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Authors: Barbara Allan

BOOK: Antiques Disposal
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There was no buzzer, and Mother raised a bony fist to rap on the door, when I stopped her hand, spotting Mr. Ekhardt on the porch, snoozing in an overstuffed chair, feet stretched out on a matching ottoman. He looked pale and skeletal in his oversized sweats. As usual, whether he was alive or deceased was a mystery.
“Don't startle him,” I whispered.
Mother frowned. “How
else
is the dear man to know we are here?”
“Well ... knock lightly, then.”
She did.
He didn't stir.
Mother rapped harder.
He still didn't stir.
Mother tried the door, found it open, and went on in, while I hung back on the steps watching through the screen. Had the time finally come? Was the great lawyer standing before the biggest bench of all?
Mother went over to Ekhardt, bent as if at the bed of a slumbering child, then gave his slight shoulders a shake. “Wayne, dear, wakey wakey.”
The attorney's creped eyelids slid open, blinked several times as he took in Mother's face, then closed again.
“What a strange dream,” he muttered.
Did he mean Mother?
She shook his shoulder again, and the eyes opened again, this time in a wide stare.
“Oh, it
is
you,” he said.
Unfazed, Mother replied, “Yes, dear, it is I,
and
little Brandy ... come for a neighborly visit.”
We were his neighbors like I was “little” Brandy.
He rolled a dry tongue around in his mouth for a moment, pulled himself up a bit, then, with a resigned sigh, asked, “What is it, Vivian?”
Mother sat down on the ottoman, scooching his legs over. I continued to watch all of this through the crosshatch of the screen door.
“Wayne,” she began, “we've been friends for a long time ... always truthful and honest with each other ...”
Him:
possibly.
Her:
rarely.
“... yet I feel there's more to this business about Lillian and her will than you've told me.”
Ekhardt, his face flushed, said tightly, “Vivian, as I've said before, there
was
no
will
.”
Mother shook her head. “I have it on
good
authority that Vivian told her son James that she would provide for him in the event of her death.”
Hey! I had just risen to the rank of “good authority”!
The ancient attorney stared at Mother, his lips a thin, tight line, as if he were hoping she were a vision that would dematerialize.
When she didn't, a sigh began at his toes and found its way out his mouth. Then he said, “You're not going to give up, Viv, are you?”
“No, dear. You
know
me.”
The old boy did, because he surrendered with no more fight.
“Very well,” he said. “I'll come clean, and frankly ... it's about time ... I've carried this around with me for thirty-some years.”
I quietly opened the screen door and stepped in, not wanting to miss anything.
“There really never was a will, Vivian,” he said slowly. “That much was true. Mine was a lie of omission.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“There
was
a trust set up by Lillian for James.”
“Then ... then it must have been
revokable
, if James received nothing.”
Meaning Milton had been able to cancel it.
The lawyer said nothing, though his rheumy eyes spoke volumes.
Mother leaned forward, earnestly. “Don't tell me it was
irrevokable!
”
When Ekhardt did not reply, Mother gave a little gasp.
I couldn't help saying, “I don't understand.”
Mother's head swiveled on her neck toward me, stopping just short of an
Exorcist
impression. “It's self-explanatory, dear. Irrevokable means James
should
have received his money.”
I spread my arms. “Then where did it go?”
Mother made a “hush” motion to me, and that's when I noticed a single gleaming tear slide down the wrinkled hollow-cheeked face of our longtime lawyer.
Mother looked back at him. “You suppressed the trust, Wayne? Or ...
allowed
it to be suppressed?”
As if there were a difference.
Ekhardt slowly nodded. “A few months before Lillian died, Milton found out about the trust ... whether she told him, or he discovered a copy of it, I honestly can't say ... but he wanted it undone, voided. When I told him that wasn't possible, he said he would contest the trust in open court ... bring in medical information showing that at the time the trust was drawn up, Lillian was already suffering from Alzheimer's.”
“Had she been?” I asked.
Ekhardt shrugged his slight shoulders. “My opinion was that Lillian knew what she was doing or I wouldn't have drawn up the trust.” Another deep breath, another sigh. “But I had no doubt that Milton would have dragged her good name through the court. She was in advanced stages of her disease, and putting her on display ... what a travesty, what a tragedy that would have been. She was still enough herself to have sensed the shame... . I felt it would have been sheer hell for her.”
Mother said, “So you destroyed the trust agreement. But your reluctance to do so wound up losing you a very valuable client in Milton Lawrence.”
The lawyer's nod was barely perceptible. “It's the only time in my entire career that I did something I was really ashamed of.”
“You should have been disbarred,” I said.
His watery eyes found my face. “Yes, I should. And I have lived with that knowledge every day since.”
Ekhardt leaned forward, buried his face in his hands. Mother rose and went to sit on the arm of his chair, slipping a comforting arm around his shoulders.
And I slipped out to wait in the car.
 
A Trash ‘n' Treasures Tip
 
Contents of a storage unit can sometimes be sold immediately after the auction by the winner to dealers who lost out, thus eliminating extra hauling. So be friendly and polite to your fellow bidders. Mother has on occasion paid dearly for having said, “Nah nah nah
nah
nah!”
Chapter Ten
A Rocky Homecoming
A
good fifteen minutes passed before Mother emerged from Wayne Ekhardt's house, while I cooled my heels in the Buick, windows down, crisp fall breeze keeping me company.
“Is he all right?” I asked Mother as she settled into the passenger seat.
“My, yes. The old dear will be just fine.”
I grunted. “ ‘The old dear' should be disbarred for suppressing that irrevocable trust.”
Mother sighed. “Perhaps once upon a time, but at the age of ninety—with the infraction so far in the past—I scarcely think that will happen. Why, is it a point you would like to press?”
“Well, no. But that ‘infraction' could still get him sued.”
Mother was frowning at me, thoughtfully. “Are you going to share this information with James Lawrence?”
“I think I should at least suggest that he speak to Wayne about it. Do you think the ‘old dear' will come clean?”
Mother was nodding. “If I know Wayne, he will.”
Starting the car, I mumbled, “Maybe you didn't know him as well as you thought... . Where to?”
“River Road—north.”
She wasn't more specific, and I knew it was futile to ask.
I caught River Road on the other side of the park, then headed along the twisty two-lane that took us by the Lucky Four Leaf Clover, the storage facility looking benignly banal against a colorful fall-foliage backdrop, as if nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened there.
I expected Mother to tell me to pull in at the storage facility, but she had something else—somewhere else—on her mind. Mine was not to reason why, mine was but to do and drive.
As we cruised along, the Mississippi—looming too close for comfort on the right—glimmered with gold highlights in the early-afternoon sun. My stomach growled, and I wished we had stopped somewhere for lunch—even a stale hot dog (best with catsup and pickles, despite what Mother says about mustard and relish).
But Mother had no need for sustenance, fueled by her own obsessive energies, her eyes glued ahead in rapt attention, like single-minded Sushi anticipating a rare adventure away from home.
In ten minutes or so, we passed through the tiny town of Freeport, just a bump in the road with a two-pump gas station / bait shop amid a cluster of clapboard houses.
“Turn right,” Mother said.
She
knew where we were going, anyway.
I did as I was told, veering off the main road onto gravel that took us bumping across a railroad track, then down along a row of summer cottages built on stilts on a sliver of land begrudgingly given up by the river. Come spring flooding, the Mississippi would reclaim it.
“That's Big Jim Bob's house,” Mother said, pointing to a handsome-looking tan single-story structure held up by cement block columns; stored in the space beneath the cottage, on a metal-frame trailer, was a spiffy speedboat.
Big Jim Bob was doing all right. Or ...
had
been doing all right... .
I eased the Buick in beside an open stairway leading up several straight flights to a landing. We got out and—with Mother very much in the lead, not bothering with the railing (which I held on to for dear life)—we climbed to where a half-circle deck offered a splendid view of the water and shoreline beyond.
I stood taking it in. “Okay, now I get it.”
“Get what, dear?”
“Why some people want to live here and fight the flooding every year.”
The ambiance
was
quite relaxing, particularly if you factored out the mosquitoes and fishy smell.
“Yes, dear,” Mother said, nodding like the wise guru she thought she was, also taking in the view, “it
is
rather like being on vacation year-round.”
Then her meditative moment passed, and she was moving as quickly as if in dire need of a bathroom, heading toward the cottage door, which was centered between rows of windows. She tried the door, whose top half consisted of four glass panels, and of course it was locked.
“Check for a key, dear,” she said.
There was a welcome mat (even if it didn't say “Welcome”), but no key was under it. I checked under a heavy planter. Nothing.
“Go back downstairs,” Mother ordered, “and check for a rock key.”
Everybody in the Midwest has a rock key—a fake rock that you hide among real rocks that look nothing like the fake one. Dutifully, I did as she asked. There was gravel down there, but not really any rocks, fake or otherwise.
Back on the porch, I reported my failure.
“Well, dear, we'll just have to break in.”
“As in breaking and entering?”
“Well, in this case, you can't have one without the other,” Mother said patiently. “And the owner is deceased, so he can hardly press charges.”
“That's your understanding, is it? That it's legal to break into houses if the occupant is deceased?
You
may have a good time in jail, Mother, but I don't think
I
would.”
“Nonsense. Just one small tap on that pane of glass, and you can reach in and unlock the door for us.”
“No way.”
“Very well,” Mother said, disgruntled, “
I'll
do the dirty work. You are, at times, a most disappointing Watson.”
“Yeah, well there are better Sherlocks, too.”
She made a fist with one hand. “Now, you
do
know what to do, should I sever an artery?”
I sighed. “All right! Stand aside.”
At least the cottage we were breaking and entering into was hidden from its neighbors by trees. This broad daylight home invasion would be less than subtle... .
Slipping off one shoe, I aimed the heel and gave the pane a quick hard
whap!
Glass tinkled down on the inside. A few more whaps dislodged any remaining sharp pieces, then I reached a trembling hand through to unlock the door.
We stepped inside, our feet crunching glass shards, and stood surveying the front room, which was tastefully decorated with modern furnishings, if in a surprisingly feminine manner. Facing the river was a pastel floral couch and matching side chair, along with a couple of nice end tables and brass lamps. A card table and four chairs took up one corner, a jigsaw puzzle of the President and First Lady nearly completed.
“I always said Big Jim Bob had wonderful taste,” Mother gushed. (I had the feeling she was referring less to BJB's decorating skills and more to his taste in female companionship ... i.e., herself.)
“Uh-huh,” I said, picking up a framed photo on an end table. “Did he also have an African-American wife and two equally African-American kids?”
Mother frowned as I showed her the picture of the happy black family—even Mother, with her poor eyesight, couldn't have mistaken the husband for Big Jim Bob.
“Uh-oh,” she said slowly.
Through clenched teeth, I managed, “Can I quote you on that?”
“Perhaps it might be prudent for us to skedaddle.”
“You'd be the expert on ‘prudent,' right?” I was already heading toward the door.
“Just a moment, dear!” Mother said.
She was digging in her jacket pocket, producing a tiny pencil and a bridge score pad.
“What are you writing?” I asked, as she began to scribble. “Not our
names
, for pity sake!”
Mother harrumphed. “I'm not
that
feeble-minded! I'm merely explaining our error.”
I grabbed the pad, which read:
A thousand apologies! We broke into the wrong house
. And tore off the note, crumpled it up, and slipped it in a pocket.
“Well,” Mother huffed, “we should at least leave them some money to fix the glass.”
“My purse is in the car.”
“Run and get it.”
“I have five dollars and a few coins. Do you think that's sufficient to repair that door?”
Mother sighed. “Very well, I'll use the emergency funds I always carry with me.”
She kept a clump of bills in her bra. I believe she got the idea from the old TV show
Maverick
where James Garner pinned cash inside his vest.
Abandoning Mother to make her monetary amends, I scurried down the long steps to wait in the car, hoping no one drove by—like, say, the homeowners. I worked on a story I might tell them should they show.
After a few minutes, Mother came clomping down the stairs—what one would call beating a hasty retreat as opposed to making a surreptitious exit—apparently undaunted in the face of her (not our!) grave mistake.
She said, “I'm sure it's the cottage next door.”
“You're sure?”
“I'm fairly sure.”
“ ‘Fairly sure' doesn't cut it, Mother.”
“Almost positively fairly sure. Absolutely.”
“Okay. If we get caught breaking into the wrong cottage, or get nabbed for breaking into
this
wrong cottage”—I gestured to the scene of our crime—“
here's
the story.”
“Story?”
“The story we tell the police.” I took a beat. “You are off your meds—”
“I am
not
off my meds!”
“It's just the story, Mother. You are off your meds. I came looking for you and found you. You were confused about where you were and thought you were at home.”
She goggled at me. “
That's
the ‘story'?”
“Yeah. Pretty good, I think.”
“Why would I be down here? Why would you think to come looking for me down here? What happens when they test my blood and find out I am indeed on medication? What—”
“Never mind.” I had started the car and was backing it around. I really was terrible at improvisation. “I won't be breaking in this time ...
you'll
have to do it. I don't care if you sever an arm.”
“My, my, my ...
some
body got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!”
The cottage next door was actually some distance away, sheltered by a thickness of trees and brush. This structure, too, was raised on cement blocks, but not as high as the one we'd accidentally “visited.” Also not as nice: smaller, with white peeling paint, no porch, and trash scattered on the ground. This time, Mother made no comment about BJB's superior taste, and neither did I.
And Mother didn't have to risk severing an artery
or
arm, because—after climbing the steps to a landing—we found the warped wooden door unlocked.
The inside was a mess, but not the mess of a slovenly home owner, rather the purposefully disheveled aftermath of someone searching for something—drawers open, cupboards ajar, cushions overturned. Each room was the same, from the small living area to the galley kitchen, from the single bedroom to a tiny bath. The extent of the damage gave me the impression that whoever had done this had
not
found what he or she was looking for.
Mother expressed the same opinion, but in her idea of detective speak: “Somebody tossed the joint!”
Soon we were standing in the bedroom where a mattress had been cut open, its stuffing removed and flung, exposing metal coils, the remains abandoned as an unsuccessful surgery.
I asked, “Did Big Jim Bob have a habit of hiding money in his bed?”
“How should I know, dear?”
“Well, I thought you ... you know ... had some kind of special relationship, and—”
“And thought I might have noticed if the mattress was lumpy?”
Okay, I was goading her, peeved how the day was going.
Mother put hands on hips. “Young lady, ours was not
that
kind of relationship! It was strictly a friendship, a platonic arrangement ... and, all right, with a little heavy petting on the side.”
Wincing, I quickly changed the subject. “What are we doing here, anyway?”
“Yeah!” a male voice behind us roared. “What
are
you doin' here?”
After we finished jumping, we turned to a figure standing framed in the bedroom doorway, a skeletal creature wearing a torn T-shirt, jeans, with tattoos adorning both arms. He was a wiry forty, his dark gray-streaked hair pulled back in a ponytail, his face a leathery tan, with a long nose and small dark dangerous shark eyes.
Were we in the presence of Jim Bob's killer? After all our silly shenanigans investigating the very serious crime of murder, were we finally in the kind of hot water we likely deserved?

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