Heart Vs. Humbug

Heart vs. Humbug
M.J. Rodgers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Special Acknowledgment

My thanks to a very special friend, T. Lorraine Vassalo, of Ottawa, Ontario, for her wonderful recipes for Loin of Veal and Grand Marnier French Toast, both of which appear briefly in this story and everlastingly on my hips.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Octavia Osborne—A top-notch lawyer who is not afraid to let her heart lead the way to justice.

Brett Merlin—An infamous lawyer known as “the Magician,” a man who believes the law cannot afford to have a heart.

Mab Osborne—Octavia’s grandmother; a lady who breaks all the stereotypes.

Dole Scroogen—His nickname is “the Scrooge.” He lives up to it—and then some.

Nancy Scroogen—Scroogen’s wife; a lady who suffers in silence.

John Winslow—He has a key to the crucial locked door and maybe a key to grandmother’s heart.

Douglas Twitch—He is a genius at engineering, and maybe at murder, too.

Constance Kope—She has a knack for design and maybe a need for revenge.

Ronald Scroogen—His relationship with his father is full of conflict and confusion.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Prologue

The intruder crept silently beneath the shadowy wings of the December overcast that blacked out the moon like a swooping bird of prey.

Not much farther now. Just a few more steps.

A few more careful steps.

Perceptions in daylight took so many subtle visual cues for granted. Beneath the absolute black of this inky night, without even a horizontal reference, a sense of balance could falter and a sense of direction could quickly become disoriented.

Still, the intruder welcomed the absence of the light. The weak might gather around their paltry incandescents and fluorescents trying to push the darkness aside, but the strong sought the night’s cloak to open new doors to opportunity.

One such door lay just ahead. The intruder grasped its knob and slipped quietly inside the greenhouse.

The relative spacing of the rows of plants to either side of the center path had been memorized, even the exact number of steps to the storeroom at its back paced out. Nothing had been left to chance. Nothing.

The intruder started boldly forward...only to instantly trip and fall heavily to the ground, letting out a startled oath.

Luckily, the earthen path was cushioned with moss, and the intruder’s thick clothing and gloves prevented abraded skin.

But the intruder didn’t feel lucky. The intruder felt angry. How could this happen after all this planning!

Muffled curses spat through the intruder’s teeth, all the more angry because they had to be muffled. Nothing was worse than having to keep silent while the rage seethed inside.

The intruder sat back on the heels of black running shoes and dug into the deep pockets of black sweatpants to draw out a small penlight. The flashlight beam bobbed along the mossy path as the intruder searched for the obstruction.

There it was. An electric cord strung loosely across the path, connecting a string of Christmas tree lights draped over the miniature fir trees on either side. Some fool had stopped in the middle of decorating the trees, leaving the cord swinging ankle-high over the path, marked with strings of gold tinsel and a large orange plastic caution cone.

Lot of help those markers were in the dark. Better make sure there weren’t any more such surprises.

The intruder pointed the thin stream of the flashlight ahead. No more gold tinsel and orange caution cones stood in the way.

The intruder rose and began to resume the interrupted journey forward when suddenly the sounds of heavy boots crunched on the frozen gravel outside of the greenhouse.

The watchman!

The intruder quickly switched off the penlight, pulled up the hood of the black sweatshirt, dropped to the rich earth beside the path, jackknifed between the trunks of miniature fir trees, and lay concealed beneath the cover of their thick green branches.

The pungent odor of the dark, rich compost burned the intruder’s nose. But that discomfort was of far less concern than the question now burning in the intruder’s mind. Would the carefully selected dark clothing blend into the black earth?

The telltale sounds of the watchman’s boots stopped at the edge of the window-lined structure. The intruder remained stock-still as a strong beam of light flashed into the greenhouse.

“Somebody in there?” the watchman called, his voice thick and raspy with age.

The intruder knew about this watchman. His name was Hank. Hank had been given this job to keep him going after his wife died. Both Hank’s eyesight and hearing had seen better days. These were all things the intruder had considered before selecting this night to enter the greenhouse.

The intruder lay facedown, absolutely still, as Hank’s flashlight swept over the plants and then the path. Once. Twice. A third time. The intruder’s hands began to sweat within the heavy gloves.

Hank switched off his flashlight. He muttered beneath his breath as he shuffled back to the warm shed at the rear of the community center. The intruder knew Hank would now return to watching the old movies on his small TV set and carrying on conversations with his dead wife.

The intruder exhaled in relief. Whatever Hank might have seen or heard, he had satisfied himself nothing had gotten into the greenhouse. He would not be back.

As soon as the watchman’s footsteps faded into a soft, spongy echo, the intruder rose to hands and knees and crawled carefully forward.

No more obstructions blocked the path. All would now go according to plan.

And it was a brilliant plan. Getting into the locked storeroom at the back of this greenhouse had been the only risky part. As soon as it was accomplished, everything else should be easy.

But success hinged on no one knowing the intruder had been here this night. No one.

No one would. And when it all started to hit the fan, no one would ever suspect who was really behind it. The intruder smiled.

Yes, a truly brilliant plan.

Chapter One

“Romantic men don’t have penises,” seventy-six-year-old Mab Osborne announced distinctly over the FM radio waves to her devoted listeners of KRIS’s “Senior-Sex-Talk” program.

From her spectator position in the corner of the control room, Octavia Osborne nearly choked trying to subdue the resultant chuckle that rumbled in her throat as she listened to her grandmother’s outrageous pronouncement.

Seventy-two-year-old Constance Kope did not try to stifle her response. “Mab Osborne, we cannot discuss this...topic, and it is totally unnecessary for you to use that...that...word,” Constance said, her fusty Pekingese-like face spread open in prescient horror as she barked her loud protest. She shoved her glasses farther back on her button nose and leaned forward to poke the radio program hostess in the arm with a reprimanding index finger.

Mab took the interruption and poking with inherent good humor. “Precisely, Constance. A penis is totally unnecessary. Would you like to explain why to the radio audience?”

Mab’s direct challenge to her would-be critic worked like a dropped stitch in the knitting of Constance Kope’s thoughts. The tiny woman’s faded brown eyes began to water behind her glasses.

“Heavens, no! I don’t wish to discuss—”

“Yes, you’re quite right, Constance,” Mab interrupted. “This is a topic that I can best do justice to, I believe.”

Constance’s breath got caught in her throat and came out in a muffled sneeze through her tiny nostrils. She looked like she still wanted to bark but wasn’t sure at what.

Octavia stifled another chuckle. There was no telling what the feisty, frank and fun Mab Osborne might say next. Octavia’s grandmother was a sturdy five-eight with silver-streaked red hair, bright blue eyes, an even brighter pantsuit and a sense for the dramatic that never failed to delight Octavia and daunt the myriad guests who had appeared with Mab during her forty-year radio career.

Seventy-three-year-old John Winslow, another one of those guests who was currently sitting right next to Octavia in the tiny control room, leaned slightly forward. “Mab, I admit we agreed there were no holds barred in this discussion of ‘What Makes Good Sex in One’s Seventies,’ but don’t you think that eliminating a man’s penis is a trifle severe?”

Mab’s resultant laugh lifted the volume needle to the middle decibels on her radio station’s control board.

Octavia swung her attention to John Winslow’s neat presence and prescient smile. From his perfect diction to the white silk ascot tucked into his open-throat blue dress shirt, John reminded Octavia of one of those fast-disappearing, refined elderly gentlemen who actually knew what courtly dress and manners really meant.

“John, I’m not suggesting that a man’s penis needs to be surgically removed,” Mab said. “What I’m saying is that each one of us—whether we’re twenty-five or ninety-five—must first embrace the right word images in order to receive full enjoyment from any act.”

Seventy-five-year-old Douglas Twitch, Mab’s third and final guest on her “Senior-Sex-Talk” panel, leaned forward to grab the microphone.

“Word images? What in the hell are you talking about?”

Octavia watched Mab gaze calmly at the bushy-headed, rawboned man in the worn, faded jeans and gray-and-white checkered shirt. While Mab’s confident smile and bearing conjured up images of a thoroughbred charging confidently over a racetrack, Douglas Twitch’s beleaguered scowl bore far more resemblance to a plow horse chaffing under the weight of the harness.

“I’m referring to the full spectrum of human sexuality, Douglas,” Mab replied. “All of the important books on the subject never describe men as having penises. And quite correctly, I might add.”

Octavia watched as Constance Kope’s punched-in, Pekingese face colored to match the red Christmas bow that adorned the desk beneath the control panel. John Winslow’s hand covered the smirk spreading over his mouth as he bent his full white head of impeccably groomed hair. Douglas Twitch crossed his arms over his barrel chest as his long, horsey brow dug a deep trough.

Mab’s eyes were resting on Douglas’s long face as the breath shot out of his flared nostrils in short, snorting whinnies.

“Something you wanted to say, Douglas?” she asked.

He grabbed the microphone once again.

“You bet there is. I admit I’m not much of a reader and I never actually got through all the words in my high school biology text, but the pictures were clear enough and nothing on the male human’s torso was left out, woman.” He sent a meaningful glance around the room. “I repeat, nothing.”

He dropped the microphone back onto the control board table as his exclamation point and gave a final satisfied snort of vented spleen.

Mab shrugged her straight shoulders. “But then that was only a biology book, wasn’t it, Douglas?”

Constance’s brow puckered in confusion. “Only a biology book, Mab? What books are you talking about?”

Mab caught Octavia’s eye and winked. That was when Octavia knew that Constance had asked her grandmother the right question.

“Why, romance books, of course, Constance,” Mab replied. “They are the only books that really explore the profound and rich universe of human emotions.”

John leaned forward slightly. “Mab, do I understand you right? Are you saying that in romance books, romantic men don’t engage in intercourse?”

“On the contrary, John. In romance novels, romantic men engage in intercourse quite frequently. And enjoy it tremendously, too, I might add.”

Octavia felt certain Douglas Twitch’s resultant sharp snort registered on some Richter scale as he did his best to scoot his chair away from Mab in the tiny control room. Constance’s sigh dissembled into a reprobation.

John’s smile spread big enough to hurt. “Okay, Mab. I admit I’m stumped. If these romantic men engage in intercourse frequently and enjoy it tremendously and they don’t have penises, what do they use?”

“Why, their pulsing manhoods or hardened desire or—”

“Oh, you’re saying that it’s the word penis that isn’t used in connection with these romantic men?”

Mab’s mischievous eyes twinkled. “Exactly, John. I’m so glad you finally understand.”

John let out an amused chortle at being so intellectually reprimanded. “Well, I do and I don’t, Mab. Aren’t we just dealing with semantics here?”

“Yeah,” Douglas said. “You tell her, John. They’re the same thing.”

Mab shook her head. “No, they are not. Every act in life can be made ordinary or special, depending on how we approach it. The essential part of our approach involves the words we use. Words create the important messages that define our thoughts and feelings for everything.”

John arched a sliver of silver eyebrow. “Care to provide an example of what you mean, Mab?”

“Certainly, John. If I tell you I’m hungry and I’m going to grab something to eat, what image comes to mind?”

“You’re looking for something quick, whatever is handy.”

“Yes, quick and handy. Not very exciting words, are they? But, if, on the other hand, I asked you to dine with me this evening, what images would then come to your mind?”

“Well, I suppose a white tablecloth, candlelight, something special to eat, probably carefully selected.”

“Precisely, John—a beautifully set table offering something carefully selected. Words have lifted the ordinary act of eating into the stimulation of feelings that go beyond the mere satiation of hunger. In place of quick we now have special. In place of handy we now have carefully selected. The act of eating has been transcended into an act of caring and sharing appealing to all the senses. That’s why romantic men never have sex. They make love.”

Douglas squirmed in his chair, his big bony knee slamming into the edge of the control desk in the tiny room. “What in the hell does eating have to do with sex?”

Mab let out a little puff of impatience. “Words, Douglas, images of emotion—where true sensuality and romance come from. Sex is quick and handy. Insignificant. Making love is special and carefully selected. Important. The words we use so clearly create the emotion we anticipate and receive from the act.”

Constance nodded. “Oh, I see. You’re saying that the right words stimulate feelings that go beyond a mere sexual gratification?”

“Exactly, Constance. It’s the stimulation of those other feelings that makes us romantic, transforms an act of physical need into one of emotional fulfillment, and brings out the truly human part of ourselves. The feelings that lead up to and result from doing it are what make the sexual act, or any act, worthwhile.”

Douglas rubbed his stiff, grayish beard in apparent irritation. “Yeah, well I still don’t see what that has to do with using hardened desire in place of penis.”

Mab let out the frustrated sigh of a teacher trying to get through to her backward pupil.

“Douglas, when you describe a man using his penis in sexual intercourse, you’re talking biology, and clinical images come to mind. But when a man joins a woman to him with his hardened desire within the pages of a romance novel, he’s mated with her on an emotional plane, as well. It’s that emotional joining that causes the act to transcend the mere elimination of hunger and makes it become a feast at life’s most tasty and tantalizing banquet.”

Octavia smiled, thoroughly delighted with Mab’s triumphant crossing of her finish line. Her grandmother pointed meaningfully to the two incoming lines lit up on her console and announced that it was time for the panel to take calls from their listeners.

As the seniors chatted with the first caller, Octavia leaned back and let her mind wander. It had been years since she’d last been here. Yet in a way, it felt just like yesterday.

Some of her fondest memories with her grandmother were garnered in this tiny control room. Every day after school, she’d stop by. Hour after hour, she’d sit and watch and listen as Mab’s fingers reached out to connect with the switches on the control board and her voice reached out to connect with her listeners—sometimes offering them an interesting new thought about the world, sometimes just an irreverent spate of her own special brand of humor, but always with an honest compassion that came from her heart.

Octavia smiled as she looked up to see the colorful tinsel and the many, many Christmas cards from Mab’s devoted listeners taped across the top of the room’s walls.

Christmas time had always been the best time to sit in on Mab’s broadcasts. It was during the holiday season that Octavia and Mab had laughed the most in this room. And probably cried the most, too. Octavia knew she was who she was today because of what she had learned about life from her grandmother, right here.

And, after witnessing this morning’s program, Octavia was delighted to find Mab still as fun and fresh and feisty as ever.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I see our time is up,” Mab was saying. “I’d like to thank my guests from the executive committee of the Silver Power League for being with us this morning. Constance Kope, Douglas Twitch and Dr. John Winslow.

“Coming up now is some beautiful Christmas music to keep you company. I’ll return at two with our community’s news. Until then, this is Mab Osborne and KRIS, Bremerton’s senior citizens’ radio, reminding you to keep calling and writing the chamber of commerce and the Department of Community Development. Your action is needed to save our community center. Bye for now.”

Mab flipped the switch on the main control board to cut in the prerecorded Christmas music.

Octavia sat forward in concern at Mab’s final message to her listeners. This was the first she had heard that the community center was in jeopardy. Was that the reason for Mab’s call and urgent request for Octavia to come by this morning?

Mab seemed to read the concern in Octavia’s eyes. She shook her head at her granddaughter. Octavia understood that was Mab’s way of saying that any questions Octavia had would have to wait.

Octavia rose and reached for Constance’s hand as she started the rounds of giving each of the seniors a warm handshake and smile. “It was a stimulating show. Thanks for letting me sit in.”

As Constance rose to her feet to take Octavia’s hand, she gave her comfortably round, five-foot frame a small shake, like the miniature dog she so resembled.

“It had its moments,” she agreed.

Douglas scratched irritably at his stiff salt-and-pepper beard after he released Octavia’s hand.

“Personally, I could do without Mab always having to sensationalize everything. No penises on men! What a ridiculous thing to say. Isn’t that right, Constance?”

Constance’s head bent back as she squinted up at the much taller man.

“Now, Douglas, Mab had a commendable point, once she got to it. Although, I do believe the use of that word really wasn’t—”

Douglas swung away from Constance to face John. “Don’t you agree Mab should be muzzled?”

John’s palms came up, a humorous gleam in his eyes. “Doctors, even ophthalmologists, always stay neutral in fights, Douglas. We have to be available later to patch up the combatants.”

Mab turned to position herself squarely in front of the horsey, six-foot Douglas Twitch.

“Stop looking for support to gang up on me, Douglas. You never got it when we were in grade school together and you’re not getting it now. Muzzle me, indeed! I’m not surprised my point eluded you. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn the subtleties of ‘Sesame Street’ elude you.”

Douglas’s sallow face colored. He grabbed the pipe hanging out of his checkered shirt pocket and took it like a bit between his prominent teeth, spluttering incoherently.

Mab turned away from his reddened face and calmly slipped her arm through Octavia’s.

“I’m glad you arrived in time to hear some of the show. Your being here takes me back, Octavia. Let’s go home and I’ll fix us both something nice and hot to drink and we can talk.”

Octavia nodded. But as they turned to leave the control room, she saw Mab suddenly halt and stiffen.

Octavia followed the direction of her grandmother’s fixed gaze. On the other side of the glass barrier that separated the radio control room from the visitors’ lounge, two men stood staring.

Octavia noted and dismissed the slouching, sour-pussed shorter man with the squinty dark eyes, thin ashen hair, baggy olive pants and green-and-black-checkered suspenders. But the taller man caught and completely held her attention.

He was at least six-four with bark-brown hair and broad, imposing shoulders in an expensive custom suit of charcoal gray, discreetly trimmed with a dove-gray tie and pocket handkerchief. He looked remarkably formal and forbidding, from the tight laces of his highly polished black shoes to the obdurate shine in his black-rimmed, silver-sprinkled eyes.

Octavia knew instantly that this was a man who had made his mark in the world and would continue to do so.

Those arresting eyes held hers in an intense scrutiny. Their silver shine was stronger than confidence, deeper than desire. For no reason that made any sense, she suddenly felt the rush of blood through her heart and a tingling in her fingertips.

“Who is he, Mab?” she asked.

She could feel her grandmother’s eyes dart to her face and then back to the men.

“I don’t know who the tall one is you’re fixating on, but the short, slimy one is Dole Scroogen. We call him the Scrooge around here.”

“And as long as the other one is with the Scrooge, he’s not worth your wondering about,” Constance announced in what sounded to Octavia like a definite warning.

“What does that damn Scrooge want besides our blood?” Douglas grumbled with more vehemence than Octavia had yet heard from the man.

“He only shows up in person when he can gloat over something,” the normally cool, suave John said with surprising heat. “We’d better go see what it is this time.”

Their collective comments told Octavia that despite the seniors’ previous differences over the content and conduct of the radio show, the appearance of Dole Scroogen had united them instantly in animosity against the man.

They left the tiny control room single file, Mab in the lead, Octavia right behind her, the rest following. Octavia could still feel the stranger’s eyes. They had not left her once since the moment she first felt them.

As Octavia and the seniors approached the two men in the waiting room, Dole Scroogen raised his arm to point at Mab.

“That’s her. That’s Mab Osborne.”

The impoliteness of the man’s pointing finger and his whiny, condescending tone immediately irritated Octavia. She knew at that precise moment that she was going to thoroughly dislike Dole Scroogen.

Scroogen’s tall companion shifted his eyes from Octavia to her grandmother. He took a step toward Mab. His deep, rich voice vibrated through the small waiting room like an ominous drumroll.

“Mrs. Osborne, I’m Brett Merlin.”

Brett Merlin? Octavia felt a small jolt of surprise as she instantly recognized his name. Could this really be the Magician of corporate law standing before her? The one whose name every attorney whispered in polite reverence? Well, well. No wonder the guy exuded the aura of the anointed.

Octavia watched, her initial interest heightened even more, as Brett Merlin slipped a sheet of folded paper from his pocket. He held it out to Mab.

“What’s this?” Mab asked as she took the paper from his hand.

“It’s a copy of a cover letter I faxed to the FCC this morning, Mrs. Osborne. I’ve also sent by Federal Express a two-hour tape of recorded highlights from your ‘Senior-Sex-Talk’ programs. I’m demanding the FCC revoke your radio license on the grounds of lewd and immoral content.”

Octavia couldn’t have been more surprised at Brett Merlin’s words than if the man had suddenly announced he was from Mars. He was bringing her grandmother up on a morals charge before the FCC? She didn’t know whether to laugh or have this obviously overrated fool of an attorney committed.

Before she could respond to either impulse, a photographer suddenly jumped out from where he had been hidden on the other side of a partition and snapped several photos of Mab. The unexpected flashes from his camera also blinded Octavia, who was standing just behind her grandmother.

By the time Octavia could see and think straight again, it was too late to do anything. The Magician, the Scrooge and the photographer had all vanished—right out the door of her grandmother’s radio station.

* * *

“OCTAVIA, I‘M NOT standing still for this FCC threat.”

Octavia smiled. That sounded just like the fearless, independently competent Mab that she had been admiring all her life.

She poured her grandmother’s homemade hot apple cider into both their cups and slipped in a cinnamon stick. The spicy fragrance filled the room and Octavia’s senses with the sweet, nostalgic past of other cold, overcast December days spent in this bright, cozy kitchen, baking Christmas goodies and stringing popcorn for the tree.

Octavia gathered up all the marvelous memories spilling out of her mind and set them firmly aside as she focused her attention on her grandmother’s perky head of silver-and-red curls.

“Before we talk about this FCC thing, Mab, tell me why you called last night and asked me to take the ferry over from Seattle this morning.”

Mab shook her straight shoulders, as though trying to disengage some annoying burden clinging to them.

“Because of the Scrooge, Octavia. All the trouble began with him.”

“What trouble?”

“When a group of us formed the Silver Power League five years ago, we did so in order to organize senior citizens and show them the kind of power we could wield if united against unfavorable legislation. One of our members gave us a ninety-nine-year lease to some land and an old barn that sat on it to use as our community center.”

“Yes, I remember visiting you there a couple of times when you first opened. You had cleaned and painted that old barn and made it very presentable. Now, what has this to do with Dole Scroogen?”

“He’s our new landlord.”

“And?”

“Remember those documents I asked you to look over nearly a year ago? The ones about the Silver Power League’s ninety-nine-year land lease?”

“Yes. You were worried about any loopholes. But the previous owner’s lawyer did a very good job drafting that protection clause against your eviction by a subsequent owner.”

“Except she didn’t anticipate that the Scrooge would levy a ridiculous rent on us.”

“Mab, he can’t do that. Remember my telling you? There are protection provisions in your lease that prohibit any rent being charged that is not commensurate with property value. The three acres of land your community center sits on has some value, but that old barn isn’t worth much.”

“You’ve been away too long, Octavia. We have a new Silver Power League community center.”

Yes, she had been away too long—too busy rushing through the arteries of her life to find the time to spend with this special person who had first put Octavia’s hand on life’s true pulse.

Octavia paused in the middle of her self-recrimination to let her grandmother’s last words register. “Wait a minute. Did you just say the new center?”

Her grandmother nodded.

“I kept looking at all this talent our members had just going to waste—retired architects, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, decorators. Our members may be over sixty, but most are still vital and strong and possess a lifetime of experience and expertise. So a couple of years ago I decided to get them off their duffs and put them to work on some renovations.”

“But, Mab—”

Mab raised her hand to halt Octavia’s interruption.

“Yes, I know. Any improvements on leased land become the property of the landowner. But you have to understand, Octavia, at that time the landowner was one of our members and a good friend. She was charging us only fifty dollars a month in rent. We knew that on her death everything in her estate was to go to her only surviving blood relative—her great-nephew, Dole Scroogen. She told us that she had spoken to him and he understood her wishes. Plus which, we had the ninety-nine-year lease and we never thought...well, we never thought he would do what he did.”

“Go on, Mab.”

“When she died, we’d already torn down that old barn and broken ground on the new Silver Power League Community Center and the extensive greenhouse that goes with it. Everyone was so involved by then, so excited at what we were creating.”

“And Scroogen?”

“Months went by and he never even contacted us. We thought that like his great aunt, he supported us. We went blissfully on with our plans. The buildings are magnificent. We’ve all been so proud. We held an open house two months ago. Invited everyone in the community.”

Octavia was certain she knew what was coming. “Let me guess. Scroogen showed up then with an appraiser?”

Mab nodded. “Because of our improvements, the property is now worth far more than it was before. He and the appraiser spent hours evaluating every inch before he presented us with an astronomical monthly rent and a six-month deposit demand, all payable by December 1. We barely managed to scrape together December’s rent and half of the deposit demand. It cleaned out our savings. He served us immediately with a thirty-day eviction notice. If we don’t come up with with the rest of the deposit and January’s rent by January 1, we’re out.”