Antiques Chop (A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery) (20 page)

A door leading to the kitchen was unlocked, and we stepped into the large room, flashlight beams flitting like oversize fireflies, illuminating a stone floor, pine cabinets, and ceiling fixtures, all appearing to be original—or early last century, anyway. But the appliances—fridge, stove, dishwasher—were modern enough.

In the room’s midst was a dark-wood rectangular table, a bowl of red apples in the center, and six high-backed, ornate, churchlike chairs. To the left, a walk-in pantry door yawned open, revealing more cabinets, drawers, and well-stocked shelves.

I whispered, “What are my instructions, again?”

Mother whispered back: “Look anywhere and everywhere the damning clothes could be hidden.”

“Like in here?” I asked, and opened a narrow, floor-to-ceiling door.

And an old ironing board fell down, hitting me on the top of my head.

“Probably not there,” Mother said.

“Remind me to kill you later,” I said, rubbing my sore skull.

“I should never have allowed you to watch the Three Stooges after school,” Mother said disappointedly. Then: “We can cover more ground if we split up.”

“That’s when all the trouble starts in the horror movies,” I said. “We should stick together.”

“This is not a horror movie,” Mother said, and of course, she was right—it was
The Three Stooges Meet Laurel and Hardy
, and I was the brunt of all the gags.

“We have limited time,” she said. “Remember—choir practice!” She had sung the last two words, off-key.

Was I in a dream? A delirious dream?

She went on: “I’ll search the first floor and you take the second. Don’t turn on any light that isn’t already on, and stay away from the windows.”

“Right.”

She consulted her watch. “Let’s meet back here at eight. We’ll search the basement together.”

That was good, because I wasn’t going down there by myself. Even if we weren’t in a horror movie, we were certainly in a horror-movie house.

“And stay alert,” she said. “You might run across something else significant besides bloody clothing.”

“Like what?”

“How about the missing Butterworth ax?”

“Well, the police have the ax.”

“They have the
Amazing Grace
ax, dear, the murder weapon. But the
Butterworth
family ax, assumed to be the murder weapon at the time, is
also
missing. Doesn’t that stand to reason? Perhaps Sam Wright carried it away as part of the original cover-up.”

What a bunch of twaddle.

“Right,” I said. “It’ll probably be displayed someplace upstairs. Maybe in a glass case, or on a nightstand.”

“Sarcasm does not become a young woman,” Mother reminded me.

Leaving the kitchen, we entered the dining room, our flashlights revealing another table—this one larger than the one in the kitchen, with chairs that were even more ornate, a thronelike one at the table’s head—as well as a buffet with carved-leaf theme, the back cupboard topped with spindly spires. Heavy brocade drapes covered the room’s three long, narrow windows.

Despite the castlelike grandeur of the home’s exterior, the interior rooms (but for the kitchen) were proving to be rather small, exacerbated, of course, by the massive gothic furniture, creating a claustrophobic feeling that even the high ceilings couldn’t relieve.

We moved down a dark hallway to the living room, which was illuminated by a lamp in the front window—a boon for Mother, as it would both assist her search and prevent anyone on the outside from seeing in.

The living room, too, was oppressively overstuffed with gothic furniture, but among the antiquities was a comfy brown leather couch and matching recliner, as if Samuel Wright had declared, “Enough is enough.”

We had paused at the archway of the living room, next to a curved, thick-banistered staircase that led up into darkness.

“Mother,” I said, “be sure to put everything back
exactly
the way you found it.”

She shot me an acerbic glance. “Dear, if anyone knows how to snoop properly it’s Vivian Borne.”

On the wall behind her, just over one shoulder, a framed Sunday school–type print of Jesus seemed equally put out by my lack of faith.

We parted company, she going into the living room, me heading up the stairs, my flashlight carving a path through the darkness. All I could think of was that scene in
Psycho
where the detective goes up the stairs and . . .
Come on, Brandy, that was only a movie, only a movie....

The second floor had five rooms (and no mommy mummies), four bedrooms, and a bath sharing a wide central hall. The first room I entered had more modern furniture, the bed carefully made, a set of towels on the dresser-top, and a little wooden suitcase rack, telling me this room was used by guests. So I didn’t spend much time there.

The second room I tried, also furnished in a more up-to-date fashion, was Samuel Wright’s bedroom, as indicated by the unmade bed and confirmed by numerous prescription bottles on a nightstand. Further proof came by way of a closet of men’s clothes—none of which were bloody.

The third room, the bathroom, I checked, looking under the sink and in the bathtub (in case bloody clothes were being washed there). Nada. Nothing bloodily incriminating in a closet hamper, either.

The fourth room, a bedless bedroom used for storage, offered some possibilities for hidden evidence, and I poked around opening boxes for a while, finding nothing of apparent import. Box after box contained business-related church documents, with cartons of Amazing Grace memorabilia and photographs, heavy on the father’s era.

The fifth room immediately piqued my interest; much larger than Wright’s own, this apparently had originally been the master bedroom, graced with the most impressive gothic furnishings yet: massive four-poster bed with exquisitely carved headboard depicting cherubs and roses; a huge armoire (with similar motif); two marble-topped bedside tables, and several dressers (one, a lady’s, with large mirror).

Since the windows were shuttered, not curtained, I risked turning on a ceiling light.

And immediately something became apparent, something that gave me a chill: this had been the elder Wright’s bedroom, where nothing appeared to have been disturbed since his death, rarely if ever cleaned in the decades since. A layer of dust covered everything.

It would be hard not to leave indications of disturbing things here.

I crossed to the grand armoire. Inside hung an array of men’s suits—a larger size than the ones I’d seen in Samuel’s closet—as were the shoes neatly arranged on a bottom shelf. Narrow ties on a rack dated these clothes to the 1980s, about the time Gabriel Wright departed this world for another.

But there was more in the closet: women’s clothing. Fashions from the fifties, but not the dowdy matronly dresses Mamie Eisenhower wore. No. These were colorful, gay in the former sense of the word—an array of flirtatious, formfitting frocks.

How odd. Why would Gabriel Wright keep the clothes of a wife who had been faithless? These seemed to date to about the time Mrs. Wright had run off and abandoned her pastor husband. Funny that she left them behind . . . and that he had kept them.

Or was it Samuel who couldn’t bear to get rid of his mother’s things?

This was starting to feel like
Psycho
again....

I took a lingering look at the room, at the wedding photo of Gabriel and Elsie Wright on the nightstand, the cupidlike cherubs looming above the bed, the pearl-handled hairbrush set carefully arranged on the dressing table, along with an assortment of perfume bottles.

This space was one big valentine to Elsie Wright, who had been a very attractive woman, based on the wedding photo anyway.

But who had sent her this valentine? Gabriel or Samuel? I checked my watch.
Yikes!
Eight-fifteen.

Turning off the light, I scurried out of there.

Mother was at the bottom of the staircase, where I joined her.

“Look what I found in the family Bible,” she said excitedly, waving a piece of notepaper, its edges yellow with age. “Tucked away in a writing desk—listen to this. . . .”

She began to read: “ ‘Samuel, I haven’t always been the best of fathers, but I want you to know how much I have loved you, even if I have rarely said so. I am depending on you, son, to carry on and protect the many years of good works I’ve accomplished with the Church. Keep faith. Leviticus 20:10. Dad.’ ”

I shrugged. “What’s so special about that?”

“Dear, if you had paid attention in Sunday school, you’d know. This is a virtual murder confession.”

“Well, we can talk theology later.” I tapped my watch.

“We have
got
to wrap this up and get out of here before choir practice is over.”

“Quite right, dear.” She stuffed the letter in a pocket. “To the basement!”

“Lead the way.”

She did so, back through the dining room to the kitchen, then into the pantry to an open door, steep stone steps going downward.

We were back in horror-movie country—you just don’t go in the basement in those kind of movies, not unless you want to run into an evil leprechaun or a guy in a hockey mask or something. Dark and dank down there, like a dungeon. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find shackles waiting on the wall or even a torture rack. As we descended, flashlights showing the way, the floor revealed itself to be cement, at least.

Mother pulled the string on a ceiling light—the bare bulb helped greatly, exposing a washer and dryer, a card table with detergent and a plastic laundry basket, a furnace, some old buckets, mops, wooden boxes, ceramic pots, paint cans, and an old workbench with a variety of tools, some on adjacent pegboard.

While Mother poked around the workbench, I tackled the furnace, opening the front, checking inside. Nothing.

“What’s this thing?” I asked Mother.

She joined me, and I pointed to a metal panel in the stone wall behind the furnace.

“That’s where they used to store the coal,” Mother explained. “That would be an
excellent
place to hide an ax.”

I pulled down a metal handle, opened the door, and something flew out, going like a bat out of hell!

And there was a reason for that.

“Just a bat, dear,” Mother said lightly. “Not to worry.”

“Not to worry!” I said in a reflexive crouch. “May I remind you they carry rabies?”

“Not all of them.”

“How do you know that one doesn’t?”

“Dear, dear, please. We can discuss bats all you like, later, perhaps over mugs of cocoa with marshmallows. Doesn’t
that
sound delightful! In the meantime, tick tick tick!”

I noticed something else. “What’s that contraption?”

I was referring to a rust-pocked metal unit the size of a tall kitchen garbage can next to the furnace.

“That, my dear, is an incinerator. In the good old days there was no such thing as garbage pickup.” She examined it closer. “Hmmm . . . looks like it’s still hooked up to the gas line.”

“Which means it’s still being used.”

We looked at each other.

Then I shook my head. “If the clothes were burned in there, they’d be ashes.”

Mother smiled. “Forensics can tell quite a bit from ashes—even extract DNA . . . Find a plastic sack, dear.”

I hunted around, then came back. “Will paper do?” “Nicely,” she said, taking the bag that had formerly been filled with nails (I’d dumped out on the workbench).

Knees popping, Mother bent, then pulled out a bottom drawer of the incinerator, which was used to collect the ashes.

I leaned over and held the paper sack open, as she emptied the contents inside, ash dust billowing up, tickling my nose, nearly making me sneeze. Charred DNA will do that.

Winding the bag shut, I held its neck tightly with one hand, using my other to help Mother to her feet.

“Now, dear, I have another interesting discovery to share. And I will do my best not to say, I told you so.”

“Okay. Show me.”

She walked me over to the workbench, from under which she had pulled out a big wooden crate—some long-ago machinery had probably been shipped in it. With a glance, I could see it was filled with old tools, hammers, several saws, screwdrivers, what have you.

“People never throw away their old tools, dear,” Mother said. “Take a closer look.”

There, propped alongside one edge of the box, was a very old ax.

“It’s not necessarily the Butterworth ax,” I said. But I could only be impressed with her sleuthing.

“Oh, I beg to differ. Take a look at the butt of the handle.”

As with the murder ax, this one had initials wood-burned in. Oddly, they were the
same
initials: AGB.

“This is just another Baptist church ax,” I said.

“Take a closer look, dear. What do you notice about that wood-burned ‘G’?”

“Hey . . . you’re right. It’s squared-off, and the ‘A’ and ‘B’
aren’t
. And part of the ‘G’ has thicker lettering, like it’s from another tool. As if someone doctored it.”

“Someone did,” Mother said. “That ‘G’ started out life as an ‘L.’ ”

My wide eyes met hers, all three of them. “
Louis
,” I said. “Archibald’s middle name. And Andrew’s. This
is
the Butterworth family ax . . . Should we take it?”

“No. I hate to say so, but it’s time to go find that boyfriend of yours and report our suspicions and tell him what we’ve seen. We have to act fast, because it’s just possible we’ll have left a few signs of our break-in for Samuel to pick up on.”

Like the window busted out in the mudroom, maybe?

“You’re right,” I said. “Let’s get the H out.”

We had paused in the middle of the basement, Mother about to pull the string on the ceiling light, when we saw the man’s feet poised on a step near the top.