8 Antiques Con Read Online Free PDF

businesslike but friendly, offering a hand first to Mother, then to me. He seemed not at all offended that we’d invaded his space. “You’re guests at the hotel?”
    We nodded.
    He smiled—again, businesslike. Though his eyes never seemed to leave our faces, he somehow seemed aware of that briefcase dangling from Mother’s wrist like bizarre goth bling. “How may I help you, ladies?”
    At my tender age, I wasn’t crazy about being called a “lady,” but he meant well. A man can’t call a woman of thirty “a girl” without getting in trouble. On the other hand, a man can call a woman over forty a girl and get a smile for it. As these pointless thoughts threaded through my brain, I was noting Sipcowski’s presence in the various police photos on the wall.
    The ex-officer was of average height, in his mid- to late fifties, his stark white hair conservatively cut, as was his navy suit, the white shirt and striped shades of blue tie almost a uniform. Years on the NYPD had given his oval face a well-grooved, weathered look but his brown eyes remained alert.
    Mother, taking an immediate shine to the middle-aged man, said coquettishly, “We had a teensy-weensy little problem last night.”
    At least she wasn’t speaking in her fake Brit accent.
    “Oh?” His eyebrows went up, but the alert eyes became half hooded. “What kind of problem?” He gestured toward the visitors’ chairs. “Please, please, ladies, sit.”
    And he moved behind his desk and into his chair, leaning forward, fingers tented, ready to calm any guest’s concern or irksome ire, his manner conveying that he took seriously whatever that concern or ire might be.
    And at a hotel like this one, he could encounter a lot of screwballs with wacky concerns and ires. For example, right now he was about to deal with Vivian Borne.
    Mother placed the briefcase on the floor beside her, handcuffed arm dangling down as if wounded.
    “Mr. Sipcowski,” Mother began, “you may have noticed my briefcase.”
    “Please, call me Robert. And, yes, I did.”
    Mother nodded. “Very well, Robert. And please take the liberty of calling me Vivian.”
    I closed my eyes. I tried to keep my groan interior.
    Mother was gesturing toward me with her free hand. “And this is my daughter, Brandy—oh! I guess I should say, technically, she’s my granddaughter. Peggy Sue—that’s my real daughter, that is, I mean to say, my natural daughter, not that little Brandy is unnatural in any way. . . .” And here she giggled girlishly. “. . . Well, Peggy Sue had Brandy on the other side of the blanket, as folks were wont to say back in the day, but of course Brandy didn’t know about that until last year.”
    Robert’s smile had frozen, the alert eyes glazing over. This happened fairly often to people meeting Mother for the first time.
    I said, “We had an intruder in our room last night.”
    Mother frowned in my direction, as if I’d spoken in a most inappropriate manner. “I thought we agreed that I was to do the explaining, dear.”
    “Well, you explained quite a bit, and now I’ll just fill in what you left out.”
    “I was getting around to it, dear.”
    “I’m sure, but, uh, Mr. Sipcowski might be interested in how the story of our lives pertains to his hotel. So I cut to the chase.”
    “Dear, there was no chase. The intruder simply scurried out when you blew that rape whistle.”
    This perked Robert up. “Well, that’s a start—you’ve cleared up the source of the shrill whistle that awoke several guests on the fifteenth floor last night.”
    I said, “We’re in fifteen thirty-seven. Although we may be registered in fourteen-twenty-one.”
    Robert cleared his throat. “Ladies . . . perhaps we could back up and start at the beginning.”
    Vivian, whose chin was up defensively, said, “I thought that’s what I was doing.”
    I said, “Not that far back, Mother.”
    The security chief said, “Could we get to the pertinent information? Vivian, would