Antiques Flee Market (13 page)

“Please do. And, dear? You’ll develop the most unsightly wrinkles if you insist on scowling.”

She marched me ever so quickly back through the locked doors and, after I gathered all of my things from the locker, escorted me to the front door, watching to make sure I’d left. At least she was efficient.

My next stop was the Public Safety Building, conveniently located next door to the jail, where I announced through another microphone-embedded-in-glass that I wished to see Chief Cassato.

The unfamiliar female dispatcher (a Hispanic child, with short brown hair and glasses) turned away from her bank of monitors to use a phone. Then, after a muffled conversation to which I wasn’t privy, she politely told me that the chief was out of the office today.

I made a mental note of the dispatcher’s name tag on her crisp blue shirt; she was someone whose friendship would need to be cultivated. But first the woman had to be properly trained on how to cultivate
Vivian Borne’s
friendship….

I said sweetly, “The chief’s car is in the parking lot, so you must be mistaken, my dear…would you please check again? If he’s in a meeting, please let him know I am more than happy to wait
all day
.”

And, without giving the young woman a chance to reply, I turned and trod over to the small waiting area of mismatched plastic chairs, settling in next to a rubber-tree plant in dire need of some TLC. To pass the time, I retrieved a pair of small scissors from my handbag and began snipping off dead leaves.

I didn’t expect much of a wait, however. Chief Cassato was no fool. You see,
I
knew that
he
knew I would linger here all day to see him…and
he
knew that
I
knew that
he
knew this. Clear?

So it was only a few minutes before the heavy door leading into the inner workings of the Serenity PD opened and the chief strode out.

A big barrel-chested man and the bearer of a rumpled face that some women might find attractive, the chief wore a well-starched white long-sleeved shirt, navy tie, gray pressed slacks, and black belt with silver badge attached.

He planted himself in front of my chair, hands on hips, looked down at me with half-lidded eyes. “Well, Vivian?”

The chief was not known for his loquaciousness.

I took a moment to carefully store my scissors back in my purse, having once stabbed my hand reaching in for something else—an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

I looked up and said, “Your office?”

I could be just as unloquacious as the next fellow.

His sigh ruffled the rubber tree’s leaves. But he gave up a bare nod, then preceded to turn abruptly on his Flor-sheims, and I had to make tracks to keep up as we went through the security door, and down the long, tan-tiled corridor to the last office on the left.

What I found most annoying about Chief Anthony (middle initial unknown) Cassato was the way he so fiercely protected his privacy, like a bulldog with a ham bone. I knew practically
nothing
about the man since his sudden arrival here three years ago to head up the Serenity PD. And all that my spies could glean was that he came from somewhere in the East. Whoopee.

But there were plenty of rumors floating around about the chief. Some of the better stories I’d started myself, just to ferret out the truth (such as the chief having been put into Witness Protection because he’d ratted on the New York mob), but so far that tactic hadn’t worked.

Similarly disappointing was the chief’s office itself, which gave little clue as to the man’s past or present: no personal photographs of family or friends, no mementos, not even any awards he had been given while serving on the force, merely a single framed duck print on the wall to the right of his desk to hint at a hobby. Of course, the picture might well have been left behind by the former chief upon retirement.

Tony Cassato gestured impatiently for me to take the padded chair in front of his desk, and was about to go behind it when Officer Munson stuck his head in the doorway.

Using an uncalled-for sharpness of tone, the chief said to me, “One moment,” then went out into the hall, where he and Munson engaged in what sounded like a serious conversation. Damn! If I’d only scheduled my semiannual earwax cleaning, I might have been able to eavesdrop.

In a flash, I was out of my chair and onto Plan B: poking through his desk drawers before you could say, “Search and seizure.”

Spotting an official-looking letter postmarked from Trenton, New Jersey, I was about to pocket it when my wax-addled ears
did
perceive the men’s conversation winding down.

I didn’t have quite enough time to get back to my seat, so I pretended to be studying the duck print on the wall, asking, as the chief entered, “This wouldn’t be an original John James Audubon, by any chance?”

Tony, eyeing me suspiciously, said sharply, “No. It wouldn’t. Can we get to the point of your visit?”

I returned to my chair, and Tony settled his bulk into his.

I began, “I’ve just paid a visit to Joe Lange over at the county jail.”

The chief showed no reaction, not even a raised eyebrow. His hands were on his desk. Or rather his fists were.

I continued, “Joe said that when he arrived at that trailer, Walter Yeager was already dead…” I played my best cards. “…and I happen to
believe
him!”

But again, no reaction.

“Joe
did
admit to taking the book,” I continued.

The chief remained stony-faced.

“Which means Yeager’s killer is still out there!”

The chief sighed. Then, finally, he spoke: “Is there anything else?”

I frowned. “Well…no.”

“You know the way out.”

I stood, unable to conceal my irritation. “I deserve better consideration than this, and a little common courtesy! I’m an interested, civic-minded public citizen who simply does not want to see the wrong person to go to prison!”

“Good-bye, Mrs. Borne.”

I harrumphed, and was almost out of his office when Tony said softly “Vivian?”

I turned. The chief’s stony expression had changed, his jaw not so firm, his eyes subtly softened.

“How’s Brandy doing?”

I smiled inwardly. I’d always suspected that the town’s top cop was sweet on my little Brandy, even if she’d never really noticed. And to think of all of the juicy, confidential information I might be privy to if
he
ever became my son-in-law….

“Why, Brandy’s doing fine,” I said. “Merely a mild concussion. She’ll be home tomorrow—stop by, if you like. I’m sure she’d enjoy seeing you.”

“That was
damn
foolish of her, going out looking for Joe alone,” he blustered, frowning. “Why didn’t she call
us
first? And why the hell didn’t
you
stop her? Do you want to get your daughter
killed
some day?”

Wasn’t that sweet! I just
knew
the chief had a yen for Brandy….

“Really.” I chortled. “I’m surprised you’d even ask that! Since when could
I
ever control that girl?” (And, if we must be frank, vice versa.)

He surrendered a short, dry laugh. “Yeah, you have a point.”

“Well…” I smiled sweet as punch. “I don’t want to take up
any
more of your valuable time, Chief.” I waggled a finger at him. “After all, you have a murderer to catch.”

And so did I.

My next stop was Hunter’s Hardware on Main Street. To get there, however, I had to walk past a large, hideous cement parking lot that had replaced the once-stately brick YWCA,
and
a beautiful deco-style movie theater,
plus
the soda-fountain shop where I used to sip Green Rivers through a straw until my girlish face turned green. The willful destruction by the city of those three historical buildings still makes my blood boil! I tried to stop the carnage, and that’s how I wound up in the old county jail. (Sorry, no details this time—I have a word-count limit to maintain!)

Main Street was bustling with bundled-up holiday shoppers, storefront windows displaying scenes of a Victorian-era Christmas. Hunter’s was no exception, having a festive display of red-bow bedecked tools of days gone by. I stomped the snow from Brandy’s boots, pushed open the ancient front door, and entered, a small bell tinkling my arrival.

Hunter’s was a uniquely Midwestern aberration: The front of the elongated store—which hadn’t been remodeled since I was in petticoats, and still retained its tin ceiling and hardwood floor—sold everything one might expect of a modern hardware business. The rear, however, was given over to a small bar area that offered hard liquor to hard workers who stopped in for supplies. (No one ever seemed to question the danger of farmers imbibing, and then going out into the world, chainsaws at the ready.)

Junior, a paunchy, rheumy-eyed, mottled-nosed man in his late sixties, was the proprietor, acting as both sales clerk and bartender. Today, however, the store was busier than usual, with customers buying that special tool for that special man (or woman—one doesn’t necessary think of tools and men exclusively) (that may have come out wrong), and Junior had roped his wife, Mary—a squat lady a few years younger than him—into running the front while he more or less loafed in back.

I could tell at a glance that Mary was none too merry, spending all day selling hardware, so I put on my cheeriest Christmas smile, and steadied my resolve because, honestly, that lady was one nonstop complainer—how could one woman jabber on so endlessly about nothing? I sometimes thought she’d been vaccinated with a phonograph needle.

I approached Mary and asked pleasantly, “And how is the new leg?”

Mrs. Junior had worn a prosthesis ever since she lost a limb in a freak accident visiting the
Jaws
attraction at Universal theme park in Florida, once upon a time.

“Terrible,” the woman said, screwing her face up like an old catcher’s mitt left out in the rain. “I can’t get used to the newfangled thing! Wish I’d hung on to my old leg. I don’t know why Junior thought I needed a new one.”

I did. So she could help out more at the store.

I decided to say something positive. “Heather Mills adapted quite well.”

“Who?”

“The former Mrs. Paul McCartney, dear. She even took on ballroom dancing.”

“Let her try it on
this
leg,” Mary grumped.

“We should all walk a mile in each other’s shoes, dear. Or shoe, as the case may be. Is Junior around?”

“In back,” the woman said sourly, “where else?”

I made my escape.

I found Junior polishing glass tumblers behind the scarred mahogany bar, and when he spotted me, I got the usual bucktoothed grin. “Well, Vivian…what brings you in out of the cold?”

I slid up on one of the torn-leather stools. “A hot toddy,” I announced. “But hold the toddy.”

Alcohol did not mix well with my medication, I had learned.

The bar was quiet at this hour, the only customers being myself and perennial barfly Henry, who sat two stools down, caressing a half-glass of whiskey.

In his mid-fifties, slender, with silver hair, a beak nose, and his original set of teeth, Henry had once been a prominent surgeon before losing his license after performing a gall-bladder operation instead of the intended appendectomy.

(I have
tried
, more than once, to help the poor man overcome his alcohol dependency—always to disastrous effects, which I won’t detail because of my word-count constraints. My most recent attempt, however, involved enrolling Henry in a twelve-step program, only to have Henry, at the final meeting, in order to celebrate his cure, secretly spike the punch bowl and send everyone in the group back to at least step two.)

Henry looked sideways and slurred, “’Ows Viv?”

I responded, “Filled with the Christmas spirit, Henry.” As opposed to filled with Christmas spirits.

Junior placed a steaming Shirley Temple in front of me and said, “Heard Brandy was in the hospital.”

I waited for him to say more—to learn what he’d heard through his own bartender’s grapevine—but his eyes remained vacant, his jaw slack.

Unfortunately, Junior had been born with neither nose nor mouth for gossip, a pity considering the business he was in. That made his only function in
my
world being someone I could use to disseminate information—or disinformation—as I saw fit.

Henry, however, should never be counted out; seated quietly, well in his cups, he took in everything anyone around him might say, the way a bar sponge absorbs a spill. The problem therein lay in how all that information sometimes got squeezed out of Henry…which is to say, a mixed-up mess.

“Well, if you
must
hear the details about Brandy….” I said, waiting for enthusiastic cries of encouragement to erupt from Junior and Henry, but all I received were a nod from the former and a stare from the latter.

No matter.

A professional actor learns to play to even an unresponsive crowd; but what I
won’t
tolerate are walkouts. You’d best be having a coronary when leaving the theater while Vivian Borne is performing! Because
I
know who you are, and I’ll break character and walk downstage and call, “Good-bye, Mrs. So-and-so! Sorry you’re leaving us so soon!”

Sometimes the fourth wall simply demands to be broken.

But I’m veering off point again. Word count, precious word count.

Finally, Junior said, “Well, Vivian…spill.” The man seemed to have some semblance of interest in my performance, which was all I needed to really launch into it.

Now, gentle reader, as I mentioned before, even
I
was a little unclear as to what exactly transpired in the cave between Brandy and Joe. So I took the liberty of contriving a few exciting parts of my own—Sushi biting Joe on the leg, for example—improvisation being an actor’s prerogative should he/she sense that he/she might be losing the audience’s attention. But I really brought down the house when I got back on script and announced that Joe had Walter’s missing Tarzan book.