Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
"I had the damnedest dream last night."
Max Bittersohn, art expert par excellence and scourge of
the international art underworld, felt around with his bare
right foot for his right-foot slipper. Of course he got the
wrong one.
"What the hell? Sarah, would you mind counting my
toes for me?"
"Why, dear?"
"To see how many feet I've got."
Sarah Kelling Kelling Bittersohn had been married to
Max long enough to know that early morning was not his
best time. With a big family wedding only hours away, time
was becoming of the essence, if it already wasn't, but there
would be no earthly use in trying to prod him into action
before he'd had his second cup of coffee. She fished the errant
slipper out from under the conjugal bed, hung it on
her husband's left big toe, and poured a cup of the life-giving
beverage from the carafe she had brought up from
the kitchen.
"What did you dream, darling?"
"As far as I can recall, it was something about a goon
squad of purple cockatoos in green velvet combat boots,
shooting dried peas at me through bright pink peashooters."
"Aha, the Freudian element rears its outmoded head. No
doubt the wedding inspired that vulgar image. But why
pink, and why peashooters?"
"Why not?" Max had finally grasped the logistics of
matching toes to slippers; he stuck out his footwork for
Sarah to admire. "My guess is that the cockatoos had run
out of blowpipes and were having to improvise."
"But why were they shooting peas at you? Beans would
be more effective, I should think. Did it sting when they
hit?"
"Nah, they always missed. How come you've got so
many clothes on?"
"Because I had to get out at the crack of dawn and show
the tent raisers where to raise the tents."
That got Max moving. Summoning all his energy, he
reached for the cup. "Why the hell didn't you wake me up?
I'd have raised them for you."
"Not to put it too crudely, my love, I'll bet you any sum
up to a Kennedy half-dollar that I know a lot more than
you do about putting up tents. Aunt Emma had me fully
trained in the art of tent raising by the time I was twelve
years old."
Max put on his most truculent sneer. "Don't hand me
that nonsense, kiddo. You've never raised a tent in your life."
"Of course I haven't," Sarah replied sweetly. "We
Kellings do not raise tents; we merely stand around harassing
the tent raisers into doing precisely what we want them
to do, as opposed to letting them do what they foolishly
imagine we're going to let them get away with."
"I could at least have helped you with the nagging and
harassing," Max insisted.
"No, dear, you couldn't. Talents like Aunt Emma's and
mine are either bred in the bone or they aren't. I'm sorry to
tell you this, Max, but you just don't have what it takes to
terrorize a tent raiser. You lack the steely stare in your eyes
and the je ne sais quoi in the tightening of your lips, just
so much and not a millimeter more. Or less, depending on
the circumstances. I'd better warn you right now that many
a professional tent raiser has arrived on the job in the prime
of health and vigor, only to stagger and collapse once he's
felt the laserlike glint of the Kelling eyeball."
Max studied his wife with sleepy satisfaction. Kellings
came in two sizes, long and short; Sarah was a pleasing example
of the latter variety, with baby fine brown hair and
greenish hazel eyes set in her small, squarish face. Her naturally
pale complexion was pink with exertion and excitement,
and the jeans and shirt she had assumed in order to
bully the tent makers set off a nicely shaped figure.
Quite a contrast to the white-faced little creature he'd
first beheld on a television newscast, shivering in front of
the Kelling family vault on Beacon Hill, where a particularly
inappropriate set of remains had just been discovered.
That same night Max had met her in person, swathed in
something warm and fuzzy and blue, and made the dreadful
mistake of assuming she was Alexander Kelling's daughter
instead of his wife.
After that Max had somehow or other happened to run
into the younger Mrs. Kelling every so often, trying to
think of her as a nice woman who lived on the Hill with
her autocratic blind and deaf mother-in-law and her handsome,
elderly husband. The fact that Max had been born
and brought up on the North Shore, where the Kelling
family had a rambling old summer place, made these happenings
look a little more plausible.
He'd been visiting his parents the day the Kellings' vintage
Milburn, which had been for so long one of the North
Shore's most picturesque sights, had gone over the cliffs
with Alexander and his mother inside. Knowing Sarah
would be alone and in a state of shock, he'd hung around
his brother-in-law's garage, hoping she would stop for gas
on her way back to Boston. She had. Max had offered her
a ride back to Beacon Hill; she'd cried all the way and
looked like hell by the time they got there. That was when
Max Bittersohn realized he'd been in love with Sarah
Kelling ever since that otherwise abominable night at the
Lackridges'.
Gradually he'd promoted himself to acting knight errant,
telling himself that he wasn't making a nuisance of
himself, just trying to help a sorrowing widow over a rough
time; knowing all the time that he was lying his head off
and wishing to hell she'd walk into his arms, murmuring,
"Take me, Max, I'm yours if you want me." It had taken
longer than he would have liked, but now, by God, she was
his and he was hers, and Davy, the world's most intelligent
child, was three years old.
"Did it work?" he asked.
"How can you ask? Though I must admit." Sarah admitted,
"I've never seen such a bunch of incompetents as this
crew. They didn't seem to know a tent peg from a parasol.
However, thanks to Aunt Emma's expert coaching, I had
that whole tent-raising crew groveling at my feet in four
minutes and thirteen seconds this morning. Aunt Emma
could have had them all straightened out and flying right in
half that time, but of course she's had all those extra years
of practice. Speaking of Aunt Emma, you might give some
thought to getting dressed. Some of the guests will probably
arrive early, in typical Kelling fashion, and there's a great
deal to be done."
"Do you have to remind me?" Max growled. "Where's
Davy?"
"Right out there on the seaward deck, fishing for cardboard
minnows. See him? He's planning to send the minnows
home to their mothers when it gets to be nap time.
And you, my love, are detailed to drive him over to Mrs.
Blufert's. She'll keep him with her until after the wedding
service."
Max hadn't been overly pleased to hear that his son wasn't
going to be in the wedding party. "Why can't he stay here
with us?"
"Darling, you ought to know what a distraction even
one small child can be at a big family gathering," Sarah argued.
"Davy has better manners than most three-year-olds,
I'm happy to say, but a girl likes her wedding day to go perfectly.
Tracy is a darling, and deserves the best."
"She is that," Max agreed. "I don't know how my
nephew managed to snare her."
"Mike is a darling, too," said Mike's aunt by marriage.
"Miriam has everything arranged to a fare-thee-well, so
we'd better leave it to her."
Miriam Rivkin, Max's only sibling, was a happy mother
today. Here was her son with a brand-new degree in engineering,
and there was a wisp of a girl named Tracy all
ready to put on a wedding gown into which Miriam had
sewn a blessing with every stitch. And here pretty soon
would come Mother Bittersohn to watch her greatest
dream come true.
Max's mother had wanted a second daughter ever since
her Miriam had proved to be such a jewel. She'd got a boy
instead. She'd accepted him with relatively good grace and
planned for him to become a wealthy podiatrist with an office
not far from his parents' home. Unfortunately, Max
wasn't attracted to feet. Eventually she'd had to face the fact
that there was no way her boy would ever quit racketing
around the globe in pursuit of other people's stolen property.
She'd hoped he'd marry a nice Jewish gift; he'd married
a member of the Codfish Aristocracy and sired a son who
was already showing ominous signs that he'd turn out to be
the spit and image of his father. But what could you do! as
Mother Bittersohn herself often said.
Mrs. Blufert, Sarah's part-time housekeeper and babysitter,
had two grandchildren of her own visiting for the
day; they knew and liked Davy. The three would play for a
while, eat a simple lunch, take their naps, and play a little
longer. Then Mrs. Blufert would dress Davy in a clean suit,
if he still had one by then, and send him home fresh and
rested so that Sarah and Max could show their guests what
a clever son they'd managed to bring forth now they'd got
the knack.
"What's on my agenda besides Davy and the minnows?"
Max wanted to know.
"Shave, shower, get dressed, deliver Davy, come back,
and be ready to leap into any last-minute breaches that may
open up. There are sure to be some. Make sure you put on
your light gray suit instead of the dark one and stand
around looking elegant and suave when you have nothing
else to do. Think you can handle all that?"
"I'll work on it. Any more coffee kicking around?"
"Need you ask?"
Sarah refilled Max's cup, peeked out the window to
make sure Davy hadn't fallen into the minnow bucket, and
treated herself to a sip of her husband's coffee.
"We'd better not drink too much of this," she warned.
"You're jittery enough already."
"Who, me?" said Max. "What do you think, katzele? Is
it going to work?"
"Oh, I expect so. Tracy's people have sent some lovely
presents, but I don't suppose many of the senders will show
up in person. Most of them seem to be wrapped up in their
jobs and their divorces. Her wretched old father didn't even
respond to the invitation. I gather he's hot on the trail of
wife number five. At least Tracy's mother is here. Her
name's Jeanne, in case you've forgotten; Miriam says she
stayed up half the night making knishes for the buffet. I
think that's rather sweet, don't you? Perhaps it made Jeanne
feel like a member of the family, poor soul. She's gone all
to pieces since Tracy's father filed for divorce. Though why
any woman would want to stay married to a selfish woman-chasing
pickle manufacturer is beyond my comprehension."
"His millions might have something to do with it," Max
suggested.
"That's what they're fighting about, I believe," Sarah admitted.
"He doesn't want to give her a cent, and she's holding
out for lots of alimony. Goodness knows that family
hasn't much in the way of family feeling. Tracy's stepbrother
claims he has to stay in his laboratory and tend his
fruit flies. I hope they bite him. Tracy's such a darling; does
it strike you that she's almost as much in love with Miriam
and Ira as she is with Mike?"
"So? Is that bad?" Max wandered over to the window.
"Of course not. It's wonderful" said Sarah. "But I must
get back downstairs. Brooks and Theonia will be along
pretty soon with four dozen chocolate tortes which need to
be refrigerated until it's time to set the dessert tables. Uncle
Jem's coming with them if Egbert can haul him out of bed
and get him dressed in time."
"You do have the damnedest relatives," Max remarked.
"They've been damnably useful to you, you ungrateful
brute," Sarah said spiritedly. "Where would your detective
agency be without Cousin Brooks and his Theonia, not to
mention my who knows how many times removed cousin
Jesse?"
"The ex-delinquent," Max agreed with a grin. "All right,
my love, I'll give you Cousin Brooks and the beauteous
Theonia and even Jesse. But your uncle Jem is another kettle
of chowder. What wild scheme has he got in mind this
time?"
"He claims he's going to bartend in his fancy vest and
red satin arm garters, but Egbert says he isn't, not in front
of Mother Bittersohn."
"Let's hope the faithful factotum can control him, then.
I sure as hell can't." Max yelped and ducked away from the
window. "Here comes a carload of revelers already. What
the hell time is it? Did our clocks stop and I'm late before
I start?"
"Of course not, silly. It's Cousin Anne with the bouquets
and buttonholes. She promised to bring the flowers
over early. Oh, they're beautiful!" Sarah sighed as she
watched Anne unload the flowers. The large and intricately
intermarried Kelling clan could be a nuisance at times, but
its members boasted a diversity of talents. Percy Kelling,
Anne's husband, was the dullest of dull sticks, according to
Uncle Jem, but even Jem admitted that dullness wasn't necessarily
a handicap to a first-class CPA. Sarah had had very
little to do with Percy's wife, Anne, until Anne had called
her and Max in to recover a treasured family painting that
featured an oversize parrot and its owner. Since then Anne
had attached herself to Sarah like a clinging vine of the
Convolvulaceae family and had applied her horticultural
talents to the improvement of the Bittersohn acres. What
Anne could do with a sack of manure and a few flats of annuals
was little short of miraculous, and her flower
arrangements were works of art.
By the time Max emerged properly dressed in the light-gray
suit and the gray-and-white tie that Mike and Tracy
had decided would be just the ticket for an outdoor wedding
on a lovely September day, a sort of organized pandemonium
had set in. Mindful of Sarah's list, Max ate a
quick breakfast, collected Davy and a few changes of clothing,
and drove to Mrs. Blufert's, where he gave each of the
three children a wiggly wooden alligator with little green
wheels for feet and a red mouth that opened and shut most
fearsomely when a child hauled it around on a string.
Max stayed to show the children how to run an alligator
race. After he came in a poor fourth, he went home to tell
his father, who had made the alligators, what a great time
the children were having with their new toys and reported
back to his calm and collected wife.
How Sarah had contrived a perfect day for Mike's wedding
was a puzzlement to everybody but Max. He'd known
from the start that it wouldn't dare to rain with his wife
bossing the show. The temperature was exactly seventy degrees
Fahrenheit and would not go much higher or lower
until sundown. Every now and then a puff of white cloud
wafted across the bright blue sky like a giant blob of
whipped cream on its way to frost a celestial wedding cake.
Far overhead, the sun beamed down upon the enchanted
place that Cousin Anne and Mr. Lomax, the gardener, had
created out of an ugly, water-worn hillside, a few truckloads
of fish offal, and heaven only knew how many
chrysanthemums, each single plant carefully selected, color-coordinated,
and set into the fishgut-enriched soil by Anne
Kelling's expert hands.
Following his wife's instructions, Max went to the
library, where the wedding gifts were on display. Early-arriving
guests were trickling into the room, most of them
just looking, a few trying to peek at the donors' names and
addresses, which had been written on plain white cards and
stuck facedown under the gifts. Miriam and Sarah had tried
to keep a running list of who'd sent what; it hadn't been
easy. Parcels were still coming through the mail, by UPS, by
Federal Express, by personal visits from friends, neighbors,
relatives on the Rivkin side, on the Bittersohn side, from
classmates of Mike's and Tracy's, from people whose names
hardly anybody could recall having heard before, even from
a few Kellings who had the good sense to appreciate Max
and his family.
The best of the presents weren't on display. Ira had already
presented his son and future daughter-in-law with a
meticulously restored 1956 Ford Thunderbird. Miriam's
gift to the bride was a complete set of the finest cookware,
along with a file of her own tried and tested recipes and a
promise of cooking lessons as soon as Tracy had mastered
the art of turning on the stove. Best of all was a joint gift
to the newlyweds, the one building on the old Kelling summer
place that had been worth saving.
For months now, a crew headed by the elder Bittersohns
and financed by Sarah and Max had been remodeling the
former carriage house. The ground floor had been divided
in two: half for the Thunderbird, the other half insulated,
paneled, and heated as a studio for Tracy, who was already
gaining some notice as a potter. Upstairs, a pleasant bedroom
and sitting room would catch the sunrises and sunsets
over the ocean. There were also a small but functional
bathroom, an office for Mike, and a kitchen just about big
enough to hold Miriam's cookware and the cook. What
with the largesse already heaped upon them and the gifts
not yet unwrapped, the newlyweds were starting to wonder
whether they should build an ell on the carriage house or
open a general store.
Max examined the display with a considering, expert's
eye and decided to ignore his wife's suggestion that he
check the list she and Miriam had begun as soon as the
gifts began to arrive. She'd just said that to keep him out of
mischief. Anyhow, he didn't know where she'd put the
damned list. Besides, it was impossible to do the job under
these conditions, with people coming and going and wanting
to talk and getting in the way. The pace was picking up.
More guests were coming, more food being delivered, more
people wanting to see the presents. Where, he wondered,
had all this stuff come from? The glittering array covered
the desk, the library table, and the other tables that had
been brought in from various rooms and draped decorously
in white linen. Six coffeemakers, four blenders, several
other gadgets whose functions he was afraid to speculate
about, vessels of silver, crystal, china, pottery, plastic, feathers ...
Max did a double take. They were feathers, dry,
molting, faded feathers, covering a bowl the size of a washbasin.
Its original function was questionable, its present
utility nil. That had to have come from the Kelling side.
The Kellings never threw anything away. Maybe this was
one of Aunt Apple's family treasures.
Tearing his incredulous eyes away from the object, Max
was pleased to see Egbert, Uncle Jem's aged and invaluable
valet de chambre, companion, and all-round good egg.
They exchanged greetings that were, at least on Max's part,
heartfelt. The room was too crowded. People were getting
fingerprints on the silver, and jostling the tables, and picking
up those handy white cards and probably not putting
them back with the right gifts. Egbert was up to the job.
Max watched admiringly as Egbert moved from one group
to another, murmuring hints about coffee and pastries on
the deck and suggesting guests might care to stroll down to
the carriage house for a look at the Thunderbird, the studio,
and the upstairs living quarters, giving special attention
to the curtains and pillow tops, all embroidered by Mrs.
Bittersohn Senior using motifs taken from Tracy's prizewinning
pottery, which could already be seen in some of
the more prestigious decorating shops.
Finally the place began to clear out, and Max, who had
decided to concentrate on looking elegant and debonair, relaxed.
People were drifting toward the big tent, where the
bridal couple would stand to take their vows. Egbert tactfully
urged the last of the viewers away, leaving Max alone
in the library. Max glanced at his watch. He'd better get out
there and make like a host until the ushers had got everybody
seated. He cast a final glance over the wedding gifts,
and froze.