Antiques St. Nicked (6 page)

Mother moved on to the dining room and I followed. Here most of the parquet floor had been hauled off, along with a hanging light fixture, leaving a good-sized hole in the middle of the ceiling.

We returned to the main hallway and climbed a wide, wooden staircase that, remarkably, still retained its oak banister—too big and awkward to haul away, maybe. As I went up, my hand slid along the smooth wood as hundreds of children's hands once had done.

The second floor had been made into one large, long room.

“This is where the girls slept,” Mother said, giving me a guided tour I didn't remember requesting. “They each had their own bed.”

Nearby a single twin-sized iron bed with rusty springs lay on its side, with a shredded mattress home to a nest of mice.

Even back then, this must have been a dreary place, and I tried to imagine what life must have been like for the children here, each one waiting and hoping to be adopted. Wind whispering through a cracked window seemed to say,
“Pick me, pick me.”
You didn't have to believe in haunted houses to sense the ghosts in this ravaged structure.

Mother led our hunt for Nurse Tanner onward, up a narrow creaking staircase to the attic.

Continuing with the tour, Mother said, “And this is where the boys were housed.”

She said that as if the boys were things not humans, but there was no question they'd had it tougher than the girls: sleeping with open ceiling beams, rough wood floor, and few windows for light.

Sushi sneezed from the dust.

I trailed Mother over to a vertical support beam where boys had crudely carved their names in block letters in the wood, as if to prove to the future that they once existed:
JIMMY, RANDY, DAVID, BOBBY, HARRY, VERNON, JOHN, SIMON
. . . the post was covered with them.

As if I'd asked that aloud, she said, “At least three of them are among my Romeos.”

Mother meant those old boys who ate lunch together—not the opposites to her Juliet.

She sighed. “I'm just not getting any signals.”

A bat swooped over our head.

“How's
that
for a signal!” I blurted. I took her by the arm. “Time for your bunions to declare defeat, and for us to get out of here.”

We did.

Back in the kitchen, I thought we were leaving when Mother entered the spacious pantry and headed for a closed door.

“If
that
leads to the basement,” I said firmly, “you're on your own.”

Mother waved that off. “Dear, this isn't a scary movie. This is real life.”

“
Scary
real life.... Go down there at your own peril.”

Sushi sneezed as if in agreement.

“She may be buried below,” Mother said, and opened the door, which creaked like a sound effect from an old radio show, stuck her head into the dark stairwell, then pulled it back.

“Very well,” she announced. “You may have a point.”

Whether she checked with her bunions before making that decision, I couldn't tell you.

“Thank you,”
I said.

We went back out through the window, and I replaced the boards as best I could. Sushi stayed with me, but Mother went off and I could hear her crunchy footsteps in the snow, breaking twigs and leaves.

I followed and found her in back, standing next to an old well.

“I'm getting something here, dear,” she said, pointing down to her left foot.

Right. Couldn't just be that her bunions were hurting from all the tromping around we'd been doing.

The well, made of mortared stone, was about four feet high and about as wide across, with a heavy wood circular top.

“Help me with the lid, dear.”

“Thirsty?”

“For a solution to the mystery, yes.”

It took both of us to push the heavy cover off, where it hit the snowy ground with a thud.

We leaned over the edge and looked into darkness. Mother found a loose stone at the base, and tossed it down.

We heard neither splash nor thunk.

“That,” I said, “is deep.”

Mother said, “Deep enough to put a body down and not have it found.”

I said, “Next you'll be saying Nurse Tanner is down there.”

“She is,” said a male voice behind us.

We turned to see Christopher Purdue, First National Bank Chairman himself, dressed in a navy pin-striped suit, sans topcoat, as if he had just stepped out of a board meeting.

I don't know if Mother was surprised by the banker's sudden presence, but I certainly was. Surprised and frightened, because he was holding in a casual hand a snub-nosed revolver, trained right at us.

He gestured with the weapon. “Cell phones down the well, please.”

We complied.

Sushi was growling—whether she understood Purdue had a weapon or sensed our anxiety, I couldn't be sure; but I picked her up, holding her protectively, fearing as much for her safety as ours.

Mother said, “You lied to me, Christopher. You said you weren't an orphan.”

Since Mother would hardly be indignant about a killer lying to her, I knew just what she was doing: speaking as she inched away from me so that the banker wouldn't have two close targets. If he shot at one of us, the other might have a chance to jump him. And I was the one without bunions.

Purdue's smile was strangely apologetic. “I didn't lie to you, Vivian—I
wasn't
an orphan. But I did live here for a few years after my mother got sick and couldn't take care of me . . . when I had no other relatives to go to.”

He shifted his stance, but the gun still pointed our way.

He gave us an awful smile. “Miss Tanner loved to pick on the weaker boys, and I was somewhat sickly myself. She knew just where to hit us so the bruises wouldn't show. And if they did? If a bone got broken? Well, she'd say the clumsy boy just fell down the stairs.” His laugh was harsh. “But every day I got stronger, and bigger, and one night, in the final days of this terrible place, when I was supposed to be in bed, I got her to chase me outside to the well, where I'd hidden a baseball bat. I was never happier in my life than when I clobbered that witch and pushed her down the well.”

The coldness of his voice, the placidness of his expressionless face, made me shiver beyond anything the weather could do to me.

Mother said with sympathy, “Your actions were quite understandable, dear . . . however premeditated. You were a child, an abused child. People would have understood.”

“Would they understand
today,
Vivian? There's no statute of limitations on murder, you know.”

“But what would have pointed to you? Why kill Simon to cover up a crime with which you would almost certainly never be connected? So
what
if the evil nurse's remains were found after all these years? There would be no forensics evidence left . . . surely nothing that could point to you.”

Something sad, something haunted, flowed across his face. Something that he had lived with for a very long time.

“Oh, but you see, Vivian, there
was
something. As I started to push her into the well, unconscious, she came around, and grabbed the front of my shirt and ripped off the pocket . . .
a pocket that had my name on it
. It went down with her, tight in her grip. The name.
My
name.”

The mistreated boy had signed his crime.

He shook his head. “No, I couldn't have Simon bringing in bulldozers that would dig up that well and make a discovery that would ruin my good name, my reputation, destroy a career I worked so hard to achieve.... So I kept an eye on the domestic violence center account, year after year, watching it grow slowly, certain that Simon would never get enough money to carry out his altruistic plan.”

“And then, the night of the Stroll, at Hunter's,” Mother said, “you overheard David Harper say his mother planned to donate that coin. Just toss it in Santa's bag. That would put the donation account over the top. And it pushed
you
over the top, too, didn't it, Chris? If Mildred Harper hadn't done that, Simon Wright would still be alive.”

He could only nod. “Yes. And I wouldn't have been put into this . . . awkward position . . . now.”

Mother, who had managed to put six or seven feet between us, made her move . . . and it was a bold one . . .

“Well,” she said, impatiently, moving toward him, startling him, “
are
you going to kill us, or just stand around feeling sorry for yourself? If not, we're leaving. It's cold standing here. Come along, Brandy.”

Mother marched right past the banker, making herself a target, allowing me time to take a run at him.

But Purdue didn't, and I didn't have to. He lowered the gun. And his head.

With Sushi in my arms I ran after Mother, kicking up snow. When I caught up with her, I looked back once to see Purdue sitting slumped on the edge of the well, then a second later took one last glance, and he was gone.

 

 

The following Tuesday afternoon, Mother and I were at our Trash ‘n' Treasures shop, enjoying a brisk business selling various Christmas items, when Tony stopped in.

He was returning our cell phones, which had been retrieved from the bottom of the well, along with Purdue's body and the bones of Maude Tanner, with which the banker had become entwined on impact.

I got queasy at the notion of using the cell again, so I set it aside to recycle it. Mother, however, had no qualms about reclaiming hers.

“It would take me years to enter all my contacts again,” she said later.

Right now Mother and I were behind the counter, Tony across.

“What's going to happen with the silver dollar?” I asked Serenity's chief. “Will it go back to Mrs. Harper?”

Tony said, “Technically it's the property of Simon Wright's estate. Dumpster Dan's out of luck because, thrown away or not, the coin was stolen property.”

Mother said, “And Simon Wright's dream of a domestic violence center is out of luck, too, because the coin's worth never made it into the designated account.”

I frowned. “Does that mean Della and Rod Conklin will get the coin?”

Mother said confidently, “A good lawyer could prevent that from happening by proving Mildred's intent.”

“Moot point,” Tony told us. “The Conklins stopped by the station this morning to say they're going to honor Della's father's intent, and fulfill Simon's dream.”

Mother slapped the counter. “Well, you just
have
to love a happy ending!”

Tony straightened. “We're lucky this
did
have a ‘happy ending,' Vivian. You and Brandy could have wound up at the bottom of that well yourselves.”

Mother hopped off her stool. “I would simply love to discuss this with you further, Chief Cassato, and I do appreciate your implied thanks for clearing up another homicide for you. But for now, there's still one more box of Christmas decorations that need putting out before we close.”

And she disappeared faster than Old St. Nick going up a chimney. Even one without an evil dead nurse stuffed up it.

I gave Tony half a smile. “Why do you bother?”

“I should make a New Year's resolution not to,” he said wearily. Then a smile blossomed and he asked, “Dinner later? My place?”

“Love to.” Picking up some greenery from the counter, I held it over my head.

Tony leaned forward, and I leaned in, and we kissed under the mistletoe.

Mother was right—don't you just have to love a happy ending?

 

 

Vintage ornaments add a special touch to any Yuletide tree, but make sure when using old lights that their cords and/or wires are not frayed. One year we used a set of 1950s Noma twinkle lights that did more than just twinkle—they set our live tree aflame. Oh Tannenbaum!

Don't miss the next un-put-downable Trash ‘n'
Treasures Mystery by Barbara Allan

ANTIQUES FATE

Coming from Kensington in 2016

 

Continue reading to enjoy a teaser excerpt . . .

Brandy's Quote:

—Brandy Borne

 

 

Mother's Quote:

 

 

—Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Fate