Antiques Chop (A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery) (19 page)

I was shaking my head. “Did your little pink cells go to sleep, Mother? You
can’t
be saying that Samuel Wright is the killer. The deacon of Amazing Grace Church?”

“Ah, but that wasn’t the name of the church back in 1950, when Samuel’s father was its head.”

And my little pink cells started to work.

“Amazing Grace Baptist,” I said.

Until a few years ago, Baptist had been part of the church’s name, dropped when Amazing Grace ended its affiliation with the denomination.

“The ax belonged to the church,” I said numbly. “Where Samuel’s father, Gabriel, was pastor. . . .”

“Yes, dear.”

My head was spinning. “And the chopper wound up in the old Butterworth house because . . .”

“. . . because,” Mother picked up, “that’s where it was hidden all those years ago.”

I squinted at her again, hoping this would all come into focus. “Are you saying that Samuel Wright—then a teenager—killed Archibald Butterworth, and fifty-some years later, used the same ax to murder Bruce Spring?” I blinked. “But that’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“It’s wrong,” Mother agreed. “We know from Heather’s files that the ax wasn’t used to kill Bruce Spring. That the modern-day murderer strangled his victim, and used the ax for misdirection.”

“And the modern-day murderer is Sam Wright?”

“Right.” Or maybe she said “Wright.” Same difference.

“So,” I asked, “who killed Archibald Butterworth?”

Mother was gloating now. “Very likely it was Samuel’s father, Gabriel, who did it.”

I snapped my fingers. “Because Archibald was having an affair with Gabriel’s wife!”

She nodded. “I have come to believe the tryst was more than just idle gossip. Jealousy would explain Archibald’s viciousness in committing the murder.”

I could only shake my head. “A man of the cloth.”

“But not a gentle one, dear. A fire-and-brimstone believer, whose rage and repression resulted in a brutal crime. Did you know that Gabriel’s wife, Elsie, disappeared in 1950? Apparently leaving Gabriel to care for fourteen-year-old Samuel?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s in the articles. And the documentary. Or
did
Elsie leave town? Perhaps Gabriel killed
her,
too.”

My head was spinning. “And Sam
knew
his father had murdered Butterworth?”

“Yes. How, we can’t be sure. Perhaps he assisted his father in cleaning up the murder scene. Maybe his father came home covered in blood, traumatized, and the boy stepped up and helped out. Sam may have been the person who hid the ax in the house. Certainly he helped in one key way—he testified in a manner that threw strong suspicion on his good friend, Andy Butterworth.”

“Okay, okay,” I said, holding up two hands before she got too carried away. “But explain this to me. Why would Samuel kill Bruce Spring?”

She answered my question with one of her own. “Why do you think the ax remained hidden, undisturbed, until only a few days ago?”

“Well . . . maybe because we started repairs on the house, that made it possible, even likely, the ax would turn up.”

Mother nodded. “It must have given Sam quite a start, seeing that old carpet hauled out to the curb in the sunshine, along with some broken floorboards, knowing the ax might be discovered. So he waited until the cover of night to retrieve it, and tragedy ensued.”

“How do you suppose it went down?”

“Dear, a number of scenarios occur to me.”

Not one involving a little boy sticking his wet tongue on a cold flagpole, I hoped.

“But perhaps the most likely one would go as follows,” Mother said. “From his window, Sam notices Andy going into the old house, then quickly coming out, having had his brief meeting with Bruce Spring.”

“Why brief?”

“Because, first, there would be little to it, just Andy indignantly telling Bruce off and withdrawing his permission for the house to be used as a location. Second, with no electricity, the house was dark, which would not encourage a lengthy discourse.”

“Okay. I’ll buy that.”

Mother gestured with a gently lecturing finger. “The key to this scenario is Sam not knowing that Bruce was in the house—all Sam knew was that Andy went in and went out, rather quickly. But for whatever reason, Bruce lingered, and when Sam crossed the street, probably with flashlight and tools, the producer was still inside. Sam was probably prepared to break in, possibly in back, but came upon an open front door—perhaps even an ajar one—and took advantage of the invitation. Likely Sam didn’t see Bruce at first—Bruce may have stayed behind for a quick look at the progress of the renovation.”

“In the dark?”

“With a flashlight. Possibly Bruce was upstairs doing as much and Sam, unaware of the producer’s presence, quickly went to work on retrieving the ax he’d hidden so long ago. This tableau is what Bruce came upon—you can picture it, can’t you? Bruce shining a flashlight beam on a kneeling Sam, floorboards to one side, revealing the long-sequestered murder weapon . . . a weapon that Bruce would immediately recognize, as the producer of the documentary on the crime!”

I was nodding, right with her. “And a confrontation followed, a physical one. But not involving the ax.”

“No. Two men struggling until one got the upper hand— or, in this case ‘hands.’ Strangulation, you know. The cover-up followed—Sam’s
second
cover-up in that murder house.”

I nodded. “Samuel throwing suspicion on Andrew, by making Bruce’s murder similar to Archibald’s.”

Mother said, in disgust, “And just yesterday, he even tried to use
me
as the tool to implicate Andy, saying he saw Andrew Butterworth on the night of the murder near the house.”

“But he actually did see Andy.”

“Yes, and it’s possible other neighbors could corroborate that.”

We fell silent for a moment.

Then I said, “Okay. So. What proof do we have?”

“Not much, dear. We need more than speculation, and some initials on an ax.”

“Is there any way we could get more?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And you won’t like it.”

She told me.

I didn’t.

 

 

If you’ve had merchandise sitting around for a while—and lowering the price hasn’t helped—send it to an auction house. But don’t attend that auction. There’s always the possibility some sentimental attachment will rear its head, and you’ll bid on your own item. That’s how Mother wound up with the brass commode she keeps under her bed.

Chapter Eleven

Window Chopping

“
C
an you help me with this, dear?” Mother asked. We were standing near the front door, both dressed in commando black—slacks, tennies, hoodies, and gloves. Outside, dusk was smudging the sky a darkening gray.

Mother handed me the black mini-recording HD video camera with audio feature, about the size of a pack of gum. She had ordered the gizmo from a spy-oriented Internet site, thinking it might be helpful in our investigations. At the time, I had made fun of her. Now I was grateful.

“Where do you want it?” I asked.

“Clip it to the side of my spectacles, dear—like a third eye! Very
Blair Witch,
don’t you think?”

She had been much impressed with that “found footage” horror flick and the various imitations thereof. Come to think of it, she did look like a witch, in her black ensemble. Which I guess made me a witchette.

“How much recording time does this thing have?” I asked, securing it to the eyeglass temple piece next to one ear. “About three minutes?”

“More like three hours, oh ye of little faith. So we can activate it now.”

But before I did so, I said, “You
do
realize, don’t you, that along the way, this thingie of yours? It’ll be capturing not just any evidence we might uncover, but incriminating evidence against thee and me.”

Mother shrugged. “We can always erase the recording later, if need be. Anyway, we’ve crossed legal lines before and generally gotten away with it—hard to arrest the parties who nab the bad guy, wot?”

“Mother, no British accent tonight, or I’m jolly well out. Got it?”

“Got it,” she said, taking no offense. “Do we have everything else, dear?”

“Flashlight,” I said.

“Check.”

“Rope.”

“Check.”

“Cell phone.”

“Check.”

Please.

I said, “I think that fills your list. But what do we need the rope for?”

“Who knows? Scaling a wall, perhaps. Tying up a miscreant, possibly.”

“No one’s supposed to be home! Let’s leave the rope behind.”

“No, it might come in handy. ‘Be prepared,’ we Girl Scouts say.”

Boy Scouts, actually, but why quibble on a night where breaking and entering was on the docket?

“Of course, I may have missed something,” Mother said. “Anything else you can think of that we might need?”

I shook my head, but was thinking a flask of whiskey would be nice.

My cell I slipped into one hoodie pocket, the small megalight in the other. The rope I concealed beneath the jacket, winding it around my waist like a makeshift belt in an old hillbilly movie. Mother carried her own cell and flashlight.

Meanwhile, Sushi was whining at my feet, doing a sad little samba.

I stooped to pet her. “No, honey, not this time. We’ll be back soon.”

I hoped.

To Rocky, I said, “Take care of my little girl, okay, boy?”

Last time Rocky had been the one impatient to tag along, practically knocking the closed door down behind us. But this time he took the news well, and my instructions, too. Nice to know I had such a good touch with dogs—Rocky seemed to understand exactly what I’d said, and was obedience personified, or anyway doggified.

Only when I opened the door, he dashed out like he’d spied a squirrel. I followed quickly, seeing him disappear around the side of the house, but when I got back there he was gone, swallowed by darkness.

“Damn!” I blurted. I called for him and called for him, but nothing. Then I whirled, upset, “What are we going to do?”

“Let him go, dear,” Mother said. “He’s a big boy and he’ll find his way home. Anyway, we don’t have time to go looking for him now. Maybe it’s just a beauty call!”

I did not correct Mother’s malapropism, but she had a point—on our walks, Rocky had shown definite interest in a neighborhood terrier, much to Sushi’s jealous dismay.

“You’re
positive
Samuel Wright won’t be home?” I asked as we headed out to the car.

“Pos-i-
tute
-ly. We will have a good two hours. Sam always attends choir practices on Thursday nights, from seven to nine. As the deacon, he never misses a rehearsal because that would set a bad example.”

“So does covering up and committing murders,” I said.

“Apples and oranges, dear.”

As we headed for the Buick in the driveway, Mother raised a warning finger. “Still, that doesn’t mean we can afford to dawdle.”

“Right. I was planning to sit in the man’s den and knock back a beer and maybe smoke a cigar.”

“Well, don’t.”

Which was just her way of saying,
Not funny.

I was behind the wheel when I asked, “What’s the game plan?”

Mother’s brow furrowed, as if my question had been in a foreign tongue. “Game plan? Why, none in particular, dear. We’ll improvise.”

The keys were in my hand, not yet in the ignition. “That’s not what I want to hear. I want to know you have a plan, a goal.”

“My goal is to wing it. Start ’er up and let’s roll!”

Here is an example of Mother “winging it”: burning down the hundred-year-old grandstand at the Serenity County Fairground. Granted, it did attract the attention of the police and enabled the capture of a killer; yet for some reason, to this day, a number of people in town remain upset about a local landmark going up in smoke.

As we rode through an unsuspecting Serenity, Mother said, “We are looking for evidence—that much of a game plan I can give you.”

“Any evidence in particular?”

“Bloody clothes. While there would be no spray with a d.b., a dismemberment would still certainly be an untidy task. ‘D.b.’ is dead body, dear.”

We were going to break into the home of a murderer who had been capable of a grotesque and gruesome cover-up.
How had I let Mother talk me into this?
But she had, and more easily than I like to admit. I was caught up in it, just like her.

But most of all, my friend Joe was sitting in a jail cell right now, looking like a much better suspect today than he had yesterday. We simply had to clear him.

I parked the Buick on the street near the mouth of the alley that ran behind Samuel Wright’s house. We got out, Mother taking the lead as we walked briskly up the single-lane asphalt incline, coming to a stop behind the easily recognizable back of Wright’s Gothic Revival home, silhouetted like a massive crouching beast against the ever-darkening night sky. The moon, peeking over a tall gable, seemed to give us a wink, a sly one like on the old sheet music covers—it apparently knew what we were planning and maybe even approved.

Why was I not reassured?

A stand-alone garage with steeply pitched roof and iron cresting—the original carriage house?—sat just off the alley. Mother tiptoed over (yes, tiptoed) to a narrow arched window, and peered inside.

“Good,” she whispered. “His car is gone.”

“You said you were absolutely positive he wouldn’t be here,” I whispered back.

“I did. And I was right. Now, you just get with the program, missy! I won’t have you tying tin cans to my little red wagon.”

Was that an old saying, or just her being a nut?

I was standing beside a plastic garbage can with WRIGHT printed on the side, when she came over, grabbed the can’s lid, and yanked it off.

“Good,” she said, the third eye of the clamped-on micro-camera next to her magnified God-given eyes making her look like something out of an
Alien
movie. “Here’s our first break!”

“Oh?”

“The trash hasn’t been picked up yet this week. Dump it out, dear.”

“Why?” I didn’t want to go through my own garbage, let alone somebody else’s.

Mother stared at me as if a box of candy was missing and I had chocolate smeared all over my mug. “The bloody clothes could be in there.”

“Come on, if finding bloody clothes is your best shot, we should go back to the car right now, while we still have the chance.”

She glared at me with all three eyes. “Go through that garbage, Brandy.
Right now
.”

“Don’t you think they would have been disposed of already? Like thrown off the high bridge?”

Mother shook her head. “Sam couldn’t risk being seen doing anything out of the ordinary, and tossing something into the river certainly is.”

I gaped at her. “But putting blood-soaked clothes in the garbage
isn’t
out of the ordinary?”

“Dear, you could have done it by now.”

I sighed, took hold of the can, then tipped it upside down, causing a cacophony of clanking glass bottles and rattling tin cans and other refuse, that echoed in the alley.

“Be quiet!” Mother yelled.

I shushed her with a finger to my lips, then whispered, “You
told
me to dump it out.”

Turning on her flashlight, she slowly scanned the mess with its beam, a searchlight looking for an escaped prisoner.

“Good Lord!” Mother said. “Do you see what I see?”

“What?”

Had she been right about the bloody clothes?

“The man doesn’t
recycle!
”

“Criminal,” I said, the word dripping with sarcasm.

“Well, it
should
be,” Mother huffed. “We have to protect Planet Earth, you know. Global warming is no joke.”

“Neither is us getting caught,” I reminded her, pointing to my wristwatch. “What now?”

“Put the garbage back in the can, of course.”

I laughed, once. “Like I’m
touching
that junk! Not even with gloves on.”

“Very well.” She shrugged. “Sam will blame a racoon for it.”

“Or a skunk,” I said.

“Is that a dig, dear?”

“No comment.”

A six-foot wood fence separated the house from the alley and garage, and we walked over to it.

Locked.

“Afraid you’ll have to scale it, dear,” Mother said.

“And open it from the other side.”

I gave her a hard stare.

She gave me one back. “Surely you don’t expect
moi
to climb this Everest? With my artificial hips?”

“Oh,
fine.
”

I grabbed the top of the fence door, and pulled myself up, then with some difficulty (you try it) straddled it, and was about to lower myself over, when Mother said, “Oh. What do you know? There’s a little latch to pull!”

And before I could say, “Don’t do it,” she did it.

The door flew open with my weight, flinging me windmilling to the ground, where I lay sprawled on my back, stunned, like I was making a snow angel, only sans snow.

“Well, I didn’t expect
that
to happen,” Mother said, her face looming over mine, eyes wide. “Are you all right, dear? That was quite a fall.”

I reached out and up with both hands as if to strangle her—well,
maybe
“as if”—and she grabbed one of my hands, pulling me to my feet.

Dusting myself off, I said, “So far, I am
not
having a good time.”

“We’re not here to have a good time, dear. We’re here to find vital evidence that will convict a killer.”

“Could we try to do it without breaking my neck?”

“We can certainly give it a go,” she said, chipper. “Now come along, we’re losing valuable time.”

Leaving the gate ajar (“for easy egress”), she led me up a cracked sidewalk to a small open porch under a flat roof supported by two stone columns topped by openmouthed gargoyles, neither of whom seemed to be saying, “Welcome.” Mother had picked for us, for our first major breaking-and-entering caper, probably the creepiest house in town.

Mother tried the door onto the porch and reported, “Locked,” then sighed.

“If that’s an unexpected setback, maybe we better abort.”

Ignoring that, Mother muttered, “There must be a key around here somewhere.”

But hunt as we might, a spare key couldn’t be found, not above the door, or under the mat, nor hidden in a nearby flowerpot. I even stood on a porch chair and looked in the gargoyles’ mouths, managing to avoid the temptation to add, “Say ‘ah.’ ”

Finally, Mother said, “I’m afraid a window may simply have to be broken.”

Meaning
I
would have to break a window.

As uninviting as that prospect might be, I was eager to expedite things and get back home.

“Stand back,” I told her.

I looked in the nearest window, flashed a light in, saw a mudroom and nothing blocking our path. With the butt of my flashlight on the bottom pane of a window, I gave the glass a quick, hard
WHAP!

Which was followed by a sharp crack and then the brittle rain of tinkling glass as it fell to the floor within.

A few shards clung stubbornly to the window frame, and these I carefully extracted, like little sharp teeth, with a gloved hand. I tossed the chunks inside, as if keeping the porch tidy and safe for little gargoyles was a priority.

I was about to turn to Mother for her approval, when the back door opened.

My heart leapt in my chest.
Caught already!

Mother leaned out, like a friendly neighbor woman offering milk and cookies. “Discovered an unlocked window on the side of the house,” she beamed, pleased as punch with herself. “So you needn’t have broken that window.”

My fingers curled into fists. “A little late
now,
isn’t it? Besides, you told me to do it!”

“I did not.”

“Did, too.”

“Did not. I believe my exact words were ‘. . . a window
may
simply have to be broken.’ ”

For the sake of propriety and Walmart, I will not report
my
exact words in response.

Closing the door behind us, we sent our flashlight beams around the mudroom, taking in the scarred wood floor, long wooden bench, narrow pine wall paneling, and multiple coat hooks.