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  I began to ask what had happened, but then it came suddenly back: the explosion, the door to the apartment flying off its hinges like an Oz-size tornado had taken it, and my body being violently hurled against the wall.

  “And . . . Harriet?” I asked.

  Mother shook her head slowly, wearing the matter-of-fact expression she always does in the face of tragedy.

  “I’m afraid she’s dead, dear,” she said. Then, as if to herself, “I do hope she’d planned on cremation, when the time came.”

  A male doctor in a white smock materialized next to Mother like an efficient ghost.

  “Excellent, she’s awake,” he said in an East Indian accent, his ID tag sharing an impossibly long name, consonants struggling with vowels for domination.

  Did you know that when an Indian male marries, he takes his wife’s last name? (I don’t know why I mentioned that. I don’t even know why I know.)

  The doctor peered down at his patient. “You’ve had a concussion, Miss Borne, so I’ve ordered a CT scan to make sure there’s been no injury to your head.”

  “My left shoulder really hurts,” I told him.

  “No doubt—it’s quite bruised. We’ll have an X-ray of that as well, but no bones appear to have been broken.”

  Two female interns drew a gurney alongside my table, then carefully slid me-on-my-board onto it, like a slice of pizza onto a plate.

  As the pair began to wheel me away, Mother chirped, “Have a safe journey, dear!” Don’t forget to write!

  In a blindingly white room that looked every bit as sterile as it no doubt was, I was transferred to a padded table attached to a machine that looked like a huge donut. Unstrapped now, neck brace removed, I received a few instructions from a technician and then the table began to move, and my head disappeared into the donut hole.

  The procedure took about half an hour, and when I was gurneyed back to the ER, Mother was having a conversation with Serenity’s chief of police, Tony Cassato.

  Tony was also my on-again, off-again boyfriend, now (I’m pleased to say) on-again. Our boomeranging relationship had nothing to do with discord, rather a series of interruptions over the past few years caused by various out-of-our-control events (spoiler alert) including a brief reconciliation with my ex-husband, a New Jersey mob contract sending Tony into WITSEC, and the sudden appearance of a wife Tony thought he had divorced. You know—little things (end spoiler alert).

  But now we were happily back on track again.

  Tony, wearing his typical nonuniform uniform—navy jacket, light blue shirt, blue-and-white striped tie, and gray slacks—broke away from Mother and strode toward me-on-my-transport. In his late forties, barrel-chested, bullnecked, with a square jaw, bulbous nose, and graying hair at the temples, the chief watched as the interns redeposited me onto the examination table. Then he took my hand—how such a rough paw could be so gentle is one of the great wonders of nature.

  “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” he asked, steely eyes showing concern.

  Much better, hearing him calling me sweetheart without caring who heard.

  I said, “Sore, but okay.”

  He nodded. “You got lucky. If you’d been two seconds earlier, well . . .” He shuddered.

  “All great comedians have great timing,” I said with a smile, as the neck brace was eased off me by a male nurse. “You’ve been to the scene?”

  “No. Sheriff’s jurisdiction.”

  “Oh, right.” Sunny Meadow was outside city limits. I looked over at Mother, who was keeping a respectful distance. “Your favorite civilian assistant must have been disappointed, not being able to get any information out of you.”

  “Every negative has its positive side,” he said with a smile and glance toward Mother.

  The doctor with the warring consonants and vowels approached.

  “Well, Miss Borne, I’ve had a look at the X-rays.”

  “Can you confirm the presence of a brain?”

  He didn’t smile at that, so if you didn’t either, that’s okay. Timing isn’t everything.

  He merely said, “You do indeed have a brain, and it appears to be functioning normally. No swelling.”

  Mother sidled up to the doctor, actual concern breaking through her matter-of-fact face. “What about the poor dear’s shoulder?”

  “No broken bones,” he assured her. “But it will be sore for a while. Nothing that over-the-counter pain medication can’t handle.

  “Can you give me something stronger?” I asked.

  “If the discomfort gets worse, I’ll consider that . . . but try the other first.”

  What good was it, getting nearly blown up, when they wouldn’t give you the good drugs? But doctors had gotten stingy with dispensing narcotics, so I didn’t press it. Besides, there were some opioid tablets in our medicine cabinet left over from Mother’s double hip replacement.

  The doctor was saying, “I’ll sign your release papers and then you can go.”

  I thanked him, and he and his endless name went off to attend to another patient.

  I asked Tony to help me sit up, and he did, asking, “Do you need a ride home?”

  I looked at Mother. “Do we?”

  “Someone from Sunny Meadow drove me here in our car,” she claimed. Of course, it was likely she’d driven herself, despite her lack of license, but she appeared to be actress enough to get that past the chief.

  Tony’s cell phone rang, and he moved away to answer it.

  Eyes narrowed, I asked Mother, “Is that true?”

  “Is what true, dear?” she replied with a lift of the chin and a mild smile that shouted innocence.

  “You know!” I whispered. “Someone really drove you?”

  She patted my arm. “What difference does it make now? There were no incidents.”

  Like knocking over a mailbox or cutting through a cornfield.

  “You’re going home,” she said. “You should be happy.”

  “Someday you’re going to get caught with your pants down.”

  “Well, dear, it won’t be the first time, and I seem to have survived. Shhhhh . . . here comes you-know-who.”

  Tony rolled over like a friendly tank. “Brandy, I’ve got to leave—duty calls and so on. Want me to stop by later?”

  “Thanks, but I’m going right to bed and taking as much Tylenol as I dare.” His brave smile prompted me to add, “But I’d love to have dinner some night this week.”

  Mr. Serious gave me a rare wink. “Sounds like just the right medicine.”

  With a quick kiss on the forehead, and a nod to Mother, he started out, then paused at the door. “Oh, Vivian?”

  “Yes, Chiefie?”

  “Who exactly was it from Sunny Meadow who drove you over in your car? Does he or she need a ride back, maybe?”

  His smile was a cute little threat.

  A forefinger to her cheek, Mother said, “I didn’t get the name, and I believe someone followed us here, to take my driver back, whoever he was. Yes, I’m sure of it!”

  “I’m sure, too, Vivian,” Tony said, and was gone.

  Mother beamed at me. “I think he bought that.”

  “Oh, definitely.”

  Midafternoon, Mother and I arrived home from the ER—I was doing the driving, still shaken up but, unlike Mother, legally licensed—and Sushi was so happy to see us she piddled in the entryway on the wood floor. Piddled sounds cuter than it was.

  “I’ll clean it up, dear,” Mother said. “Mustn’t put a strain on the patient!” She went off to the kitchen to get the necessary supplies as I reflected on just how, and how long, I might milk my accident.

  Seeing no reason to put Sushi out now, I walked surprisingly steadily across the Persian rug to sit on a hard antique Queen Anne sofa. Since forever, I had been lobbying for a more comfortable couch, but Mother would have none of it—modern furniture just didn’t cut the muster with the all-Victorian living room decor.

  (Mother to Brandy: Pardon the interruption, dear, but t
he correct expression is cut the mustard.)

  (Brandy to Mother: How can you cut mustard?)

  (Mother to Brandy: The reference is in determining heat and piquancy in making the condiment.)

  (Brandy to Mother: Where does muster come in?)

  (Mother to Brandy: Nowhere, in this instance. But when something is adequately done, it “passes muster.”)

  (Brandy to Mother: What’s the difference?)

  (Mother to Brandy: Essentially, the two sayings mean the same thing, albeit in a different fashion.)

  (Brandy to Mother: Then why can’t I interchange them?)

  (Editor to Brandy and Vivian: Ladies?)

  (Vivian to Editor: With all due respect, this as an excellent opportunity to explain these two much-maligned and misunderstood expressions to the masses.)

  (Editor to Vivian: If you continue to lecture your readers, they will hardly collect into anything resembling a mass. Please move on.)

  (Brandy to Editor: Already have.)

  Sushi, who’d always been sensitive to my moods, jumped onto the couch and gazed at me with large brown eyes. Not long ago those eyes had seen nothing, due to her diabetes, but we’d sprung for her surgery out of a storage-locker windfall a while back.

  “It’s okay, girl,” I said, petting her soft, long fur until she curled up beside me.

  Mother, cleanup duty done, joined me on the couch, sitting primly, knees together, hands on knees. “And what would you like for dinner, dear? Your wish, my command.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You should eat something after what you’ve endured.. . .”

  “I just want a shower and enough energy to crawl into bed.”

  Sushi suddenly lifted her head and emitted a low growl, drawing our attention out the picture window, where a paunchy, tan-uniformed individual was climbing out of the driver’s side of a patrol car, as if every muscle and bone in his body pained him. But more likely it was the thought of confronting Vivian Borne that gave Sheriff Pete Rudder a pain, and in one specific place at that.

  I groaned—I was in no shape, or mood, for this. “You can talk to him if you want, Mother, but tell the man I’ve gone to sleep. Say it was doctor’s orders!”

  She twisted toward me. “It’s best to answer his questions now, dear—I can’t handle this one.”

  “You always handle this sort of thing!”

  “Only when I’m the one nearly blown up. You should speak now, while the event is fresh in your mind. I’ll be right here at your side!”

  “Oh, I know you will be. You just want to pump the poor man for information!”

  Her eyes were wide and slightly magnified behind her big-framed glasses. “Don’t you want to know what he knows? After all, you were nearly killed! That doesn’t happen every day, dear, even to us.”

  The doorbell rang, and Mother flounced from the couch to answer it. I closed my eyes and shivered.

  After a muffled exchange at the door, she stepped aside and Rudder—looking perfectly pressed, gun holstered at his side—strode in, tall, imposing, reminding me of the older Randolph Scott (if I wasn’t wearing my contacts) while Mother always said Rudder looked like a late-in-life John Wayne (if she squinted). While this ongoing disagreement was unlikely ever to be settled, I will concede that Rudder did walk kind of sideways like the Duke.

  Mother addressed our guest in an embarrassingly formal way, stopping just short of the pretentious faux English accent she sometimes lapsed into.

  “Do have a seat, won’t you, please, Sheriff Rudder?” She gestured theatrically to a Queen Anne needlepoint chair that was too small for a man half his stature.

  “Coffee, tea . . . ?” the hostess with the mostest asked, her flirtatious smile seeming to add, “. . . me?” Only in Mother’s case it would be “moi.”

  “Nothing, Vivian, thank you,” he said, and managed to perch on the edge of the needlepoint chair’s cushion.

  Meanwhile, Mother fluttered to the larger needlepoint chair, with arms, and sat as regally as the chair’s namesake on her throne. (Forgive my ambiguity—was I referring to Mother or Queen Anne? Or does it really matter?)

  For all Mother’s butter-wouldn’t-melt welcoming of the sheriff, the two of us had a longtime, contentious relationship with Rudder, she and I having solved several murder cases that were on his patch. Still, he may have held some small admiration—however grudgingly—for our sleuthing abilities.

  Rudder addressed me, “I understand you had quite the close call, young lady.”

  I nodded, smiling a little. I’m just at the age where being called “young lady” doesn’t sound so bad.

  “Tell me all about it,” he said, looking like he might fall off that chair and suffer worse injuries than I had.

  “Not much to say, really,” I replied. “Mother and I spent the late morning at Sunny Meadow collecting items for a white elephant sale to fund her campaign . . . for sheriff?”

  “Yes, I know,” he said dryly.

  “Mrs. Douglas was the last person we saw about that.”

  Rudder’s eyes traveled to Mother. “Rather strange, don’t you think, Vivian? Soliciting help from the aunt of your political rival?”

  The Queen leaned forward on her throne. “How is Deputy Dugan taking his loved one’s untimely demise?”

  “Rather hard, really,” the sheriff said, eyebrows lifting, lowering. “They were very close, more like mother and son.” He paused. “Daryl was over in West Liberty, dealing with a domestic dispute, when the accident happened.”

  Had he given us the deputy’s whereabouts to head off Mother’s snooping? And was that why he’d emphasized how close aunt and nephew had been? He shouldn’t have bothered—Mother never spares the bereaved from her suspect list.

  Rudder was asking, “Could we, uh, get back to my question, ladies?”

  Now I was a “lady.” No “young” attached.

  “Certainly,” Mother said with a shrug. “Harriet donated something to the sale out of our long-standing friendship, nonetheless making it clear her nephew would be getting her vote.”

  “Then what happened?”

  My turn to shrug. “Then we left and went out to the car, where I got a book of ours Mrs. Douglas requested. When I got back to her apartment door . . .”

  “Ka-boom!” Mother said.

  The sheriff almost tumbled from the tiny chair. But he managed to ask, “Did she happen to be smoking during your visit?” The question was for either of us.

  Mother took it. “Good gracious no! I would never have allowed it. She was on oxygen! Anyway, it wouldn’t have been good for her.”

  “Especially with the oxygen,” I said.

  “But,” Rudder said, his lifted eyebrow staying that way for a while, “she could have lit a cigarette while waiting for you to bring her that book—rather than going outside without the tank, which I understand is Sunny Meadow’s policy.”

  “That seems a possibility,” Mother granted. “And the bouquet of cigarette smoke was present in her apartment.”

  “But that doesn’t mean she lighted up there,” I said. “You know how smoke clings to clothing—she could have got that from smoking inside or out.”

  The sheriff sighed, nodded, then suddenly stood and announced, “Well, girls, that’s all for now.”

  And now I was a girl. Better than a lady!

  The Queen flew to her feet, with a decided lack of royal dignity. “You’re not leaving?”

  “I’m done.”

  “But I’m not!” she protested, eyes and nostrils flaring like a rearing horse. She began ticking things off on her fingers. “I want to know what agencies are investigating the accident besides the local fire marshal. Will the state fire marshal be involved? What about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives? And Homeland Security? Certainly, the company that manufactured the oxygen tank will want to know that its product wasn’t defective. Additionally, any insurance company Harriet had coverage with will insist on being involved
.” Mother had stopped only because she ran out of breath, if not fingers.

  Rudder’s eyes were lidded and his smile was just vaguely nasty. “I see no need or reason to share any of that information with you, Vivian.”

  “Really? No need? No reason?” Mother drew herself up. “Aren’t political candidates given confidential briefings?”

  He chuckled, genuinely amused. “You’re not running for president of the United States—you don’t get CIA briefings when you run for sheriff.”

  Mother put her hands on hips, like Superman at the start of the old-time TV show, lacking only the flapping cape. “But that gives Deputy Dugan the inside track, the upper hand as it were—how is that fair? How will the League of Women Voters feel about that?”

  “He’s not involved in the investigation,” Rudder told her. “And neither is the League of Women Voters.”

  I found the first part of that interesting. “Dugan is excluded—why? Because Harriet was his aunt?”

  Rudder’s eyes went to me. “No, it’s because I’m still sheriff—for a few more months, anyway. I’m handling the investigation personally. He has his routine duties to take care of.”

  And without a good-bye, or even a nod, he left, quickly, almost as if making his escape.

  Mother stood at the window watching the sheriff until he pulled away from the curb.

  When she remained frozen, I asked, “What?”

  “What what?”

  “What’s going on in your devious mind?”

  Mother turned, frowning, though not taking offense by my characterization of her thinking apparatus. “Don’t you think it odd, dear, that he didn’t take the opportunity to disparage my run for sheriff?”

  I squinted. “Yes,” I admitted. “You would think he’d have given you at least one good zinger. Like when he said, ‘You’re not running for president . . . you’re running for sheriff,’ he could have added ‘heaven help us,’ or worse.”

  “Well, he wasn’t entirely devoid of rudeness, but I am surprised that my aspirations to the job from which he’s departing weren’t in some fashion denigrated.”

  My behind had gone to sleep and I wanted the rest of me to join it. Rising from the hard couch, I announced, “I’m going upstairs—don’t wake me until morning unless another explosion is imminent.”