Antiques Maul (10 page)

“Oh, I assure you, she’s dead,” Mother said. “Who could have that much blood on the outside and be alive on the inside? It’s a rhetorical question.”

Munson’s upper lip curled back; it was sort of a sneer. “Thank you for your diagnosis, Mrs. Borne. But you don’t mind if we go in and find out for ourselves?”

“A second opinion is always a good idea,” Mother granted.

I suppose I should have either defended Mother from Munson’s rudeness, or maybe duct-taped Mother’s mouth shut to minimize the trouble she was causing. But words were in short supply for me. I kept seeing Mrs. Norton on the floor and the blood-flecked dog hovering over her….

Drawing his gun, Munson opened the back door of the building and entered, followed by the medics, who in turn were followed by…Mother!

I stood gaping for a moment, but I had no choice but to snap out of it and tag along. Mother and I were unnoticed for a while, and our presence didn’t get spotted till our little group arrived on the first floor, where we’d have undoubtedly been sent back outside if we hadn’t been rudely interrupted…

…by the pit bull.

Brad came barreling down the center aisle toward us, claws again making his progress awkward over the industrial carpet; that the dog was slightly slowed didn’t lessen the threat: Brad’s teeth were barred in that horribly blood-smeared mouth….

Officer Munson raised his gun and took aim at the dog, which was a perfectly reasonable thing to do—I would have done the same.

But, just as Brad seemed poised to spring at Munson, Mother lurched forward and shoved the officer’s hand-with-the-gun aside.

Some fool screamed (me).

Mother slapped Brad like a frisky first date and bent over and scolded, “
Bad
dog! Bad, bad doggie!”

Brad, stunned, looked around at the rest of us, hoping to find a sympathetic face; and then, finding sympathy in short supply, the animal cowered and whimpered as Mother continued her scolding.

“Now, you be a good dog,” Mother commanded, “and go over there and
lie down
!” She pointed sternly to the closest booth.

Brad, staying very low to the ground, like a commando navigating a beachhead, obeyed, crawling under a Heywood-Wakefield coffee table and depositing himself there.

The two paramedics rushed forward to find Mrs. Norton.

A red-faced Munson turned on Mother. “I ought to book you for interfering with a police officer!”

Mother studied him. “Have you had your blood pressure checked lately, Officer Munson? Stressful work like this can be a contributor to—”

Ignoring her, the livid Munson barked into his shoulder microphone: “Ten-seventy-eight.”

Mother leaned toward me and behind a hand whispered: “Requesting backup.” She knew all the police codes forward and back.

The microphone crackled. “Ten-eighty-sixty?”

“No. Ten-one-hundred.”

Crackle
. “Sorry, sir, is that a new one?”

“
You
must be new—that’s a Vivian Borne…. I need someone to handle her!”

Mother’s eyes widened and her hands clasped in delight. “Brandy! Isn’t that
wonderful
?”

“Isn’t what wonderful?”

“It would seem I have my very own designated police-code number!”

“I’ve never been more proud.”

One of the medics returned. “You’d better notify the coroner,” he told Munson solemnly.

“Ten-seventy-nine,” Mother chirped.

I thought the vein on Munson’s forehead was going to pop.

“I want you two out of here…
now
!” he barked, looking from Mother to me.

What had
I
done? Mother was the one with a police code.

“And wait outside until someone takes your statement…understand?”

“Yes, sir,” I said meekly.

But Mother’s hands were on her hips. “You’re a terribly rude young man. I told you Mrs. Norton was dead and you dismissed that. I suggested you didn’t need to use lethal force on that poor animal, and then proved you wrong, and saved you from endless reports about firing your weapon on the job. Now I have one more small piece of advice for you.”

I was tugging her sleeve. “Mother…Mother…”

“That dog is innocent! I suggest you policemen start looking for whoever is really responsible. Possibly a suspicious character driving around town with a pit bull in his rider’s seat.”

Munson’s gaze fell upon me. One eyebrow rose practically to his hairline; the other stayed in place, or mostly stayed in place, considering the twitch.

Through another unfriendly smile, he asked: “Do you want to get her out of here? Or should I call Animal Control for
her
, too?”

“Well!” Mother huffed.

But I said, “Thank you, Officer, I’ll take charge of her,” and I took Mother by the arm and marched her away.

We retreated down the back steps; but before exiting to the alley, I stopped Mother. “Why did you take such an awful risk with that creature?”

“Officer Munson?”

“No! The dog!” I was shaking my head, my voice trembling. “That vicious thing could have mauled you, just like he did Mrs. Norton!”

“Nonsense, dear,” she said, and waved off my concern. “Your former teacher was right about her pet…Brad the pit bull is timid. A coward.”

“Then
why
did he kill Mrs. Norton? He’s
her
dog, for God’s sake!”

“Brandy, I’ll thank you not to take the Lord’s name in vain, at a time like this.” Mother’s brow furrowed. “But you heard what I told that awful young man—I don’t think Brad is guilty.”

I was getting a warning tingle at the back of my neck; I didn’t want to admit it yet, but I could see where this was going, at least if Mother had anything to say about it. She was letting her theatrical notions turn a horrible tragedy into another murder mystery.

“Saving that dog from a bullet right now,” I said, “is a reprieve at best…you
know
he’s going to have to be put down.”

Mother sighed. “I’m afraid you’re right. Pity the only witness is a silent one. Poor thing can’t defend itself!”

“Uh…I think Brad can defend himself just fine.”

“With those fangs of his, perhaps, if he weren’t so timid. But he can’t point at the
real
killer, can he?”

“Mother…”

“Such a beautiful animal…”

Compared to what? A rottweiler?

“Mother,” I said, “listen to me.”

“I can hear you, dear. You needn’t shout.”

“I’m not shouting! Mother, you are not Jessica Fletcher and I am not Nancy Drew. We happened to get involved with something a while back—”

“Those murders, you mean?”

“Yes, yes, those murders. But that’s the kind of thing that happens once in a lifetime. You can’t go around looking at deaths, however tragic and, yes, grotesque, and turn them into a hobby, like your Red-Hatted League reading group.”

She sniffed. “I have no idea whatsoever what you’re talking about.”

A crowd had gathered in the alley, moths drawn to the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles, and I could see the wheels turning in Mother’s head. She loved an audience of any kind, and I warned her, sotto voce, to keep her trap shut. If any reporters were among the gawkers, Mother’s theories could find their way into the
Serenity Sentinel
.

A second squad car arrived, blocking the alley further, and uniformed officer Brian Lawson got out. To Mother’s dismay, he shooed the bystanders away. This was the closest she’d got to center stage since she quit the playhouse.

“I don’t know what you see in that wet blanket,” Mother muttered to me as Brian approached, nodding to us both, all business.

“Mrs. Borne…Brandy…I understand, Vivian, that you found Mrs. Norton?” Officer Lawson produced a tiny tape recorder from his pocket.

“Indeed I did!” Mother said a little too happily, as if stumbling on the corpse of a friend was like finding a prize in a Cracker Jack box.

I sighed. “I’ll be over on the freight dock if anyone needs me.”

You’re probably pretty disgusted with Mother by now, and you won’t be surprised to hear that I was, too. In her defense, she’d had numerous shocks this morning and, however ill-advised her intervention between gunslinging Munson and the bloody-fanged pooch, she had indeed shut down a dangerous situation. Still, I made another mental note to call her shrink and make sure her meds were right.

During the interview, Mother was her usual rambling, histrionic self, and more than once Brian had to get her back on point.

When I heard her saying, “…and her poor husband got killed after imbibing too much and decided to take a nap on the tracks just as the Rock Island Line passed through,” I called out singsongy from my dock perch, “I’m, uh, pretty sure that’s not pertinent, Mother!”

Mother threw me an irritated look. “Brandy, the officer asked me what I knew about the woman, so I’m telling him!”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean everything from her first tooth to her last meal.”

“Dear, I
know
what I’m
doing
!”

I knew what she was doing, too. I was afraid my efforts to keep her on the straight and mentally-balanced narrow were severely challenged by the loss in her life of her theatrical pastime. The other day ex-pal Bernice had seemed willing to bury the hatchet, and not the kind that that cigar store Indian might wield.

Finally I just had to tune her out, and wound up watching a gray sedan try to navigate the congested alley. Then the driver gave up, parked cockeyed, and got out; short, bald, and bespectacled, the man carried a medical bag as he puffed toward us.

Mother spoke first. “Hello, Hector!” she called out pleasantly.

Hector seemed startled to see her. But then, most everyone seemed startled when they caught sight of Mother….

The man’s gaze went from Mother to Officer Lawson, who said simply, “First floor.”

Hector nodded and entered the building.

Mother called over to me (still keeping my distance on the dock), “That’s the
coroner
, dear.” Then in a stage whisper: “He’s lost a little weight since the divorce.”

“I’ll file that with the rest of the evidence,” I assured her.

After only a few minutes, the coroner returned, said something to Brian that I couldn’t hear, then hoofed it back to his car.

Once again the back door of the building swung open, Officer Munson coming through first, holding it wide for the paramedics who carried Mrs. Norton in a body bag on a stretcher.

As the medics loaded their human cargo into the emergency vehicle, a respectful silence fell over the alley, only to be broken by the finality of the slamming of the vehicle’s double rear doors.

Then the Animal Control van arrived.

I hopped off the dock and joined Mother and Brian.

“Regular Grand Central Station,” Mother muttered.

“Terminal,” I corrected.

“It was Grand Central Station when
I
was a girl.”

“It’s always been Grand Central Terminal, Mother.”

“Dear, a terminal is for airplanes.”

“A terminal,” I said, “refers to anything that ends at a certain destination…be it trains, buses, boats, or planes.”

“Or life,” Mother sighed.

I searched her face and found, in her eyes, a strain of worry that explained her careening over-the-top behavior. For all her inappropriate remarks, she really was upset about Mrs. Norton’s death. The two women had only been friendly acquaintances—I’d overstated it, calling my former teacher a “friend” of either Mother or myself—and finding that ravaged body had taken a toll on Vivian Borne.

The animal control man went in…and the animal control man came out, with a sad-looking, docile Brad on a leash, head down, as if he was being sent to his pen for making a mess on a carpet (which I guess he had done, in a way). Finally Brad was shut into the back of the van.

Then, after all the hoopla, everyone was gone, except for Mother, me, and Brian. Even the diehard gawkers had lost interest and faded away.

Mother turned to Brian. “You’ve been very efficient, very thorough, Officer.”

“Uh…thanks.”

“Is there anything else we can tell you before we go?”

“No, I have enough,” Brian said (or was that, “I’ve had enough”?).

Half bowing, Mother offered magnanimously, “Well, you know where to find us, should anything further occur to you. Brandy, are you coming, dear?”

“Give me a minute, Mother.”

“I’ll just wait in the car, dear.”

“Yes. Do that.”

We waited for her to stride out of sight; then Brian asked, “Will you be all right?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I may sleep with the lights on, tonight, after a nightmare like that….”