“But Mother Van Horn,” Art said, “Hunny was so worried about you, and so was everyone else.”

“Mom, folks have been looking high and low for you. You didn’t tell Mrs. Kerisiotis you were leaving, and everybody has been scouring the countryside looking for your corpse. Mom, you have given us all a terrible scare, you little dickens, you!”

“Oh, Lord, did I forget to call Golden Gardens and say I’d be away for a few days? It must have slipped my mind. You know how forgetful I’ve gotten. Oh, for heaven’s sakes, I do apologize if I caused any bother.”

“But didn’t you see yourself on TV? It’s been all over the news that you were a missing person.”

“Oh, I guess we weren’t watching that channel. Tex and I watch qvC. I don’t know why Herero didn’t see that. He watches the news, plus Mtv and boxing. Hunny, you know I never liked looking at the news. It is so depressing. I like The Golden Girls and shopping. I don’t buy, just look, for the most part. But Tex got some nice jewelry, some fling for Herero and a couple of nice things for me, what I’ve got on. I forgot to bring clothes, you know. Tex had things sent overnight right to the Super 8 were we were staying in our very nice room.”

“I think you mean bling,” Hunny said. “Now, Antoine and the twins and this psychic from Vermont looked for you at the Super 8, but they didn’t see you anywhere.”

“I guess we were out sightseeing, maybe riding around on the paddle boat. Or over at that nice restaurant with the stuffed CoCkeyed 201

haddock.”

“Where are Tex and her friend now?”

“Tex is in the lady’s. She’ll be crawling down here in a minute or so. Herero must be waiting for her. He is so good to Eileen.

It’s not easy for her with her walker at the track, but Herero got her a wheelchair to get us from the parking lot to our seats, and he went and placed our bets.”

“What track? Saratoga?”

“You know, Hunny, Nola Conklin had her TV on last week and there was this announcer saying the races were going on, and I got to missing the track. I did used to love the ponies. So when Tex called, I just said, why don’t you ride up here with that nice young aide who wants to marry you, and we’ll have a few cocktails and a nice time for a week or so, and then we’ll go back to rotting away in our old folks homes. Well, Tex just leaped at the opportunity. Tex has her daughter down there, but she never comes to see her, not like Hunny. Nola told me you had won a lot of money in the lottery, Hunny, so I figured I could hit you up for a tenner if need be. But I never wanted to be a 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.”

202 Richard Stevenson

“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 CoCkeyed 203

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.”

204 Richard Stevenson

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.