Free Antiques Knock-Off by Barbara Allan

Jersey law enforcement before he came to Serenity.”
    “Oh!” Sis said, like a car coming to an abrupt stop. “Well, then, I guess that’s understandable….”
    That information I only recently learned from the chief himself, during one of our “date” evenings at his remote cabin hideaway. Also, that his expertise and testimony had been crucial in solving several big-city, mob-related killings.
    But I felt we were getting sidetracked, and said, “Can we please get back to the arraignment? In less than an hour? What can be done about Mother pleading guilty?”
    Ekhardt leaned forward with his elbows on the desk and tented his bony hands. He might have been praying. Seeing your mother’s attorney praying is not the most encouraging sight.
    Then he said, “I’m afraid … please, Brandy, Peggy Sue, understand the gravity of this situation … but my only option is to bring up Vivian’s mental illness.”
    Sis looked horrified. “But then … everyone in town will
know!”
    If I’d been drinking, I would have performed a world’s record spit-take. I said to her, “You mean there’s somebody in Serenity who
doesn’t
know?”
    Mr. Ekhardt patted the air with his hands, calming us, or trying to. “Now, ladies, please … we really haven’t much time. I can assure you I will handle this with as much discretion as possible.” He turned his somber visage my way. “How long has Vivian been off her medication?”
    “About three months,” I said.
    He nodded in thought. “Good. Good.”
    Sis was frowning. “What’s good about it?”
    The attorney said, “It paves the way for me to make a case with the judge that your mother is not currently able to make decisions for herself … at least not decisions that are in her own best interest. Is that all right with you?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    Peggy Sue sat frozen.
    “Sis? How’s this for a headline—‘MOTHER OF PEGGY SUE HASTING FOUND GUILTY OF MURDER’?”
    Finally, she gave a reluctant nod.
    Ekhardt stood from his desk, using it for support, the elderly gent seeming exhausted after our mildly confrontational consultation.
    “Why don’t you both run along to the courthouse,” he said. “I’ll be there in about ten minutes.”
    I was thinking that if he was going to make it over there in ten minutes, he’d better get started. But I said nothing.
    Sis and I were silent as we walked back down the long corridor, passing through more film noir stripes.
    At the elevator, looking rather stricken, she said, “Brandy, I … I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can go with you to the arraignment.”
    “That’s okay.” No stomach for it.
    “It would be just too … too …”
    She should have let it go when I said okay. I blurted, “Embarrassing? Humiliating? A three-ring circus with Mother the demented ringmaster?”
    Her smile was sickly. “I might not have put it just that way but … yes.”
    The air went out of my irritation. “That’s all right, Sis … I do understand.”
    She sighed with relief. She swallowed very hard, and maybe she was tearing up.
    The elevator arrived and we stepped on.
    And me? Why, I wouldn’t trade one of Mother’s court appearances for a DVD boxed set of
Perry Mason
episodes.
    Arraignments were held in a secondary courtroom on the second floor of the Serenity courthouse, a late nineteenth-century edifice of Grecian grandeur that the numbskulls (as Mother so delicately referred to them) who worked there kept trying to get torn down to make way for a new building with more space and central air-conditioning. So far Mother has been able to thwart such architectural genocide.
    (I make a point of never taking Mother along when going to the courthouse for Sushi’s dog license or to take care of property taxes or deal with license plate renewal … especially not in the summer. Some of those sweat-soaked clerks can be spiteful.)
    In the mornings, the smaller courtroom was used for traffic court, when herds of ensnared citizens were