Antiques Slay Ride Page 5
Now it was Mother who beamed. “Thank you.”
I guessed if I wanted something, I’d have to get it myself. Even if I had been the one to actually bake and frost the cookies.
Mother patted Lyle’s knee. “Now, dear—about why we’re here. Why we’re really here, I mean.”
Lyle, who had finished one cookie and was on to the next, was nodding. “Bernie Watkins,” he managed with his mouth full.
Mother appeared surprised. “Quite right. You have heard then? About the terrible tragedy?”
Nodding again, he swallowed. “I heard about it on the radio. And I’ve spoken to that Bo-Bo individual several times today.”
“Really?”
Lyle brushed crumbs from his lap. “Most recently, this afternoon. He called to say that my offer for his stepfather’s Christmas collectibles wasn’t high enough. That I had competition.”
“Do tell!”
“Don’t play possum, Vivian. He said your daughter came around and offered to top my prices.”
“Well, your quotes were rather . . . what is that crude term? Lowball.”
Lyle shrugged, then sipped his eggnog. “I didn’t care for his manner. So I told him I was no longer interested.”
Mother frowned. “Why is that?”
“Earlier this afternoon, I spoke to Sheriff Rudder, who knew that I’d done some business with Bernie . . . and I came to understand that my late friend had most likely been murdered.” He shivered.
“And this was enough to put you off on the collectibles his stepson was offering?”
“That’s right. I told that dreadful Bo-Bo character that I didn’t want anything to do with ‘blood antiques.’ ”
Mother nodded. “Always dangerous, dealing in ill-begotten gains.”
“And you know what he said to that?” Lyle asked aghast. “ ‘Only the sleigh has any blood on it.’ ”
Mother tsk-tsked, then said, “I most certainly understand, dear boy. But, be that as it may, I thought you might still have an interest in Bernie’s Coca-Cola Santa doorstop.”
Lyle stiffened, his eyes narrowed. “Why would you think that?”
“Well, firstly,” she answered matter-of-factly, “it’s an extremely rare collectible that Coca-Cola commissioned Haddon Sundblom—the creator of their Coke-swilling Santa—to design in 1931, only for distributors . . . and precious few examples survived the scrap metal drive during the Second World War.”
Lyle shifted nervously beside her.
“And secondly,” Mother continued, “while the doorstop is on the inventory list you compiled for Mr. Ekhardt last Wednesday it’s missing from the one you gave to Tanya and Bo-Bo . . . today.”
That’s what I withheld from you. Sorry.
Lyle shrugged. “I typed that list up from the other one, and must have accidentally left the doorstop off. A simple oversight.”
From across the room, I put in, “You updated the list, didn’t you? To reflect the missing Santa that you’d already taken. Which Bo-Bo and Tanya didn’t even know existed.”
Lyle stood slowly, looking down at Mother, his nostrils quivering with indignation. “I don’t think I care for what you and your daughter are implying.”
Mother shrugged. “We’re not implying it, Mr. Humphrey. We are stating it. You stole that Santa, and we believe you killed to get it.”
“Ridiculous! I’m no killer.”
Not unkindly, Mother said, “It was likely something of an accident. You sneaked into Bernie’s collectibles warehouse, selected that one key item, got caught in the act, and—why, I bet you just reflexively struck out a blow at Bernie with the iron Santa. That doorstop, it wouldn’t be the murder weapon by any chance?”
I said, “The police have their own collection of valuable items it can go into.”
Lyle smirked, though he was clearly unnerved. “You two have vivid imaginations, but perhaps that’s just the, uh, medication talking.” He pointed toward the door. “I’m afraid you ladies made a trip here for nothing.”
Mother said, “Let’s give Sheriff Rudder a call and see if he agrees, shall we?”
Grinning yet flustered, Lyle gestured toward his doorstop collection. “Do you see the Sundblom Santa?”
Mother sighed. “You’d hardly display it till the smoke had cleared, as they say . . . but I’m sure it’s here somewhere.”
Lyle’s mouth smiled but his eyes didn’t. “Perhaps you’d like to have a look around?”
“Oh,” Mother said, clapping, “I would simply love to see the upstairs!”
She wouldn’t want any half-filled buckets on her bucket list, after all.
Lyle leaned forward and his upper lip curled in a sneer. “Well, you can’t. Get out!”
We’d been thrown out of fancier places. Not much fancier, though.
“Lyle,” Mother said gently, still not rising, “I know you must have given Bernie a generous offer for the Sundblom piece. You lowballed those dreadful stepchildren, but Bernie knew his onions, and you would have respected his opinion.”
His chin crinkled. “I admit that I did try to buy that Santa. I offered twice as much as any had ever gone for. But he had his own plans.”
I said, “Yeah, a museum, where everybody could enjoy it. You may love Christmas stuff, Mr. Humphrey, but you don’t get Christmas at all.”
“I don’t care what you think of me,” Lyle said. “But I’m no killer.”
I set Sushi down on the floor, and was putting on my coat, when Lyle shouted, “What is that creature doing? Stop that thing!”
At first I thought he meant Mother, that she had tried to make a break for the upstairs maybe; but Lyle was pointing at the “creature” stirring under his tree: Sushi, who was sniffing at a present under there.
And before I could reach the little mutt, those tiny sharp claws had torn away the Christmas wrapping to reveal the cutest Santa doorstop you ever saw.
Chapter Six
And to All a Good Night
Vivian speaking once again.
If this were one of our very entertaining and humorous novels (visit www.BarbaraAllan.com for a complete list), I would enthrall you, dear reader, with Lyle’s heartbreaking confession. Why, the man broke down as splendidly as a killer in a courtroom scene on a Perry Mason episode!
Of course, including that would be redundant, as I had deduced what occurred—indeed, Lyle, unable to buy the rare doorstop from Bernie, went to the elderly man’s place at night, broke into the outbuilding to steal it, and was caught in the act by the owner, whom he clobbered with the cast-iron antique before hiding the body in the sleigh.
But perhaps the lion’s (or shih tzu’s) share of the credit must go to Sushi, who had sniffed Bernie’s blood at the crime scene and sensed its scent under Lyle’s Christmas tree, drawing her to the wrapped Santa.
Tanya and Bo-Bo moved into Bernie’s house, and I’ve heard on good authority (the Romeos) that Bo-Bo—handy with a hammer—is making some much-needed repairs.
The most valuable of the Christmas collectibles and the antiques were sold at auction, where they went handsomely well; but I understand that Tanya has held onto enough of them to light up the lawn next year.
Perhaps—to the delight of Serenity’s kids of all ages—cars will once again be clogging River Road at Christmastime.
Our apologies, Mr. Fusselman!
A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
Disturbing the natural patina of antique cast iron will decrease its value; never clean or repaint it. (However, blood can be wiped off with a soft cloth dipped in mineral spirits.)
Don’t miss the next adorable Trash ‘n’ Treasures mystery
starring Brandy, Mother,
and Sushi—
ANTIQUES A GO-GO
Coming from Kensington in 2014!
Keep reading for a tantalizing teaser excerpt . . .
ANTIQUES A GO-GO
A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Mystery
Barbara Allan
Brandy’s quote:
and the desire for loot
have often been closely associated.
—John McCarthy
Mother’s quote:
By the pricking of my thumb
something wicked this way comes.
—(that Scottish play)
Chapter Two
On the Go-Go Girls
No, your eyes are not deceiving you, nor has the publisher made a printing error by beginning this book with chapter two. Rather, chapter one has been omitted, having been deemed by our esteemed editor as inconsequential to the murder mystery about to unfold.
But Mother and I beg to differ!
Mother being Vivian Borne, seventies, bipolar, widowed, Danish stock, local thespian, and amateur sleuth; and me, Brandy Borne, thirty-two, Prozac popping, divorced, and frequent unwitting accomplice in Mother’s escapades since coming home to live with her in the small Mississippi River town of Serenity, Iowa, bringing along only a few clothes and my little blind shih tzu, Sushi.
The following is our defense for writing chapter one, however bereft of mystery content it might be.
Several loyal readers have written to inquire as to whether we had as yet found poor Aunt Olive. Olive—actually my great-aunt—wasn’t missing in the face-on-a-milk-carton manner, as she was, after all, deceased. Her ashes had been encased in a glass paperweight and entrusted to Mother for safekeeping. Unfortunately, during a well-meaning flurry of downsizing our antiques-cluttered home, Olive had gotten herself mixed in with a collection of paperweights and erroneously sold at a garage sale to Fanny Watterson, a third-grade teacher visiting Serenity from Akron, Ohio.
But, as Mother would say, I digress.
Thanks to the prodding of our readers, we—that is, Mother, Sushi, and I—set out by car on an eastern trek to the Buckeye State to retrieve her/it. But in Akron, we discovered that the third-grade teacher who had purchased Auntie had done so with a paperweight-collecting friend in mind, to whom Olive had been mailed as a birthday present, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Then, upon our arrival in Scranton, we were told by said friend (a fourth-grade teacher) that she had found the paperweight rather unattractive and possessed of “an odd vibe,” so she’d regifted it to a sister (presumably not her favorite one) in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Now, just how Aunt Olive ended up in a torpedo hole of the USS Ling at the New Jersey Naval Museum in Hackensack is a fascinating, amusing, and remarkable set of circumstances, but—and here we must reluctantly bow to editorial wisdom—wholly inconsequential to the mystery at hand. (Chapter one will be available for your reading pleasure on our website, www.barbaraallan.com.)
Just the same, Mother and I would like to point out that if it hadn’t been for the quest to recover Aunt Olive, she (Mother) and I never would have considered incorporating into our plans a trip to New York City, where we became innocently involved in yet another murder, giving us material for this, our eighth book.
So forget Akron and Scranton and Hackensack and, for that matter, Aunt Olive. Our story proper begins in Manhattan, in late March, where we were attending a comic-book convention, hoping to sell a rare Superman drawing that we had found in a storage locker won in auction last October. (We refer you to Antiques Disposal, available from your favorite bookseller.)
Still with us?
Specifically, we were traveling south by car on the Henry Hudson Parkway, having just crossed the George Washington Bridge, when the old burgundy Buick that had done amazingly well for us on our travels thus far began to shudder violently.
Luckily, I was able to ease the car over to an emergency vehicle lane before it shuddered its last shudder, dying with a long, mechanical death rattle, punctuated by a final conk! and one last steam-heat sigh.
After using my cell to summon help, I was informed by a dispassionate dispatcher (did my lack of a local accent brand me as an outsider?) that our situation was not worthy of a 911 call in the city, and not to bother her again.
No, Toto (that is, Sushi), we were not in Serenity anymore. Quiet Serenity, where a police car would have been dispatched to assist us toot-sweet. Sweet Serenity, where Mrs. Clyde Martin—monitoring a scanner in her kitchen—would begin preparing an apple pie to present us on our doorstep, in a few hours, as a consolation for our travails.
But no such assistance (and certainly no pie, apple or otherwise) had been dispatched to aid us here on the HHP, where cars cruelly whizzed by two helpless women and a blind dog next to an obviously broken-down car in the late afternoon March wind.
Mother was still quite attractive at her undisclosed (past seventy) age—porcelain complexion, straight nose, wide mouth, large eyes admittedly magnified by her glasses, wavy silver hair pulled loosely back. And at thirty-two I was no slouch—button nose, blue eyes, shoulder-length blond hair. Plus Sushi was cute as all heck. Yet our collective predicament failed to soften the hard-hearted New Yorkers who continued to stir the wind as they passed, ignoring us as if that were a requirement of Big Apple citizenship.
Now might be a good time to mention that Mother was handcuffed. To a black briefcase, that is, which held our valuable Superman drawing. My insistence that the artwork would be safe in a suitcase did nothing to sway her; once Mother got an idea in her head, that was that, even after I pointed out that she would be drawing undue attention to herself (as if that would dissuade Serenity’s most notorious diva).
Still, I had smirked. “Why don’t you carry a big sign that says, ‘Hey world! Here’s something so valuable that I’m willing to lose an arm over it’?”
Her frown was almost a scowl. “Dear, I hope you’re not going to be a Debbie Downer.”
And I replied, “I hope you’re not going to be a Nutty Nancy.”
Then she said something, to which I responded in kind, none of which can be reported here if we are to have any hope of Walmart ever stocking our books.
Let’s just say it had been a long cross-country trip.
One more thing about the handcuff-briefcase: Mother didn’t want to spend the bucks ordering one from her spy catalogue, so she borrowed a beat-up case from a neighbor, then stole (or as she puts it, “borrowed”) cuffs from the police department, where she had recently dropped by ostensibly to give a neighborhood watch report.
Anyway, as soon as we’d crossed the George Washington Bridge, she’d hooked herself up to the briefcase.
And now she and I and the briefcase and our blind dog stood next to our dead car in an emergency lane, where I began to suspect we would spend the rest of our lives.
Mother, pulling her coat collar up around her neck with her spare, uncuffed hand to combat the icy river wind, sighed. “I’m afraid getting someone to stop won’t be easy, dear. If you weren’t wearing sweatpants, I’d suggest you lift your skirt in time-honored Claudette Colbert fashion.”
“What?”
“It Happened One Night, dear!”
“You don’t want to know what’ll happen to us if we are still here at night.”
Then I had an idea. It could happen.
I positioned Sushi on the car’s hood.
“Dance!” I commanded the cute little fur ball.
And as I sang “Shake Your Booty,” she got up on her hind legs and hopped around, wagging her furry ears, flopping her front paws rhythmically, twitching her doggie booty.
I hadn’t gotten to the song’s bridge by the time a tan Subaru veered off the highway, pulling in front of us, then backed up to the Buick.
I gave Mother a self-satisfied smirk. “Who needs Claudette Colbert?”
Grabbing Sushi, I rushed over to the driver’s side of the vehicle, just as the woman behind the wheel powered down her window.
“Oh, thank you so much for stopping,” I said.
“Car trouble?” the lady asked.
She was middle-aged but nicely preserved, with chin-length honey-blond hair and striking blue eyes. She was wearing a red wool coat and black leather gloves. Riding next to her
in the passenger seat was a large gray gym bag.
“Our car is the trouble,” I said. “I’m afraid we need a junk dealer, not a tow truck.”
She gave me a winning smile. “Been there, done that. But with an old Mustang.” Then, “Where are you headed?”
“The Hotel Pennsylvania on Seventh Avenue.”
She nodded. “Not too far from where I’m going. Hop in.”
I thanked our Good Samaritan, then went back to the Buick to collect Mother and our luggage, giving its battered hood a final pat. We’d arrange at the hotel for a proper burial for our old friend.
We filled our savior’s trunk with our luggage and settled into the Subaru—Mother in front, gym bag on her lap, the blond Samaritan giving the handcuffed briefcase a curious look; me in back holding Sushi. Then we were once again traveling south on the Hudson Parkway.
Mother introduced herself and me, ending with, “And the little dancing dog that caught your attention is Sushi.”
“You should put her on YouTube,” the woman said, eyes on the traffic. “But it was your license plate that caught my eye.”
Mother’s head swiveled toward her. “Oh? Are you another native of the great state of Iowa?”
“Des Moines, originally.” She took her right gloved hand off the wheel, thrusting it toward Mother. “I’m sorry, I haven’t introduced myself.”
She said her first name.
Which prompted Mother to ask, “Do you use a c or k in the middle?”
“Two k’s, actually.”
“And end with a y or an i?”
“I.”
I could see our new friend Vikki’s face in the visor mirror; she had a sideways smile going, in response to Mother’s insistence on detail.
But the woman wouldn’t be smiling if she knew Mother’s purpose. Before ride’s end, she would wheedle from Vikki her last name as well as her address, and the unsuspecting lady Lancelot who’d ridden to our rescue would find herself on Mother’s ever-growing Christmas letter list, receiving—year after year—a long and laborious Yuletide report (“Merry Christmas, my darlings!”), from which the only known escape was death, either the recipient’s or Mother’s, and Mother felt just fine.