Antiques Bizarre by Barbara Allan Page A

to where the roughly handsome fortyish, barrel-chested chief now stood on the porch, having followed Mother out. His arms were folded, his expression probably the same as Sitting Bull surveying the aftermath of Custer’s Last Stand.
    “Interrogated about what?” I frowned. “I gave a statement at the church. What more can I tell?”
    Tony Casatto, stony-faced, moved to take my arm. “It’s not called interrogation anymore, Vivian—it’s a simple interview. But you do need to come with me, Brandy.”
    I gaped at him. What had I done? Or what did he think I had done? Good Lord, had the birthday party called and complained about me harassing them? Can you call the cops and complain about civilian harassment?
    We were moving toward the unmarked car, his hand on my elbow, Mother on our heels. This was what walking the Last Mile must have felt like for Death Row inmates. (Well, okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration….)
    “Is she being charged?” Mother demanded indignantly. “Is she a material witness?” To me she said, “Dear, don’t answer any questions without talking to our lawyer.”
    Our attorney happened to be around ninety, and most likely was in bed asleep right now. If he wasn’t in bed, he was still likely to be asleep.
    Chief Cassato opened the back door of the vehicle, saying over his shoulder to Mother, “She’ll be back in a few hours.”
    Then he deposited me inside.
    Just another confused perp.
    A Trash ‘n’ Treasures Tip
    Charity bazaars can turn up unexpected treasures, like the time Mother bought a coat, and found a hundred-dollar bill in one pocket. The Christian thing would have been to return the money to its rightful owner, but in Mother’s mind “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is trumped by “Finders keepers, losers weepers.”

Chapter Five
Good Egg or Bad Egg?
    C hief Cassato’s unmarked car lacked the mesh screen separating front and back that squad cars have, so it wasn’t like I was a prisoner, right? I mean, on TV and in movies, you see bad guys in back with no door handles and no way to roll windows down or anything, making escape impossible (or anyway hard, because—on TV and in movies—they often do find a way to escape).
    Not that I was thinking of escaping. But if this wasn’t official, if I wasn’t some kind of witness if not suspect, why had he deposited me in back? We were friends, weren’t we? Why wasn’t I sitting up front with Daddy?
    I was just telling myself there was nothing sinister about my backseat banishment when we drove past the police station, and before long were heading out the river road.
    I leaned forward. “Ah…Chief? Tony? Where exactly are we going?”
    He eyed me in the rearview mirror. “You just sit tight, young lady.”
    Young lady! Normally, a thirty-one-year-old woman being called “young lady” might be viewed as a compliment of sorts, left-handed maybe but reassuring on some level. But there was nothing reassuring going on in my Prozac-freemind. The chief might not have been speeding, but my brain was shifting into overdrive, concocting all sorts of scenarios—none of them good.
    Good Lord, what if Serenity’s top cop was actually involved in either the murder of Louis Martinette or the theft of the Fabergé egg? Did he think that I had seen, or heard, something that could implicate him in one or both of those crimes?
    All of this was ludicrous, of course, and such thoughts would never have gone running wild in the canyon between my ears if I hadn’t shared DNA with Vivian Borne. And the silly paranoia was not aided by the chief turning off the scenic blacktop highway onto a secondary country road, the tires kicking up gravel and dust.
    I leaned up. “ Where are you taking me?”
    But this time he didn’t even reply. Not even a glance from his steel-gray eyes!
    “Look, you can’t just throw somebody in the back of your car and go riding off without explanation. This is America! This is Iowa! Just