Antiques Swap

by Barbara Allan

  “Oh, I’m so relieved,” I said with a smirk. “But what do you mean by—”

  I was interrupted by the squeal of a silver Jaguar pulling into the drive, weaving around the emergency vehicles as if they were cones in an obstacle course, finally coming to an abrupt, sod-tearing stop in the lawn.

  Wes jumped out and ran toward the open garage. When he saw me, his wild eyes had an accusatory look.

  Good Lord! Did he think I had killed Vanessa?

  Stunned, I shook my head, and his expression softened into a putty mask.

  “In there,” I said, pointing.

  He nodded, drew in a breath, then hurried in through the garage.

  The coroner arrived, the caboose on this train, and Mother called out cheerfully.

  “Well, hello there, Hector!”

  The roly-poly, bald, bespectacled man winced, nearly dropping his black bag.

  “Ah . . . hello, Vivian,” he mumbled. Sighed. “Where is the victim?”

  This time a beaming Mother pointed the way.

  After he’d vanished within, Mother tsk-tsked. “Poor man is rounder than ever. Been dating the Hamilton widow, who’s clearly been plying him with home cooking. Mark my words, some day that coroner’s going to be his own best customer.”

  I turned to look at her. “Would it kill you to be a little more respectful?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Phrasing, dear. Anyway, don’t blame me, blame Mrs. Hamilton.”

  “I’m not talking about being respectful to our coroner. His weight problem is his own . . . problem. I’m talking about a woman being killed.”

  “Dear, I understand the sentiment, but it’s misplaced. Respect won’t do Vanessa Sinclair any good, but catching her killer will. Well, actually, it won’t, since she is, after all, dead. But her family and friends would appreciate seeing the perpetrator brought to justice, I’m sure.”

  Mother’s phlegmatic reaction at a crime scene was not uncommon; on some level, I suppose it’s a protective mechanism, because she’s not really a cold person. But she does have a cold hard streak of Danish pragmatism.

  Tony was coming toward us.

  “Brian Lawson wants to see you down at the station,” he said, lifting his cell phone.

  Mother, who always relished the opportunity for a command performance with the interim chief, said, “We’d be most happy to comply.”

  “Just Brandy,” Tony said, stone-faced.

  “Well, I found Vanessa as much as my daughter did,” a miffed Mother retorted. “It was a two-person catch!”

  “Just Brandy . . . for now.” Tony looked down at me. “That is, if you’re up to it. Are you?”

  “Not really,” I sighed. “Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow?” I was upset and tired—it had already been a long, trying, upsetting day.

  Mother turned toward me. “Dear . . . as my associate in certain endeavors, you know very well the need for witnesses to report while the facts are fresh. Better to get it over with.”

  Tony touched my shoulder, breaking protocol. “Look, I’ll tell Lawson you’ll be at the station in an hour. Go home first. Get yourself together. Maybe have something to eat.”

  I nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Will you be at the interview?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll be tied up here for a while.” He squeezed my shoulder before letting go. “You’ll be fine. It’s not like you’re new to this kind of thing.”

  An unspoken unfortunately hung in the air.

  I nodded numbly.

  As Tony returned to the crime scene, Mother and I, Sushi in my arms, returned to the Caddy. After doing some fancy maneuvering around the various vehicles, I managed to get the big black boat out into the street.

  On the few minutes of our drive home, Mother—Sushi on her lap now—gave me her crime-scene analysis. I did not protest—I’d been involved in enough of these incidents with Mother to know that (a) there was no stopping her, and (b) my own curiosity would get the better of me.

  “She’d been hit on the head, dear,” she said, as if reporting rain out a window. “Must have been quite a blow to produce all that blood. But I didn’t see the weapon, so the killer must have taken it with him—or her.”

  “It’s a big house. You only had a look at the man cave.”

  “Yes, but with the crime scene so near that open garage, it’s more than likely he or she came in and went out that way. Now, I haven’t searched the yard, but . . .”

  “Maybe that’s a job for the police.”

  I could feel Mother’s indignant eyes upon me. At least she didn’t say, “Perish the thought!”

  What she did say was: “Very well, but the more you know before your interview at HQ, the better prepared you’ll be to avoid any clever trap.”

  “Brian wouldn’t do that to me.”

  “Wouldn’t he?”

  We had arrived home, an old-fashioned two-story white house with a wraparound front porch and stand-alone garage.

  Mother was saying, “Perhaps it would be wise to call Wayne and have him by your side.”

  Mr. Ekhardt, our longtime lawyer, had himself been around a very long time. Nearly ninety, the semiretired criminal lawyer—who famously got a woman off for self-defense after shooting her philandering husband in the back five times—still hung on to a few clients like us. He’d been Mother’s attorney long before I set foot on the planet.

  I worked the key in the front door. “Mr. Ekhardt’s probably already in bed.”

  I held the door open for Mother, while a lagging-behind Sushi was sniffing the lawn, checking for signs of canine trespassers. Satisfied her domain had not been befouled—or was that disappointed?—she trotted up the porch steps and inside.

  I loved the smell of our house, which always seemed to fade a few seconds after entering; it wasn’t pleasant or unpleasant . . . just the scent of home.

  Mother, setting her purse on the Victorian table by the foyer, said, “Dear, why don’t you have a little lie-down. I’ll feed Sushi and give her her insulin injection. You can have a little something to eat after.”

  I said I couldn’t possibly eat or sleep, though a hot bubble bath might help. Then I trudged upstairs.

  Sometimes when I was little, particularly after I’d been bad, Mother would lock herself in the bathroom for a long soak, and I would hear her cry out, “Calgon, take me away!” Just like in the old TV commercials. When I’d come back to live here after my divorce, I went looking for the bubble bath—turns out they still make it. So I tried the stuff. Relaxing, all right, but it never took me far enough away.

  Half an hour later, feeling better if not exactly refreshed, I returned downstairs wearing a fresh pair of DKNY jeans and a floral silk Equipment blouse I’d snagged 75 percent off at Nordstrom Rack, my damp hair pulled back in a low ponytail.

  Mother was in the kitchen, standing at the stove, stirring a pan, the aroma of Great Grandma Osher’s Danish pea soup wafting toward me. Suddenly I felt like I could eat something.

  About our kitchen—everything in it (except for the stove, fridge, and dishwasher) is 1950s vintage, purchased at garage sales and flea markets. Or almost everything. After Mother got shocked by an old waffle iron (“Yipe!”), we gave up the notion of being 100 percent authentic when it comes to small electrical appliances.

  Mother pushed the step stool with its red vinyl seat over to the counter, and pulled out a recessed cutting board to use as a small table—just as she had done for little Brandy, who hadn’t wanted to eat at the big table. Then she poured the steaming hearty soup into a green jadeite Fire-King bowl.

  GULE AERTER (Yellow Pea Soup)

  2 cups yellow split peas

  1 quart chicken stock

  1 pound chopped Canadian bacon

  2 stalks chopped celery

  3 chopped leeks

  3 chopped carrots

  3 chopped medium potatoes

  1 chopped large onion

  1 pound chopped Vienna sausages

  salt and pepper
to taste

  Combine all ingredients in a large pot and simmer one hour.

  Serves 4 hardy Danish men, or 6 dainty Danish women.

  While Mother left me alone to slurp my soup with a red Bakelite-handled spoon, Sushi stood watch below, hoping for a bite of sausage (and, yes, her vigilance was rewarded).

  Finished, I put the empty bowl in the sink and went to join Mother in the living room, where she was seated on our particularly uncomfortable Queen Anne needlepoint couch.

  “Dear, I’ve put together some things for you to take to the interrogation—I mean, interview.”

  “Like what?”

  She gestured to the tote bag at her feet. “Everything you’ll need—a cushion for the hard chair, tissues, a sweater . . . they keep it so cold in there . . . and a thermos of coffee, because theirs is undrinkable swill. And of course, my secret recorder necklace to record what they’re recording.”

  As a police interviewee of long standing, Mother was well versed in the necessary preparations for a grilling.

  I waved that off. “Thanks but no thanks. I won’t be there that long.”

  “Don’t be so sure, dear. Brian Lawson is likely to give you the third degree for dumping him.”

  “I didn’t dump him.”

  We’d split up over my decision to be a surrogate mother.

  “And anyway,” I said, “that’s not why I’m being called down to the station.”

  “Just the same,” Mother said, “it’s better to be prepared—like a good scout!”

  “That’s the Boy Scouts, and anyway, I was a Brownie.”

  “Don’t say you weren’t warned!”

  I just shook my head, gathered the car keys, and went out so quickly Sushi didn’t have time to do her little take-me-along dance.

  The police station was located in the heart of downtown, or maybe the spleen. Anyway, it was next to the new county jail, across the street from the old courthouse. A person could get arrested, brought to trial, and remanded to the clink all within a one-block radius. Talk about efficiency!

  Night was descending like a bad simile as I parked the Caddy in the station’s lot, then entered the one-story redbrick building.

  I strode up to Heather, the female dispatcher behind the bulletproof glass. She had reddish-brown hair and red glasses, and was Mother’s latest snitch in a long line of snitches, all of whom had either been fired or transferred for revealing inside information. Heather had not benefitted from her predecessors’ experiences.

  Mother was a master at exploiting the weakness of any perceived stool pigeon. Some examples of her bribes include: offering a part in one of her plays; obtaining an autographed photo of a favorite movie star (which Mother signed); or, as in Heather’s case, a promised appearance on our upcoming cable show, which of course wouldn’t be coming up unless the pilot sold.

  “Hi, Heather,” I said. “Would you tell Brian I’m here?”

  “Sure, Ms. Borne. Shame about Mrs. Sinclair. . . . Where’s your mother?”

  Natural assumption. This was a murder case, wasn’t it?

  “She didn’t get invited,” I said.

  Heather laughed. “Bet she loved that!”

  As Heather swivelled to a phone, I retreated to a corner chair next to a drooping rubber tree plant. The plant’s continued existence depended on Mother and me administering much needed TLC anytime either of us cooled our heels in the station’s waiting room.

  But I didn’t have time to do anything more than remove a few dead leaves before the steel door to the inner sanctum opened and Brian stepped out, wearing a light blue shirt and navy slacks, his chief’s badge attached to his belt.

  In his midthirties, Brian was boyishly handsome, with brown hair and puppy-dog brown eyes.

  But those eyes looked more pit-bullish now as he summoned me with a scolding parent’s crooked finger.

  I followed him down the familiar beige hallway, where photos of long-ago policemen hung crookedly on the walls (Mother often paused to straighten each one), then was led into one of several small interview rooms.

  Hey! It was freezing in there, and the windowless room was claustrophobic, the furniture consisting of two bolted-down metal chairs with a table between.

  Brian gestured for me to sit, and my bottom settled onto a chair that was harder than a cement slab.

  Let’s hope Mother was wrong about the coffee, at least....

  I asked for some, and Brian brought me a Styrofoam cup of black liquid with an oil-slick surface. Yuck! Why hadn’t I taken that tote?

  Brian settled into the chair opposite me, placed a small recorder on the table, and turned it on. “Interview with Brandy Borne,” he said, followed by the date and time. Then: “Why were you at the Sinclair residence this afternoon?”

  “Vanessa called the shop wanting to sell some beer signs.”

  “Uh-huh. Maybe you should start with the fight you had with her at the swap meet.”

  How did he know about that?

  I shifted in the uncomfortable chair. “It wasn’t a fight. Just a brief verbal scuffle. A misunderstanding.”

  “That right.”

  “That’s right. She saw me talking to Wes, and jumped to the wrong conclusion.”

  “Then you’re not having an affair with Wes Sinclair?”

  “What? Affair? No! Vanessa apologized when she called me about the beer signs. I think it was a kind of . . . peace offering.”

  Brian shut the recorder off, stood, then left the room.

  After a few long minutes, he returned and resumed the interview, switching the recorder back on.

  “I’ve just spoken to Wesley Sinclair,” Brian said, “and he doesn’t know anything about selling those beer signs. Furthermore, he said he never agreed to do so.”

  Was Wes in one of the other interview rooms? And was he trying to implicate me? Despite how cold it was in there, I began to sweat. Really could’ve used a tissue . . .

  A Brian who seemed colder than the cubicle was saying, “Vanessa embarrassed you at the swap meet, in front of dozens of people, and you went over there to have it out with her. You just invented the story about the beer signs.”

  “No! That’s ridiculous.”

  “Brandy, no one’s saying this was premeditated.”

  “Premeditated?”

  “You argued with her and things got out of hand.”

  “She was alive when I left.”

  “Can anyone corroborate that?”

  “I don’t know! No one else was there. Maybe a neighbor? Have you asked?” I pointed to the recorder. “Will you turn that damn thing off!”

  Brian sighed. Then did.

  “Why on earth are you treating me like this?” I demanded. “You know very well I didn’t kill Vanessa. Whatever I am, I’m no murderer. Come on!”

  The door opened and Mia stuck her head in. She didn’t look at me. “A second, Chief?”

  He stood and abandoned me to the cold again, and I could hear him and Mia talking in low voices out in the hall.

  When Brian came back, he said curtly. “You can go.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes. You’re no longer a suspect.”

  I folded my arms. “For the record?”

  Brian sat back down, turned the machine on. “Brandy Borne is not a suspect at this time. A neighbor, Gladys Fowler, saw Ms. Borne leaving the Sinclair home while Mrs. Sinclair was standing outside.”

  He shut the machine off.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  He leaned back in his chair. “I’d still like an explanation about the beer signs.”

  “What’s to explain? Since Wes said he didn’t know anything about Vanessa selling them, she must have been doing it out of spite. But I didn’t sense anything phony about her friendliness.” I shrugged. “Anyway, the beer signs don’t have anything to do with the murder.”

  He thought about that. “All right. You can go.”

  “Is that how it is between us now?”

  �
�Brandy,” he said, and as impassive as his face was, the sadness in his eyes was something he couldn’t hide, “there isn’t anything between us now.”

  I had no sooner arrived home than Mother called out from the music/library room, “Dear! Do come tell me about your interrogation.”

  I dutifully went in where I found Mother hauling out the old schoolroom blackboard on wheels that she kept behind an ancient standup piano. The appearance of the blackboard—on which she invariably compiled her list of suspects—signaled the music/library room had just become (once again) an incident room.

  I plopped down on the piano bench. Neither one of us could play the old out-of-tune upright, with the exception of “Chopsticks” and “Heart and Soul.” But the collection of trumpets, displayed on a bookshelf, was a different matter. I had played the silver 1940s King in band throughout high school, and Mother could blat out a (somewhat) recognizable “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B” on the old coronet.

  I asked, “A little soon for the blackboard, wouldn’t you say?”

  “No I would not. Never too early to revisit an old friend, dear. Now spill.”

  I recited chapter and verse.

  Mother, in full I-told-you-so mode, looked down her nose at me. “Didn’t I say you’d receive the third-degree treatment from that man? Hell hath no fury like an interim chief spurned.”

  “Yes, Mother, and I wish I’d had a sweater, and a cushion, and some tissue, and brought my own coffee, and all I could think of was that I hoped someday to learn that I should always listen to you.”

  She smiled, ignoring the sarcasm underlying the last phrase. “And the recorder necklace?”

  “I skipped that accessory.”

  She frowned, just a quick one, then more pleasantly asked, “Are you going to tell Tony about how Brian gave you the Abu Ghraib treatment?”

  I shook my head. “Already too much tension between those two.” I pointed a finger. “And don’t you dare tell Tony! That’s one place I can’t have you overstepping.”

  Brightening, she said, “That reminds me! Tony called and said he’d be coming over anytime now. You must’ve had your cell phone turned off.”

  “I did. Thanks. I’ll talk to him here in the living room. Ah . . . do you mind if we have a little privacy?”