Antiques Bizarre (9 page)

The kind of weight problem every girl dreams of—not weighing enough….

Now I shrugged. “Hey, it’s not
that
serious.”

Yet.

He frowned just a little; he seemed to be searching for words. “Carrot soup helped my wife when she was pregnant with our daughter.”

This was the first I’d heard about a wife.

Or child.

“You’re married?” The question carried certain unspoken baggage—the cabin seemed clearly his alone, with no sign of either a female or an offspring.

“I was.”

“Divorced then?”

He shook his head.

“Your wife…?”

It was a moment before he answered. “Gone.”

I wanted to ask if he meant she had died, or maybe were they just separated, and what about that child he’d mentioned? But I was afraid to push it.

So I did my best to match my host’s graciousness (weird graciousness maybe, but graciousness) and tried the carrot soup. It was delicious—rich and creamy with just a hint of spice.

“This is wonderful,” I said.

“It’s a nice recipe, isn’t it?”

One of his wife’s?
I wondered.

Despite the unspoken and unanswered questions hanging in the pinecone-scented air, we ate in comfortable silence. Which was strange for me, because I’d been around talkers all of my life—first Mother, then my ex, Roger. The
table was a raucous place in my life; but not here. Not that I minded.

After the soup and bread and some cold cuts for sandwich-making (keeping a sharp eye out for the evil Snoughy), we had warm apple pie à la mode. I had two pieces. How wonderful to be asked to pack on the pounds! And my stomach, perhaps as happy as I was to be out on a sort of date, cooperated just fine.

After dinner, Tony refused my offer to help with the dishes (I did clear the table), so I returned to the fireplace, threw another log on, and plopped down on the couch.

Eventually Tony joined me, drawing up a small ottoman, which he positioned under my feet. I kicked off my shoes and, sans socks, wiggled my Technicolor toes.

He smirked. “What’s the deal, Brandy? Couldn’t decide on a nail polish?”

“Nope. Tried them all—mostly to see if they were usable. Didn’t realize I might be showing them off to a man tonight.”

“You shouldn’t take anything for granted.”

“I think I like the neon green. What’s your favorite?”

But Tony was studying me quizzically.

“What?”

He shook his head. “You’re so different from when I first knew you.”

That had been three years ago, back when I was married, living in an upscale suburb of Chicago, wearing tailored clothing, and acting mature and responsible….

I had returned to Serenity to attend to Mother after she went off her medication and landed in the county jail. After the crisis, with Mother once again stabilized, I had a meeting with Serenity’s new chief of police, one Tony Cassato, whom you’ve met.

I argued that mentally ill prisoners should not be incar
cerated with the rest of the inmates, but should have their own segregated section—pods—to keep them away from the hardened criminals (and vice versa). I’d been pushing hard, reading the chief’s silence and apparently glowering expression as an unspoken counterargument. But Tony had surprised me, and agreed wholeheartedly, and over the next six months, we worked together to accomplish what became a mutual goal.

I said, “Hate to disappoint you, but that wasn’t the real me. That time in my life? I was trying to please my husband, who was much older than I, a successful businessman….” I stretched my toes toward the warmth of the fire. “It just didn’t work.”

“What didn’t work?”

“Me pretending to be that together. Also, my marriage. My fault.”

He didn’t pry further.

Anyone else would have asked how it was my fault, but he gave me space.

Still, it
had
been my fault. At my ten-year high school reunion, I’d done something really stupid involving too much wine, an old boyfriend, and a condom. The perfect storm to break up a marriage.

“So what’s the real you?” Tony asked.

I watched the fire dance, graceful but mocking. “Still trying to figure that out, I’m afraid. Unfortunately, the
real
me would seem to be an irresponsible, self-absorbed dope, who can’t learn a lesson, and is easily influenced by her cuckoo mother.”

Tony smiled one-sidedly. “Aren’t you being a little hard on yourself?” His eyes drifted to my stomach. “I can think of one selfless thing you’ve done, at least.”

“Maybe I don’t completely suck. Not sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“I notice you didn’t say I was being too hard on my mother.”

“No, she’s cuckoo, all right.”

We both laughed a little.

The log snapped and cracked, and we fell silent, watching red-hot embers drift upward.

After a while I ventured, “You’re gonna have to give me something.”

“Something more than soup and sandwiches and pie?”

“Something that will appease Mother.”

He frowned. “Can’t we leave your mother out of this?”

“She saw me go off with you. She’ll want to know what I pried out of you.”

“Tell her you didn’t pry anything out of me.”

“No. That’s not how you keep Mother at bay.”

“How about, give her an inch and she’ll take a mile?”

“Not Mother—it’s more like, deny her an inch and she’ll take the highway.”

He said nothing.

“Hey, we’re involved, Mother and me. She feels responsible for all of this.”

“How?”

“She put the auction in motion. It led to all those people getting sick, and poor Madam Petrova dying of food poisoning, and that Martinette character maybe getting murdered.”

He was staring at the fire. “No maybe about it.”

“It
was
murder?”

“Just about had to be. Coroner says the nature of the injuries is consistent with a fall from the platform above. With that railing, you would have to be shoved to go over.”

“He couldn’t have slipped?”

“Possibly. I suppose a stray banana peel might have
found its way up there. Or he could have had a sudden urge to kill himself.”

“Neither likely.”

“Neither likely. And there was bruising on the arms, indicating the man had been grabbed, hard, before he’d been sent on his way.”

“So it’s a murder.” I felt a chill despite the fire. “With all that media there, you have video to look at, don’t you? That can show you who followed Martinette, after he grabbed the egg?”

He shrugged. “We’ve been going over the tapes, but so far they’re not proving useful. When the crowd fled, the cameras on tripods in the back got knocked over.”

“And the ones up front—the hand-helds?”

He shrugged. “Focused on the stampede.”

“Kind of a coincidence, isn’t it? Everybody getting sick right on cue? Covering up a murder?”

Another shrug. “Killing Martinette could have been spur of the moment. The food poisoning might just have given somebody an opportunity to get that egg.”

“And somebody followed Martinette up those stairs to that platform, and took the egg away from him. And shoved him over to cover it up.”

“Could be.”

He was going taciturn on me. The chief didn’t like being interrogated, particularly when the “transcript” might be shared with Vivian Borne.

“You don’t really think everyone getting sick was a coincidence, do you?”

Tony shook his head. “More like a diversion.”

“Really,” I said flatly. “Then someone
deliberately
poisoned the food.”

He nodded.

“What with?”

“Rat poison.”

“Good Lord.”

“Arsenic-based.”

I shuddered. “That’s evil. Which dish did they put it in?”

“The coroner tested the remains of every dish served—it was the stew.”

“Mrs. Mulligan’s stew?” I gaped at him. “But it
can’t
be!”

He gave me a quizzical look.

“Tony, that’s what
I
ate!”

He frowned, cocked his head like his mutt might have. “What, just a smidge of it?”

“No!
Lots
of it!”

“You ate with the others at the church?”

“Why…no. Pregnant women eat when they feel like it. I had my servings of stew about, oh, an hour and a half before lunch was served.”

I told him about sneaking into the kitchen through the secret passageway, and getting a preluncheon sample of Mrs. Mulligan’s stew. I’d of course heard the rumors that the stew had been the source of everyone’s sickness, but hadn’t thought much about the fact that I hadn’t gotten sick—not till I heard rat poison had been an added ingredient, anyway.

Tony’s brow furrowed. “Then the poison must have been added between ten-thirty and noon. That’s helpful to know. Thank you.”

I almost said, “The Borne Girls Detective Agency aims to please.” But instead I had the sense to just nod.

“My Lord,” he said. His steely eyes had softened. “That might have been a close call for you. And your baby.”

“Yes, but there was only one fatality. Madam Petrova. Because she was elderly, I guess, and her system just couldn’t take it.”

“She
was
the oldest person there,” Tony said with a nod.

“Does Mrs. Mulligan know that someone doctored her stew? That she isn’t responsible for this tragedy?”

“Not yet. None of this is for public consumption.”

Sort of like stew with rat poison in it. “Look, you need to tell her. She probably feels terrible about it. The word is all around town that it was her stew that was tainted, you know.”

“Well, we haven’t released that info yet.”

“No, but Mother overheard the coroner speculating about the stew as the source at the scene. And if Mother knows, Serenity knows.”

Tony closed his eyes. “How can you stand it?”

“I love her. You don’t have to, but I do. Listen, something else about that stew—I don’t know if you’re aware, but none of those five out-of-town bidders ate at the church.”

“I do know—we interviewed them today. They ate at their hotel. How do you know? If this is more amateur detective nonsense—”

“Not guilty! I just ran into them at a restaurant—they were eating together again. Do you think one of them is your murderer?”

His eyes widened, then narrowed. “Possibly. We searched their hotel rooms and rental vehicles—they cooperated fully, no search warrants required—but an artifact as small as that egg could be easily hidden. Could even have been discreetly shipped somewhere by now.”

“And you’ve searched the church?”

“Top to bottom. Father O’Brien has been very helpful. We still have police stationed there. Considered a crime scene.” He sighed. “That’s how I got the media out of there so quickly, and we’ve been very lucky on that front, actually.”

“Yeah, we had all the Quad Cities stations represented.
Which are all the networks, including Fox. I expected to see them hanging around.”

He waved as if batting an invisible fly. “They took off shortly after the auction went to hell. They’d come expecting a fun story about a Fabergé egg helping bail out a flood-wracked town, and instead got a church filled with people puking. But when this murder stuff hits the local papers, that might attract national attention.”

We just sat there a while and he even slipped an arm around my shoulder. No more talk of murder or anything else. We just enjoyed the fire and each other’s company. I fell asleep briefly, nestled against his shoulder.

Then I woke up, feeling a little embarrassed, yawned and stretched, and said, “It was a lovely supper, Tony. A lovely evening. But Mother will be worried—you better run me home.”

He did.

But I sat in the front seat this time.

A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip

Bidding at auction is not for the shy. Hold your card up high, or speak loudly when you bid. Mother can go too far in this regard, however, jumping up and blocking other bidders. It’s just remotely possible that she does this on purpose.

A
t around nine o’clock that evening, Tony dropped me off at my house. He pulled up at the curb, turned, and asked me if I had my cell phone with me.

“Sure,” I said. “Why?”

“I want to give you my unlisted number. You have any problems, of any kind, day or night—just call.”

I didn’t quite know what to say, but finally mumbled, “Thanks,” and he gave me the number and I entered it on my contacts list.

He gave me a crisp nod, and a nice sort of asexual Lone Ranger smile, hands on the wheel, as I said good night and got out. Then he was gone and I was heading for the front steps, wondering why the front light wasn’t on for me, when I noticed the familiar shape seated on the top step that led to the enclosed porch.

Mother.

Okay, so she was sitting in the dark, her pink fuzzy robe over her pajamas, shod in matching pink slippers. Why was that a biggie? Vaguely nutty behavior on Mother’s part was par for the course, and the night was pleasant enough to be sitting out in it. Still, an ominous vibe shimmered my way….

“Is he gone?” she asked in a hoarse whisper.

I was at the bottom of the several steps looking at where her eyes were, able only to make out the big glasses in the dark. “Of course he’s gone. You saw him go. Mother, is something wrong?”

She sprang to her feet, looming over me like a gargoyle. A gargoyle in a pink bathrobe and slippers, that is.

“There’s something you must see,” she said portentously.

And she floated down the steps and moved past me down the walk toward the street.

“Mother!”

“Come along, dear!” She gestured back with a crooking finger.

Suddenly I felt like Scrooge following the Ghost of Christmas Future into the graveyard for some bad news.

There were halfhearted streetlights along Elm and part of a moon, too, which conspired to make Mother look even more ghostly as she took a right and headed down the sidewalk.

I fell in along beside her and asked, “Mother! Where are we going?”

“To see Mrs. Mulligan, dear.”

“Is that wise?”

“There’s something you must see.”

Mrs. Mulligan lived just two and a half blocks down from us. Mother was a fairly frequent visitor, though she professed not to care for the woman, condemning her as the worst gossip in town. She denied that she dropped by Mrs. Mulligan’s once or twice a week to catch up on the juiciest tidbits.

“What’s going on, Mother?”

“This is my second visit tonight.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

We were at the shared driveway that separated Mrs. Mul
ligan’s yard from her next-door neighbor’s. Her well-maintained two-story clapboard house was yellow with blue trim, though the moon washed both colors out. Lots of shrubbery hugged the front of the house, and four front steps went up to a cement stoop. No light shone above the stoop, but lights were on behind drapes in the living room, and another light was on upstairs.

Mother was trotting down the driveway, where the lawn sloped, and seemed clearly headed for the side stairway up to the kitchen entrance. We were ignoring the front door, and I wasn’t surprised—Mother and Mrs. Mulligan would sit in the kitchen together and share secrets (not their own—everybody else’s).

No light was over this side door, either, but one was on in the kitchen. I followed Mother as she padded up the flight of wooden steps and bent to pluck a hidden key in a potted plant on the landing. The screen door onto a small back porch was open, and I trailed after Mother as she unlocked the door onto the kitchen.

She went in, and so did I. A light over the sink on the driveway side was burning, but the overhead one wasn’t. The kitchen was neither spacious nor small, but did have room enough for a round maple table with four chairs. A counter with cupboards was next to us where we’d entered, and the refrigerator was opposite. At right was a stove and oven, a small pan on a burner, switched off.

Mrs. Mulligan, in a plaid flannel robe but with her red fright wig on, was slumped at the table, her head on her folded arms like a grade-school student taking a nap at her desk. On the table nearby was a large ceramic cup that said IOWA STATE FAIR ’66 on it. Also her glasses.

“Is she…asleep?” I asked.

“No, dear. She’s dead.” She turned to me and the eyes behind the big lenses would have been huge even without the magnification. “This is what I wanted you to see.”

I went over and checked—the shrunken old lady looked strangely peaceful, if pale as, well, death. I felt guilty for once thinking she resembled an orangutan, though truth be told she still did. I couldn’t find a pulse in either her wrist or throat.

Mother came close and said, “I did what Archie Goodwin always does, dear! In the Nero Wolfe books? I got some fabric threads from my bathrobe, and held them under her nose, and they didn’t flutter. Then I got a makeup mirror from the bathroom and held it under her nose and it didn’t fog up at all.”

Wincing in rage, doubting that Archie Goodwin had ever plucked fibers from his pink bathrobe, I walked her by the arm into the nearby dining room, where a table was stacked with mail and obviously hadn’t been used for company for some time. Mrs. Mulligan had no living children and her best friend had been the telephone, where she gathered and passed along gossip. For a woman who had thrived on the misfortunes of others, her house had (to me anyway) a creepy cuteness—lots of worthless knicknacks and curios, frog and kitty and puppy collections on display.

“Talk,” I said, holding on to her arms.

“I came over to see how Mildred was doing.”

Mildred Mulligan.

“Keep talking,” I said. “Make it fast.”

“Some girls I spoke to on the phone today said Mildred was down in the dumps because everybody was blaming her…well, her
stew
…for the outbreak at the church! A woman died, after all.”

Now another one had.

“And you haven’t called the police?”

“No, dear.”

“Or 911?”

“Obviously not, dear.”

“Instead you just sat on the porch and waited for me?”

“That’s right, dear.”

“Because no doctor was needed, since you’d determined by means learned from old mystery novels that she was likely dead.”

“She
is
dead, dear.”

“Well, she is now! Maybe if you’d…”

That was when Mother started to cry. There was nothing theatrical about it, nothing fake at all. I helped her to a chair and went to the bathroom off the kitchen and brought her some Kleenex.

Snuffling, she managed, “You’re saying I…I killed her?”

“No, Mother.”

“She was gone. She was already
gone
. There was nothing that could be done!”

“I’m sure you’re right, Mother.”

“I’m such a stupid, stupid,
stupid
woman….”

I said nothing. Just patted her back gently.

“Three people are dead, Brandy! Three people! All because I tried to do a good deed.”

All because you wanted to star in a big-time auction and appear in a regional magazine
, I thought, but was not cruel enough to say.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said, pretty much meaning it. “But we have to call the police. Right now.”

Her tears stopped, though their trails glistened on her cheeks. “We could just go home. What good will it do if we’re here and just make your friend the chief mad at us? We can go home and make an anonymous phone call!”

The only light in the dining room spilled in from the kitchen and the shadows on her face made her crazy. More crazy.

“Mother, I’m pretty sure the police have caller I.D. This isn’t a
Boston Blackie
movie from 1945. Anyway, your
fingerprints are all over the place! And as we
know
, the Serenity P.D. has your prints on file.”

“Oh, please, can’t we just go home and call from there, and not wait here?”

This from the woman who was making her second trip to the crime scene.

“No,” I said, and I got my cell phone out of my purse. I dialed the number and got Tony.

I said, “I’m afraid you’re not going to be very happy with me….”

We didn’t wait inside the house, but I have to admit we lingered in the kitchen for a while. I was curious about a couple of things.

Mother stood behind me as I positioned myself between the late Mrs. Mulligan and her stove. I pointed to the little pan on the burner. “That looks like broth. Chicken broth?”

Nodding, Mother said, “Mildred had trouble sleeping. It was her habit to have a cup of broth before bedtime.”

“You knew this how?”

She shrugged. “Everyone who knows Mildred knows her routine. Never went out much—people came around to talk to her, share the latest, uh, news.”

“What did she do before she had her cup of broth?”

“She showered at bedtime.” Mother gestured to the bathroom off the kitchen. “She was always in bed by ten o’clock. Like clockwork.”

“So if someone who knew Mrs. Mulligan’s habits wanted to sneak in here, and doctor her broth,” I said, remembering the key in the potted plant, “that would be child’s play.”

“Oh yes, dear. Is that what you think happened?”

“I don’t know what happened. Just trying to think it through.” I went to the cupboard. Touching the lower handle carefully, I opened the door and saw two well-
stocked shelves, with the two higher shelves empty. The lower shelf had household cleaning products and their ilk; the upper shelf held food items.

“How was Mrs. Mulligan’s eyesight?” I asked.

“Why, not good. She has cataracts.”

“I notice she’s consolidated her items onto two shelves, so she didn’t have to get up on a stool or ladder to reach the higher ones.”

Mother’s head bobbed. “Yes, and of course her flour and sugar and other canisters are out on the counter.”

Not wanting to get Mother going, I did not point out that among the items on the lower shelf was a box of rat poison.

We exited the kitchen and went around to the front and sat on the steps, much as Mother had back home when she’d been waiting for me. A squad car with two young officers I didn’t recognize arrived first, and I gave them a brief rundown of the events, and they told to us to wait while they entered the crime scene.

Five minutes or so later Tony arrived. He was in the sport coat again and the tie was snugged—which meant he’d gotten all the way home before I’d called him. He looked pale and I don’t think it was the moonlight.

I got to my feet and allowed Mother to remain seated and met him halfway up the walk.

“It’s not what it looks like,” I said.

His eyes were unblinking and cool. Make that cold. “What does it look like?”

“We live just down the block, you know…”

“Yes, I remember.”

“And Mother was a friend of Mrs. Mulligan’s. She regularly dropped over, and just stopped by to check up on her. There’s been some nasty talk around town, because of the stew and all, and Mother was just being a good friend.”

Briefly I explained that Mother had come home and taken me to Mrs. Mulligan’s, but did not mention that she’d been waiting for me in the dark when he dropped me off. I thought we might get away with being a trifle loose about the timing of events….

“Did you touch anything?” he asked.

“Mother did. She found a makeup mirror to try to check for breathing. She may have absentmindedly touched other things in the house. I don’t think I touched anything.”

I told him what Mother had said about Mrs. Mulligan’s habit of having broth just before bed, to make her sleep. And that she showered before bedtime, and that a key to the house was in a potted plant by the side door.

His sigh started at his toes. “Go home.”

“You don’t need us anymore tonight?”

“You’ll hear from me if we do.”

“Okay.”

“Go. Home.”

We went.

Home.

The next morning, Mother was suspiciously chipper. She was in a pale blue velour pants suit (cousin to her green one) and we had English muffins and jelly and hot tea on the porch. Neither of us was very hungry.

“In all the excitement last night,” she said, “I failed to get a report.”

“Report?”

“Were your rights abused by that brute?”

After a good night’s sleep, or anyway
a
night’s sleep, she was ready to get the skinny on my evening with the chief.

“He spared me the rubber hose and fingernail pulling,” I said, nibbling at a toasty edge. “As a matter of fact, we didn’t even go to the police station.”

“If you weren’t at the station, where
were
you?”

She used to ask something similar when I was eighteen: “If you weren’t at Tina’s, where were you?” (Probably in the park drinking champagne.)

“The chief was very sweet, really. He drove me to his house and made me dinner.”

For a while Mother just goggled at me, then eventually regained her powers of speech. “I simply must hear
all
about it!”

No surprise there.

“After breakfast,” I said.

Back in the house, I let Sushi in—I’d put her out in part so that I could enjoy my muffins without her begging—but she smelled the food in the air and started dancing and pawing at me, as best she could, as chubby as she’s gotten.

I filled her bowl, dry and wet, and refreshed her water dish, and was further going about my business when Mother materialized like a movie monster and grabbed my arm.

She steered me into the living room and over to the high-back Queen Anne armchair with the needlepoint flowers in rich colors of brown, burgundy, and gold. It was
her
throne, and neither I nor Sushi could sit there without getting a disapproving look from the Queen.

She pushed me down. “Comfortable?”

Now, I have yet in my time on Planet Earth found a comfortable “Queen Anne”
anything
. That style of formal furniture was designed to discourage Victorian Age visitors and suitors from overstaying their welcome.

“My back hurts,” I complained. “I’m expecting, remember?”

Mother rushed off, then returned with a small velvet pillow, which she stuffed behind me.