burden, and I don’t intend to be. Anyhow, Eileen is well fixed. She is an extremely generous friend.”
“Oh, Mom, that whole lottery thing has turned out to be a total pain in the butt.” Hunny introduced me and said, “Donald is a private detective who has been helping me deal with all kinds of shkeevy types that have crawled out of the woodwork since I won a billion dollars. Blackmailers, swindlers, what have you.
Even the you-know-whos in Cobleskill are bedeviling me and trying to get hold of my money. Mom, I was better off middle-class, believe you me. Anyway, if I have any money left after all the headaches have been cleared up, I’ll give you a million dollars.
Or ten million, whatever you need.”
“Thanks, Hunny. You have always been such a good son. I have enough for my needs, but you could help Herero if you feel like it. He saw on the news in Texas about your prize. He’s afraid his muffler is going — it does make quite a racket — plus he has some lawyer bills for something. His papers, I think.”
“Is he nice? He sounds nice.”
“Herero is very sweet. And I think he might be…you know.”
Mrs. Van Horn flapped her wrist once.
“Well, I am putting Herero down for a mil. Not to worry.
But…well, there is a problem, maybe, with the money. The you-know-whos in Cobleskill are demanding a billion to pay them to continue to keep their mouths shut about you-know-what.”
Mrs. Van Horn glanced over her shoulder at the closed door.
Through the glass we could see one of the cops standing in the corridor. She said, “You know, they sent me another threatening letter. At Golden Gardens.”
“I do know that. And guess what? Now they’re probably even madder than ever at you and me. Last night their store burned down.”
“Oh, good heavens!”
“It’s a smoking ruin, television said.”
“Maybe my you-know-what letter burned up. But probably not. I think they kept it in the lockbox with the other books and the other money.”
I asked, “What other books and what other money, Mrs. Van Horn?”
She gave me a wary look, but Hunny said, “Mom, Donald knows all about everything. He is an understanding man with a Christian soul who is one hundred percent on our side. I’m thinking of giving him thirty million dollars as a bonus if everything turns out okay. So you can tell him anything.”
“Well,” she said, “it’s the second set of books Clyde and Arletta keep for Crafts-a-Palooza that the tax people aren’t meant to get a gander at. And the cash they skim off at the end of the day. That’s how I was able to help myself when I went through that crazy spell after Carl passed. They had about a million and a half in there, and if I had a bad day at the track I would just help myself once in a while. Except, Arletta got suspicious, I think, when I told her I was betting the house on a horse called Epworth Lady and that nag didn’t even show, and the next day I was right back at the track. She counted the money, and she nailed me. It was my terrible downfall that we’ve all been paying for ever since, and I admit that I did wrong and my comeuppance was earned.”
Art said, “The Brienings are also crooks, it sounds like. Holy crap.”
“But Mom,” Hunny said, “if they were blackmailing you, why didn’t you blackmail them right back? Good grief, it sounds like they are even bigger miscreants than you are.”
“I thought about that. And I did finally get up my nerve to say something. But Arletta said that what they were doing is what everybody does, and what I did was stealing.”
“Oh, Mom, you got taken for a ride. We all did. Those Brienings are nothing but scum.”
“Where is the lockbox located?” I asked. “The box with the confession, the second set of books and the large stash of currency?”
“The lockbox was always buried under some potpourri. It’s at the bottom of a big crate called Elvira’s Herbal Kisses.”
I glanced at Hunny, who caught my look, and then I excused myself and walked out into the corridor, past the waiting Lake George officer, and out to my car. I phoned Card Sanders, and before he started in on me, I explained a few things to him and urged him to get hold of the state fire marshal’s office immediately. He listened with care, heard what I said, and agreed to make some fast calls and then get himself over to Cobleskill to help search for the lockbox.
Sanders said, “I’m relieved to see that Mr. Van Horn is likely to come out of all this with both his fortune and his reputation intact. Unless, that is, it was Huntington himself or somebody he hired who set the fire at Crafts-a- Palooza. That would put a much darker slant on the situation.”
“Yeah, well, we can talk about that. I have some information about the fire that you’ll be greatly interested to hear, Lieutenant.”
I gave him a quick rundown on Stu Hood, and how Hood had both a history of arson and a powerful personal interest in not letting the Brienings take away all of Hunny’s lottery winnings. I told Sanders where he could probably find Hood after the place opened in the early afternoon, and then I rang off and walked back inside the police station.
Tex Clermont and Herero Flores were in the conference room now with Hunny, Art and Rita, and everyone was chatting away and guffawing, and wrists were flapping, and I came in just as Hunny yelled at Herero, “You go, girl!”
Herero, short and pleasantly round-faced with a fuzzy little goatee, shrieked and said, “And you wouldn’t believe the tat on this lifeguard I met at the beach down from the motel!”
“Not Sean Shea!”
“Yes, he said he knows you and he said maybe you gonna give him a million dollars, just like you gonna give me!”
“Sure, why not!” Hunny sang out.
“Oh, I just knew this would all work out,” Tex Clermont said grinning. “I knew y’all would just hit it off like y’all was old bosom buddies, just like Rita and yours truly.” Draped over a folding chair, her walker parked next to her, Tex was a good six feet tall, with shining blue eyes, eight pounds of rouge, and a heap of hair like the fake Sarah Palin’s at the Cobleskill book party.
Hunny said, “I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but I have to tell you this. Today is the happiest day of my life. To have my beloved mom back with me and to see her wonderful old friend and to meet her fabulous new friend is just the banana split with the cherry on top. I am blessed, and we are all blessed.
And now why don’t we all go somewhere where we can count our blessings and…have a few celebrationary cocktails!”
Everyone in the room shrieked except me, although I had to smile too. The cop outside in the hall turned and looked through the glass at us, and he also looked pleased with the way things were turning out.
The Lake George police were too smart to swallow any of the “reality show hoax” guff that the tea-baggers were spreading.
The cops bought Mrs. Van Horn’s unlikely but true story that she and her pals were just off having a break from nursing home life. They said they would notify both Golden Gardens and Tex Clermont’s assisted living facility in Houston that the ladies would be back in a matter of days and “the gals” would get in touch themselves when their plans were clearer.
Nelson and Lawn soon arrived in Lake George, and they joined us for lunch at Joey and Bernie’s Take-a-Peek Inn, the place with the good stuffed haddock.
“Grandma Rita,” Nelson said, after we had ordered our fish platters, “we can certainly understand why you would want a break from nursing home life, even from such a comfy-cozy place as Golden Gardens. But next time, why don’t you just phone Mother or me? It would be our pleasure to take you out for a steak dinner at Jack’s. And maybe even a cocktail or two.”
He winked.
“Yes,” Lawn added. “You are very dear to us, Grandma Van Horn. It would be our great pleasure to be seen in public with you.”
