He claims the old girl isn’t the sweet innocent she appears to be.”
“No kidding. What do we make of that?”
Mother took a sip of her coffee, then asked, “Don’t you think it’s odd that the only prints on the corn husker belonged to you and Loretta Klein and Camilla? Shouldn’t Alma’s prints be on there, too? After all, she arranged the tools on the table.”
“They’d been cleaned and oiled, remember?” I said. “Maybe she didn’t want to get that stuff on her hands and wore gloves.”
Mother grunted, not liking my answer—not liking any answer that contradicted her, actually. By way of revenge, she picked up an extra fork, leaned forward, and speared a piece of my omelet.
I asked, “Did Randall have anything else of interest to say?”
She swallowed the filched bite, then said, “Only that the corn husker was really his.”
“What?”
“Seems Tom had borrowed it to show his tool club, and after his death, Alma neglected to give it back. In fact, refused to give it back. In addition, Randall has noticed strange comings and goings at her farm.”
I snapped a slice of bacon in half and gave one piece to Sushi, the other to Rocky. “How so, strange?”
“That, my dear, is what we’re going to find out.”
“What? When?”
“Why, this morning, course.”
Through a bite of omelet, I protested, “I’m in no mood! I just got out of stir!”
“Dear, it’s off-putting when you speak with your mouth full.”
“Look, give me a chance to relax under my own roof,” I groused. “I don’t want to go traipsing off on one of your wild-goose chases.”
(Note to Editor from Vivian: Can Brandy’s use of the cliché “wild-goose chase” be changed in post? Sorry for the TV lingo. I mean, in editing? The girl simply can’t learn to think outside the box!)
I asked, “What about the shop?”
“Joe’s on active duty until I give him his marching orders. And he’s been doing a splendid job. Sales are doing fine.”
“Good. Then I can stay here and relax after my ordeal.”
Mother pushed back her chair and stood. “Dear, your ordeal has hardly begun. Someone tried to frame you! And that same someone attacked us both at Camilla’s shop. Not to mention murdered your boyfriend’s wife. Don’t you want to catch that person, for what they put you, put all of us, through?”
“Of course,” I admitted, then sighed. “When do you want to go to Alma’s farm?”
“Soon. Very soon.” She pointed a finger at the sky, or, anyway, the ceiling. “But first, let us repair to the incident room to fill out the suspect board.”
The incident room, of course, was the music room/ library/den; the suspect board—as previously mentioned—was the antique schoolroom chalkboard on wheels that she stored behind an old stand-up piano nobody played.
I sat in my usual spot on the piano bench, while Mother rolled out the board, then faced it, chalk in hand, a schoolmarm ready to write out a particularly tricky arithmetic problem.
A few minutes later she stepped aside for me to see what she had written.
SUSPECT LIST
Name Motive Opportunity
Alma O’Grady ? ?
Loretta Klein ? ?
Gerald Klein ? ?
Assailant ? ?
Phil Dean ? ?
Rodney Evans ? ?
The Mafia ? ?
“Well?” Mother asked.
“Well,” I replied, “we’ve certainly had more to work with.”
“Plenty of suspects, though!”
“Speaking of which, why is Mr. Klein on that list? His prints weren’t on the corn husker.”
“No. But we have to assume that if his wife is a suspect, he might be involved, too. Guilty until proven innocent, I always say.”
“Not exactly the American way,” I said, “but for our purposes, I’d have to agree. But, Mother, Phil?”
Mother relayed what Vern had told her about the mustached hundred-dollar bill that his bank teller niece gave to Phil—a bill only to be deposited a few hours later . . . by Camilla.
“All right. Leave Phil on,” I said. “But the Mafia? Really?”
&n
bsp; “Dear,” Mother replied, “it would appear—based upon a snippet of conversation I overheard between Officers Shultz and Kelly—that a new drug connection has appeared in our fair city, despite the diligence of our esteemed chief of police.”
“And you think Camilla Cassato might have been this connection?”
“It’s within the realm of possibility.”
The idea seemed far-fetched at best; at worst, Mother was padding her suspect list.
I was shaking my head. “Why would Camilla do business with the very people who caused the breakup of her marriage to Tony, forcing them into Witness Protection under threat of death?”
Mother shrugged. “Why, to get back at Tony, dear. He’s got a new life, new job, new love, and she’s been left behind. Why else would Camilla have moved here?”
“Because she still loved him.”
“Did she, dear? Besides, love and hate quite often overlap. Two sides of the same coin.” Mother replaced the chalk on the lip of the board. “Now, let us pay Alma a surprise visit!”
I went upstairs to get dressed.
It had snowed overnight, nothing substantial, just a nice sparkly dusting of white to decorate the dull brown of the landscape.
In the car we rode in silence for a while, but as I turned west, out into the country, I again expressed my doubt that Camilla could ever have been a conduit for Mafia drugs. Perhaps I just didn’t want to believe her capable of that. Or perhaps I couldn’t stand the thought of what it would do to Tony.
Mother shrugged and said, “Well, there’s one way we can settle it.”
“How is that?”
She removed her cell phone from her purse. “I’ll call my friend, the retired don.”
“You have the New Jersey godfather on speed dial?” I asked, eyes bugging at her.
Mother was tapping the screen. “Why not? We’ve kept in touch since New York. Watch the road, dear. It looks slick.”
Through her phone I heard the voice of an elderly yet strong male. “Vivian! Is that you?”
“It is indeed. I hope my call finds you in fine fettle.”
“My fettle is as fine as the next man’s. And you, Vivian?”
“Top of the world, looking down on creation!” Her tone turned serious. “Don, my daughter and I could use your help.”
“Of course! Shoot.”
The godfather’s response was a little unsettling.
“As it happens,” Mother said, “we’re playing sleuth on yet another murder case.”
“The Camilla Cassato killing?”
“How ever would you know about that? A murder in a little backwater like Serenity!”
“I have my ways. And I’ve heard your daughter, Brandy, was charged, then released, as well. How can I be of help?”
“I’d like to know if Camilla was doing business with anyone in your, uh, former field of endeavor.”
“Not family business, my dear, or I’d know. At least not immediate family.”
“How about your . . . extended family?”
A pause. An unsettling pause.
Then “Let me make some calls to a few relatives, and I’ll get back to you.”
“Thank you, Don,” Mother cooed. “You’re a dear.”
“Enjoying the Caddie?”
Before we left New York, the don had presented Mother with a 1960s black Cadillac convertible, complete with tail fins and a red interior, after our old Buick died on the West Side Highway. Unfortunately, the Caddie had had a run-in with a Learjet that was taking off and had lost (Antiques Swap).
“Oh,” Mother said innocently, “we’re not driving it this winter.”
Not exactly a lie.
“Sure, sure . . . It’s not convertible weather here, either. Say, when can you come and see me? I could use somebody who can give me a run for it, playing scrabble.”
Mother blushed, then lowered her voice. “Perhaps after this case is put to bed.”
He said something that I couldn’t make out, and Mother giggled in a schoolgirl way, then ended the call.
I smirked. “Scrabble?”
“It’s a perfectly fine game, dear.”
“Strip Scrabble, maybe?”
“There’s no such thing, that I know of.”
“Anything else you’d like to share with me about your Sicilian game mate?”
“I don’t believe so,” she replied airily. “Ah, we’re almost there.”
The lane to Mrs. O’Grady’s farm appeared, and I turned off the gravel road and onto it, the tires skidding a little on the frozen snow.
As the white two-story house with its quaint latticework came into view, I asked, “What’s the plan? I mean, we’re not exactly here to borrow a cup of sugar.”
“I’ll come up with something,” Mother said. “I’m well trained in the art of improv.”
“Well, you’d better come up with something wonderful right away.”
Three vehicles were parked in front of the house: a dented Ford pickup, a rusted Jeep Cherokee, and an SUV with a mismatched side door.
I pulled the C-Max alongside the pickup and shut off the engine. “Well?” I asked Mother. “What wonderful thing did you come up with?”
“When Alma comes to the door,” she replied, eyes narrowed, “I’ll say we lost our way and need directions.”
“That’s it?”
“It’s plenty!”
“She’ll never believe that.”
Mother turned over a hand. “Then I’ll say we’re knocking on doors for charity.”
“What charity? Anyway, why didn’t we just call her first? Why any kind of ruse at all? Tell her we’re looking into Camilla’s murder and have a question or two. About the corn husker, maybe.”
Mother twisted to look at me. “You’re overly critical today, aren’t you, dear?”
“Why knock on her door at all? If something odd is going on, why give her a chance to hide it?”
“What are you suggesting?”
I shrugged. “What’s wrong with just peeking in a window?”
Mother smiled at me in pride. “You’re becoming quite the sleuth, dear. Which window?”
“I don’t know. One where we won’t be seen.”
“Splendid. Let’s go.”
We got out of the car, quietly closed the doors, and made our way in the snow around the side of the house to a first-floor window.
The shade was down, but not all the way, leaving a gap of about three inches. Mother and I were leaning in to peer through the window when a gruff voice behind us demanded, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
We both jumped, then turned to face a bearded man of about fifty, wearing a stained canvas jacket, worn blue jeans, and a stocking cap.
He also had a rifle—pointed right at us.
“We’re here to borrow a cup of sugar!” Mother blurted.
Something wonderful right away, huh? If I hadn’t been so scared, I might have kicked her.
The man made a quick gesture toward the house with the barrel of the rifle. “You two better come with me.”
A Trash ’n’ Treasures Tip
When looking for an appraiser to value your antiques and collectibles, find someone who is an expert in that particular area. If said expert seems to be lowballing you and then gives you an offer, find another expert.
Chapter Seven
Blackboard Bungle
While the bearded man pointed a rifle at our backs, Mother and I—our hands up like we were outlaws this mountain man had rounded up—trudged glumly up the porch steps to Mrs. O’Grady’s farmhouse.
When we reached the front door, he said gruffly, “Inside, you two!”
Mother glanced over her shoulder at him. “Just barge right in?”
“Do it!”
I turned the knob, and we were marched into an entryway that became a central hall, where the welcoming aroma of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies met us, seeming at odds with our dire situation.
“Alma!” the man c
alled out. “Alma!”
From the back of the house came the scurry of the diminutive mistress of the house, drying her hands on a kitchen towel. “What in heaven’s name is the hubbub, Carl?”
The apple-cheeked widow stopped short at the sight of Mother and me being held at gunpoint.
“Oh, my!” she said, the towel dropping from her hands, fluttering to the floor like a damp angel.
“Found these two peekin’ in a window,” Carl said, then gestured to me with the rifle barrel. “Ain’t the young one who they sent to jail for murder? Must’ve escaped.”
“The charge was dropped,” I said defensively. “Call Sheriff Rudder if you don’t believe me.”
Mrs. O’Grady’s eyes went questioningly to Mother.
“That’s right, my dear,” Mother said with a smile and a nod. “Brandy was released late yesterday afternoon. She’s been cleared, believe you me.”
“I do believe you, Vivian,” the woman said.
But Carl didn’t seem ready to lower his rifle just yet, demanding, “Then what was you two sneakin’ around for?”
Fearful that Mother might repeat her sugar routine, I said somewhat lamely, “We saw you had company and didn’t want to interrupt. I guess we should have knocked.”
The sugar bit suddenly seemed to have merit.
“Just a couple of snoops, I’m afraid,” Mother added, doing her best to look embarrassed (she doesn’t really have the capacity to be embarrassed).
“Well, now that you’re here,” Mrs. O’Grady said, with a smile so sweet it seemed somehow sinister, “why don’t you girls join our little group? We’ll be having refreshments soon.”
Chocolate chip cookies sprinkled with rat poison, perhaps?
Suddenly, to the right, the double doors to the parlor parted, and a face popped out, and the eyes in the face popped, too, in obvious response to the rifle.
Cora Vancamp, a retired high school counselor who once told me I’d never amount to much, said, “Alma, if you’ve been detained, I can take over the prayer group for you, if you like.”
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