Cockeyed

Tex Clermont and Herero Flores were in the conference room now with Hu

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 go

“Sure, why not!” Hu

“Oh, I just knew this would all work out,” Tex Clermont said gri

Hu

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.

ChAPteR thiRty

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 I

“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 di

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.”

“Oh, that is so sweet. You boys make such a nice couple. You know, I’m so glad there are so many gay boys in our family. Boys who really know how to have fun. Not a bunch of stick-in-the-muds like most Van Horns have been.”

Nelson blushed and Lawn quickly sca

Tex said, “Yes, you gay boys are baaaad. And I think we can see plenty of evidence of that right at this table. Herero, honey, you can barely keep your eyes open. I know you were out tomcatting around all night because I heard you come in next door at four fifteen a.m. You know, I left my Zolpidem in Houston, so I sleep 206 Richard Stevenson

very poorly.”

“Oh, Tex,” Hu

Nelson and Lawn exchanged glances, and Lawn reached for the bread basket.

Herero did look droopy-eyed, but now he perked up and said,

“I haven’t yet completed my education. But Hu

“What are you studying, Herero?” Art asked.

“Nursing. I’m pretty good with the tLC already, but I need more skills and the piece of paper.”

“You can tLC me anytime, Herero,” Hu

“Uncle Hu

“You’re right, Nelson,” Mrs. Van Horn said. “We’re not locked up in the old folks’ dungeon today, so I guess I can’t tell any rude jokes, either.”

Tex said, “Well y’all can play goodie-goodie if that’s what y’all want to do. Me, I’m too old and too bowlegged to care. Now, Nelson. Did you hear the one about the lady and the supermarket bag boy?”

“Oh, Tex, you old devil, you,” Hu

Art said, “You could change it to scratchy Toyota.”

Tex, Rita, Herero and Hu

The stuffed haddock lunch went on in this jolly vein until, as coffee was being served, my cell phone rang, and I walked out to the parking lot to take the call.

“I’ve got good news and semi-bad news,” Card Sanders said.

“The good news is, I was there when the fire marshal located CoCkeyed 207

the lockbox, so-called. It was at the bottom of the remains of a burned wooden crate that may well have contained the dead-leaf smelly stuff you described to me. The contents of the lockbox, however, were charred. The box was not airtight and the material inside combusted. There appeared to be the remains of paper documents and what the inspector said were crumbled bits of U.S. currency. Quite a bit of it, in fact.”

“That’s the semi-bad news, I take it. So, what’s the good news, Lieutenant?”

“Clyde and Arletta Briening were on the site when we recovered the lockbox and its contents. Asked about it, they claimed they had no idea what it was or how it had gotten there.

They said maybe the arsonist left it to confuse the police. They said there had been a break-in earlier in the day, and their back door had been pried open.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s bullshit, of course. But with nothing to go on but Mrs. Van Horn’s unsubstantiated allegations, the DA isn’t likely to want to send the charred papers to the state lab for a time-consuming and very expensive forensic analysis. The upshot is the Brienings are out their million-plus dollars in unreported income, and the Van Horns are free of any charges or accusations the Brienings were intending to make against them, whatever those charges and accusations might have been. I’ll bet you know what those charges and accusation were. Am I right?”

“Sure.”

“Both Clyde and Arletta told me they don’t like the Van Horns

— they called Hu

They said they were glad to hear that Mrs. Van Horn had been located and that she wasn’t dead at the bottom of a quarry, as they put it. And now they just want to concentrate on collecting the insurance money and rebuilding their store, they said.”

“Sounds good.”

“They do, of course, want the arsonist caught and the crime 208 Richard Stevenson

prosecuted.”

“Yeah. He should be restrained. That I can’t argue with. The guy could really hurt somebody the next time.”

I only wished that the priest who had raped Stu Hood when he was a child and probably wrecked his conscience and filled him with loathing could also be locked up, maybe in the same state prison. But that wasn’t anything I or Sanders could do anything about for the moment.

I went back inside the restaurant and a

Hu