Antiques Chop (A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery)

by Barbara Allan

  Bruce and Phil had already begun a walk-through of the house, and we returned to tearing out the parlor carpet. Then after about fifteen minutes, the two men reappeared. Bruce seemed pleased, Phil not so much.

  “Well?” Mother asked them anxiously. “What do you think of our enchanted cottage?”

  Bruce smiled. “Well, the house is perfect. Lots of character. It’ll make a great set.” He turned to his shooter. “Phil?”

  The cameraman shrugged. “It’s cramped, will be hard to light, and will basically make my life a living hell. Otherwise, it’s perfect.”

  “Come on, man. It’s not that bad.”

  “What does it matter what I think?” Phil said sourly. “You’re going to do what you want.”

  An embarrassed silence draped itself across the room.

  Bruce, forcing a smile, said, “Would you excuse Phil and me for a moment?”

  And turning his back on the cameraman, he walked away. After a beat, Phil glumly followed.

  “No problemo!” Mother called after them. “As a thea-tuh director, I am well aware that one must often work out creative differences between . . . Oh. They’ve gone. Too bad. I was going to give a wonderful example of how it’s done.”

  I’ll give one: the time Mother donned dual hats in Everybody Loves Opal, and director Mother constantly yelled at actor Mother, and vice versa.

  (Mother to Brandy: I did not yell at myself. That would be unprofessional and undignified. But I did give my character the occasional stern talking-to. Sorry, Editor—couldn’t find a pencil.)

  Right around then I noticed that Joe and Jake had gone AWOL.

  Hearing faint voices above, I went into the kitchen—where snoopy Mother was eavesdropping on Bruce and Phil in the dining room—and found the stairs leading up. Jake’s voice came from a bedroom: “Okay, I’m in. We’ll go fifty-fifty.”

  “Negatory,” Joe said. “I’m doing the grunt work.”

  “But I’m the one who’ll get in deep doo-doo if she ever finds out.”

  “Sixty-forty. It’s my caper. Also, I have the contacts who would pay premium shekels for this sort of thing.”

  Jake sighed. A pause. “All right, all right. I don’t care what anybody says—you’re normal, all right. You must be, to drive that hard a bargain.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked from the doorway.

  Jake jumped, but Joe whirled toward me in a threatening karate stance.

  Couldn’t I ever learn not to surprise a Marine?

  “Whoa!” I said, palms up. “I’m a friendly, remember?”

  Joe uncoiled, stood, maintaining an uneasy parade rest.

  “Well, what’s up?” I asked again. “Am I the ‘she’ you’ll get in deep do-do with, if I find out?”

  Jake said, “No, no . . . we’re just talkin’ about selling my baseball cards. Dad’s ex gave me a couple of valuable ones that I want to peddle with the rest of my collection.”

  My son couldn’t lie any better than I could.

  “What’s this about a ‘caper’? And ‘premium shekels’?”

  Joe said, “Baseball cards are collectibles,” as if that answered everything. I was about to press them further, when shouting broke out below.

  From the sound of it, things had gotten physical between Bruce and Phil.

  Yet it was a woman doing most of the yelling.

  Guess what woman.

  “Joe!” I barked. “Can you serve as an M.P.?”

  “Affirmative.”

  To Jake I said, “You better stay here.”

  “No way!” he shot back. “Somebody’s mixing it up down there, and my money’s on Grandma.”

  We hurried down the stairs, through the kitchen, and into the parlor.

  Where it wasn’t Mother who was yelling, after all—rather, a heavy-set woman in black sweater and slacks, the house’s former renter, Mary Beth Beckman herself, arguing loudly with Bruce Spring.

  What the devil was the heavyset bookseller doing back here? Had she come for her pizza boxes?

  Mary Beth—turning nearly as red as the scarf around her neck, tendrils of gray hair doing a Medusa number around her tomato of a face—thrust a threatening finger at the producer. “Perhaps Andrew Butterworth would be interested in knowing that the host of Heartland Homicides is involved here—the host slash producer who produced that documentary episode on his father’s murder, practically accusing him of it!”

  Bruce, unfazed, countered, “Maybe he would be interested in knowing it was you, Miss Beckman, who contacted me in the first place. I’d never heard of the Butterworth murder or Serenity flipping Iowa, either, before you called me!”

  Actually, he didn’t say “flipping.”

  The bookseller’s mouth yawned open, then clamped shut, like a gate.

  “Besides,” Bruce went on, “what makes you think he doesn’t know I produced the documentary?”

  The woman laughed once, humorlessly. “Because you’re here, in this house! If Andrew Butterworth knew you were involved, he’d have never granted permission for you to shoot here!”

  I moved deeper into the parlor. “What’s all this about?”

  Mother, an interested bystander in this little tit-for-tat, scowled at me for busting in. She did love a good fracas.

  “My dear,” Mary Beth addressed me in a highly patronizing manner, “I don’t think you have any idea who this Bruce Spring individual really is—which is to say, a liar, a conniver, and a breaker of promises . . . especially where money is concerned. Anyone who does business with him had better have an iron-clad contract and a regular Perry Mason for a lawyer.”

  We had neither. (Mr. Ekhardt, our family attorney, now ninety, had been Serenity’s Perry Mason for many years, but now was prone to falling asleep in court.)

  Jake, with Joe in the parlor entryway, came forward. “Bruce Spring isn’t any of those things, lady. He’s a reality TV genius!”

  That might be overstating it, but I’d learned long ago not to criticize my son’s heroes—real or fictional.

  “And besides,” my son went on defiantly, “who invited you?”

  Mary Beth, momentarily befuddled by the boy’s pluck, recovered, and huffed at everyone in general, “Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

  She wheeled and left, slamming the front door.

  “Who was that ol’ windbag?” Jake asked.

  “Just a poor, sad, delusional woman,” Bruce answered quietly.

  I looked at the producer. “Did she contact you about doing a documentary on the Butterworth murder?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment, then sighed. “Well, she did bring the crime to my attention, back when I was hosting Heartland Homicides for A & E. But she wanted an executive producer’s credit, a hefty fee, and royalties. Which was ridiculous.” He gestured dismissively. “I counteroffered an associate producer credit and a flat fee, but she turned it down.”

  “So you made the documentary without her,” I said, a statement not a question.

  Bruce spread both hands. “Hey! I didn’t have to pay that woman anything—no one has a claim on a true crime.”

  Mother was nodding. “That’s right, dear. One cannot copyright history.”

  I gave her a suspicious look. “How did Mary Beth even know about this? About the show, and the Butterworth ‘murder’ house being the set, and . . . you just couldn’t keep it to yourself, could you?”

  Mother’s eyes flitted like a butterfly, landing nowhere. “Well, I may have mentioned it to, uh . . . one or two of the girls.”

  Bruce said, “You were supposed to keep all of this to yourself, Mrs. Borne. We like to handle the rollout of productions ourselves, and—”

  “Pish posh and tish tosh,” Mother said. “Let us no longer speak of unimportant things.”

  Bruce frowned. “What’s that—Lewis Carroll?”

  “No,” I said wearily. “Just Mother.”

  She clapped her hands once. “Let’s forget all about that unpleasant woman and get do
wn to work. How do we proceed, Mr. Producer? With the renovations, that is. What is your vision?”

  More to the point, I asked, “And what do we use for money?”

  Bruce withdrew his wallet from a front pocket. “This cashier’s check should be enough to cover everything,” he said. “Repairs, new fixtures, and what-have-you.”

  “Yippee!” Mother said.

  She really did.

  Bruce added, “Of course, I’ll need receipts for everything.” He handed Mother the check, who looked at it, then gave a low whistle.

  I took a gander, too. So much for Mary Beth’s claim that Bruce was a welsher.

  (Mother to Brandy: Dear, do you have any understanding of the term “welsher”? Side Note to Editor: Sorry, still out of pencils! Why don’t you send me some? I believe they would qualify for “media mail.”)

  (Brandy to Mother: No, I don’t know the history of the term “welsher.” Anyway, what did happen to all the pencils? I think you deliberately threw them away.)

  (Mother to Brandy: The term is quite derogatory to the Welsh . . . and we have some readers across the pond in Wales, like that lovely correspondent, Gwenllian Cadwalader. Gwenllian, I do apologize for my daughter’s ignorance.)

  (Editor to Vivian and Brandy: I am sending you a box of pencils—FedEx—and I expect you to use them!)

  I said to Bruce, “There’s something I don’t understand—why would your production company put money into a house it doesn’t own?”

  “That money is in the budget already,” he said. “You see, usually we build a set, then tear it down after. In this case, everything stays, which is to your benefit. You’ll be able to continue using the house for your antiques business.”

  “Cool!” Jake said, then, looking around, asked, “Where’s Phil?”

  Mother said, “I saw him slip out. I’m afraid our DP went AWOL.”

  “Well, that’s a SNAFU,” Jake said, “ ’cause we gotta have him—he’s worked on all the big reality shows.”

  Bruce raised reassuring palms. “Not to worry—I’ll have Phil back on board as soon as I go back to the hotel and smooth his ruffled feathers.”

  “Then perhaps you best do so now,” Mother suggested. “It’s never wise to let hard feelings fester. In the meantime, we’ll carry on,” her British accent momentarily returning.

  As the afternoon wore on, we expected Bruce to return with a placated Phil, but when five o’clock arrived with no sign of either, we hauled the last of the downstairs carpet to the curb, then locked up the house.

  I offered Joe a lift, but since he lived not too far away, my friend opted to hoof it (or, rather, march) home.

  Tired and dirty, our hearty little band—Mother, Jake, and me—climbed into the Buick and headed back to the Borne homestead.

  Where, greeting us in the foyer, were two dogs, practically cross-eyed with the need to go outside.

  Quickly, I put Sushi and Rocky out back on their respective chains, and noticed that the yard could use some “sprucing up.” So I grabbed the plastic pooper-scooper and set about my work, being careful where I stepped. (The alternative was helping Mother in the kitchen cooking our dinner, the much-dreaded liver and onions that she alone liked.)

  Jake came flying down the back porch steps.

  “Mom?”

  I knew what he wanted. “Don’t worry,” I told him. “There are plenty of cold cuts and cheese slices in the fridge. Fresh bread on the counter, too.”

  He smiled. “Awesome.” He frowned. “But how do we make that liver disappear?”

  I smiled. “That’s what dogs under the table are for—just keep your grandma busy talking about herself.”

  “Which is only the easiest thing in the world,” he said, still grinning. Then, “Say, Mom? Do you still have a bike?”

  “Yeah, but the tires are flat. Why?”

  “Oh, I just thought I might ride around while I was home. Decent weather. Where is it?”

  “In the garage. You’ll have to dig through Grandma’s junk to get to it.” I raised a warning finger. “If you get scratched from anything rusty, you’ll need a tetanus shot.”

  Jake, heading for the stand-alone garage, called over his shoulder, “Had one last year, remember? When I went digging for my old snow sled?”

  After dinner and kitchen cleanup, I went upstairs for a nice, long bubble bath. Jake, having found my old bike, was outside in the drive, fixing the flats. Mother was busy at the dining room table, constructing a model of the Butterworth house by stacking two medium-sized cardboard boxes on each other, and using single-serving cereal boxes, toilet paper tubes, and Popsicle sticks to construct how she wanted the interior to look.

  You had to hand it to the old girl—she was theater through and through.

  After my soothing bath, I got into my jammies, and crawled into bed, joining Sushi (curled by my pillow) and Rocky (stretched out at the foot), both looking contented after their unexpected under-the-table feast.

  Settling in with a book (I’m an e-book fan only on planes), I may have read for an hour, or only a few minutes, I couldn’t say. But when I awoke next the lamp by the bed was still on, and I was in a half-conscious state, my eyes merely slits, when Sushi’s little furry face came into focus, and she began to whistle.

  At least it seemed like she did, until the cobwebs in my head cleared, and I realized it was only that silly whistling ringtone on my cell phone from the nightstand.

  The caller was Jake, and the time, 1:45 A.M.

  I bolted upright. “Where are you? Tell me you’re in your room and calling on your cell.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “What is it?”

  “Mom, you gotta come. Right away.” His voice sounded small and distant.

  “Where are you?”

  “The . . . the murder house. Something’s happened. Please. Please hurry.”

  “What is it?” I was out of bed, shoving my slippers on.

  “There’s a body.”

  “Body?” I was trying to process it. “You mean . . . a dead one?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Whose?”

  “I . . . I can’t tell.” His voice cracked. “It’s all . . . all chopped up.”

  A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip

  Modest pricing of merchandise creates rapid turnover and repeat customers. High prices create stagnant stock and less foot traffic, which means less money in your pocket. On the other hand, some items, like a certain Smiley Face clock, don’t sell no matter what tactic you try.

  Chapter Four

  Chop Till You Drop

  Note from Brandy: The first half of this chapter is written by Jake, because my son can explain better than I what happened to him at the old Butterworth house during the wee morning hours.

  Hi. Jake here. But you already know that. I’m not a writer, but then Mom isn’t really a writer either, and this is, what? Her seventh book? Anyway, it would be cool if you cut me some slack.

  Speaking of cool, how cool is my mom, not making me eat that gross liver and onions crap? Is that okay to say, crap I mean? I don’t know what the rules are. But dinner is a decent place to start my story, because after I fixed myself a baloney and cheese sandwich, careful not to let Grandma see me doing it, I went outside to fix the old Schwinn. I pumped up the tires and got the chain back on its track and it seemed like it was working okay.

  By the time I got back in the house, Mom was already up in bed with the dogs. I said good night to Grandma, who was busy at the dining room table making one of her art projects out of cardboard and Popsicle sticks. I didn’t ask what the project was because she might tell me, and that could take awhile.

  Upstairs I could smell the dog farts all the way into my room. Can I say that? Farts? Really, I should have asked for some kind of guidelines. Anyway, dog farts. Mom and I must have fed them way too much liver under the table.

  You know, this writing is hard. I have spent a whole paragraph on dog farts and they really don’t have anyth
ing to do with anything. The farts, I mean. The dogs, either.

  Anyway, I got in bed with my clothes on and pretended to go to sleep. Then at half-past midnight I tiptoed out of my room and listened to make sure Mom and Grandma were conked out. They were. Both snoring like they were competing for first place. So I snuck down the stairs and out to the bike, climbed aboard, and pedaled away. The Schwinn rode great. Old School is the best sometimes.

  I was all set to meet Joe at one hundred hours. That’s how a military nut says one in the morning. We were meeting at our RV, and I don’t mean recreation vehicle. RV stands for Rendezvous Point in Joe-speak. Why it isn’t RP, I couldn’t tell you. Our RV was the old murder house.

  You’re probably wondering why I was sneaking out “at all hours” (as Mom would later call it) on this mission (as Joe put it).

  So I’ll tell you.

  Yesterday afternoon, while I was pulling up that gross old carpet in the murder-house library, I discovered a few loose floorboards. When I pried them up, I found . . . I should probably do some suspense thing here, right? Okay, wait for it, wait for it . . . an old ax under there, covered in dust!

  Well, I just about peed my jeans!

  (Mom to Jake: Honey, I am trying to stay out of your way here, and really you’re doing just fine. But do remember that we have a number of older readers, some with an aversion to bad language, so you’ll need to watch what you say.)

  (Jake to Mom: But I did watch my language. Would you rather I use the other “p” word?)

  (Mom to Jake: Forget I said anything. You’re doing great.)

  Anyway, I knew right away that this ax must be the long-ago murder weapon, hidden away after that Scrooge-type character got chopped up way back when. I knew all the gory details from listening to Grandma, but I didn’t take the thing out right then in front of everybody.

  Why not?

  Well, earlier Joe mentioned if we did happen to find the ax, which wasn’t ever recovered, that he knew some nutty guy out east who collected murder memorabilia. I guess it was murder memorabilia from famous murders, because just an everyday murder thing wouldn’t be that collectible. This collector, Joe said, would pay megabucks for something like the actual Butterworth ax.