8 Antiques Con

by Barbara Allan

  “Go, go,” he said.

  Leaving Cassato to ponder Sipcowski as a possible suspect, I returned to our suite. I took a few minutes to have at least a cursory look inside that thick file I’d found in Tommy’s little fridge. Inside was a stack of filled-out Buff Awards ballot sheets.

  Had Tommy purposefully hidden them? Or absentmindedly stuck them in the fridge? The latter seemed highly unlikely, even for a healthy eater, so these pages must have had some significance.

  I just had no idea what....

  I returned the papers to the file, then set the folder on the end table next to Mother’s pile of trinkets, noting with satisfaction that Detective Cassato had apparently not discovered her little recording device. The key-chain bug didn’t appear to have been touched.

  My shower was quick enough to rate a world record, and my quick do-over at the mirror would have been a candidate for the same. After giving Sushi a kiss—she was nestled now among the pillows on the bed—I said, “I’ll be back soon, sweetie,” and slipped out.

  Located just off the lobby, Lindy’s (its i dotted with a star) was one of the hotel’s four restaurants.

  Eclectically decorated in a mixture of vintage signs and sports memorabilia, the eatery (so famous for its cheesecake) also had an entrance on Seventh Avenue, attracting a clientele beyond just hotel guests.

  But Ashley had beaten me there, having snagged one of the few booths across from the central bar, and she waved to get my attention.

  I realize some of you are asking, Who’s Ashley? And why are we meeting her halfway through the book?

  Ashley is my niece. Correction—she’s my half sister. She was my niece until last year, when I found out that my birth mother wasn’t Mother (who had raised me), but rather my much older sister, Peggy Sue. (Mother had blurted some of this to Robert Sipcowski, as you may recall.) At the time of my conception, Peggy Sue was having an affair with then-state-senate hopeful Edward Clark; she was newly eighteen and unmarried, working on his campaign. He was also unmarried and working on his campaign, but should have known better. Fortunately he didn’t, or you wouldn’t be reading this. Because I wouldn’t be here.

  Sorry to throw this at you Trash ‘n’ Treasures newbies, but trust me—whichever book you start with, you are going to be at least a little confused. And if you started with this book, or you’re a loyalist who just needed a refresher, the above paragraph was a necessary evil . . . that is, if you want to follow the conversation that Ashley and I are about to have in the next few pages.

  Oh, and Ashley? When she first heard the stuff in that paragraph before the last one . . . brother (or maybe sister ), was she furious! Furious with Peggy Sue for this deception, enough so as to quit college and flee to New York. To my knowledge, Ash hasn’t spoken to her mother since.

  And while Ashley hadn’t been as furious with me as she had been with Peggy Sue, she was still put out with me. We were close, and I should have told her. But, frankly, I didn’t find out about all that soap-opera craziness myself until a few months before she did.

  So now you know that Aunt Olive and the Superman drawing weren’t the only things on my agenda. Going to New York was my opportunity to try to reconnect with my niece. Sister. Half sister.

  “How are you, Ash?” I asked.

  I can tell you how she was: stunning. I say that without family pride, just the realization one woman has when she sees another woman who’s better looking.

  In fact, Ash was even more beautiful than Peggy Sue had been at that age, with the same silken auburn hair, porcelain complexion, perfect features, and startlingly green eyes. She always knew just what to wear—today, that was gray jeans, a black sweater, and a colorful Hermes silk scarf around her neck; on the seat next to her was a burgundy tweed coat, a silver Coach purse at her side.

  I bent, gave her a hug—she hugged back, which was a relief—then slid into the booth opposite her.

  Ashley smiled, showing perfect white teeth. “I’m doing great, Bran,” she said, a little too cheerfully. “And you?”

  “I’m on a trip with your grandmother,” I said. “How do you think I’m doing?”

  She laughed. “I was hoping Grandma would join us. It seems like a century since I saw her.”

  “Actually, I haven’t seen her since late this afternoon.” I reached for a menu. “She was heading to her theatrical haunts to look up old pals. Thought she’d be back by now, but don’t worry, you’ll see her before we leave town. Yikes! Nineteen bucks for a turkey sandwich?”

  “Welcome to Manhattan.”

  “Wanna split one?”

  She shook her head, arcs of auburn hair swaying. “Afraid I only do salads these days—have to stay thin if I want to work in print ads.”

  Far as I was concerned, she was verging on too thin, but I kept that to myself.

  “I’m glad you’re having some success,” I said. “That’s a tough trade.”

  This was the first I’d heard that she was modeling. We’d had very little contact—not that I hadn’t tried.

  Ashley was saying, “Not exactly on the cover of Elle yet. Still waiting tables in the Village. It’s what I think they call eking out an existence.”

  “Eek, period.”

  “No, Bran, it’s great. I love this city. So vital. Just nothing like it. Everything you hear about it is true.”

  Muggings in Central Park, aggressive homeless people, Wall Street sharks . . .

  I set the menu aside. “I can’t help myself. I feel an attack of advice coming on. Afraid I still think of myself as your aunt.”

  “Maybe, but we were always more like sisters.”

  “Sweet of you to say, but . . . I can’t help but wish you hadn’t left college.”

  She shrugged. “Never too late to go back.”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  She didn’t reply, just looked down at the white plastic tablecloth, traced its maze-type pattern with a finger.

  I tried again. “Okay, I know why—but I still don’t understand it. Hurting yourself doesn’t get back at your mother. And, anyway, you always had a great life. I’m the injured party here, if there is one—I’m the foundling who grew up with Vivian Borne as a mother.”

  I hadn’t meant that as a joke, but we both found ourselves laughing at it.

  But the mirth was fleeting, and she said quite seriously, “It was just the final straw with Mom. I love her, but her social-climbing ways, all that status-seeking nonsense . . . ick! It’s a bitter pill, realizing that you don’t like somebody you love.”

  Nothing there I could argue with.

  She went on, “But I was injured, too. Denied the experience, the fun we would have had, growing up as sisters together.”

  “Oh, Ash,” I said, shaking my head, smiling gently, “we wouldn’t have grown up together—too many years separated us.”

  “I know, but—”

  “If your mother had claimed me, and grown up with an illegitimate child back in those days . . . ? What a hard, rough life she would have had. She and your father may not have gotten together. And you might never have been born. Which is the kind of ‘what if’ you can drive yourself crazy thinking about.”

  I should know, because I’d already dealt with such issues with my therapist.

  She was thinking about all that.

  I touched her hand and gave her half a smile, which seemed plenty. “And I wasn’t such a bad aunt, was I?”

  She gave me the other half of the smile. “No. Not a bad aunt at all. You’ve been fun, so much fun. But you could’ve been happier. Aren’t you even mad at her?”

  “At Peggy Sue? No.” Maybe a little. “I’ve been plenty happy in my life. And any unhappiness has been my own doing. Besides, living with your grandmother has been an experience in tolerance.”

  Now her smile turned ornery. “An experience in tolerance, or an intolerable experience?”

  “Six of one, sweetie. Six of one.”

  We fell silent for a moment.

&nb
sp; “Ash, will you do something for your former-aunt-now-half-sister? It would mean a lot to me.”

  “You want me to call Mom. In D.C., where she lives with that man.”

  After the unexpected death of Ashley’s father, Peggy Sue had reconnected with Senator Clark, after a mere thirty years, and moved to Washington to be the perfect political wife. But for this fairy tale to have its requisite happy ending, I would have to get Ashley to give her mother a second chance.

  “ ‘That man’ is her husband and my father,” I said. “The senator has paid for his sins in the media. And he’s a decent, a truly decent man, Ash. Call her.”

  “Brandy, I just don’t know. . . .”

  “I’d really appreciate it.”

  She sighed. She laughed silently, shook her head, as all the things we descendants of Vivian Borne had been through together were rushing through her mind at once.

  “All right,” she said finally. “I will do it—if it’ll make you happy.”

  “It will. And you know what? It just might make you happy, too.”

  She rolled her pretty eyes. “And for all those years, I thought you were such a cool aunt. Now it turns out you’re just my cornball older sister from Iowa.”

  “Growing up is such a disappointment, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Now, where’s a waitress?” I groused. “I’m starving—nineteen dollars for a turkey sandwich is starting to sound like a bargain.”

  In between bites of food, we talked, falling back into our old comfortable relationship, exchanging excessively detailed accounts of what we each had been doing since we’d been out of touch. Ashley was in the middle of a funny story about her roommate, a Cyndi Lauper look-alike, when I noticed Violet and Eric coming into the restaurant through the hotel access.

  Violet looked voluptuous in a black-and-white checkered formfitting dress with a wide black patent belt, black heels stark against her bare, pale legs. But the stress of holding the convention together was starting to show in her face, cracking her heavy makeup.

  Eric seemed chipper, though, looking very Nordic in an Alpine gray-and-red ski sweater, black jeans, and black boots.

  The two took stools at the bar, then ordered drinks from the bartender. I tried to listen in on their conversation, but the pair had their backs to me and kept their voices low, heads together. At one point, Eric slipped an arm around Violet’s shoulders—the gesture seemed consoling, not sexual.

  “Are you okay, Bran?” Ashley asked.

  She’d been talking, and I must have seemed distracted.

  “Uh, yeah. Some people I know at the bar is all. You were saying?”

  “I was saying,” Ashley said with a wry smile, “that I probably should be leaving. Movie date tonight.”

  Now she had all my attention. “Serious?”

  Ashley smiled coyly. “Early days, but . . . yeah. Pretty serious. I hope you and Grandma get to meet him before you go home—he works on Wall Street.”

  Well, she’d been raised by Peggy Sue, after all. Quitting college hadn’t lowered her standards.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Think he’s ready for us?” Meaning Mother and me.

  “Well, it’s not like you and Grandma get to New York every other Tuesday. Better take advantage of your presence here to find out if he can take it.”

  “Does he drink?”

  “Well, yes. I mean, nothing that’s—”

  “He’ll need to.” I reached for the check. “I’ll get this.”

  “Thanks, Brandy.” A young woman eking out an existence in New York didn’t have the luxury of fighting over a check. She gathered her purse and coat. “It’s been wonderful seeing you. I feel . . . I feel better about things.”

  “You and me both, honey.”

  We kissed each other’s cheeks.

  Then she asked, “Is Sushi along?”

  “She’s not along. She’s in charge.”

  “How cool! Can’t wait to kiss her fuzzy little head.”

  I watched my niece/half sister leave through the Seventh Avenue revolving door, chill air reaching me a few seconds later, making me shiver.

  But I wasn’t going, not just yet. Not until I’d had Lindy’s cheesecake—even if it was nine bucks a slice.

  I had just dipped my fork into the creamy mass of goodness when Brad Webster entered from the lobby.

  He strode purposefully toward Violet.

  Like Hercule Poirot, I had learned that eavesdropping was a key aspect in the art of detection.

  Brad was saying angrily to Violet, “I can’t believe you’re going on with the convention! It’s . . . it’s ghoulish.”

  Violet turned to look at him, her gaze withering. “Could we not talk about this here? In public?”

  “It’s all about the money, isn’t it? The money and him.” Brad gave Eric’s shoulder a little shove.

  Eric hopped off the bar stool and pushed Brad back, the Fan Guest of Honor bumping into a passing waitress, who dropped her order. At these prices, that was fifty bucks that hit the floor.

  Then the bartender was shouting for the three to leave, and Violet did so, her anger keeping back the tears, Eric running after her, followed by a disgruntled Brad.

  I considered tossing some money on the table and pursuing the trio—if the confrontation continued in the lobby, I might really learn something. But that cheesecake was calling to me, and you just don’t walk away from nine-dollar cheesecake, not where I come from.

  What is it about New York that makes all Midwesterners feel like they’re bit players in a bus-and-truck company of Annie Get Your Gun?

  A little while later, I returned to the suite, bringing some leftover turkey for Sushi, and found no sign of Mother.

  Which struck me as rather odd. Normally, I wouldn’t have been concerned, as she often lost track of time when she was shopping, sightseeing, or sleuthing.

  But this was not serene Serenity, this was the big bad city, and a little spike of worry shot through me. Better safe than silly, I thought, and called her cell phone.

  And immediately heard Mother’s custom ringtone for the trip (“New York, New York”) emanate from a closed bureau drawer.

  Apparently, I thought, irritated and afraid, her vagabond shoes were longing to stray.

  She had a bad habit of intentionally leaving her cell behind should she not want to be reached. Not enough to just ignore a call like the rest of us rational folk—she had to be (as she put it) “well and truly out of pocket, dear.”

  Once, when the vet put a little tracker chip in Sushi’s neck, so I could find the precious creature should she wander away, I had asked if he could do the same to Mother. He thought I was kidding.

  Sushi was pawing at me, halfway up my legs, not in concern for Mother’s absence, not hardly—she wanted that Lindy’s turkey. So I fed her, then gave the little mutt an injection of insulin, followed by a bone treat for taking the shot like a trooper.

  I retrieved the little recording device, and spent the next half hour at my computer in the outer room, downloading its contents, so that it could be heard through the speaker.

  But I didn’t bother listening to the recording, because even if I took copious notes, Mother would still want to hear it herself. This assumed that Mother had not been shanghaied on a boat to China nor decided to join the Foreign Legion. She was a trifle too old for the white slavers.

  I was about to turn on the TV and do some channel-surfing when a knock came at the door. My first thought was Mother, but surely she wouldn’t have left her keycard behind, too. Well, that would have been really out of pocket....

  I crossed over and looked through the peephole, seeing what appeared to be Detective Cassato’s face via fisheye distortion. I opened the door.

  Sal must have given my suspicions about Sipcowski some thought and decided that my opinions had some merit, after all. Smiling smugly to myself, I opened the door.

  But the man standing in front of me in a blue NYPD windbre
aker wasn’t Sal Cassato. Oh, it was a Cassato, all right, just not Sal.

  Tony!

  And I flew into his arms, and he took me in his, but walked me backward into the room, the door closing behind us.

  We kissed. Several times.

  Finally, I came up for air and blurted, “What are you doing here, you great big beautiful fool? You’re putting yourself in danger!”

  He cupped my face in his hands. “Not as much danger as you’re getting into . . . you beautiful little fool.”

  So he’d been talking to his brother. I guessed they were in closer contact than Sal had admitted.

  We walked hand in hand into the living room area and sat together on the sofa.

  “Brandy,” he said, his dark eyes locked on me, two of his hands holding one of mine, “you have got to stop looking into this Bufford murder. You’re going to upset some powerful not-nice people.”

  “You mean . . . not-nice people in New Jersey?”

  He nodded. “The same Mob crew who are after me. And I don’t have to tell you that they’re ruthless.”

  I had been with him when the hit men they sent found Tony in Serenity. We had both barely gotten through that horror alive (Antiques Knock-Off).

  I asked, “You think the same people killed Tommy?”

  “Had him killed, yes.”

  “By Gino Moretti, maybe?”

  He let go of my hands, his eyes wide. “Are you pumping me for information?”

  “Well, uh, not exactly, I . . .”

  “Brandy! Stay out of this investigation or you will get seriously hurt—and that goes for Vivian, too.”

  “I’m glad to hear you care so much about Mother.”

  “I care about her because you care about her. Otherwise, I would be happy to see her get what she deserves for her busybody b.s.”

  Their relationship in the past was . . . less than warm. At least on Tony’s side.

  He went on, “There could even be a shooting war between Jersey and New York factions, and the last thing I want is you caught in the crossfire. Why can’t you and your Mother just come to New York and see Wicked like everybody else?”

  “It’s in our plans,” I said lamely.

  He took my hand again and squeezed it. “You’ve got to promise me that you will lay off this investigation.”