Antiques Flee Market Read online

  And Mr. Ekhardt woke up with a snort. The attorney seemed startled to suddenly see us, but then most people are. It was just that most people who reacted that way hadn’t minutes before invited us to sit down opposite them.

  Mother leaned forward. “Wayne, what have your investigations told you thus far?”

  He blinked. “What investigations?”

  “Into this case.”

  “What case?”

  “Why, Chaz, of course. The little Cockney street urchin accused of murder.”

  Did I detect a little tone of irritation in Mother’s voice? And would I ever be able to banish the image in my mind of Chaz dressed like one of the ragamuffins in Oliver?

  “Ah, yes.” The lawyer nodded. “The British bird. That’s what they call the British girls, you know—birds.”

  We waited.

  “Well?” Mother asked. Apparently, she’d been hoping for more than the slang definition of “bird.”

  Mr. Ekhardt signed deeply, wearily. Something seemed to click into gear. “The evidence against the girl is formidable.”

  When he didn’t elaborate, I asked, “Such as?”

  “An envelope containing a small amount of potassium cyanide was found hidden under the girl’s mattress. This, of course, is the same poison that killed Mr. Yeager.”

  I could tell by Mother’s expression (smiling lips, frowning forehead) that she was conflicted: pleased that her theory of cyanide had been confirmed, upset to lose Chaz as an actress for the upcoming Christie.

  “Furthermore,” the attorney continued, “there’s a little matter of the girl’s prior conviction in England….”

  “Which,” I stated, “wouldn’t be admissible at trial, right?” Hey, I wasn’t a complete novice; I’d seen Law and Order.

  Ekhardt’s nodding head was at odds with his words. “But a good trial lawyer could find a way to introduce it. And the county attorney is a good trial lawyer, as are his two deputies.”

  Mother sat forward, eyes batting behind the magnifying lenses. “Wayne—what was Chaz convicted of across the pond?”

  The attorney’s spindly eyebrows climbed his wrinkled brow, then dropped, indicating that we weren’t going to like what he had to say.

  “Manslaughter.”

  Mother shrugged. “That’s not so terrible.”

  The man getting slaughtered might disagree—assuming he could.

  I asked, “What happened?”

  Ekhardt said, “Seems she fed her stepfather poisoned mushrooms.”

  Rut-row.

  Mother pshawed, “An honest mistake—one mushroom pretty much looks much like another.”

  Which is why I never eat any mushrooms Mother picks, and advise you to do the same.

  Ekhardt sighed, “Except the girl did plead guilty to the lesser charge.”

  “Oh, dear,” Mother said, reality finally poking through.

  “So what happens next?” I asked.

  The lawyer leaned back in his well-worn leather chair. “The arraignment is tomorrow afternoon at three.”

  “Should we be there?” I asked, which was a silly question—nothing short of a court order could have kept Mother away, and I’m not sure they issue restraining orders to make you stay so many feet away from a courthouse—although it’s probably come up for discussion in Serenity where Mother is concerned.

  Ekhardt said simply, “I’m sure our young lady would appreciate the support.”

  Then he folded his hands across his stomach and closed his eyes, which I took as our dismissal and not Nero Wolfean contemplation.

  “Well, thank you, Wayne,” Mother said, rising.

  I got up, too, and my chair scraped the floor.

  Ekhardt’s eyelids fluttered open. “There is one other thing. The young woman spoke about a missing book….”

  Mother and I exchanged startled expressions.

  “The Tarzan book is missing?” Mother asked.

  “If that indeed is what the girl was referring to, then, yes. The book is gone. I understand it’s quite valuable.”

  Then his eyes closed again, and the soft snoring resumed.

  We gathered our raccoon coats and tiptoed out of the office, quietly shutting the pebbled-glass door behind us.

  “Finally!” Mother said in a loud whisper. “A development!”

  I didn’t bothering whispering. “By that, you mean finally we have a murder motive.”

  Now was not the time to share my secret with Mother: namely, that my friend Joe Lange had harbored a desire for the very book that was now missing, possibly/probably stolen….

  Mother was moving quickly down the corridor, for a woman who’d had a hip replacement. “A murder motive indeed! If that Tarzan book has been purloined, it means that Chaz did not kill her grandfather.”

  “Maybe she was lying about it being stolen,” I said, trying to keep up; my hips were younger than her remaining old one, but that new one of hers was still a threat. “And it’s hidden away somewhere.”

  Mother halted, and I bumped into her.

  “And why would the dear child do that?” she asked, whirling, her eyes wide behind the big glasses.

  “To avert suspicion from herself, of course.”

  She turned and started walking again. “Nonsense! You know full well the murderer is that book scout…. What did you say his name was? Harry Potthoff. He paid Walter a visit on that fateful morning, and when he and Walter couldn’t come to terms on the sale of the book, well, that scoundrel simply slipped cyanide in Walter’s coffee.”

  I shook my head. “Pudgy may be a scoundrel…but a murderer? Besides, he’s way too obvious…. Would never happen in a Perry Mason.”

  Of course, Perry Mason would never fall asleep in the middle of a consultation.

  Mother put her hands on her hips, new and old. “All right then, Little Miss Smarty-pants, who do you think did do it?”

  I frowned in thought. “Why not suicide?”

  “What? Why, that’s utterly ridiculous! Explain.”

  We were at the elevator now.

  “Think about it,” I said, “Mr. Yeager’s health was failing. He realized that what little money he had left—money he wanted to go to Chaz—would get gradually eaten away by medical bills. Or maybe not so gradually. Anyway, that morning, while Chaz was at her boyfriend’s, Yeager swallowed cyanide, believing his death would be blamed on another heart attack.”

  Mother seemed skeptical. “And the Tarzan novel?”

  I pushed the button to summon the elevator. “Well, obviously, Yeager did sell it to someone, and somewhere there’s got to be proof of that.”

  Mother raised a forefinger. “Or perhaps Chaz sold the book, and is afraid to mention it because it would look like a good murder motive!”

  “Which,” I said glumly, “it is.”

  Our ride arrived and we stepped onto an empty elevator. But it was slow going down, the elevator stopping on every floor, filling up with employees heading out for lunch, and soon Mother and I were the two sardines pushed farthest back in the corner of the can.

  Mother, quiet until now, blurted, “I still think the book scout killed him!”

  A dozen or so pair of eyes looked our way, and I smiled back with a nervous laugh. “Audio book we’re listening to. Agatha Christie? Murder Is Easy?”

  Mother tsk-tsked. “And what a horrible way to die! One might think swallowing cyanide is relatively painless, but the horrible reality is something otherwise….”

  I tried pinching Mother, but couldn’t get my fingers through her thick girdle.

  “…first your heart stops, then your face turns purple and your eyes bulge out—”

  I stepped on Mother’s shoe and her eyes bulged out as she went “Yowwww!” particularly loud, because that was the foot with the corn.

  The elevator door whooshed open, revealing the lobby, and everyone around us scurried off like Titanic passengers looking for a lifeboat.

  Mother, hobbling off the elevator, asked crossly, “Was
that really necessary?”

  “Was describing the effects of cyanide poisoning really necessary?”

  Mother grunted, but made no other protest or defense.

  Outside, a ticket thumbed its nose at us from the windshield of my poor defenseless car.

  “Oh, come on!” I said. “We weren’t in there that long!”

  Mother smiled triumphantly. “Perhaps in the future this will teach you to allow me to handle the parking meter problem, dear.”

  “From now on,” I said disgustedly, “it’s all yours,” grabbing the yellow ticket off.

  Want to hear something completely despicable? Some cities have installed so-called “smart” parking meters that sense when a car vacates its space, and if there’s any time left on the meter, it resets itself! How petty can you get?

  I’m with Mother; bring on the slugs.

  This was the first chance we’d had to restock our booth with our flea market finds, and with Christmas fast approaching, the holiday items we’d scored had a short shelf life—specifically a set of bubble lights from the 1940s (with questionable wiring that I hoped wouldn’t set some buyer’s real tree on fire), a 1950s bank of a sleeping Santa in an easy chair, and a set of four wax candle carolers.

  With the help of Red Feather, my Indian spirit guide—who is good at getting me parking places, but whose magical powers apparently do not extend to avoiding expired meters—I managed to nab a free thirty-minute loading zone spot in front of the downtown antiques mall. Which almost made up for the earlier ticket.

  Almost.

  I retrieved our box of collectibles from the back of the car, and we entered the Victorian, turn-of-the-last-century brick building with its ornate facade and unique corner-set front door.

  The old four-story structure had a checkered past, several former owners having died under unusual circumstances; but the new owner, Raymond Spillman, had had the building blessed by a priest before moving in—Mother insisted a “reliable source” had told her a full-scale exorcism had been performed—and so far, so good.

  Ray—as everyone called him—was a small, spry man in his late seventies, with a slender build, thinning gray hair, bright shining eyes, bulbous nose, and a slash of a mouth. Mother claimed he’d graduated from high school with her, but since Mother keeps adjusting her age downward, it was becoming increasingly hard to find anyone over sixty-five who hadn’t been in her (nonspecified) graduating class. (Mother attends all class reunions from 1941 through 1948.)

  At the moment, there were few customers in the vast antiques mall, perhaps due to the lunch hour, but Ray—a former sewing machine salesman—was busy, nonetheless, at the center circular checkout station. He was working on an antiquated Singer with its parts laid out neatly on the counter, a surgeon preparing to put back the innards of a patient.

  According to Mother (who would share with me all sorts of worthless information when I was a captive audience stuck behind the wheel of the car), Ray had once been a womanizer and a “drunkard,” but when his first grandchild was born, he turned into a dry model citizen.

  Look, if I have to listen to her worthless information, so do you.

  Mother chirped, “Good afternoon, Ray…aren’t you looking fit as a fiddle! Have you been taking some kind of youth serum?”

  Mother always laid it on thick with the widower, hoping not to spike romantic interest, but in search of a bigger dealer discount.

  Ray’s cheeks turned as red as Santa Claus’s suit. “Oh, Vi-Vivian…hell-hello.”

  Mother continued. “Come now, Ray, admit it! You could pass for sixty…. Couldn’t he pass for sixty, Brandy?”

  I hated it when she pulled me into her blarney, so instead I asked, “How are Mother and I doing this month, Ray?”

  Meaning, sales in our booth. I was counting on a good payday to cover all my Christmas charges, and avoid the stiff interest rates.

  Ray smiled, showing stained teeth, a byproduct of the ever-present bottle of Cola-Cola always within his reach; one was on the counter right now.

  “Everyone’s having a record month!” he relayed happily.

  Mother beamed and so did I. “How wonderful!” she replied. Then, innocently, she added, “Could I take the teensy-weensiest peek at the ledger book?”

  Ray didn’t use a computer, keeping track of sales by hand. But his wary expression said he saw through Mother’s apparently offhand request.

  First of all, Mother never “peeked” at anything—especially our page in the accounts payable register. She studied, analyzed, dissected, and agonizingly scrutinized, but peeked? No.

  And second, she was breaking protocol by asking to see how much Ray owed us before we’d restocked and straightened our booth. It was kind of like asking your parents for an advance on your next week’s allowance when you haven’t cleaned your room this week.

  But Ray complied with Mother’s request, reaching under the counter and producing his oversized accounts book, which he placed on the glass top, making room among the sewing machine parts and his current Coke bottle.

  I had been holding the heavy box all this time, and so I finally set it down, to be able to peer over Mother’s shoulder as she quickly leafed through the register to locate our page.

  The long list of antiques and collectibles that we had sold so far this month brought a grin to my face—half of the money being mine—so Mother’s reaction took me by surprise.

  She blurted, “Shit!”

  Then she added, “Shit, shit, shit!”

  Mother doesn’t swear or curse lightly, but the above does represent her expletive of choice.

  A lone female browser who had just come through the end of a nearby aisle gave us a dirty look.

  I hissed at Mother. “Shhhhhh!”

  She glared back defiantly and said, “Shhhhh-it!”

  “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you see how much we’ve sold?”

  “To other dealers!” Mother snapped.

  I stared at the page.

  She was correct: nearly every item had a dealer discount deducted from our original price, in addition to the percentage that Ray took.

  Mother seemed more upset than mad. “That means we’ve been underpricing!”

  Which was a seller’s conundrum. Should you price low enough for an immediate return on your investment, or price high and risk the item possibly never selling? (Splitting the difference didn’t seem to occur to Mother.)

  “Oh, look,” I said, pointing to a line on our page, “the smiley-face clock finally sold!”

  The kitschy bedside collectable had been with us for over a year, an impulse garage sale purchase by yours truly, for which I’d paid way too much. Mother had grown tired of seeing the grinning clock in our booth month after month, that smile a seemingly gleeful reminder of her daughter’s misstep, and we’d set about to rid ourselves of the thing, trying everything from shining a spotlight on its face to featuring the clock on a fancy doily.

  We’d even placed it precariously on the edge of a table so some poor browser might knock it off to the floor, bringing “you break it you bought it” into play. (I did not approve of this last sales tactic of Mother’s.) (But desperate times require desperate measures.)

  Mother smirked. “The clock did sell, all right…to a dealer!”

  I couldn’t win.

  Sighing, I bent and picked up our box of restock, then headed to our booth, which was nicely positioned to the right of the front door entrance (and which no other dealer had wanted because it was number thirteen—the Borne girls flying in the face of adversity and superstition).

  Mother soon joined me, and we went through our usual routine: I unpacked and dusted the items; she positioned and tagged them. After I’d finished my tasks, I went back to talk to Ray, but found him engrossed again with the sewing machine, so I decided not to bother him.

  The accounts book remained out on the counter, however, and I began leafing through it, to see how we had fared compared to the other dealers. Behind
the counter, a vintage eight-track tape player was emitting Christmas tunes, with the Andrews Sisters doing “Winter Wonderland” only to be interrupted halfway and mid-phrase by the weird eight-track channel changing.

  Booth twelve, next to ours, and rented by Mr. Beatty, appeared to be the top moneymaker this month; he stocked old comic books and collectable toys, the latter bringing in good sales at Christmas.

  The Deasons, booth three, featuring mostly glassware, had a big run on Jadite Fireking dishes, putting them in the second spot. (Have you ever dropped one of those? Wow, talk about a thousand little pieces…. )

  Then I noticed a new renter in booth five, with a familiar moniker: Harry Potthoff. His page was nearly blank, save for the sale of a few inexpensive books.

  Interrupting Ray, I said, “This Mr. Potthoff…when did he start renting?”

  Without looking up from his work, Ray answered, “Beginning of the month.”

  “Hasn’t sold much,” I noted idly. “Bad location?”

  Mother and I had turned down that booth opposite the badly ventilated bathroom, taking our chances with our unlucky number.

  Now Ray looked up. “Prices too high.”

  “Then how does he make any money?”

  The old gent shrugged. “I don’t ask…as long as he pays his rent on time.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe he has money, and this is a hobby with him.”

  Ray shook his head. “Said he was a retired teacher.”

  “Wealthy wife?”

  “Not married.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  Ray had close to an irritated look on his usually placid face. I was interrupting his work.

  Oh, well, what did I care where Pudgy got the hard cash for the expensive David Yurman watch? Or who he was giving it to?

  But Mother would.

  A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip

  When spending the day at a flea market, go prepared. Wear comfortable shoes and layers of clothing that can be shed. Bring an umbrella for rain, and protective lotion for sun. Pack water and snacks, aspirin and Band-Aids. It’s a jungle out there.

  Chapter Six