Renfrew's big case, the full story
Created | Updated May 23, 2023
Episode 1
"Who killed my sister?" the green-faced witch said, searching dozens of Munchkin faces for signs of guilt before noticing a new face -- the face of a foreigner -- in the crowd. "Was it you?" she said, glaring at Dorothy, who took a step back and denied killing anybody.
The screen suddenly froze as Sigismund clicked the remote. "Do you see what a great opportunity they missed?" he said to his son Lanny, who had come for the afternoon.
"What opportunity" Lanny exclaimed. "It's just an entertaining movie. A classic."
"But it doesn't go anywhere, Lanny! Instead of trying to get back to Kansas, Dorothy could have tried to find the Witch of the east's real killer, set herself up as the grandest sorceress in Oz, and turned the silly Wizard into an also-ran."
"Dad, you're too much," Lanny scolded, picking up his hat and coat. "Last Sunday, you wanted to know why Bambi didn't hire a private investigator to track whoever set the forest fire that killed his mother. The week before that, you were convinced that "The Sound of Music" should have been an investigation into the death of Baron Von Trapp's first wife."
"She was healthy enough to give birth at least eight times," Sigismund retorted. "The Baron was just bored with her. He wanted to start over with someone younger and prettier. People have killed for less."
"Fine!" Lanny exclaimed, buttoning his overcoat. "I think you read too many murder mysteries with wildly improbable plots. Maybe it's the Covid-19 quarantine that's driven you crazy. Why don't you get out into the real world a bit more?" He started to open the door, but thought of something more to say. "If you had ever been a real detective, you wouldn't see murder in the background every time you watch a classic movie."
The door closed behind him. This was followed almost immediately by the sound of a car being started, and a bit of screeching as the car pulled away. Lanny only lived half a mile away, but his patience was sorely tested by his Sunday afternoon visits to his aging father's condo at Lake Serene Retirement Village.
Sigismund shrugged his shoulders and clicked his remote one more time. "I didn't mean to kill anyone," Dorothy protested on the screen. "It was an accident."
"An accident, my eye," Sigismund mutered. "A veritable crime wave, and none of these characters realizes it." Trouble was, real detectives were too busy solving real crimes to bother with the plot lines of great movies. Sigismund would have loved to solve murders himself, but the opportunity never presented itself when he was young, and now it was too late to start. Thirty-five years of carrying trays in the family restaurant had left him with sagging arches, aching calf muscles, and a bad hip. Happily, the family restaurant had been highly profitable, and Sigismund didn't mind the tradeoffs, one of which was this beautiful condo with a good view of the lake. Granted, the Summer's drought had lowered the water level, but the weather service had been talking about hurricanes, which might bring enough rain to raise it again.
There was a clinking sound in the next room as Renfrew mixed the afternoon drinks. Lanny had left, so the second one would not be needed. Sigismund wavered for a moment. "I'll drink both of them," he decided.
Renfrew creaked as he walked into the living room, but this was to be expected, as he was an android. And not just any android, he was Sigismund's greatest invention. The only good thing about the pandemic was that Sigismund had been left alone long enough to create a manservant who could not infect him with Covid. Androids didn't carry human viruses. When Instacart delivered the groceries, Renfrew met them at the door and carried all the bags into the kitchen. Sigismund hated masks, so not interacting with people meant he could avoid wearing them.
Say, maybe Renfrew could be sent out to do detective work. Nah, it would take too long to explain what a detective was. Still, it was the germ of a good idea that could develop into something.
"Er, Sigismund, has Lanny stepped out?" Renfrew wondered, holding the other drink in his hand.
"Yes, but I'll drink it for him. Say, Renfrew, have you ever considered becoming a private eye?"
"What is a private eye?"
Drat. Sigismund should have put something about detective work in Renfrew's memory banks. Well, as Glinda said, it's always best to start at the beginning.
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Episode 2
Sigismund decided he would explain to Renfrew what private eyes do. "A private eye is someone who investigates crimes, particularly murders. He visits the murder scene, looks for clues, and interviews anyone who might have had a motive for killing the victim."
A glimmer of understanding flickered in Renfrew's glass eyes. "You mean murders like the killing of Orly?"
"Yes, something like that." Orly had been Sigismund's old neighbor. Renfrew had somehow developed a knack for communicating with Orly's ghost. This talent had not been part of Sigismund's blueprint for Renfrew, but he went along with it because Orly and Renfrew had become such close friends. Had Orly really been murdered, though? The doctor's report had not mentioned foul play, just an unexpected fall after slipping on a rug. However, Orly's ghost insisted that it was murder.
"Maybe you and I and Orly could be a team of private eyes," Renfrew said. "Orly and I could investigate the crime scene, and you could piece the clues together."
Sigismund looked at his drink. The ice was half melted. It would be better to drink it now while it was still cold. He drained the glass in one gulp. "That sounds good," he had to admit, "but you'll need to be subtle. Androids who ask too many questions tend to attract attention."
Renfrew said nothing for a moment, as if listening to someone else. "Orly likes the idea too," he finally said."He thinks we should begin investigating his murder."
"Wouldn't it be better for the police to handle this?" he cautioned.
Renfrew listened to his ethereal friend, then shook his head. "Orly needs to tell you in his own way. Let me transmit his voice to your computer."
A feeble sound began to emanate from the computer's speaker system. Renfrew turned up the volume so Sigismund could hear. "Siggy, I'm not making this up! I was just stepping out of the tub, when I heard someone or something in the room with me. I was drying my eyes, so I didn't see who it was, and the bathmat was yanked from under me. I was hit on the back of my head by something hard. I have no further memories."
"That's strange. I helped Orly's executor go through his belongings, and no bathmats showed up," Sigismund said, stroking his chin.
"My attacker must have taken the mat with him when he fled," Orly said.
"What kind of mat was it?"
"Don't laugh," Orly said. "It was a gift from Miss Marvel."
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Episode 3
It was a bit of a dilemma for Sigismund and Renfrew. As much as Sigismund wanted Renfrew to help him solve Orly's murder, he could just see the reaction of the people in court when he reported that (1.) the murder victim's ghost had been communicating with an android, and (2.) the murder "weapon" had been one of Miss Marvel's cutesy bath mats.
The reader might wonder why this would be an obstacle. Well, Miss Marvel -- real name Marvella Rising Star -- was a bit much. She fancied herself as an expert on pretty much everything. From the tender age of fourteen, when she designed a casino and supervised its construction, Marvella had continually amazed much of the world with the range of things she could do. If she wore a diamond, it was safe to assume that she had mined, ground, and polished it herself. Her exquisite shoes were made of leather that she tanned herself. Could she bake a cherry pie? Yes, but you didn't dare ask for her recipe, for she would go on about the type of trees she had planted, the fertilizers she had used, the methods of fending off insect pests, and the type of stones she used to grind the flour in the crust. And the design on Orly's bathmat was sure to be something no self-respecting man would be caught dead -- if you'll excuse the expression -- with in his bathroom.
"I guess you're wondering how I happened to know Marvella," Orly continued. "She has her studio in that grand mansion across the lake. A few months ago the two of us were fishing in the same cove one day. Well, she was fishing. I had caught nothing. Then our lines got tangled..."
"That's a fishy story if I ever heard one," Sigismund said.
"She had already caught six times as many fish as I had, so it wasn't a big deal for her," Orly went on. "She was kind enough to share some of them with me. She even invited me to her place and fixed me the most succulent dinner of poached fish and gnocchi and Pears Belle Helene. It was heavenly!"
"She did that for a perfect stranger?" Sigismund exclaimed, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, her sixteen luncheon guests had all called to cancel. I guess they were afraid of being stranded in her house during that hurricane that was on its way. She didn't want the meal to be a total waste."
"That still doesn't explain how her bathmat got into your bathroom."
"That was a totally new product she was testing. Or rather products. She gave me five different designs to see which I preferred."
"Don't tell me, let me guess," Sigismund said. "One had a hydrangea pattern in celadon. Another was a calico cat. A third was a gray pattern with white snowflakes. The fourth was a Christmas bathmat with a gingerbread design. The fifth was a cotton jacquard in a grape hyacinth color."
Orly went silent. Finally, he said, "I forgot that you inventoried my belongings. But I thought you didn't find any of my bathmats."
Sigismund went to a file cabinet in a corner of the room and came back with a Marvella product catalog. "I didn't, but I was saving this to give as a gag gift at Christmas," he said. "Apparently you approved all the designs."
"Didn't get a chance," Orly said. "I died two days after I received them."
"Could she have sent someone over to retrieve them, and they were so embarrassed at surprising you that they took the mats and ran?" Sigismund wondered.
"We should ask her," Renfrew said.
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Episode 4
"You're going to do what?" Curlew exclaimed when Renfrew told him about the murder investigation. Curlew was Renfrew's guru, a robot of such extraordinary complexity and meticulous design that very few people even realized he wasn't flesh and blood.
"I'm going to find out who murdered Sigismund's neighbor Orly," Renfrew repeated. "It was a suspicious death, and Sigismund wants me to do the detective work required to bring the murderer to justice."
"My dear Renfrew, your circuits weren't even designed so you would know what a detective is," Curlew scoffed.
Renfrew thought about what Curlew had said. The two androids were in the elegant main lobby of Androids R We. The golden November sunlight filtered through the leaves of a maple tree in front of the store, highlighting in red the stencils of well-known androids on the store windows. Red sunbeams caressed the marble statue of Andy Android in front of the checkout aisles and danced along the lapis blue marble floors.
"My circuits allow for expansion," Renfrew finally said. "I've downloaded the complete stories of Sherlock Holmes and most of the novels of Agatha Christie, plus many of the more recent detective story writers. I can be a very fine detective if that's what I decide to do."
Curlew raised an eyebrow (he was the rare android who had lifelike eyebrows). "Very impressive," he said. "Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot are a very good start indeed. Of course, you'd do better to consult real detectives, especially the ones who use things like DNA testing. The better fictional sleuths are a good place to start. But why waste your time with the latest generation of writers?"
"Why, what's wrong with them?"
"Wrong?" Curlew chortled. "Poor Renfrew, you have always seemed such a realistic fellow, but you haven't noticed how implausible and silly a lot of them are? In the 90s, you had a detective who took his cues from a pair of Siamese cats. In the naughts, you had bakery owners and caterers who took up detecting. There was even a ghost who wrote advice to a young woman in the house she once lived in. There's a dog who gives his take on his master's work. There are also lesbian detectives, quadriplegic detectives, First Lady detectives, and great creative people like Jane Austen and Mozart who found themselves solving murders. As if they could spare the time from creating their bodies of work!"
"Surely those are not representative of the people I should be following," Renfrew protested.
"Those are the *better* ones! Dracula is a detective now. So is Amelia Earhart. Adam and Eve solve murders in the garden of Eden. And we've brought in members of improbable species: Beatrice Anaconda or Anastasia Mongoose."
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Episode 5
Renfrew was dismayed that Curlew had such a low opinion of current fictional detectives. "Beatrice Anaconda is my favorite!" he started to exclaim, but he was interrupted by a cheery "Did someone call me?" from the next aisle of Androids R We. There, in a long, sinuous black lace gown, was a 25-foot snake that bore a striking resemblance to the covers of the Beatrice Anaconda mystery series.
"Beatrice Anaconda at your service," the snake said, slithering toward the two androids.
"You're real?" Renfrew exclaimed.
"I'm not a flesh-and-blood snake, if that's what you mean," Beatrice purred. "In this climate I'd be hibernaitng already if I were. No, I'm an android, just like you. I'm here for a tuneup. Now, the woman who writes those books about me is a different matter. I doubt that she's real..."
"But Comet Bright has been interviewed on TV so many t-t-t-times," Renfrew stammered.
"Oh, please," Beatrice scoffed. "Ever hear of actors? Somebody *claiming* to be Comet Bright gave interviews, but she wasn't the writer who came up with those inaccurate and silly whodunits about me. I'm a detective, and I know these things."
"Renfrew, you're next," came a voice over the P.A. system.
"It's time for my tuneup," Renfrew apologized. "Can I meet up with you later, Miss Anaconda? I want to be a detective too, and I could use some tips."
"I know what case you're working on," Beatice said with a wink. "Orly Beaugency's death by bathmat."
"You know about it?"
"Honey, it's all over the Androidnet." Beatrice was paged too, but before she slithered over to her cubicle she gave Renfrew some consolation. "If you're worried that someone else will steal your case, relax. Everybody knows you have some inside knowledge. Nail this case, and you will be famous as the ghost whisperer."
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Episode 6
Android technology had come a long way by the beginning of the 21st Century. Competition among the economic superpowers had made it imperative that companies find out what the public actually wanted (even if said public wasn't always clear about that) and could afford to pay for. With large numbers of post-World War II workers -- also known as Baby Boomers, though they were now far from being babies -- becoming retirees, entrepreneurs had realized that there might not be enough workers in younger generations to care for them. Many retirees lived alone, but couldn't afford assisted-living arrangements. Why not use androids rather than humans to care for these people? People were used to getting answers from the likes of Siri and Alexa, so maybe these helpers could provide physical assistance as well.
There were now at least six companies pumping out robotic valets, gofers, and even nurses for the older retirees and the first wave of the Baby Boomers. Androids were becoming easier to assemble, and could be sold as kits to do-it-yourselfers like Sigismund.
There was yet another market beginning to open up: android-to-android communication. Renfrew had heard about the Androidnet, but Sigismund had programmed him to doubt that it had anything to do with him. Now, though, his conversations in Androids R We had made him realize that maybe he was missing out on something. He loved talking to Curlew, and wanted to stay in touch at home.
Renfrew wondered if do it-yourselfers could assemble androids as complex as Curlew. Well, not all do-it-yourselfers, as Curlew was amazingly close to being human. He had passed the Turing test many times. Even a doctor would be deceived at first. Curlew could eat, take showers, even go swimming without short-circuiting. Renfrew, by contrast, looked rather a lot like the tin man from "Wizard of Oz." What you see is what you get, he thought to himself as the tuneup began.
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Episode 7
In Sigismund's opinion, Renfrew was an amazingly helpful android, but there were times when his logic was absolutely unfathomable. This was such a time. Renfrew had gone to Buckblaster Videos (which had shrunk to a mere five stores, but luckily there was one next to Railway Salvage Depot on the wrong side of the railroad tracks) to fetch a video with Betty Boop on it, and had returned with "Who framed Roger Rabbit?" Sigismund had taken one look at it, and had said "Why?" To this, Renfrew had replied "You'll see," and then went for his tuneup at Androids R We.
Sigismund decided to save the video for after lunch, so he tucked it under the pile of clutter on his desk. Lunch came and went, but now the video was nowhere to be found. "Someday I've got to throw out some of this junk," he muttered under his breath. Actually it was no mystery why he couldn't get on top of the clutter. Every time he decided to clean the place, he'd come upon some magazine article that he had left unread months before. He felt obligated to finish the article this time. Today was no exception. The October issue of "But Not Least" from three years ago came to light under several empty popcorn bags, and Sigismund remembered that it contained some stuffing recipes that he had meant to save. Thanksgiving was coming, and although Lanny's wife was going to roast the turkey, Sigismund always brought stuffing. Naturally, the recipes were all on back pages, surrounded by glossy ads.
Sigismund looked in vain for the couscous stuffing recipe that he wanted, then he remembered it was in an article by Marvella Risingstar. The article turned out to be an ad for Marvella's home management service. "Tired of boring meals, thrift-shop furniture, and clutter?" the headline read. "Let Marvella transform your home in just a few hours. You could be entertaining your family with this turkey and stuffing dinner in grand style!"
This sounded too good to be true, but Sigimund was desperate enough to try almost anything. Lanny wouldn't visit him anymore, Orly (God rest his soul) was no longer available for a chat, and Renfrew kept bringing him videos that he couldn't even find when he needed them. Maybe Marvella's home management skills were more important than her stuffing recipes. Or, with a little luck, Sigismund could have both. He had a daydream about making his place so gorgeous that Lanny and his wife and daughters would beg to bring the Thanksgiving feast here.
At the bottom of the ad (in small print, naturally) a telephone number was listed. Sigismund gave it a try. He expected to hear a recording, or, at best, an overworked clerk, but instead he heard "Hi, this is Marvella" at the other end of the line.
"Marvella?" he exclaimed. "I, er, didn't expect that you'd be picking up the phone yourself.
"Sometimes I do," she said with a laugh. "My show doesn't start for another fifteen minutes, and I know my lines by heart -- as I always do, if you don't mind my saying so. Do you want to see what miracles I can perform in your house?"
"I'd like an estimate of what you think I'll need. When could you come?"
"My show is over by three. How does four sound?"
"So soon?" Sigismund was stunned. "I thought I'd be on a six-month waiting list."
"I'm the most organized person you will ever meet. Where do you live?"
"Condo #9, Lake Serene Retirement Village, which is in...."
"My show is being filmed across the lake from you. We can make it 3:30."
Sigimund looked out his window at the lake. He expected to see Marvella waving at him from some faux 17th Century Venetian villa.
"In fact, I was visiting one of your neighbors a few weeks ago. Maybe you know him? Orly Beaugency, at number 7."
"He passed away Halloween night. Very sad." He wanted to add, "And suspicious," but that would not be the best way for a detective to deal with anyone who might be the murderer.
"I will miss him," Marvella said. "He was charming. I still want to give you that estimate, though. It's a nice afternoon for a canoe trip. Do you have anywhere that I can tie up my canoe?"
Wow, she really is organized, Sigismund thought as he agreed to have her come at 3:30.
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Episode 8
While Sigismund waited for Marvella to arrive, he tried to figure out how much straightening up he could do before she arrived.
It was almost 2:00 now. He stuffed a few empty popcorn bags in the wastebasket and gathered up some newspapers and circulars from Shop Til You Drop Supermarket for the recycling bins. Next he discovered an overdue bill for his credit card, and under that was "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"
There wasn't time to see all of Roger Rabbit, but maybe he could squeeze in the first half hour of it. As he pushed the video into the DVD player, he remembered that Betty Boop was, indeed, one of the characters in the film. So that was why Renfrew had said "You'll see!" Come to think of it, there was more than one mystery in the movie. Wasn't it suspicious that Betty came
out of retirement after 39 years to appear with Roger? Could Betty be the real culprit? All the other toons were in color, Betty was still black and white. Hm! Betty had worked very hard in the thirties, but never achieved as much success as Roger did in the 1980s. So, she had reasons for being jealous. Plus, Betty had more brains and beauty than Roger's wife Jessica. Did Betty have the hots for Roger? Did he reject her? If so, was it Betty who framed Roger Rabbit? Very suspicious, and well worth another viewing.
Sigismund turned on the TV and settled back to watch the video. Something was wrong, though. Instead of Roger Rabbit, he saw Marvella Risingstar on the screen. Oops, he had the TV turned to the wrong channel. He reached for the remote, but thought better of it when he saw another familiar face on the screen, that of Lanny's daughter Tintinella.
Uh-oh! Lanny had told Sigismund that Tintinella and her sister Tamboria would be competing in a talent contest, but Sigismund had forgotten to keep track of his granddaughters' progess. They hadn't told him that Marvella would be involved, or maybe they did but he wasn't listening. On the screen Marvella was interviewing them now, describing them as contest finalists. Drat! Sigismund should have arranged to be in the audience watching them. Maybe Lanny wasn't snubbing him after all. He had to be there for them. The camera panned over the audience. Sure enough, Lanny was there.
"I'd like to play a video of Tintinella and Tamboria's contest-winning performance," Marvella said. "They put on a puppet show about a magical kingdom ruled by Princess Zassapoonia and Prince Stromdoddle. Watch closely! You'll love the Princess's magical cape with its shooting stars and trails of rose petals...."
The camera showed a beautiful watercolor setting of a slavic-style castle. In the background, someone was playing a flute and piano arrangement of Borodin's "In the steppes of Central Russia." "I might also add that the girls recorded the music themselves. Quite a talented pair!" Marvella gushed.
Now Princess Zassapoonia entered, wearing a cape. Sigismund blinked in disbelief. The "cape" looked like one of Marvella's bathmats.
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Episode 9
Sigismund was so wrapped up in Marvella's television show that he didn't hear Renfrew come into the living room. "Sigismund, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine," the android said.
Sigismund turned to look at Renfrew's "friend" and fainted dead away. There, in the doorway, was a very large snake.
"I think you scared him," Renfrew whispered.
"You should have explained the situation before he had a chance to look," Beatrice scolded as the two of them tried to revive Sigismund.
"The snake won't hurt you," Renfrew explained as Sigismund came to. "She's an android, just like me. She doesn't have a stomach, so she wouldn't be able to swallow anything even if she wanted to. Sigismund, I'd like you to meet Beatrice Anaconda."
Sigismund looked warily at Beatrice, who was transfixed by what was happening on the television screen. "Look, guys," she said, "there's a puppet show. I love puppet shows. But why is the princess wearing a bathmat over her shoulders?"
Renfrew frowned. "That's the same design as the mat Orly had when he was murdered. Or at least that's how he described it." He turned to Sigismund. "How did your granddaughter get hold of it. It's a murder weapon. Shouldn't the police have custody of it?"
"Are we sure that a murder acually occurred?" Beatrice asked. "And even if it did, might there be more than one bathmat with that design? Maybe there's an innocent explanation."
Sigismund got his coat out of the closet. "I guess I'll have to go over to Marvella's studio and find out what I can," he said. "I hope Lanny and the girls will forgive me for being late to this important show. I don't want them to think I forgot about it."
Renfrew turned off the TV and followed his master out the door. "Beatrice, it might not be wise for you to come with us," he said. "People might think you're a real snake."
"How about if I disguise myself as an inchworm?" Beatrice joked. "Oh, all right. I guess I can stay here and tidy up a bit. This place is a mess." I'm more like a ten-yard worm, she thought as she worked.
Fortunately, Sigismund didn't hear this last comment, as he was already in his car.
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Episode 10
Beatrice watched through the window as Sigismund turned right onto the main road. A block later he turned right again and headed along the North side of Lake Serene Retirement Village on its way to the other side of the lake, where Marvella's studio was located. Once the car was out of sight, Beatrice turned the television back on. Princess Zassapoonia was singing a beautiful aria about how wonderful it was not to be a hedgehog any more -- apparently an evil witch had turned her into one earlier, and Prince Stromdoddle had broken the spell by reciting "Twas the night before Christmas" backwards. Now the Prince and Princess were singing a duet. Beatrice had trouble hearing the words, but that was no great loss. What mattered was the tune, which was charming and beautifully sung. What talent the two girls had!
Later in the show, Marvella answered the studio audience's questions. How do you prevent leaf rot in Sicilian begonias? What's a good recipe for Chateaubriande for a wedding party of 126? The camera panned over the audience. Sigismund and Renfrew sat in aisle seats in row 5. Further to the left were Tintinella, Tamboria, and a fortyish couple who were probably their parents. Beatrice wondered if it was accidental that Sigismund was so far away from his son. Well, the row was full of people, so the aisle seats were probably all that were available for latecomers. In front of Sigismund was a teenage boy of 13 or 14 with a Boston bambinos baseball cap. The boy was scowling. A large paper bag was in his lap.
Six commercials went by, followed by an interview with the man who had invented Curlew and some other state of the art androids. None of this was news to Beatrice, but she hoped the camera would show the audience when the closing credits rolled.
At last the studio audience came into view, and Beatrice witnessed a strange scene. Marvella was in the aisle talking to Renfrew, when the boy with the baseball cap stood up and accused her of judging the talent contest unfairly. Apparently he had been a semifinalist. He pulled a large baseball bat from the bag. The bat had a long crack along one edge. The camera did a closeup, revealing the words "Willy Wonderful Baseball gear" above the crack
Willy Wonderful was the star player for the Boston Bambinos. Indeed, in his first year with the team he had hit the winning home run in the last game of the 2019 World Series. He had smacked the ball with such force that his bat had cracked. The ball, meanwhile, had soared out of Bambino Fens Park, over several medical center buildings, and through the window of a tenth-floor condo in Longwood Towers in Brookline several miles away. As luck would have it, there was no one in the condo at the time, because the person who lived there was Willy Wonderful himself. Willy had led the team to victory in the next three World Series. and had started a lucrative sports equipment company. He did, however, move out of Longwood Towers because it was obviously within range of the ball park.
The boy brandished the bat and approached Marvella with a murderous glint in his eyes.
Uh oh! Renfrew wanted to solve a murder mystery, and it looked as if a real murder was about to take place.
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Episode 11
Violence seemed to be in the air at the end of Marvella Risingtar's latest televsion program. A boy with a baseball cap and a cracked bat had risen from his seat and complained that he should have been the finalist in a contest. He was waving the bat in a threatening manner. Renfrew had been programmed to seek peace whenever possible. He put his programming to the test by grasping the bat and gently urging the boy to put it away. This made the boy angrier, though. He swung the bat forward, sending Renfrew forward over his shoulder and into the aisle with a terrible clanking sound. As security guards closed in, the boy swung the bat again and tried to hit Marvella.
Meanwhile, back at Sigismund's condo in Lake Serene Retirement Village, Beatrice Anaconda was watching with more and more concern. The TV screen went blank just before the bat could hit Marvella. Five minutes later, the camera panned to the control booth, where the station manager announced that, despite some minor injuries, Marvella would be back the next day for her usual program.
"Minor injuries?" Beatrice exclaimed. "If that boy connected at all, Marvella should be in the hospital for at least a week." And then there was the matter of Renfrew. Beatrice had seen the kit from which Renfrew had been constructed. He wasn't a high-end android. None of his parts could withstand much force. What if Renfrew needed a lot of new parts? On the other hand, Sigismund could just buy another kit and use the parts from that kit. But suppose the parts that governed memory and reason were damaged? Sigismund might have to reprogram him from scratch, and that could take time. Who was going to solve Orly's murder?
Beatrice turned off the TV and tuned into the Androidnet through the wireless connection in her head. Maybe the website that received news of crimes against androids would have some news. Sure enough, she found a report about an incident at Happy Harbor Studios in Wellport, Mass. (Happy Harbor was directly across the lake from Sigismund's condo, so that had to be the right place). Well, the report said that there were *two* injured androids. What other android had been in the vicinity?
Meanwhile, at Happy Harbor Studios, Renfrew was just regaining consciousness. The inventor that Marvella had interviewed earlier was standing over her, feeling her arms and legs for broken bones. He must be a medical doctor as well as an inventor! Tamboria and Tintinella had their hands over their eyes. Sigismund was in the back talking to an elderly women who was probably an acquaintance. The boy who had attacked Renfrew and Marvella was noticeably absent, probably in custody somewhere.
Marvella was helped to her feet. A couple of attendants led her away. The inventor turned his attention to Renfrew. "That boy did a lot of damage to you," he said after a few moments of poking and prodding. "The good news is that you'll be able to function -- barely -- while you're waiting for repairs. If you'd like, I could repair you myself. The station is covered for injuries, and I am the preeminent android technician for this area."
The station manager came down the aisle. "You have a phone call from someone named Beatrice," he told Renfrew.
"Are you going to be all right?" she began. "What puzzles me is that the Androidnet says that *two* androids were injured."
"The second one must have been hurt while I was out, and was taken away," Renfrew said. "But I didn't see any within close proximity."
Oh, great, Beatrice thought. One more mystery to be solved.
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Episode 12
Renfrew had been injured, that was certain. He was conscious, though, and the technician who was assessing his injuries was the best in the area. He still couldn't figure out who the other injured android might be, but maybe after he had his broken parts replaced he would solve the riddle. The attendants who had escorted Marvella out of the auditorium came back and helped Renfrew sit in a seat on the aisle.
Sigismund came down the aisle with an elderly woman whom he had been talking to. "Renfrew, I'd like you to meet Margaret, my ex-wife," he said. "She was the one who bought the kit from which I built you."
"It was sort of an anniversary gift," she said with a shy smile.
"The 35th anniversary of our divorce," Sigismund added. "The years have treated you well."
"Well, the traditional 35th anniversary gift is jade," Margaret said. "I couldn't afford an all-jade android, but maybe I was just feeling jaded." She winked.
Marvella's voice came over the public address system. "I could retrofit you with some jade parts," she offered. "It's the least I can do, considering that you tried to protect me. Also, the modern 35th anniverary gift is coral. Would you like a vacation trip to a tropical coral isle?"
"I would love that," Renfrew said. "Either or both."
"Ziggy, you haven't changed as much as I had expected," Margaret said.
"Would I be impolite if I asked why you parted company?" Renfrew asked.
"I wanted to stay near Boston," Sigismund explained. Margaret wanted to join a group of gypsies who had started a circus in Alaska."
"The little eskimo children loved circuses," Margaret explained with a radiant smile, "and without me the gypsies wouldn't have had a proper circus. I was their only calliope player. But I have a confession to make, Ziggy. I fell in with an eskimo whose mother was Cuban. He took me to Palm Beach to meet his mother, and I've been there ever since. He died ten years ago, but I have made a living as a church organist ever since. I thought I'd miss the snow and ice, but as it turned out I didn't. When I heard that my granddaughters were going to be on Marvella's show, I bought plane tickets. I was on the last plane out of there before the hurricane struck. I hear that the hurricane didn't do much damage, but it produced three tornadoes."
Renfrew was having trouble following the life histories of Sigismund and Margaret. Maybe he had PTSD. Could androids get that? Or maybe he was just distracted by the buzzing in his head. Suddenly Beatrice's voice came through. "Renfrew, can you hear me? I know there's Androidnet software in your head, so you should at least be able to receive my transmission. I saw that boy hit you with his bat, the camera caught it all. It didn't show Marvella getting hit, though. Did you see her go down? Can you find out who the other injured android was?"
Renfrew asked the technician to show him how to transmit a reply to Beatrice. "Beatrice, I blacked out before she was hit," he sent back to her. "I didn't see any other androids in the vicinity."
The technician was beginning to look very uncomfortable. Did he have a secret that he didn't want to come out?
"I'd be happy to pitch in and help with the investigation until you are well enough to pick it up again," Beatrice offered.
Marvella's voice came over the P.A. system again. "I'd be happy to help, too," she said. "What are you investigating?"
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Episode 13
Marvella wanted to help Renfrew and Sigismund investigate Orly's murder. Renfrew wondered if that was a good idea, since it was one of Marvella's bathmats that had been the murder weapon.
But he was also programmed to be polite. Marvella had offered to help. So had Beatrice Anaconda. Well, it was best to let Beatrice decide. "Beatrice is my partner," Renfrew told Marvella, fudging things a little. "If she thinks you could be helpful, I will defer to her. In the meantime, let's work on getting me patched up as fast as possible."
Marvella thought this was a good plan. She directed her technician to start work on Renfrew immediately.
Meanwhile, back at Lake Serene Retirement Village, Beatrice was waiting in Sigismund's condo with nothing to do. She already had a case to work on, and it wasn't going well: the ambasador from Thwockisgreznia had collapsed and died in Boston's trendiest restaurant. The problem wasn't that the murder weapon was missing. The snake that bit him was in custody. What puzzled her was that the snake's poison glands had been removed. The ambassador had not eaten any food yet, so food poisoningwas not a factor. He had had half a glass of Beaujolais, which had been tested for toxins and was apparently harmless.
Sigismund's car pulled up in front of the building. Beatrice held the door for him as he helped Renfrew limp inside.
"I thought Marvella's technician was going to patch you up," she told Renfrew.
"He did a quick scan, and determined that the parts I need will have to be ordered. He'll have them tomorrow morning," Renfrew said.
"I am so sorry about what happened to you," Beatrice said. "Look on the bright side. You know how to use the Androidnet now. Maybe you can use it to research your case."
"Technically, it's *our* case," Renfrew corrected. "I fibbed a little. When Marvella offered to help, I told her you were my partner and would need to be in the loop. Anyway, have you found it helpful with the cases you've worked on?"
"Not at the moment," Beatrice said, averting her eyes. "I'm working on a case where a diner in a restaurant died after being bitten by a snake. But the snake's poison glands had been removed, and the diner had not eaten any food."
"Um, what had the snake been eating?" Renfrew asked.
"Just before biting the diner? I hadn't thought of that. Sigismund, do you mind if I use your phone? I need to ask the people at the crime lab some questions about a case I'm working on."
When the answer came, everyone was surprised: the snake had eaten a mouse smeared with peanut butter. "Okay, now find out if the ambassador was allergic to peanuts," Renfrew urged. It turned out that he was, and enough peanut butter was on the snake's fangs to kill him. "That'sthe easy part," Renfrew confessed. "The hard part is finding out who wanted him dead, and whether they knew about his allergy."
"I'll take it from there, Renfrew," Beatrice said gently, "but I am very impressed."
"You've come a long way," Sigismund said.
They heard another car pulling up in front of the building.
"Were you expecitng someone?" Beatrice asked.
"Oh, dear," Sigismund said. "We may have guests, and Renfrew won't be able to serve drinks and snacks. "
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Episode 14
Sigismund looked at the clock as he heard a car pulling up outside. "The only person I'm expecting is Marvella. She was going to come by and recommend some changes to my interior decor, but I doubt she's in any shape to do that."
"Did you actually see her get hit?" Beatrice asked.
"No, I had just turned to ask Margaret a question..." He saw puzzled looks Beatrice's face, so he explained. "Margaret is my exwife. She ran off to join a circus in Alaska 35 years ago, then moved to Palm Beach, but she heard that our granddaughters were to be featured on Marvella's show today, so she hopped on a plane just ahead of the hurricane, and I met her in the audience..."
"Did anyone else see the attack?" Beatrice continued.
"The audience was heading for the exits, except for Tintinella and Tamboria, who put their hands over their eyes when that awful boy rushed at Marvella with his bat," Renfrew said. "That just leaves station employees, and Marvella herself."
"Who is knocking at the door right now," Sigismund said, heading over to the front entrance.
Marvella smiled as she limped into the living room. "You didn't have to come," Sigismund said as he led her to a chair.
"Why not?" she said. "There's no heavy lifting involved. I had planned to paddle here across the lake in my canoe, but I'm kind of banged up. Let me see what you have. Then tell me what changes you'd like. My androids will set up one of your rooms with new furnishings so you can live with them for a while and see if they really suit you. Aha, I see you like animation." She pointed to the Roger Rabbit video.
"Actually, I picked it out for him," Renfrew explained. "He asked for anything with Betty Boop in it."
"Wow, what a coincidence," Marvella exclaimed. "I have a Betty Boop android in my van. Let me call her in."
It was all Beatrice could do not to laugh. Of *course* Marvella would have Betty Boop in her van. Betty waltzed through the door and winked at everyone.
"Next thing you know, she'll suggest Betty Boop wallpaper," Renfrew said to Beatrice over the Androidnet.
"Betty Boop wallpaper? I have that, too," Marvella said.
Renfrew looked puzzled. "That's what I was thinking about, but I never said it out loud," he protested. "I shared the thought with Beatrice over the Androidnet...." Beatrice nodded.
"Oh, dear, I've blown my cover," Marvella said, reddening. I'm an android. How did you think I could do so many things at once without keeling over from exhaustion? There is one flesh-and-blood Marvella, but she rarely goes out in public, luckily for her after that attack this afternoon. Okay, I must swear you all to secrecy. Name your price...."
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Episode 15
Marvella blew her cover by admitting that she had received a transmission through the Androidnet. Only Androids could do that. And not only was she an android, she was *multiple* androids, hence her ability to be everywhere at once and function with little or no sleep.
"So that's why there were reports of two androids being assaulted in your studio this afternoon," Beatrice Anaconda reasoned. "You and Renfrew."
"Not me," Marvella corrected her. "The one who was injured was another Marvella android. There are quite a few of us, enough that we should have no trouble putting on tomorrow's show."
"That's as it may be, but there's only one Betty Boop," said Betty, with one hand on her hip.
"That you know of," Marvela said with a wink. She rose from her chair. "I guess I don't have to pretend to be bruised and sore any more." She went into the bedroom with Sigismund to see what kind of decor would work for him. Beatrice left to go hime, leaving Renfrew alone in the living room.
Soon Marvella was gone as well, having guided Betty and couple of husky androids in putting up wallpaper in Sigismund's bedroom. Marvella even helped them carryi n a few pieces of English regency furniture that she "happened" to have in her van. After she left with her androids, Sigismund spent a while admiring the way his bedroom looked. He lay on the new feather bed that Marvella had installed and closed his eyes.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. "Who is it?" he asked, opening one eye.
"Boop-oop-a-doop," came a singsong voice.
"Betty, I thought you'd gone..."
"How could I leave my greatest fan without a fare-the-well?" she chirped.
"You might as well come in," Sigismund said, opening the other eye and sitting up in bed. Didn't it figure that the only seductresses who might still be interested in him were androids! "I have just one tiny bone to pick with you," she scolded sitting on the edge of the bed. "I did *not* frame Roger Rabbit. He and I are good buddies, and I would *never* do anything to hurt him."
"How...how do you know I s-suspected you?" Sigismund stammered.
"That's for me to know, and for you to guess," she trilled, leaving the room.
A moment later, Sigismund watched through the window as she rode off with Bimbo and Grampy. "The walls have ears in this place," he grumbled as he fell asleep on that amazingly soft and comfortable bed. Not all of his dewams were pleasant ones -- he dreamed that the Marvella sent him a bill for a million dollars -- but this was followed by a lovely dream in which Orly was restored to life, and they celebrated with a Thanksgiving feast worth writing home about
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episode 16
When Sigismund emerged from his bedroom the next morning, Renfrew was planning the week's activities. Or maybe they were nonactivities, as he couldn't do much as a result of his injuries. "I can't serve you your usual breakfast," the android said sadly. "I called Espresso Express a minute ago, and they're putting you on their morning route, so at least you'll have coffee and those blueberry muffins you love so much. Lunch and dinner are up in the air. Maybe you could have lunch at Cantonese Yum Yum. They have thopse garlicky egg rolls you love so much.
"When is Marvella going to have you repaired?" Sigismund asked.
"They called this morning, and I didn't have the heart to wake you. Their insurance will foot the bill for a substitute android for as long as you need it. I can't authorize that. You have to make the call yourself."
"But nobody could replace you," said Sigismund. He reached for the phone and began dialing.
"One more thing before I forget. Willy Wonderful called to apologize for what that boy did with his bat. It seems that the kid got his hands on the very bat that was used to hit that incredible home run that crashed through a tenth-floor window miles from the ballpark. He's sending you a Thaksgiving turkey."
"Oh, my god, Thanksgiving is less than a week away," Sigismund groaned, putting down the phone.
"Look on the bright side. You had promised to bring the turkey for the family's dinner. Now you won't have to cook one. You'll even have one for free. Willy knows a caterer who can stuff and roast it for you. here's his number. You can call him after you call the studio."
Sigismund resumed dialing. "Hello, Marvella? About that substitute android. How soon can you send it?" he covered the receiver with his hand. "She wants to know what kind we want."
"It's up to you. You can have Betty Boop for all I care. Just remember that it's temporary."
"Can you send Betty Boop over?"Sigismund told Marvella. "You can? Great. "Renfrew, she'll be here in half an hour."
"You sound too enthusiastic," Renfrew chided him.
The doorbell rang. Sigismund let the Espresso Express woman wheel her magic coffee machine intotyhe room. She guided Sigismund through the vast menu of lattes and cappuccinos and decafs, then pushed some buttons and handed him his coffee sixty seconds later. "Cinnamon buns are on us," she said.
Renfrew sat in silent contemplation as Sigismund noisily munched his pastry and sipped his coffee. It wasn't until he was done with his meal that he realized that Renfrew was communicating with Orly again.
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episode 17
Sigismund was worried. He was worried about having Renfrew out of commission or, worse, replaced with a substitute android while Renfrew was being repaired after the bashing he got at Marvella's studio. And this was on top of Renfrew's disturbing proclivity for channeling the thoughts of Orly, whose murder he was supposed to be solving. "Orly is disappointed that I haven't found his murderer yet," Remfrew said suddenly.
"Has he ever described the afterlife?" Sigismund asked. "That's the sort of thing that would pique my interest."
The doorbell rang again. It was Betty Boop. As soon as she was inside, she jumped into the discussion. "For Pete's sake, Orly, get hold of yourself," she scolded. Sigismund raised an eyebrow. Was Betty channeling Orly too? Renfrew must not be the only one who do this. Why couldn't humans do it?
"He's sulking," Renfrew said. "We might not hear from him until after Thaksgiving. Speaking of which, Sigismund should call Willy Wonderful about that turkey he's offering us. And betty, you and I should plan lunch and dinner for today. We'll need to take at least one trip to the market for supplies. Could you go? I can give you directions to Shop Till You Drop."
"I know my way around a supermarket," Betty said tartly. "And can send that bogus coffeemaker back to Espresso Express. I make coffee with the best of them. You'll wonder how you ever managed without me, Sigismund.
The next few days were more pleasant than Sigismund could have hoped for. Betty's coffee was as good as she said it was, and her meals were superb. If she could be faulted, it was in the area of housekeeping. Dusting made her sneeze. But to be fair, she had been designed as an entertainer, not a maid. "I'd need different software and some different circuits to be a good maid," she said. "Anyway, it was Hattie McDaniels who said that she'd rather play a maid than be one."
Well, she certainly knew her movie history, Sigismund thought. If Lanny were here, he would ask why Sigismund didn't hire a cleaning service. After all, he had plenty of money.
Thanksgiving turned out to be interesting. Willy sent the roast turkey over promptly at noon, at which point Betty took over.
She carried the tray in her lap during the ride to Lanny's house. She made a grand entrance into the dining room, and then flirted with Lanny until his wife put her foot down. Renfrew was off being repaired, but he arranged for a local KFC to send over some cornbread muffins.
Renfrew's new parts arrived the next day. Curlew visited him in the shop at Androids R We to see how he was doing. Renfrew thought he was asking about the Orly murder case. "The murder weapon turned out to be the bathmat that Sigismund's granddaughters used in a puppet video on Marvella's show," Renfrew volunteered.
"What?"
"Well, the bathmat they used had the same pattern as the one Orly slipped on."
Curlew just stood there and stared at Renfrew. What a primitive design he had! Really, it was sad. If Sigismund had any balls, he would be solving this murder himself. Or, failing that, he had enough money to hire a crack pirate investigator. If other androids
were sad cases, then people like Sigismund were even sadder.
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Episode 18
Curlew tried to steer Renfrew in a more productive direction. "You've said that the bathmat used by the granddaughters as a cape had the same pattern as the one that was pulled out from under Orly, causing his death, right?" Renfrew nodded. "In either case, Marvella was the source for the bathmat. So why aren't you quizzing Marvella?"
"Easier said than done!" Renfrew snapped. "Marvella is a large number of androids that all look alike. If one of them did kill Orly, who is to say that she didn't block the memory from the hive mind?"
"If the Marvellas don't share memories, then the original flesh-and-blood Marvella didn't get her money's worth. I hear that she paid 200 million dollars for those androids. A drop in the bucket for her, since she's worth billions."
"You knew all along that she used android copies of herself?" Renfrew couldn't speak for a minute.
"It's not supposed to be common knowledge, Renfrew. Bad for business, that sort of thing. Besides, I paid a finder's fee for the information. You could do searches yourself. Use the Androidnet to get to the search androids."
Renfrew had never heard of search androids. Maybe this was because he had been assembled less than two months ago. Sigismund had spent the beginning of September figuring out where the different parts should go. Maybe he had botched things. Maybe not. If Sigismund had bought a kit for a higher-end android, Renfrew would have felt pain and other emotions, and looked so human that people expected him to be a master of more than carrying trays and planning trips to the market. I'm doing pretty well for a basic two-month android, he thought as the technicians removed parts, added others, and sanded down rough surfaces.
"Yes, but you still need to know a lot more than you do now," said a voice about twenty feet away. The voice seemed to be that of Beatrice Anaconda. Renfrew turned his head to see if she was really there, drawing a scolding from the technicians for moving. But there she was at the next checkout station. "Yes, I'm over here," she said. "We cracked that case I was telling you about, so I'm a temp worker here for the Christmas season." She had added a couple of arms so she could move the merchandise past the scanners and put it in bags. "It's mindless work, but at least I can see how your procedure is going."
"I need to know more, that's true," Renfrew admitted. "The more I learn, the more complicated things seem.
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Episode 19
Renfrew was a bit depressed. The more he learned, the more he realized how much he didn't know. He admitted this to Beatrice, his friend and fellow detective.
"Cosmologists have the same problem," Beatrice commiserated, scanning a Red Delicious Wise Phone for a customer at Register number 42. "But if you are to be a detective, you must get used to it." She switched to Androidnet conversation in the interest of privacy. "You helped me with my last case, though, so I'm going to tell the leading Androidnet searchbots like Loquacious and Coordinius that they should let you use their services. Your only problem will be figuring out how to pay them."
"They need referrals?" Renfrew thought. It was getting easier to have Androidnet conversations. But it was daunting to know he needed to be connected with the movers and the shakers to make any progress.
"I will explain. Coordinius is dry and humorless. If he doesn't know who you are, he will ignore your questions. You have to deal with him, though, because he knows the exact coordinates of anybody you need to send netgrams to. Loquacious is much more friendly. Maybe *too* friendly. He goes off on tangents. He won't listen to what you have to say until he's rattled on for half an hour. I can give you some tips for making him get to the point. One way is to pay for VIP service, though you may have trouble affording it. There's also Internettius, which combines the consciousness of a flesh-and-blood entity with one of the best Internet search engines."
"How is that possible?"
"Five years ago it was. But there's big bucks in pulling it off. You'll need big bucks to engage his services. How often does Sigismund check his credit card balances?"
Renfrew didn't know this. He was hoping to fly under the radar, but maybe this was wishful thinking. "Have you ever used Internettius?"
"I talked Boston Homicide into subscribing. They grumbled, but the case wouldn't have been cracked without it. You'll have to get permission to use Sigismund's credit card, so you're kind of stuck with Loquacious. Give yourself plenty of time. Once he pauses for his next anecdote, rush in with your question."
Orly joined the Androidnet discussion. "Do I hear you saying that I'm not worth extra money? For shame!"
"Orly, how can you be dead?" Betty Boop joined in. "You were never alive to begin with."
"There are too many androids in this conversation!" Beatrice scolded. "Orly, you must be an android. Otherwise you wouldn't even know what we are discussing. Betty, I'll talk to you later. Right now I have my hands full." This was an odd comment coming from a snake, but Beatrice had added a couple of arms to help her with scanning and bagging merchandise. Right now three people were in line at her register, and the one she was helping had enough kits to field an 11-member football team. She disconnected from Renfrew and Orly, but said to Betty, "I bet you know a lot about Marvella that Renfrew could use in his investigation." She dropped her connection to Betty and said to Renfrew, "Your mystery has gotten bigger. If Orly is an android, and the facts lead me to think he is, then he can't be the owner of condo #7. Only a human can own property. You need to find out who the real owner is. Also, who is Marvella, really? She has her fingers in enough pies to fill a bakery."
Suddenly Renfrew had a breakthrough. "If Orly is an android, then Coordinius can help us find out exactly where he is."
"Renfrew, you are a true detective," Beatrice said. "Next customer," she said out loud. Oh Lord, it was Marvella, or one of the Marvellas. She hoped the Marvella hivemind hadn't been listening in on her Androidnet conversations.
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Episode 20
Bright Comet Rosen-Singh lived on a sleepy street in the town of Canhambury, which bordered Wellwood to the Southeast. Her second-floor writing studio had a picturesque view of the branch library directly across from it. Very few people knew that she was a best-selling author. Even fewer knew that Marvella Risingstar was her creation. Of those few, you could rule out Beatrice Anaconda, who had learned the truth many times, but had had the knowledge expunged from her memory banks. When asked to give her occupation, Bright Comet (who gave her name as Becky Rosen) variously gave "exotic dancer" or "charwoman." No one believed her anyway. Her husband, Randall Rosen, managed money for Fandeliguart, a huge mutual fund family that had more assets under management than the gross national products of all the African nations combined. In olden days, having such a successful husband would have been a feather in Bright Comet's cap, allowing her to give huge banquets or balls, and serve on the boards of symphony orchestras or colleges. Canhambury was a hotbed of old money and older ideas about women's place within it.
The grand irony of Bright Comet's situation was that she was worth vastly more than her husband. As she sat in her studio watching snowflakes come down, she found plenty to amuse her. Her studio walls were covered with posters of famous scenes from classic movies. To the right of her computer monitor, the Wicked Witch of the West was watching Dorothy in her crystal ball. Just like me in a way, Bright Comet thought as her own crystal ball -- her computer monitor-- showed Beatrice Anaconda introducing Renfrew to the different Search Androids. They haven't a clue about being watched, she thought. At least Dorothy and Toto knew that evil forces were keeping tabs on them.
The poster on the left showed the opening scene in "The Sound of Music." Young Maria had no clue about the life changes that lay just ahead. Poor Renfrew was just as clueless. He thought he could waltz into Happy Harbor Studios and talk to the real Marvella Risingstar. "Renfrew, darling, there is no 'real' Marvella," Bright Comet purred. "Marvella is my personal property. I also own Beatrice, Orly, Betty Boop, many other androids -- including one or two U.S. Senators -- and even Condo #7, where Orly supposedly lives. Orly is sending out signals from a grave somewhere in Wellwood."
An unpleasant thought crossed Bright Comet's mind. She didn't own Renfrew, so she wouldn't be able to use him in her next Beatrice Anaconda book. Drat! She'd also be careful about what she allowed him to learn, as she wouldn't be able to expunge it from his memory banks, at least not legally. Sigismund was a mystery fan, so he undoubtedly read all her books as they came out. Well, maybe she could use Renfrew but change enough details that he wouldn't notice.
Or, she could sweet-talk him into letting her use Renfrew. She had once waited tables in Sigismund's restaurant. Maybe she could "run into" him and claim to be Bright Comet's research assistant. She'd have to turn on the charm. Now, where did she put that charm?
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Episode 21
Bright Comet sat in her second-floor office across the street from a branch library in Canhambury. Very few people knew that she owned and controlled most of the androids that figured in Renfrew's case -- Orly, Marvella, and Betty Boop in particular. Renfrew was *not* one of her androids, though, so she had had to install a hidden surveillance camera in the condo that he shared with Sigismund. Let's see, what is Renfrew doing now, she thought as she looked at her computer monitor. Oh, he was sitting at Sigismund's computer, and listening to a garrulous Search Android named Loquacious rattle on about the balance of trade deficit, the length of women's skirts, and new cures for Alzheimer's. "Beatrice," he said over the Androidnet, "The word that can make Loquacious shut up isn't working."
"'Tomato' isn't working?" Beatrice exclaimed. She listened to Renfrew pronounce it. "The 'a' should be long, not short. You're pronouncing the word as 'tomahto.'" She hummed a few measures of "Let's call the whole thing off," but apparently Renfrew wasn't into old Astaire/Rogers movies. Oh, well. Anyway, Renfrew pronounced the word properly, and Loquacious promptly shut up.
Bright Comet's reputation for life-like characters and situations was aided by her surveillance of Renfrew and Sigismund and their ilk. She would then change enough details to avert lawsuits. Oops, Renfrew was off-camera now. Time to switch to satellite reconnaissance, which wasn't as detailed, but at least she could tell where her quarry was.
Her left eye strayed from the monitor to the window overlooking the library. Her right eye soon joined it, because there was something familiar about the girl who was coming down the library steps. And that old man holding her hand looked just like...Sigismund. She frowned. Why was Sigismund so far from Wellwood? Well, the distance was only three or four miles, but when did Sigismund ever leave his condo? Answer: about as often as Bright Comet left her office.
Maybe it wouldn't hurt to wander over and see what Ziggy was up to. If she wore her brunette wig, he probably wouldn't recognize her. The girl's name started with a 'T'. Tina or something like that. She won that big talent contest at Marvella's, just before that horrific boy with the baseball bat raised cane. Well, Bright Comet cried all the way to the bank, since this led to sharply higher ratings for the show.
Sigismund didn't mind standing in the falling snow. In fact, he was in no hurry to take Tintinella back to his condo. True, his day had been aggravating. The Wellwood Library didn't have a good selection of videos. He had dragged her to several other libraries before trying Canhambury. The ones he wanted were "Mary Poppins" and the Disney animated "Alice in Wonderland." Both were tucked under Tintinella's arm now. Canhambury was a very affluent town with great public services, but it had been stingy about moving its most popular library to a place with better parking.
Sigismund happened to notice a bit of snow falling from the second floor window of the house across the street. There was a woman working at a computer there. Something nudged Sigismund's ankle. It was a pretty calico cat. When he looked back at the window, the woman was gone.
"I see Melissa has found you," said a pleasant female voice as Sigismund and Tintinella cuddled the cat.
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Episode 22
Sigismund had just come out of the library, when a calico cat rubbed against his leg. "Look, Tintinella," he said to his granddaughter, "this is a friendly cat!"
"Her name is Melissa," said a voice several feet away. Looking up, he saw a fortyish brunette crossing the street. She wore a light green hat and trenchcoat.
"I take it she's yours," Sigismund said, doing his best to seem pleasant. Not many attractive women paid him much attention.
"Yes. I live in that house." She pointed to the house he had just been looking at. "Melissa is a good cat, but she won't stay home. She goes anywhere she wants -- the post office, the choir loft at the Congregational Church, even the judges' chambers." The dome of a county courthouse was visible behind the library. "You'll see her in that library a lot of the time too. Her sister Lucrezia is just the opposite. She never lets me out of her sight." Sure enough, another calico cat could be seen at the window looking distressed.
"Do you have kids?"
"Not yet, but we're hoping." Now, why on earth had she said that? Sigismund could surely see through a line like that. "Actually, we do have one, but he's no longer a kid. He has a family of his own, somewhere in Australia. We might as well be childless. I gather this is your granddaughter Tina?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Tintinella said, curtseying the way her charm school had taught her to do. She had no problem answering to "Tina" or even "Ella." It was the adults who hangups about proper and formal names. "We're here for videos! Mom and Dad are in Denver on business, so Granddad is letting me watch all the shows I want to see!"
"You have good taste," Bright Comet said. "Maybe I'll look for some too." She headed for the library's entrance.
"Sorry, I didn't catch the name," Sigismund said, realizing that he had seen this woman before. Something was nagging at the back of his mind. How did she know his granddaughter's name?
"Becky. Becky Rosen. I'm a writer. For what it's worth, I used to wait tables in the Teutonic Gourmet restaurant."
"That's been closed for some years," Sigismund said. "My parents did all the cooking there. Wiener Schnitzel, Choucroute, bratwurst and sauerkraut, cream-filled pastries. When they died, there was just my sister and me. We sold the business to a Chinese couple. They must've retired or died, too, because it's a Thai place now."
"It's near Happy Harbor. it's called 'Tiger's Lady.'"
"That's right. Lanny -- that's my son -- and I go there every New Year's Eve for old time's sake. The food is kind of blah, and I always get blue because I'm remembering how things used to be."
Tintinella was getting cold and fidgety, so Sigimund walked her to the car and helped her get in.
He doesn't seem to have really recognized me, bright Comet thought as she paused in the library doorway. The next time I "accidentally" run into him, maybe I can get him to discuss Renfrew's investigation. If all else fails, I can go to Tiger's Lady on New Year's Eve. Melissa ignored her until she was in the building, then dashed through the door just before it closed.
Beatrice was not amused when Renfrew suggested digging Orly up. "What would that accomplish?" she exclaimed. Her temper was a bit short, as she was in the middle of totalling an order of 60 androids for one of the royal families of Europe.
"We would accomplish several things," Renfrew said blithely. "First,we would know whether he fell forward or backward when the bathmat was pulled out from under him. Second, we would establish whether he was flesh and blood or an android, whereas now we are just guessing."
"But some of this is personal too, right?" added Curlew, who had been following the conversation.
"Well, yes, Renfrew admitted. "I feel like a fool for assuming I could comunicate with the great beyond, when the most likely explanation is that Orly was flooding my androidnet receptors. Plus, there he is in a grave somewhere, completely in the dark, and taken seriously only by Sigismund and me. I feel sorry for him, okay? If that's personal, so be it."
"All of that is probably true, but why mess with a successful arrangement?" Beatrice reasoned. She had gotten to the end of her order, so her disposition had become a bit more relaxed. "You can still get some useful clues from him. But messing with his gravesite is sure to attract the attention of the press, and then whoever murdered him will be onto you. But I agree that it would make sense to know whether he really is an android. Since no one suspected foul play, and since his age and health argued for natural causes, there wouldn't have been an autopsy. Still, wouldn't a regular doctor have figured out that he wasn't human?"
Beatrice might as well have saved her breath. Renfrew's repairs were now complete, so he ran home to get a shovel. Beatrice's shift was over, so she followed him fifteen minutes later. She found him ransacking Sigismund's condo in a futile quest. If Sigismund's place had still been messy, Sigismund would have been none the wiser, but now he would know something was up when he returned. Without a word, Renfrew traipsed halfway around the building to the maintenance shed. Beatrice reluctantly gave him a boost over the fence, and he soon emerged with a couple of small spades.
"Coordinius told me what Orly's coordinates are," Renfrew said as he and Beatrice trudged along the country lane that led to Orly's graveyard. The leaves that blanketed the roadside cushioned Renfrew's awkward steps as he walked (he was getting used to the new parts in his legs). Beatrice made a rustling sound as she slithered.
"Yes, and as I keep telling you, as soon as your shovel hits Orly, it may well knock him out of commission, and he will then be useless to you. The only upside is that he is technically dead anyway, so you won't go to prison for killing him. It's beginning to snow. Shouldn't you put on your hooded poncho. I'd hate to see you rust so soon after getting repaired."
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Episode 23
It was snowing as Renfrew and Beatrice headed toward the graveyard where Orly was buried. Renfrew hadn't thought about the danger of rusting until Beatrice mentioned it. Renfrew had a knapsack full of essentials, and soon he was covered in a day-glo orange poncho. Marvella would have thought it was tacky, but it kept the rain and snow away. Beatrice was already wearing her khaki trenchcoat. Tiny leaf fragments coated it, but these could be easily brushed off once she got inside.
The distance was not great -- Sigismund's condo was less than two miles from the graveyard -- but Renfrew managed to make it seem longer by taking some wrong turns. He got them lost in an apple orchard, and then took them to the edge of a vast swamp. It was Beatrice who saved the day by summoning her built-in GPS system. By the time they reached the graveyard, Renfrew's power cells were well past their prime. Why had Sigismund installed such low-capacity batteries in him? "Let me just sit down and rest for a minute," Renfrew said, plopping his metal butt on a mossy gravestone near the front entrance.
"Fine. We've dragged two shovels, not to mention ourselves all the way out here, and now you aren't going to have the strength to do any digging?" Beatrice chided. "Great planning, Renfrew!"
"I have two supplemental batteries." Renfrew began digigng through his knapsack. I'll insert them and get to work."
It wasn't a large graveyard, but there were a lot of smallish stones. Had people been smaller in the olden days? Refrew fed Beatrice the coordinates that Coordinius had given him, and soon they found the stone they wanted. "Orly II," said the inscription. "Android aide for Orly I, who rests in peace in Pelmherst."
"Pelmherst!" Beatrice exclaimed. "Why weren't they buried together?"
"Sigismund handled the burial, and he didn't know Orly II was an android, nor did he know about Orly I. It must have been simpler to just bury him close to home. Or, Orly I passed away quite a while ago, so no one at Lake Serene knew him." Renfrew sent Orly an Androidgram and got a strong response right away.
"You're here? Oh, Renfrew, good boy!" Orly sounded much happier than he had earlier.
"Orly, dear, there's something I'm missing in all of this," Beatrice said. "If you're functioning well enough to send and recieve A-grams, why did they bury you rather than send you to Androids R We for a tune-up."
"I broke a few parts when I tripped on that bathmat. My speech mechanisms were and are totally kaput. I couldn't tell anyone how I felt. Sigismund thought I was human, and he didn't feel a pulse. You and Beatrice know I can fixed, but Sigismund doesn't. Life is unfair."
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Episode 24
Yes, life was unfair. Orly had been assumed "dead" because no one knew he was an android, and androids didn't have heartbeats. His speech mechanisms had broken when he fell on the bathroom floor, so he couldn't explain himself.
But he had friends who wanted to help. "Beatrice and I will exhume you and straighten everything out," said Renfrew. There was a "clunk" as his shovel hit Orly's casket. Soon the casket was lying on the grass, cushioned by a thick layer of Autumn leaves. Now it was time to get him back to civilization. "Would Internettius be able to tell us when and where Orly I was buried?" He asked Beatrice, prying open the lid.
"Probably. You'll need to find some way of paying him. He charges a lot. I assume that you aren't going to ask me to help knock over a gas station." Beatrice had a sly sense of humor sometimes.
"Wouldn't all the gas escape?"
Beatrice rolled her eyes. "What's your Plan B, then?" she asked.
"Sigismund's credit card. he said I could use it in an emergency. Orly was his best friend, so this counts."
Internettius only charged $8.00 for telling Renfrew that Orly I was buried in Pelmherst Cemetery on October 25, 2010.
The trouble was, Renfrew already knew which cemetery to look in. But which gravesite was he buried in? It cost $100.00 more to get that information. "Orly I was buried one month before Sigismund moved into condo #9, so he never met the flesh-and-blood orly," Renfrew exclaimed. "On the other hand, the people who carved the headstone for Orly II knew there was an Orly I."
Beatrice decided to intervene. She coaxed Internettius into revealing who owned Orly's condo for the low price of $15.00. The answer was: Risingstar Beneficial Trust.
"Beatrice, Renfrew, what are you doing here?" said a familiar voice.
"I might ask the same about you, Betty," Beatrice said in a cool voice. "I won't ask how you traced us here, just why. Do you have that much of a crush on Renfrew?"
"I asked first," Betty said, setting her lacy butt on a mossy stone.
"We're giving Orly II a second chance at life," Renfrew explained. Look in the coffin. There he is."
Betty wasn't sure Orly was worth resurrecting, but she helped the others pull him out and carry him back to Androids R We for evaluation. Curlew estimated that it would cost $75.00 to repair Orly. "Who is going to pick up the tab?"
"Sigmund, though he doesn't know it yet," Renfrew said, handing the credit card to Curlew.
"Ziggy will be surprised," Curlew observed, "but not unhappy to have Orly back."
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Episode 25
A few days later, Sigismund returned the videos he had borrowed. As he left the library, he heard a familiar voice. "We meet again, Becky Rosen said, crossing the street. "You seem to be interested in the wreath on my front door. Don't they have wreaths where you come from?"
"They do, but most are dark green. A few are red or gold. But yours is the first light green one I've seen."
"It blends in with the rest of my house. I don't like things that stick out like sore thumbs."
"Yes, it does blend in. Was the house light green when you moved in, or did you repaint it?"
"My husband and I agree that light green is the best color. If you ever see the interior, you'll see more light green. By the way, isn't it a little early for you to be dressed like Santa?" She playfully
grabbed the tassle of the Santa hat he was wearing.
"Oh, that. Today is December 6, the feast day of Saint Nicholas. It's also my birthday. Can I help it if feel a certain kinship with him?"
"If I'd known that, I'd have baked you a cake."
"Lanny is treating me to dinner at Tiger's lady tonight -- assuming that they don't botch the reservation. Last year, they had us down as twelve reindeer."
"Forgive me for breaking your bubble, but isn't Dec. 6 the day Saint Nicholas died?"
"I'll take any association I can get. They say he was a thoroughly kind and generous man. I wish I were a reborn version of him, but I'm afraid I fall short of the mark."
"Nonsense. I say a celebration is in order. Come over to my house right now. I always leave cookies for Santa, but now I can watch him eat them. Just remember that there is a *lot* of light green inside."
There was a dusting of snow on the road, but it took only three or four steps to get past it. Then Becky opened the door and ushered him in.
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Episode 26
Sigismund expected the interior of Becky's house to be light green, but the scale of light greenness took his breath away. Light green plates were on a light green kitchen counter, next to a light green platter shaped like a chicken. There was light green linoleum on the floor. The sofas and easy chairs were light green. The TV was light green. Even the waste baskets were light green. Becky saw him staring at them and said, "I divorced my husband because he dared to use orange waste baskets at a party.
Of course, there are a few things that are not light green," she confessed, picking up a salt shaker in the shape of a chickadee.
"Those are Winterwood accessories," Sigismund said. "But the plates in the pattern are light green."
"I see I'll have to get up pretty early to put one over on you," Becky said.
The phone rang. It looked like a green bunny. "Okay, I'll be right over, "Becky said into the mouthpiece. "That was the library," she told Sigismund. "They have a book I ordered. I'm going over to get it. I'll be back in five." She poured a cup of --what else? -- green tea into a Winterwood cup and handed it to Sigismund along with a plate of pistachio cookies. "Enjoy, Ziggy. I'll be back before you know it. " She threw on her green trenchcoat and breezed out of the door.
Melissa came in as she was leaving. Sigismund bent over to pet her, but she moved to the foot of the stairs and looked back as if to beckon him.
"Melissa, by any chance are you saying I should follow you upstairs?" he said. The cat ran up the stairs and pushed a door open.
Sigismund could hear Renfrew's voice. "What in heaven's name is going on up there?" he exclaimed as he took the stairs far faster than his joints were used to. He found himself in the room where he had seen Becky that day he took Tintinella to the library. On the computer's monitor was a live video of Sigismund's condo. Renfrew and Curlew were hanging decorations. A big banner was taped to the wall. "Happy birthday, Sigismund," it read. Off to the side, Beatrice was mixing cake batter in the kitchen. Betty Boop and Orly were mixing something white and gooey in a big bowl. Wait a minute, wasn't Orly dead? And why have a birthday party now? His birthday was three days ago.
"Oh, Becky!" Sigismund said with a sigh as he descended the stairs. "I never dreamed that you would be spying on me. He was eating one of the cookies when Becky came back inside with a book about the history of Betty Boop.
"Did you like the cookies?" Becky asked.
"Yes, very nice. I just remembered I was going to get another video at the library."
"May ask what tickles your fancy today?"
"I thought I would look for 'Rear window.'"
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Episode 27
"Oh, dear, Sigismund is coming back already," said Orly, who was standing sentry in the lobby of Lake Serene Retirement Village.
"The cake is just barely out of the oven," Betty Boop fretted. "It should really cool for fifteen minutes before the icing goes on."
"If we both work on it we can get it done in time," Beatrice said. "We can serve the caviar on crackers with champagne first. That'll give us plenty of time. And we won't need to put 65 candles on the cake. Five would be enough."
"Two small problems with that," Renfrew said. "The gourmet shop was out of caviar and champagne. They had some nice sharp cheddar cheese and triscuits. And there's always peanut butter."
Sigismund opened the front door. "Surprise! Happy birthday!" Renfrew and Curlew said together. Sigismund acted surprised. He sat in his favorite easy chair while four of the five androids swarmed around him with funny party hats, cups of hot coffee, and a platter of triscuits topped with chunks of Vermont cheddar cheese.
"We have a cake for you, and it will be ready after you've opened your presents," Betty Boop said. The first present was a book by Marvella about decluttering. Sigismund rolled his eyes. Then came a cardigan sweater with a pattern that looked a lot like something he had seen in Marvella's catalog. Were all the presents going to be from Marvella's catalog? The next one was a can of mixed nuts, and the one after that was a Gigantazon gift certificate. The fifth was an apron with a huge winking image of Betty Boop on it. Three guesses who that was from!
Sigismund paused for a second after unwrapping the gifts, at which point Curlew took him aside for a private chat in the coat room. "I know no one had a chance to tell you this, but three of the androids went to the Wellwood graveyard to dig up Orly. They brought him to my shop for repairs, which were completed this morning. I hope the suprise of seeing him wasn't too much of a shock."
"I'm afraid I already knew," Sigismund said. "The lady who lives across from the library in Canhambury asked me into her kitchen for cookies this afternoon. She stepped out for a few minutes, and her cat led me up to her computer room, where this condo is being monitored. I saw you getting ready for this party. I'm touched by your kindness. By the way, I wonder how all of you were able to pay for all this."
"We charged it to your credit card. They will reimburse you, of course. Renfrew is addressing Christmas cards for Madeleine Monet, the blind lady in Condo 42."
"Bless his heart!
"She's paying him ten dollars an hour. The rest of us are looking for ways to earn money. If you go to Mallwart's some day and see a Santa Claus who looks a lot like me, don't be surprised."
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Episode 28
Sigismund didn't mind having his credit card used for purposes like that. The doorbell rang. It was Marvella Risingstar.
"I have a business proposition for you, Sigismund," she said. "I want to rent Renfrew for two weeks. I need him for my show, and I know you'd never part with him without compensation. Name your price, and I'll write a check."
Curlew's eyebrows went very high when he heard this. He pulled Sigismund into the kitchen and whispered that Marvella could not legally write checks because she was an android.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all the Marvellas androids?" Sigismund asked her.
"The others are, but I'm the original. I'm human. Put your ear to my chest to hear my heartbeat. How about $1,000 dollars a week?"
Sigismund glanced at Curlew, who mouthed the words "Stall for time" and then headed for the phone in the back hall. After ten minutes of haggling, Sigismund got the price up to $1,500. Marvella finished writing the check just as the police arrived and demanded to know whether Marvella was a human or an android.
"This is outrageous!" Marvella screamed. "I'm a living breathing human being, and I can write a check for any amount I please."
"Well, since you are not an android, then you won't mind my touching you right here," Curlew said, placing a finger on each side of her neck in back. She became motionless. Curlew then pressed a spot just below her right ribcage, causing a drawer to slide out. Inside, among other things, there was a slip of paper listing her owner and a contact number. The owner was Bright Comet Rosen-Singh. The others were stunned when they heard this.
Meanwhile, the police were upstairs in Bright Comet's house watching the whole thing on her monitor. At first she denied having anything to do with Marvella's operations, but then Melissa led the police to a file cabinet which held all the documents tying her to them.
She softened a bit under questioning at the police station. "I was tracking Beatrice because I write books about her, and I like to see how she interacts with the real world. Then she spent some tme with Renfrew, and I needed to see how the two of them got along in Sigismund's condo. As for Marvella writing a check, I wanted to keep Renfrew from figuring out that I was an android; I didn't want him to blow my cover. I thought Sigismund would believe that there was one human Marvella; I never realized that Curlew would be around to blow the whistle." Melissa wangled her way into the police station, looking very smug.
The whole affair was leaked to the press, and was on all the news stations that night. Augustin, the son of Madeleine Monet who lived down the hall from Sigismund, happened to be watching, and he thought Bright Comet looked familiar. Then he realized why.
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Episode 29
It had been an eventful day. Marvella had visited Sigismund and written a check to cover renting Renfrew for a couple of weeks. Just as she was giving it to him, the police burst into Sigismund's condo to declare the check nul and void because Marvella was
an android who belonged to Bright Comet Rosen-Singh. Meanwhile, at Bright Comet's house the police were arresting her for keeping Sigismund under surveillance without his knowledge or consent. Worse, Bright Comet's cat Melissa led the police to the file cabinet where she keep documents proving that she owned most of the androids who had been helping Renfrew solve Orly's murder. Orly, in fact, was one of those androids.
There was worse to come the following morning. Orly I, the human who had lived in the condo next to Sigismund, had a sister who lived down the hall. Her name? Madeleine Monet. Madeleine's son Augustin happened to see media coverage of the arrest, and he realized that he had seen Bright Comet somewhere. Aha, that was it! Augustin had just left Madeleine's condo on the night of Orly I's death. Bright Comet, everyone learned later, was carrying one of Marvella's new bathmats [in a box] as a gift for Orly. He had to try it out, and as he stepped out of the bathtub, Bright Comet pulled the mat so hard that Orly slipped, hit his head, and died. Bright Comet exited through a rear door.
So, when Augustin saw Bright Comet on the news, he called the Wellwood police, who called Bright Comet in the next morning for questioning. Meanwhile, Curlew had hacked his way into Bright Comet's computer, and had found much of this information. He also went to the police.
It turned out that Orly II had witnessed Orly I's death, but Bright Comet had abducted him and frozen his memory of the event. The only part of the memory he retained was th bit about slipping on a bathmat, and he imagined that it ha dhappened to him, not to orly I. Marvella then installed him in the condo. He sounded like Orly I, and Madeleine assumed Orly I was alive, because she couldn't see him. Bright Comet made sure that Orly I was buried at the other end of the state. Sigismund did not yet live next door. Anyway, Curlew found Orly II's memory of the murder in Bright Comet's computer, and shared it with the police. Augustin's eyewitness account confirmed that Bright Comet was on the premises within a reasonable time frame of Orly I's death.
The only thing that remained to be determined was Bright Comet's motive. That too was in the documents in her file cabinet. She coveted Orly I's condo because the view from his window was perfect for tracking shots of Marvella's studio across the lake.
Bright Comet's ownership of her numerous androids was temporarily placed under the jurisdiction of a blind trust administered
by Orly's heirs. Marvella was allowed to continue her TV show and other business activities. Tintinella and Tamboria, who had been featured on a recent show, became daily cohosts.
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Episode 30
New Year's Eve found Sigismund and Lanny's family at the Tiger's Lady Restaurant, where the reservation was garbled once again. "This time we are a mystery writers' conventiion," he told Lanny at the door.
"Well, Dad, maybe that's your cue," Lanny said in a sunny tone. "I haven't been patient with you regarding your theories about Dorothy and Bambi and so forth. You really nailed that Orly case. Maybe you're a natural-born storyteller who should write down your ideas for other people to enjoy."
"It's funny you should say that," Sigismund said as Lavinia and the girls joined Lanny in the foyer, stomping their boots to get the snow off. "I'm writing a true-crime story about Orly. I will call it 'Renfrew's big case.'"
"Good ol' Renfrew," said Tintinella. "We'll find him a princess to marry. He was once a prince until a wicked witch turned him into an android. Only the kiss of a princess can break the spell."
"I think the Blue Fairy needs to touch him with her wand, and make him a real boy," Tamboria added.
"I think a princess named Tintinella Tamboria will be available someday," Sigismund teased.
"I see a princess coming our way," said Tintinella, pointing to a waitress carrying a tray of crab rangoon.
"Those are the best kind," said Lanny, licking his lips.
"What are the worst kind?" asked Sigismund as the hostess led them to their table and they made their selections from the menu.
"Green witches from the West, until some cyclone drops a house on them," Tamboria joked.
"If you need help with your writing, maybe Tintinella would like to collaborate," Lanny said.
"I may need her help," Sigismund admitted. "Renfrew still doesn't think he's a real detective. It was Melissa who led me to Bright Comet's office, and Curlew who thought to call the police on Marvella."
"Granddad, remember the night when you had all of us over for dinner?" Tamboria said. "I showed you my puppets and said they needed a cape for Princess Zassapoonia. Orly was at the door to show off the new bathmat that Marvella had just given him. It was just what we needed. He said we could have it after he had it washed. The next day he was dead."
"Say, I wonder why Orly would need to take any baths," Lanny said. "Androids may get rubbed down, but if they get too wet they rust."
"Yikes! I hadn't thought of that," Sigismund said.
"Maybe you could fudge things and have Renfrew realize it as soon as he finds out Orly is an android," said Lavinia. "Anyway, if you use Beatrice and Marvella, you might need to run things past Bright-Comet. She has a copyright on those characters."
The waitress had just arrived with their food. The reservations might have been garbled, but the food was quite good that night, and thoughts of mystery stories were put aside for the moment. Writers have to eat like anyone else. Sigismund ordered some foods that were said to enhance creativity -- green tea, salmon, egg drop soup. He didn't say as much to Lanny, who thought he was already too creative....
THE END
"Who killed my sister?" the green-faced witch said, searching dozens of Munchkin faces for signs of guilt before noticing a new face -- the face of a foreigner -- in the crowd. "Was it you?" she said, glaring at Dorothy, who took a step back and denied killing anybody.
The screen suddenly froze as Sigismund clicked the remote. "Do you see what a great opportunity they missed?" he said to his son Lanny, who had come for the afternoon.
"What opportunity" Lanny exclaimed. "It's just an entertaining movie. A classic."
"But it doesn't go anywhere, Lanny! Instead of trying to get back to Kansas, Dorothy could have tried to find the Witch of the east's real killer, set herself up as the grandest sorceress in Oz, and turned the silly Wizard into an also-ran."
"Dad, you're too much," Lanny scolded, picking up his hat and coat. "Last Sunday, you wanted to know why Bambi didn't hire a private investigator to track whoever set the forest fire that killed his mother. The week before that, you were convinced that "The Sound of Music" should have been an investigation into the death of Baron Von Trapp's first wife."
"She was healthy enough to give birth at least eight times," Sigismund retorted. "The Baron was just bored with her. He wanted to start over with someone younger and prettier. People have killed for less."
"Fine!" Lanny exclaimed, buttoning his overcoat. "I think you read too many murder mysteries with wildly improbable plots. Maybe it's the Covid-19 quarantine that's driven you crazy. Why don't you get out into the real world a bit more?" He started to open the door, but thought of something more to say. "If you had ever been a real detective, you wouldn't see murder in the background every time you watch a classic movie."
The door closed behind him. This was followed almost immediately by the sound of a car being started, and a bit of screeching as the car pulled away. Lanny only lived half a mile away, but his patience was sorely tested by his Sunday afternoon visits to his aging father's condo at Lake Serene Retirement Village.
Sigismund shrugged his shoulders and clicked his remote one more time. "I didn't mean to kill anyone," Dorothy protested on the screen. "It was an accident."
"An accident, my eye," Sigismund mutered. "A veritable crime wave, and none of these characters realizes it." Trouble was, real detectives were too busy solving real crimes to bother with the plot lines of great movies. Sigismund would have loved to solve murders himself, but the opportunity never presented itself when he was young, and now it was too late to start. Thirty-five years of carrying trays in the family restaurant had left him with sagging arches, aching calf muscles, and a bad hip. Happily, the family restaurant had been highly profitable, and Sigismund didn't mind the tradeoffs, one of which was this beautiful condo with a good view of the lake. Granted, the Summer's drought had lowered the water level, but the weather service had been talking about hurricanes, which might bring enough rain to raise it again.
There was a clinking sound in the next room as Renfrew mixed the afternoon drinks. Lanny had left, so the second one would not be needed. Sigismund wavered for a moment. "I'll drink both of them," he decided.
Renfrew creaked as he walked into the living room, but this was to be expected, as he was an android. And not just any android, he was Sigismund's greatest invention. The only good thing about the pandemic was that Sigismund had been left alone long enough to create a manservant who could not infect him with Covid. Androids didn't carry human viruses. When Instacart delivered the groceries, Renfrew met them at the door and carried all the bags into the kitchen. Sigismund hated masks, so not interacting with people meant he could avoid wearing them.
Say, maybe Renfrew could be sent out to do detective work. Nah, it would take too long to explain what a detective was. Still, it was the germ of a good idea that could develop into something.
"Er, Sigismund, has Lanny stepped out?" Renfrew wondered, holding the other drink in his hand.
"Yes, but I'll drink it for him. Say, Renfrew, have you ever considered becoming a private eye?"
"What is a private eye?"
Drat. Sigismund should have put something about detective work in Renfrew's memory banks. Well, as Glinda said, it's always best to start at the beginning.
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Episode 2
Sigismund decided he would explain to Renfrew what private eyes do. "A private eye is someone who investigates crimes, particularly murders. He visits the murder scene, looks for clues, and interviews anyone who might have had a motive for killing the victim."
A glimmer of understanding flickered in Renfrew's glass eyes. "You mean murders like the killing of Orly?"
"Yes, something like that." Orly had been Sigismund's old neighbor. Renfrew had somehow developed a knack for communicating with Orly's ghost. This talent had not been part of Sigismund's blueprint for Renfrew, but he went along with it because Orly and Renfrew had become such close friends. Had Orly really been murdered, though? The doctor's report had not mentioned foul play, just an unexpected fall after slipping on a rug. However, Orly's ghost insisted that it was murder.
"Maybe you and I and Orly could be a team of private eyes," Renfrew said. "Orly and I could investigate the crime scene, and you could piece the clues together."
Sigismund looked at his drink. The ice was half melted. It would be better to drink it now while it was still cold. He drained the glass in one gulp. "That sounds good," he had to admit, "but you'll need to be subtle. Androids who ask too many questions tend to attract attention."
Renfrew said nothing for a moment, as if listening to someone else. "Orly likes the idea too," he finally said."He thinks we should begin investigating his murder."
"Wouldn't it be better for the police to handle this?" he cautioned.
Renfrew listened to his ethereal friend, then shook his head. "Orly needs to tell you in his own way. Let me transmit his voice to your computer."
A feeble sound began to emanate from the computer's speaker system. Renfrew turned up the volume so Sigismund could hear. "Siggy, I'm not making this up! I was just stepping out of the tub, when I heard someone or something in the room with me. I was drying my eyes, so I didn't see who it was, and the bathmat was yanked from under me. I was hit on the back of my head by something hard. I have no further memories."
"That's strange. I helped Orly's executor go through his belongings, and no bathmats showed up," Sigismund said, stroking his chin.
"My attacker must have taken the mat with him when he fled," Orly said.
"What kind of mat was it?"
"Don't laugh," Orly said. "It was a gift from Miss Marvel."
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Episode 3
It was a bit of a dilemma for Sigismund and Renfrew. As much as Sigismund wanted Renfrew to help him solve Orly's murder, he could just see the reaction of the people in court when he reported that (1.) the murder victim's ghost had been communicating with an android, and (2.) the murder "weapon" had been one of Miss Marvel's cutesy bath mats.
The reader might wonder why this would be an obstacle. Well, Miss Marvel -- real name Marvella Rising Star -- was a bit much. She fancied herself as an expert on pretty much everything. From the tender age of fourteen, when she designed a casino and supervised its construction, Marvella had continually amazed much of the world with the range of things she could do. If she wore a diamond, it was safe to assume that she had mined, ground, and polished it herself. Her exquisite shoes were made of leather that she tanned herself. Could she bake a cherry pie? Yes, but you didn't dare ask for her recipe, for she would go on about the type of trees she had planted, the fertilizers she had used, the methods of fending off insect pests, and the type of stones she used to grind the flour in the crust. And the design on Orly's bathmat was sure to be something no self-respecting man would be caught dead -- if you'll excuse the expression -- with in his bathroom.
"I guess you're wondering how I happened to know Marvella," Orly continued. "She has her studio in that grand mansion across the lake. A few months ago the two of us were fishing in the same cove one day. Well, she was fishing. I had caught nothing. Then our lines got tangled..."
"That's a fishy story if I ever heard one," Sigismund said.
"She had already caught six times as many fish as I had, so it wasn't a big deal for her," Orly went on. "She was kind enough to share some of them with me. She even invited me to her place and fixed me the most succulent dinner of poached fish and gnocchi and Pears Belle Helene. It was heavenly!"
"She did that for a perfect stranger?" Sigismund exclaimed, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, her sixteen luncheon guests had all called to cancel. I guess they were afraid of being stranded in her house during that hurricane that was on its way. She didn't want the meal to be a total waste."
"That still doesn't explain how her bathmat got into your bathroom."
"That was a totally new product she was testing. Or rather products. She gave me five different designs to see which I preferred."
"Don't tell me, let me guess," Sigismund said. "One had a hydrangea pattern in celadon. Another was a calico cat. A third was a gray pattern with white snowflakes. The fourth was a Christmas bathmat with a gingerbread design. The fifth was a cotton jacquard in a grape hyacinth color."
Orly went silent. Finally, he said, "I forgot that you inventoried my belongings. But I thought you didn't find any of my bathmats."
Sigismund went to a file cabinet in a corner of the room and came back with a Marvella product catalog. "I didn't, but I was saving this to give as a gag gift at Christmas," he said. "Apparently you approved all the designs."
"Didn't get a chance," Orly said. "I died two days after I received them."
"Could she have sent someone over to retrieve them, and they were so embarrassed at surprising you that they took the mats and ran?" Sigismund wondered.
"We should ask her," Renfrew said.
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Episode 4
"You're going to do what?" Curlew exclaimed when Renfrew told him about the murder investigation. Curlew was Renfrew's guru, a robot of such extraordinary complexity and meticulous design that very few people even realized he wasn't flesh and blood.
"I'm going to find out who murdered Sigismund's neighbor Orly," Renfrew repeated. "It was a suspicious death, and Sigismund wants me to do the detective work required to bring the murderer to justice."
"My dear Renfrew, your circuits weren't even designed so you would know what a detective is," Curlew scoffed.
Renfrew thought about what Curlew had said. The two androids were in the elegant main lobby of Androids R We. The golden November sunlight filtered through the leaves of a maple tree in front of the store, highlighting in red the stencils of well-known androids on the store windows. Red sunbeams caressed the marble statue of Andy Android in front of the checkout aisles and danced along the lapis blue marble floors.
"My circuits allow for expansion," Renfrew finally said. "I've downloaded the complete stories of Sherlock Holmes and most of the novels of Agatha Christie, plus many of the more recent detective story writers. I can be a very fine detective if that's what I decide to do."
Curlew raised an eyebrow (he was the rare android who had lifelike eyebrows). "Very impressive," he said. "Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot are a very good start indeed. Of course, you'd do better to consult real detectives, especially the ones who use things like DNA testing. The better fictional sleuths are a good place to start. But why waste your time with the latest generation of writers?"
"Why, what's wrong with them?"
"Wrong?" Curlew chortled. "Poor Renfrew, you have always seemed such a realistic fellow, but you haven't noticed how implausible and silly a lot of them are? In the 90s, you had a detective who took his cues from a pair of Siamese cats. In the naughts, you had bakery owners and caterers who took up detecting. There was even a ghost who wrote advice to a young woman in the house she once lived in. There's a dog who gives his take on his master's work. There are also lesbian detectives, quadriplegic detectives, First Lady detectives, and great creative people like Jane Austen and Mozart who found themselves solving murders. As if they could spare the time from creating their bodies of work!"
"Surely those are not representative of the people I should be following," Renfrew protested.
"Those are the *better* ones! Dracula is a detective now. So is Amelia Earhart. Adam and Eve solve murders in the garden of Eden. And we've brought in members of improbable species: Beatrice Anaconda or Anastasia Mongoose."
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Episode 5
Renfrew was dismayed that Curlew had such a low opinion of current fictional detectives. "Beatrice Anaconda is my favorite!" he started to exclaim, but he was interrupted by a cheery "Did someone call me?" from the next aisle of Androids R We. There, in a long, sinuous black lace gown, was a 25-foot snake that bore a striking resemblance to the covers of the Beatrice Anaconda mystery series.
"Beatrice Anaconda at your service," the snake said, slithering toward the two androids.
"You're real?" Renfrew exclaimed.
"I'm not a flesh-and-blood snake, if that's what you mean," Beatrice purred. "In this climate I'd be hibernaitng already if I were. No, I'm an android, just like you. I'm here for a tuneup. Now, the woman who writes those books about me is a different matter. I doubt that she's real..."
"But Comet Bright has been interviewed on TV so many t-t-t-times," Renfrew stammered.
"Oh, please," Beatrice scoffed. "Ever hear of actors? Somebody *claiming* to be Comet Bright gave interviews, but she wasn't the writer who came up with those inaccurate and silly whodunits about me. I'm a detective, and I know these things."
"Renfrew, you're next," came a voice over the P.A. system.
"It's time for my tuneup," Renfrew apologized. "Can I meet up with you later, Miss Anaconda? I want to be a detective too, and I could use some tips."
"I know what case you're working on," Beatice said with a wink. "Orly Beaugency's death by bathmat."
"You know about it?"
"Honey, it's all over the Androidnet." Beatrice was paged too, but before she slithered over to her cubicle she gave Renfrew some consolation. "If you're worried that someone else will steal your case, relax. Everybody knows you have some inside knowledge. Nail this case, and you will be famous as the ghost whisperer."
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Episode 6
Android technology had come a long way by the beginning of the 21st Century. Competition among the economic superpowers had made it imperative that companies find out what the public actually wanted (even if said public wasn't always clear about that) and could afford to pay for. With large numbers of post-World War II workers -- also known as Baby Boomers, though they were now far from being babies -- becoming retirees, entrepreneurs had realized that there might not be enough workers in younger generations to care for them. Many retirees lived alone, but couldn't afford assisted-living arrangements. Why not use androids rather than humans to care for these people? People were used to getting answers from the likes of Siri and Alexa, so maybe these helpers could provide physical assistance as well.
There were now at least six companies pumping out robotic valets, gofers, and even nurses for the older retirees and the first wave of the Baby Boomers. Androids were becoming easier to assemble, and could be sold as kits to do-it-yourselfers like Sigismund.
There was yet another market beginning to open up: android-to-android communication. Renfrew had heard about the Androidnet, but Sigismund had programmed him to doubt that it had anything to do with him. Now, though, his conversations in Androids R We had made him realize that maybe he was missing out on something. He loved talking to Curlew, and wanted to stay in touch at home.
Renfrew wondered if do it-yourselfers could assemble androids as complex as Curlew. Well, not all do-it-yourselfers, as Curlew was amazingly close to being human. He had passed the Turing test many times. Even a doctor would be deceived at first. Curlew could eat, take showers, even go swimming without short-circuiting. Renfrew, by contrast, looked rather a lot like the tin man from "Wizard of Oz." What you see is what you get, he thought to himself as the tuneup began.
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Episode 7
In Sigismund's opinion, Renfrew was an amazingly helpful android, but there were times when his logic was absolutely unfathomable. This was such a time. Renfrew had gone to Buckblaster Videos (which had shrunk to a mere five stores, but luckily there was one next to Railway Salvage Depot on the wrong side of the railroad tracks) to fetch a video with Betty Boop on it, and had returned with "Who framed Roger Rabbit?" Sigismund had taken one look at it, and had said "Why?" To this, Renfrew had replied "You'll see," and then went for his tuneup at Androids R We.
Sigismund decided to save the video for after lunch, so he tucked it under the pile of clutter on his desk. Lunch came and went, but now the video was nowhere to be found. "Someday I've got to throw out some of this junk," he muttered under his breath. Actually it was no mystery why he couldn't get on top of the clutter. Every time he decided to clean the place, he'd come upon some magazine article that he had left unread months before. He felt obligated to finish the article this time. Today was no exception. The October issue of "But Not Least" from three years ago came to light under several empty popcorn bags, and Sigismund remembered that it contained some stuffing recipes that he had meant to save. Thanksgiving was coming, and although Lanny's wife was going to roast the turkey, Sigismund always brought stuffing. Naturally, the recipes were all on back pages, surrounded by glossy ads.
Sigismund looked in vain for the couscous stuffing recipe that he wanted, then he remembered it was in an article by Marvella Risingstar. The article turned out to be an ad for Marvella's home management service. "Tired of boring meals, thrift-shop furniture, and clutter?" the headline read. "Let Marvella transform your home in just a few hours. You could be entertaining your family with this turkey and stuffing dinner in grand style!"
This sounded too good to be true, but Sigimund was desperate enough to try almost anything. Lanny wouldn't visit him anymore, Orly (God rest his soul) was no longer available for a chat, and Renfrew kept bringing him videos that he couldn't even find when he needed them. Maybe Marvella's home management skills were more important than her stuffing recipes. Or, with a little luck, Sigismund could have both. He had a daydream about making his place so gorgeous that Lanny and his wife and daughters would beg to bring the Thanksgiving feast here.
At the bottom of the ad (in small print, naturally) a telephone number was listed. Sigismund gave it a try. He expected to hear a recording, or, at best, an overworked clerk, but instead he heard "Hi, this is Marvella" at the other end of the line.
"Marvella?" he exclaimed. "I, er, didn't expect that you'd be picking up the phone yourself.
"Sometimes I do," she said with a laugh. "My show doesn't start for another fifteen minutes, and I know my lines by heart -- as I always do, if you don't mind my saying so. Do you want to see what miracles I can perform in your house?"
"I'd like an estimate of what you think I'll need. When could you come?"
"My show is over by three. How does four sound?"
"So soon?" Sigismund was stunned. "I thought I'd be on a six-month waiting list."
"I'm the most organized person you will ever meet. Where do you live?"
"Condo #9, Lake Serene Retirement Village, which is in...."
"My show is being filmed across the lake from you. We can make it 3:30."
Sigimund looked out his window at the lake. He expected to see Marvella waving at him from some faux 17th Century Venetian villa.
"In fact, I was visiting one of your neighbors a few weeks ago. Maybe you know him? Orly Beaugency, at number 7."
"He passed away Halloween night. Very sad." He wanted to add, "And suspicious," but that would not be the best way for a detective to deal with anyone who might be the murderer.
"I will miss him," Marvella said. "He was charming. I still want to give you that estimate, though. It's a nice afternoon for a canoe trip. Do you have anywhere that I can tie up my canoe?"
Wow, she really is organized, Sigismund thought as he agreed to have her come at 3:30.
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Episode 8
While Sigismund waited for Marvella to arrive, he tried to figure out how much straightening up he could do before she arrived.
It was almost 2:00 now. He stuffed a few empty popcorn bags in the wastebasket and gathered up some newspapers and circulars from Shop Til You Drop Supermarket for the recycling bins. Next he discovered an overdue bill for his credit card, and under that was "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?"
There wasn't time to see all of Roger Rabbit, but maybe he could squeeze in the first half hour of it. As he pushed the video into the DVD player, he remembered that Betty Boop was, indeed, one of the characters in the film. So that was why Renfrew had said "You'll see!" Come to think of it, there was more than one mystery in the movie. Wasn't it suspicious that Betty came
out of retirement after 39 years to appear with Roger? Could Betty be the real culprit? All the other toons were in color, Betty was still black and white. Hm! Betty had worked very hard in the thirties, but never achieved as much success as Roger did in the 1980s. So, she had reasons for being jealous. Plus, Betty had more brains and beauty than Roger's wife Jessica. Did Betty have the hots for Roger? Did he reject her? If so, was it Betty who framed Roger Rabbit? Very suspicious, and well worth another viewing.
Sigismund turned on the TV and settled back to watch the video. Something was wrong, though. Instead of Roger Rabbit, he saw Marvella Risingstar on the screen. Oops, he had the TV turned to the wrong channel. He reached for the remote, but thought better of it when he saw another familiar face on the screen, that of Lanny's daughter Tintinella.
Uh-oh! Lanny had told Sigismund that Tintinella and her sister Tamboria would be competing in a talent contest, but Sigismund had forgotten to keep track of his granddaughters' progess. They hadn't told him that Marvella would be involved, or maybe they did but he wasn't listening. On the screen Marvella was interviewing them now, describing them as contest finalists. Drat! Sigismund should have arranged to be in the audience watching them. Maybe Lanny wasn't snubbing him after all. He had to be there for them. The camera panned over the audience. Sure enough, Lanny was there.
"I'd like to play a video of Tintinella and Tamboria's contest-winning performance," Marvella said. "They put on a puppet show about a magical kingdom ruled by Princess Zassapoonia and Prince Stromdoddle. Watch closely! You'll love the Princess's magical cape with its shooting stars and trails of rose petals...."
The camera showed a beautiful watercolor setting of a slavic-style castle. In the background, someone was playing a flute and piano arrangement of Borodin's "In the steppes of Central Russia." "I might also add that the girls recorded the music themselves. Quite a talented pair!" Marvella gushed.
Now Princess Zassapoonia entered, wearing a cape. Sigismund blinked in disbelief. The "cape" looked like one of Marvella's bathmats.
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Episode 9
Sigismund was so wrapped up in Marvella's television show that he didn't hear Renfrew come into the living room. "Sigismund, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine," the android said.
Sigismund turned to look at Renfrew's "friend" and fainted dead away. There, in the doorway, was a very large snake.
"I think you scared him," Renfrew whispered.
"You should have explained the situation before he had a chance to look," Beatrice scolded as the two of them tried to revive Sigismund.
"The snake won't hurt you," Renfrew explained as Sigismund came to. "She's an android, just like me. She doesn't have a stomach, so she wouldn't be able to swallow anything even if she wanted to. Sigismund, I'd like you to meet Beatrice Anaconda."
Sigismund looked warily at Beatrice, who was transfixed by what was happening on the television screen. "Look, guys," she said, "there's a puppet show. I love puppet shows. But why is the princess wearing a bathmat over her shoulders?"
Renfrew frowned. "That's the same design as the mat Orly had when he was murdered. Or at least that's how he described it." He turned to Sigismund. "How did your granddaughter get hold of it. It's a murder weapon. Shouldn't the police have custody of it?"
"Are we sure that a murder acually occurred?" Beatrice asked. "And even if it did, might there be more than one bathmat with that design? Maybe there's an innocent explanation."
Sigismund got his coat out of the closet. "I guess I'll have to go over to Marvella's studio and find out what I can," he said. "I hope Lanny and the girls will forgive me for being late to this important show. I don't want them to think I forgot about it."
Renfrew turned off the TV and followed his master out the door. "Beatrice, it might not be wise for you to come with us," he said. "People might think you're a real snake."
"How about if I disguise myself as an inchworm?" Beatrice joked. "Oh, all right. I guess I can stay here and tidy up a bit. This place is a mess." I'm more like a ten-yard worm, she thought as she worked.
Fortunately, Sigismund didn't hear this last comment, as he was already in his car.
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Episode 10
Beatrice watched through the window as Sigismund turned right onto the main road. A block later he turned right again and headed along the North side of Lake Serene Retirement Village on its way to the other side of the lake, where Marvella's studio was located. Once the car was out of sight, Beatrice turned the television back on. Princess Zassapoonia was singing a beautiful aria about how wonderful it was not to be a hedgehog any more -- apparently an evil witch had turned her into one earlier, and Prince Stromdoddle had broken the spell by reciting "Twas the night before Christmas" backwards. Now the Prince and Princess were singing a duet. Beatrice had trouble hearing the words, but that was no great loss. What mattered was the tune, which was charming and beautifully sung. What talent the two girls had!
Later in the show, Marvella answered the studio audience's questions. How do you prevent leaf rot in Sicilian begonias? What's a good recipe for Chateaubriande for a wedding party of 126? The camera panned over the audience. Sigismund and Renfrew sat in aisle seats in row 5. Further to the left were Tintinella, Tamboria, and a fortyish couple who were probably their parents. Beatrice wondered if it was accidental that Sigismund was so far away from his son. Well, the row was full of people, so the aisle seats were probably all that were available for latecomers. In front of Sigismund was a teenage boy of 13 or 14 with a Boston bambinos baseball cap. The boy was scowling. A large paper bag was in his lap.
Six commercials went by, followed by an interview with the man who had invented Curlew and some other state of the art androids. None of this was news to Beatrice, but she hoped the camera would show the audience when the closing credits rolled.
At last the studio audience came into view, and Beatrice witnessed a strange scene. Marvella was in the aisle talking to Renfrew, when the boy with the baseball cap stood up and accused her of judging the talent contest unfairly. Apparently he had been a semifinalist. He pulled a large baseball bat from the bag. The bat had a long crack along one edge. The camera did a closeup, revealing the words "Willy Wonderful Baseball gear" above the crack
Willy Wonderful was the star player for the Boston Bambinos. Indeed, in his first year with the team he had hit the winning home run in the last game of the 2019 World Series. He had smacked the ball with such force that his bat had cracked. The ball, meanwhile, had soared out of Bambino Fens Park, over several medical center buildings, and through the window of a tenth-floor condo in Longwood Towers in Brookline several miles away. As luck would have it, there was no one in the condo at the time, because the person who lived there was Willy Wonderful himself. Willy had led the team to victory in the next three World Series. and had started a lucrative sports equipment company. He did, however, move out of Longwood Towers because it was obviously within range of the ball park.
The boy brandished the bat and approached Marvella with a murderous glint in his eyes.
Uh oh! Renfrew wanted to solve a murder mystery, and it looked as if a real murder was about to take place.
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Episode 11
Violence seemed to be in the air at the end of Marvella Risingtar's latest televsion program. A boy with a baseball cap and a cracked bat had risen from his seat and complained that he should have been the finalist in a contest. He was waving the bat in a threatening manner. Renfrew had been programmed to seek peace whenever possible. He put his programming to the test by grasping the bat and gently urging the boy to put it away. This made the boy angrier, though. He swung the bat forward, sending Renfrew forward over his shoulder and into the aisle with a terrible clanking sound. As security guards closed in, the boy swung the bat again and tried to hit Marvella.
Meanwhile, back at Sigismund's condo in Lake Serene Retirement Village, Beatrice Anaconda was watching with more and more concern. The TV screen went blank just before the bat could hit Marvella. Five minutes later, the camera panned to the control booth, where the station manager announced that, despite some minor injuries, Marvella would be back the next day for her usual program.
"Minor injuries?" Beatrice exclaimed. "If that boy connected at all, Marvella should be in the hospital for at least a week." And then there was the matter of Renfrew. Beatrice had seen the kit from which Renfrew had been constructed. He wasn't a high-end android. None of his parts could withstand much force. What if Renfrew needed a lot of new parts? On the other hand, Sigismund could just buy another kit and use the parts from that kit. But suppose the parts that governed memory and reason were damaged? Sigismund might have to reprogram him from scratch, and that could take time. Who was going to solve Orly's murder?
Beatrice turned off the TV and tuned into the Androidnet through the wireless connection in her head. Maybe the website that received news of crimes against androids would have some news. Sure enough, she found a report about an incident at Happy Harbor Studios in Wellport, Mass. (Happy Harbor was directly across the lake from Sigismund's condo, so that had to be the right place). Well, the report said that there were *two* injured androids. What other android had been in the vicinity?
Meanwhile, at Happy Harbor Studios, Renfrew was just regaining consciousness. The inventor that Marvella had interviewed earlier was standing over her, feeling her arms and legs for broken bones. He must be a medical doctor as well as an inventor! Tamboria and Tintinella had their hands over their eyes. Sigismund was in the back talking to an elderly women who was probably an acquaintance. The boy who had attacked Renfrew and Marvella was noticeably absent, probably in custody somewhere.
Marvella was helped to her feet. A couple of attendants led her away. The inventor turned his attention to Renfrew. "That boy did a lot of damage to you," he said after a few moments of poking and prodding. "The good news is that you'll be able to function -- barely -- while you're waiting for repairs. If you'd like, I could repair you myself. The station is covered for injuries, and I am the preeminent android technician for this area."
The station manager came down the aisle. "You have a phone call from someone named Beatrice," he told Renfrew.
"Are you going to be all right?" she began. "What puzzles me is that the Androidnet says that *two* androids were injured."
"The second one must have been hurt while I was out, and was taken away," Renfrew said. "But I didn't see any within close proximity."
Oh, great, Beatrice thought. One more mystery to be solved.
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Episode 12
Renfrew had been injured, that was certain. He was conscious, though, and the technician who was assessing his injuries was the best in the area. He still couldn't figure out who the other injured android might be, but maybe after he had his broken parts replaced he would solve the riddle. The attendants who had escorted Marvella out of the auditorium came back and helped Renfrew sit in a seat on the aisle.
Sigismund came down the aisle with an elderly woman whom he had been talking to. "Renfrew, I'd like you to meet Margaret, my ex-wife," he said. "She was the one who bought the kit from which I built you."
"It was sort of an anniversary gift," she said with a shy smile.
"The 35th anniversary of our divorce," Sigismund added. "The years have treated you well."
"Well, the traditional 35th anniversary gift is jade," Margaret said. "I couldn't afford an all-jade android, but maybe I was just feeling jaded." She winked.
Marvella's voice came over the public address system. "I could retrofit you with some jade parts," she offered. "It's the least I can do, considering that you tried to protect me. Also, the modern 35th anniverary gift is coral. Would you like a vacation trip to a tropical coral isle?"
"I would love that," Renfrew said. "Either or both."
"Ziggy, you haven't changed as much as I had expected," Margaret said.
"Would I be impolite if I asked why you parted company?" Renfrew asked.
"I wanted to stay near Boston," Sigismund explained. Margaret wanted to join a group of gypsies who had started a circus in Alaska."
"The little eskimo children loved circuses," Margaret explained with a radiant smile, "and without me the gypsies wouldn't have had a proper circus. I was their only calliope player. But I have a confession to make, Ziggy. I fell in with an eskimo whose mother was Cuban. He took me to Palm Beach to meet his mother, and I've been there ever since. He died ten years ago, but I have made a living as a church organist ever since. I thought I'd miss the snow and ice, but as it turned out I didn't. When I heard that my granddaughters were going to be on Marvella's show, I bought plane tickets. I was on the last plane out of there before the hurricane struck. I hear that the hurricane didn't do much damage, but it produced three tornadoes."
Renfrew was having trouble following the life histories of Sigismund and Margaret. Maybe he had PTSD. Could androids get that? Or maybe he was just distracted by the buzzing in his head. Suddenly Beatrice's voice came through. "Renfrew, can you hear me? I know there's Androidnet software in your head, so you should at least be able to receive my transmission. I saw that boy hit you with his bat, the camera caught it all. It didn't show Marvella getting hit, though. Did you see her go down? Can you find out who the other injured android was?"
Renfrew asked the technician to show him how to transmit a reply to Beatrice. "Beatrice, I blacked out before she was hit," he sent back to her. "I didn't see any other androids in the vicinity."
The technician was beginning to look very uncomfortable. Did he have a secret that he didn't want to come out?
"I'd be happy to pitch in and help with the investigation until you are well enough to pick it up again," Beatrice offered.
Marvella's voice came over the P.A. system again. "I'd be happy to help, too," she said. "What are you investigating?"
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Episode 13
Marvella wanted to help Renfrew and Sigismund investigate Orly's murder. Renfrew wondered if that was a good idea, since it was one of Marvella's bathmats that had been the murder weapon.
But he was also programmed to be polite. Marvella had offered to help. So had Beatrice Anaconda. Well, it was best to let Beatrice decide. "Beatrice is my partner," Renfrew told Marvella, fudging things a little. "If she thinks you could be helpful, I will defer to her. In the meantime, let's work on getting me patched up as fast as possible."
Marvella thought this was a good plan. She directed her technician to start work on Renfrew immediately.
Meanwhile, back at Lake Serene Retirement Village, Beatrice was waiting in Sigismund's condo with nothing to do. She already had a case to work on, and it wasn't going well: the ambasador from Thwockisgreznia had collapsed and died in Boston's trendiest restaurant. The problem wasn't that the murder weapon was missing. The snake that bit him was in custody. What puzzled her was that the snake's poison glands had been removed. The ambassador had not eaten any food yet, so food poisoningwas not a factor. He had had half a glass of Beaujolais, which had been tested for toxins and was apparently harmless.
Sigismund's car pulled up in front of the building. Beatrice held the door for him as he helped Renfrew limp inside.
"I thought Marvella's technician was going to patch you up," she told Renfrew.
"He did a quick scan, and determined that the parts I need will have to be ordered. He'll have them tomorrow morning," Renfrew said.
"I am so sorry about what happened to you," Beatrice said. "Look on the bright side. You know how to use the Androidnet now. Maybe you can use it to research your case."
"Technically, it's *our* case," Renfrew corrected. "I fibbed a little. When Marvella offered to help, I told her you were my partner and would need to be in the loop. Anyway, have you found it helpful with the cases you've worked on?"
"Not at the moment," Beatrice said, averting her eyes. "I'm working on a case where a diner in a restaurant died after being bitten by a snake. But the snake's poison glands had been removed, and the diner had not eaten any food."
"Um, what had the snake been eating?" Renfrew asked.
"Just before biting the diner? I hadn't thought of that. Sigismund, do you mind if I use your phone? I need to ask the people at the crime lab some questions about a case I'm working on."
When the answer came, everyone was surprised: the snake had eaten a mouse smeared with peanut butter. "Okay, now find out if the ambassador was allergic to peanuts," Renfrew urged. It turned out that he was, and enough peanut butter was on the snake's fangs to kill him. "That'sthe easy part," Renfrew confessed. "The hard part is finding out who wanted him dead, and whether they knew about his allergy."
"I'll take it from there, Renfrew," Beatrice said gently, "but I am very impressed."
"You've come a long way," Sigismund said.
They heard another car pulling up in front of the building.
"Were you expecitng someone?" Beatrice asked.
"Oh, dear," Sigismund said. "We may have guests, and Renfrew won't be able to serve drinks and snacks. "
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Episode 14
Sigismund looked at the clock as he heard a car pulling up outside. "The only person I'm expecting is Marvella. She was going to come by and recommend some changes to my interior decor, but I doubt she's in any shape to do that."
"Did you actually see her get hit?" Beatrice asked.
"No, I had just turned to ask Margaret a question..." He saw puzzled looks Beatrice's face, so he explained. "Margaret is my exwife. She ran off to join a circus in Alaska 35 years ago, then moved to Palm Beach, but she heard that our granddaughters were to be featured on Marvella's show today, so she hopped on a plane just ahead of the hurricane, and I met her in the audience..."
"Did anyone else see the attack?" Beatrice continued.
"The audience was heading for the exits, except for Tintinella and Tamboria, who put their hands over their eyes when that awful boy rushed at Marvella with his bat," Renfrew said. "That just leaves station employees, and Marvella herself."
"Who is knocking at the door right now," Sigismund said, heading over to the front entrance.
Marvella smiled as she limped into the living room. "You didn't have to come," Sigismund said as he led her to a chair.
"Why not?" she said. "There's no heavy lifting involved. I had planned to paddle here across the lake in my canoe, but I'm kind of banged up. Let me see what you have. Then tell me what changes you'd like. My androids will set up one of your rooms with new furnishings so you can live with them for a while and see if they really suit you. Aha, I see you like animation." She pointed to the Roger Rabbit video.
"Actually, I picked it out for him," Renfrew explained. "He asked for anything with Betty Boop in it."
"Wow, what a coincidence," Marvella exclaimed. "I have a Betty Boop android in my van. Let me call her in."
It was all Beatrice could do not to laugh. Of *course* Marvella would have Betty Boop in her van. Betty waltzed through the door and winked at everyone.
"Next thing you know, she'll suggest Betty Boop wallpaper," Renfrew said to Beatrice over the Androidnet.
"Betty Boop wallpaper? I have that, too," Marvella said.
Renfrew looked puzzled. "That's what I was thinking about, but I never said it out loud," he protested. "I shared the thought with Beatrice over the Androidnet...." Beatrice nodded.
"Oh, dear, I've blown my cover," Marvella said, reddening. I'm an android. How did you think I could do so many things at once without keeling over from exhaustion? There is one flesh-and-blood Marvella, but she rarely goes out in public, luckily for her after that attack this afternoon. Okay, I must swear you all to secrecy. Name your price...."
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Episode 15
Marvella blew her cover by admitting that she had received a transmission through the Androidnet. Only Androids could do that. And not only was she an android, she was *multiple* androids, hence her ability to be everywhere at once and function with little or no sleep.
"So that's why there were reports of two androids being assaulted in your studio this afternoon," Beatrice Anaconda reasoned. "You and Renfrew."
"Not me," Marvella corrected her. "The one who was injured was another Marvella android. There are quite a few of us, enough that we should have no trouble putting on tomorrow's show."
"That's as it may be, but there's only one Betty Boop," said Betty, with one hand on her hip.
"That you know of," Marvela said with a wink. She rose from her chair. "I guess I don't have to pretend to be bruised and sore any more." She went into the bedroom with Sigismund to see what kind of decor would work for him. Beatrice left to go hime, leaving Renfrew alone in the living room.
Soon Marvella was gone as well, having guided Betty and couple of husky androids in putting up wallpaper in Sigismund's bedroom. Marvella even helped them carryi n a few pieces of English regency furniture that she "happened" to have in her van. After she left with her androids, Sigismund spent a while admiring the way his bedroom looked. He lay on the new feather bed that Marvella had installed and closed his eyes.
Suddenly there was a knock at the door. "Who is it?" he asked, opening one eye.
"Boop-oop-a-doop," came a singsong voice.
"Betty, I thought you'd gone..."
"How could I leave my greatest fan without a fare-the-well?" she chirped.
"You might as well come in," Sigismund said, opening the other eye and sitting up in bed. Didn't it figure that the only seductresses who might still be interested in him were androids! "I have just one tiny bone to pick with you," she scolded sitting on the edge of the bed. "I did *not* frame Roger Rabbit. He and I are good buddies, and I would *never* do anything to hurt him."
"How...how do you know I s-suspected you?" Sigismund stammered.
"That's for me to know, and for you to guess," she trilled, leaving the room.
A moment later, Sigismund watched through the window as she rode off with Bimbo and Grampy. "The walls have ears in this place," he grumbled as he fell asleep on that amazingly soft and comfortable bed. Not all of his dewams were pleasant ones -- he dreamed that the Marvella sent him a bill for a million dollars -- but this was followed by a lovely dream in which Orly was restored to life, and they celebrated with a Thanksgiving feast worth writing home about
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episode 16
When Sigismund emerged from his bedroom the next morning, Renfrew was planning the week's activities. Or maybe they were nonactivities, as he couldn't do much as a result of his injuries. "I can't serve you your usual breakfast," the android said sadly. "I called Espresso Express a minute ago, and they're putting you on their morning route, so at least you'll have coffee and those blueberry muffins you love so much. Lunch and dinner are up in the air. Maybe you could have lunch at Cantonese Yum Yum. They have thopse garlicky egg rolls you love so much.
"When is Marvella going to have you repaired?" Sigismund asked.
"They called this morning, and I didn't have the heart to wake you. Their insurance will foot the bill for a substitute android for as long as you need it. I can't authorize that. You have to make the call yourself."
"But nobody could replace you," said Sigismund. He reached for the phone and began dialing.
"One more thing before I forget. Willy Wonderful called to apologize for what that boy did with his bat. It seems that the kid got his hands on the very bat that was used to hit that incredible home run that crashed through a tenth-floor window miles from the ballpark. He's sending you a Thaksgiving turkey."
"Oh, my god, Thanksgiving is less than a week away," Sigismund groaned, putting down the phone.
"Look on the bright side. You had promised to bring the turkey for the family's dinner. Now you won't have to cook one. You'll even have one for free. Willy knows a caterer who can stuff and roast it for you. here's his number. You can call him after you call the studio."
Sigismund resumed dialing. "Hello, Marvella? About that substitute android. How soon can you send it?" he covered the receiver with his hand. "She wants to know what kind we want."
"It's up to you. You can have Betty Boop for all I care. Just remember that it's temporary."
"Can you send Betty Boop over?"Sigismund told Marvella. "You can? Great. "Renfrew, she'll be here in half an hour."
"You sound too enthusiastic," Renfrew chided him.
The doorbell rang. Sigismund let the Espresso Express woman wheel her magic coffee machine intotyhe room. She guided Sigismund through the vast menu of lattes and cappuccinos and decafs, then pushed some buttons and handed him his coffee sixty seconds later. "Cinnamon buns are on us," she said.
Renfrew sat in silent contemplation as Sigismund noisily munched his pastry and sipped his coffee. It wasn't until he was done with his meal that he realized that Renfrew was communicating with Orly again.
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episode 17
Sigismund was worried. He was worried about having Renfrew out of commission or, worse, replaced with a substitute android while Renfrew was being repaired after the bashing he got at Marvella's studio. And this was on top of Renfrew's disturbing proclivity for channeling the thoughts of Orly, whose murder he was supposed to be solving. "Orly is disappointed that I haven't found his murderer yet," Remfrew said suddenly.
"Has he ever described the afterlife?" Sigismund asked. "That's the sort of thing that would pique my interest."
The doorbell rang again. It was Betty Boop. As soon as she was inside, she jumped into the discussion. "For Pete's sake, Orly, get hold of yourself," she scolded. Sigismund raised an eyebrow. Was Betty channeling Orly too? Renfrew must not be the only one who do this. Why couldn't humans do it?
"He's sulking," Renfrew said. "We might not hear from him until after Thaksgiving. Speaking of which, Sigismund should call Willy Wonderful about that turkey he's offering us. And betty, you and I should plan lunch and dinner for today. We'll need to take at least one trip to the market for supplies. Could you go? I can give you directions to Shop Till You Drop."
"I know my way around a supermarket," Betty said tartly. "And can send that bogus coffeemaker back to Espresso Express. I make coffee with the best of them. You'll wonder how you ever managed without me, Sigismund.
The next few days were more pleasant than Sigismund could have hoped for. Betty's coffee was as good as she said it was, and her meals were superb. If she could be faulted, it was in the area of housekeeping. Dusting made her sneeze. But to be fair, she had been designed as an entertainer, not a maid. "I'd need different software and some different circuits to be a good maid," she said. "Anyway, it was Hattie McDaniels who said that she'd rather play a maid than be one."
Well, she certainly knew her movie history, Sigismund thought. If Lanny were here, he would ask why Sigismund didn't hire a cleaning service. After all, he had plenty of money.
Thanksgiving turned out to be interesting. Willy sent the roast turkey over promptly at noon, at which point Betty took over.
She carried the tray in her lap during the ride to Lanny's house. She made a grand entrance into the dining room, and then flirted with Lanny until his wife put her foot down. Renfrew was off being repaired, but he arranged for a local KFC to send over some cornbread muffins.
Renfrew's new parts arrived the next day. Curlew visited him in the shop at Androids R We to see how he was doing. Renfrew thought he was asking about the Orly murder case. "The murder weapon turned out to be the bathmat that Sigismund's granddaughters used in a puppet video on Marvella's show," Renfrew volunteered.
"What?"
"Well, the bathmat they used had the same pattern as the one Orly slipped on."
Curlew just stood there and stared at Renfrew. What a primitive design he had! Really, it was sad. If Sigismund had any balls, he would be solving this murder himself. Or, failing that, he had enough money to hire a crack pirate investigator. If other androids
were sad cases, then people like Sigismund were even sadder.
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Episode 18
Curlew tried to steer Renfrew in a more productive direction. "You've said that the bathmat used by the granddaughters as a cape had the same pattern as the one that was pulled out from under Orly, causing his death, right?" Renfrew nodded. "In either case, Marvella was the source for the bathmat. So why aren't you quizzing Marvella?"
"Easier said than done!" Renfrew snapped. "Marvella is a large number of androids that all look alike. If one of them did kill Orly, who is to say that she didn't block the memory from the hive mind?"
"If the Marvellas don't share memories, then the original flesh-and-blood Marvella didn't get her money's worth. I hear that she paid 200 million dollars for those androids. A drop in the bucket for her, since she's worth billions."
"You knew all along that she used android copies of herself?" Renfrew couldn't speak for a minute.
"It's not supposed to be common knowledge, Renfrew. Bad for business, that sort of thing. Besides, I paid a finder's fee for the information. You could do searches yourself. Use the Androidnet to get to the search androids."
Renfrew had never heard of search androids. Maybe this was because he had been assembled less than two months ago. Sigismund had spent the beginning of September figuring out where the different parts should go. Maybe he had botched things. Maybe not. If Sigismund had bought a kit for a higher-end android, Renfrew would have felt pain and other emotions, and looked so human that people expected him to be a master of more than carrying trays and planning trips to the market. I'm doing pretty well for a basic two-month android, he thought as the technicians removed parts, added others, and sanded down rough surfaces.
"Yes, but you still need to know a lot more than you do now," said a voice about twenty feet away. The voice seemed to be that of Beatrice Anaconda. Renfrew turned his head to see if she was really there, drawing a scolding from the technicians for moving. But there she was at the next checkout station. "Yes, I'm over here," she said. "We cracked that case I was telling you about, so I'm a temp worker here for the Christmas season." She had added a couple of arms so she could move the merchandise past the scanners and put it in bags. "It's mindless work, but at least I can see how your procedure is going."
"I need to know more, that's true," Renfrew admitted. "The more I learn, the more complicated things seem.
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Episode 19
Renfrew was a bit depressed. The more he learned, the more he realized how much he didn't know. He admitted this to Beatrice, his friend and fellow detective.
"Cosmologists have the same problem," Beatrice commiserated, scanning a Red Delicious Wise Phone for a customer at Register number 42. "But if you are to be a detective, you must get used to it." She switched to Androidnet conversation in the interest of privacy. "You helped me with my last case, though, so I'm going to tell the leading Androidnet searchbots like Loquacious and Coordinius that they should let you use their services. Your only problem will be figuring out how to pay them."
"They need referrals?" Renfrew thought. It was getting easier to have Androidnet conversations. But it was daunting to know he needed to be connected with the movers and the shakers to make any progress.
"I will explain. Coordinius is dry and humorless. If he doesn't know who you are, he will ignore your questions. You have to deal with him, though, because he knows the exact coordinates of anybody you need to send netgrams to. Loquacious is much more friendly. Maybe *too* friendly. He goes off on tangents. He won't listen to what you have to say until he's rattled on for half an hour. I can give you some tips for making him get to the point. One way is to pay for VIP service, though you may have trouble affording it. There's also Internettius, which combines the consciousness of a flesh-and-blood entity with one of the best Internet search engines."
"How is that possible?"
"Five years ago it was. But there's big bucks in pulling it off. You'll need big bucks to engage his services. How often does Sigismund check his credit card balances?"
Renfrew didn't know this. He was hoping to fly under the radar, but maybe this was wishful thinking. "Have you ever used Internettius?"
"I talked Boston Homicide into subscribing. They grumbled, but the case wouldn't have been cracked without it. You'll have to get permission to use Sigismund's credit card, so you're kind of stuck with Loquacious. Give yourself plenty of time. Once he pauses for his next anecdote, rush in with your question."
Orly joined the Androidnet discussion. "Do I hear you saying that I'm not worth extra money? For shame!"
"Orly, how can you be dead?" Betty Boop joined in. "You were never alive to begin with."
"There are too many androids in this conversation!" Beatrice scolded. "Orly, you must be an android. Otherwise you wouldn't even know what we are discussing. Betty, I'll talk to you later. Right now I have my hands full." This was an odd comment coming from a snake, but Beatrice had added a couple of arms to help her with scanning and bagging merchandise. Right now three people were in line at her register, and the one she was helping had enough kits to field an 11-member football team. She disconnected from Renfrew and Orly, but said to Betty, "I bet you know a lot about Marvella that Renfrew could use in his investigation." She dropped her connection to Betty and said to Renfrew, "Your mystery has gotten bigger. If Orly is an android, and the facts lead me to think he is, then he can't be the owner of condo #7. Only a human can own property. You need to find out who the real owner is. Also, who is Marvella, really? She has her fingers in enough pies to fill a bakery."
Suddenly Renfrew had a breakthrough. "If Orly is an android, then Coordinius can help us find out exactly where he is."
"Renfrew, you are a true detective," Beatrice said. "Next customer," she said out loud. Oh Lord, it was Marvella, or one of the Marvellas. She hoped the Marvella hivemind hadn't been listening in on her Androidnet conversations.
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Episode 20
Bright Comet Rosen-Singh lived on a sleepy street in the town of Canhambury, which bordered Wellwood to the Southeast. Her second-floor writing studio had a picturesque view of the branch library directly across from it. Very few people knew that she was a best-selling author. Even fewer knew that Marvella Risingstar was her creation. Of those few, you could rule out Beatrice Anaconda, who had learned the truth many times, but had had the knowledge expunged from her memory banks. When asked to give her occupation, Bright Comet (who gave her name as Becky Rosen) variously gave "exotic dancer" or "charwoman." No one believed her anyway. Her husband, Randall Rosen, managed money for Fandeliguart, a huge mutual fund family that had more assets under management than the gross national products of all the African nations combined. In olden days, having such a successful husband would have been a feather in Bright Comet's cap, allowing her to give huge banquets or balls, and serve on the boards of symphony orchestras or colleges. Canhambury was a hotbed of old money and older ideas about women's place within it.
The grand irony of Bright Comet's situation was that she was worth vastly more than her husband. As she sat in her studio watching snowflakes come down, she found plenty to amuse her. Her studio walls were covered with posters of famous scenes from classic movies. To the right of her computer monitor, the Wicked Witch of the West was watching Dorothy in her crystal ball. Just like me in a way, Bright Comet thought as her own crystal ball -- her computer monitor-- showed Beatrice Anaconda introducing Renfrew to the different Search Androids. They haven't a clue about being watched, she thought. At least Dorothy and Toto knew that evil forces were keeping tabs on them.
The poster on the left showed the opening scene in "The Sound of Music." Young Maria had no clue about the life changes that lay just ahead. Poor Renfrew was just as clueless. He thought he could waltz into Happy Harbor Studios and talk to the real Marvella Risingstar. "Renfrew, darling, there is no 'real' Marvella," Bright Comet purred. "Marvella is my personal property. I also own Beatrice, Orly, Betty Boop, many other androids -- including one or two U.S. Senators -- and even Condo #7, where Orly supposedly lives. Orly is sending out signals from a grave somewhere in Wellwood."
An unpleasant thought crossed Bright Comet's mind. She didn't own Renfrew, so she wouldn't be able to use him in her next Beatrice Anaconda book. Drat! She'd also be careful about what she allowed him to learn, as she wouldn't be able to expunge it from his memory banks, at least not legally. Sigismund was a mystery fan, so he undoubtedly read all her books as they came out. Well, maybe she could use Renfrew but change enough details that he wouldn't notice.
Or, she could sweet-talk him into letting her use Renfrew. She had once waited tables in Sigismund's restaurant. Maybe she could "run into" him and claim to be Bright Comet's research assistant. She'd have to turn on the charm. Now, where did she put that charm?
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Episode 21
Bright Comet sat in her second-floor office across the street from a branch library in Canhambury. Very few people knew that she owned and controlled most of the androids that figured in Renfrew's case -- Orly, Marvella, and Betty Boop in particular. Renfrew was *not* one of her androids, though, so she had had to install a hidden surveillance camera in the condo that he shared with Sigismund. Let's see, what is Renfrew doing now, she thought as she looked at her computer monitor. Oh, he was sitting at Sigismund's computer, and listening to a garrulous Search Android named Loquacious rattle on about the balance of trade deficit, the length of women's skirts, and new cures for Alzheimer's. "Beatrice," he said over the Androidnet, "The word that can make Loquacious shut up isn't working."
"'Tomato' isn't working?" Beatrice exclaimed. She listened to Renfrew pronounce it. "The 'a' should be long, not short. You're pronouncing the word as 'tomahto.'" She hummed a few measures of "Let's call the whole thing off," but apparently Renfrew wasn't into old Astaire/Rogers movies. Oh, well. Anyway, Renfrew pronounced the word properly, and Loquacious promptly shut up.
Bright Comet's reputation for life-like characters and situations was aided by her surveillance of Renfrew and Sigismund and their ilk. She would then change enough details to avert lawsuits. Oops, Renfrew was off-camera now. Time to switch to satellite reconnaissance, which wasn't as detailed, but at least she could tell where her quarry was.
Her left eye strayed from the monitor to the window overlooking the library. Her right eye soon joined it, because there was something familiar about the girl who was coming down the library steps. And that old man holding her hand looked just like...Sigismund. She frowned. Why was Sigismund so far from Wellwood? Well, the distance was only three or four miles, but when did Sigismund ever leave his condo? Answer: about as often as Bright Comet left her office.
Maybe it wouldn't hurt to wander over and see what Ziggy was up to. If she wore her brunette wig, he probably wouldn't recognize her. The girl's name started with a 'T'. Tina or something like that. She won that big talent contest at Marvella's, just before that horrific boy with the baseball bat raised cane. Well, Bright Comet cried all the way to the bank, since this led to sharply higher ratings for the show.
Sigismund didn't mind standing in the falling snow. In fact, he was in no hurry to take Tintinella back to his condo. True, his day had been aggravating. The Wellwood Library didn't have a good selection of videos. He had dragged her to several other libraries before trying Canhambury. The ones he wanted were "Mary Poppins" and the Disney animated "Alice in Wonderland." Both were tucked under Tintinella's arm now. Canhambury was a very affluent town with great public services, but it had been stingy about moving its most popular library to a place with better parking.
Sigismund happened to notice a bit of snow falling from the second floor window of the house across the street. There was a woman working at a computer there. Something nudged Sigismund's ankle. It was a pretty calico cat. When he looked back at the window, the woman was gone.
"I see Melissa has found you," said a pleasant female voice as Sigismund and Tintinella cuddled the cat.
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Episode 22
Sigismund had just come out of the library, when a calico cat rubbed against his leg. "Look, Tintinella," he said to his granddaughter, "this is a friendly cat!"
"Her name is Melissa," said a voice several feet away. Looking up, he saw a fortyish brunette crossing the street. She wore a light green hat and trenchcoat.
"I take it she's yours," Sigismund said, doing his best to seem pleasant. Not many attractive women paid him much attention.
"Yes. I live in that house." She pointed to the house he had just been looking at. "Melissa is a good cat, but she won't stay home. She goes anywhere she wants -- the post office, the choir loft at the Congregational Church, even the judges' chambers." The dome of a county courthouse was visible behind the library. "You'll see her in that library a lot of the time too. Her sister Lucrezia is just the opposite. She never lets me out of her sight." Sure enough, another calico cat could be seen at the window looking distressed.
"Do you have kids?"
"Not yet, but we're hoping." Now, why on earth had she said that? Sigismund could surely see through a line like that. "Actually, we do have one, but he's no longer a kid. He has a family of his own, somewhere in Australia. We might as well be childless. I gather this is your granddaughter Tina?"
"Yes, Ma'am," Tintinella said, curtseying the way her charm school had taught her to do. She had no problem answering to "Tina" or even "Ella." It was the adults who hangups about proper and formal names. "We're here for videos! Mom and Dad are in Denver on business, so Granddad is letting me watch all the shows I want to see!"
"You have good taste," Bright Comet said. "Maybe I'll look for some too." She headed for the library's entrance.
"Sorry, I didn't catch the name," Sigismund said, realizing that he had seen this woman before. Something was nagging at the back of his mind. How did she know his granddaughter's name?
"Becky. Becky Rosen. I'm a writer. For what it's worth, I used to wait tables in the Teutonic Gourmet restaurant."
"That's been closed for some years," Sigismund said. "My parents did all the cooking there. Wiener Schnitzel, Choucroute, bratwurst and sauerkraut, cream-filled pastries. When they died, there was just my sister and me. We sold the business to a Chinese couple. They must've retired or died, too, because it's a Thai place now."
"It's near Happy Harbor. it's called 'Tiger's Lady.'"
"That's right. Lanny -- that's my son -- and I go there every New Year's Eve for old time's sake. The food is kind of blah, and I always get blue because I'm remembering how things used to be."
Tintinella was getting cold and fidgety, so Sigimund walked her to the car and helped her get in.
He doesn't seem to have really recognized me, bright Comet thought as she paused in the library doorway. The next time I "accidentally" run into him, maybe I can get him to discuss Renfrew's investigation. If all else fails, I can go to Tiger's Lady on New Year's Eve. Melissa ignored her until she was in the building, then dashed through the door just before it closed.
Beatrice was not amused when Renfrew suggested digging Orly up. "What would that accomplish?" she exclaimed. Her temper was a bit short, as she was in the middle of totalling an order of 60 androids for one of the royal families of Europe.
"We would accomplish several things," Renfrew said blithely. "First,we would know whether he fell forward or backward when the bathmat was pulled out from under him. Second, we would establish whether he was flesh and blood or an android, whereas now we are just guessing."
"But some of this is personal too, right?" added Curlew, who had been following the conversation.
"Well, yes, Renfrew admitted. "I feel like a fool for assuming I could comunicate with the great beyond, when the most likely explanation is that Orly was flooding my androidnet receptors. Plus, there he is in a grave somewhere, completely in the dark, and taken seriously only by Sigismund and me. I feel sorry for him, okay? If that's personal, so be it."
"All of that is probably true, but why mess with a successful arrangement?" Beatrice reasoned. She had gotten to the end of her order, so her disposition had become a bit more relaxed. "You can still get some useful clues from him. But messing with his gravesite is sure to attract the attention of the press, and then whoever murdered him will be onto you. But I agree that it would make sense to know whether he really is an android. Since no one suspected foul play, and since his age and health argued for natural causes, there wouldn't have been an autopsy. Still, wouldn't a regular doctor have figured out that he wasn't human?"
Beatrice might as well have saved her breath. Renfrew's repairs were now complete, so he ran home to get a shovel. Beatrice's shift was over, so she followed him fifteen minutes later. She found him ransacking Sigismund's condo in a futile quest. If Sigismund's place had still been messy, Sigismund would have been none the wiser, but now he would know something was up when he returned. Without a word, Renfrew traipsed halfway around the building to the maintenance shed. Beatrice reluctantly gave him a boost over the fence, and he soon emerged with a couple of small spades.
"Coordinius told me what Orly's coordinates are," Renfrew said as he and Beatrice trudged along the country lane that led to Orly's graveyard. The leaves that blanketed the roadside cushioned Renfrew's awkward steps as he walked (he was getting used to the new parts in his legs). Beatrice made a rustling sound as she slithered.
"Yes, and as I keep telling you, as soon as your shovel hits Orly, it may well knock him out of commission, and he will then be useless to you. The only upside is that he is technically dead anyway, so you won't go to prison for killing him. It's beginning to snow. Shouldn't you put on your hooded poncho. I'd hate to see you rust so soon after getting repaired."
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Episode 23
It was snowing as Renfrew and Beatrice headed toward the graveyard where Orly was buried. Renfrew hadn't thought about the danger of rusting until Beatrice mentioned it. Renfrew had a knapsack full of essentials, and soon he was covered in a day-glo orange poncho. Marvella would have thought it was tacky, but it kept the rain and snow away. Beatrice was already wearing her khaki trenchcoat. Tiny leaf fragments coated it, but these could be easily brushed off once she got inside.
The distance was not great -- Sigismund's condo was less than two miles from the graveyard -- but Renfrew managed to make it seem longer by taking some wrong turns. He got them lost in an apple orchard, and then took them to the edge of a vast swamp. It was Beatrice who saved the day by summoning her built-in GPS system. By the time they reached the graveyard, Renfrew's power cells were well past their prime. Why had Sigismund installed such low-capacity batteries in him? "Let me just sit down and rest for a minute," Renfrew said, plopping his metal butt on a mossy gravestone near the front entrance.
"Fine. We've dragged two shovels, not to mention ourselves all the way out here, and now you aren't going to have the strength to do any digging?" Beatrice chided. "Great planning, Renfrew!"
"I have two supplemental batteries." Renfrew began digigng through his knapsack. I'll insert them and get to work."
It wasn't a large graveyard, but there were a lot of smallish stones. Had people been smaller in the olden days? Refrew fed Beatrice the coordinates that Coordinius had given him, and soon they found the stone they wanted. "Orly II," said the inscription. "Android aide for Orly I, who rests in peace in Pelmherst."
"Pelmherst!" Beatrice exclaimed. "Why weren't they buried together?"
"Sigismund handled the burial, and he didn't know Orly II was an android, nor did he know about Orly I. It must have been simpler to just bury him close to home. Or, Orly I passed away quite a while ago, so no one at Lake Serene knew him." Renfrew sent Orly an Androidgram and got a strong response right away.
"You're here? Oh, Renfrew, good boy!" Orly sounded much happier than he had earlier.
"Orly, dear, there's something I'm missing in all of this," Beatrice said. "If you're functioning well enough to send and recieve A-grams, why did they bury you rather than send you to Androids R We for a tune-up."
"I broke a few parts when I tripped on that bathmat. My speech mechanisms were and are totally kaput. I couldn't tell anyone how I felt. Sigismund thought I was human, and he didn't feel a pulse. You and Beatrice know I can fixed, but Sigismund doesn't. Life is unfair."
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Episode 24
Yes, life was unfair. Orly had been assumed "dead" because no one knew he was an android, and androids didn't have heartbeats. His speech mechanisms had broken when he fell on the bathroom floor, so he couldn't explain himself.
But he had friends who wanted to help. "Beatrice and I will exhume you and straighten everything out," said Renfrew. There was a "clunk" as his shovel hit Orly's casket. Soon the casket was lying on the grass, cushioned by a thick layer of Autumn leaves. Now it was time to get him back to civilization. "Would Internettius be able to tell us when and where Orly I was buried?" He asked Beatrice, prying open the lid.
"Probably. You'll need to find some way of paying him. He charges a lot. I assume that you aren't going to ask me to help knock over a gas station." Beatrice had a sly sense of humor sometimes.
"Wouldn't all the gas escape?"
Beatrice rolled her eyes. "What's your Plan B, then?" she asked.
"Sigismund's credit card. he said I could use it in an emergency. Orly was his best friend, so this counts."
Internettius only charged $8.00 for telling Renfrew that Orly I was buried in Pelmherst Cemetery on October 25, 2010.
The trouble was, Renfrew already knew which cemetery to look in. But which gravesite was he buried in? It cost $100.00 more to get that information. "Orly I was buried one month before Sigismund moved into condo #9, so he never met the flesh-and-blood orly," Renfrew exclaimed. "On the other hand, the people who carved the headstone for Orly II knew there was an Orly I."
Beatrice decided to intervene. She coaxed Internettius into revealing who owned Orly's condo for the low price of $15.00. The answer was: Risingstar Beneficial Trust.
"Beatrice, Renfrew, what are you doing here?" said a familiar voice.
"I might ask the same about you, Betty," Beatrice said in a cool voice. "I won't ask how you traced us here, just why. Do you have that much of a crush on Renfrew?"
"I asked first," Betty said, setting her lacy butt on a mossy stone.
"We're giving Orly II a second chance at life," Renfrew explained. Look in the coffin. There he is."
Betty wasn't sure Orly was worth resurrecting, but she helped the others pull him out and carry him back to Androids R We for evaluation. Curlew estimated that it would cost $75.00 to repair Orly. "Who is going to pick up the tab?"
"Sigmund, though he doesn't know it yet," Renfrew said, handing the credit card to Curlew.
"Ziggy will be surprised," Curlew observed, "but not unhappy to have Orly back."
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Episode 25
A few days later, Sigismund returned the videos he had borrowed. As he left the library, he heard a familiar voice. "We meet again, Becky Rosen said, crossing the street. "You seem to be interested in the wreath on my front door. Don't they have wreaths where you come from?"
"They do, but most are dark green. A few are red or gold. But yours is the first light green one I've seen."
"It blends in with the rest of my house. I don't like things that stick out like sore thumbs."
"Yes, it does blend in. Was the house light green when you moved in, or did you repaint it?"
"My husband and I agree that light green is the best color. If you ever see the interior, you'll see more light green. By the way, isn't it a little early for you to be dressed like Santa?" She playfully
grabbed the tassle of the Santa hat he was wearing.
"Oh, that. Today is December 6, the feast day of Saint Nicholas. It's also my birthday. Can I help it if feel a certain kinship with him?"
"If I'd known that, I'd have baked you a cake."
"Lanny is treating me to dinner at Tiger's lady tonight -- assuming that they don't botch the reservation. Last year, they had us down as twelve reindeer."
"Forgive me for breaking your bubble, but isn't Dec. 6 the day Saint Nicholas died?"
"I'll take any association I can get. They say he was a thoroughly kind and generous man. I wish I were a reborn version of him, but I'm afraid I fall short of the mark."
"Nonsense. I say a celebration is in order. Come over to my house right now. I always leave cookies for Santa, but now I can watch him eat them. Just remember that there is a *lot* of light green inside."
There was a dusting of snow on the road, but it took only three or four steps to get past it. Then Becky opened the door and ushered him in.
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Episode 26
Sigismund expected the interior of Becky's house to be light green, but the scale of light greenness took his breath away. Light green plates were on a light green kitchen counter, next to a light green platter shaped like a chicken. There was light green linoleum on the floor. The sofas and easy chairs were light green. The TV was light green. Even the waste baskets were light green. Becky saw him staring at them and said, "I divorced my husband because he dared to use orange waste baskets at a party.
Of course, there are a few things that are not light green," she confessed, picking up a salt shaker in the shape of a chickadee.
"Those are Winterwood accessories," Sigismund said. "But the plates in the pattern are light green."
"I see I'll have to get up pretty early to put one over on you," Becky said.
The phone rang. It looked like a green bunny. "Okay, I'll be right over, "Becky said into the mouthpiece. "That was the library," she told Sigismund. "They have a book I ordered. I'm going over to get it. I'll be back in five." She poured a cup of --what else? -- green tea into a Winterwood cup and handed it to Sigismund along with a plate of pistachio cookies. "Enjoy, Ziggy. I'll be back before you know it. " She threw on her green trenchcoat and breezed out of the door.
Melissa came in as she was leaving. Sigismund bent over to pet her, but she moved to the foot of the stairs and looked back as if to beckon him.
"Melissa, by any chance are you saying I should follow you upstairs?" he said. The cat ran up the stairs and pushed a door open.
Sigismund could hear Renfrew's voice. "What in heaven's name is going on up there?" he exclaimed as he took the stairs far faster than his joints were used to. He found himself in the room where he had seen Becky that day he took Tintinella to the library. On the computer's monitor was a live video of Sigismund's condo. Renfrew and Curlew were hanging decorations. A big banner was taped to the wall. "Happy birthday, Sigismund," it read. Off to the side, Beatrice was mixing cake batter in the kitchen. Betty Boop and Orly were mixing something white and gooey in a big bowl. Wait a minute, wasn't Orly dead? And why have a birthday party now? His birthday was three days ago.
"Oh, Becky!" Sigismund said with a sigh as he descended the stairs. "I never dreamed that you would be spying on me. He was eating one of the cookies when Becky came back inside with a book about the history of Betty Boop.
"Did you like the cookies?" Becky asked.
"Yes, very nice. I just remembered I was going to get another video at the library."
"May ask what tickles your fancy today?"
"I thought I would look for 'Rear window.'"
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Episode 27
"Oh, dear, Sigismund is coming back already," said Orly, who was standing sentry in the lobby of Lake Serene Retirement Village.
"The cake is just barely out of the oven," Betty Boop fretted. "It should really cool for fifteen minutes before the icing goes on."
"If we both work on it we can get it done in time," Beatrice said. "We can serve the caviar on crackers with champagne first. That'll give us plenty of time. And we won't need to put 65 candles on the cake. Five would be enough."
"Two small problems with that," Renfrew said. "The gourmet shop was out of caviar and champagne. They had some nice sharp cheddar cheese and triscuits. And there's always peanut butter."
Sigismund opened the front door. "Surprise! Happy birthday!" Renfrew and Curlew said together. Sigismund acted surprised. He sat in his favorite easy chair while four of the five androids swarmed around him with funny party hats, cups of hot coffee, and a platter of triscuits topped with chunks of Vermont cheddar cheese.
"We have a cake for you, and it will be ready after you've opened your presents," Betty Boop said. The first present was a book by Marvella about decluttering. Sigismund rolled his eyes. Then came a cardigan sweater with a pattern that looked a lot like something he had seen in Marvella's catalog. Were all the presents going to be from Marvella's catalog? The next one was a can of mixed nuts, and the one after that was a Gigantazon gift certificate. The fifth was an apron with a huge winking image of Betty Boop on it. Three guesses who that was from!
Sigismund paused for a second after unwrapping the gifts, at which point Curlew took him aside for a private chat in the coat room. "I know no one had a chance to tell you this, but three of the androids went to the Wellwood graveyard to dig up Orly. They brought him to my shop for repairs, which were completed this morning. I hope the suprise of seeing him wasn't too much of a shock."
"I'm afraid I already knew," Sigismund said. "The lady who lives across from the library in Canhambury asked me into her kitchen for cookies this afternoon. She stepped out for a few minutes, and her cat led me up to her computer room, where this condo is being monitored. I saw you getting ready for this party. I'm touched by your kindness. By the way, I wonder how all of you were able to pay for all this."
"We charged it to your credit card. They will reimburse you, of course. Renfrew is addressing Christmas cards for Madeleine Monet, the blind lady in Condo 42."
"Bless his heart!
"She's paying him ten dollars an hour. The rest of us are looking for ways to earn money. If you go to Mallwart's some day and see a Santa Claus who looks a lot like me, don't be surprised."
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Episode 28
Sigismund didn't mind having his credit card used for purposes like that. The doorbell rang. It was Marvella Risingstar.
"I have a business proposition for you, Sigismund," she said. "I want to rent Renfrew for two weeks. I need him for my show, and I know you'd never part with him without compensation. Name your price, and I'll write a check."
Curlew's eyebrows went very high when he heard this. He pulled Sigismund into the kitchen and whispered that Marvella could not legally write checks because she was an android.
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't all the Marvellas androids?" Sigismund asked her.
"The others are, but I'm the original. I'm human. Put your ear to my chest to hear my heartbeat. How about $1,000 dollars a week?"
Sigismund glanced at Curlew, who mouthed the words "Stall for time" and then headed for the phone in the back hall. After ten minutes of haggling, Sigismund got the price up to $1,500. Marvella finished writing the check just as the police arrived and demanded to know whether Marvella was a human or an android.
"This is outrageous!" Marvella screamed. "I'm a living breathing human being, and I can write a check for any amount I please."
"Well, since you are not an android, then you won't mind my touching you right here," Curlew said, placing a finger on each side of her neck in back. She became motionless. Curlew then pressed a spot just below her right ribcage, causing a drawer to slide out. Inside, among other things, there was a slip of paper listing her owner and a contact number. The owner was Bright Comet Rosen-Singh. The others were stunned when they heard this.
Meanwhile, the police were upstairs in Bright Comet's house watching the whole thing on her monitor. At first she denied having anything to do with Marvella's operations, but then Melissa led the police to a file cabinet which held all the documents tying her to them.
She softened a bit under questioning at the police station. "I was tracking Beatrice because I write books about her, and I like to see how she interacts with the real world. Then she spent some tme with Renfrew, and I needed to see how the two of them got along in Sigismund's condo. As for Marvella writing a check, I wanted to keep Renfrew from figuring out that I was an android; I didn't want him to blow my cover. I thought Sigismund would believe that there was one human Marvella; I never realized that Curlew would be around to blow the whistle." Melissa wangled her way into the police station, looking very smug.
The whole affair was leaked to the press, and was on all the news stations that night. Augustin, the son of Madeleine Monet who lived down the hall from Sigismund, happened to be watching, and he thought Bright Comet looked familiar. Then he realized why.
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Episode 29
It had been an eventful day. Marvella had visited Sigismund and written a check to cover renting Renfrew for a couple of weeks. Just as she was giving it to him, the police burst into Sigismund's condo to declare the check nul and void because Marvella was
an android who belonged to Bright Comet Rosen-Singh. Meanwhile, at Bright Comet's house the police were arresting her for keeping Sigismund under surveillance without his knowledge or consent. Worse, Bright Comet's cat Melissa led the police to the file cabinet where she keep documents proving that she owned most of the androids who had been helping Renfrew solve Orly's murder. Orly, in fact, was one of those androids.
There was worse to come the following morning. Orly I, the human who had lived in the condo next to Sigismund, had a sister who lived down the hall. Her name? Madeleine Monet. Madeleine's son Augustin happened to see media coverage of the arrest, and he realized that he had seen Bright Comet somewhere. Aha, that was it! Augustin had just left Madeleine's condo on the night of Orly I's death. Bright Comet, everyone learned later, was carrying one of Marvella's new bathmats [in a box] as a gift for Orly. He had to try it out, and as he stepped out of the bathtub, Bright Comet pulled the mat so hard that Orly slipped, hit his head, and died. Bright Comet exited through a rear door.
So, when Augustin saw Bright Comet on the news, he called the Wellwood police, who called Bright Comet in the next morning for questioning. Meanwhile, Curlew had hacked his way into Bright Comet's computer, and had found much of this information. He also went to the police.
It turned out that Orly II had witnessed Orly I's death, but Bright Comet had abducted him and frozen his memory of the event. The only part of the memory he retained was th bit about slipping on a bathmat, and he imagined that it ha dhappened to him, not to orly I. Marvella then installed him in the condo. He sounded like Orly I, and Madeleine assumed Orly I was alive, because she couldn't see him. Bright Comet made sure that Orly I was buried at the other end of the state. Sigismund did not yet live next door. Anyway, Curlew found Orly II's memory of the murder in Bright Comet's computer, and shared it with the police. Augustin's eyewitness account confirmed that Bright Comet was on the premises within a reasonable time frame of Orly I's death.
The only thing that remained to be determined was Bright Comet's motive. That too was in the documents in her file cabinet. She coveted Orly I's condo because the view from his window was perfect for tracking shots of Marvella's studio across the lake.
Bright Comet's ownership of her numerous androids was temporarily placed under the jurisdiction of a blind trust administered
by Orly's heirs. Marvella was allowed to continue her TV show and other business activities. Tintinella and Tamboria, who had been featured on a recent show, became daily cohosts.
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Episode 30
New Year's Eve found Sigismund and Lanny's family at the Tiger's Lady Restaurant, where the reservation was garbled once again. "This time we are a mystery writers' conventiion," he told Lanny at the door.
"Well, Dad, maybe that's your cue," Lanny said in a sunny tone. "I haven't been patient with you regarding your theories about Dorothy and Bambi and so forth. You really nailed that Orly case. Maybe you're a natural-born storyteller who should write down your ideas for other people to enjoy."
"It's funny you should say that," Sigismund said as Lavinia and the girls joined Lanny in the foyer, stomping their boots to get the snow off. "I'm writing a true-crime story about Orly. I will call it 'Renfrew's big case.'"
"Good ol' Renfrew," said Tintinella. "We'll find him a princess to marry. He was once a prince until a wicked witch turned him into an android. Only the kiss of a princess can break the spell."
"I think the Blue Fairy needs to touch him with her wand, and make him a real boy," Tamboria added.
"I think a princess named Tintinella Tamboria will be available someday," Sigismund teased.
"I see a princess coming our way," said Tintinella, pointing to a waitress carrying a tray of crab rangoon.
"Those are the best kind," said Lanny, licking his lips.
"What are the worst kind?" asked Sigismund as the hostess led them to their table and they made their selections from the menu.
"Green witches from the West, until some cyclone drops a house on them," Tamboria joked.
"If you need help with your writing, maybe Tintinella would like to collaborate," Lanny said.
"I may need her help," Sigismund admitted. "Renfrew still doesn't think he's a real detective. It was Melissa who led me to Bright Comet's office, and Curlew who thought to call the police on Marvella."
"Granddad, remember the night when you had all of us over for dinner?" Tamboria said. "I showed you my puppets and said they needed a cape for Princess Zassapoonia. Orly was at the door to show off the new bathmat that Marvella had just given him. It was just what we needed. He said we could have it after he had it washed. The next day he was dead."
"Say, I wonder why Orly would need to take any baths," Lanny said. "Androids may get rubbed down, but if they get too wet they rust."
"Yikes! I hadn't thought of that," Sigismund said.
"Maybe you could fudge things and have Renfrew realize it as soon as he finds out Orly is an android," said Lavinia. "Anyway, if you use Beatrice and Marvella, you might need to run things past Bright-Comet. She has a copyright on those characters."
The waitress had just arrived with their food. The reservations might have been garbled, but the food was quite good that night, and thoughts of mystery stories were put aside for the moment. Writers have to eat like anyone else. Sigismund ordered some foods that were said to enhance creativity -- green tea, salmon, egg drop soup. He didn't say as much to Lanny, who thought he was already too creative....
THE END
