Antiques Chop (A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery) Read online

  So I didn’t tell anybody but Joe that I found the ax, and cut him in on the deal, because I wouldn’t have known the thing was valuable if he hadn’t told me. Seemed the fair thing to do. Mom and Grandma have a different opinion, but I’ve seen them snatch plenty of antiques out from under the noses of other collectors.

  But it did spook me and make me feel weird about it when Mom interrupted Joe and me talking upstairs about my discovery. Doing the right thing by Joe meant I was doing the wrong thing by everybody else.

  Now if you think I was just being greedy, I don’t blame you. My dad makes good money with his investment company. And I get a decent allowance, better than any of my friends, though Dad does expect me to buy everything out of it, even clothes, which kind of sucks. Can I say that?

  I mean, do you know how much an Apple i-Pad with Wi-Fi+3G and 32 gigabytes costs? Seven Benjamins and change! Saving that out of my allowance would be possible, if I didn’t mind waiting till my sophomore year in college. Only thing is, I wanted it yesterday.

  (Grandma to Jake: Dear, while you’re doing splendidly telling your little story, although rather prone to discur-sion (like your mother), might I suggest that you please try to stay on point and be succinct, like your grandmother?)

  (Jake to Grandma: Gotcha.)

  Anywho, I was late getting to the RV because halfway there my transport wimped out on me. Not the bike, which was rad, but the tires went flat again, and I had to ditch the bike and haul butt on foot!

  As a result, my ETA was twenty minutes off, and I expected to find one p.o.’ed Marine standing on the porch.

  (Mom to Jake: Honey, again, please keep in mind our mixed readership and refrain from using such terms as “p.o.’ed.”)

  (Jake to Mom: Again—I didn’t have to use initials. Do you want me to tell my story my own way or not?)

  (Mother to Brandy: Dear, leave the boy alone and stop trying to suppress his native narrative style. If our readers know how to interpret those initials, they will likely not be offended. Nor will they if they don’t. Do please continue, Jake. . . . )

  Well, Joe was not waiting on the stoop, so I figured he was running late, too. Only then I noticed that the front door was open a little, which was weird because I was the one who had a key. I lifted it from Grandma’s jacket pocket. (Sorry, Grandma.)

  (Grandma to Jake: Quite all right, dear. I would have done the same thing at your age.)

  (Brandy to Mother: You would do the same thing at any age. And thanks for giving my son a free pass for stealing!)

  So I went on in the house, switched on my flashlight, and called out to Joe, but he didn’t answer. I kept calling out his name because I didn’t want a replay of what happened to Mom in that cave when she surprised him. Then I went into the library room, where I figured I’d find him, since that’s where the ax was hidden. And where I left it.

  But Joe wasn’t there, and the ax wasn’t either! The floorboards had been pulled up and the chopper taken out, leaving just its outline in the dust. It had been hidden there a long time so that outline was real distinct.

  I can’t tell you what I said when I saw the ax was gone because it might offend sensitive ears, like my mom’s. But I can tell you it flipped me out and I was kicking myself for trusting Joe, who I figured had beat me to the punch and taken the ax all for himself.

  So I ran out of the library and headed to the back of the house, just to make sure that crazy sneak wasn’t around somewhere, and the next thing I knew, I was on my butt sitting on the kitchen floor, after slipping in something gooey.

  On the way down I dropped my flashlight, and it was on the floor now, shining at something that I couldn’t make out at first. It seemed to be a leg, but that couldn’t be right, because it wasn’t attached to anything. Like a mannikin leg.

  Then I saw the blood and realized it was a real leg that belonged to a real man, only it wasn’t attached to anybody anymore.

  I scrambled to my feet, almost slipping again, but got up and got the hell out of there, and I won’t soften that, Mom, Grandma, because I already did soften it.

  The next thing I know I’m outside, losing the baloney and cheese sandwich I’d eaten after dinner, which I guess was better than barfing liver and onions.

  Was that Joe’s leg in there? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t about to go back in and find out, not by myself, anyway.

  Then I called Mom on my cell.

  That’s about it.

  Brandy here. Nice job, Jake! (The writing, I mean—not sneaking out of the house!)

  After receiving Jake’s distress call, I threw on a robe, slipped my phone into a pocket, and rushed into the hallway, where I ran into Mother, also in robe and pajamas.

  “What is it, dear?” she asked anxiously, her eyes wide without benefit of her magnifying glasses. “Your phone doesn’t usually whistle in the middle of the night.”

  “It was Jake.”

  “Isn’t he in his room?”

  “No. But he’s all right. He is in trouble, though. I hate to say it, but your kind of trouble. Our kind of trouble. . . .”

  Quickly I filled her in on my brief conversation with Jake, as we hurried down the stairs, where I grabbed the car keys off the marble-top Queen Anne table by the front door. In another moment we were flying out, in robes and pajamas and slippers, heading for the Buick.

  The streets were deserted, thankfully, because I drove like a maniac—even Mother couldn’t have topped my performance behind the wheel. We arrived at the murder house in less than five minutes, bumping up over the front curb, practically parking in the yard.

  I could see Jake on the cement stoop in the glow of a streetlight, and he came swiftly down toward me as I ran up the walk, my heart pounding. Nice to have a child be so glad to see you. Just not under these circumstances....

  “You’re all right?” I asked, out of breath.

  Jake threw his arms around me, hugged me tight, and at this odd moment I realized for the first time that my son was now almost as tall as I.

  “I’m okay,” he said, his voice muffled against my chest. “But . . . whoever is in there isn’t.”

  “Did you call the police?”

  He pulled back. “I was waiting for you.”

  Mother, having joined us, gave her grandson a smile that seemed only a trifle demented. “Good decision, dear. This will give me an opportunity for a quick look-see—Brandy?”

  I shook my head. Unlike Mother, I had no stomach for murder tableaux, and I warned her, “Don’t you dare compromise the crime scene.”

  Mother, already heading toward the house with the glove-compartment flashlight, shot back, “Not any more than our local-yokel boys-in-blue will, when they get here!”

  “I’ll give you five minutes,” I said, “and then I’m calling 911.”

  Jake and I sat on the top step of the stoop. At first we sat silently, just glad to be together, and well. I hadn’t yet gone from relief that my son was safe to parental indignation (like Roger had the other day); and Jake didn’t want to push me there.

  Finally I asked him to tell me his story, and he did. When I heard he was to have met Joe here, I said, “My God, my God—that’s not him in there, is it? It’s not . . .”

  “I don’t think it’s Joe.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “The leg? The pants on it—they weren’t khakis.”

  “Ah. Right.” Then I said, “I’m going to have to call your father.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he sighed. “Don’t I know it.”

  “And he’ll want to take you back to Chicago. Right away.”

  Jake twisted toward me. “But he can’t—not ‘right away,’ anyway.”

  “Why’s that?”

  He gave me the tiniest of smiles. “I’ll be a material witness—you know, can’t leave town, and so on and so forth.”

  Had he been reading our books, or just watching CSI reruns?

  Mother reappeared, and we craned our necks to look at her. It was then
that I noticed what she had on her feet—my last Christmas’s gag gift: a pair of big moose slippers, the antlers flopping as she stepped toward us, black beads in the plastic eyes rolling around crazily. Those could make some wild footprints at a bloody crime scene.

  “Well,” Mother announced, a deep sigh coming all the way up from the moose (mooses) (meeses). “At least it’s not Joe Lange.”

  “We already knew that,” I said. “Who is he?”

  “He used to be the producer of our TV pilot—Bruce Spring.”

  Jake drew in a startled breath. “You’re sure about that, Grandma?”

  She nodded. “Unless someone else in Serenity wears the same brand of expensive Italian loafers.”

  Agape, I said, “I can’t believe it—who would do such a vicious thing? It’s terrible!”

  “You’re telling me?” Mother said, hand on hips. “There goes our TV show!”

  I got to my feet. “That’s all you can think about? Are you really that cold-blooded and selfish and old—”

  “Let’s not be unkind, dear,” she said, raising a hand like a traffic cop. “Anyway, sentimentality won’t help that poor man now.” She unleashed a particularly melodramatic sigh, this one causing the moose feet to wiggle their eyes. “I am afraid there is something else. . . .”

  “What?” Jake and I blurted.

  Mother crooked a finger at me.

  I looked at Jake. Pointed at him as if he were Sushi. “Stay.”

  “Don’t worry,” he said glumly, still seated on the stoop. “I’ve seen enough for one night.”

  I followed Mother back into the electricity-free house, her flashlight beam slicing through the darkness, leading us into the parlor, where the beam circled the room, then landed on a slumped figure in a corner.

  Joe.

  In one piece, at least, but otherwise the news wasn’t good. Still in fatigues, he was seated with legs drawn to his chest.

  And clutching an ax, its blade darkly stained.

  “Oh no,” I whispered.

  Had my friend finally well and truly lost it? Could he have committed such a mad, savage deed?

  I clutched Mother’s arm. “You don’t think he’s . . . dangerous? I mean, would he do anything . . . to us?”

  She focused the center of the light on his face; the eyes didn’t blink. “I don’t believe so, dear. He’s in shock.”

  “Mother, we have simply got to call the police. We’ve delayed too long already. We’re not the most popular citizens they serve and protect, you know.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” she said with reluctance, as if I’d insisted we leave a fun-filled gala. “Besides,” she added, “I’ve made all of my observations.”

  “Such as?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “Such as”—the beam circled Joe again—“if your friend had killed our producer, he would have much more blood on his clothes.”

  Officer Mia Cordona was the first to arrive, squad car lights flashing—but sans siren, out of consideration for the slumbering neighbors, I supposed. Not that either Bruce Spring or Joe Lange were in any hurry. Mother and I met her at the curb.

  Mia, whose curvy, raven-tressed, dark-eyed beauty remained undiminished by the masculine uniform, scowled at us. “A murder, and you two call it in. Why am I not surprised?”

  Mother smiled understandingly and said, “Frown lines are so unbecoming, dear.”

  “Never mind,” she snapped. “Fill me in.”

  We had once been good friends, Mia and I, but events of the last several years had strained that friendship beyond its capacity.

  I let Mother do the honors, which she performed with surprising (for her) succinctness, submerging her Sarah Bernhardt instincts within a clipped, Jack Webb just-the-facts manner.

  Mia listened intently, then spoke into her shoulder communicator, calling for backup, and to get the PD’s two-person forensics team out of their warm beds, plus the paramedics—the latter in deference to Joe.

  Mia asked where Jake was, and I pointed to our Buick where I had insisted he wait; while I couldn’t keep him out of this mess, I could keep him out of the cold, the plummeting temperature tightening its grip on the night, making our breaths plume.

  Mia muttered, “I suppose I can fathom Vivian involving the boy . . . but you, Brandy?”

  I wondered how much time I’d serve for smacking an officer, but only said, “If you’d been listening, you’d know neither Mother nor I involved Jake in anything more than helping clean up this house, many hours ago.”

  “Let us not bicker, girls,” Mother chimed in. “Now is not the time for animosity. After all, there’s a dismembered producer in the house waiting for processing! Not to mention an ex-Marine with a bloody ax.”

  What could Mia say to that? I certainly had nothing.

  A second squad car arrived, parking at an angle in the street, blocking it off, not that the nonexistent traffic minded. Officer Munson, a lanky middle-aged man with a hound-dog face, climbed out and joined our little group, Mia bringing him up to speed.

  By now, the flashing lights of the police cars had attracted the attention of neighbors, who peered out of windows, some coming out in their nightclothes, braver souls, or at least snoopier ones, moving down to the sidewalk to see better. Lights came on in all the houses across the way but one.

  “I don’t want Joe to get hurt,” I told the officers. “Let me help—I understand his illness. I’m sure I can convince him to go with you.”

  Munson and Mia exchanged troubled glances, then senior officer Munson said, “All right, Ms. Borne. But if he gets violent, we’re stepping in.”

  “I understand,” I said. “But you don’t know that he’s your perpetrator, remember. As Mother pointed out earlier, he doesn’t have enough blood on him for that.”

  Mia winced in quiet irritation and Munson just gave me a glazed nod. “You follow us in,” he said.

  “Please . . . let me go in first.”

  The two cops exchanged glances again, but Munson said, “Well . . . all right. But anything we tell you to do, you do at once, got it?”

  “Got it.”

  Mother touched my arm. “Good luck, dear. Will you be all right without me?”

  “I’ll try to manage.”

  “As you move into your thirties, dear, sarcasm will only read as bitterness.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  My eyes went to Jake in the Buick, who was leaning forward in the front passenger seat, watching us intently. I gave him a nod and a reassuring smile.

  The distant wail of a paramedic truck signaled that time was short before the handful of gawkers would become dozens. I told Munson and Mia what I had in mind, admitted it was a little strange, but said it should work.

  And we headed into the house.

  As I stepped through the front door, Munson and Mia on my heels, I started to sing loudly.

  “ ‘From the Halls of Montezuma,’ ” I sang, loud as a bullhorn, “ ‘to the shores of Tripoli! We fight our country’s battles, in the air, on land, and sea!’ ”

  I kept repeating those lyrics because that’s all I knew of them, from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons. By my third time through, the officers had Joe spotlighted with their mag lights.

  He hadn’t moved, remaining seated with his legs drawn up, still clutching the ax. But his vacant, staring-straight-ahead eyes were now focused on me.

  “It’s Brandy,” I said, moving slowly toward him. “Put down your weapon. We have surrendered. We’ll be given all the rights of the Geneva Convention.”

  Behind me, Munson muttered, “What the—?”

  Joe’s grip on the ax tightened, and the officers drew their guns, which gave me a start. Fine for them to be armed, but if Joe charged, I was in the front line.

  But then my traumatized friend relaxed his grip, and lowered the ax slowly to the floor.

  He got to his feet.

  “Corporal Joseph E. Lange,” he said, standing erect.

  “United
States Marines, serial number 747608012.”

  “Okay, soldier,” Munson said, almost gently. “Turn around, hands behind your back.”

  Joe complied, and the officer cuffed him.

  I sighed in relief.

  Mia whispered to me, “That was tense. Could’ve gotten ugly. Thanks, Brandy.”

  High praise from anyone on the PD, and a rare kind word from my ex-friend.

  With Munson in the lead (and holding on to Joe’s arm), we left the house, stepping out of darkness into what seemed like day. I had to squint from the glare of the emergency lights, a paramedic truck having added its beacon to the bunch.

  There were other, lesser lights as well, from cameras and cell phones, pictures taken by the ever-growing crowd, soon to be launched on the Internet.

  Someone grabbed my arm, startling me.

  Police Chief Brian Lawson—my on-again-off-again-currently-on-again boyfriend—looked disheveled in his rumpled tan slacks and wrinkled blue shirt under a Windbreaker, as if having thrown on his work clothes from the now-previous day. His thick sandy hair, however, was neatly combed.

  “Come with me,” he said brusquely, the puppy-dog brown eyes colder than I was used to seeing them.

  “What?” My eyes traveled past him to the Buick, front seat empty. “Where’s Jake? And Mother?”

  “They’re in my car. Yours is blocked in. You can get it tomorrow.”

  “I only have one car!”

  “We’ll get it back to you tomorrow. Come along.”

  “Where are you taking us? To the station?”

  “No. Home.”

  “Really?” I smiled a little, relieved to avoid that ordeal. “Well. That’s fine. That’s great.”

  We were at Brian’s unmarked car now, Mother and Jake sequestered in back.

  I touched his arm. “Thank you, Brian, for being so considerate—letting us get some rest before taking our statements.”

  His smile was blandly businesslike. “You’re only going home in deference to your . . . attire. But don’t count on getting any sleep just yet. This night isn’t over.”