Chapter Six

  Knock-about

  The morning Mother was released from the county jail, I threw a little party for her at the house, inviting only Peggy Sue (and Sushi). I had baked a white sheet cake, slathered it with white frosting, then added black liquorice-stick jail bars, and red lettering reading: WELCOME HOME FROM THE POKEY. (I thought about putting a file in the center, but decided that might be a trifle unsanitary.)

  The antique Duncan Phyfe table in the dining room was set with our best mismatched china, and at Mother’s place, I’d set a Monopoly “Get out of jail free” card.

  Peggy Sue, wearing her signature Burberry (a pink-and-tan plaid cotton shirtdress), did not seem particularly taken with these festivities … but Mother whooped with glee when I conveyed the cake in from the kitchen (“Ta dah!”).

  Just in case any of us had avoided a sugar coma from the sweet dessert, I also served chocolate mint ice cream (Mother’s favorite) and tart lemonade.

  Peggy Sue and I were so thrilled that the murder charges against Mother had been dropped, neither she nor I felt much like reprimanding her. I’m sure, however, at a later date, Sis and I would have our scolding say.

  For now, we were all smiles at the table, happy to have among us again our very own jailbird (a cuckoo joke here would be pushing it, don’t you think?).

  Peggy Sue was saying, “Mom, I’m sorry to get into such unpleasantness when we’re having such a nice homecoming … but why in heaven’s name did you think I had killed Connie?”

  Mother, in the process of slipping a morsel of cake under the table to a begging Sushi, replied, “Because, dear, I thought I saw your car leaving Hidden Pines when the trolley dropped me off, which was about the time that awful woman was murdered … may she rest in peace. And you certainly had a motive to rid the world of Connie Grimes.”

  Peggy Sue wasn’t about to go into that. Instead she just shrugged it off, saying, “Well, mine isn’t exactly the only blue Escalade in town, you know—that’s a very popular model.”

  Otherwise she wouldn’t own it.

  “Besides,” Peggy Sue went on, stiffening a little, “I can’t help but be offended that you could ever imagine that I am the kind of person who’d do such a … a brutal thing. Now, if you’d thought it was Brandy—“

  “Thank you so very much!” I said. I was almost wishing I’d put that file in the cake and let Sis bite her perfect teeth down on it.

  Mother’s fork, loaded with cake, dripping in green-chocolate ice cream, paused on its path to her mouth. “Are you sure, dear, that your car wasn’t taken while you were playing bridge?”

  I spoke. “You mean, as in stolen, used maybe to implicate Peg, then returned? That’s a little far-fetched, isn’t it, Mother?”

  Mother, chewing, said, “I’ve seen that kind of thing happen on Perry Mason any number of times. And in Rex Stout, Agatha Christie, and—”

  “Any real-life examples, Mother?” I asked, too dignified to speak with my mouth full, even if I had spilled ice cream on the front of me.

  But Sis was waving all of this away. “Impossible,” she said, declaring herself the final word on the subject. “The car was in the exact same spot as when I first parked it … and the lot was full that morning. Don’t you think I would have noticed if it had been moved?”

  Well, I guess she had a point. Still, I wouldn’t have noticed if my car had been moved, being the sort of person who wanders parking lots, forced to use my car’s security alarm to make my vehicle call out to me. Honk, over here you imbecile, honk, honk….

  Mother said, “Well, I would have bet my life that it was your car.”

  “You did,” I pointed out. But I was getting impatient with Mother’s persistence on this matter, and asked, “If you’re so sure, does that mean you saw the license plate, and recognized it as Peggy Sue’s?”

  “Well … no.”

  I pressed. “Did you get a look at the driver? Was it a woman, maybe with the same hair color as Peg, and that was what made you so certain?”

  “Well … no.”

  “Then,” I suggested, “let’s just drop it. You’re in the clear, Peggy Sue is in the clear, and I’m in the clear. And not to be too unkind, but the Connie Grimes problem is solved. So why go looking for trouble?” I raised my glass of lemonade. “Here’s to the one-hundred-percent-not-guilty Borne girls!”

  Later, as I walked with Sis to her car, she asked in a lowered voice, “Do you really think we’re in the clear? I mean, about that other matter? Our relationship with the senator is still a volatile one.”

  Our relationship? I wasn’t the cause here, I was the effect!

  I said frankly, “I don’t know. But we don’t seem to be the only ones worried about it.”

  She came to a melodramatic halt and grasped my arm—a little of Mother’s theatrics, apparently, had seeped in. “What do you mean, Brandy? What other ones are worried?”

  I told her about my brief alley encounter with Senator Clark and his less-than-charming assistant, the timing of which had been directly after Mother’s arraignment.

  But she didn’t seem at all surprised.

  In fact, what she said was, “Do you blame him for keeping an eye on the situation?”

  “You sound like … like you already knew about me talking to the senator.”

  “Yes,” she said, then added rather acidly, “and I was embarrassed to hear about it.”

  “You were embarrassed?”

  “That’s right. Apparently you weren’t very nice.”

  “You are my real mother, right? I wasn’t dropped off on a porch by gypsies or anything?”

  “Brandy … please …”

  “So my ever-loving daddykins said I wasn’t nice, huh? When did he tell you that?”

  Her chin rose in that familiar I’m-not-just-anybody manner of hers. “Edward … Senator Clark … has been in town quite a bit lately. He’s opened up a campaign office for this fall’s election.” She shrugged. “We’ve met several times.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. “Is that so?”

  “That’s so.” Now her eyes narrowed right back at me.

  “And it’s not what your dirty little mind is thinking. I’ve been … helping out some at the campaign office.”

  “Isn’t that how this all started? Can I expect a baby sister in about nine months?”

  “Brandy, that’s outrageous!” she said. “It’s cruel and uncalled for.”

  Cruel maybe.

  “Besides,” she went on, “that aide of his, Denise Gardner, is the keeper of the gates. She wouldn’t allow anything … inappropriate … to take place, even if we wanted it to. She’s very protective of the senator.”

  I gave up a grunt. “A real Dragon Lady, if you ask me. I can’t tell whether she’s more ambitious for her boss or herself.”

  “She is just doing her job,” Sis said.

  “Really? Maybe she doesn’t want anything ‘inappropriate’ to happen between the senator and anybody else but her.”

  “You have no basis to think that harshly of the senator!”

  I patted my chest. “I am the basis for thinking that harshly of the senator! Listen, what if dainty little Denise figures that eliminating Connie Grimes fell under her job description?”

  Sis look horrified. “You can’t be serious. …”

  I shrugged. “Senator Clark has a lot to lose if word got out that he was my father. And your lover, back when you were barely legal.”

  “Brandy, that’s terrible!”

  “Yeah. A lot of people would think so.”

  She swallowed thickly and her features softened. The argument was over. She touched my arm. “Brandy … you have to put this bitterness aside. We’re all adults.”

  Now we’re all adults, I thought. When this started, you were just a teenager. But I didn’t say it. I didn’t want to fight anymore.

  She said, barely able to get the words out, “Edward … Edward says he’d like to see you again.”

  “Does he.”

  “He felt awful about how your first meeting went. Listen, he’s really a wonderful man. So very important.”

  Which pretty much was how Sis defined “wonderful”: important.

  But my heart softened when she pitifully asked, “Will you go see him, please … for me?”

  I sighed. “When?”

  “You will see him?”

  “I said I would. When already?”

  “I’ll talk to him and get back to you.”

  Ever the senator’s loyal staffer.

  I just nodded.

  “And give him a chance, Brandy … please? It wasn’t all his fault.”

  I didn’t know if she was referring to that unpleasant alley encounter, or my existence, and didn’t feel like going into it. So I just gave her another sour little nod.

  With renewed spring in her step, Sis went to her Caddy and got in behind the wheel of the status symbol, while I trudged back to the house.

  Mother was in the kitchen, cleaning up after our party, Sushi lurking, sniffing the floor, on the prowl for any morsels that might have been dropped, accidently or on purpose.

  I was standing at the counter, stuffing another piece of cake in my mouth (eating for two, remember!), when an idea struck me. There was no way Mother would not look into Connie’s murder. Of that I was sure. But I could see a way to make that pay a very attractive dividend.

  So I swallowed and said, “Mother, I know this won’t be easy … but from here on out, you and I will have to stay out of this murder investigation.”

  Hand-washing a delicate china cup at the sink, Mother paused. “And why is that, dear?”

  “Because all three of us—you and me and Peggy Sue—really did have a motive for killing Connie Grimes … and that motive might come to light.”

  “I see.”

  “So it’s best that the police handle this—I mean Tony is an experienced detective, and under his leadership, even the most inept officers on the Serenity force should be able to rise to the occasion. Maybe they’ll discover it was some burglar who was surprised to find the lady of the house home.”

  Mother turned abruptly away from the sink. “But a burglar didn’t do it!”

  “You sound certain of that.”

  “I am!”

  Her conviction made me suspicious—she knew something….

  I pretended not to have noticed. “Well, it doesn’t matter. Neither one of us is up to the job, anyway.”

  Mother huffed, “What ever do you mean? Not up to it? Since when were we not up to sussing out a murderer?”

  “Well, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m pregnant,” I said, “and you’re certainly not at the top of your game.”

  Mother’s eyes flared behind the large lenses; it was like gas burners on a stove flaming on. “You will explain yourself, young lady! Why would you claim that I am not at the top of my game?”

  Hands on hips, I said, “Okay, Mother, I’ll tell you. You seem distracted, not able to focus—for example, are you even aware you’ve washed that cup twice already?”

  A lie.

  Mother frowned and examined the cup as if it were a moon rock. “Really?”

  I nodded. “And at the table? You kept calling me Peggy Sue.”

  Another lie.

  “No! Really?”

  “Really,” I said, matter of fact. “So you see, we wouldn’t be of any use, either of us, trying find whoever killed Connie … which is too bad, because I bet it would be the juiciest case we ever solved.”

  With that, I vacated the kitchen for the living room, where I pretended to sort through mail that had collected on the Victorian tea table by the front door.

  Mother appeared next to me, a bug-eyed apparition, saying, “You know, dear, I really haven’t been my old self, lately. My thoughts race and I feel nervous all the time—sometimes I feel like I could just jump out of my skin.”

  She demonstrated this feeling with a spasmodic piece of clawing-at-the-air and running-in-place miming that would have startled Marcel Marceau into crying out in alarm.

  Reading a piece of junk mail with intense interest, I said casually, “Maybe it would help your investigative abilities if you, I don’t know, went back on your medication.”

  Mother was silent while I studied another solicitation. Then I turned and asked innocently, “Do you think it might help?”

  Her frown made me wonder if she had seen through this don’t-throw-me-in-the-briar-patch routine.

  But her eyes widened and she shrugged and, yes!, she said, “I suppose it couldn’t hurt.”

  Reining myself in, I responded at first with another round of silence, so very caught up in another piece of junk mail. Imagine—cheese-filled pizza crust! What would they think of next?

  Then Mother said, timidly, tentatively, “Would you … would you be more inclined to drive me places, dear, if I took my medication? Not that I need it, of course, but you seem to think I do, and I do so like to please you.” Right.

  She was saying, “And, of course, I am worried about your mental health. Mustn’t have you in a scattered state with a little one on the way.”

  We were in full-sway negotiation mode now—no need for me to make counteraccusations.

  I put down the advertising flyer I’d been reading, and picked up another. “Well, I think I would probably be inclined to drive you around just about any place you might want to go—within reason.”

  That should cement the deal, and still leave me wiggle room in case she wanted to visit Alcatraz to check it out as a possible performing venue.

  “All right, dear, I’ll go back on my medication,” Mother said, with a firmness that suggested it had been her idea. Then she added, “Only, I’m afraid I threw the pill bottle in the trash several months ago.”

  “I dug it out,” I said instantly. “It’s in the medicine cabinet behind the laxatives.”

  Mother smiled wryly. “You are a resourceful child. You get that from me, you know.”

  “I know. Want me to get you a glass of water?”

  “I can do that, dear.” She knew she’d been had, but a deal was a deal. “You’ve done enough already.”

  Before we could begin our unofficial investigation into Connie’s murder, Mother and I would first have to tend to our financial situation—specifically the payment of our ongoing lawyer’s bill, which (even if Wayne Ekhardt had once been in love with Mother) could eventually become substantial. Realizing we were sitting on a small gold mine with our Acklin clock, we quickly agreed, if reluctantly, to sell it.

  An eventful week or so had passed since we’d taken the clock in for repairs—all but forgotten in the wake of Mother’s jailing—and now we headed to Mr. Timmons’s shop to retrieve it, and get his advice on how to go about getting the best price for the rare antique.

  Once again—coincidence or fate?—we ran into Mrs. Vancamp in the parking lot of the old funeral-home-turned-mall. But, the elderly woman did not look so chipper, her quick birdlike movements nonexistent, the tiny eyes red-rimmed behind the glasses, facial features sagging even more than usual. As before, she was carrying the bedside Acklin clock, but it was unprotected in her hands.

  “That man said it was a fake, a knock-off!” she blurted as we drew near.

  Mother asked, “What man, dear?”

  “Mr. Timmons! I needed to sell it to pay my property taxes, but he told me my clock was worth less than one hundred dollars. That can’t be! My husband wouldn’t have bought an antique that wasn’t authentic—he would have had it appraised first!”

  And she began to cry.

  Mother put an arm around the heaving shoulders of the sobbing old girl. “Now, now, dear … even an expert can be fooled by a really good knock-off. What you must remember is that your husband bought it for you with love. That makes it precious beyond dollars.”

  Mother glanced at me with embarrassment; even she knew that was over the top.

  But Mrs. Vancamp nodded and sniffled. “I … I guess you’re right, Vivian. And I do like the clock—it keeps perfect time—and Mr. Timmons did say that it was a very good knock-off.”

  Mother released the woman, cooing, “Let’s not say ‘knock-off,’ dear. That has such a vulgar ring. Let’s call it a ‘reproduction,’ shall we? Maybe it isn’t worth much literally, but its sentimental value is priceless.”

  To me, Mother seemed about as convincing as a late-night cable pitchman. On the other hand, a lot of people call in and order that junk….

  “Yes, Vivian,” Mrs. Vancamp said, nodding like a bobble-head doll, “I can see that you’re right. I’m … I’m actually glad that I don’t have to sell it. Now it will be with me always. Something I will treasure.”

  Even if it was trash.

  We watched the woman slowly walk to her car, though the quirky birdlike movements seemed to be returning. Then Mother took my elbow.

  “Let’s go, dear.”

  “And give her some privacy?”

  “No—escape before she runs us down in the parking lot.”

  In the backroom repair shop of the old funeral home, Mr. Timmons was working on a disassembled clock at one of the stainless-steel embalming tables. He looked up pleasantly as Mother and I entered.

  But his cheerful expression dropped into a weary frown. From our expressions, he must have guessed we’d run in to the recently departed (from the mini-mall, not the earth) Mrs. Vancamp.

  “You saw her?” the bearded little man asked, his brow making the kind of furrows that give birth to wrinkles.

  I rolled my eyes and nodded, and Mother said, “Yes. It was a great blow to the poor soul to discover that her beloved clock was not an authentic Acklin.” Then she added dramatically, “I did what I could to ease her sorrow. As a wise person once said, ‘We are here for such a short span, it is incumbent upon us to lighten the load of our fellow beings.’”

  I gave her a look. “Who said that?”

  “Why, I did, dear. Just now.”

  Timmons sighed sadly. “I hated to tell her—it just broke her heart. But she shocked the heck out of me.”

  “How so?” Mother asked.

  “She wanted me to buy the clock! I supposed she’d want to hold on to it, out of sentiment.”

  I said, “In tough times, sentiment’s value drops faster than the dollar’s.”