Antiques Chop (A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery) (7 page)

Chapter Four

Chop Till You Drop

N
ote from Brandy: The first half of this chapter is written by Jake, because my son can explain better than I what happened to him at the old Butterworth house during the wee morning hours.

 

Hi. Jake here. But you already know that. I’m not a writer, but then Mom isn’t really a writer either, and this is, what? Her seventh book? Anyway, it would be cool if you cut me some slack.

Speaking of cool, how cool is my mom, not making me eat that gross liver and onions crap? Is that okay to say, crap I mean? I don’t know what the rules are. But dinner is a decent place to start my story, because after I fixed myself a baloney and cheese sandwich, careful not to let Grandma see me doing it, I went outside to fix the old Schwinn. I pumped up the tires and got the chain back on its track and it seemed like it was working okay.

By the time I got back in the house, Mom was already up in bed with the dogs. I said good night to Grandma, who was busy at the dining room table making one of her art projects out of cardboard and Popsicle sticks. I didn’t ask what the project was because she might tell me, and that could take awhile.

Upstairs I could smell the dog farts all the way into my room. Can I say that? Farts? Really, I should have asked for some kind of guidelines. Anyway, dog farts. Mom and I must have fed them way too much liver under the table.

You know, this writing is hard. I have spent a whole paragraph on dog farts and they really don’t have anything to do with anything. The farts, I mean. The dogs, either.

Anyway, I got in bed with my clothes on and pretended to go to sleep. Then at half-past midnight I tiptoed out of my room and listened to make sure Mom and Grandma were conked out. They were. Both snoring like they were competing for first place. So I snuck down the stairs and out to the bike, climbed aboard, and pedaled away. The Schwinn rode great. Old School is the best sometimes.

I was all set to meet Joe at one hundred hours. That’s how a military nut says one in the morning. We were meeting at our RV, and I don’t mean recreation vehicle. RV stands for Rendezvous Point in Joe-speak. Why it isn’t RP, I couldn’t tell you. Our RV was the old murder house.

You’re probably wondering why I was sneaking out “at all hours” (as Mom would later call it) on this mission (as Joe put it).

So I’ll tell you.

Yesterday afternoon, while I was pulling up that gross old carpet in the murder-house library, I discovered a few loose floorboards. When I pried them up, I found . . . I should probably do some suspense thing here, right? Okay, wait for it, wait for it . . . an old ax under there, covered in dust!

Well, I just about peed my jeans!

(
Mom to Jake
: Honey, I am trying to stay out of your way here, and really you’re doing just fine. But do remember that we have a number of older readers, some with an aversion to bad language, so you’ll need to watch what you say.)

(
Jake to Mom
: But I did watch my language. Would you rather I use the other “p” word?)

(
Mom to Jake
: Forget I said anything. You’re doing great.)

Anyway, I knew right away that this ax must be the long-ago murder weapon, hidden away after that Scrooge-type character got chopped up way back when. I knew all the gory details from listening to Grandma, but I didn’t take the thing out right then in front of everybody.

Why not?

Well, earlier Joe mentioned if we
did
happen to find the ax, which wasn’t ever recovered, that he knew some nutty guy out east who collected murder memorabilia. I guess it was murder memorabilia from famous murders, because just an everyday murder thing wouldn’t be that collectible. This collector, Joe said, would pay megabucks for something like the actual Butterworth ax.

So I didn’t tell anybody but Joe that I found the ax, and cut him in on the deal, because I wouldn’t have known the thing was valuable if he hadn’t told me. Seemed the fair thing to do. Mom and Grandma have a different opinion, but I’ve seen them snatch plenty of antiques out from under the noses of other collectors.

But it did spook me and make me feel weird about it when Mom interrupted Joe and me talking upstairs about my discovery. Doing the right thing by Joe meant I was doing the wrong thing by everybody else.

Now if you think I was just being greedy, I don’t blame you. My dad makes good money with his investment company. And I get a decent allowance, better than any of my friends, though Dad does expect me to buy
everything
out of it, even clothes, which kind of sucks. Can I say that?

I mean, do you know how much an Apple i-Pad with Wi-Fi+3G and 32 gigabytes costs? Seven Benjamins and change! Saving that out of my allowance would be possible, if I didn’t mind waiting till my sophomore year in college. Only thing is, I wanted it
yesterday
.

(
Grandma to Jake
:
Dear, while you’re doing splendidly telling your little story, although rather prone to discur-sion (like your mother), might I suggest that you please try to stay on point and be succinct, like your grandmother?
)

(
Jake to Grandma
:
Gotcha.
)

Anywho, I was late getting to the RV because halfway there my transport wimped out on me. Not the bike, which was rad, but the tires went flat again, and I had to ditch the bike and haul butt on foot!

As a result, my ETA was twenty minutes off, and I expected to find one p.o.’ed Marine standing on the porch.

(
Mom to Jake
: Honey, again, please keep in mind our mixed readership and refrain from using such terms as “p.o.’ed.”)

(
Jake to Mom
: Again—I didn’t have to use initials. Do you want me to tell my story my own way or not?)

(
Mother to Brandy
: Dear, leave the boy alone and stop trying to suppress his native narrative style. If our readers know how to interpret those initials, they will likely not be offended. Nor will they if they don’t. Do please continue, Jake. . . . )

Well, Joe was not waiting on the stoop, so I figured he was running late, too. Only then I noticed that the front door was open a little, which was weird because I was the one who had a key. I lifted it from Grandma’s jacket pocket. (Sorry, Grandma.)

(
Grandma to Jake
:
Quite all right, dear. I would have done the same thing at your age.
)

(
Brandy to Mother
:
You would do the same thing at
any
age. And thanks for giving my son a free pass for stealing!
)

So I went on in the house, switched on my flashlight, and called out to Joe, but he didn’t answer. I kept calling out his name because I didn’t want a replay of what happened to Mom in that cave when she surprised him. Then I went into the library room, where I figured I’d find him, since that’s where the ax was hidden. And where I left it.

But Joe wasn’t there, and the ax wasn’t either! The floorboards had been pulled up and the chopper taken out, leaving just its outline in the dust. It had been hidden there a long time so that outline was real distinct.

I can’t tell you what I said when I saw the ax was gone because it might offend sensitive ears, like my mom’s. But I
can
tell you it flipped me out and I was kicking myself for trusting Joe, who I figured had beat me to the punch and taken the ax all for himself.

So I ran out of the library and headed to the back of the house, just to make sure that crazy sneak wasn’t around somewhere, and the next thing I knew, I was on my butt sitting on the kitchen floor, after slipping in something gooey.

On the way down I dropped my flashlight, and it was on the floor now, shining at something that I couldn’t make out at first. It seemed to be a leg, but that couldn’t be right, because it wasn’t attached to anything. Like a mannikin leg.

Then I saw the blood and realized it was a real leg that belonged to a real man, only it wasn’t attached to anybody anymore.

I scrambled to my feet, almost slipping again, but got up and got the hell out of there, and I won’t soften that, Mom, Grandma, because I already
did
soften it.

The next thing I know I’m outside, losing the baloney and cheese sandwich I’d eaten after dinner, which I guess was better than barfing liver and onions.

Was that Joe’s leg in there? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t about to go back in and find out, not by myself, anyway.

Then I called Mom on my cell.

That’s about it.

 

Brandy here. Nice job, Jake! (The writing, I mean—not sneaking out of the house!)

After receiving Jake’s distress call, I threw on a robe, slipped my phone into a pocket, and rushed into the hallway, where I ran into Mother, also in robe and pajamas.

“What is it, dear?” she asked anxiously, her eyes wide without benefit of her magnifying glasses. “Your phone doesn’t usually whistle in the middle of the night.”

“It was Jake.”

“Isn’t he in his room?”

“No. But he’s all right. He
is
in trouble, though. I hate to say it, but
your
kind of trouble.
Our
kind of trouble. . . .”

Quickly I filled her in on my brief conversation with Jake, as we hurried down the stairs, where I grabbed the car keys off the marble-top Queen Anne table by the front door. In another moment we were flying out, in robes and pajamas and slippers, heading for the Buick.

The streets were deserted, thankfully, because I drove like a maniac—even Mother couldn’t have topped my performance behind the wheel. We arrived at the murder house in less than five minutes, bumping up over the front curb, practically parking in the yard.

I could see Jake on the cement stoop in the glow of a streetlight, and he came swiftly down toward me as I ran up the walk, my heart pounding. Nice to have a child be so glad to see you. Just not under these circumstances....

“You’re all right?” I asked, out of breath.

Jake threw his arms around me, hugged me tight, and at this odd moment I realized for the first time that my son was now almost as tall as I.

“I’m okay,” he said, his voice muffled against my chest. “But . . . whoever is in
there
isn’t.”

“Did you call the police?”

He pulled back. “I was waiting for you.”

Mother, having joined us, gave her grandson a smile that seemed only a trifle demented. “Good decision, dear. This will give me an opportunity for a quick look-see—Brandy?”

I shook my head. Unlike Mother, I had no stomach for murder tableaux, and I warned her, “Don’t you dare compromise the crime scene.”

Mother, already heading toward the house with the glove-compartment flashlight, shot back, “Not any more than our local-yokel boys-in-blue will, when they get here!”

“I’ll give you five minutes,” I said, “and then I’m calling 911.”

Jake and I sat on the top step of the stoop. At first we sat silently, just glad to be together, and well. I hadn’t yet gone from relief that my son was safe to parental indignation (like Roger had the other day); and Jake didn’t want to push me there.

Finally I asked him to tell me his story, and he did. When I heard he was to have met Joe here, I said, “My God, my God—that’s not
him
in there, is it? It’s not . . .”

“I don’t think it’s Joe.”

“What makes you say that?”

“The leg? The pants on it—they weren’t khakis.”

“Ah. Right.” Then I said, “I’m going to have to call your father.”

“Oh, yeah,” he sighed. “Don’t I know it.”

“And he’ll want to take you back to Chicago. Right away.”

Jake twisted toward me. “But he can’t—not ‘right away,’ anyway.”

“Why’s that?”

He gave me the tiniest of smiles. “I’ll be a material witness—you know, can’t leave town, and so on and so forth.”

Had he been reading our books, or just watching
CSI
reruns?

Mother reappeared, and we craned our necks to look at her. It was then that I noticed what she had on her feet—my last Christmas’s gag gift: a pair of big moose slippers, the antlers flopping as she stepped toward us, black beads in the plastic eyes rolling around crazily. Those could make some wild footprints at a bloody crime scene.

“Well,” Mother announced, a deep sigh coming all the way up from the moose (mooses) (meeses). “At least it’s not Joe Lange.”

“We already knew that,” I said. “Who is he?”

“He used to be the producer of our TV pilot—Bruce Spring.”

Jake drew in a startled breath. “You’re
sure
about that, Grandma?”

She nodded. “Unless someone else in Serenity wears the same brand of expensive Italian loafers.”

Agape, I said, “I can’t believe it—who would do such a vicious thing? It’s terrible!”

“You’re telling
me?
” Mother said, hand on hips. “There goes our TV show!”

I got to my feet. “That’s all you can think about? Are you really that cold-blooded and selfish and old—”

“Let’s not be unkind, dear,” she said, raising a hand like a traffic cop. “Anyway, sentimentality won’t help that poor man now.” She unleashed a particularly melodramatic sigh, this one causing the moose feet to wiggle their eyes. “I am afraid there is something else. . . .”

“What?” Jake and I blurted.

Mother crooked a finger at me.

I looked at Jake. Pointed at him as if he were Sushi. “Stay.”

“Don’t worry,” he said glumly, still seated on the stoop. “I’ve seen enough for one night.”

I followed Mother back into the electricity-free house, her flashlight beam slicing through the darkness, leading us into the parlor, where the beam circled the room, then landed on a slumped figure in a corner.