Leslie Widdler had been sitting on his marigold-rimmed flagstone patio eating toast with low-calorie butter substitute and Egg Beaters, looking out over the brook, enjoying the sun, unfolding the Star Tribune; his wife, Jane, was inside, humming along with Mozart on Minnesota Public Radio.
A butterfly flapped by, something gaudy, a tiger swallowtail, maybe, and Leslie followed it for a second with his eyes. This was typical, he thought, of the kind of wildlife experience you had along the creek—no, wait, it was the brook; he had to remember that—and he rather approved.
A butterfly wasn’t noisy, like, for instance, a crow or a blue jay; quite delicate and pretty and tasteful. A plane flew over, but well to the east, and he’d become accustomed to the sound. A little noise wasn’t significant if you lived on the brook. Right on the brook—it was right there in his backyard when he shook open the paper, and at night he could hear it burbling, when the air conditioner wasn’t running.
Jane was working on her own breakfast, consumed by the music, projected across the kitchen by her Bang & Olufsen speakers; it was like living inside an orchestra, and by adjusting the speakers according to the Bang & Olufsen instructions, she could vary her position from, say, the violas, back through the woodwinds, and all the way around the violins. It was lovely. She never referred to the speakers as speakers; she always referred to them as the Bang & Olufsens.
Jane Widdler, née Little. At Carleton College, where she and Leslie had met and become a couple, Leslie had been known to his roommates as Big Widdler, which the roommates had found hilarious for some obscure reason that Leslie had never discovered.
And when he courted and then, halfway through his senior year, married a woman named Little, of course, they’d become Big and Little Widdler. For some reason, the same ex-roommates thought that was even more hilarious, and could be heard laughing at the back of the wedding chapel.
Jane Little Widdler disapproved of the nicknames; but she rarely thought of it, since nobody used them but long-ago acquaintances from Carleton, most of whom had sunk out of sight in the muck of company relations, widget sales, and circus management.
Jane was putting together her breakfast smoothie. A cup of pineapple juice, a cup of strawberries, a half cup of bananas, a little of this, a little of that, and some yogurt and ice, blended for one annoying minute, the whining of the blender drowning out the Mozart. When it stopped, she heard Leslie’s voice, through the sliding screen door: “Oh, my God!”
She could tell from his tone that it was serious. She couldn’t frown, exactly, because of the Botox injections, but she made a frowning look and stepped to the door: “What? Is it the brook?”
The Widdlers were leading a petition drive to have the name officially changed from Minnehaha Creek to Minnehaha Brook, a combination they felt was more euphonic. They’d had some trashy kayakers on the brook lately—including one who was, of course, a left-wing lawyer, who had engaged in a shouting match with Leslie. Paddling for the People. Well, fuck that. The brook didn’t belong to the people.
But it wasn’t the creek, or the brook, that put the tone in Big Widdler’s voice. Leslie was on his feet. He was wearing a white pullover Egyptian long-staple cotton shirt with loose sleeves, buttoned at the wrists with black mother-of-pearl buttons, madras plaid shorts, and Salvatore Ferragamo sandals, and looked quite good in the morning sunlight, she thought. “Check this out,” he said.
He passed her the Star Tribune.
The big headline said: Did Murders Conceal Invisible Heist? Under that, in smaller type, Millions in Antiques May Be Missing.
“Oh, my gosh,” Jane said. Her frowning look grew deeper as she read. “I wonder who Ruffe Ignace is?”
“Just a reporter. That’s not the problem,” said Big Widdler, flapping his hands like a butterfly. “If they do an inventory, there may be items…” The Bang & Olufsen slimline phone started to ring from its spot next to the built-in china cabinet, and he reached toward it. “…on the list that can be identified, and we won’t know which ones they are. If there are photos…”
He picked up the phone and said, “Hello?” and a second later, “Uh, Detective? Well, sure…”
Jane was shaken, placed one hand on her breast, the other on the countertop. This could be it: everything they’d worked for, gone in the blink of an eye.