Antiques Knock-Off (7 page)

Outside, in the warmth of the sunny day, Tony asked, “You gonna be okay driving home?”

“Sure.”

“Really? Because you look terrible.”

“Gee, thanks. You always know just what to say to a girl.”

He rested a hand on my shoulder. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. You’ve taken a hell of a shock and I’m worried about you.”

“You are?”

“I am. I’ll be glad to drive you myself if necessary.”

“No, really I’m okay.”

“All right, then. Go home and get some rest.”

“I will. And Tony? Thank you. Thanks for … caring.”

His smile was barely discernible, but it was there. So was his nod.

I went around back to the patio and collected Sushi, tucked her in the pouch, then on my return gave the chief a little wave.

But I could feel his unblinking steel-gray eyes on me as I walked to my car.

I dropped Sushi off at home—Mother was off on her trolley escapades—and went into the kitchen and splashed water on my face. I don’t remember deciding to go over to Peggy Sue’s—in fact I barely recall driving over there—but somehow I arrived unscathed, pulling up to an open garage, where Sis was unloading groceries from the hatchback of her powder-blue Cadillac Escalade.

She looked almost pleased to see me.

“Oh, good,” she said, after I’d vacated my Buick (no
engine knocking or passing wind this time). “You can help me.”

That was Sis, all right—always ready to ask a pregnant woman to carry heavy sacks for her.

Peggy Sue shopped at the nicest, most expansively stocked store in town—HyVee—while Mother and I checked and bagged our own groceries at the discount place, where items were generic and not even removed from the packing cartons.

I selected a couple of light-looking sacks and followed Sis through a garage door that led directly into the kitchen.

When we’d both set our bags on a counter, I said, “I take it you haven’t heard about Connie.”

“What about her?” Sis asked, beginning to unload a sack. I waited until she had put a jar of Ragu (Zesty) down on the counter. No need for another mess.

“You better brace yourself, Peg…. Connie is … dead.”

I managed not to precede “dead” with “ding dong the witch is.” Even I wasn’t that cruel. But I did think it.

Peggy Sue froze, one hand poised over a sack as if she were trying to unload it via telekinesis.
“What?”

I nodded, reaching in and taking the next jar from her sack. “Connie is gone. Deceased.”

Suddenly I was doing the Monty Python Dead Parrot routine.

“When?” she asked. “How?
What …?”

“I said brace yourself—somebody killed her. This morning.”

“Killed her?”

“Yeah. She was murdered.” My laugh had no humor in it. “Funny. Connie Grimes was somebody I often wished dead, in that casual way you say such things about people you dislike. Or let’s face it, hate. But it was awful, Peg.

Somebody stabbed her. Right in the chest. The heart. I took absolutely no satisfaction in finding her like that.”

“Well, I should hope not! Wait, what …? You
found
her?”

I nodded. “Yup. I would imagine I’m looking like the primest of prime suspects. If the chief weren’t my boyfriend, I’d probably have been booked by now.”

Sis leaned back against the counter. “Oh, dear Lord…. Tell me everything. Everything you did, everything you know.”

I gave her the full rundown, from this morning on—setting the noon appointment, driving over there, wandering inside, eating Twinkies, hearing the whining Sushi that drew me to the body. Sounded like one of the Perry Mason novels Mother’s Red-Hatted League book club was reading:
The Case of the Whining Dog.

“So
that’s
why Connie was a no-show at bridge club this morning,” Peggy Sue was saying. Her shock had ebbed. “I was actually going to talk to her today myself.”

“So, then, uh …
you
didn’t kill her?”

“Brandy!
How could you even
think
such a thing?”

I shrugged. “Considering what we talked about yesterday when I was over here, it seems like a perfectly reasonable question.”

Sis arched one perfectly shaped eyebrow. “What about
you,
Brandy?”

“Like I said—I thought about it. Just a sick fantasy. Running more to sticking a voodoo pin in a Connie doll and having her pass away in her sleep. Never dreamed the pin would be a knife.”

I shuddered. So did Sis.

“You and Mother,” she said, and shivered.

“What
about
me and Mother?”

“You two … you
attract
this kind of thing.”

“No. Absolutely not. We do not attract it. Even Mother
doesn’t attract it. Now, she does go
looking
for it … that I’ll give you.”

Peg’s expression was glazed. “And what
about
Mother? Where was
she
this morning?”

“Downtown. On the trolley, then off it. You know—her usual haunts.”

My sister sighed. “Well, that’s a relief, anyway … especially since she’s been so fruity lately.”

I shook my head. “I’ve done everything to get her back on her meds short of tying her to a chair and using a funnel.”

Sis, returning to unloading the sack, sighed heavily. “What a horrible thing.”

“Using a funnel on Mother?”

“Connie getting killed!”

“Is it really?”

She stopped and stared at me.

“Oh, don’t look so shocked. I didn’t really wish her dead, and if I could will her back to life, I would … though I’d hate myself in the morning. Face it, Sis—somebody did us a favor. Secret contained?”

“Well … it’s awful to look at it that way, but I guess … I guess you do have a point.”

We fell silent for a few long moments. Guilt, regret, even sorrow draped the kitchen. But so did relief.

Finally Sis said, strangely chipper, “You know, Brandy, I bet Connie’s death doesn’t have anything to do with us. Not a thing.”

“She probably did have her share of enemies,” I admitted. “If she was writing
us
poisoned pen letters, she could have been doing the same with all other sorts of folks around Serenity.”

“Yes!” Sis said, latching on to that eagerly, adding, “And there have been quite a few break-ins around town lately, what with the bad economy.”

I nodded. “You got that right—especially during the mornings and afternoons, when working couples are gone, their kids in day care or school.”

Peggy Sue’s eyes flared. “That’s
surely
what happened! A burglar broke into Connie’s house, not expecting anyone to be home, and then panicked when he saw her.”

I was into it. “And Connie came at him with the knife, and he turned the tables on her!”

“Sure! That sounds just like her. For whatever her faults, she had spine. Spunk.” Sis rubbed my upper arm. “Sweetheart, I think everything’s going to be all right, don’t you?”

Hearing her call me “sweetheart” gave me a surprising rush of warmth. “Me, too. Me, too.”

Of course, if Peggy Sue really thought that, she wasn’t near as smart as I thought she was.

And if I believed that, I was even dumber than I thought I was.

Arriving home in the late afternoon, I found Mother in the kitchen, baking up a storm.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Because lately, a home-cooked meal was a rarity around the Borne household, and in progress was a feast for a small army: twin pans of lasagna, pot roast, chili, and a casserole I couldn’t identify.

(If you look up the word
casserole
in the dictionary it says, “An unidentifiable food dish.”)

Mother gestured to a stack of plastic storage containers with a wooden spoon dripping something or other. “I’m freezing meals!”

“Freezing meals. Okay.” That funnel idea was looking ever more rational. “Why are you freezing meals, Mother?”

“Why, for you to have
later,
dear.”

Not “us,” but me. Was she anticipating her inevitable
mental nosedive? She had only been institutionalized a handful of times, but the possibility was always there.

“Did you hear about Connie?” I asked.

Silly question—I could hear the staticky crackling of the police scanner that held its exalted place atop the refrigerator.

Mother wiped her hands on the red-checkered apron she always wore when cooking. “Oh,
my,
yes! Stabbed to death.
Exciting
news, isn’t it?”

And I thought
I’d
been cruel. “Gee, Mother, that’s … that’s pretty harsh.”

Mother frowned. “Yes, you’re right. Shame on me. Everybody has
some
good in them. Even a blankety-blank like the late Connie Grimes.” (In case you’re wondering, she actually said “blankety-blank.”)

So she’d heard.

I asked, “But did you know
I
was the one who found Connie?”

Mother nearly dropped her pan of lasagna.

“What?” If her eyes had grown any larger, they would have overflowed her thick lenses. “Good heavens! What were
you
doing there?”

I told her about making the appointment.

“When
were you there?”

I told her that, too. Twinkies and all.

“You’re not a suspect, are you, dear?”

I shrugged. “Probably. A ‘person of interest,’ at least.”

Mother suddenly looked ashen; she sat down on the red fifties-era kitchen stepladder stool that would have been worth a pretty penny if we hadn’t used it so hard.

“Oh, this
is
unfortunate,” she moaned, one hand theatrically pressed to her forehead, palm out. “One might say tragic!”

“Murders generally are.” But for all her melodrama, I was sorry that I’d alarmed her, and said, “Hey, I’m sure the police will clear me.”

Mother nodded. “Yes … yes. After all, they aren’t
completely
incompetent.”

I wouldn’t tell Tony she said that.

“I’d imagine the time of death
alone
would clear you,” Mother was saying. “Why, I’m as sure of that as what day it is.” She frowned. “What day
is
it, dear?”

“Well …” I gave it some thought. “Wednesday.”

She looked at me earnestly. “You do know the garbage
must
go out tonight.”

“Yes, Mother.” I’d been putting it out ever since I’d moved home. Why would she ask that? Funnel anyone?

She stood from the stool with a beaming sigh. “Good.
Now.
Where are those papers I need you to sign?”

“What papers?”

Not replying, Mother went into the dining room, and I followed in confusion; she pulled out a chair at the table, gesturing for me to do the same.

“This is a Power of Attorney over my finances, giving you full control,” Mother said, tapping a legal document with a forefinger.

So she did figure it had come time for her to be institutionalized; and she wasn’t fighting it.

“Is signing this really necessary? I’ve always been able to handle things before….”

She sighed and her eyes rose upward as if heaven were calling. “I’m afraid I might be away for some time, dear.”

This was the most candid Mother had ever been with me regarding her “condition”—as she referred to it—and also the most foresight she’d ever shown. On some level, it seemed to me, this was progress. She was not only willing to go away for treatment, she was preparing for her absence
in a well-organized, logical fashion. This was not just a good sign, but the end of an era, and the dawning of a new age of acceptance of her mental problems.

So I dutifully signed the papers.

“That’s
a good girl,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

I’d come home famished, but the collective smells of the lasagna, chili, pot roast, and mystery casserole wafting from the kitchen made my stomach lurch.

“Actually, I’m really beat,” I said. “I think I’ll go upstairs and lie down for a while.”

“Good idea, dear. You can always have something to eat later.”

She had a point. I made my way upstairs (no trundling!) and conked out for a good three hours, dreaming wild nonsense, which upon awaking only left me more exhausted than before.

Downstairs in the living room, I found notes taped everywhere: the thermostat (“keep at 72 degrees; change filter in October”); the TV (“call cable and drop the movie channels—unless you want them”); the walnut Queen Anne armchair (“use only Kramer’s oil”). All in her familiar flowery scrawl. Similar instructions were peppered throughout the rest of the house.

Mother appeared from the kitchen, sans apron.

“Ah … I see you’ve noticed my missives,” she said cheerfully.

“They’re pretty hard to miss.” Then I said gently, “Can we talk?”

Mother raised her eyebrows. “Why certainly, my child—where should we go?”

I motioned to the antique needlepoint couch that faced the picture window onto the world.

We sat.

“Mother,” I began. “I don’t want you to worry about anything while you’re gone.”

“Oh, I won’t, dear.”

“The time will pass very quickly.”

“They say it does.”

“Just know that I love you, and that—”

I was going to say that I’d visit her every day, but the words caught in my throat.

As I began to try again, I could see out the picture window a police car roll up to the curb.

And the chief himself got out.

“Mother!” I grabbed her hand.

“Don’t be worried, dear,” she said soothingly. “He’s only come to tell you that you’re not a suspect.”

In another moment Tony was knocking, and Mother called,
“Enter stage left!”
and then the chief was coming toward us as we both rose from the couch.

Tony positioned himself before me and took my hands, looking down into my eyes. “Brandy, I’m sorry to have to do this.”

Oh, dear Lord … I am going to have the baby in prison!

But then his eyes traveled to Mother.

“Vivian, I’m arresting you for the murder of Connie Grimes. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to—”

“I fully understand my rights, Chief Cassato,” Mother interrupted. “And I freely admit to killing that horrible woman.”

I stared at her, agape.