Antiques Knock-Off (3 page)

Mother, taking Sushi back onto her lap, scoffed, “All buckets have holes in them, dear.”

“Not in the side.”

“That can be fixed.” She pointed windshield-ward. “Forward ho, dear.”

Great. Now we had yet another addition to an entire garage filled with things that could be fixed—none of which, so far anyway, had been.

(Aside:
Unbeknownst to Mother, I had gradually been throwing out her trashy treasures on
our
garbage day. Wait a minute! She’ll read this and know….)

Note to editor: please strike above paragraph if I haven’t cleared everything out of the garage by day of publication.

Onward to the downtown….

Over the past decade, Serenity—population twenty-five thousand (give or take a few hundred)—had reinvented itself from a middle-class river town (founded in the mid-1800s) to an upscale tourist destination, touting antique stores, specialty shops, and bistros.

Giving the devil her due, Mother had played a major role in the transformation, after an entire block—which included the lovely old brick YWCA, the Art Deco movie house, and a Victorian ice cream parlor—had been mercilessly leveled to make way for a parking lot.

When she made bail, after chaining herself to the wrecking ball, Mother formed the Serenity Architectural Preservation Society (SAPS)—she did admit, some weeks later, that she might have paid better attention to the initials. I suggested the group instead become the Association of Community Resources Organized to Nurture Your Municipality (ACRONYM). But Mother didn’t get the joke.

Anyway, SAPS set out to prevent any further destruction of the town’s heritage, and gradually, one by one, the dilapidated buildings were restored to their former glory, if rarely to their original purposes.

Timmons Clock Repair was located on Fourth Street at the end of the downtown grid, in a large gray stucco building that had once been a rather grand funeral home. Ben Timmons owned the pseudo-mansion, renting out its
many downstairs rooms to other proprietors selling wares that complemented his clock repair business, such as upscale antiques, choice vintage clothing, and wood refinishing.

The only thing creepy about the place—other than its phony facades and fake balconies, which lent an admittedly eerie aura of unreality—was that the clock repair shop was housed in the one-time preparation room, where Timmons blithely used the ancient embalming tables as workbenches.

I parked the car in a side lot and we got out, Mother handing Sushi over to me to put in my front carry-on, while she retrieved the boxed Acklin mantel clock.

As we were heading up a walk lined with red geraniums, Mrs. Vancamp, an old friend of Mother’s, trotted out of the building toward us. The former high school counselor—who once told me I’d never amount to much, so I guess she was right—was a diminutive woman with birdlike features and nervous, quick movements to match. Coincidentally, she wore a cotton housedress with red robins on it. She had better eyesight than Mr. Magoo, but barely.

As evidenced by her opening remark: “Oh, Brandy! I see you’ve had your
baby
—is it a girl?”

Mrs. Vancamp appeared to be looking at Sushi, through glasses thicker than Mother’s, although Mrs. Vancamp’s glasses made her eyes really, really tiny, like dried-up raisins.

I smiled politely. “Yes, it’s a girl.”

“Ohhh
… isn’t she
adorable,”
the woman cooed, adding, “and just
look
at all that
hair!”

Mother was ignoring that bit of unintentional buffoonery, focusing on the sack in Mrs. Vancamp’s hands. “What do you have there, Cora?”

The woman beamed. “I simply
must
show you! I just had it cleaned.” From the sack she carefully withdrew a

small bedside table clock. “My husband bought it for me just before he died—it’s an
Acklin,
of course—and it gives me such comfort in the morning when I wake up … almost as if Harry were still beside me, ticking instead of snoring.”

Mother peered closer. “Yes, dear. That
is
nice….”

Whether Mother was referring to the clock she was examining or the mention of Cora’s late husband was unclear.

But Mrs. Vancamp asked for no clarification, as she rewrapped her treasure. “Well, girls, I must be going—I have other errands to run before it gets too darned hot, as the kids say.”

“Kids” who said that were Mother’s age.

Mrs. Vancamp’s minuscule eyes traveled to my stomach, which was pooching out below my pooch. “Don’t despair, dear—your figure will come back, eventually. Just more of it!”

She then moved past us, heading toward the parking lot.

As we stood for a moment watching her, Mother murmured, “If
that’s
an Acklin, I’ll eat my Red-Hatted League hat.”

Which I would have paid to see, because that particular chapeau was as big as a hubcap, albeit a hubcap encrusted with red rhinestones and purple feathers.

“It looked authentic to me,” I said.

“Acklin
never
used oak.”

“Oh. Well, I’m no expert. So, then, it’s a knock-off?” Pause.
“Mother….
“

“Yes, dear, a knock-off.”

“No, Mother. What I mean to say is … Mrs. Vancamp?”

“Yes, dear?”

“She’s getting in a
car.”

“Your point being?”

“Behind the wheel.”

Mother sighed. “I know—it’s outrageous, isn’t it? A woman with her poor eyesight is allowed to drive and yet a woman with my driving skills and
perfect
eyesight and razor-sharp reactions has her license taken away!”

My mother had a driving record the way John Dillinger had a banking record. Her most recent, unlicensed episode involved running down a mailbox. But I restrained myself, mostly because I was gaping at Mrs. Magoo stop-starting her way out of the former funeral home’s lot.

Even Mother seemed alarmed. “We’d best linger inside a while, until she’s off the streets. Cora always was a terrible driver, even before the glaucoma.”

We entered the old funeral home, then moved down a faded floral-carpeted hallway off of which four large rooms (two to a side) with arched doorways yawned.

In days gone by, the rooms had served as separate grieving parlors, not thriving shops. A few telltale indications of their original intent remained, such as the overuse of small alcoves for urns and churchlike stained-glass windows.

Timmons Clock Repair was at the end of the hallway, beyond a pebble-glass door on which the faint outline of PREPARATION ROOM bled through the current business’s name. We stepped inside.

Another creepy funeral home reminder greeted us—affixed to the back/front walls were ancient embalming paraphernalia, including black rubber hoses and preparation tools, sort of like the way a country-style restaurant might display small antique farm implements.

A long counter bisected the room, separating us from Ben Timmons, bent over a former embalming table, doing
an autopsy on a clock. He’d heard our entrance, and as we approached, he straightened, pushed a magnifying eyepiece to his forehead like a third eye, and came forward.

Timmons, in his mid to late fifties, was a short, compact man, with a blossoming middle-age spread, salt-and-pepper hair, all-salt beard, and pleasant features. He wore a suit, or anyway the vest and pants of one, his sleeves rolled up, a red bow tie giving him a crisp look. He had the demeanor of someone who was doing the kind of work that he loved. Nothing funeral-home creepy about him at all.

He asked with a smile, “What brings you inside on this lovely day, ladies?”

Apparently he hadn’t heard about the heat wave.

Mother, who had placed our boxed clock on the counter, leaned toward our pleasant host with a narrow-eyed glare. “I just saw Mrs. Vancamp outside … and she
thinks
her clock is an
Acklin!”

My Prozac-free mind (I’d been off the little capsules since getting pregnant) began to register anxiety at Mother’s confrontational tone.

Two of Timmons’s three eyes briefly looked downward, then back to meet Mother’s. “Yes, Mrs. Borne, poor Mrs. Vancamp
does
believe the clock is authentic. And, of course, it isn’t.”

Mother drew herself up.
“How
could you not
tell
‘poor Mrs. Vancamp,’ Ben?” Vivian Borne was on a first-name basis with everyone. “Don’t you have
some
sense of ethical responsibility?”

Timmons took a moment to answer. “Actually, I do. But sometimes it’s not as easy as you might think. Did Mrs. Vancamp explain how she got the clock?”

“Well …
yes,”
Mother said, irked at the dodging of her question. “She said her husband bought it, just before he died.”

“Supposedly,” he responded coolly.

Mother’s frown deepened. “And what does ‘supposedly’ mean?”

While I stood by silently, the clocksmith explained that Mrs. Vancamp had told him an antiques dealer called her a few days after the funeral, saying her husband had put a down payment on an Acklin clock intended as a sixtieth wedding anniversary present. Did she still want the clock? Of, course, the balance of a thousand dollars would be due.

Mother and I exchanged sickened looks. This type of scam was one of the vilest, preying upon the sentiments of the bereaved at a vulnerable time. Usually, however, the merchandise—often diamonds or other valuable jewelry— was authentic, to keep the seller out of trouble. But the scam perpetrated on Mrs. Vancamp had taken another, nasty twist: the merchandise was fake.

I asked, “Did Mrs. Vancamp mention who sold her the clock?”

Timmons nodded. “And there’s no such person. I checked. The creep even used a phony post office box on the receipt.”

Mother’s manner softened. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t have had the heart to tell her, either, Ben. Luckily, since her eyesight is so bad, I doubt she’ll ever be the wiser.”

“Unless she tries to sell it,” I pointed out.

Timmons said, “Mrs. Vancamp wouldn’t likely ever do that—that clock means too much to her. But, if she ever should, I’m sure she’ll come to me for an estimate … and then I guess I’ll have to come clean.”

“I can live with that,” Mother said crisply, as if her consent was needed.

Timmons looked at our box. “Now—what have you here?”

“Well, Ben,” Mother said with an only slightly demented smile, “unlike Mrs. Vancamp,
we
have the real
thing!”

She opened our parcel, removed the bubble-pack, and placed the mantel clock on the counter.

Timmons moved his third eye down over his right one, and examined our find, carefully turning it over, then checked the inner workings.

Finally, he said with some excitement, “Yes, you have! And it’s in
beautiful
condition! Do you mind telling me where you got it?”

Mother did. In excruciating detail.

“Well, it’s a lucky find,” Timmons granted. “I know you girls are really into antiques, and this would make a wonderful addition to your collection, really would make a fine showpiece for your home. What are you going to do with it?”

“I think we’ll probably hang on to it,” I said, not wanting to tip our hand. “Providing you can make it keep time. And we’ll need an estimate, first.”

Timmons was about to respond when the pebble-glass door opened, then banged shut with such force that Mother and I turned around, startled.

Connie Grimes was as taken aback to see us as we were her. The middle-aged, mousy-haired matron wore a voluminous blue linen tent dress that tried but failed to hide her heft, a “little” number I recognized from Eileen Fisher’s new spring line. Quickly, the woman’s surprised expression turned to disdain.

“Well,” she said with a sneer, “I’d ask what you were doing here, Vivian, but I’d imagine you’re an expert on
cuckoo
clocks.”

I moved toward her, Sushi growling in her pouch. “Leave my mother alone.”

Her eyes flared. “Stay away from me, and the mongrel, too!”

“‘And your little dog, too!’”
I mocked.

Her nostrils flared. “That restraining order is still in effect, remember!”

“Maybe the judge would be interested in seeing some interesting notes Mother, Peggy Sue, and I have been receiving. Maybe he’d like to hear all about our poisonedpen pal.”

Connie’s face, which had once been pretty but now wore fat in random globs, like clay misplaced by a careless sculptor, tightened into a nasty smile. “There’s no law against sending unsigned letters.”

“There’s a law against libel.”

“And
truth
is the best defense, isn’t it? Why don’t you two run along? I have some private business to discuss with Mr. Timmons. Surely there’s something you and your mother could do together, to pass a few minutes—or should I say
grandmother?”

I had never seen Mother move so quickly—except maybe when she had spotted the Acklin clock—and before I could do anything except get out of her path, she’d flown at Connie like an oversized avenging bird, pushing the woman back against the wall of artifacts where Connie got tangled up in the antique embalming hoses.

Sushi squirmed out of the baby carrier, leaping from my chest to the floor, and—blindness be damned—rushed to protect Mother by sinking her sharp little teeth into Connie—well, not Connie, but her new linen dress, making ripping tears … because Soosh really knew how to hurt a girl.

Ben Timmons rushed around the counter to break up the altercation, which he accomplished by latching on to Mother’s arms and pulling her away from Connie.

Casting off the black hoses like deadly asps, the middle-aged Medusa screamed at Mother, “You’re going to pay
dearly
for that, you crazy old crone!” To Timmons, Connie shrilled, “Call the police!
Right now!
You saw what happened—that nutcase
attacked
me! It’s assault and battery!
Do
it!”

To which Timmons replied, “I’m afraid, Mrs. Grimes, what I saw was you tripping and falling against the wall.”

Connie’s face reddened further. “So
that’s
how it’s going to be? You’re going to stick up for
them,
after cheating
me?
Well, you won’t get away with it! I’m going straight to my lawyer….”