Barbara Allan - Antiques Bizarre

BARBARA ALLAN

is the joint pseudonym for husband-and-wife mystery writers Barbara and Max Allan Collins.

BARBARA COLLINS is one of the most respected short story writers in the mystery field, with appearances in over a dozen top anthologies, including Murder Most Delicious, Women on the Edge, Deadly Housewives and the bestselling Cat Crimes series. She was the coeditor of (and a contributor to) the best-selling anthology Lethal Ladies, and her stories were selected for inclusion in the first three volumes of The Years 25 Finest Crime and Mystery Stories.

Two acclaimed hardcover collections of her work have been publishedToo Many Tomcats and (with her husband) MurderHis and Hers. The Collinss first novel together, the Baby Boomer thriller Regeneration, was a paperback bestseller; their second collaborative novel, Bombshellin which Marilyn Monroe saves the world from World War IIIwas published in hardcover to excellent reviews.

Barbara has been the production manager and/or line producer on various independent film projects emanating from the production company she and her husband jointly run.

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ANTIQUES KNOCK-OFF

Coming from Kensington in March 2011

I f you are in a bookstore, reading this opening paragraph, trying to decide whether or not to shell out your hard-earned money, you should know that I, Brandy Bornethirty-one, bottle blonde, divorced, who came running home last year to live with her bipolar motheram not perfect. I make my share of mistakes. Repeatedly. I am not always what you might call nice. Nobodys role model.

(Also, there will be parenthetical remarks. Ive been told the mark of a really bad writer is the overuse of parenthetical remarks. But you wouldnt know that, if I hadnt made a parenthetical remark just now.)

Therefore, I will understand if you replace this book on the shelf. One favor, please, if you dont make a purchase? Could you face the cover out? And perhaps (if no clerks are lurking to catch you at it), move the book to a more prominent spot? Thank you.

So much has happened in the fourteen months since Ive been back in Serenity, a small Midwestern town nestled on a bend of the mighty Mississippi, that I hardly know where to begin. Actually, I began four books ago, but dont panicI can catch you up, quickly, and those of you who have been with Mother and me from the beginning (God bless you, and no sneeze required) might appreciate a refresher.

Besides the several murder mysteries in which Mother and I got ourselves involved (Mother a willing participant, me not so), I had also received two disturbing anonymous letters.

The first claimed that my much-older sister, Peggy Suewho lives in a tonier part of townwas my birth mother; the other missive insisted that my biological father was none other than a certain United States senator.

After confronting Sis about these obnoxious notes, she confirmed that their contents were accurate, which put an added strain on our already strained relationship. But we both came to the conclusion that, for the present, we would keep these revelations to ourselves, and not disturb the status quo. Sis was to remain Sis, and Mother Mother which suited social-climbing Peggy Sue just fine. Me, I had my own reasons for keeping quiet, chief among them not disturbing an already plenty disturbed Mother, who had stopped taking her bipolar medication a few months ago.

We now return you to the regularly scheduled mystery novel (and there will be another mystery, and another murder, despite my best efforts otherwise).

Summer had once again arrived in Serenity, though it seemed something of a surprise after endless snow and then continual rain that had caused a flood from which our little community was still recovering. These were what we Midwesterners call the dog days: hot and humid, a literal pressure cookerwell, not a literal pressure cooker, but more than just a figurative one.

And while those with money fled north to Minnesota and Canada until the weather cooled off, we common folk holed up in air-conditioned houses, or malls, or movie theaters, venturing out only in the early-morning hours, or late evening, when the heat was barely tolerable.

At the moment, I was indoors, specifically upstairs in my bedroom, trying to find something to wear that was cool, and cool. Because being seven months pregnant during the summer was no picnic.

Oh! Didnt I mention I was expecting? Sorry. Okay, just a little more catching up.

My best friend, Tina, couldnt have a baby with her husband, Kevin (because shed had cervical cancer), so I volunteered to be a surrogate mother for them. (Sometimes I am nice.) But dont worryIm not going to be all, Ooooh, my back hurts, and I gotta pee again, for three hundred pages. Nor will you have to encounter such verbs as trundled, or waddled. Youll hardle even know Im preggers. Just, when you picture meshoulder-length blond hair, brown-eyed, kinda prettydont forget to add a baby bump.

From my closet I selected an outfit Tina bought for mea Juicy Couture yellow sundress (from their maternity line) and a pair of orange Havaianas (flip-flops that I d always wanted but wouldnt buy myself because I couldnt pronounce them). You see, I figure if you dress right, people wont think trundle or waddle when you pass them in the street.

Sushi, my brown-and-white. blind, diabetic shih tzu (actually, my only shih tzu, and the only thing besides clothes that I slunk home with after the divorce) (Jake, twelve, was staying with his father in Chicago) (I warned you about the parentheticals) was on the floor a few feet away, attacking an old brown Brighton snakeskin belt as if it were a real reptile. I used the thing to keep her busy while I got dressed, otherwise shed drag out all my shoes from the closet. I would hide the belt in the bedroom for her to findwhich shed sniff out in a nano-second, even though she couldnt see it, having slobbered on the thing so much.

After checking myself out in the large round mirror of my Art Deco dressing table, feeling a pregnant woman of thirty-one had no right to look so cute, I scooped Sushi up and headed downstairs to find Mother.

This morning, we were taking in an antique mantel clock to be fixed; it was lovely but not keeping time. We had snagged the clock at a tag sale because the seller (an out-of-state relative of the deceased) didnt know its regional value and, naturally, we kept mum, as is the prerogative of any dealer (first rule of collecting).

Mother and I had a booth at the downtown antiques malllocated in a four-story Victorian brick buildingand we figured that once the clock had been cleaned and repaired, we could sell it for five times what we paid. Mother would take the lions share (or lionesss share) because she had spotted it first.

Our acquisition was one of only a few thousand such clocks made right here in Serenity from about 1890 to 1920 by the celebrated Andre Acklin, who had emigrated from Switzerland to take advantage of the top quality wood from our lumber mills (for clock casings), and pearl from the Mississippi mussel shells (clock faces).

As a young man, Acklin had worked in France with Jules Audemars and Edward Piguetfuture founders of Audemars Piguet Watch Companybut Acklin went his own way when the other two men began to concentrate on expensive pocket watches. Acklin preferred creating larger timepieces over working in miniature, and also wanted to use more natural materials.

Sadly, Serenitys famed clockmaker died one bitter winter afternoon in 1920, when a fire broke out in his shop on Main Street, blotting out the cold temporarily and the clockmaker permanently. According to local legend, some of his precious inventory did survive.