Antiques Flee Market Read online

  “Good-bye, Mrs. Borne.”

  I harrumphed, and was almost out of his office when Tony said softly “Vivian?”

  I turned. The chief’s stony expression had changed, his jaw not so firm, his eyes subtly softened.

  “How’s Brandy doing?”

  I smiled inwardly. I’d always suspected that the town’s top cop was sweet on my little Brandy, even if she’d never really noticed. And to think of all of the juicy, confidential information I might be privy to if he ever became my son-in-law….

  “Why, Brandy’s doing fine,” I said. “Merely a mild concussion. She’ll be home tomorrow—stop by, if you like. I’m sure she’d enjoy seeing you.”

  “That was damn foolish of her, going out looking for Joe alone,” he blustered, frowning. “Why didn’t she call us first? And why the hell didn’t you stop her? Do you want to get your daughter killed some day?”

  Wasn’t that sweet! I just knew the chief had a yen for Brandy….

  “Really.” I chortled. “I’m surprised you’d even ask that! Since when could I ever control that girl?” (And, if we must be frank, vice versa.)

  He surrendered a short, dry laugh. “Yeah, you have a point.”

  “Well…” I smiled sweet as punch. “I don’t want to take up any more of your valuable time, Chief.” I waggled a finger at him. “After all, you have a murderer to catch.”

  And so did I.

  My next stop was Hunter’s Hardware on Main Street. To get there, however, I had to walk past a large, hideous cement parking lot that had replaced the once-stately brick YWCA, and a beautiful deco-style movie theater, plus the soda-fountain shop where I used to sip Green Rivers through a straw until my girlish face turned green. The willful destruction by the city of those three historical buildings still makes my blood boil! I tried to stop the carnage, and that’s how I wound up in the old county jail. (Sorry, no details this time—I have a word-count limit to maintain!)

  Main Street was bustling with bundled-up holiday shoppers, storefront windows displaying scenes of a Victorian-era Christmas. Hunter’s was no exception, having a festive display of red-bow bedecked tools of days gone by. I stomped the snow from Brandy’s boots, pushed open the ancient front door, and entered, a small bell tinkling my arrival.

  Hunter’s was a uniquely Midwestern aberration: The front of the elongated store—which hadn’t been remodeled since I was in petticoats, and still retained its tin ceiling and hardwood floor—sold everything one might expect of a modern hardware business. The rear, however, was given over to a small bar area that offered hard liquor to hard workers who stopped in for supplies. (No one ever seemed to question the danger of farmers imbibing, and then going out into the world, chainsaws at the ready.)

  Junior, a paunchy, rheumy-eyed, mottled-nosed man in his late sixties, was the proprietor, acting as both sales clerk and bartender. Today, however, the store was busier than usual, with customers buying that special tool for that special man (or woman—one doesn’t necessary think of tools and men exclusively) (that may have come out wrong), and Junior had roped his wife, Mary—a squat lady a few years younger than him—into running the front while he more or less loafed in back.

  I could tell at a glance that Mary was none too merry, spending all day selling hardware, so I put on my cheeriest Christmas smile, and steadied my resolve because, honestly, that lady was one nonstop complainer—how could one woman jabber on so endlessly about nothing? I sometimes thought she’d been vaccinated with a phonograph needle.

  I approached Mary and asked pleasantly, “And how is the new leg?”

  Mrs. Junior had worn a prosthesis ever since she lost a limb in a freak accident visiting the Jaws attraction at Universal theme park in Florida, once upon a time.

  “Terrible,” the woman said, screwing her face up like an old catcher’s mitt left out in the rain. “I can’t get used to the newfangled thing! Wish I’d hung on to my old leg. I don’t know why Junior thought I needed a new one.”

  I did. So she could help out more at the store.

  I decided to say something positive. “Heather Mills adapted quite well.”

  “Who?”

  “The former Mrs. Paul McCartney, dear. She even took on ballroom dancing.”

  “Let her try it on this leg,” Mary grumped.

  “We should all walk a mile in each other’s shoes, dear. Or shoe, as the case may be. Is Junior around?”

  “In back,” the woman said sourly, “where else?”

  I made my escape.

  I found Junior polishing glass tumblers behind the scarred mahogany bar, and when he spotted me, I got the usual bucktoothed grin. “Well, Vivian…what brings you in out of the cold?”

  I slid up on one of the torn-leather stools. “A hot toddy,” I announced. “But hold the toddy.”

  Alcohol did not mix well with my medication, I had learned.

  The bar was quiet at this hour, the only customers being myself and perennial barfly Henry, who sat two stools down, caressing a half-glass of whiskey.

  In his mid-fifties, slender, with silver hair, a beak nose, and his original set of teeth, Henry had once been a prominent surgeon before losing his license after performing a gall-bladder operation instead of the intended appendectomy.

  (I have tried, more than once, to help the poor man overcome his alcohol dependency—always to disastrous effects, which I won’t detail because of my word-count constraints. My most recent attempt, however, involved enrolling Henry in a twelve-step program, only to have Henry, at the final meeting, in order to celebrate his cure, secretly spike the punch bowl and send everyone in the group back to at least step two.)

  Henry looked sideways and slurred, “’Ows Viv?”

  I responded, “Filled with the Christmas spirit, Henry.” As opposed to filled with Christmas spirits.

  Junior placed a steaming Shirley Temple in front of me and said, “Heard Brandy was in the hospital.”

  I waited for him to say more—to learn what he’d heard through his own bartender’s grapevine—but his eyes remained vacant, his jaw slack.

  Unfortunately, Junior had been born with neither nose nor mouth for gossip, a pity considering the business he was in. That made his only function in my world being someone I could use to disseminate information—or disinformation—as I saw fit.

  Henry, however, should never be counted out; seated quietly, well in his cups, he took in everything anyone around him might say, the way a bar sponge absorbs a spill. The problem therein lay in how all that information sometimes got squeezed out of Henry…which is to say, a mixed-up mess.

  “Well, if you must hear the details about Brandy….” I said, waiting for enthusiastic cries of encouragement to erupt from Junior and Henry, but all I received were a nod from the former and a stare from the latter.

  No matter.

  A professional actor learns to play to even an unresponsive crowd; but what I won’t tolerate are walkouts. You’d best be having a coronary when leaving the theater while Vivian Borne is performing! Because I know who you are, and I’ll break character and walk downstage and call, “Good-bye, Mrs. So-and-so! Sorry you’re leaving us so soon!”

  Sometimes the fourth wall simply demands to be broken.

  But I’m veering off point again. Word count, precious word count.

  Finally, Junior said, “Well, Vivian…spill.” The man seemed to have some semblance of interest in my performance, which was all I needed to really launch into it.

  Now, gentle reader, as I mentioned before, even I was a little unclear as to what exactly transpired in the cave between Brandy and Joe. So I took the liberty of contriving a few exciting parts of my own—Sushi biting Joe on the leg, for example—improvisation being an actor’s prerogative should he/she sense that he/she might be losing the audience’s attention. But I really brought down the house when I got back on script and announced that Joe had Walter’s missing Tarzan book.

  Junior exclaimed, “My God, that means Joe Lange kil
led Yeager!”

  I took a sip of my neglected, now not-so-hot hot toddy. “Not necessarily,” I replied. “Joe denies killing Walter…and I happen to believe him.”

  Henry, who’d remained silent throughout my oratory, hiccuped, then slurred, “’S’got a se…crut.”

  Junior and I exchanged puzzled glances at this seeming non sequitur.

  I said, “Yes, Henry, I’m sure Joe Lange has many a secret locked inside his poor troubled mind.”

  “Not Joe,” Henry said. “Walt…Walter.”

  I swiveled to face him. “What kind of secret?”

  Henry shook his head vigorously, as if trying to clear bats from his belfry. “Don’…don’ know.”

  Sighing in disappointment, I swiveled back to my cooled-off drink. I was about to ask Junior to reheat the concoction, when Henry again spoke.

  “One time? Started to tell me, but…didn’t.”

  “When was this?” I asked.

  “Winter ’85.” Henry seemed to be sobering up, or perhaps just remembering how to form complete words and semblances of sentences. “I was working ER, Walter comes in. Serious case of pneumonia. Thought he was gonna die…and, tell ya the truth, so did I.” Henry paused, took a gulp of his whiskey, then continued: “While I was tending to him, he kept tryin’ to tell me something…but I couldn’t be swayed from my duty.” Frankly, “duty” sounded a little more like “doody.”

  “You mean,” I asked, pressing, “Walter wanted to talk to you confidentially? He wasn’t just telling you where it hurt?”

  “Maybe he was, in a way.”

  “What were his words exactly?” I pressed.

  “I don’t know!” So much thinking and talking had made Henry suddenly irritable. “I was busy! Tryin’ to save the man’s life.”

  “Think back, please,” I said, adding sympathetically. “I know it’s been a few years, but it’s important…try.”

  Henry frowned in thought. “He said, ‘Somebody else needs to know. Can’t take it to my grave.’ More or less.”

  Junior had been quiet until now. “You ever ask Walter what he meant, later on, after he recovered?”

  Henry nodded. “I did. A few months after.”

  “And?” I prodded.

  Henry shrugged grandly and almost fell off the stool. “Denied ever sayin’ such things. But claimed not to remember, either. Said he musta been delusional, ’cause of the high fever. And that was possible. So, naturally, I jus’ dropped it.” Henry finished his whiskey, set the glass down with a clink. “Guess we’ll never know.”

  But I knew some people who might.

  I turned back to Junior. “Where are the Romeos having lunch?”

  He shrugged, not so grandly. “What’s today?”

  “Tuesday.”

  “They go for the meat loaf at Riverside, Tuesdays.”

  Why Junior could keep track of the Romeos’ daily lunch schedule, and not his own anniversary, was a mystery even Vivian Borne did not care to try unraveling.

  “Thanks,” I said, tossing a fin on the counter. (All true detectives call five-dollar bills “fins.”)

  The Romeos—Retired Old Men Eating Out—were friends of long standing who generally didn’t like any women coming around when they got together.

  Except for one certain female: little old me. Seems these old Casanovas didn’t mind my company, as long as I delivered some juicy tidbit of news, which I always did (even if I had to make it up), to keep my good standing with them.

  While women have long worn, unfairly I would insist, the mantle of Gossip Monger, the truth is that men are often far worse, although they do have an offhand subtlety about it that females largely lack.

  Entering the restaurant, which carried its riverboat theme to extremes, I quickly spotted the Romeos sequestered at a round table for six in back, and made my way toward them, skirting a fountain with a miniature paddle wheel (that on occasion had sunk).

  The lunch hour was winding down, the men enjoying coffee after their fattening meal. I was glad I didn’t have to watch them eat, which is never pretty, often more food going on their faces than making the journey inside their mouths, and the noisy clacking of plates at their table had more to do with dentures than dishes…but again I digress.

  The Romeos were a small group today, partially due to the flu that had been going around, but mostly because the Grim Reaper had dwindled their numbers in recent years. Only present today were Vern, a retired chiropractor, who looked like the older Clark Gable if I took off my glasses; Harold, a former army captain, with Bob Hope’s eyes and ski-nosed good looks when I squinted; and ex-mayor Ivan, a dead ringer for Jimmy Stewart, from a distance.

  Ivan was the first to see me, and waved; Harold and Vern similarly beckoned me over. I draped my raccoon coat over the back of an empty chair, giving them my best Mae West “Hello, boys!”

  This always got a big laugh out of them, and today was no exception.

  Harold, patting the seat of the vacant chair between himself and Vern, said, “Nice to see you, Vivian. Set ’er right down. You know, we were just talking about you and Brandy….”

  Frankly, I would have been shocked if we hadn’t been the topic of conversation.

  After Harold’s wife died, I’d dated the former captain for a while, with an eye on matrimony, but I broke it off after a few weeks because he barked too much (you can take the man out of the army, but not the army out of the man), and Vivian Borne doesn’t take orders from anybody.

  Vern said, “We heard Brandy’ll be out of the hospital tomorrow.”

  Vern, too, had wanted to marry me, but I threw cold water on the chiropractor’s amour, which coincidentally was what the fire department also had to do, at his place of business, when the building spontaneously combusted; poor dear was a terrible pack rat. (There’s only room for one pack rat in my life—as the vocalist said warming up: me, me, me.)

  I claimed an empty coffee cup and filled it from the pot on the table.

  Ivan asked, “How is your little girl doing?”

  Him, I would have considered marrying…but so far, the widower had shown only middling interest in my potential, which I found strange (his lack of interest, not my potential).

  Not wanting to spend too much time talking myself—otherwise I’d never hear what these old goats knew—I put on a truncated bus-and-truck performance of the show I had given Junior and Henry earlier, leaving out the improvisational improvements.

  When I’d finished, Vern remarked, “Poor Joe…kid’s never been right since coming home with battle fatigue.”

  Harold barked, “‘Poor,’ my foot. Sees a little action overseas, then gets discharged on a Section 8. That softie doesn’t know what real shell shock is.”

  And, neither did Harold. During the War to End All Wars, he’d never left an army base in Georgia. Of course, in his defense, the Nazis and Japanese never did make it past Atlanta.

  Ivan, however, who had seen plenty of action at Guadalcanal, came to Joe’s defense. “Let’s not forget that that boy voluntarily enlisted—which is more than can be said about most young men these days—and he served honorably in the Gulf War.” He paused, adding quietly, “No one knows a soldier’s breaking point…not even the soldier himself.”

  That drew silence, and we all sipped our coffee. I admired Ivan’s touching defense of Joe, but silently cursed him for throwing a wet blanket over the conversation. I had dirt I needed to mine!

  So, directing my question to the group, I asked, “Why wasn’t Walter Yeager ever a member of the Romeos?”

  The men exchanged uncomfortable glances.

  I waited, excited, sensing I’d hit a nerve.

  Ivan cleared his throat, then said simply, “Walt was all right. He just didn’t really fit in.”

  His answer, however, didn’t ring true to me. I knew that several of the Romeos had been in the same graduating class in high school, sharing many interests, such as sports, music, and photography. And Walter had been a pal of theirs. N
othing wrong with my memory.

  “In what way didn’t he fit in?” I asked casually. “Surely you hadn’t grown that far apart in the intervening years….”

  Ivan shifted in his chair. “Viv, frankly? I’d just rather not say.”

  “Why not?” I pressed.

  Ivan shrugged. “Don’t want to libel the dead.”

  “You can’t libel the dead,” I pointed out. “They’re dead.”

  “Well, then,” Ivan remarked, “I don’t care to speak ill of the dead.”

  We had arrived at an impasse. But there was no impasse that yours truly couldn’t squeeze through, jump over, or go around.

  Leaning in conspiratorially, I said, “Henry just told me about the time he treated Walter in the ER, and Walter had something he wanted to get off his chest. It seemed terribly important—sort of a dying declaration. Any idea what that might have been?”

  Ivan half-smiled. “Doesn’t sound very likely. Consider the source. I mean, did Henry say what it was?”

  “Walter never got around to spilling the beans.” I paused, then pulled out my ace and played it. “If any of you know something, you’d better tell me, before Henry makes up something preposterous while in his cups.”

  Harold muttered, “She has a point.”

  Vern nodded, “I agree.” He looked at Ivan. “It’s your story, Ivan…so you should tell it.”

  Ivan sighed. “I guess it won’t do any harm at this late stage…. Hell, pretty much everybody involved is dead by now.”

  I reached across and patted Ivan’s hand where it rested on the table. “Another good reason to set the record straight. As we grow older, such things do matter.”

  “All right,” Ivan said, and shrugged a little. “It happened during the summer of ’42….”

  “That was a wonderful movie!” I said. “The Summer of ’42? Did any of you see that film? So romantic….”

  “Viv,” Ivan said, frowning. “Are you interested or not?”

  “Sorry. Yes. Vitally. Go on.”