Antiques Flee Market Read online

  “It’s the night before,” I said. “See the time code at the bottom of the screen?”

  Suddenly Mother shut off the tape.

  “What now?” I asked, irritated. “We’re never going to get through it if you keep taking a bathroom breaks!”

  “I’m too tired to finish.”

  Say again?

  Mother was never too tired, and she never left anything unfinished.

  She stood, then retrieved the tape from the machine, and handed it to me. “Go ahead and take this to Chief Cassato.”

  “Oh, all right,” I grumbled. “What a waste of time!”

  Mother turned on her heels, crossed the living room, and trudged up the stairs. In another moment, I could hear the creak of her bed above me.

  Well, she was getting older—and probably a good five years older than she claimed. And I wondered if this was a defining moment, perhaps the beginning of her decline, when she could no longer push herself as hard as she wanted.

  My cell phone on the coffee table trilled.

  “Hi,” Tina said cheerfully. “Sorry for the short notice, but can Kevin and I take you out to dinner this evening?”

  Had they come to a decision about the baby?

  “Sure. What time?”

  “Oh…about seven? We’ll try that nice new Thai place, and then we can sit and, you know, talk this whole thing out.”

  “Cool.”

  Teen and I talked for a few minutes about what we were going to wear, but it was a pointless conversation because neither of us ever kept our word about such things.

  I went upstairs to Mother’s room to tell her of my evening plans, and found her seated on the edge of her bed, a book in her hands. I sat next to her.

  “What’s that?” I asked. “Your high school yearbook?”

  She nodded. I looked at the page she had open.

  “Is that you at the prom?” I pointed to the lovely statuesque blond girl in a strapless pink gown, dancing in the foreground of the crowd.

  “Yes,” Mother said.

  What a dish she’d been!

  “And that’s Walter?” Her partner’s back was to the camera.

  “He was such a gentleman that night….”

  I stroked her arm. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “No, dear. I heard you on your phone. I’m glad you’re going out tonight.”

  “I can stay if you want me to…?”

  “No, I want you to go. I’ll be fine.”

  I hesitated; Mother was unusually subdued and untheatrical for, well, for Mother. Perhaps it was best for her to spend some time alone with her memories.

  “Won’t be back until after midnight,” I informed her. “Are you sure you won’t need me?”

  “Of course not! I’m quite all right. And should I want you, I’ll call your cell.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  I was already out into the hallway when Mother called, “Oh, dear? Will you be driving?”

  “No!” I called back. “Tina and Kevin are picking me up.”

  Mother said something like, “That’s nice, dear,” and had my mind been on her response, instead of thinking about what I was going to wear, I would have realized that Mother was not all right.

  Not by a long shot.

  A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip

  Most flea market dealers expect buyers to haggle a bit, and have built this age-old process into their prices. The polite way is to ask, “Is this your best price?” And the dealer will usually offer a ten-percent reduction. If you dicker any more, however, you’ve insulted said dealer, and he/she would rather throw the item into a vat of boiling lead than see you get it.

  Chapter Ten

  Fair Grounds for Murder

  Mother has made an exceptionally good case that she should be allowed a second chapter, for the undeniably good reason that I wasn’t around for much of it.

  I go on record as stating that this does not establish a precedent.

  I, Vivian Borne, took it upon myself to solve the murder of Walter Yeager for two reasons.

  First, I could no longer count on Brandy to be my faithful little Watson; as you have seen, the child had become a basket case, and had I involved her in my attempt to apprehend said murderer, she might have gotten us both killed. And second, because the events that follow happened to me, and me alone, meaning that I not only have a right to write this chapter, but to do so without a word-count limitation to cut me off in mid-sentence!

  As you may have surmised, I indeed saw something damning in the convenience store’s security tape that I did not share with my daughter; this happened only after I had accidently rewound it to the night before Walter was killed. So it was pure luck (or perhaps God Himself) that took Brandy out of the house, enabling me to act upon my suspicions without endangering the dear girl.

  As soon as she left—looking quite lovely, I must admit (if only Tony Casatto could have seen her like that that afternoon, he might have proposed on the spot!), I marched over to the downstairs phone.

  When the individual I suspected of murder answered my call, I said, “I have proof that you poisoned Walter Yeager, but I’m prepared not to go to the police, as that would serve no worthwhile purpose, now that that innocent girl Chaz has been freed. Instead, I suggest we discuss a possible future, and very profitable, business venture.”

  I suggested further that we meet somewhere private at, say, nine o’clock tonight, inside the building used for the flea market at the fairgrounds where this all began. Then I warned the individual, quite cleverly I thought, not to try any tricks.

  “I’m leaving behind a letter for Brandy,” I said, with the confidence of a veteran performer, “stating where I am going and with whom I’m meeting.”

  And I hung up.

  After dressing warmly in my emerald velour pantsuit, I took from my bedstand drawer the small tape recorder I sometimes used for running my play lines, and tucked it in a pocket of my raccoon coat. Then I sat at the kitchen table to write out my figurative insurance policy, i.e., the brief letter to Brandy telling her what I was up to, with whom, and where.

  Then it took only a few more minutes to find Brandy’s spare car keys (which she’d hidden in a collectible—and therefore never used—cookie jar high in a cupboard, once again underestimating me), after which I strode fearlessly out into the bitterly cold night. (My Audi was as dead as Jacob Marley, since our last cold snap.)

  The wind was whistling through tree branches and rustling snow and rattling icicles as I approached the garage. At first, the Buick did not want to start. But I coaxed it to life, and soon I was cruising down Elm Street with all the aplomb of a legally licensed driver.

  You see, I hadn’t driven for quite a while, due to a series of silly misunderstandings between me and the traffic department; consequently, at the intersection of Elm and Mulberry, I slid on some ice and coasted through a stop sign, narrowly missing a red Mustang. The driver rolled down his window and yelled at me—a most un-merry, un-Christmaslike greeting for this holy time of year. After that, I was more careful, even crossing the dangerous bypass with nary a mishap, and the rest of the drive was uneventful.

  As I approached the darkened fairgrounds—not even an outdoor security light was shining—the sprawling, one-story main building, where I’d won many a blue ribbon, seemed dwarfed next to the venerable wooden grandstand, silhouetted against the night sky like a massive beast waiting to pounce.

  I parked in front of the main building, shut off the engine, and stepped out.

  Franklin Peabody was a part-time maintenance man at the fairgrounds; he owned a farm nearby, and it was easy for him to keep an eye on things out here during the slow winter months. Now, I happened to know that Frankie hid a spare key to the building on the ledge above the front entry, because he had to get it once after accidentally locking some of us Red Hat girls outside during the pie-baking contest. (Which I won with my own mother’s strawberry and rhubarb recipe
.)

  So, before you could say Bob’s your uncle (strange expression, considering Bob really was Brandy’s uncle), I was inside the building, the vast room still, long rows of flea market tables bare, a far cry from a few weeks ago, when a boisterous crowd threaded through aisles as vendors hawked colorful wares…and where Walter had so proudly introduced me to his granddaughter Chaz, happily outlining their new life together.

  I shivered, partially from the memory but mostly because the heat wasn’t on, and I could see my breath making little ghosts that evaporated so that another could materialize. At a wall panel of switches, I turned on just the front few ceiling lights, then walked back into the semidarkness, creeping along the rows of tables, the folding chairs tucked squarely beneath them (Frankie Peabody was a neatness-freak).

  When I arrived at the table that had been used by Walter, as best I could estimate anyway (the chamber seemed so different when empty), I pulled out a chair, sat behind it, to wait just beyond the more fully illuminated front area of the hall.

  After half an hour, just as my toes were going numb, the door swung open, then banged shut, and the murderer strode forward, stopping under the glare of those front overhead lights, eyes searching beyond into the ever-darkening interior. The eerie overhead lighting made shadows and dappled the planes of the familiar face darkly, making something always friendly before seem sinister now.

  “Yoo-hoo, Ivan!” I called. “Over here!”

  The ex-mayor’s head swiveled in my direction, and he cupped one hand over his eyes, the better to see me. He was wearing a cap that matched his plaid hunting jacket (the implications of which did not escape me), and I watched him closely as he approached, finding the right aisle and coming down.

  I had placed a single folding chair in the aisle, on the other side of my table, as if we were about to do business in the flea market. And, as far as he was concerned, we were, weren’t we?

  “Sit,” I said, gesturing with one hand, while with the other, in my coat pocket, I turned on the tape recorder, its tiny click muffled by the raccoon fur.

  Ivan plopped down with a little laugh and tossed his cap on the table and folded his arms. His tone was genial. “Honestly, Vivian, I’ve had some kooky calls from you in my time, but this one takes the cake! If you had something on your mind, couldn’t you’ve picked a place that served hot coffee?”

  I didn’t smile, but said, “You know my flair for melodrama, Ivan. How could I resist returning to the scene of the crime for the denouement? Or should I say, return to the seed of the crime? Isn’t this where your thoughts of murder first sprouted?”

  Ivan sat back, meeting my eyes. He had a smile that wasn’t much more than a line with gently upturned ends; his eyes had a coldness worse than anything the outdoors could serve up.

  He said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Vivian, except that you seem to have the ridiculous notion that I had something to do with Walter’s death. I know all about your pretensions of being an amateur sleuth. I only accepted your invitation because it’s better if we have this out privately, and don’t embarrass you, and put me in a position of having to take legal action against an old friend. So go ahead—how did you get this crazy idea in your head?”

  I smiled. “You have every right to know how I arrived at my conclusions. I don’t have any desire to embarrass you, either. We’re at an age where, in all honesty, we only have a few years left, and not even good ones. I have no desire to make your final years unpleasant, though I would like to make my own last act a really rewarding one. That’s why I think we can do some business.”

  Ivan spread his hands and said impatiently, “Well, then?”

  I leaned on the table, tenting my fingers. “Let us first go back to the night of the flea market preshow. Walter was here, center stage. You were downstage center. I was stage left—”

  Ivan interrupted. “Jeez Louise, Vivian—could you skip the theatrical lingo just for once?”

  “I’m merely setting the stage….”

  The thin smile evolved into something sarcastic. “Okay, I get it. I was there, he was there, you were there….So what?”

  “You don’t have to be rude, Ivan.”

  “Oh! Sorry! By all means take your time. I had nothing better to do tonight than drive out here to the middle of nowhere and sit in a freezing cold room and hear you babble a bunch of nonsense about me murdering somebody I barely knew.”

  I pursed my lips. “You knew Walter once, though, didn’t you? Very well indeed.”

  He said nothing.

  “You were near the table when Walter made a remark about being relieved his secret was out—referring, of course, to his illegitimate granddaughter, Chaz. You replied that some secrets were best kept secret because of unhappy consequences…which, at the time, I thought to be merely an idle comment.”

  Ivan shrugged. “I don’t remember saying any such thing. But even if I did, it was just so much conversation. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “Oh, but you did! It was a very pointed remark, certainly a threat to Walter to keep his own counsel about some other secret. In fact, you may have felt Walter had meant his remark to be overheard by you—giving it a double meaning only you would discern.”

  Ivan studied me, then sat forward and said, “You know all about why I dropped that louse as a friend, Vivian, way back in the war years. I told you in detail about that double date we had all those years ago….”

  I nodded. “I heard a version carefully crafted by you. Revisionist history, isn’t that what it’s called?”

  Ivan’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell do you mean by that, Vivian? I gave you the straight scoop.”

  “Aw, but what were you scooping? Ella Jane was your date…not Opal. She was with Walter. And you drove that night.”

  “Hogwash!”

  “No. Not hogwash, nor poppycock. A photo in our high school yearbook confirms it. Granted, I had to use a magnifying glass to be sure…but that is you, in the background, with an arm around Ella Jane. And as I thought back about it, really thought back, it finally returned to me: You continued to date her throughout the summer, didn’t you?”

  “We…we may have dated. But we broke up and she started going with Walter and—”

  “No. You don’t go double-dating with somebody who’s taking out the girl you just broke up with, not back then you didn’t, anyway. It was you, Ivan, who took advantage of that poor girl that night…and that’s the secret Walter Yaeger had on you.”

  “You’re guessing. And you are going to get yourself sued, you silly pretentious witch.”

  “I may be all those things. But you’re a rapist, Ivan. It’s not something you can stop being, either—it’s like being a murderer. You murder in your youth and you never do a single bad thing after that, but on the day you die, maybe on your ninety-fifth birthday, you die a murderer. And you, Ivan, will die a rapist.”

  His face had turned white.

  “Ella Jane was too ashamed—or perhaps afraid—to tell anyone what you’d done to her, and then she went off to college as planned, only to discover that she was pregnant. And with you off at war, and with nowhere to turn, she hanged herself. That’s right, isn’t it? It’s hanged, not hung?”

  Ivan stood and thrust a trembling finger at me. “Vivian, you meddling old gossip, if you go around spouting that nonsense, I will sue you for slander! I swear I will!”

  I smiled up at him patronizingly. “Please sit down, Ivan…I told you on the phone I had proof. So suing me is out of the question, since the truth is the best defense. But you needn’t be upset. We’ll work something out.”

  His face went slack. He shook the finger at me, but then dropped into the chair, slumping there, glowering at me.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I said. “After Walter implied he would need paying off, which is of course blackmail—what was it that he said? He wanted to give Chaz things, ‘and that takes money’? That was when you decided he had to die. After al
l, you had to protect your good name and social standing. So you left the flea market and drove to his mobile home, where you—”

  “Hold it,” Ivan said. “Just how did I get in? If you’re going to spin stories, Vivian, you have to make them believable. The newspaper said the police said there were no signs of a break-in.”

  “Everybody has a spare key hidden around. How do you think I got in here? May I go on?”

  “By all means,” Ivan said archly.

  “Where was I? Oh, yes, once inside the trailer, you found Walter’s weekly pill box—that was another clue, by the way, you mentioning that the other day, with the Romeos—and you replaced the contents of the capsule Walter would take the next morning with cyanide.” I raised a finger. “Then—just in case his death might appear suspicious to the police or coroner—you hedged your bets by planting some of that poison in Chaz’s bedroom, to implicate her.”

  “Wouldn’t that just have confused the issue?”

  “No. If they accepted the death as accidental, there would be no search. If they were suspicious, there would be a search, and you’d tie any suspicion to a granddaughter who was both a stranger in town and, shall we say, a trifle rough around the edges.”

  Ivan clapped his hands. “Bravo, Vivian, that’s quite a story, even for you. You should really consider producing it at the Playhouse. Only, one small item—where in the hell would I get a hold of cyanide?”

  “I must admit that stumped me at first, because it is rather difficult to obtain, these days.” I shrugged. “But not so difficult, years ago, when it was used in photo-processing—when you and Walter and some of the other fellas had a photography club. And you still have your old developing room in your basement, don’t you, Ivan?”

  The ex-mayor tilted his head, and his smile dripped condescension. “So far, Vivian, all I’ve heard is wild speculation—nothing that even vaguely resembles ‘proof.’”

  The time was right to play my high card. “I have a security tape that shows you driving into Walter’s trailer court after you left the flea market.”