‘The reason I’m inquiring, dear,’ Mother said, ‘is that it appeared to a passerby that you and he were engaged in an argument.’
Colette’s smile grew strained. ‘Please. You know how it can be between dealers. How it can look more heated than it is, haggling. Just some friendly bartering, that’s all.’ Yet another shrug. ‘As I mentioned, we couldn’t come to a meeting of minds.’
‘What time did you leave The Trading Post?’
She thought for a moment. ‘Between six thirty and seven … exactly when, I can’t say. It had started to rain, and I wanted to get back to Iowa City before the storm really hit.’
Mother switched gears. ‘Tell me – why did you buy that box of Agatha Christie reprint books at the tag sale? They’re common, worthless … and you are neither.’
Colette gave a little c’est la vie gesture of a delicate hand. ‘Tag sales so often are the aftermath of tragedies. It seemed purchasing something, anything, was the polite thing to do, the decent thing. Don’t you agree?’
Yes – that’s how canny dealers like us can get stuck with a Snowbaby.
Colette, not waiting for Mother’s answer, continued, ‘The box of books is in the alley dumpster, Mrs Borne. You’re welcome to dive in after it, if you like.’ The high heels were turning. ‘Now, if you don’t mind … and frankly, even if you do … I have business to attend to.’
We watched her disappear into another room of the gallery.
Then Mother – probably aware we were on security surveillance – said, too loudly, ‘Isn’t she a lovely creature!’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Well, we should be going … we have other errands to run.’
‘… OK.’
Adding my part to our exit-stage-right buffoonery, I helped myself to one of Colette’s cards on the way out, as if to tell her (or her cameras) that the Borne girls could afford to do business with her.
It wasn’t until we were seated in the Fusion, with a pouting neglected Sushi on her lap, that Mother spoke.
‘We’ve got to find her car,’ she lamented. ‘It’s the one thing that will tie Colette to Skylar’s murder.’
‘There can’t be many Jaguar dealers around Iowa City,’ I said, ‘that could do that kind of repair.’
‘True enough,’ Mother said. ‘But I don’t think Colette’s had time to take it anywhere.’ A pause, then: ‘Brandy, dear, you know very well that car is stowed in the garage of her house.’
‘Please don’t say it.’
‘Yes, dear, we’re going to have to perform just the teensiest, weeniest break-in.’
After which we could be heading for the cutesiest, woostiest jail cell …
A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
Country antiques and farm implements continue to draw buying interest. As the world gets more and more complicated, folks tend to look back nostalgically at simpler times – although our ancestors might take issue with that characterization after cooking on a wood stove, hand-washing clothes, and planting a field with a plow. Mother once bought a butter churn with the intention of using it, but her first attempt at churning threw her back out, and the thing ended up in our shop. Anyone out there want an old butter churn?
ELEVEN
Carry On Spying
Colette Dumont lived in the historic, affluent enclave of Iowa City known as Park Bluffs, about a mile from Antiques Fantastique, making her claim of always walking to work plausible – even if it still didn’t ring true to me.
From North Dubuque Street, I steered the Fusion up a sharp incline carved into a limestone bluff overlooking City Park. At the top were seven houses – mansions, really – sharing the scenic ridge, spaced out nicely among tall pines, broad oaks, and drooping willow trees, each exhibiting a different architectural style.
One residence in particular stood out.
‘Whoa,’ I said, peering through the windshield, half-impressed, half-horrified. ‘It looks like a gigantic mausoleum.’
‘Indeed,’ Mother said. ‘But it’s a dwelling for the living, all right, if atypical for Iowa City … or anywhere else, actually.’
She shifted into know-it-all tour guide mode.
‘It was built in 1890 by a protégé of Frank Lloyd Wright, an associate who had worked on the construction of Hollyhock House while the great man himself labored away in Tokyo, building the Imperial Hotel.’ A pause, a gesture. ‘After the two men had a falling out, the protégé struck out on his own, and this humble abode was his first conception.’
I was familiar with Wright’s designs, and Hollyhock House in Los Angeles was one of my favorites. Colette’s poured concrete edifice displayed many of the same symmetrical stylings – a two-story centerpiece with slanted walls recalling the Mayan Revival period, supported by one-story wings on either side. Yet this structure was somehow even more austere, with none of the whimsical delights of Hollyhock House.
‘Does it have a name?’ I asked.
This kind of place usually did.
Mother confirmed my opinion: ‘Foxglove.’
I could see the design of the tubular flowers etched into the leaded glass of the long narrow windows, the identical motif rimming the edges of the flat roofs. Nearby was a garden of its namesake tall blue plants.
I frowned. ‘Isn’t foxglove poisonous? Like, very poisonous?’
‘Yes, dear. Known to cause heart attack and death.’
The implications of that required no discussion, not even from the chatty likes of Mother.
‘What now?’ I asked.
She gestured regally ahead, as if I were a rickshaw driver and she a wealthy tourist in Hong Kong. ‘Drive on, of course.’
Of course.
The road made an oval loop around the group of mansions, until – on the back half of Foxglove – a driveway slanted down through the yard into a lower level that hadn’t been visible from the front.
‘There’s the garage,’ Mother said. ‘That’s where we’ll find our Jaguar. Pull over.’
I selected a spot among a sheltering of pines and shut off the engine.
‘We really should call Tony,’ I said. The time had come for Brandy Borne to be the voice of reason. ‘If we’re correct in our assumptions …’ Again, largely unspoken. ‘… the woman in that mansion is a murderer twice over. Why put ourselves at risk, when Tony can easily get a warrant through the county sheriff?’
‘Can he, dear?’ Mother asked. ‘Based on what evidence would he be able to do that?’ The coolness in her voice was unsettling. ‘All we have are suppositions.’ She twisted toward me. ‘Do you believe Colette is our killer?’
‘“Believe” doesn’t cover it. Have you ever seen colder eyes?’
Her expression grew wistful. ‘I was more struck by their stunning violet hue, rivaling Liz Taylor in Technicolor. Colette Dumont really is a lovely woman.’
I smirked at her. ‘So was Lucretia Borgia. Mother, if we’re right, this is obviously a very dangerous person we’re talking about.’
Her shrug could not have been more matter of fact. ‘Then we must act before she does … because, dear girl, otherwise? We are likely to be her next victims. Best take the upper hand.’ She leaned toward me. ‘If we find the Jaguar, dents and all, we can call your boyfriend and report what we saw. We don’t need a warrant!’
She was right, though that would likely still land us in the clink.
‘All right,’ I said with a sigh. ‘But we’ve probably already been picked up by security cameras.’
‘Perhaps, but if so, I doubt the woman has any staff monitoring them. This is a residence, not a hotel.’
Again, I couldn’t disagree with her. ‘What about the sophisticated alarm system she’s bound to have?’
‘Sophisticated it may be,’ Mother said, with a dismissive smirk, ‘but not one with motion detection.’
Her confidence was maddening.
‘How do you know that?’
‘There’s a cat in the window.’ She was handing me Sushi. ‘Dear, yo
u have to stay alert in these situations.’
‘I would rather stay out of these situations.’
‘It’s a little late to be deciding that!’ she said, as if this were all my fault. My idea.
I moaned. ‘But what if we get caught?’
Which seemed likely to me.
‘If so, assuming Colette doesn’t dispatch us in her own home, what would happen then? She would call the police on us, wouldn’t she?’
‘Probably.’
‘And how is that a bad thing, dear?’
Was she kidding? And what about how she skated over that ‘dispatched’ part?
‘Mother, we’d be incarcerated, and I am not at all interested in helping you stage amateur theatrics in stir.’
Her chin lifted. ‘I would never impose my will upon you in that way, dear.’
Right.
‘But the thing is,’ she said with an impish smile, as if we were planning a prank, ‘we’d be safer in jail. Wouldn’t we?’
Infuriating! But how could I argue with it?
Opening the rider’s side door, she said, ‘Come along, child. I’ve already spotted a way to get in. And bring Sushi. Her way with cats like Tilda’s may prove a plus!’
We walked down the driveway. Our home invasion was happening in broad daylight, but then many home invasions do, and these mansions were separated from each other by trees and shrubbery, so we were unlikely to be spotted by neighbors.
As we approached the basement-level garage, my first thought was to find windows to look through, which if they revealed the dented Jaguar would make a trip inside unnecessary. But there were no basement windows at all. Even so, holding Sushi tight, I assumed the way in that Mother had in mind would involve going through the garage somehow.
But instead she cut across the immaculately maintained back yard and led the way to the mansion’s opposite wing.
Mother brought our little trio to a stop at a cast-iron rectangle embedded in the concrete side, about a foot from the ground. She was gesturing to it in a ‘Voilà!’ fashion.
‘Seriously?’ I asked. ‘We’re going in through a coal shoot?’
‘It’s more an aperture, dear. With no more than a six-foot drop. Easy-peasy! I’m up for going first. Then I can pull you through from below.’
I took offense. ‘Why? I’m not any larger than you!’ Of course, my feet hadn’t touched the bathroom scale in a while, and what was I doing, anyway, arguing to be able to go first?
Mother knelt, her knees popping like tiny firecrackers. ‘These things usually don’t have a lock, but let’s see if it’s wired.’
Carefully, she slid her fingers beneath and along the hatch’s rim.
‘Doesn’t seem to be,’ she pronounced with a smile, then slowly opened it.
And something unexpected happened.
Sushi jumped through, and disappeared from view.
Well, at least Mother and I could stop discussing who should go in first.
‘Now see what you’ve done,’ I said, aghast. ‘We’ll have to go in.’
Her smile mingled affection and pity. ‘Was there ever any doubt, dear?’
‘Yes!’ Some. A little. OK – none whatsoever.
With Mother hovering, I knelt at the opening and stuck my head through.
Sushi was about six feet below in the basement, eyes shining up at me as if expecting praise, panting, tail wagging, looking unfazed by the drop.
‘I’m just going to get her,’ I informed Mother, ‘and come right back out. This entire enterprise is half-baked, and I’m calling a halt to it!’
‘Fine, dear. I will respect that. We’re a team, after all.’
Entering the opening feet first, I got stuck at the hips – it actually would have been better having Mother down there to pull me through – but I, well, forced the issue and then dropped to the floor, landing like a cat. A very clumsy cat.
A concrete stairway led up to a doorless entry onto the main floor that provided plenty of illumination.
This was a cement room that had once contained coal, the shadow of which remained on the floor, though the black chunks of fuel themselves were a distant memory.
I was in an aisle, one of several, between stacks of wooden crates of all sizes – the kind for transporting fragile items. This was actually a relief, as I could make my own stack of a number of these, to make my escape easier.
Turning to call up to Mother, I was startled by her head having already emerged from the aperture, her hands reaching out – at least she was having the same problem I’d had with my hips – giving me no alternative other than to pull her on through. It made for a difficult breech birth, particularly the delivery in which she fell on top of me and we collapsed in a pile, with me on the bottom.
Sprawled on the cement floor together, I snapped at her, ‘I could’ve explained my action … Officer, I was just going after my dog! But two of us looks downright criminal.’
Sushi was regarding us curiously, though she’d perked at the word ‘dog.’
Mother sat up, dusting herself off. ‘Well, the damage is done, and as long as we’re here, why not make the best of it?’
I said nothing, as I saw no ‘best’ in any of this. And strangling her would have looked even more downright criminal.
‘Come, dear,’ she said, motioning me along. ‘Let’s keep our eye on the prize!’
‘If you mean the presumably dented Jaguar,’ I said, tagging after, ‘there doesn’t seem to be any way to get to the garage in the other wing without going through the house itself.’
Mother saw the wisdom of that – using the term ‘wisdom’ loosely.
She said, ‘Keeping with the symmetrical set-up of this place, there should be another set of stairs in the opposite wing leading down to the garage. What do you say, dear? Shall we explore?’
I didn’t bother answering. I didn’t even bother sighing. The most irritating thing about all this was what a good time she was having.
With Mother in the lead, and Sushi following and me definitely bringing up the reluctant rear, we ascended the concrete stairs that opened directly into the main living area.
‘Well, isn’t this a disappointment,’ Mother said, looking around in disparaging appraisal.
I, too, was surprised. The vast room was practically empty, but for a couch, floor lamp, and end table grouped in front of a cement fireplace. It was as if Colette had sold off the Steinway grand, Chippendale furniture, and assorted oil paintings, save for one over the mantle – a portrait of a stern-looking man in a pin-striped suit, who I assumed to be the woman’s father. The old boy was looking down at the sad surroundings as if sharing our disapproval.
Mother approached the end table, and gave it The White Glove Test, minus any white glove. Looking at her dirty finger, she said, ‘I would swear no one’s been in here for years. How is that possible?’
I groaned, flashing back to an earlier case in which Mother had gotten the address wrong, then left behind a ridiculous note saying, ‘Sorry! We meant to break into a different house,’ along with cash for the smashed window.
This time around, reading my mind, she was quick to assure me no such error had been made.
‘This is the right place, dear. And Colette Dumont certainly does live here – I have that from a reliable source.’
I took that with a carload of salt. After all, some of Mother’s sources were highly questionable – need I mention the invisible woman on the Cinders bar stool?
She was saying, ‘It’s a big mansion – Colette probably only uses part of it.’ Casting a keen eye around, Mother went on, ‘Besides, someone is feeding the cat.’
A sleek black-and-white Siamese had appeared to join our merry break-in band, obviously desperate enough for attention to put up with a strange dog, while Sushi was clearly happy to get to know our feline host.
Now a two-person train with a feline-and-canine caboose, we moved along a wide hallway toward the other wing, passing a large entryway with marble fl
oor and wainscoted walls where a central round table held an elaborate oriental vase. Next came the dining room dominated by an Arts-and-Crafts mahogany table bearing a fine patina of dust, followed by a non-upgraded but modern-looking (in a 1930s sense) kitchen with signs of use, including food on the counter and dishes by the sink. Finally we arrived at a study or, more properly, the library.
This, it would seem, was where Colette deemed to spend most of her time, at least as far as this floor was concerned – we had not gone upstairs to the sleeping quarters. Though every bit as ample as the living area, the library gave the illusion of coziness, thanks to its low ceiling, rich mahogany-paneled walls with built-in bookcases, and poured-cement gas fireplace with a flat-screen TV above it and, facing it, a brown leather armchair with footstool, both with a lot of mileage on them. The decor was again of the Arts-and-Crafts period – Stickley furniture, brass-and-glass table lamps, an oriental rug added for warmth.
To our right, another doorless portal led onto concrete stairs down to the lower level (presumably the garage), mirroring the opposite wing.
I was heading that way, but Mother walked over to a library table with a single book, minus a dust jacket. Positioned with its spine facing a set of tall narrow windows, the book would have been visible from the outside, had we gone window-peeking.
‘Is that what I think it is?’ I asked.
‘Yes, dear,’ she said, examining the indicia page. ‘Ruth’s golden anniversary present, waiting for its rare, expensive cover. It would seem it’s been left in this spot to encourage our entry.’ She gave me a coolly unconcerned look. ‘I would say we may have walked into a trap.’
‘Is that our cue to leave?’
‘Have we come this far for naught?’
I took a breath and made for those stairs and hurried down, determined to find a Jaguar, dented or not, before we made a hasty retreat.
As I entered the windowless garage, motion lights clicked on in the concrete cubicle, and the news was not good – no Jaguar. But recent oil spots on the cement indicated this had almost certainly been its usual home.
Mother joined me; hugging her feet were both Sushi and the cat, looking up at me.
Antiques Carry On Page 17