Then there was also the matter of the unfortunate Louis Martinette, the winning bidder of the Fabergé egg….
According to what Mother had overhead at the scene from the coroner, Martinette’s body was (she vividly put it) “a sack of broken bones,” indicating the man had fallen down the high spiral staircase—which he had apparently, trying to exit the scene of mass sickness, climbed after finding the back door locked.
So the question seemed obvious: was the fall an accident, or had he been pushed?
At various times I have referred to Mother’s tendency to view herself as a great detective. She and I had, bizarrely enough, been involved in several murder cases over a year or so that seemed no longer than the War of the Roses. From Mother’s point of view, we have solved three cases for the local police; from the local police’s point of view, they solved these cases despite our interference.
By the way, I once asked who she (Mother) thought she was—Miss Marple? Jessica Fletcher, maybe?
“I’m more the Angie Dickinson type, dear—remember Police Woman?”
Consequently, extracting Mother from the church premises was as tricky as removing a burrowed-in tick from a child’s scalp. Finally, an exasperated Chief Tony Cassato—Serenity’s top cop—put a figurative hot match head to Mother’s swollen back, forcing her to leave (or anyway me to take her away), since Vivian Borne has sucked all the blood out of that crime scene that there was to suck…ugh! That analogy made me more nauseous than another bout of morning sickness. Apologies.
By the way, I was exhausted, having actually helped out at the church, corralling the sick in various areas as those in the most trouble got the first rides to the hospital; I helped distribute water and aspirin and encouraging words, and emptied the pots and pans that had been provided for the upchuckers. Aren’t you glad I’m sparing you the details?
Meanwhile, Mother was flying high, and don’t think my hackles weren’t tingling, seeing her manic self kicking in.
“The cause of the sickness has been tentatively linked to the lunch served,” Mother said as we rode home on the lovely moonlit spring evening. “Now, that was withheld from the media, dear…so do keep that to yourself.”
And here I’d been planning to hit the bars tonight and troll for media types to peddle scoops to.
“Most likely salmonella poisoning,” she was saying. “But tests will have to be conducted to pinpoint the offending food, which will take time, because so many different dishes had been eaten. That’s potluck for you!”
“Food poisoning, then,” I said. “That egg winner—Louis Martinette? He didn’t die of something he ate. But I suppose you could write it off to collateral damage from the panic the food poisoning set in motion.”
“You could, dear—but the police aren’t.”
“No?”
“No. Mr. Martinette’s death is being treated as suspicious.”
“I think I know why.”
Mother’s eyes were gleaming like the jewels on one of the better Fabergé eggs. “Do you, dear? I would love to hear your theory! We are a team, you know.”
“Well,” I said, ignoring the latter, “I don’t think you can fall all the way down a spiral staircase. You’d get caught up in the works, maybe a quarter of the way down—and the way that staircase is constructed? You couldn’t fall through the side rungs to the floor. There’s a railing up there on the wooden landing, but not much of one. Pushing someone over wouldn’t be that much of a challenge….”
“Brandy! This is wonderful! You’re thinking like a detective.”
I sent my eyes from the road to her disturbing face. “We’re just talking. We’re not getting involved in another of these things. This isn’t Murder, She Wrote, Mother, or Nancy Drew, either. You can’t—we can’t—go snooping around without getting ourselves into real trouble this time.”
She touched her cheek with a forefinger. “I’m afraid I am in real trouble, dear.”
“Why is that?”
“The auction…I’m afraid it was a fiasco.”
“You think?”
“Oh, I don’t mean the hundred people throwing up, or even our Russian benefactor being the only food-poisoning fatality. It was Mr. Martinette’s death that has put my mammaries in an old-fashioned washing machine.”
“Huh?”
She whispered, looking around to make sure no one else was in the car, eavesdropping. “Titties in a wringer, dear. Titties in a wringer.”
She really hadn’t needed to repeat that.
“You see,” she said, “each of the credible bidders had arranged a line of credit up to at least a million dollars with First National. The paperwork, and the actual transfer of funds, were to take place after the auction, off the church premises, at Father O’Brien’s request.”
“Why?”
“He apparently found it undignified. Too much like money lenders in the temple.”
As if allowing Vivian Borne to run an auction in your church was the dignified way to go….
“Anywhoo,” she went on, “Mr. Martinette obviously did not have time to make payment, nor had he taken care of any of the paperwork. With his death, and Madam Petrova’s, the egg goes back into her estate and the auction is null and void.”
“How do you know this?”
“The bank president was there—Mr. Ingstad? He answered all of my questions, which was very kind of him, considering he was intermittently—how shall I put it delicately?—sitting there filling a pan at his feet.”
I closed my eyes. This nasty image reminded me of the smell in that church, which I hoped one day to banish from my sensory memory.
“So then the guy who really benefits,” I said, “is Clifford Ashland.”
“One would think, but then he’s already wealthy in his own right. So I hardly see why he’d kill Martinette, much less his beloved aunt! I mean, can you imagine anyone wanting to kill a beloved elderly relation?”
I looked at her. “Am I under oath?”
“No, dear.” Her smile was wicked. “But I can tell you that the death of Mr. Martinette has been deemed suspicious not because of the nature of his injuries, rather due to…now, you simply must promise to keep this from press!”
“Mother!”
“Sorry, dear. But imagine how excited the media will become when they learn that the Fabergé egg…is…wait for it, darling…missing.”
“What?”
“Several people gave statements confirming that Martinette moved from his seat and claimed the egg on the altar table, just as panic broke out.” She raised a finger skyward and waggled it. “And yet the valuable item was not found with his body!”
“Father O’Brien was right there….”
“Yes, dear…and Father O’Brien says he did not notice the egg. Of course, he didn’t search the poor man—he was more concerned with checking for signs of life, and of course giving the last rites.”
“Wow. Gotta hand it to you, Mother—you sure can soak up a lot of information when people all around you are getting sick.”
“Thank you, dear. But all is not bleak.”
“Really?”
Her smile was wide, making her face nothing but teeth and magnified eyes, like a cartoon animal. “Yes, our team brought in more money than any other…even without the million-dollar egg! So, technically, we were the winners, and will be featured in American Mid-West Magazine!”
“Well, I’m glad to see the tragedy hasn’t blurred your sense of priorities.”
“Thank you, dear.”
We pulled up in front of our house. “Mother, you have to promise me something.”
“Yes, my darling girl?”
That was bad—“my darling girl” meant that any promise I extracted from her was worth the air it was written on.
But I tried anyway. “I have that ‘bundle from above’ coming, remember? Can we please let the police do their job, and stay on the sidelines of this?”
“We don’t even know if there’s a murder yet!�
��
I was pretty sure there had been, but I said, “That’s right, Mother. That’s very sensible. Shall we go in and not talk about this?”
Sushi didn’t greet us at the door, which meant she was hiding somewhere because she’d been bad. At her age, this meant either number one or number two, because she wasn’t chewing furniture, anymore. In a house full of antiques, dogs who chew on furniture don’t last long.
Soosh did, however, on occasion, when she was feeling particularly put upon, sink her tiny teeth into an available shoe….
I called out that it was okay for her to show herself (sort of an olly-olly-oxen-free for dogs), but when she still didn’t appear, I surmised that the little doggie must have been really bad. Maybe the dreaded three (number one and two)….
I left my shoes on. Not a good time to go barefoot.
You see, Sushi can be quite vindictive if I miss her dinnertime, and we’d been gone much longer than that. I just hoped she hadn’t chewed up my new, black-leather Donald Pliner sandals that I’d left on my bedroom floor; I’d bought the expensive shoes end-of-season last year at seventy-five percent off, then stored them away. (Don’t you just love discovering a sale item you’d forgotten you had? If that isn’t guilt-free shopping, I don’t know what is!)
Whatever Sushi’s dastardly deed had been, and there surely had been one, I decided I’d rather deal with it in the morning; so I said a quick good-night to Mother and went upstairs. Despite my orders to Mother about not talking about the church fiasco, my brain hadn’t got the message.
Why, it asked me, didn’t you get sick? You don’t even need the excuse of food that’s gone off to throw up, do you? And yet you were one of the few who kept it down!
Of course, so had Mother, which only meant she hadn’t partaken of whatever the particular dish was that carried the nasty bug. And Martinette had felt good enough to snatch his egg and run…and die.
A cursory scan of my bedroom indicated nothing had been disturbed—the Donald Pliner shoes still in their box on the floor. (Phewww!) I shut off my brain, clicked off the light, stumbled over to the bed, and fell in, not bothering to take off my clothes.
My head hit the pillow in delicious anticipation of deep slumber, but an instant later I bolted upright.
Sushi had peed on my pillow!
“Sushi!” I said, not calling the dog, rather invoking her as a nemesis, the way Seinfeld used to with Newman.
It was the little pooch’s ultimate “gotcha,” which she employed only to show her most extreme displeasure—as when, a while back, we had taken in an orphaned dog named Brad Pitt-bull until a new owner could be found. She had marked her territory, all right—with my pillow as her territory.
I ran into the bathroom and scrubbed my face—which, by the way, was a rarity for me, since I often opt for leaving my makeup on at night. (Not a suggestion—an admission.)
Then, muttering, “I’ll get you later, you dog you,” I made for the guest room and crawled under the covers…
…where I found Sushi hiding.
She sheepishly inched her way to my face, then licked it. All over. And I forgave her, of course, kissing her furry little forehead, tucking her close to me. People were sick and dying, and I had a warm doggie who loved me.
Anyway, I’ll take a piddled-on pillow over gnawed-up Pliners any day.
The next morning, Sunday, I awoke with a start, remembering that I had a lunch date at noon with my BFF, Tina. And as she would no doubt be concerned over my wan appearance, I would need several hours to get ready to look healthy and happy.
The first clue that something wasn’t right in the Borne household came when I walked by Mother’s bedroom and saw that her bed was made.
Why suspicious? Well, she never made the bed, leaving that task to me—so that meant it hadn’t been slept in.
Then downstairs, in the living room, I found that my childhood board games had been dragged out of the front closet and scattered around the floor, as if Christmas had come way early, the presents all been opened, but the tree had been stolen.
I wondered if Mother had been so keyed-up that she couldn’t sleep. Had she stayed up all night, playing games? Wasn’t hard to envision her rolling the dice, making a move, then running around the game board to play against herself.
I found Mother in the dining room, wearing the same clothes as yesterday, her eyes wild behind her large glasses, hair disheveled—as if maybe she’d inserted a wet finger into a light socket. She loomed like God Almighty over the Duncan Phyfe table, where, taking up most of the surface, was a large cardboard replica of the inside of St. Mary’s Church!
Vivian Borne had been a busy girl.
The model was quite detailed: Popsicle stick pews; cereal box pulpit (single-serving-size—Cocoa Puffs); ditto for the lectern (Froot Loops); empty tuna can celebrant’s chairs (lids opened for back rests); and taped-together toilet tissue tubes to represent the tall spiral staircase.
Into this miniature playhouse, Mother had placed an assortment of board-game pieces, which I quickly ascertained represented the key players in last night’s melodrama. For example, the chess queen behind the Froot Loops lectern was Mother, while the white pawn from the Clue game, resting on a tuna can, signified Madam Petrova.
I frowned at the other tuna can. “You’re a chess queen, and I’m a Tiddly Wink?”
Mother’s eyebrows scaled her forehead, seeking escape. “Why not, dear? Didn’t you love to play Tiddly Winks as a young sprout?”
“I also loved Old Maid but I don’t want to be one! Anyway, you’re the Borne who liked that game. I thought it was stupid. Peggy Sue hated it.” My older sister. “Why can’t you be the Tiddly Wink?”
Mother put hands on hips. “Because then I couldn’t be seen behind the Froot Loops!”
She had a point.
“Then make me Michelangelo,” I suggested, referring to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle among the other game pieces in the front Popsicle stick row.
“Sorry, dear. That’s the man from Sotheby’s.”
I stuck out my lower lip. “Well, I could be one of the other turtles you didn’t use…there are four in the TMNT game, you know.”
Mother shook her head vigorously, and amazingly nothing rattled. “Absolutely not. They all look alike. I might become confused.”
“First of all, you are often confused anyway. And second of all, the turtles do not look alike. Leonardo has a blue mask and carries a sword, while Donatello has a purple mask and uses a stick—”
Mother stomped her foot, in the manner she’d employed when little “sprout” Brandy used to get under her skin. Which had been frequently.
“Dear!” Mother said, exasperated. “If you didn’t want to be the Tiddly Wink, you should have gotten up earlier.”
“What? I’m psychic now? And when would that have been—like…three in the morning?”
Mother ignored that, saying testily, “I have already written down who is what and have committed it to memory. To do otherwise would make it difficult for me. I’m an older woman and you must make allowances.”
As astonishing as her admission to being an “older woman” might have been, it paled next to her disingenuousness. I happened to know that Mother learned her entire part of “Everybody Loves Opal” in one night, when she stepped in to replace the lead actress after a stage light dropped on her (the actress, not Mother) (no, Mother didn’t drop the light) (at least, she had an alibi).
Mother reached behind the dining room table and, with a dramatic flourish, produced another piece of cardboard that she placed on a chair, making an easel out of it.
Printed with a black marker in large capital letters was:
MADAM PETROVA = CLUE®—MRS. WHITE
DON KAUFMAN = OPERATION®—LEG BONE
KATHERINE ESTHERHAUS = CLUE®—CANDLESTICK
SERGEI IVANOV = COOTIE®—HEAD
JOHN RICHARDS = TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLE®
LOUIS MARTINETTE = PARCHEESI®—ELEPHANT
SAMUEL WOODS = MONOPOLY®—TOP HAT
MOTHER = CHESS®—QUEEN
BRANDY = TIDDLY WINKS®—TIDDLY WINK
I ignored the redundancy of the last entry, even though it described my own role, and said, “I don’t think chess needs a registered trademark.”
Mother had become a stickler about crediting trademarks after she’d gotten into trouble producing a play she wrote that had used the Coca-Cola logo in the title. She might have got away with it had she not sent the script to Coke’s Atlanta HQ, asking if they’d like to back her in a nationwide tour of said play. (Her next original work was entitled: “Cease and Desist.”)
Anyway, Mother looked at me for a long moment before asking tersely, “Don’t you have somewhere to be?”
I checked my Chico’s watch, which I hadn’t removed from my wrist last night.
“Oh, yeah…I’m supposed to pick up Tina in an hour.”
Mother’s eyebrows climbed again. “Well? You wouldn’t want to be late for your BFFF.”
“You put in an extra ‘F,’ Mother.”
“Did I? Well, I’m sure it doesn’t stand for anything nasty….”
That’s the closest I’d ever heard her come to dropping the “F” bomb, and it showed just how long she’d been up, and how manic she was getting. Houston, we could have a problem—Vivian Borne might be about to launch into orbit….
“Never let it be said,” I said, “that Brandy Borne can’t take a gentle hint.”
And I turned on my heel and left her to her cardboard theater of the absurd.
As long as I was a Tiddly Wink, I had no intention of taking Mother’s new “murder case” seriously.
A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
Sometimes an auctioneer may change the description of an item, at the start of bidding. Make sure you base your bid on that description and not a prior catalog listing. You don’t want to wind up buying a pig in a poke. And what is a pig in a poke, anyway?
Antiques Bizarre Page 5
