Antiques Frame

by Barbara Allan

  Loretta sighed. “Well, it was a costly mistake, that frame selling cheap. Particularly since it was being held for another customer. Our reputation could take a real hit.”

  “What customer?”

  “I don’t really know. Gerald . . . Gerald dealt with that.” She swallowed, and her eyes were wet now as they fixed themselves on me. “Vivian, do you think this has something to do with . . . with what happened to Gerald?”

  “I don’t know, dear. But I promise you I will find out.”

  I patted her hand and left her there. Then I retraced my steps to the uniform closet, where I removed the borrowed clothes, a little disturbed that no one had bothered to stop and question me. I made a mental note to speak to the hospital board about the lackadaisical security around this place.

  Brandy was waiting for me in the car.

  “Well?” she asked as I climbed in. “Did you get caught?”

  “Of course not.”

  “You were lucky.”

  “Dear, must you continuously underestimate me? I’ve played far more challenging roles.”

  Brandy smirked and started the car.

  On the way home I reported my conversation with Loretta.

  “She can’t really think it was a robbery,” Brandy said.

  “Loretta seemed to think it might be, even after I mentioned the cash in the register. And I believe she knows more than she let on about that picture frame.”

  At home, both Rocky and Sushi danced as Brandy and I walked in the front door—whether happy to see us or needing to go outside, always open to interpretation. But Brandy was going with the latter, immediately moving toward the kitchen, calling the dogs along, while I removed my coat and hung it on a hook.

  I was about to head in for a hot cup of tea when the doorbell rang.

  Looking through the peephole, I saw Dexter Klein’s face and opened the door.

  The young man was sporting an old tweed coat with a velvet collar over a polka-dot shirt, plaid slacks, and wing-tipped shoes—a strange getup, but then who am I to talk? My generation invented the zoot suit.

  Did I mention that he held in one hand a large ornate frame?

  Mother’s Trash ’n’ Treasures Tip

  If your collection has incurred sizable capital gains, consider selling off some of it and donating the proceeds to charity, which would decrease future taxation. Perhaps you’ll consider the Vivian Borne Prisoner Players, the recently (re)established, tax-deductible theater group?

  Chapter Ten

  The Match Game

  I returned from the kitchen to find Mother in the foyer with Dexter. My eyes somehow managed not to jump out of my head at the sight of the frame he was holding.

  “Well, will you look at what this thoughtful young man has brought us, dear!” Mother said, as if he’d delivered a Christmas ham. “That is the frame Camilla bought, isn’t it?”

  I came over for a closer inspection. “Certainly looks like it,” I told Mother, then asked Dexter, “Where, and how, did you come across this?”

  Before he could answer, Mother said, “Let’s not stand here in the entryway in a bunch. The young man is our guest. Shall we reassemble at the couch? It will be much more comfortable.”

  She had sat on that thing before, hadn’t she? But I didn’t argue.

  “Dexter,” Mother said, stepping into the living room and leading the way to our “comfortable” couch, “would you care for some tea?”

  “Why not?” our guest said.

  Mother smiled at me the way a queen does at a handmaiden. “Brandy, make us some tea, would you?”

  Why am I always the last stooge in line, with no one left to slap?

  “All right,” I said. “Just don’t start without me.”

  I dashed into the kitchen, grabbed the kettle off the stove, ran to the sink, poured some water in the kettle, rushed back to the stove with it, and turned on the burner. All in under one minute. Where is The Guinness Book of Records guy when you need him?

  I returned to the living room, where Dexter had taken one end of the couch, and took the other, the ornate frame propped on a cushion in the middle, between us. Mother, knowing darn well how uncomfy that couch was, had taken the Queen Anne needlepoint armchair (also nothing to write home about comfort-wise), arranging herself rather regally.

  “Before we discuss the frame,” Queen Vivian said, addressing our guest, “tell me, how is Gerald faring? Is he still in a coma?”

  “Actually,” Dexter said, “I haven’t made it out to the hospital yet.”

  Mother’s eyebrows climbed over the rims of her large glasses, always an impressive feat. “Why not? Surely they haven’t forbidden you entry to his room. You’re a blood relative!”

  “More like a distant relative,” he replied. “But the thing is, I don’t think either Gerald or Loretta would really want me there.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  Dexter’s head swung toward me. “Well, for one thing, they fired me the other day. Or I should say, Gerald fired me . . . not that Loretta made any effort to stop him.”

  Mother asked, “When exactly was this, dear, and why?”

  “Last week, after I sold this stupid thing”—he gestured to the frame propped between us—“when it turned out it was already taken.”

  And of course I’d seen Camilla switch tags with another frame.

  He was saying, rather defensively, “And it wasn’t even my fault! Nobody told me it was on hold or sold or anything. Anyway, I’m pretty sure that Cassato woman who got herself killed? Switched tags with a different frame.”

  Mother, wincing only slightly at the uptalking, glanced at me, granting me permission to speak.

  “I saw her do it,” I told him. “But I didn’t do or say anything to stop her—including tell you that day, at the front register.”

  He frowned. “Why not? You helped get me fired!”

  “And I’m sorry about that. But I’ve had a thorny history with Camilla Cassato, so I just kept it to myself.” I shrugged. “Really sorry. I’m afraid I’ve caused all of us trouble.”

  “Water under the bridge, children,” Mother said.

  The kettle whistled, and I answered its call.

  Shortly, I was carrying in a tray with three cups of steaming tea, which I placed on the coffee table. I handed Dexter a cup and he took a sip, smiled politely, then never touched it again. Mother and I, however, sipped away.

  “Tell me about your dismissal, young man,” Mother said, settling back with her cup.

  Dexter stroked the fashion-statement stubble on his chin. “Well . . . it happened that same day, after Gerald and Loretta came back that afternoon from an appraisal—”

  Mother cut in: “About what time was this?”

  “About . . . three o’clock, I guess?”

  She nodded. “Go on, dear.”

  “Loretta went into the office to handle some bookkeeping, and Gerald started going through the day’s receipts at the counter. Well, he noticed that the description of the frame I’d written up on the ticket didn’t match the tag I’d taken off it. And, wow, did he go ballistic!”

  I asked, “Does Gerald lose his temper easily?”

  “Not really. Not that I ever saw.”

  “Go on,” Mother prompted.

  “Well,” he said, then sighed, “Gerald said it was ‘imperative’ to get that frame back. That otherwise we’d be alienating an important customer.”

  “What customer is that, dear?”

  “He didn’t say. He just gave me a bunch of money—more than twice what that woman paid—and told me to go to her shop and buy the frame back. If she said no, then I was to tell her we had her switching tags on a security camera.”

  I asked, “Did you?”

  “No,” Dexter said. “They’re just for show. Not hooked up to anything.”

  Mother asked, “Did you go to Camilla’s shop?”

  He nodded. “I went in the front, where I saw the frame kind of pushed off to one s
ide, with no sales tag on it. The door to the back was closed. You know, the office area . . . ? But I could hear her and some man talking.”

  Mother frowned. “Did you recognize the man’s voice?”

  “No.”

  “Did their conversation sound . . . contentious?”

  “Not really,” Dexter replied with a shrug. “Their voices weren’t raised enough for me to hear what they were saying. Anyway, after a few minutes I got tired of waiting, so I called out a hello. Then the door opens, and out she comes. She gives me a funny look, like ‘What are you doing here?’ I explain how I shouldn’t have sold her that frame and how I need to buy it back, and I offer to give her double what she paid for it for her trouble.” He made a sour face and shook his head. “No go. She says she won’t sell it for even triple the price, and she isn’t impressed by the security-cam threat, either. So where does that leave me? I guess you know—having to go back to the auction house, with no frame. And pretty soon no job.”

  I asked, “Did you leave the auction house right after Gerald fired you?”

  “Pretty much. I had some things in a locker to collect, but . . . yeah. No reason to linger.”

  Mother asked, “So you don’t know if Gerald left the shop and went off to see Camilla himself?”

  “No. If he did, I was already out of there.”

  I asked, “And Loretta? Where was she?”

  “Still in the office. Oh, she came out right after I got canned, and I sort of begged for mercy, playing the relative card. But she said something about how she couldn’t contradict Gerald’s decision, since he did all the hiring and firing, which I thought was pretty lame. Then she kind of scurried back in the office.”

  Mother placed her empty cup on the coffee table. “Now, dear, we understand that you lost your job over that picture frame. But what was it that made you think we might be interested in it?”

  “Billy Buckly,” Dexter said. “I’ve been brokering a deal between him and the Kleins to buy some Wizard of Oz movie memorabilia that his grandfather left him, which included a pair of ruby-red slippers.”

  “Impressive,” Mother said. “Of the eight sets made for Judy Garland to wear, only four are known to exist.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I understand,” Dexter said. “Billy has a really valuable collection of Oz and other vintage show business stuff. But he got married recently, and the ‘little woman,’ as he calls her—not that accurate in this case, really—wants him to get rid of the stuff.”

  I said, “Sounds like an opportunity for you to make a nice commission.”

  “Yes, and get in solid with the Kleins. But that’s out the window, so I got back to Billy the other day, to see if he’d let me represent the collection, even though I was on the outs with the Kleins. I figured I could find him a top buyer somewhere else. We were discussing that, and he mentioned, kind of in passing, that you were looking for a specific picture frame . . . one that sounded like the one Camilla bought that lost me my job.”

  Behind the big lenses, Mother’s eyes were narrowed shrewdly. “Which brings us to the sixty-five-million-dollar question . . .”

  She felt sixty-five thousand wasn’t that much these days. Still sounded pretty good to me.

  “Where did you find that frame?”

  Dexter gave up a little dry laugh. “Well, that’s kind of funny, you know, funny strange? I went to the Kleins’ on Friday to pick up my last paycheck, and as I was leaving, I wadded the envelope up and threw it in the Dumpster out back . . . and there it was! The frame Gerald wanted so badly, that got me in trouble. Do you know why, after all of that, he’d just throw it away?”

  “A good question,” Mother admitted. “But another question comes to mind. How did he wind up with it?”

  Dexter reached for the frame, then passed it over to Mother. “Here! You can have it. I don’t want the stupid thing.”

  “We’d be glad to pay you for it, dear,” she said. “A little something for your trouble?”

  “Not necessary. I’m doin’ okay. But thanks. And thanks for the tea.” Which he’d taken only one sip of.

  He stood and gave us both perfunctory smiles. Mother and I rose, as well, and followed him to the foyer, and to the door.

  Dexter was halfway out when he turned suddenly. “Oh, there is something else, something I forgot to mention. You asked me if I knew the man Camilla was talking to at the shop, and I don’t. But I did catch a glimpse of the back of him when she opened the back-room door. He had on a plaid shirt, jeans, and Nikes. Not that that’ll be much help. A lot of guys dress that way around here. You know . . .” He made a face. “Pedestrian.”

  I closed the door after Dexter and turned to Mother. “He’s right. Lots of men around town wear plaid shirts, jeans, and Nikes. Let’s not jump to any conclusions.”

  “Then why, dear, are we both thinking about Phil Dean?”

  The dogs, who had been outside through all this, were barking impatiently, so I went to let them in. Moments later, I came back to the living room, trailed by Rocky and Sushi, and found Mother standing by the couch, holding the frame and looking into its emptiness, as if she might see something of interest there.

  Suddenly, Rocky sprang toward Mother, almost knocking her over, but instead batting the frame out of her hands with that pair of big paws! The thing clunked to the floor, where the dog began sniffing it feverishly, as if it were the tree that the wood had once come from.

  I had begun scolding the animal when Mother stopped me with a hand on my shoulder. “Dear! Didn’t you once tell me that Rocky was trained for detecting narcotics?”

  “That’s right. Before Tony got him.”

  “Hold him back, dear.”

  While I hauled a whimpering Rocky away by the collar, Mother picked up the frame and scrutinized it.

  “This is interesting,” she said. “The side pieces are held together with little hinges instead of the normal nails.”

  Rocky was straining at his collar.

  I asked, “So what?”

  “So . . . that makes taking it apart easier. . . .”

  Which she proceeded to do.

  Holding the four wooden pieces out for me to see, she exclaimed, “Look! The insides are hollow!”

  I really couldn’t hold the straining Rocky back much longer; if he were a cat, that frame would be catnip. “Make your point, Mother, before Rocky yanks my arm from its socket.”

  “Think about it, dear! This frame makes a clever place for concealment of contraband! Illegal narcotics, for instance.”

  “If you want that for evidence,” I said, nodding to the frame, still restraining Rocky, “you’d better put it somewhere up high—right away!”

  Mother went over to a tall corner cabinet that held her collection of Hummel figurines, and placed the dismantled frame on its top just as Rocky broke loose from my grasp.

  To the dog’s credit, he didn’t jump on, or claw at, the cabinet, causing a Hummel earthquake; instead, he deposited himself before it, sitting patiently while staring up at its top.

  Mother said, “Dear, what do you think about paying our friend Phil Dean another visit?”

  “I’m with you.”

  A lot of evidence—granted, mostly circumstantial—was pointing to our producer: his own admission that he wanted to keep his contract with Camilla a secret; Dexter’s description of someone who was probably Phil talking to Camilla shortly before she was killed; Mother’s friend the don’s assertion about a recent L.A. drug connection in Serenity; and now the frame itself, a vessel designed to transport illegal substances. Had the narcotics, whose remnants drove drug-sniffing dog Rocky wild, been intended for Phil’s distribution?

  Mother was saying, “I believe we will find him at the editing suite. He’s nothing if not a hard worker, our Phil! Otherwise, we should find him at the Serenity Grand Hotel. Come along, dear.”

  “Should we take the dogs?” I asked, then added, “Or at least Rocky? If Phil is responsible for what we suspect, he coul
d be dangerous.”

  “We should be fine,” Mother said. “Anyway, I just acquired a Taser gun, which could really use some serious field-testing.”

  Why was I not surprised?

  “A Taser,” I said. “How much did that cost you?”

  “Two hundred dollars.”

  “Is it legal?”

  “Oh, I haven’t the slightest idea. But I assure you, it’s quite safe in the hands of a responsible person.”

  Now I was worried.

  “All right,” I said. “But I’m staying behind you.”

  “You’ll have my back!”

  I was more concerned with my front.

  After all, I’d accompanied her once to the gun range, and her score was beyond pathetic. She did, however, score one bull’s-eye . . . on her neighbor’s target.

  Mother went upstairs to get the Taser (likely from her sock drawer hideaway), while I went into the kitchen to make sure the dogs had water. Sushi, being diabetic, was notorious for draining both her water dish and Rocky’s.

  The canines had followed me, so I bribed them each with a treat since they weren’t going; then I returned to the entryway to get my coat. Mother was already wearing hers, its right pocket bulging.

  Anyone out there old enough to remember the song “Pistol-Packin’ Mama”? Well, I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

  We headed out to the car.

  On a Sunday afternoon Serenity City Center was relatively quiet, with the businesses and offices closed, though some music lessons and a dance recital rehearsal were under way.

  Mother’s knees seemed to creak even more than usual—how heavy was that Taser?—as we climbed the wide wooden staircase to the second floor, where we found the door to suite 202 unlocked.

  As we entered, Phil, in another plaid shirt, jeans, and running shoes combo, swiveled in his chair away from the computer monitors.

  “Hey,” he greeted us cheerfully. “Glad you stopped by. I’m just finishing up.” He rocked back in the chair. “I think we’ve got a terrific first season finale that should just about guarantee us a second season.”

  Mother moved toward him. “And I think we’ll have a terrific second season opener when Brandy and I reveal who killed Camilla Cassato.”