Authors: Barbara Allan
“Yes, he returned to lift Brad’s dagger, stab Violet, then slip out a side door . . . which
can,
I believe, be exited from the inside.”
“You’re right about that, Vivian,” he said, nodding gravely. “He used other guests as cover as he moved by Violet, stabbing as he passed.”
From behind us, a security guard asked, “Ah, Mrs. Borne? Isn’t this your daughter?”
I swivelled in my chair to see what he had been viewing.
On his screen was Brandy in her monkey costume; she seemed to be throwing something away in a trash can.
I frowned. “Why, she told me she was going back to our room—said she was all tuckered out! Where is that camera?”
“Outside the Skytop Ballroom,” the guard told me.
I rose and moved closer.
“What
is
she doing?” I asked myself.
But the guard answered anyway, “Looks like she’s diggin’ in the garbage.”
Robert had joined me, standing behind the guard’s chair, and the three of us watched Brandy pulling something out of the can that looked like a white napkin. With a dark red stain on it.
Then she walked toward the video camera, her mouth moving.
“Do you have audio?” I asked.
“No sound,” Robert said.
“Is she trying to tell us something?” I asked.
“She’s not looking at the camera,” the guard said, glancing back at us. “I think she’s talking to someone just off-camera . . .
behind
it.”
While that “someone” remained out of view, Brandy appeared to be calm. But even with the TV’s overhead camera placement, and less than perfect picture—not to mention my less than perfect eyes—I could detect alarm in her expression.
I clutched Robert’s arm. “She may be in danger,” I said. “We need to get to her . . . toot sweet!”
After leaving Mother in the lobby, I caught an empty elevator, leaned against the back wall, and zoned out. Then it stopped, the doors whooshing open, and I stepped off.
But I found myself not on the fifteenth floor—rather, the eighteenth, having accidentally or perhaps subconsciously pushed the button taking me back to the Skytop Ballroom.
By the time I realized my mistake, the elevator had gone. I was about to push the button when curiosity nibbled at my brain. This was an opportunity to see if the police and forensics team had gone, and if they had, what they’d left behind....
I strolled down to the ballroom, where I found yellow crime scene tape stretched across its double doors, making a big
X
.
Mother might have burst the tape and gone in, but I wasn’t that ambitious. I was about to head back to the elevators when I spotted something on a nearby narrow accent table.
It wasn’t a clue, not really, and if you have any respect for me, no matter how slight, you’re about to lose it now.
Abandoned on the little table, on a small paper plate, was a half-eaten piece of party cake.
Need I go further?
After wiping the gooey white frosting off my mouth with the back of one hand (in my defense, I ate forward from the unnibbled side and left a small wall of somebody-else’s-cake germs behind), I went to a trash can and tossed in the nasty sliver of cake and its paper plate.
But in doing so, something caught my eye.
No, not more discarded food—I do not eat garbage, I’ll have you know. I have
some
pride. Apparently not enough to refuse having a flying monkey costume foisted on me, but
some
.
I reached in and pulled out what I had spotted: a white cloth. A handkerchief with little blue stripes. With the initials
EJ
on it . . . and Rorschach splotches of blood.
I stared at the handkerchief like a chimp trying to read the directions on a can of peanuts. Then it came to me—how that handkerchief had found its way into that trash can, and how that blood had gotten on that handkerchief.
That Eric Johansson, after leaving the ballroom with his wife, must have returned, stolen Brad’s dagger, stabbed Violet—the dagger’s handle handkerchief wrapped to keep his prints off—then disposed of the damning evidence in a trash can outside the ballroom, a receptacle less likely to be searched.
I frowned, sorry that sweet Eric had turned out to be not so sweet, but then smiled, taking some pleasure in beating Mother in figuring out who Violet’s killer was. Then I carefully folded the handkerchief and tucked it into my organ-grinder jacket pocket.
“I will take that,” Eric said.
The writer, wearing a black, long-sleeved shirt and black jeans, stood about twenty feet from me, blocking my way to the elevators.
“Eric, hi,” I said calmly. “Take what?”
He shook his head. “We will not play that game.”
Violet must have been the one who Americanized his scripts, starting with putting the contractions in.
He gave me a horrible smile and held out a hand. “Give it up,” he said ambiguously.
Backing away, I said, “So was it you or Violet who broke into our room?”
Moving forward almost casually, he shrugged. “It was me. Looking for my award and those ballots.”
“I didn’t guess your part in this. Because Violet
did
kill Tommy, on impulse. But you’re the mastermind, aren’t you, Eric? You manipulated Violet into fixing that award competition for you. She had no idea, until well after the fact, that you would dump her . . . for your own wife.”
I was still backing up slowly. He was moving forward the same way.
He said, “I have never found females hard to handle.”
“I bet not. I thought you were pretty cute myself. Using Violet that way . . . you just are not nice, are you?”
“Not nice is a way to put it.”
“But seduce and abandon, that’s a very old plot, Eric. You won’t win any awards for that.”
“Perhaps not. But this would have worked out well had that stupid woman not stabbed that clod Tommy.”
Me backing up. Him moving forward.
I said, “She couldn’t have come forward about your role in the ballot-fixing without exposing herself. That would have meant risking putting herself in line for a murder charge. Why kill her, Eric?”
Another shrug. “She was not rational. She said she did not care if she went to prison. She lied and cheated and killed for me, she said, and now she would tell the world about me. What else could I do?”
The question was, what could
I
do?
During this exchange, my mind was desperately seeking a solution to my predicament—one that didn’t end with me becoming a third comic-con fatality.
I turned and fled down a hallway, my half-open wings flapping, trying doors as I went but finding only locked ones. Eric was walking toward me, taking his time, like the mummy chasing a girl through a swamp, no hurry, no hurry. The corridor and my luck would run out simultaneously. When I glanced back, he was removing his tie, wrapping each end around a hand, then snapping it taut.
But there was a door at the end of the hallway that was unlikely to be locked—marked ROOF with a warning on the door’s horizontal bar stating that an alarm would sound if opened.
Fine by me!
All I needed to do was stay alive on the roof long enough for security to respond to the alarm. That’s all. Nothing more.
I pushed on the steel bar—no alarm sounded (it was a silent one, right? Right?) and raced up cement steps to another door with a similar bar, though no alarm warning, and then I was out on the roof, nearly knocked over by a ferocious wind that tore at my flesh and my costume with icy fingers.
Up here in the dark, under a million uncaring stars, I could make out neighboring buildings towering around me, silhouetted against the lights of the city. And on this rooftop, I could make out the squat, square shape of an air-conditioning unit, behind which I could hide.
I ran toward it.
But tripped, and landed on my stomach, in an awful belly flop, my chin hitting the hard surface of the roof, momentarily stunning me.
And he was on me, grabbing me by my ankles, dragging me like a sack of wet laundry, pulling me along, away from the noisy-street-traffic sides of the building toward the more desolate courtyard area, where he could toss my body over and feel reasonably assured it would not be found till daylight.
Through all this, I was kicking frantically, my efforts to free myself no match for his tight grip, my screams for help seemingly swallowed up by the wind and the night, two conspirators who were happy to see me go. So I clawed at the roof, breaking my nails, skinning my fingers—not because this might slow my fate, but because at least, dammit, it would prove that my death was no accident.
I could see one possible chance for survival—before strangling me, or knocking me out, Eric would have to let go of my legs, and retrieve the handkerchief. That was key evidence that he needed and I had. He needed to get it, before throwing me off this roof like a sock monkey.
When he had dragged me to the roof’s three-foot-high protective wall, I was still on my stomach, his hands still on my ankles. But his grip had eased, since he was no longer hauling dead (or soon to be dead) weight.
“Well,” Eric shouted against the wind, “shall we see how well the monkey can fly?”
As he released my legs, I flipped over on my wings, snapping them, and with both feet kicked his kneecaps, and they made a snapping sound, too.
Hollering, he fell backward against the little wall, arms windmilling as he tried to regain his balance. I was about to give him another kick when a strong gust gave him a final push over the edge, and I didn’t have to.
For a moment—as I watched in fascination—it seemed that Eric could fly, even without monkey wings, the rising air from the courtyard below creating a vortex, keeping him momentarily aloft, like some crazy cartoon character who’d run off a cliff and hadn’t yet realized there was only a long fall under his feet.
Then the swirling vortex dissipated, and Eric dropped from view, followed by a terrible sound, a
whump
punctuated by brittle breakage.
Suddenly Robert was helping me up, and Mother’s comforting arms were around me, holding me tight, my pitiful sobs lost in the wind.
“There, there, little Brandy,” Mother soothed. “There, there. No need to cry now.”
But it was my party and I’d cry if I wanted to.
And I wanted to.
A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
Most comics conventions have an “artists’ alley,” where cartoonists sell and sign their work. In addition to offering original comic book pages, the artists often do sketches, frequently for bargain rates. You can ask for a drawing of your favorite character. That’s what Mother does—she has a whole portfolio of caricatures of herself.
H
aving no desire to learn of the wonders of a Manhattan emergency room, I declined a hospital visit, instead camping out on the unfolded-out couch in our suite. I traded the monkey costume for a baby blue velour Juicy Couture tracksuit, finally shedding those darn wings. Bandages had been provided by someone at the hotel, and my mummy-wrapped hands looked like a burn victim’s. Otherwise I was all right. But this long night was not over. A rumpled, bleary-eyed Detective Sal Cassato showed up around five a.m., and I gave him my account of Eric’s attack, which he collected by way of a handheld recorder. A keenly interested and atypically subdued Mother, with a concerned Sushi in her lap, looked on.
When I had finished, Mother admitted to holding back the partial ballots found in Tommy’s room that had led us to theorize that Violet had killed Tommy.
“And of course,” Mother said, “the rest is history.”
“Not quite history yet,” Detective Cassato said sharply. “You were withholding evidence, Mrs. Borne. That’s a very serious matter.”
Mother gave him a languid Southern belle shrug (perfected in a Serenity Community Playhouse production of
The Little Foxes
). “Well, I suppose technically you’re correct, Detective, but we didn’t realize the ballots had any kind of evidentiary value, not until late in the game.”
She do declare.
Detective Cassato was reddening. “If you’d handed over those ballot sheets, I’d have come to the same conclusion about Violet myself. Tampering with evidence, removing evidence from a crime scene, obstructing our investigation . . . you could be
charged
, you know.”
Mother touched her bosom, poor-little-old-me style, saying, “Yes, and we’re terribly sorry for any inconvenience, Detective Cassato. And we do hope that you will find it in your heart
not
to charge us, as we’ve already been through so very much.”
The detective, face set like stone, wasn’t buying Mother’s flummery. “You
do
realize,” he replied, glaring at her, “that had you been forthcoming, your daughter’s life might not ultimately have been put in jeopardy.”
Actually, what ultimately put my life in jeopardy was stopping to finish a piece of half-eaten cake.
Mother shifted effortlessly into Diane Keaton
lah-de-dah
mode. “Of course, if you want to arrest the mother and daughter who solved the case for you . . . the daughter, as you rightly point out, having been nearly killed by the perpetrator of the second murder . . . well, I’m sure this will all make for fascinating reportage by the local media.”
She pronounced “reportage” in the French manner.
I yawned, partly from lack of sleep, but also because I’d been through many a dressing down at the conclusion of an investigation.
“And if I might add,” Mother said humbly, “we have learned our lesson here in the metropolis. We will never, ever withhold evidence again.”
She intoned this with the utmost sincerity, and I just about believed her.
Just about.
“I have your assurance of that right here, you know,” Cassato said, clicking off the small recorder.
Mother gave me a little glance that said:
But not under oath.
The detective sighed. “There will be no charges.”
Which, no matter how tired I might have been, was a relief to hear—our last investigation garnered us thirty days in our county jail, where I gained five pounds from the starchy food. And I’d already packed on a few New York pounds from the excess cheesecake. Stay tuned for
Antiques Diet
.
“You are a gracious and generous man,” Mother gushed. “The Borne girls do not easily forget the kindness of strangers.”
“Yeaaaaaah,” Detective Cassato said, rising. “I’ll be needing formal statements over at the precinct house. Brandy, you may be required at Eric’s inquest. I’m afraid you’re going to have to stick around town for a while.”
Mother rose. “We were planning to stay on through the week, anyway. We haven’t really had time to do much sightseeing. Do let us know when and where you need us.”
He grunted, “Thanks,” at this unusually compliant response from her.
While Mother walked with the detective to the door, I stretched out on the couch. I fell fast asleep in seconds, a deep, dreamless state approaching hibernation.
Suddenly Mother was shaking me gently. “Wake up, dear. Wakey wakey.”
I pushed up on my elbows, blinking. I was in the big bed now, Sushi nestled nearby—how I’d gotten there I didn’t know.
“What day is it?” I asked groggily.
“Still Sunday.”
“What time is it?”
“About noon.”
“Wasn’t our panel scheduled for this morning?”
“They cancelled all morning activities, dear, out of respect for the dead. Not every comic con has three deaths by violence, you know.”
I sat up. “But what about the auction?”
She waved off my concern. “The auction is in an hour, dear. Do you think you can sufficiently rouse yourself? Or perhaps you’d like to stay here.”
I did not. If we didn’t sell that Supe drawing for a fat wad of cash to finance our new shop,
we’d
be in the soup. It was the main reason we’d come to this ill-fated affair, and I wasn’t about to miss it.
I eased out of bed, and headed to the shower, initially bent over but evolving from Neanderthal to Homo sapiens in under thirty seconds.
The auction, in the Gold Room on level C, was under-attended, much to our dismay. We’d seen many attendees bailing, after the costume party killing, and with the events of the morning cancelled, many other attendees had taken their early leave, as well.
But those who remained were a die-hard lot (too soon?), and when our vintage Superman drawing—drawn by Joe Shuster and signed by him and by cocreator/writer Jerry Siegel—came up, a heated bidding war broke out. Three collectors in the room vied with a pair of pickers attending by cell phone, driving the price upward, finally selling in the high five figures. Joe Lange had predicted we might fare this well, and we were thrilled.
Earlier, on the long drive to New York, Mother and I had discussed what to do with the money, should Joe be right. After Uncle Sam got his share, Mother intended to treat herself to tooth implants, tired of having her bridgework fall into her dinner; I/we needed a new car, now that the Buick had passed on, was no more, had ceased to be, expired, gone to meet its maker, etc.; and we would stake Sushi to a promising, experimental eye surgery technique so she could see again (if it worked for Soosh, maybe Mother could give it a go).
The rest of the cash would go into our antiques shop, at the moment painfully understocked with the contents of our former antiques-mall stall. Oh, and we held back five hundred bucks that we hoped would cover the damage to the broken monkey wings.
After the auction, Mother and I returned to the suite, where we slept until late morning, Monday. Leaving Sushi in the hotel room, la Diva headed out to troll the antiques shops in the Village while I took a cab up to Norma Kamali’s on West Fifty-sixth, where I bought one of her fabulous summer swimsuits. That evening, we had a lovely dinner (or is that supper?) at a Village bistro with Ashley and her beau (cute and nice).
On Tuesday, we returned the
Wicked
costumes, our $500 check pinned to the monkey costume, leaving the bundle with the Gershwin stage door manager. Like any other good tourists, we purchased tickets for that evening’s performance, which proved thoroughly enjoyable. True to our word, we did not bother Vikki backstage. We did, however, stand outside the stage doors, behind the metal barricades, where the actress who played Wicked Witch Elphaba autographed Mother’s Playbill.
“Stellar performance, my dear,” Mother informed her. “But might I suggest one simple addition?”
The actress smiled with her mouth but frowned with her forehead. “Yes, of course.”
“You might try using a Western accent, my dear. Are you not, after all, the Wicked Witch of the
West
? A little Southwestern twang would not only be distinctive, but make that point.”
After a frozen second or two, the actress said, “Well, I’ll take that under consideration. You wouldn’t happen to be in local theater back home, would you?”
“Why, yes! How could you tell?”
“Come on, dear,” the real witch said to the pretender. “We actors know another actor when we see one.”
This thrilled Mother to no end, and the encounter became an anecdote she shared far and wide, though she didn’t seem to understand why it always got a laugh.
Wednesday morning, a little gold box was delivered to our suite with a small tag reading,
Vivian
. It was as if a Manhattan admirer had sent her an engagement ring.
But rather than a diamond, the box contained a set of car keys, along with a note reading,
Penn Plaza Parking, #112.
Puzzled, I looked over Mother’s shoulder as she dangled the keys like a single earring she was considering wearing.
I asked, “What’s that about?”
She frowned. “I’m not sure, dear.”
Leaving Sushi behind, we got into our coats and walked the half block to the parking garage, where, in stall 112, we found a car.
But not just
any
car—a 1960s black Cadillac convertible with tail fins and a blood-red interior.
Mother, squealing with delight, rushed with the keys to the driver’s side door.
“You don’t have a
license
, remember?” I warned, shivering at the thought of her driving in New York City traffic.
Mother put hands on hips. “There’s no law against sitting behind the wheel, is there, Little Miss Buzz Kill?”
“No. Plant your keister if you like, just don’t go anywhere.”
With an indignant sniff that was quickly replaced by a gleeful smile, she unlocked the car with one of the keys, then slid in behind the wheel. To make sure she kept her word, I came around and got in on the other side.
We just sat there admiring the pristine interior with its chrome wheel, deep front dashboard, and boxy panel with simplistic gauges. Best of all, the vintage car had new car smell!
“Whose car is this?” I finally asked.
“Mine, I think,” she said slyly. “Look in the glove compartment, dear.”
I did. All I saw at first was an owner’s manual in protective plastic. But under it was a white business-size envelope with
Mrs. Vivian Borne
written in a shaky hand.
“Open it,” Mother ordered.
I did, removing a letter, along with the title of the vehicle.
“Now read it, dear.”
I unfolded the letter. “
Dearest Vivian,
” I said, “
Please accept this gift in gratitude for clearing Gino. And on that other matter, be assured I will keep my word. I never had a better Scrabble partner.
”
I looked at the signature. “Good lord! Isn’t he . . . is that . . . ?”
“He is
that
. Indeed.”
“The Godfather?”
“Of New Jersey, yes.”
“When the heck did you see
him
?”
“After my little visit to the Badda-Boom. I dropped by his nursing home.”
I turned in my seat and glared at her. “Mother! You’re
not
keeping this car. We’re talking about the monster who sent those hit men after Tony—and he and I were almost
killed
.”
“Yes . . . and the old sweetie is very sorry about that.”
“
Sorry?
”
“Yes, apparently some of his minions, well . . . overstepped.” She touched my shoulder. “Dear . . . this is not your decision. The car is mine, not yours.”
“Well, I won’t ride in it—and I’m not even going to sit here one second longer.”
I moved to open the door, but Mother took my arm.
“Brandy, the ‘other matter’ the Don mentioned in the letter was that he would remove the contract on Tony
if
I proved that his relative, Gino, was innocent.”
I looked at her, stunned.
“I kept my part of the bargain,” she said. “And he will keep his. This car is just . . . a sort of tip.”
“And you
believe
him?”
“Yes, dear, I do. These people have a code. His word is his honor.”
“Why didn’t you
tell
me—”
“I did not want to raise your hopes. We needed to find a killer first . . . actually, we found two, didn’t we? And we needed Gino not to be one of them. No, I couldn’t tell you until I knew the outcome. Now, I think in due course you’ll find that Tony Cassato will be back in your life.”
I believed she believed this . . .
. . .
but could
I
believe it?
Could I take the word of a notorious organized crime figure?
And . . .
Scrabble
?
Unbidden, my mind started whirling with the possibility of a real future with Tony. I didn’t want to think about that, I really didn’t; but I couldn’t stop myself....
The contract on Tony cancelled.
Could it be true?
Wednesday afternoon, Mother and I returned to the Midtown Precinct, where we spent several hours giving our formal statements to Detective Cassato in his small office. I would not be needed at an inquest because Robert Sipcowski’s statement indicated Eric had fallen accidentally to his death.
The detective, in a crisp light blue shirt, navy tie, and pressed gray slacks, looked rested, and was typically businesslike though treating us cordially.
He even shared added information about the murders, specifically his interview with Eric Johansson’s widow, Helena.
“Apparently,” Detective Casatto said, “she was unaware how deeply Eric had become involved with Violet to further his career.”
Mother asked, “Then, Helena had no idea Eric had gone back to the ballroom?”
Cassato nodded. “She said Eric told her he had some business to attend to, and she should wait for him down in the lobby bar. We believe she’s innocent in Violet’s murder.”
“Poor girl,” Mother said.