Antiques Roadkill by Barbara Allan Page B

gentlemen for their hospitality and sat next to Vern. A waitress appeared with their lunches (the Blue Plate Special was meat loaf with mashed potatoes and corn) and I ordered iced tea and a bowl of chicken noodle soup.
    Four pairs of attentive eyes stared my way. At their age, that might have represented curiosity or horniness, hard to say. Unfortunately, probably the former …
    … and if rumors were going to fly, they might as well come from the horse’s mouth.
    “Not
much
mischief,” I said, and sipped my iced tea and smiled innocently. “I just ran over Clint Carson, is all.”
    Two forks clanked against plates, and four mouths yawned open, and a different kind of plate clanked in a mouth or two.
    “But it didn’t hurt anything,” I said.
    A narrow-eyed Ivan managed, “Really? Just a fender-bender?”
    “Oh, my fender is fine. Carson, however, is dead as a doorknob.”
    Randal, jaw still slack, said, “Don’t you mean doornail?”
    “Either way, I mean ‘dead'—but he was
already
dead, when I happened along.”
    And, while the Romeos ate, I launched into a dramatization of last night’s events, culminating with the morning’s visit from Officer Lawson. I omitted only Brandy’s admission of guilt in her misguided attempt to cover up for me (while I was nobly covering up for her).
    When my performance reached curtain, Vern was the first to speak.
    “I never knew Carson, really,” he said, eyes tight. “But I seem to remember
one
of us did.” Vern glanced around the table, eyes landing on the former mayor. “Ivan … didn’t
you
have some dealing with Carson?”
    The ex-mayor’s mouth formed a tight line. “I should say I did.”
    A few moments passed, tension palpable in the air.
    Ivan seemed reluctant to speak, but then at last he said, “This past summer, just before Mary passed away? I came home to find she’d sold nearly
all
our antiques—things that she and I had collected for years, from keepsakes to valuable pieces of furniture we’d carefully selected together … each with its own special story.”
    I thought the old boy might choke up, but he maintained his composure. He had abandoned his Blue Plate Special halfway through the meat loaf.
    “Mary was standing at the front door with cash in her hands,” Ivan went on, then laughed dryly. “She was so proud of herself! She’d made us some money, after all. Ofcourse, it was a pittance compared to what the stuff was really worth. I went out to Carson’s place on the highway, where that barn warehouse of his is, and—in a wholly even-tempered manner, mind you—explained that my wife didn’t realize what she’d done, that she’d not been herself lately, was … ill. And Carson’s response? Well, he just laughed in my face and said, ‘So
sue
me, old man—if you think you’ve got a case!’”
    Ivan pushed his plate angrily away. “I could have killed him myself at that moment,” he confessed. He looked around the table. “I’ll shed no tears for his heartless ass.… Sorry, Viv.”
    Randall asked, “Why
didn’t
you take him to court?”
    Ivan shook his head, then spoke softly. “It may come as a surprise to all of you, but before she passed away … Mary was showing certain signs of Alzheimer’s.”
    “No,” I said. “Really.”
    “Anyway, I wanted to protect her. Our attorney said we had a case, a legitimate case, but … I just couldn’t put her through the pain and embarrassment of a court trial.” His head lowered. “I guess maybe it was a blessing she died from pneumonia before that terrible disease
really
took hold.”
    He swallowed, and got pats on the shoulder on either side from his compadres.
    My soup came, and I sipped at it while Harold, the retired army captain, next unburdened himself. He told us that a week after his wife, Norma, died, Clint Carson appeared on his doorstep and had talked Harold into “unburdening himself” of a china cabinet filled with Haviland dishes … for only a few hundred