The Kute Kandy Corporation wasn’t as big as I’d expected it to be. I had just assumed that this factory made all the Jelly Bears and Jelly Worms and every other kind of Jelly whatnot in the whole world. But looking at the small cluster of buildings, I didn’t think that was possible. I decided this was just the main office. They probably had lots of other factories in different places.
The main building was a big flat gray box with hardly any windows. Behind it, and off to the sides, were several other flat gray boxes, surrounded by miles of parking lot, full of cars and trucks.
We went through the double glass doors and into the reception area. I had expected something kind of nice—carpets on the floor, a shiny desk with a well-dressed receptionist sitting behind it, a few nice leather chairs to wait in.
Well, I was wrong. It was about as fancy as your neighborhood dry cleaners: linoleum floors, fake wood paneling, an old oak desk. There wasn’t anybody sitting behind the desk, though, and there weren’t any chairs to wait in, either—leather or otherwise.
“I think the receptionist must have gone to the ladies’ room or something,” I said. “I bet she’ll be back in a minute.” I had deduced this from the half-empty cup of coffee sitting on the desk. It had lipstick marks on the rim. Just call me Sherlock.
Within thirty seconds, a middle-aged woman appeared and took her place in the squeaky wooden chair behind the desk. “May I help you?” she asked.
“Well, yes,” I stammered. “We wondered if there was somebody here we could talk to. About the history of the company.”
She knitted her brows. If we had asked to hear the history of the dust ball under her desk, she couldn’t have been more surprised.
“Like . . . what?” she said.
“Well, you know—like how Jake Bermann turned his little candy store into this big international company. Stuff like that.”
She continued to gaze at us for a minute, the question “Why?” hovering on her lips. And in all fairness, why would anyone really want to explore the history of the Kute Kandy Corporation? Finally, she put on this really, really sorry look and said she was afraid there wasn’t anybody around who could help us. “We don’t have a public-relations person,” she explained.
“How about someone older, who might have worked here for a long time?” Beamer suggested. “It could be anybody.”
The woman sighed. She rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. She looked up at the ceiling. “I guess you could talk to Edna Franklin,” she said with obvious reluctance. “But I don’t think she can give you much time.”
“Who is Edna Franklin?” I asked.
“She’s Mr. Bermann’s secretary.” She was already dialing the number.
“Mr. Bermann?” I said, surprised. He was supposed to be in Florida.
The receptionist held up her hand, indicating that she couldn’t talk to both me and Edna at the same time. I closed my mouth and waited while she explained our curious interest in the development of the Kute Kandy Corporation and asked whether Edna might be able to carve a few minutes from her busy schedule to answer our questions.
The conversation was short, but the upshot of it was that Edna agreed to see us. The woman directed us down the hall, first door to the right.
Edna was older all right. Her hair was as white as a cloud and her skin was almost as pale. Her blue eyes seemed to have faded along with the rest of her.
“Have a seat,” she said politely.
We did.
“You want to know about the history of Kute Kandy?” she prodded.
“Well, sort of,” I said. “That’s part of it. Or, well . . .”
Come on, Franny, I thought. Get a grip. Edna waited patiently.
“We’re actually trying to find someone who lives here in Wimberly. A famous author of children’s books.”
“Oh?”
“His name is I. M. Fine. He writes the Chillers series.”
“Yes?” Her steady gaze made me squirm.
“Well, there is a connection with your company, actually. He wrote a book last year that featured Jelly Worms.”
“Yes, I know about that.”
“I guess you know that it started a fad. It was the in thing for kids to buy Jelly Worms for a while.”
“I know,” she said. “We had trouble filling all the orders.”
“And your stock went way up,” I said. “I know because my dad bought some.”
“Yes, it did.” She gave us a little smile.
“Well, anyway, he’s the guy we’re trying to find. We thought maybe since he put Jelly Worms in his story, he might have some connection with Mr. Bermann and the company. Maybe they are old friends or something.”
Edna looked thoughtful, then shrugged her shoulders. “It’s possible,” she said. “Mr. Bermann has a lot of friends. He’s a very kind man.”
“Could we ask him?” I suggested.
“Oh,” she said. “I was referring to Mr. Bermann, Sr. He’s retired. He doesn’t live in Wimberly anymore. It’s his son who’s president of the company now.”
“Do you think the writer might be a friend of Mr. Bermann, Jr.?”
“Well, I doubt it. When we kept hearing about this book—this children’s book about Jelly Worms—he was as perplexed as everyone else. Honestly, I don’t think there’s any connection. Our products are quite popular. Anybody could put them in a book. It wouldn’t have to be a friend of Mr. Bermann.”
“So you don’t know anything at all about I. M. Fine?” I asked desperately.
“The author, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Well, no. The only Fine I ever knew in Wimberly was Irving Fine, but he’s been dead for many years.”
“But you knew him—Irving Fine?”
“Yes, I knew Irving, though not very well. He was older, not part of my crowd. And, well, he came to a rather tragic end.”
“He was a spy,” I said. “That’s what the guy in the barbershop said.”
Edna heaved a great sigh. “He was accused of being a spy,” she said. “That’s true. It was a terrible, shocking thing. No one could believe it of him. To tell you the truth, I always thought that if he hadn’t died when he did, if he’d had a fair trial, they would have found him innocent. But he didn’t, of course. I guess you heard about the auto accident.”
We both nodded.
“Well, anyway,” Edna said, “a few years ago, after the Russians threw the Communist government out, the old files from the Cold War days were opened to the public. Can you imagine? All those famous old spy cases—now we could find out with absolute surety who the real traitors were!”
“And?”
“Irving was innocent. It was another man in his department who had sold the information to the Russians. It was in the papers, at least around here, but I guess some folks didn’t see it—they still think of him as Wimberly’s most notorious citizen.”
“That’s sad,” I said.
“Yes,” Edna agreed. “It is.”
“Is there anything else you remember about him?” Beamer asked. “Did he have a family?”
“He was married, I know that much. He went to college in New York and he met his wife there.”
“Did they have any kids?”
“Honestly, I can’t tell you. I lost track of him when he went to New York. And like I said, he was quite a bit older than me.”
“But he might have, don’t you think?”
“Well, of course he might have.”
“Is there anything else you remember? Anything at all?”
“Just that he was brainy, quite the academic star. Got a Ph.D. in—I don’t remember exactly—physics, I think. Got a job teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. He was involved in some big government project. Very, very smart man.”
“What about his wife? Did she stay in Wimberly after he died?”
“I don’t remember anything about her, to tell you the truth—it was a long time ago. I would doubt it, though. Probably went back to her hometown. After something like that . . . who would want to stay?”
“Anything else you can think of?” I asked hopefully.
“No,” she said. “I’m afraid not.”
“Well, thanks for talking to us,” I said, and got up to go.
“Now wait a minute,” she said. “You haven’t told me why you’re so eager to find this writer.”
I looked at Beamer, but he just gave one of those “Don’t ask me” shrugs.
“Well, you see,” I said, plunging in, “there’s something about his books. They influence children like you wouldn’t believe. Like with the Jelly Worms.”
“Yes,” she said.
“Only after that book, things sort of took a weird turn. We don’t think he’s good for kids. We want to talk to him. Maybe he doesn’t really know he’s hurting people.”
“Well, well,” she said. “Aren’t you amazing! I sure wish I could help you.”
She walked us to the door, a look of fierce concentration on her face. Then she stopped for a minute and seemed lost in thought. “You might check the old newspapers,” she said. “See if you can find his obituary. It would have been around 1953, I think. The surviving family members would be listed. You could find out whether he had children or not. Maybe one of them is the writer you’re looking for.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said. “That’s a great idea!”
She stood there in the doorway, smiling, and watched us as we headed back down the hall. As we turned the corner, I looked back at her and she waved.
“Good luck,” she said.