Antiques Bizarre

by Barbara Allan

I squinted. “Okay, it’s not X-Files, you two—get that out of my face, please! And someone feel free to turn a light on.”

  “Better to light one small candle,” Mother said, “than to curse the darkness!”

  It wasn’t the darkness I felt like cursing.

  Jake retreated to the wall switch, turning on the overhead light. Immediately I wished I could switch it off—he and Mother were dressed all in black, Jake in a black sweatshirt and jeans, Mother in a black turtleneck with sweatpants, both with black commando smudges under their eyes.

  “All right,” I demanded, “what are you trick-or-treaters up to? Haven’t you even been to bed? What time is it, anyway?”

  Mother said, “Taking your questions in order. First, no, we haven’t been to bed, we’ve been in a planning session, and second, as for the time, it’s a little after one A.M., dear—there’s a clock on the nightstand, if you’d care for something more precise.”

  I pointed at Jake. “Wash your face and go to bed.” I pointed at Mother. “Wash your face and go to bed.”

  Jake was frowning in disappointment, Mother frowning in irritation. She said, “We need you to drive us to St. Mary’s.”

  “No!” I got the covers up over my head. My voice, muffled but my crisp delivery cutting through, said, “Turn the light off on your way out, one of you.”

  “Perhaps you didn’t hear me, Brandy. We need you to drive us to St. Mary’s.”

  Under the covers, I said, “Like that’s going to happen.”

  “If you’d rather I drive, dear, because I consider this an emergency, and could do so, unless…Jake, darling, do you have your learner’s permit?”

  “I’m only twelve,” Jake said, “but I’ve played lots of driving games.”

  I was out from under the blankets. Realizing I was dealing with two twelve-year-olds, I decided a calmer, more rational approach was needed.

  I asked, “Why St. Mary’s in the middle of the night?”

  The Mutt and Jeff commandos exchanged looks, then G.I. Joe Mutt said, “We have to, ’cause Grandma figured out where the egg is hidden. You know, the valuable fabric egg?”

  Patiently, Mother said, “Fabergé, Jake. Fabergé.”

  “Mother,” I said, “why would you fill Jake with such nonsense?”

  “Because I do know where the egg is, dear.”

  “After all these days, it just came to you?”

  Mother sat on the edge of the bed; in her commando outfit, she looked crazier than usual, which of course was saying something, but the tone of her voice lacked hysteria. She seemed alarmingly self-composed.

  “Because of the Scriptures, dear—haven’t you been paying attention? That’s why I wanted to talk to Father O’Brien, until some thoughtless person killed him.”

  “You mean, the Scripture lesson Father O’Brien read at the memorial service?”

  I did remember she’d gone on about it, though the topic had fallen by the wayside when police interrogation at the murder scene kicked in.

  “It’s not what he read, dear.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s what he didn’t read.”

  “You lost me.”

  “At what point, dear?”

  “Somewhere around when Jake switched on the light.”

  Mother frowned. “Be serious, you imp.”

  Imp? Now I was an imp?

  Jake was frowning, too. “Show her, Grandma.”

  Mother withdrew a folded sheet of paper from her black sweatpants’ pocket, and said, “I was troubled by Father O’Brien’s choice of Scriptures. If you’ll recall from your Catholic upbringing—”

  “Brief Catholic upbringing,” I corrected, yet I was paying close attention, remembering that Mrs. Hetzler had complained about the Scripture reading, as well.

  “Yes, dear, brief upbringing, but not so brief that I didn’t remember that the correct procedure at funeral mass is to read Scripture from the Old Testament, New Testament, and the Gospel.”

  Same complaint Mrs. Hetzler had made!

  “All right,” I said. “I’m listening.”

  “Well, besides leaving out the Gospel entirely, the late father was combining verses while leaving others out.”

  My eyes tightened. “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t believe out of carelessness. I think this was a well-considered revision.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t be sure, dear. But my guess…my educated guess…is that he wanted to put the murderer on a kind of notice.”

  “You’re saying Father O’Brien knew who killed Martinette?”

  Mother’s eyes narrowed and, with the commando black beneath, they seemed to disappear, despite the magnifying eyeglasses. “He may have. I think it’s more likely he suspected someone, suspected them strongly.”

  “If he knew for sure, wouldn’t he have told the police?”

  “That’s my view. But then again, the other day I heard him in a heated discussion with someone—wouldn’t go so far as to characterize it as an argument. Still, he may have been confronting the killer with his suspicions.”

  “And the killer was threatening him?”

  “No. I would say the killer was reacting with indignation. Trying to intimidate the good father into forgetting about these suspicions.”

  “But Father O’Brien didn’t forget.”

  “That’s right, dear, and he restated them in public—granted, in a disguised fashion, but enough so to inform the killer that he must come forward and tell the truth, else the father would go to the authorities with his suspicions.”

  Jake jabbed at the paper Mother held. “The line, Grandma—read Mom the line!”

  Mother unfolded the note. “I wrote down Scripture from the Old Testament that he read—from the Book of Wisdom, Chapter Three, verses one through nine.” Mother raised a finger. “But Father O’Brien made a significant omission—he left out verse six.”

  When Mother paused, I said, “Please don’t make me ask.”

  Which was sort of asking.

  “The missing verse,” she said with just a hint of triumph over me, “reads: ‘As gold in the furnace, he proved them, and as sacrificial offerings he took them to himself.’”

  When I remained mute, Jake said, “Well?”

  I said, “Let me read.”

  Mother handed me the sheet of paper.

  “Mom?”

  “I’m thinking….”

  Prozac Brandy would have nixed this middle-of-the-night Easter egg hunt; but the unmedicated Brandy felt Mother might be on to something.

  I said, “Would be pretty cool to find it.”

  “Think of the money it would mean for flood relief,” Mother said. “And think of what a clue it will be to the murderer’s identity.”

  “Yes!” Jake pumped a fist.

  “But how are we going to get into the church at this time of night?”

  “God works in mysterious ways, dear.”

  I raised a stop palm. “I’m okay with entering, it’s breaking and entering I’m not on board with.”

  “Dear, how often have I instructed you in the need to think and plan ahead?”

  “Never?”

  “How often have I made the point that life is a game of chess, and you must always plan ahead?”

  “You don’t play chess. You get a migraine over checkers.”

  “Shush, dear.” Her smile turned devilish. “When I was in the church secretary’s office the other day, I thought ahead and borrowed an extra key to the back door…just in case we might need it.”

  Mother always “borrowed,” by the way, and had never been known to filch, pilfer, swipe, or steal. Semantics were everything to Vivian Borne.

  “All right!” Jake said, with a grin and a swing of a fist. “We’re in like Flynn.”

  I squinted at him. “Where did you hear that saying? Your grandmother?”

  “No,” he said, and pointed at me. Gently, but pointed.

  “Oh. Well. It is c
olorful. Do you know who ‘Flynn’ was, Jake?”

  “No.”

  “Or what exactly what it was he was ‘in’?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Keep it that way.” I threw back the covers. “Just one condition, before I join Farce Ten from Navarone—I do not wear commando grease under these eyes. Capeesh, gang?”

  “Capeesh, Mom.”

  Mother said, “Ditto, dear.”

  “Okay, then. Go downstairs and wait for me. I have to find something black to wear.”

  At this early-morning hour, the streets of Serenity were deserted, stoplights flashing, houses dark, sane people in their beds. A spring shower perhaps an hour ago had dampened the streets and made them black and glisteny under the streetlights. There was an unreality to it, a quiet surrealism heightened by our black commando garb, and I felt in a sort of dream state. But reality kicked in when we came to the hillside drive up St. Mary’s.

  A floodlight gave modest illumination in the parking lot, and I didn’t want to leave the car there, not caring to be spotted—by whom, I couldn’t say. Might be the church was on a security firm’s rounds or a police patrol car’s or even a night watchman wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

  So I drove around to the rear of the church, taking a gravel service road, then parked the Buick along a row of bushes.

  Mother, “borrowed” key in hand, led the way, unlocking the back metal door, where, in less time than it takes to say, “In like Flynn,” we were in like Flynn. (Really had to learn to watch my mouth around Jake….)

  Our flashlights did their light-saber number, even crossing sometimes, on the stone walls, racks of hand tools, stacked boxes, our beams landing simultaneously on the ancient furnace hunkered near the spiral staircase. It felt as if the furnace had been sneaking around and froze in our lights, like an escaping prisoner about to go over the wall.

  With hushed excitement and not a little trepidation, our little group approached the slumbering beast, with its large round heat ducts bound in tattered insulation tape reaching like agonized arms severely injured in battle.

  We circled the furnace, our flashlights probing, looking for any possible hiding place that might conceal the precious little item that was the Fabergé egg.

  Finally, Mother whispered, “I wonder if it’s in with the pilot light?”

  Her beam found a rectangular panel, about six inches by eight. Unlike our furnace at home—which required a screwdriver to remove the pilot-light panel—this one had no such safety feature, and popped open on hinges.

  Mother reached a hand in.

  “I hope it’s there,” Jake whispered.

  She fished around.

  And pulled out nothing but a dirt-smudged paw.

  “Try again, Grandma!” Jake said. “Stick your hand way in, way back, this time….”

  She obliged, and we watched in wide-eyed silence as she reached and probed and frowned and fished and I was just wondering if she was milking it when she said, “Bingo.”

  Jake and I crowded around her as she withdrew her hand, revealing the missing if unimpressive-looking Fabergé egg. The light-wooden treasure was dirty from its nesting place, but seemed to be in one piece. Not a crack.

  Jake asked, disappointedly, “That’s it? That piece of junk is worth a million bucks? I thought the Bible said there was gold in the furnace—”

  “There is gold inside, young man,” a male voice said, and we three jumped, with Mother almost dropping the egg, even bobbling it in a one-handed juggling act that caught everyone’s breath.

  John Richards—the slender, boyish bespectacled Brit, attired in a black long-sleeved t-shirt and black trousers (but not commando eyeliner)—stepped from the darkness and into the outer rim of our lights.

  He held out a palm. “We’ll take that….”

  We?

  He was quickly joined by Katherine Estherhaus, looking curvy in a black pants suit, and Sergei Ivanov, who wasn’t quite with the program, his shirt navy and his slacks a dark shade of charcoal. Every commando unit has one screw-up.

  Mother, rarely one to stammer, was so flabbergasted by these interlopers that she said, “You…you…you’re all in this together?”

  “That’s right,” Estherhaus said. “Now hand us the egg.”

  “Da,” the stocky Russian said, scowling, looking pretty formidable. “We want egg!”

  Mother thrust her hand-with-egg behind her back and her chin went up and her bosom went out. “Never! You’ll have to kill all three of us first!”

  “No, you won’t,” I said, and took the egg out of Mother’s hidden hand.

  She gave me a pop-eyed look that called me a betrayer, but I simply said, “But before I hand it over, what right have you to it? What are you, a bunch of thieves?”

  The trio of bidders traded alarmed looks.

  I went on. “Because, hey—my kid and I are willing to cut a deal and keep our mouths shut, to save our skins. The two of us can sit on Mother, and you three can skate.”

  “Brandy!” Mother said, as ashamed as she was angry.

  “Yeah,” Jake said, going right along with his mom, “I’m no snitch.”

  He made a zip sign at his lips.

  Estherhaus had her hands on hips. “What are you idiots taking about? We want to turn that precious artifact over to the authorities. We certainly don’t want to leave it in the protective custody of your Looney-Tunes mother, whom you may have noticed almost dropped it, a minute ago.”

  Mother frowned. “Then you’re not the killers? Any one of you…the killer?”

  I said to Estherhaus and company, “I get your point. But why are you guys here playing ninja?” I jerked a thumb at Mother. “I have an excuse.”

  The brunette gestured to the Brit. “We’re both Catholics, and when we heard the priest’s Scripture reading, we knew something was amiss. We looked the passage up, courtesy of the Gideons providing a hotel-room Bible, and determined that Father O’Brien was sending a message about where to find the egg. We had no idea why he did it that way, but we decided to take a look—only after dark, and carefully. We’re hardly killers, but somebody seems to be. Discretion is the better part of valor, after all.”

  “And Nikita?” Mother asked, gesturing contemptuously toward Ivanov. “What is he doing here? He claims he only wants the egg to destroy it!”

  The Russian thumped his chest. “I break down door, if need. We all come great distance for auction—egg must be found before second auction can take place.”

  Richards stepped forward. “We were just about to have Sergei perform that service for us, when your car came driving up, and we took shelter in the bushes. You had a key, and saved us the trouble.”

  I said, “If you’re just planning to do the law-biding thing, and turn this egg over, then how did you intend to justify breaking into the church? How do we know you weren’t going to disappear with it—sell it to some private collector, and get very, very rich?”

  “I would say,” Richards said rather jauntily, “the point is moot. We’re all here and in agreement that the artifact must be turned over to the police.” He reached for his pocket and said, “Don’t get worked up—I’m just after my cell phone.”

  Estherhaus said, “May I see the egg? I just want to make sure it’s not damaged. Whoever took it off Martinette’s body would have only had moments to conceal it, and it might have been harmed in the rush….”

  Mother was shaking her head, Jake was frowning, but I went to the woman and held the thing in my palm like, well, like an egg.

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  The brunette asked, “Anyone mind if we get some lights on in here? If it attracts any attention, we should be all right, since we intend to call the police, anyway.”

  No one had any problem with getting some light on the subject, and I sent Jake running over to a wall switch, which he clicked, then came running back.

  Everyone blinked momentarily, getting accustomed to the illumination, then gathered a
round Estherhaus, who held the egg, turning it over, examining it closely. She was frowning. She handed it to Richards, and Mother protested but I let it happen.

  The Brit gingerly examined the egg, opening it to have a look at the delicate crystal bird with the gold wreath in its beak. Then he looked at Estherhaus, and from her returned gaze I could tell at once that something was wrong.

  “It’s a copy,” she said, with a glum nod. “A good one, a first-rate job of it—still, even in this limited light, without any tools, easily discernible as a fake.”

  “What?” Mother shrieked. “Are you sure?”

  Richards and Estherhaus nodded in tandem. Then Richards said, “This is not the Fabergé egg we examined at Madam Petrova’s home that morning, before the auction.”

  The Russian was frowning. “How is possible…?”

  I said, “Well, obviously, the real egg was switched with this copy, some time after the bidder viewing. Maybe here at the church.”

  “All right then,” Richards said evenly, calmly, “where is the original?”

  Jake, who had been listening intently, said, “Maybe it’s here, too.”

  All eyes went to the boy.

  Mother said, “My grandson may well be right. If the switch was made here at the church, and if we can take the leap that the killer is the same person who made that switch, then after getting rid of Mr. Martinette, he or she hid both eggs.”

  Richards seemed bewildered. “Why on earth…?”

  “Because with the police around, questioning everyone, possibly conducting a search, the safest procedure would be to hide both eggs and retrieve them later.” Mother raised a finger. “And since the copy was still here, we can assume the original is, too. But one thing we do know—it’s not in that furnace.”

  “You’re sure?” Estherhaus asked.

  Mother shrugged. “Check if you like, dear, but I found only just this one.”

  “Cool!” Jake said. “That means another Easter egg hunt!”

  I wasn’t as convinced about Mother’s theory, but it held enough water that I suggested, “We should search only where the real egg could be—the inner sanctuary, the choir room, this room, and there.”

  I pointed to the spiral staircase leading to the walkway and bell tower.

  “We should turn on more lights,” Katherine said.