Antiques Bizarre (15 page)

B
ack home I found an answering-machine message from Chief Cassato inviting me for dinner at his cabin again—if “this isn’t too late notice.”

You Know Who was hovering like storm clouds as I listened to the recording, and when it had played, I asked her, “Are you all right with this, Mother? Can you get yourself some supper?”

“Who needs food,” Mother said, with a disturbing gleam in her eye (both eyes, actually), “when you have an opportunity to feast upon new information!”

I wasn’t sure whether she meant the info we’d gathered from Henry and Ashland, or the even
newer
info that I might gather from Tony. And I didn’t ask.

I just called him, apologized for not getting back sooner, and asked if it was too late to accept.

“Not at all. I can come get you in an hour. Okay?”

“Fine.”

I went up and took a quick shower and got into skinny dark-washed jeans (to not seem too formal) and a three-quarter-sleeve purple silk blouse (to not seem too informal). I topped it off with black sandals that revealed that I
had finally decided to settle on pink-polished toes, and no jewelry at all, other than my Chico’s watch.

To perfume or not to perfume? Too strong a signal if I spritzed? Or a bad signal, if I didn’t? I compromised by spraying the air with Betsey Johnson and walking through.

I had five minutes to spare before Tony would get here, so I checked up on Mother, who was reigning over her cardboard-and-game-token kingdom. Unbelievably she sensed my presence—must have been the Betsey Johnson.

Mother turned and waggled her black marker pen at me like an extra scolding finger. “I’ll be counting on you to pry more out of that brute! He has
some
nerve telling those dispatchers not to talk to me anymore…. We’ll
see
about that….”

I nodded dutifully. “Yes, Mother.”

Her smile was only a little crazed, which was a relief. “Good girl.”

I waited on the porch for Tony to arrive, so he wouldn’t have to deal with Mother—talk about getting an evening off to a bad start! And as soon as his unmarked car drew into the drive, I hurried down the front steps, then hopped in front—his date this time, not a perp.

“Before we go,” I said, “I have something to admit.”

His head swiveled. “Which is?”

“My morning sickness seems to have tapered off, so if you’re here out of the goodness of your heart, well…If you’d like to cancel…”

One eyebrow raised, though the steel-gray eyes had no expression. “Do you
want
me to?”

“No! No. Certainly not. I
still
need to gain some weight.”

“Okay then.”

And he backed the car out of the drive.

On this trip, I tried to pay better attention to where we were going. Last time, I’d been lost the ride
to
; the ride
back
I’d come away with at least a vague sense of where
his hideout was. But I wanted a real fix, and there were so many twists and turns onto secondary roads (was he taking a different route?) that finally I gave up, and just enjoyed the springtime scenery.

When we rolled up to the cabin, Rocky—who’d been standing guard at the front door—trotted over to greet us, tail wagging. I got out and the dog immediately began sniffing me for evidence of Sushi, finding none because I’d showered and dressed—if I hadn’t changed, after playing with Sushi this afternoon, the chief’s pooch might have shoved me to the ground and given a thorough frisk.

Rocky seemed disappointed, so I bent and petted his head by way of compensation.

Inside, Tony got the fireplace going, then allowed me this time to help out in the kitchen, preparing the soup (cream of chicken and wild rice) and Caesar salad, right down to the raw egg. A seven-grain bread was already in the oven, smelling yummy.

Throughout dinner, we instinctively put his work and my Mother on the No Fly List, which limited lines of conversation, but somehow I resisted the urge to chatter about nothing, just to fill the air.

Finally we did find some common ground, starting with the outdoors (me hiking, him biking), antiques (me Deco, him early Arts and Crafts), action movies (me Jason Statham, him classic Eastwood), and raunchy cable comedy (both
Reno 911
). Also, we both shared an interest in and love of animals, and I was impressed to learn that he’d given up hunting after a childhood of growing up sharing that with his father. That he
had
a father was the first substantial new information I’d gleaned, but I took it no further.

After our very pleasant and lingering meal, we did the dishes together (no electric dishwasher in the cabin—pretty much my definition of roughing it), then retired to the couch in front of the fire to share the footstool again.
Rocky joined us, plopping down in his same spot, soon falling asleep and richly snoring.

To get any unpleasantness out of the way, I ventured, “I don’t mean to spoil the evening, but I do need to bring up a delicate subject—my mother.”

“That’s a delicate subject?”

“Actually, yes.” I sought his gaze and held it. “I’m worried that a perfect storm is brewing. You know—circumstances that can make her go off her medication. And, well, her rocker. Not as funny as it sounds.”

I withheld one piece of incriminating evidence—that she had taken a drink of hard liquor.

Our shoulders were touching. “What kind of circumstances are ‘gathering’ for this storm?”

I sighed. “A slowdown in our antiques business, her old haunts changing, friends dying—even the community theater where she directs is on hiatus until summer because of the flood. All these things kept her occupied and, if not
completely
out of trouble, busy at least.”

Tony said, “And now I’ve shut off her communications with the police department.”

I nodded.

“So…if your mother stops taking her pills, it’s
my
fault?”

Noting the tension in his voice, I made my response gentle. “No, obviously not—you’re completely justified, of course. Mother is a busybody, a fourteen-karat meddler. On the other hand, she
has
been helpful to you in the past with pertinent information.”

He grunted. “It comes with a high price tag.”

I took one of his hands. “I just don’t want any drama with the baby coming.”

I hated to keep playing the baby card, but I did have my own mental health to consider.

“Brandy, you can’t ask me to tell my people to feed your
mother inside police information. I’m all for her feeding her demons with local theater, and your antiques business should pick up soon, now that the floodwaters have receded, but—”

“You could feed
me
a morsel. You’re good at feeding me morsels.”

That made him smile.
Point for Brandy
.

“Okay. I can tell you something right now that will be in the media tomorrow.”

“What?”

“Maybe you even have a right to know this.”

“Know what?”

“Mrs. Mulligan. We got the toxicology report back, and it gibes with evidence at the scene.”

“She
was
murdered then?”

He shook his head. “No. Not likely. There’ll be an inquest, but she died due to an overdose of her own prescription sleeping meds. They were in her stomach, and they were in the pan of broth in her kitchen.”

“Not rat poison.”

“No. Very likely suicide, Brandy—she had her wig on, and she certainly didn’t wear that to bed. She knew she’d be found, and wanted to look her best.”

“Was there a note?”

“No. But suicides don’t always leave notes—in fact, the stats are the opposite. We talked to several of her friends who’d spoken to her on the phone the morning of her death, and she was very depressed, and ashamed, or…perhaps
embarrassed
is the word.”

“She was the one being talked about, and it didn’t feel good, huh?”

“It would seem. She didn’t answer her phone all afternoon. That was not like her, but calls from her regular contacts—the conduits she used to receive and pass along gossip—she ignored. Coroner puts time of death between
eight and nine
P.M
., by the way. She was gone by the time your mother found her.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t staged?”

“Not likely.”

“Then Mother was wrong—she thought a suicide in the midst of murders was too big a coincidence, particularly a second poisoning.”

“Different poisons.”

“You’ve made your point, Tony. And it makes sense to me—it must’ve been just too much for Mrs. Mulligan. She liked getting attention, just not
that
kind of attention. Thank you for telling me.”

I leaned to kiss his cheek, but he turned so that my lips met his.

When we finally parted, I whispered, “You know this is a big mistake.”

He nodded.

We kissed again.

“You know this will never work,” I warned.

He nodded again.

And folded me into his arms. He had me right where I wanted him.

The following morning, a bathrobe-clad Mother, going back on her bargain, roused me from my slumber with her usual “Uppy-uppy-uppy!”

Since it seemed a little early, I muttered, “Unnngh…
what
time…?”

“Time to get ready for the
funeral
, dear,” Mother chirped, joining in with the noisy good-for-nothing yapping spring birds outside my window.

“But it’s not till
ten
,” I protested.

Sushi was burrowing beneath the covers, growling, siding with me.

Mother loomed like the Statue of Un-Liberty. “You know I want to arrive
early
to get a good seat.”

Only my mother would want seats on the fifty yard line at a funeral.

“So rise and shine and up and at ’em,” she said, then lowered her voice an octave to intone, “It’s not going to be just
any
day….”

Never the kind of prediction you want to hear my mother make, and hardly an incentive to get up; and yet I took the bait. “
Why
, pray tell?” (When my mother starts intoning things in her octave-lower voice, I find myself using phrases like “Pray tell,” and I do apologize.)

Mother perched on the edge of the bed. “Because, dear, someone very important is not going to show today!”

“Who’s so important that not being there would be a big deal? Her nephew? Can’t be the priest. He’s officiating.”

“No! Nothing so mundane.
Nastasya Petrova
won’t be at her own funeral!”

A Catholic funeral mass without the deceased?

Okay, I was awake. I sat up and frowned at her, disgusted with myself that her tricks still worked on me. “Madam Petrova will be a no-show. At her own funeral. All right. I’ll bite. How come?”

Mother shrugged elaborately. “She’s in Chicago!”

When I raised my eyebrows, Mother intoned, “On Sunday, the members of her Russian Orthodox church, just a handful you’ll recall, held a private wake in the Petrova parlor. Monday, there was a private service held in the mansion’s ballroom, again just for the Russian Orthodox members, all fifteen of them, and a bishop came in from Chicago to conduct it. And today, at a Russian Orthodox
cemetery in Chicago, there will be a graveside service, though I doubt if any of the local members made the trip—they’re all very elderly, you know, and these old people simply can’t get around very well. It was all very discreet, dear, in accordance with Madam Petrova’s reclusive nature. Even the media was unaware.”

I’d only been awake for a few minutes, but I already had a headache. “Then what is
this
funeral for?”

“It’s not really a funeral per se, dear, not technically at least—it’s a memorial service being held at Clifford Ashland’s request. As you know, Madam Petrova had made considerable bequests to both the Russian ‘sister’ church in Chicago and St. Mary’s here in Serenity, where she’d been attending with her nephew, except for the monthly Russian Orthodox service at her own home.”

“So she’s in Chicago waiting to be buried, and I didn’t even
know
about it? Who told
you?
”

“Oh, I knew all the details way ahead of time, dear.”

“Who
told
you all of this, Mother?”

“Why, Mrs. Mulligan, of course. She knew everybody’s business. Now chop, chop!”

And she sailed out of the room.

I threw back the covers, then sat on the edge of the bed and wondered if I’d dreamed that I had a crazy mother and was going to a funeral for a Russian woman who wasn’t there because she was in Chicago. But I was awake enough now to know that, unfortunately, it was no dream—
this
, Brandy Borne,
is your life
….

Funny thing was, I could remember vividly what I had been dreaming—usually, it would have faded, the mood lingering maybe, but not the particulars. But this dream I remembered….

I couldn’t see. I wasn’t blind, just couldn’t open my eyes, as if they were glued shut, and I couldn’t tell where I was going or what was happening.

What did it mean?

Oh, well, rise and shine and up and at ’em and chop, chop….

I showered, dried my hair, slapped on some makeup, then returned to my bedroom to get dressed, where I found that Sushi had hidden one of the shoes I’d set out to wear. I could see it partially showing under the bed—my eyes weren’t really glued shut—but I still went, “Now
where
is that shoe?” to give Soosh
some
satisfaction, since she would be left alone yet again.

My cell phone on the nightstand trilled and I was happy to see caller I.D. report my son’s number.

“Hey, Jake,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Hi, Mom. Just checking in. You do remember I’m comin’ today?”

As if I could or would forget—my heart was aching to see him.

“You bet. When are you coming in?”

“Late afternoon, I think.”

“Land or air?” Roger had his own private plane (he didn’t fly himself, just hired on pilots as needed).

“Air.”