The Immaculate Deception Page 4

  There was a cop outside. Perry’s technician probably. Bet he’d ask me more unpleasant questions about Daddy and Momma, investigate the crime scene and all that stuff. I was so tired. I didn’t want to deal with any more questions right now. I was in no shape to blindly defend Momma though I had no doubt she was innocent. There was no murder scene here, therefore no evidence that needed processing. I fled down the basement stairs. The Dracula box momentarily stunned me. I hid in the walk-in closet. No more Perry, no more Tammy. I just wanted to be left alone for a change. I could still hear the cop pounding on the front door. Just go and give me some space, will ya?

  I breathed with my mouth open in the dark mustiness. My fingers were greasy from handling the potatoes. I laughed, enjoying the mental picture. Should’ve thrown the hot brown gravy too.

  Hmm, no more knocking or ringing. I swatted in the dark and felt the soft shoestring. I yanked the light on.

  Looking around, I realized Momma’s sable coat was missing. I knew I had been wearing it when I fell asleep. I opened the black steamer trunk again. After I’d rifled through layers of oddities, no coat materialized. So I opened the closet door and peeked into the rec room. Spotting the coffin, I decided to stay put.

  This was just too creepy. Surreal, sad and sickening. Oh my God, Momma is in Saint Christopher’s Mental Hospital! I have to get her out. And if she really had been committed to the nut house, she would still be there because she didn’t escape and murder Daddy, because he wasn’t murdered. I couldn’t believe that Perry tossed his own mother into a mental institution. Well, okay, so his real mother was the slightly famous movie actress from the forties and fifties, Vera Blandings, but my mother had raised him lovingly as her own. She worked so hard, trying to do right by that boy. No, Momma hadn’t played opposite Cary Grant in a Hitchcock flick, like Vera Blandings had, but she was a darned good woman.

  Wait a minute, I shouldn’t be so hard on Perry. He was an orphan now. His mother Vera had been murdered when he was just a teenager and now our daddy had passed on too. Maybe he wasn’t thinking straight in his grief and that’s why he accused Momma of murder. But that was no excuse for putting Momma away. And what was that stupid story of his, what happened on Thursday, when Daddy called me and said Momma was trying to kill him? Something about a bent cane.

  And then, four days later, I found Daddy pinned underneath a deep freezer. His deep freezer. And it wasn’t that big. Just about four feet all ways, tall, wide and deep. A small chest-type freezer. Heavy though. It had a brown paneling finish, to match the paneled basement. Daddy had it plugged in at the end of the hallway. He was always putting food in there while Momma slept, telling me that she had the Alzheimer’s disease, buying too much.

  She didn’t have Alzheimer’s. She just never accepted that her nest was empty. She always bought enough to feed a family of five. If anyone had a mental problem, it was Daddy. I strongly suspected he was a pathological liar. I looked up the definition once. It was a synonym for sociopath. Calling him a liar to myself was one thing. I would never believe my father was a sociopath though. That word was frightening.

  Every time I came to visit, he’d always call me downstairs and try to load me up with bags of frozen lettuce, shredded cheese and meat that was three years past the “best if used by” date.

  Frozen lettuce. The salad bowl incident. What a nightmare. Momma had taken her annual Palm Springs spa trip. She’d been treating herself to this yearly respite the same week every year for as long as I could remember. The first week in August. The day after she returned, I received a frantic call from Daddy. Asking me if I had the salad bowl. Momma accused Daddy of giving away her things to his girlfriend while she was gone. Nonagenarian Daddy had a girlfriend? What was Momma thinking? And what was the girlfriend thinking if she in fact existed? Momma threw him out, had the locks changed and burned his Army discharge papers, his medical license and his autographed photo of Marilyn Monroe.

  Perry took him in for a night and then dumped Daddy on my front stoop. Daddy followed me around, crying and telling horribly twisted secrets of Momma’s past, which I didn’t want to hear and didn’t believe. Blackmail, booze, espionage, counterfeiting, crimes against nature, you name it. He was un-shut-up-able. I couldn’t stand the unrelenting emotional devastation he forced upon me. Trying once again to manipulate me into doing whatever master scheme he had in mind. I stuck him on a plane to California, where some of his people lived. And I felt immediate guilt. He was my father after all. I was duty-bound to love him no matter what. I kept thinking that if I loved him long enough, hard enough, he would someday realize that I was a good girl and be proud of me and love me the way he doted on Tammy and Perry. Why didn’t Daddy love me?

  He made the rounds of his siblings in California. His youngest brother Howard finally had enough and flew Daddy back home. Momma let him back in. But wouldn’t give him a key.

  I heard music. The melody of Dean Martin’s sixties hit “Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime”. Yeah, I guess they did. But why in the world did Chloe Lambert marry Dr. Nathan Payne? They bickered my whole life. Had separate bedrooms too. I never witnessed them kissing, not once. And how come they would never reveal the exact year they got married? I knew their anniversary was February twenty-ninth but what year? Leap day…

  And why did they adopt Tammy? I was still a baby when they brought Tammy into our home. She was only fourteen months older than me. What, were they disappointed in me?

  The music was getting louder.

  And why did Tammy and Perry get everything they asked for, the never-grateful children that they were? And then there was me, their only biological child together. Or wasn’t I? If I were to believe any of Daddy’s salacious whispers, Momma had had affairs with Poppa San at the Chinese restaurant, the entire gang of Frank Sinatra’s “Rat Pack”, including Sammy Davis Jr., the “Negro” as Daddy called him, and even President John F. Kennedy when she was working in the White House. And lest I forget his latest mind game, telling me Momma wasn’t my real mother. As if I could be the natural daughter of a movie star who had died before I was born. Probably Daddy’s lifelong fascination with Marilyn Monroe had taken over his final moments… No, he was just trying to play one last trick on me. I ran my fingers over my face then shook my head.

  Daddy loved telling stories about when he met Marilyn. His first wife Vera had been cast together with her in a movie. Bus Stop? No, maybe it was How To Marry a Millionaire? Hey, perhaps I was JFK and MM’s love child. That’s why I never even received a pittance, I would be coming into my inheritance one of these days. I giggled. Oh it felt good to laugh, punch-drunk on emotion.

  ~♥~

  The music was different now. Dooley Wilson’s song “As Time Goes By” from the forties movie Casablanca. Where was it coming from? I stumbled around the corner and under the stairs. I felt the wind picking up. Sucking me in. All I could see was a beautiful shade of green. Dark Georgetown green, nearly black. The irresistible forward momentum propelled me into a tunnel. I closed my eyes.

  When I opened them again, I was walking up a wooden ramp with handrails on both sides. I tugged open a door and stepped inside a huge closet full of canned tuna, onions, potatoes, flour, sugar and Maxwell House coffee. A pantry. I opened another door. That fella from my dream was seated at a butcher-block counter. I was so happy to see him again. This was the first time I dreamed about the same thing twice. Talk about a dream lover. Perhaps I’d get a chance to kiss him in this one. I said, “Hey you, come over here and step right into my dream again.”

  Grinning, my soul mate hopped off the wooden stool and buttoned his crisp black tuxedo jacket. “I’ve been waiting for you, Cinderella.”

  My stomach growled. I scanned the huge industrial kitchen. Uniformed cooks, waiters and waitresses—or were they butlers and maids?—bustled around. The place really sizzled. And it smelled heavenly. I closed my eyes and sniffed roast beef, mashed potatoes, green beans with bacon and baked Alaska. All right, so baked
Alaska had no real aroma, it was just ice cream covered in meringue, but hey, it was my dream.

  “Come on, love, let’s check your coat.”

  “Huh?” I glanced down at the sable coat I was wearing. Good, it turned up. Momma would kill me if I lost her coat. He grasped my arm and escorted me outside. A vivid full moon illuminated the night. Shimmering stars mesmerized me. We strolled on a massive brick driveway and into the porticoed entrance of the White House.

  Cars dropped people at the steps. A line formed as invitations were verified. He scooted me around the queue. The invitation checkers nodded to my mate. We sauntered right past them all. Oh the marble…the grand staircase…the chandeliers. Just like I’d imagined.

  We meandered to the cloakroom. Dream boy unbuttoned my coat. Hey, naked at the White House? What the heck, this was my dream. Our eyes locked as his long fingers tenderly undid each button. I shivered as he softly brushed my bare shoulders while removing the frock. He handed it to the coat check girl.

  My soul mate leaned down and whispered, “Breathtaking, Donna.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and then open, before nervously checking to see if I was wearing anything. I heaved a sigh of relief upon the sight of my powder blue taffeta ball gown. Strapless, low-necked and cinched nicely at the waist and then full and sassy to the floor. I kicked out one foot to see a sparkly silver pump. I kicked the other foot out. Good, two shoes, both had heels and they matched.

  He presented me with a corsage, white baby roses around a small blue carnation. I allowed him to pin it on me. He smelled really good. Soap. I heard his breathing deepen as he slid one finger inside my cleavage in order to fasten the big teardrop-shaped pearl-headed pin. I exhaled. He smiled and offered his arm.

  We traipsed into the gala dining room. Waiters scurried about, fussing with place settings and floral arrangements.

  “Hungry, love?” my mate whispered in my ear.

  “Sure. Got any hamburgers?”

  “Not tonight. Do you like shrimp?”

  “Yes, I adore shrimp.”

  He grabbed a silver serving tray from a young African American waitress. She said, “Agent, these are for the guests.”

  “Katherine, I’m escorting Miss Donna tonight and she needs nourishment.”

  Katherine looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Sorry, Miss Donna. He’s always snatchin’ goodies. Would you be wantin’ some champagne to wash them down with? How about a tray of cheeses and crackers too?”

  “No crackers, I’m on a low-carb diet.”

  “What’s a low-carb diet?” Katherine asked.

  My mate said, “She eats meat.”

  Sure I ate meat. Wouldn’t mind eating some of his right now. I blushed.

  Katherine’s eyes bulged. “I’ll be back with some drinks and cheeses. Why don’t you all make yourselves comfy up in the second-floor gathering area?”

  My mate laughed and watched the pretty girl walk away. I felt a ping of jealousy. He had said he was my mate. Did that mean literally man-woman mating or did I misinterpret and he meant mate as in friend, pal? He carried the tray of jumbo shrimp and escorted me to the elevator. We nibbled while being transported to the second floor.

  “Katherine-the-maid called you Agent. Are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of agent? Secret agent, IRS agent, ticket agent, real estate agent, talent agent or literary agent?”

  Dream boy shoved a big chilled shrimp between my lips and said in an oh-so-sexy whisper, “Secret agent, at your service, sweetheart.”

  Gosh, that whisper sent down shivers down my spine. He brushed the hair back from my ear first and I nearly squealed in anticipation of his lips touching my skin.

  The elevator doors opened to an informal gathering area, with a big Palladian window at the end of a hallway.

  “The family living quarters are right through that door.” He gestured with his hand.

  He had long, strong fingers. No rings. No telltale tan line either. Good.

  “Oh we should go.” I turned to get back on the elevator but the doors had shut. I tried to find a button to push.

  “Relax, it’s okay, I work here.”

  “But…” I couldn’t think of any reason why we needed to leave, even though I felt like there should be one.

  I followed my mate over to an oval mahogany coffee table, where he placed the tray. He motioned for me to sit on a red velvet sofa. I did. He switched on a large radio and tuned in a station. The host announced the next song, “Technicolor Dreams” by the Hugh Gibb orchestra.

  Dream boy reached for my hand. I stood and he led me out to the center of the hallway. He slid one hand around my waist and squeezed my hand with his other one. We floated around to the movie musical song. I felt like Ginger Rogers in one of those nineteen-forties movies. I loved dancing and somehow tonight I seemed proficient at it. He was an amazing partner. I couldn’t help giggling when he dipped me. The song ended. Dream boy kept swaying as the station break came on.

  He asked, “Where have you been all my life?”

  Yes, it was just a clichéd pick-up line like in the movies. But he made it sound so real. I couldn’t think of anything to say in response. I focused on his full lips. They inched down closer to mine. Closer… Shoot. I felt eyes watching me.

  Katherine cleared her throat. “Cheeses without crackers, deviled eggs and a popped bottle of champagne are on the table.” She handed us each a bubbly-filled glass. “It taste like duck water but they don’t give Miz Stoneburner a good ’nuff budget. Call the kitchen if you be needin’ another bottle.”

  My man told her, “Thanks, doll.”

  Katherine departed in the elevator.

  He smiled at me and raised his glass. “May our dreams always be in Technicolor.”

  We clinked glasses and intertwined our arms. As I brought the goblet to my lips in slow motion, a red rubber playground ball knocked it out of my hand.

  He said, “Play dead! I’ll be right back. Don’t you move now.”

  I dropped to the floor, curled into the fetal position and covered my head. People scurried around, red balls flying. I peeked to see Vera Blandings run past me, propelling a rolling desk chair with a top hat on the seat. The hat appeared to be full of eggs. Vera Blandings? Daddy’s first wife, Perry’s biological momma and Cary Grant’s co-star in Hitchcock’s classic Mother May I? Why was I dreaming about her?

  I stayed as still as I could but I developed a cramp in my foot and had to take off one shoe. I glanced around, everything appeared to have calmed down and I was alone. I shook my foot like a dog.

  “All clear. The drill was successful.” My secret agent man knelt down and grasped my stockinged foot. He drew both of his thumbs up and down the middle bottom. It felt so good it was amazing I didn’t come.

  He read my face and appeared very pleased with himself. “There, does that feel better?”

  “Yes…” I cooed.

  As he slipped my sparkly silver shoe back on, I noticed the opaque stockings. I screwed my face up. They weren’t sexy and didn’t fit so well. Tight at the ankles. And I didn’t have thick ankles.

  “What’s wrong, love?”

  “The stockings. I don’t like ’em. How come they aren’t silk or even nylon?”

  “Nylon? They don’t make ’em anymore. All nylon is being sewn into parachutes for the war.”

  Oh right, I was dreaming in the forties, World War Two and all that stuff.

  My mate helped me up.

  “Did you say something about a drill?”

  “Yes, all White House employees practice evacuating the President in case of attack. There have been recent credible threats… Um, I won’t elaborate.”

  “Did I just see Vera Blandings, the movie star, run through here pushing a hat full of eggs on a rolling chair?”

  “Probably. Movie star? No. Vera is presently President Roosevelt’s personal secretary.”

  “But she’s my daddy’s first wife. And my half-brother Perry’s
mother.”

  “Not at this moment in time.” Dream boy popped a deviled egg in his mouth. “Sit down. Eat.”

  I did. The cheese tray was beautifully arranged. Waffle-cut cheddar, small discs of Gouda and tiny triangles of Swiss. The White House, the food, this great guy… This dream really couldn’t get much better. I was having more fun than I ever remembered in my real life.

  I dipped a shrimp in cocktail sauce and devoured it. I washed it down with champagne. “President Roosevelt? Oh of course, that makes sense now. The hat with the eggs in it represents the President, she has to be careful that it doesn’t fall off and he doesn’t get hurt. And the chair is because of his polio.”

  He nodded to my cleavage. Normally I’d be mock offended but after all, this was my mate. Dream boy kept topping up my champagne.

  “You’re trying to get me drunk, aren’t you?”

  He drained the last drop from the bottle and licked the green glass rim provocatively. “I assure you, Cinderella, my intentions are honorable.”

  “Drat.”

  We both laughed. I set my ever-filled glass on the coffee table. I cocked my head, smiled at him and asked, “What’s your name?”

  He looked as though he was trying to suppress a grin. The resulting expression was adorable.

  “Well?”

  “I told you, I’m your soul mate.”

  I hiccupped and patted my lips. I really was in no shape for metaphysical discussions. “Yeah, I know. My soul mate across history. Whatever that is. Let’s just keep it simple to begin with, handsome. So come on now, what is my soul mate’s name?”

  “Jones.”

  “Well, Mr. Jones, I am very pleased to meet you. Now what’s your first name?”

  “I’m not at liberty to reveal it…at this point in time, love.”

  I laughed and shook my head. As I exhaled, I sighed. “Okay, I’ll play along. Jones is a fine, strong name. My roommate’s name is Jones.”

  “Is it now?” he grimaced.

  I nodded. “I take that as a very good sign that we will get along famously, you and I. Why are you suddenly sullen? My roommate is a woman, Ashley Jones. I’m not living with a man, for heaven’s sake. As a matter of fact we haven’t even met face-to-face yet, we have different schedules.”