Antiques Maul: A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery Page 9

  I closed my eyes and mentally groaned.

  But, good daughter that I am, I asked, “When do you think Mrs. Norton will get there?” (I wasn’t such a good daughter that I relished the notion of cooling my heels in my Buick outside the place.)

  “Why, she’s probably there now, if I know the woman, tacking up more signs. Her efficiency is matched only by her energy. Pent-up sexual tension, you know.”

  This rolled up my eyelids like window shades given too hard a tug. “How’s that?”

  “Well, these other older women, a widow like Mrs. Norton, they don’t have the good sense to make sure their sexual needs are—”

  I held up a hand before I could get chapter and verse on how unmarried women mother’s age dealt with their sexual needs. “We’ll go, Mother. We’ll go.”

  “Good. I’m glad you thought of it!”

  Ignoring that, I said, “But Jake isn’t up. I don’t think he’ll be thrilled by another trip to the antiques mall.”

  “Just leave the dear boy a note,” Mother replied with a shrug. “He’ll probably sleep until noon, anyway.”

  I sighed. “Can I at least have my Count Chocula first?”

  “If you must.”

  I must…and poured a bowl of the sugary, chocolatey cereal—Jake’s and my favorite. And did my best to avoid any images that might be triggered by Mother’s sexual needs remark….

  When I returned upstairs to dress (jeans, Citizens for Humanity; top, Johnny Was), Jake was still in the spare bedroom, the little devil sleeping like an angel. I left a message telling him where we were, a Post-it stuck to his Game Boy where he’d be sure to find it.

  Mother was waiting impatiently for me in the car. She held a cardboard box full of items on her lap, some of which looked strangely familiar.

  “Hey!” I said, climbing behind the wheel. “Are those my Barbie dolls?”

  Mother shrugged. “Why? Were you planning to play with them again?”

  I glared at her. “That’s not the point! They’re mine…my precious memories…and I should be the one to decide if, and when, we’re going to sell them.”

  “They could fetch a nice price.”

  A pause. “How much?”

  The Buick could use a new battery and a pre-winter checkup.

  “Into the hundreds, I should think. Most are collector’s editions, and you kept them in such lovely condition, in their boxes, why, it’s almost as if they’d never been played with.”

  That’s because I preferred to play with Kens rather than Barbies. Some things never change.

  Mother asked, “What say we split fifty-fifty?”

  “Are you kidding? Seventy-five, twenty-five. They are mine, after all.”

  “Ah, but I did buy them for you.”

  My eyes narrowed. “I’m sure Peggy Sue gave me some of those dolls. What was that awful term you used to describe Bernice and our cigar store Native American? Some certain kind of giver?”

  She threw up her hands. “All right, all right, you win. Seventy-five, twenty-five it is. You do drive a hard bargain, my dear.”

  I smiled and started the car. It wasn’t often I outmaneuvered Mother.

  But then…why was she smiling, too? Could it be that she’d just snagged herself 25 percent of something that was 100 percent mine?

  On the way downtown, Mother said, “Some familiar faces stopped by our booth yesterday, dear.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as your sister’s friend Connie.”

  “Ick. And you can quote me.”

  “Well, yes, there is no accounting for taste. Although she did display rather good taste herself—she was sniffing around our rolltop desk to beat the band.”

  “Was our price too high for her?”

  “We didn’t talk price. She just said, ‘Interesting piece. Maybe later.’”

  “I guess her money is as good as the next witch’s. You said ‘faces’—who else?”

  “More a familiar face to me than you, darling. Ivan, our ex-mayor? He was doing a war dance around our Indian friend.”

  “Really? Didn’t he see the ‘sold’ sign?”

  “He did, but he made me a good offer.”

  “Mother! You didn’t sell that horrible thing out from under Bernice, did you?”

  “I thought about it…but no. A promise is a promise. And anyway, his offer wasn’t that good….”

  Mrs. Norton was indeed at the mall, as attested to by a tan Taurus parked in a “reserved for owner” space in the back alley. I pulled into another not-so-reserved one marked PRIVATE, and hoped I wouldn’t get a ticket.

  With me toting the box, Mother and I entered the unlocked back door and stepped into darkness. I fumbled momentarily for a light switch, found it, and we continued up the short flight of cement steps to the first floor, which was also dark, and eerily quiet.

  “Why was Mrs. Norton working in the dark?” I whispered to Mother.

  “I don’t know. Why are you whispering, dear?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mother called out, in her best olly olly oxen free fashion: “Mrs. Nor-ton! Oh, Mrs. Nor-tuh-un!”

  She got no answer.

  I called out even louder, and I did get an answer…

  …but not from my former teacher, rather her watchdog, Brad. Only this was not the sharp bark of a watchdog at all, instead a soft, pathetic whimper.

  Brad Pit Bull was crying.

  Mother and I looked at each other, eyebrows raised. Where was the mournful mutt’s mistress?

  I moved to an electric panel on the wall nearby, and began switching switches, illuminating the large room, section by section. When I turned back to Mother, she was heading up the center aisle toward the front of the store.

  “Be careful!” I called out. “If that dog is hurt, he could be dangerous!”

  Typically, Mother ignored me, disappearing at the end of the aisle, heading toward our booth. I hurried after her and then, as I rounded the row, bumped full-force into Mother, who had doubled back, knocking the wind out of both of us.

  “Dear, please,” she said, gasping for breath, “please don’t…”

  “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t look. It’s horrible. Simply grotesque.”

  Despite her agitated state, and the melodramatic words, Mother seemed atypically untheatrical.

  Now, I ask you…if somebody tells you not to look, especially if it’s “horrible” and “simply grotesque,” what is any reasonable person going to do?

  Right.

  You’re not only going to look, but you have to look, you must look….

  So I pushed past Mother, expecting to find a poor injured Brad, and instead I stared down at a poor, much more than merely injured Mrs. Norton.

  My onetime math teacher lay sprawled in the aisle near our booth, in a pool of blood, her clothes—the same orange and brown outfit as the day before—torn and shredded, and the same was true of what had been her face.

  The apparent culprit was there, too, the pit bull straddling his master, lethal front paws and deadly mouth blood-caked. On seeing me, the beefy animal’s whimpering morphed into a deep growl, and I backed up slowly, until he was out of my sight, and I was out of his.

  I grabbed Mother by the arm and hustled her back down the aisle and outside to safety.

  After allowing herself to be swept along, Mother now glared at me while I pushed with two hands on the door as if its being shut tight weren’t enough.

  “What’s the idea?” she demanded.

  “The idea,” I said, “is that that pit bull mauled that poor woman to death.”

  Mother frowned. “I don’t know why you jump to that conclusion.”

  I just looked at her.

  “It seemed to me,” Mother said, “the creature was merely standing guard over its fallen mistress.”

  “It has blood all over its teeth and mouth. It’s a pit bull. Mrs. Norton was viciously mauled to death. What else could have happened?”

  M
other’s frown turned thoughtful; she put a pensive hand on her chin. “Perhaps another dog did it—Mrs. Norton did say the creature was timid. When the other pit bull attacked, Brad cowered in the corner!”

  “Mother.”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “Your Red-Hatted League reading group is doing Agatha Christie again, aren’t they?”

  “Why, yes, dear. We ran out of Rex Stout. What makes you ask that at a time like this?”

  “Nothing. But let’s say your assumptions are right. You have shrewdly ascertained exactly what was going on in there. Then we were wise to scoot, weren’t we? Because, logically, there’s another, really vicious pit bull in there!”

  She was nodding, taking my sarcasm at face value. “Yes. Logically. Not necessarily a pit bull, but…”

  Shaking my head, I got out my cell phone and quickly told the dispatcher what we’d found. Then Mother and I stood by our car and waited for the sirens to come.

  I was shaking, traumatized into silence by the ghastly death of my former teacher.

  But Mother wasn’t.

  “I wonder how long our things are going to be tied up,” she mused, glancing toward the massive building. “Every day that goes by we’ll be losing money, you know.”

  I looked at her, appalled. “Mother…a woman—a woman we know and like—has been brutally mauled in there.”

  “Yes, dear, I saw her,” Mother said patiently. “But Mrs. Norton is dead and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  “That’s a little cold, don’t you think?”

  Mother’s eyes behind the lenses were disconcertingly calm. “At my age, Brandy, the past becomes quickly irrelevant and the future most pressing.”

  “I understand that…but can we wait until this afternoon to talk about the future? Let’s have a little respect here….”

  Mother nodded slowly. “That seems reasonable.”

  Which was more than I could say about Mother.

  A black-and-white police car—siren wailing, lights flashing—wheeled into the alley, stopping abruptly in front of us. From the opposite direction came another screaming siren and a yellow emergency rescue truck, which nosed up to the squad car, and two paramedics jumped out.

  The officer reached us first.

  I told the stocky, mustached man whose name tag read MUNSON where to find Mrs. Norton, adding, “But watch out for the pit bull.”

  Mother chimed in: “Both of them!”

  Munson frowned. “There are two pit bulls?”

  I shook my head, and whispered, “Mother’s just excited. There’s only one.”

  Munson nodded and gestured to the two paramedics. “Stay behind me…. I’ll shoot the damn dog if I have to.”

  Again Mother butted in. “Surely that’s not necessary! Don’t you have a tranquilizer gun, young man?”

  Officer Munson, who was forty if a day, looked at Mother like she was a suspect in a one-woman lineup. “Vivian Borne, isn’t it?” he said slowly, and smiled, but not in a friendly way. “Mrs. Borne, there’s no time to call for Animal Control…. That woman may be alive and in need of immediate medical attention.”

  “Oh, I assure you, she’s dead,” Mother said. “Who could have that much blood on the outside and be alive on the inside? It’s a rhetorical question.”

  Munson’s upper lip curled back; it was sort of a sneer. “Thank you for your diagnosis, Mrs. Borne. But you don’t mind if we go in and find out for ourselves?”

  “A second opinion is always a good idea,” Mother granted.

  I suppose I should have either defended Mother from Munson’s rudeness, or maybe duct-taped Mother’s mouth shut to minimize the trouble she was causing. But words were in short supply for me. I kept seeing Mrs. Norton on the floor and the blood-flecked dog hovering over her….

  Drawing his gun, Munson opened the back door of the building and entered, followed by the medics, who in turn were followed by…Mother!

  I stood gaping for a moment, but I had no choice but to snap out of it and tag along. Mother and I were unnoticed for a while, and our presence didn’t get spotted till our little group arrived on the first floor, where we’d have undoubtedly been sent back outside if we hadn’t been rudely interrupted…

  …by the pit bull.

  Brad came barreling down the center aisle toward us, claws again making his progress awkward over the industrial carpet; that the dog was slightly slowed didn’t lessen the threat: Brad’s teeth were barred in that horribly blood-smeared mouth….

  Officer Munson raised his gun and took aim at the dog, which was a perfectly reasonable thing to do—I would have done the same.

  But, just as Brad seemed poised to spring at Munson, Mother lurched forward and shoved the officer’s hand-with-the-gun aside.

  Some fool screamed (me).

  Mother slapped Brad like a frisky first date and bent over and scolded, “Bad dog! Bad, bad doggie!”

  Brad, stunned, looked around at the rest of us, hoping to find a sympathetic face; and then, finding sympathy in short supply, the animal cowered and whimpered as Mother continued her scolding.

  “Now, you be a good dog,” Mother commanded, “and go over there and lie down!” She pointed sternly to the closest booth.

  Brad, staying very low to the ground, like a commando navigating a beachhead, obeyed, crawling under a Heywood-Wakefield coffee table and depositing himself there.

  The two paramedics rushed forward to find Mrs. Norton.

  A red-faced Munson turned on Mother. “I ought to book you for interfering with a police officer!”

  Mother studied him. “Have you had your blood pressure checked lately, Officer Munson? Stressful work like this can be a contributor to—”

  Ignoring her, the livid Munson barked into his shoulder microphone: “Ten-seventy-eight.”

  Mother leaned toward me and behind a hand whispered: “Requesting backup.” She knew all the police codes forward and back.

  The microphone crackled. “Ten-eighty-sixty?”

  “No. Ten-one-hundred.”

  Crackle. “Sorry, sir, is that a new one?”

  “You must be new—that’s a Vivian Borne…. I need someone to handle her!”

  Mother’s eyes widened and her hands clasped in delight. “Brandy! Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “Isn’t what wonderful?”

  “It would seem I have my very own designated police-code number!”

  “I’ve never been more proud.”

  One of the medics returned. “You’d better notify the coroner,” he told Munson solemnly.

  “Ten-seventy-nine,” Mother chirped.

  I thought the vein on Munson’s forehead was going to pop.

  “I want you two out of here…now!” he barked, looking from Mother to me.

  What had I done? Mother was the one with a police code.

  “And wait outside until someone takes your statement…understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said meekly.

  But Mother’s hands were on her hips. “You’re a terribly rude young man. I told you Mrs. Norton was dead and you dismissed that. I suggested you didn’t need to use lethal force on that poor animal, and then proved you wrong, and saved you from endless reports about firing your weapon on the job. Now I have one more small piece of advice for you.”

  I was tugging her sleeve. “Mother…Mother…”

  “That dog is innocent! I suggest you policemen start looking for whoever is really responsible. Possibly a suspicious character driving around town with a pit bull in his rider’s seat.”

  Munson’s gaze fell upon me. One eyebrow rose practically to his hairline; the other stayed in place, or mostly stayed in place, considering the twitch.

  Through another unfriendly smile, he asked: “Do you want to get her out of here? Or should I call Animal Control for her, too?”

  “Well!” Mother huffed.

  But I said, “Thank you, Officer, I’ll take charge of her,” and I took Mother by the arm and marched her aw
ay.

  We retreated down the back steps; but before exiting to the alley, I stopped Mother. “Why did you take such an awful risk with that creature?”

  “Officer Munson?”

  “No! The dog!” I was shaking my head, my voice trembling. “That vicious thing could have mauled you, just like he did Mrs. Norton!”

  “Nonsense, dear,” she said, and waved off my concern. “Your former teacher was right about her pet…Brad the pit bull is timid. A coward.”

  “Then why did he kill Mrs. Norton? He’s her dog, for God’s sake!”

  “Brandy, I’ll thank you not to take the Lord’s name in vain, at a time like this.” Mother’s brow furrowed. “But you heard what I told that awful young man—I don’t think Brad is guilty.”

  I was getting a warning tingle at the back of my neck; I didn’t want to admit it yet, but I could see where this was going, at least if Mother had anything to say about it. She was letting her theatrical notions turn a horrible tragedy into another murder mystery.

  “Saving that dog from a bullet right now,” I said, “is a reprieve at best…you know he’s going to have to be put down.”

  Mother sighed. “I’m afraid you’re right. Pity the only witness is a silent one. Poor thing can’t defend itself!”

  “Uh…I think Brad can defend himself just fine.”

  “With those fangs of his, perhaps, if he weren’t so timid. But he can’t point at the real killer, can he?”

  “Mother…”

  “Such a beautiful animal…”

  Compared to what? A rottweiler?

  “Mother,” I said, “listen to me.”

  “I can hear you, dear. You needn’t shout.”

  “I’m not shouting! Mother, you are not Jessica Fletcher and I am not Nancy Drew. We happened to get involved with something a while back—”

  “Those murders, you mean?”

  “Yes, yes, those murders. But that’s the kind of thing that happens once in a lifetime. You can’t go around looking at deaths, however tragic and, yes, grotesque, and turn them into a hobby, like your Red-Hatted League reading group.”

  She sniffed. “I have no idea whatsoever what you’re talking about.”