Antiques Chop (A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery)

by Barbara Allan

  “I’ve questioned that cameraman, Phil Dean, and he’s cooperating. He called the network president, who agrees that keeping this matter low-key at the outset is the right approach.”

  It wasn’t a “matter,” it was a murder.

  I said, “But it will get out. . . .”

  “Sure it will. Only, with a little luck, not before we’ve got our killer. We’re holding Joe, but you and I both know he’s almost surely not the perp. Still, it may give the real killer a false sense of security.”

  I nodded. “All right. I’ll do everything I can to keep a lid on this.”

  He pointed at me, right at my face. “You do everything you can to keep a lid on your mother.” Then he touched my nose with his fingertip, almost playfully. “She’s the most likely to leak this.”

  I could only smile at the truth of that. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  For a moment I thought he might give me a little kiss, but he didn’t. Just nodded, and went back to Officer Munson’s squad car. Maybe he didn’t kiss me because Munson was around.

  Maybe that was it.

  Back inside, I looked at the couch and then at the stairs, wondering where I was going to go back to sleep, because that was the plan. And like all best-laid plans . . .

  Mother, also still in her robe, strode in and, top sergeant style, ordered me into the music/library room where she stored an old grade school chalkboard.

  “No time to waste, dear,” she said, wheeling the board out from behind the ancient upright piano. “The cat will be back soon, and we mice must play—detective, that is.”

  I took a seat on the piano bench.

  With a piece of white chalk, Mother began to write, and I caught a little nap. Her “Brandy!” woke me, and I almost tumbled off the piano bench. My eyes showed me Mother stepping back to survey her work.

  MURDER OF BRUCE SPRING

  Suspect Motive Opportunity

  Joe Lange the ax yes

  Phil Dean ill will over work problems ?

  Mary Beth bore grudge over documentary ?

  Andrew B. Perhaps found out Bruce produced documentary ?

  Sarah B. same as above ?

  Driver in red Toyota ? ?

  Frowning, I asked, “How did you know about the red Toyota guy?”

  Mother, replacing the chalk on the ledge of the board, said, “Jake told me while you were talking to Brian on the porch.”

  I said, “Jake could have imagined being followed, you know.”

  “Yes.” Mother nodded. “It might just be the overactive imagination of an impressionable lad at work here”—she raised a finger—“but . . . Jake spotted the car a second time.”

  “When?”

  “When he and I were waiting in the police car at the murder house. A red Toyota was parked at the curb, about a half block away.”

  And I had spotted it a third time.

  But for now I’d keep that to myself. Mother was ablaze, and splashing more gasoline her way wasn’t such a good idea.

  “Still,” I said, “it could be a coincidence. We’re a small town and seeing the same car now and then is no big deal.”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “We don’t even know how many red Toyotas there are in Serenity. Uh . . . did Jake see the driver last night?”

  “Not clearly. But he did think it was a male—or a big-boned woman. Ask yourself, dear, why would someone be sitting in a car at that time of night?”

  Why indeed? I stood. “What if somebody’s out to kidnap Jake? Roger’s got money, you know.”

  We’d had a kidnapping scrape with my son last year.

  Mother narrowed her eyes and shook a finger. “Then the plan has been foiled, dear, because Roger is here now, looking after Jake. What better bodyguard than a boy’s own father?”

  Maybe it was me who had the overactive imagination. In any case, I’d better inform Roger about our red Toyota stalker, if Jake hadn’t already.

  “I don’t think,” I said, gesturing to the board, “the red Toyota belongs on the suspect list.”

  Mother arched an eyebrow. “I disagree, dear. That car was at the scene of the crime.”

  “Well, a red Toyota was. We can’t be sure.”

  “A red Toyota with someone sitting in it. In the middle of the night. No, dear, our mystery man with the Japanese ride is definitely a suspect. Wouldn’t that make a simply wonderful title for this adventure?”

  “It’s not an adventure, Mother. It’s a crime, a tragedy, and anyway, it doesn’t fit our title scheme.”

  “But after The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, shouldn’t we be updating? I think The Man with the Japanese Ride has a wonderful sense of mystery.”

  And she wheeled the chalkboard behind the piano, out of sight.

  In the living room, Mother used the downstairs landline to call our lawyer, to set up a time when Mr. Ekhardt could meet her at the police station, where she was expected to give a statement. Meanwhile I went upstairs for a quick shower.

  A word about Mother and cell phones. They didn’t mix. She had one, yes, but for emergencies only; hers is a voice-mailbox-full, ring-tone-off affair, usually out of juice. Only recently had she learned to text, a painful one-finger process to watch. And when reminded to take the phone with her, Mother’s frequent comment was “Perhaps I don’t wish to be found!”

  Half an hour later, dressed in DKNY jeans, a Norma Kamali for Walmart black hoodie, and gray Lucky Brand boots, I felt darn near human.

  “Ah, there you are,” Mother said as I came down the stairs.

  I did a double take. She looked fabulous, wearing a new Breckenridge autumn outfit: orange and gold leaf-patterned jacket, gold top, and rich brown corduroy slacks. Her silver hair, newly washed, full and wavy, was pulled back in a youthful ponytail. She wore full make-up, her complexion radiant, cheeks rosy, lips a pretty pink, and looking as if she’d had a full night’s sleep instead of a few hours. Even at her undisclosed, somewhere-past-seventy years of age, Mother was still quite the Danish strudel.

  Only one aspect of her appearance was a little over the top.

  “Kinda heavy on the mascara,” I advised her, wiggling a finger.

  “I hardly used any at all, dear,” she replied.

  Behind the magnified glasses, her eyelashes looked like a pair of tarantulas, moving their many legs every time she blinked.

  She said, “It’s the glaucoma drops that make my eyelashes grow. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Always a silver lining with Mother.

  She was saying, “And thanks to my genes, you’ll probably get the disease, too! So you have wonderful long eyelashes in your future, dear!”

  Something to look forward to. That and blindness.

  I got off the subject. “Okay. So where are you off to?”

  Meaning where did I have to take her (otherwise she might get behind the wheel, since her philosophy was “They can’t take your license away when you no longer have one”).

  “To the police station,” she was saying, “for questioning by your latest chief-of-police boyfriend.”

  If she thought dressing to the nines would soften Brian up, she was woefully misinformed. That only worked when I did it, and not always then.

  I asked, “Do I have to wait for you at the station?” There’s something I wanted to do myself this morning.”

  “No, dear. I’ll catch the free ride home.”

  By which she meant the gas-converted trolley, sponsored by local merchants to encourage shoppers to part with their money downtown and not at the mall.

  Shortly, I was dropping Mother off at the modern red-brick building that housed both the police station and fire department. My parting shot was “Take it easy on Brian, Mother.” Hers was an indignant “Really, dear! I’m the one facing the third degree.”

  While still at the curb, I made a quick cell call to make certain arrangements, then tooled north out of town on the picturesque, woodsy River Road, which ran parallel to the mighty Mississippi, its surfac
e today dark and choppy.

  After about fifteen miles, a well-worn sign pointing to Wild Cat Den State Park popped up, and I turned left onto a blacktop road. A few miles later, I glided by the old Pine Creek Grist Mill, its giant wooden wheel slowly turning, churning the water.

  Against a woodland backdrop, the trees of late fall more skeletal than leafy, a log cabin at last came into view, the residence of park ranger Edwina Forester. I’d always thought of her as Miss Park Ranger, but she was “Eddie” to her friends, and I was one of those now, thanks to our connection to Joe Lange.

  I pulled the Buick up to a hitching post, then hurried up the stone walk, where Eddie, expecting me, was coming out the front door.

  The fortyish former Marine and one-time truck driver was wirily muscular with short brown hair, an average-looking woman, devoid of make-up. Her eyes, however, were anything but average—intelligent, piercing, not missing a thing.

  As per my instructions, Eddie wore her former olive-green service coat with sergeant stripes and matching slacks. One hand held her cloth garrison cap.

  “I hope this works,” she said, briskly brushing by me.

  “Are you sure you don’t want me to take my own wheels?” She had a Ford Ranger truck. (What else?)

  I said, “I’d rather discuss our strategy on the way. I can bring you back.”

  She shrugged. “Fine by me.”

  By the time we hit the city limits, we had a plan.

  “You know,” Eddie said casually, “I should’ve busted you for all that champagne years ago. You and . . . what’s her name?”

  “Tina.” My BFF.

  The summer before I got married, Tina and I made a habit of skipping college classes on really nice days, and imbibing in the alcohol-free state park. And by “alcohol-free,” I don’t mean the alcohol was free....

  “But what the hell,” the ranger went on. “I happen to be partial to champagne myself.”

  I glanced at her sideways.

  “I know,” she said with a grin. “I look more like the hard stuff type.”

  I returned the smile. “Guess we should’ve invited you to the party.”

  We were downtown now and, in another few minutes, I wheeled into the parking lot of the new county jail, situated across the street from the historical wedding-cake of a courthouse, and adjacent to the police/fire station.

  Mother, generally a champion of old buildings (and lost causes), had campaigned tirelessly for the modern jail, after having spent time herself in the original ancient, crumbling, bug-infested facility. She felt the prisoners deserved better—especially Vivian Borne.

  We climbed out of the Buick, then headed up the walk of the two-story, octagon-shaped building, which might have been a medical center or private business, having no wire fence or outside guards. Only the small windows running along the second floor suggested the building’s real purpose.

  We went through double-glass front doors and into a large room with beige-colored walls and industrial gray carpeting; down the center were two rows of bucket-shaped chairs, back to back, and beyond that, a walk-through metal detector. We could have been in an airport waiting area—complete with vending machines—except for the bulletproof window to our right, behind which a male deputy monitored computers in the adjacent room.

  Eddie approached the window, then spoke into the glass-embedded microphone.

  “Sheriff Rudder, please.”

  The male deputy, young, pockmarked, with a blond crewcut, started to protest even before looking up.

  “The sheriff is busy—oh! Hello, Ms. Forester.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Sheriff Rudder in?”

  “Ah . . . yeah. I’ll see if he’s available.”

  “Please.”

  It wasn’t long before the steel-gray door next to the window opened and Serenity’s sheriff stepped out.

  Tall and burly, oozing confidence, he reminded me a little of John Wayne, if I really squinted. Walked like him, too, kind of a sideways stride, as he approached us. Style or corns? Who could say?

  “Eddie,” he said, pleasantly, “what can I do for you?” Then he noticed me, tucked behind her. “She with you?”

  “That’s right, Pete.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What’s this about, anyway?”

  I let Eddie do the talking. “We’d like to see Joe Lange.”

  “Why?”

  Eddie gave the sheriff a friendly smile. “We think it would be helpful to let him know he still has some friends in Serenity.”

  “Is this her idea?” He nodded toward me.

  “Might be,” Eddie said, then quickly added, “but either way, I happen to think it’s a good notion. As you know, I’ve dealt successfully with Joe before, when he got, well, delusional.”

  Meaning the cave and me, and the knock on my noggin.

  Rudder grunted, rubbed his chin. “The boy is rather agitated. We have him in a pod.”

  A pod was a separate area, away from the general jail population, usually reserved for psyche cases. And quite comfortable accommodations, according to Mother, who should know.

  I asked, “Has Joe’s psychiatrist been to see him?”

  Rudder shook his head. “Won’t be till this afternoon.”

  Eddie pressed: “If Joe is agitated, my speaking with him—as his superior officer—will calm him down. And Brandy’s presence will help, as well.”

  The sheriff mulled this over. Then: “All right, five minutes. But will ya do me a favor?” He was addressing Eddie. “Make it clear we don’t need his rank and number anymore. If he doesn’t stop repeating that, I’ll end up in a pod. In a jacket that buttons up in the back.”

  “You got it, Pete. Thanks.” Eddie held out a hand.

  Which the sheriff grasped. “I’ll send out a deputy to take you in.”

  And Rudder disappeared back through the steel door.

  A few minutes later, a deputy named Patty, who I knew from when I’d visited Mom—arrived via the same door. She was in her forties, rather plain, with short dishwater blond hair and a bored attitude that said she got all the crappy assignments.

  The deputy led us to a wall of small lockers, where I deposited my purse (Eddie didn’t have one), and then we went through the metal detector, the brass buttons on Eddie’s military coat setting the thing off. But Patty waved her on.

  I set the thing off, too, with my keys, which I’d stuck in one pocket, so back to the locker I went.

  After clearing me through the scanner, Patty—using a plastic security card—unlocked the door that led into the inner jail. We went through two more locked doors before arriving in an area consisting of three separate visitor’s stations, small rooms similar to those reserved for safe-deposit customers at a bank.

  With only one chair in front of the Plexiglas window, Eddie took it, putting on her military cap, which rode her head like a child’s paper boat.

  I stood unobtrusively behind her, while Deputy Patty retreated outside the cubicle, closing the door, allowing us some privacy.

  I noticed one nice improvement in the tiny room: no more silly phone.

  The minutes crawled by and just as I was about to say, “I guess he won’t see us,” the door on the other side of the glass opened, and—escorted by a burly guard in navy shirt and slacks—Joe entered.

  My friend was wearing an orange jumpsuit that hung on his too-thin frame like a scarecrow’s secondhand threads. His face looked pale, and he seemed withdrawn, even subdued (possibly from antipsychotic drugs)—and anything but agitated at the moment.

  When Joe recognized Eddie, his eyes lit up, and he snapped to attention, giving her a crisp salute.

  “At ease, Corporal Lange,” the ex-sergeant said. “Take your seat.”

  Joe did, the chair on his side screeching like fingernails on a blackboard as he pulled it out and back.

  “Corporal,” Eddie said, “I need a full report of what took place last night.”

  Without hesitation Joe replied, “At one hundr
ed hours, I went to the old Butterworth house, where I was to meet Brandy’s son, Jake. After waiting fifteen minutes, I tried the door, and found it unlocked. I entered. Inside I discovered that the ax Jake and I had found that afternoon was gone from beneath the floorboard. I went looking for it. My recon led to the kitchen.”

  His eyes seemed to glaze over.

  “Go on, Corporal.”

  “That’s all I remember, Sergeant. Until I arrived here.”

  He looked at me. “Is . . . Is Jake all right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “A little shaken up. But fine.”

  “Corporal,” Eddie said, getting his attention back, “did you know that a dead body was found in that house?”

  Joe nodded. “I heard the scuttlebutt.”

  “And you can’t tell me anything about it?”

  He leaned forward, “I’m sorry, Sarge, I can’t tell you anything more.”

  Can’t, or won’t?

  “You were found with an ax in your hands, Corporal. Do you remember picking up that object? Or someone handing one to you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “No memory of that at all?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Eddie sighed. “All right, Corporal. That will be all.” The ranger stood, and so did Joe, giving her another salute.

  I whispered in her ear. “Uh, remember—name and serial number?”

  “Oh. Oh, yes.” Eddie said, “Corporal, one further order. . . .”

  And she fulfilled the sheriff’s request.

  As Joe was being led away, he stopped and looked back. “Sergeant? I do remember one other thing.”

  We waited for what we hoped would be an important detail.

  “The Medivac never came,” he said sadly.

  In front of the station, on the sidewalk, I asked, “What did Joe mean by that? Medivac?”

  Eddie shrugged. “It means he did see the body—a comrade down—and called out for a medical helicopter.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Which means Spring was already dead when Joe got there. . . .”

  A crisp nod from Eddie. “Way I see it.”

  I dug out my keys. “I’ll take you back to the park.”

  Eddie gestured with a hand. “No need. Got some business at the courthouse. I’ll get a lift from there.”