Mother continued, “I will also improve the department by adding a third deputy, which will reduce errors due to fatigue, and bolster morale among the staff. This, too, can be accomplished with no increase to the budget. As it stands now, the county is paying two deputies overtime to fill the needs of the community, which is not financially efficient. Why not use the overtime cost to add another position?”
Positive murmurs now were accompanied by nodding of heads. The ladies were liking what they were hearing. And, I had to admit, so—astonishingly—was I.
“And finally,” Mother said, “I’d like to see a better relationship between the sheriff’s department and the community. I’m not saying that conditions are poor—Sheriff Rudder has done a commendable job. But there’s always room for improvement. Remember, gaining the public’s trust has always been—and always will be—an integral part of law enforcement.”
Ebullient applause.
Wow, I thought. That wasn’t bad! That was really kind of . . . good.
“Thank you,” Mother said graciously, nodding, bowing, glancing here and there as if expecting someone to rush the stage with an armload of flowers. “Now, I’m happy to take questions from the audience, should anyone have any.”
A hand shot up—Frannie Phillips, one of Mother’s gal pals, probably enlisted as a shill.
“Mrs. Borne,” the woman said in a loud voice that seemed to acknowledge the older, more hard-of-hearing among us, “isn’t it true that you have already solved many baffling cases for the sheriff’s department?”
“Well, now . . .” Mother demurred, shifting her stance, wearing her modesty like an orchid on a prom dress. “To be perfectly honest, and answering your query with some reluctance . . . that is correct. I have always been happy to share credit with both the Serenity Police Department and the county sheriff on these occasions. What does it matter that I have exposed something like a dozen murderers! Seeing justice served is more important to me than taking any credit.”
Let’s give that Five Pinocchios, or whatever is the maximum nose growth on the lying scale. I refer to the latter statement only—she really has brought a dozen or so murderers to justice. Or anyway she and I have.
Another hand shot up, Alice Hetzler, also a gal pal—really Shill-O-Rama here at the League of Women Voters this afternoon!
“Ms. Borne, what would you say to someone who would question your age and fitness to be sheriff?”
While not exactly a softball question, it was smart of Mother to address that issue now.
“Age is but a number,” Mother responded with airy certainty. “What really matters is a person’s ability to do the job, and I certainly have the stamina to become sheriff. As far as fitness is concerned—I will post my medical report on line. Besides, there seems to be a goodly and ever-growing number—if you’ll pardon the pun—of law enforcement professionals who could stand to drop a pound or two.”
That brought some chuckles.
A younger woman I didn’t recognize put her hand up; her hair was short and dark and her suit was gray with a black silk blouse—a professional among the ladies who lunch.
“Leslie Hackett,” she said. “Des Moines Register.”
“Ah,” Mother replied. “It’s nice to see a member of the fourth estate—and from our state’s capital!—interested in our little election. What is your question, Ms. Hackett?”
“Isn’t it true that while apprehending a murderer at the county fairgrounds a few years back you purposely burned down the historic grandstand?”
To Mother’s credit she didn’t flinch. “That was an unfortunate accident. Burning down the grandstand, that is. Capturing a murderer was wholly intentional.”
Four Pinocchios. Cornered by a killer, Mother set a very intentional fire to attract help; but I don’t think she intended the old wooden structure to go up in flames.
“Besides,” Mother went on, “out of the ashes came a brand-new grandstand. A win-win if you ask me. . . . You’re welcome, Serenity!”
But Ms. Hackett wasn’t finished. “And isn’t it a fact that you’ve been incarcerated multiple times?”
“I wouldn’t call two stints in the pokey ‘multiple,’ dear,” Mother replied, brow furrowed, smile smirky.
“Once for falsely admitting to a murder . . .”
Mother cut in. “Only a temporary admission, to protect someone else from being charged—someone who was innocent.”
Me.
“. . . and again for breaking and entering someone’s home.”
“Who was a murderer,” Mother said, adding, “Different case, by the way.” As if that took the onus off.
“One would think,” the reporter said, “these . . . shall we say, vigilante actions would disqualify you as a candidate for sheriff.”
“My record has been expunged,” Mother huffed. “If you’d bothered to check the facts.”
Half a Pinocchio: the charge for false confession was dropped; the break-in really was expunged, but only after she (and I, as her accessory) spent a month in the county jail.
Time to bring the Q & A to an end. This wasn’t accomplishing anything good, except maybe selling a few books locally. I twirled a finger in the air, catching Mother’s eye.
“Oh, my,” she exclaimed, “look at the time. I didn’t mean to go on so long. Again, I’d like to thank the Serenity League of Women Voters for inviting me this afternoon. And remember, ladies—vote for me, Vivian Borne—born to be sheriff!”
She left the podium in haste, to a smattering of applause, and we made a quick exit.
In the elevator Mother’s sneer had some snarl in it. “Why didn’t that young woman stick to her own beat? She just came here to make trouble, and make a name for herself at my expense.”
“Is any of what you said true?” I asked.
“Of course! She just came to make trouble!”
“No. In your speech, I mean. Is there a grant to pay for a new communications system?”
Her shrug oozed unconcern. “I’m sure there’s one somewhere.”
I reached for the buttons and stopped the elevator.
I narrowed my eyes at her and leaned in. “What about adding a new deputy, virtually cost free?”
She shrugged again. “Well, I haven’t really done the math on that.”
My squint gave way to climbing eyebrows. “Mother, you can’t go around making campaign promises you can’t keep!”
Her smile was a blossom of motherly love for a backward child.
“Dear,” she said, “can you really be so naive? Nobody really believes a candidate will keep his—or in this case, her—promises. Now let’s get Sushi and go home . . . my bunions are killing me!”
And she started the elevator.
So much for her A-plus health report.
But I knew something else was missing from that....
* * *
This evening Mother would be at her book club, the Red Hatted League, including half a dozen of her close gal pals who gathered regularly to discuss a mystery novel everyone was reading. Since she had been taking the same book with her, Rex Stout’s Death of a Dude, for about six months now—which is ridiculous because it’s one of the shortest Nero Wolfe mysteries—I surmised the only discussion going on lately was of the gossiping kind.
Mother said, “I’ll be at Frannie’s house, dear. Don’t look for me until around ten.”
We were standing in the living room.
“Cora picking you up, huh?” I asked. That concerned me, as the woman was only slightly less blind than Mr. Magoo.
Mother blinked at me as if my deductive powers had suddenly improved. “Why, yes, dear—however did you know?”
“She’s parked in our front lawn.”
Looking out the picture window, Mother blurted, “Good Lord! Missed the driveway by a country mile. And they say I’m not fit to be behind the wheel!”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you?” I asked, truly concerned.
Mothe
r shook her head. “I’ll be her eyes for her, ever ready to reach over and steer.”
Wasn’t that reassuring?
“Okay,” I said. “But keep the other hand near the door handle. Pitch and roll, and hope the new hips hold up.”
“Your advice is always so helpful, dear,” she said, possibly sarcastic, but maybe not.
From a table near the entryway, Mother gathered her purse and Stout book, and a plastic-wrap-covered dessert plate with her famous Heath Bar Torte, then out the door she went, for an evening with Archie, Nero, and the girls.
I watched until Cora had successfully backed out of the yard, bumping over the curb, and disappeared down the street with the horns of other cars honking fore and aft, in a friendly greeting.
After a sigh or two, I gave Sushi a treat, got my purse, and went out to the C-max, to keep my appointment with Deputy Dugan.
The address he’d given me was in Stoneybrook, an upscale housing addition just within the city limits. Originally touted as having “executive homes,” Stoneybrook had been downgraded to “junior executive,” as other, more expensive enclaves mushroomed near the bypass.
By any name, the homes were extremely nice, and out of many a Serenity-ite’s income range, including ours. You would think that would include a deputy sheriff, whose wife didn’t work, but I vaguely recalled Dugan coming from a farm family who might have had money.
Or maybe Daryl Dugan was just up to his eyeballs in debt....
By dusk I was turning into the development where, off to one side, a massive rock chiseled STONEYBROOK sat like a hunkering sentinel. I crossed over a small brook, babbling (the brook, not me), and up a winding road where houses of various styles and colors were tucked back from the street among oaks, maples, and pines.
As the last rays of a pink setting sun winked through boughs, I swung into the driveway of a split-level home that sported tan siding and black shutters. I pulled up to a two-car garage whose doors were open, revealing the back ends of a silver Audi sedan and red Chevy truck.
A curved, stone-paved sidewalk took me through a well-tended lawn, then I went up a few cement steps to an etched-glass door with matching panels on either side.
I pushed the doorbell.
And waited.
Pushed again.
The door opened abruptly enough to startle me some and I was suddenly facing Daryl’s wife, Candice, commonly known as Candy. A few years older than me, she had nice long blond hair, though her narrow face had a vaguely horsey cast; her best asset was a curvaceous body that she’d used to snag her various husbands (well, it sure wasn’t her winning personality).
Candy was part of a large family from a blue-collar part of town that used to be known as South End. You might call it the Serenity equivalent of the wrong side of the tracks, but a girl as fetching as Candy Kowalski always had prospects.
When I was a sophomore in high school and she a senior, Candy went after a sweet, average-looking, rather immature boy in her class because—as I’d heard her say in the girls’ room, one stall over—“He has a neat car and money from a part-time job.” The car had been an early graduation gift from his folks, and the money he’d saved from bagging groceries was intended for college. But that summer they got married and by fall the college cash was gone, and by winter, so was Candy.
A few years later, when I was a freshman at our community college, Candy turned up on campus, taking a couple of courses, but mostly hanging out in the student lounge, trolling for another husband, soon landing one. He was a step up from the previous model, a full-time sophomore juggling a full-time job as an auto mechanic. He soon dropped out of school to provide his new wife with a better life, and after a few years, she again moved on to greener pastures.
Let me make something clear, here. I was no angel myself around this time, and probably wouldn’t have married a man who was ten years older than me, and moved to Chicago, if I hadn’t wanted to get away from Mother. And how did that work out?
Now Candy was Mrs. Daryl Dugan, the stay-at-home wife of a deputy likely to become sheriff, with a comfy life, and some prominence in the community. She had come a long way from South End.
Candy, wearing a tight light blue T-shirt and jeans accentuating her still-voluptuous body, said flatly, “Hello, Brandy.”
“Hello, Candy,” I replied not so flatly, and went in as she stepped aside.
I stood in a beige-carpeted entryway that doubled as a large landing for a half flight of stairs going up (usually in a split-level to the living room, kitchen, and bedrooms) and another half flight going down (recreation room, laundry, and spare bedroom).
Working at maintaining a strained smile, Candy was saying, “Daryl is downstairs.... I’ll get him.”
But she didn’t have to, the deputy appearing at the bottom of the steps below. He also wore a tight gold Hawkeyes T-shirt and slim jeans that accentuated his buff build.
“’lo, Brandy,” Daryl said, then gestured for me to join him down there, which I did.
He led me through a recreation area where a pool table shared space with a huge flat-screen and a sectional couch, then into a smaller room that was obviously his man cave, the decor being western memorabilia. On the barn-wood walls hung spurs, bridle straps and bits, framed collections of tin stars, a smattering of signed framed photos of TV and movie star western heroes from James Arness as Matt Dillon to John Wayne as, well, John Wayne, plus reproductions of vintage wanted posters of Billy the Kid, the James Gang, and Butch Cassidy.
Another poster—this one under glass and in a fancier frame—caught my eye, and I crossed to look at the picture of a handsome mustached man with the words, WYATT EARP FOR SHERIFF, TOMBSTONE, ARIZONA, 1881.
Turning, I said, “I didn’t know Wyatt Earp was ever sheriff of Tombstone.”
I’d seen a movie or two.
Daryl, behind a small wet bar, was popping the cap on a sweating bottle of beer. “He wasn’t.” The deputy raised the bottle. “Want one?”
“No, thanks.”
He came out from behind the bar. “Wyatt ran for sheriff but before the election took place, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral happened. Well, near the O.K. Corral—the name’s kind of a misnomer.” Daryl gestured with the bottle, smiling a proud little smile. “That’s the only known circular that survived.”
“You mean it’s authentic?”
“You bet. There’s a letter of provenance inside the back of the frame.”
I took a closer look—I was antique dealer enough to be blown away. Just like the Clantons. “Wow. Where’d you get it?”
Daryl took a sip from the bottle. “An old man in town who’d collected western stuff for most of his life. Judd Pickett. Maybe you and your mother dealt with him, as dealers . . . ?”
Harriet Douglas had mentioned the Judd Pickett collection, and now the name stirred a memory from a phone conversation with Mother back when I was still living in Chicago.
“No,” I said, “that was before we started actively buying and selling antiques. Wasn’t he killed? In a home invasion?”
Daryl nodded. “Very sad. I was lucky, getting the poster from Judd before that happened, because his daughter wound up donating most of his collection to some museum.” He cocked his head. “So, Brandy . . . what brings you to the Dugan spread?”
I took a moment to collect my thoughts. “You know, I think I’ll have that beer after all.”
He got back behind the bar, and I took a stool in front like a customer at the Long Branch about to unburden myself to a bartender.
Daryl handed me the cold bottle; I took a swig, then set it down. “I understand campaigns for sheriff can get pretty nasty sometimes.”
Daryl grunted. “Oh, yeah. Before I came here, I ran for sheriff of a little county in Illinois, and the lies my opponent told about me just before the election. . . .” He shook his head. “Well, there wasn’t time to refute them.”
“So you know how it feels to be unfairly attacked.”
The deputy g
ave me a hard stare. “Are you asking me to go easy on your mother? Because I’m sorry, but I won’t. Really, I can’t. I’m going to have to throw everything at her I can—inexperience, lack of law enforcement practice, even her run-ins with the law.”
I held up a hand. “Hey, that’s all fair game as far as I’m concerned. But there is one thing I’m asking you to not bring up.”
“What’s that?”
“Her bipolar disorder,” I said, adding, “And the reason you don’t have to go there is, I mean, let’s face it—you’re going to win, anyway.”
He arched an eyebrow over one of the close-set eyes. “Vivian Borne has a lot of friends.”
“True. And they may tell Mother they’re supporting her, and maybe some of them are, but when they get into that voting booth? Almost every one of them will be marking your name.”
“. . . Maybe.”
“Look,” I said, sighing, shifting on my stool, “it’s not like the whole town doesn’t already know about her . . . eccentricities. Think how magnanimous you’ll look, not bringing it up.”
He thought that over.
I pressed on. “I wouldn’t ask you this favor - and it is a favor - if I wasn’t concerned that you hitting her that way—below the belt—might have bad ramifications . . . ramifications that I’ll have to deal with. She can get thrown into a manic state or depression, and then, well, I don’t even want to think about it.”
He took another drink from the bottle, set it down. “Okay. I won’t mention her condition.” He raised a finger. “But I reserve the right to bring it up if I think I’m losing.”
“Fair enough.”
I took one last swig of my beer, then slid off the stool.
“Thanks,” I said. “Oh. And, obviously, I’m hoping we can keep this conversation between us. Mother would be very hurt if she knew.”
“Sure,” Daryl said, smiling and shrugging. “And I’ll tell Candy we talked about campaign procedure. Just kind of established some parameters.”
“And that’s not a lie, either, is it?”
Another smile. “No.”
A few minutes later I was about to get into my car, when a hand landed on my shoulder and spun me around.
Antiques Wanted Page 5
