Read Online Antiques Chop (A Trash 'n' Treasures Mystery) by Barbara Allan - Free Book Online
Authors: Barbara Allan
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We’ll go fifty-fifty.”
“Negatory,” Joe said. “ I’m doing the grunt work.”
“But I’m the one who’ll get in deep doo-doo if she ever finds out.”
“Sixty-forty. It’s my caper. Also, I have the contacts who would pay premium shekels for this sort of thing.”
Jake sighed. A pause. “All right, all right. I don’t care what anybody says— you’re normal, all right. You must be, to drive that hard a bargain.”
“What’s going on?” I asked from the doorway.
Jake jumped, but Joe whirled toward me in a threatening karate stance.
Couldn’t I ever learn not to surprise a Marine?
“Whoa!” I said, palms up. “I’m a friendly, remember?”
Joe uncoiled, stood, maintaining an uneasy parade rest.
“Well, what’s up?” I asked again. “Am I the ‘she’ you’ll get in deep do-do with, if I find out?”
Jake said, “No, no . . . we’re just talkin’ about selling my baseball cards. Dad’s ex gave me a couple of valuable ones that I want to peddle with the rest of my collection.”
My son couldn’t lie any better than I could.
“What’s this about a ‘caper’? And ‘premium shekels’?”
Joe said, “Baseball cards are collectibles,” as if that answered everything. I was about to press them further, when shouting broke out below.
From the sound of it, things had gotten physical between Bruce and Phil.
Yet it was a woman doing most of the yelling.
Guess what woman.
“Joe!” I barked. “Can you serve as an M.P.?”
“Affirmative.”
To Jake I said, “You better stay here.”
“No way!” he shot back. “Somebody’s mixing it up down there, and my money’s on Grandma.”
We hurried down the stairs, through the kitchen, and into the parlor.
Where it wasn’t Mother who was yelling, after all—rather, a heavy-set woman in black sweater and slacks, the house’s former renter, Mary Beth Beckman herself, arguing loudly with Bruce Spring.
What the devil was the heavyset bookseller doing back here? Had she come for her pizza boxes?
Mary Beth—turning nearly as red as the scarf around her neck, tendrils of gray hair doing a Medusa number around her tomato of a face—thrust a threatening finger at the producer. “Perhaps Andrew Butterworth would be interested in knowing that the host of Heartland Homicides is involved here—the host slash producer who produced that documentary episode on his father’s murder, practically accusing him of it!”
Bruce, unfazed, countered, “Maybe he would be interested in knowing it was you, Miss Beckman, who contacted me in the first place. I’d never heard of the Butterworth murder or Serenity flipping Iowa, either, before you called me!”
Actually, he didn’t say “flipping.”
The bookseller’s mouth yawned open, then clamped shut, like a gate.
“Besides,” Bruce went on, “what makes you think he doesn’t know I produced the documentary?”
The woman laughed once, humorlessly. “Because you’re here , in this house! If Andrew Butterworth knew you were involved, he’d have never granted permission for you to shoot here!”
I moved deeper into the parlor. “What’s all this about?”
Mother, an interested bystander in this little tit-for-tat, scowled at me for busting in. She did love a good fracas.
“My dear,” Mary Beth addressed me in a highly patronizing manner, “I don’t think you have any idea who this Bruce Spring individual really is—which is to say, a liar, a conniver, and a breaker of promises . . . especially where money is concerned. Anyone who does business with him had better have an iron-clad contract and a regular Perry Mason for a lawyer.”
We had neither. (Mr. Ekhardt, our family attorney, now ninety, had been Serenity’s Perry Mason for many years, but now was prone to falling asleep in court.)
Jake, with Joe in the parlor entryway, came forward. “Bruce Spring isn’t any of those things, lady. He’s a reality TV genius! ”
That might be overstating it, but I’d
“Negatory,” Joe said. “ I’m doing the grunt work.”
“But I’m the one who’ll get in deep doo-doo if she ever finds out.”
“Sixty-forty. It’s my caper. Also, I have the contacts who would pay premium shekels for this sort of thing.”
Jake sighed. A pause. “All right, all right. I don’t care what anybody says— you’re normal, all right. You must be, to drive that hard a bargain.”
“What’s going on?” I asked from the doorway.
Jake jumped, but Joe whirled toward me in a threatening karate stance.
Couldn’t I ever learn not to surprise a Marine?
“Whoa!” I said, palms up. “I’m a friendly, remember?”
Joe uncoiled, stood, maintaining an uneasy parade rest.
“Well, what’s up?” I asked again. “Am I the ‘she’ you’ll get in deep do-do with, if I find out?”
Jake said, “No, no . . . we’re just talkin’ about selling my baseball cards. Dad’s ex gave me a couple of valuable ones that I want to peddle with the rest of my collection.”
My son couldn’t lie any better than I could.
“What’s this about a ‘caper’? And ‘premium shekels’?”
Joe said, “Baseball cards are collectibles,” as if that answered everything. I was about to press them further, when shouting broke out below.
From the sound of it, things had gotten physical between Bruce and Phil.
Yet it was a woman doing most of the yelling.
Guess what woman.
“Joe!” I barked. “Can you serve as an M.P.?”
“Affirmative.”
To Jake I said, “You better stay here.”
“No way!” he shot back. “Somebody’s mixing it up down there, and my money’s on Grandma.”
We hurried down the stairs, through the kitchen, and into the parlor.
Where it wasn’t Mother who was yelling, after all—rather, a heavy-set woman in black sweater and slacks, the house’s former renter, Mary Beth Beckman herself, arguing loudly with Bruce Spring.
What the devil was the heavyset bookseller doing back here? Had she come for her pizza boxes?
Mary Beth—turning nearly as red as the scarf around her neck, tendrils of gray hair doing a Medusa number around her tomato of a face—thrust a threatening finger at the producer. “Perhaps Andrew Butterworth would be interested in knowing that the host of Heartland Homicides is involved here—the host slash producer who produced that documentary episode on his father’s murder, practically accusing him of it!”
Bruce, unfazed, countered, “Maybe he would be interested in knowing it was you, Miss Beckman, who contacted me in the first place. I’d never heard of the Butterworth murder or Serenity flipping Iowa, either, before you called me!”
Actually, he didn’t say “flipping.”
The bookseller’s mouth yawned open, then clamped shut, like a gate.
“Besides,” Bruce went on, “what makes you think he doesn’t know I produced the documentary?”
The woman laughed once, humorlessly. “Because you’re here , in this house! If Andrew Butterworth knew you were involved, he’d have never granted permission for you to shoot here!”
I moved deeper into the parlor. “What’s all this about?”
Mother, an interested bystander in this little tit-for-tat, scowled at me for busting in. She did love a good fracas.
“My dear,” Mary Beth addressed me in a highly patronizing manner, “I don’t think you have any idea who this Bruce Spring individual really is—which is to say, a liar, a conniver, and a breaker of promises . . . especially where money is concerned. Anyone who does business with him had better have an iron-clad contract and a regular Perry Mason for a lawyer.”
We had neither. (Mr. Ekhardt, our family attorney, now ninety, had been Serenity’s Perry Mason for many years, but now was prone to falling asleep in court.)
Jake, with Joe in the parlor entryway, came forward. “Bruce Spring isn’t any of those things, lady. He’s a reality TV genius! ”
That might be overstating it, but I’d
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