Antiques Chop (A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery) (17 page)

An omen perhaps?

But once inside, it was just a few short steps to the chief’s office, where Munson deposited us in visitors’ chairs, then disappeared.

Brian, sitting behind his big metal desk, did not rise to greet us. His face—unlike hound-dog Munson’s—was about as hard to read as Dick and Jane.

“I told you two to stay
out
of this case,” he said, voice dripping with rancor.

I was flying low, hoping to keep under the radar, letting Mother take the blame and the lead, expecting her to rush to our defense. But she appeared uncharacteristically tongue-tied, as if she’d stepped out on stage having learned the script for one play only to find herself in the midst of another, already going on.

As Brian ranted, his perhaps unintentionally patriotic-themed attire (white shirt, red tie, navy slacks) somehow added weight to his righteous indignation. At least it went well with the American flag behind his desk, anyway.

“It has come to my embarrassed attention that you have been sticking your noses into the Spring investigation, interfering with police business! You are treading very close to obstruction of justice charges.”

Mother finally found some words, if not very original. “There is freedom of the press in this country, young man. Or have you forgotten that?”

“You aren’t reporters.”

“We are the authors of a number of nonfiction true crime works, I’ll have you know.”

And she stuck her tongue out at him.

I slumped in my chair and covered my eyes, but I didn’t have to see Brian to know that Mother had only turned him whiter with rage.

Still, he worked to contain himself. “Vivian. Brandy. Do you have any idea what this case means to me, personally?” He swallowed thickly. “The D.C.I. is watching my every step.”

That was Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation. “Hell,” he continued, “once this finally hits the media, the whole
nation
will be watching! I’ll be lucky to find a job as a mall cop. Brandy, I expect this kind of self-absorption from your mother. But I thought I deserved better from you, at least.”

So this was about him. Talk about self-absorption....

I raised a hand like a kid in class. “Brian, we’re not interfering. We’re caught up in the middle of this, through no fault of our own. So we’re merely conducting a few inquiries.”

“There’s no ‘merely’ about it!” He glared at Mother but spoke to me. “
This
Looney Tunes has been questioning our suspects!
And
taping those interviews.”

How could he know that? And how could I get that darn “The Merry-Go-Round Broke Down” song from playing in my brain, after his Looney Tunes crack?

Mother laughed unconvincingly. “Why, you’re the loon, young man. All I’ve been doing is working on a documentary for Iowa Public Television. It’s all about the fireplaces of—”

“Horse hockey!” he yelled.

Only he didn’t say “hockey.”

Mother drew herself up indignantly. “I would respectfully request that you, as a servant of the people, refrain from using such foul language in front of my impressionable daughter.”

From infancy, I’d heard much worse from her, especially when she hit her thumb with a hammer.

“Besides,” Mother went on, “what proof do you have? I can show you the signed releases that indicate what the program is going to be about. Uh, and I’m also doing a documentary on our town’s boutique businesses, and—”

“Spare me the bull crap,” Brian said, although (yup) he didn’t say “crap.” He opened a desk drawer. “I have what we call in the business a smoking gun.”

What he held up was not, of course, a smoking gun, rather a little piece of black plastic hardly bigger than a credit card, reading Panasonic P2.

“Where did you get that?” Mother blurted.

“From Phil Dean. He thought it would be in his best interests to cooperate with actual law enforcement, as opposed to the Serenity branch of the Nancy Drew fan club.” Then, in response to my puzzled expression, Brian said. “It’s a disc, Brandy—the stored footage of the interviews your mother conducted. Under false pretenses, by the way.”

I frowned. “Did you have a warrant to get that?”

“Didn’t need one. As I said, Mr. Dean has been quite cooperative, particularly after I informed him that we knew of his conviction for third-degree manslaughter in a bar fight some years ago.”

Mother said huffily, “Chief Lawson, you are an underhanded, conniving so-and-so.”

“And you, Mrs. Borne, are a meddling busybody.”

Nobody, and I mean
nobody,
calls Mother a meddling busybody but me! (Looney Tunes was harder to take issue with.)

“You should be
grateful
to her, Brian Lawson,” I shot back. “She has saved this department’s bacon half a dozen times. Name an officer on your stupid department who has solved more crimes than Mother! You can’t, can you?” I should have stopped there, because what I said next was childish. “Know what? You aren’t my boyfriend anymore.”

That stopped him. As if I’d slapped him.

Finally he said, softly, “Was I ever?”

Which hurt. Truth does, sometimes.

Brian said, his tone almost conciliatory, “Look, I got you girls in here to give you fair warning—if I get any more reports of your interference, I won’t have any choice.”

“Any choice?” I asked.

“I’ll have to throw the book at you . . . both!”

Well, like Mother’s remark, that wasn’t very original, either. So why did it scare me?

Mother straightened regally. “May we leave? Or do I need to call our legal representation?”

That scared me, too—the thought of Wayne Ekhardt riding to our rescue in his Lincoln, sideswiping everyone in sight.

“Yes,” Brian sighed. “You can go.”

We did.

I halfway expected Brian to ask me to stay behind for a private moment. So that maybe we could make up (or at least pretend to).

No such luck.

In the hall, an attractive female dispatcher with chin-length reddish-brown hair and red glasses flagged us down.

“Are these your scissors, ma’am?” she asked, addressing Mother. “I found ’em by the plant in the outer room.”

Mother looked down at the small scissors the woman held in one hand. “Oh, my, yes. I’d been trimming the dead leaves. Thank you, dear.”

In the parking lot, back in the Buick, I waited before starting up the engine to get Mother’s tirade out of the way. She would surely rail on and on about how we had just been so ill-treated by
Interim
Chief Lawson. But what emerged from her mouth surprised me.

Her eyes gleamed behind the magnifying lenses. “We’re going to meet her in half an hour.”

“Who?”

“Heather?”

“Who’s Heather?”

“My new mole! The woman in red glasses who passed me this note along with my cuticle scissors, which by the way I was missing last night, after my evening bath.”

“When did you have time to recruit a new police mole?”

But Mother ignored that and handed me a scrap of paper, which I took and read out loud: “ ‘Library parking garage. South stairwell. Noon.’ ” I looked up from the note. “What does she want?”

“
That
is the question!” Mother said, quoting Shakespeare in a completely non-sequitur fashion. She settled back in her seat. “To the library, dear! That is, if you still want to continue assisting in my sleuthing, despite Chief Lawson.”

“Heck, yes.” Only I did not say “heck.” I also said, “And that’s
our
sleuthing, if you don’t mind, not
your
sleuthing. We established a long time ago that neither one of us is Watson.”

“We’re both Holmes sweet Holmes!” She patted my knee. “
There
she is . . . my little defiant Brandy. For a while there I’d thought I’d lost her.”

“Not on your frickin’ life!” I said. And actually I
did
say “frickin’.” Sorry to disappoint. “We’re going to find out who killed Bruce Spring, cost us our reality show, put Joe in the slammer, and endangered my son and your grandson!”

“That’s my girl!”

We drove off with considerably less drama than the dialogue that led up to it. The Buick needed a tune-up and the shocks were out, so we just jostled along.

It was a chilly, brief wait in the unheated garage stairwell. We’d gone straight there, with not enough time to do anything else before our meeting with Heather.

I was praying that the dispatcher would arrive soon, as Mother’s hyperjabber was starting to drive me bonkers.

“Isn’t this
exciting?
” my cohort in crime was saying. We were seated on the dirty cement steps, she one above me. “
Very
Deep Throat.”

That was us—the Woodward and Bernstein of Serenity, Iowa.

She continued. “Such a odd code name for an informant—‘Deep Throat.’ What’s the significance?”

I looked up at her. “You’re kidding, right?”

She looked down at me. “No, dear.” She lowered her tone to a gravelly mannish timber. “Did the informant have a deep voice?”

The stairwell door opened, a businessman with briefcase entered, and we had to scoot over to allow him to pass.

Mother went on. “Perhaps Deep Throat was a snitch under
deep
cover, who passed on information verbally—thus
throat
.”

“Mother, let it go. Or we
really
won’t ever get our books into Walmart. . . .”

The door opened again—please, Lord, let it be Heather—and my prayer was answered. First one in a while.

We stood, Mother moving down a step to slip past me and greet the woman.

“My dear,” Mother cooed, “this is such a surprise! And a pleasant one.”

“I don’t have much time,” Heather whispered. She had a deep, throaty timbre herself. “So just listen.”

She handed Mother a manila envelope.

“This is a copy of the coroner’s report on Bruce Spring. Also, there are photos of the ax.”

“Any possibility of viewing the weapon in person?” Mother whispered back.

The dispatcher shook her head. “It’s been sent on to Des Moines for analysis.”

Mother gushed, “Well, my dear, we can’t thank you enough—just let us know your terms.”

Heather frowned. “Terms?”

“Yes,” I said. “What you want for your trouble. But keep in mind we’re not rich.”

“Yes, dear,” Mother said. “We need a more quid pro quo kind of arrangement. A part in one of my plays, perhaps, or possibly an autographed photo of George Clooney, even prescription drugs, if you don’t abuse the privilege—you name it!”

The dispatcher’s frown deepened. “I don’t want anything from you. Only that you catch the killer. Oh, the department
might
eventually get him . . . but you two? You can do it quicker. I mean, how many killers have
they
caught in the last year or two? Now, I
must
go.”

Heather opened the stairwell door, then looked back at us—were there tears in her eyes?

Had one of the murders we’d solved involved some friend or family member of hers? Was that the debt she seemed to think she owed us?

But her parting words said otherwise.

“I just don’t know
what
I’m going to watch on TV now that Bruce Spring is gone! He was the best reality show host around!”

I don’t know whose mouth was hanging open wider—Mother’s or mine.

Well, probably Mother’s.

Like everybody says, she does have a big mouth.

 

To attract more customers, offer a variety of price ranges on merchandise—high, middle, and low. But best avoid Mother’s innovative tactic (since rejected) of putting all the higher-priced items on the top shelves, the middle-priced on the middle shelves, and the low-priced on the low shelves. All that does is cause backaches for bargain hunters.

Chapter Ten

Chop Class

A
fter our secret parking-ramp meeting with our new dispatcher snitch (whom Mother was now referring to as “Sore Throat” because of Heather’s husky alto), we headed home, arriving about one o’clock.

Knowing Mother would want to pore over the coroner’s report and evidence photos herself, I figured I’d wait for the Cliffs Notes. Sushi and Rocky had been promised a walk, and they danced around my ankles until I delivered, taking multi-tasking to new limits (two dogs, two leashes, one pooper scooper).

That took twenty minutes, but when I got back Mother was still going over the files, having taken over the dining room table. I made us lunch, finally getting around to those egg salad sandwiches.

Half an hour later, I brought the sandwiches, iced tea, and a bowl of chips in on a tray, set it down, and sat myself down, too. I positioned the tray and yours truly down a ways at the Duncan Phyfe, not wanting to put scrumptious sandwiches in too close a proximity to grisly evidence photos. I’d intended for Mother to come down and join me, but she was busy peering at photos under a large magnifying glass (the photos were under the glass, not Mother).

She glanced up at me, momentarily bringing the round glass to her face, magnifying an already enlarged eye behind its round frame, a terrifying effect perfect for an old B-movie horror flick.
The Fly,
maybe. Or
Dr. Cyclops
.

“Anything?” I prodded, nibbling the sandwich. Say what you will about Wonder Bread; it knows just what to do with egg salad, even if it doesn’t really build strong bodies twelve ways.

“I’ll need to study these further,” she said, tapping a photo with a finger. Even from my end of the table, I could see the pic was of the murder ax.

As for me, I was eating a potato chip, and not about to seek a closer look at a blood-caked weapon.

But I did ask, “Can they tell at this late date—the lab in Des Moines, I mean—if
that
ax was also the one used to kill Archibald Butterworth? Would there still be fingerprints after so many years?”

Mother frowned. “I doubt it, dear. But a DNA match from old blood should certainly be possible. At least, according to Gil Grissom and Catherine Willows.”

“I don’t think
CSI
reruns are admissible in court as forensics evidence, Mother.”

She ignored that and reached for a document headed
CORONER’S REPORT—CONFIDENTIAL. “
But now, this is particularly interesting. In fact, it changes everything. It’s a breakthrough, all right.”

“And you’re going to make me ask, of course.”

She nodded with a smile no more demented than Daffy Duck’s dodging the little man from the draft board.

So I asked, “What’s particularly interesting, Mother? How does it change everything? What makes it a breakthrough?”

“When you’re sarcastic, dear, I notice that you reflexively smirk, and that digs lines in the epidermis. Not a good idea for a young woman heading past thirty.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. What is it, already?”

“Oh, nothing much,” she said. “Just that our late producer Bruce Spring was
not
hacked to death by an ax-wielding maniac.”

“
What?
” A bit of chopped egg salad stuck in my throat, and I pushed the rest of the sandwich aside.

“He was strangled, dear,” she said as I was choking on egg salad. “Seems he was very much dead when he was, uh . . . disassembled. Pass me a sandwich, would you, dear? There’s a good girl.”

I pulled my chair around closer to hers. “If he was already dead,” I said, “why would the killer chop up the body?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Mother replied, munching. “To create the impression that this crime was a repeat of the Archibald Butterworth murder.”

“You mean, cast suspicion on Andrew? The prime suspect in the
earlier
ax murder?”

“Yes . . . or his sister, Sarah. She
is
a large woman, sturdy as a stevedore, easily several inches taller than Bruce. Many of the articles about the crime, over the years, have posited her as Archibald’s slayer. It even came up in the Bruce Spring documentary.”

“You think Sarah would be capable of killing her own father?”

Mother frowned in thought. “I couldn’t hazard a guess, dear, but you know, I have always felt there was something rather on the calculating side about her, a certain cold-blooded quality.” She leaned closer, conspiratorial. “She never married, you know.”

As if being single makes a killer of a woman. Being married seems a more likely cause.

“Maybe she is another Lizzie Borden,” I said, going along with Mother. “Didn’t you say the father was overly strict—almost cruel?”

“Yes. But by today’s standards, Ward Cleaver would seem such. Applying a belt to a bare bottom was a standard punishment then. And many fathers in those days believed in the old edict that children should be seen and not heard. That last, I must admit, has its appeal. . . .”

“What if,” I said, ignoring her last remark, “Archibald gave Sarah too
much
fatherly attention? The unwanted kind. That kind of abuse rarely came to light back then.”

Mother frowned. “A religious man like Archibald?”

“Hello! All those articles and that documentary, too, speculated that the oh so pious Archibald was having an affair at the time of the murder. Perhaps he was some kind of sicko behind his pious, proper public image.”

“Dear, we’re not trying to find Archibald Butterworth’s killer. We’re looking for
Bruce Spring’s
killer.”

“Unless that’s the
same
killer.”

She slapped the table with both hands and her pilfered files jumped. “It
couldn’t
be! Not unless either Andrew or Sarah or both of them are involved, and in that instance, why chop up the corpse afterward to overtly connect it with the other unsolved crime? If you had committed that crime yourself.”

I had no answer for that.

Mother continued: “No, the murderer was trying to implicate one or both Butterworth siblings, and your poor friend Joe just stumbled into the thick of things, confusing matters.”

“Then the original murder is irrelevant, except for providing a way to implicate the Butterworths.”

“Yes.”

“So solving the
old
murder is not a goal?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean . . .”

“Mother!”

“What is it? What’s wrong, dear?”

“It just occurred to me—this is terrible news for Joe.”

“What is?”

“Death by strangulation.” My hand went to my forehead as if checking to see if I had a temperature. “And it explains why Joe is still being held.”

“Not following you, dear. Do try to stay on point.”

“Here is the point: when this was an
ax
murder, the blood on Joe’s clothing wasn’t enough to suggest the kind of mess that violent crime would make.”

Mother clapped once and it rang in the room. “You’re right! A dead body, with no blood flow, would not create the likely arterial spray of an ax murder. . . . Are you going to finish that sandwich, dear? I’m working up an appetite.”

“Forget eating! I thought Joe was more or less in the clear, but he’s still in big trouble. And what about that cameraman friend of yours, who threatened to strangle your late producer? We
have
to solve this thing!”

Mother flew to her feet, pushed her chair away from the table, and began to pace along its length.

I let her pace and think, going over to have a look at the photos and even using the magnifying glass myself. What I saw made me risk interrupting her mulling process: “Mother . . . didn’t you see this? Didn’t you notice it?”

She was still pacing, barely paying any attention to me. “Dear, I’m trying to think. Please don’t bother me.”

“Hey!
You!
Listen for once!”

That froze her. She looked like a deer in the headlights, if a deer in the headlights had on glasses that magnified its crazy eyes.

“Take a look at this,” I said, gesturing with the magnifying glass.

She came over and peered down through. Then she reared back, as if alarmed. “Oh dear. I missed it. That’s it. That’s the key. The clue!”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “So. What now?”

She extended her arms, palms up, as if balancing something on them. “Obviously. A return visit to Andrew and Sarah Butterworth.”

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” I groaned. “We were practically thrown out of there this morning. Couldn’t we just call Brian and hand this over to him?”

Mother gave me a hard look. “After the way he treated us?”

She had a point.

 

This time it was Andrew who answered Mother’s unrelenting doorbell-twisting.

Looking positively murderous, he growled, “I came home to find my sister in
tears!
Vivian Borne, you aren’t just a busybody, but a cruel and unfeeling
monster
. If you don’t stop bothering us, I’m calling the police. There are laws against such harassment!”

“That strikes me as rather an overreaction,” Mother said, pleasant, businesslike, and utterly unfazed.

He thrust his finger past us, pointing to the rest of the world. “
Go! Both
of you!”

But Mother didn’t go and, for that matter, neither did I. I was watching Mother reach into her copious bag. It was like seeing Harpo Marx reach in his pocket—you never knew what was going to come out.

“Andy, my old dear . . . before you cast me into the storm like a fallen daughter with a babe in arms, you might want to feast your eyes upon
this
.”

“What is it? What’s that, a photo?”

“Might we come inside?”

“No, you can’t come inside! My God, woman.”

“Very well, we’ll conduct this charade out here.” She thrust the photo toward him. “This is a picture of the ax associated with the murder of Bruce Spring—the very one
also
was used in the killing of your father.”

Andrew recoiled, refusing to take the picture.

“Actually, it’s a close-up of the handle,” Mother explained further, “with the initials AGB burnt into the butt.”

Why hadn’t the police noticed that? They really were helpless without us.

Now, finally, he took the photo, studied it for a moment, then said, “My father’s middle name was
Louis
. It’s a matter of public record.”

Mother arched an eyebrow. “And yours?”

“Louis, also. My grandfather’s name.” He thrust the photo back at Mother. “This ax was
not
ours. I already talked on the phone to that Lawson fellow, the chief of police, about this. Now, if that’s all, would you please, once and for all,
leave?
”

He turned on his heel, and slammed the door.

 

Back at home, Mother was pacing next to the Duncan Phyfe again.

“Brandy, Brandy, Brandy,” she muttered. She threw her hands up. “This case is driving me absolutely out of my mind!”

No comment.

She halted so suddenly I jumped a little. Then she thrust an Uncle-Sam-Wants-You finger in my face. “Bring down the box of tangled Christmas lights from the attic,” she commanded.

“What? Why?”

“I must do something mundane to clear the little pink cells,” she announced, tapping her head with a finger.

“You mean little gray cells.”

“Actually, that’s a misnomer on Hercule Poirot’s part. Really they’re pink. Or
pinkish
-gray, anyway. Get the box, dear! Get the box.”

I made a face. “Don’t tell me you’re going to start decorating for Christmas already!”

“And what if I am?”

“That’s disrespecting Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is not a step you can skip. It’s a special holiday, too.”

“What’s so special about it?” Mother huffed, her eyes large and wild. “A woman spends a whole morning cooking, the meal is eaten in half an hour, then she’s left to an afternoon of clean-up while everyone else watches football. And—just as she sinks exhausted into a chair—the family wants to know what’s for dinner.”

“Well, leftovers, of course. Turkey. Duh.”

Her eyes flared. “I forbid you to say ‘duh’ ever again! It is childish and beneath the dignity of a woman who is no longer a child.”

This coming from the woman who had earlier this afternoon stuck her tongue out at the chief of police.

I said, “Well, your tale of Thanksgiving travails is very moving, but I’d be moved more if it had anything to do with you. When was the last time you cooked Thanksgiving dinner? We always go out.”

“
Get the Christmas tree lights!
”

And so I headed up to the attic to retrieve the heavy box of hopelessly ensnared lights, which Mother dumped out on the Persian rug in the library/music room in front of the flat-screen TV that had been the only worthwhile item from our last win at a storage-unit auction. Then she put on a DVD of
A Christmas Story
(“for mood”).

I found a chair and watched the movie, which had been a favorite of mine long before the world caught up with it. Such a funny, unsentimental story of childhood. Maybe after this we could watch
Miracle on 34th Street
(the original black-and-white version), then Alastair Sim in
Scrooge
. Who needed Thanksgiving, anyway?

And who needed solving murders? It was Christmas in November!

The dogs joined us, curling up together on the rug for a nap, while Mother worked at taming the tree light snakes. Right now one of my favorite
Christmas Story
scenes was unfolding, and probably yours too, the one where a boy gets his warm tongue stuck to the freezing flagpole.