Best Place to Die by Charles Atkins

field about five years ago and began to charge admission. The stated reason had to do with liability and concern that excited buyers would trip, fall, and injure themselves in the dark. But really, it was greed. The market’s owners realized that the thousands of antique and collectible aficionados who showed up each week would shell out a buck or two. The market was a cash cow, so in addition to the rent they charged for the spaces and the cut they got off the food concessions they were now raking in over ten grand a week from admission fees. Sure, a couple bucks is no big deal, but it rankled and the loss of the free-for-all fun of scurrying across the field in pursuit of bargains at five in the morning was sad to lose. But this Saturday, and what she’d noticed for the past couple years, by the time they paid the two bucks and made it through the gate on to the field, other buyers had been there long before them. What had apparently happened was dealers, and some of the locals, were slipping bribes at the gate and getting on to the field hours before the official start time. The going rate was around fifty bucks. Which, yes, some antique shows advertise early buying for which they charge a premium. But not Brantsville, so essentially it was graft. Low-level, annoying corruption at Lil’s favorite place to spend a Saturday morning. So while she dutifully typed in all the details about the flea market for her column – how to get there, the URL for the website, how much it cost for the dealers to set up, etc., she ran a parallel piece in her head, and jotted down a few notes for a future column.
Stay on task
. Easier said than done, as she remembered something that sent her scurrying back to the other computer on the dining-room table. She scrolled through the flea market photos, flagging the ones that would accompany the article, including a beautiful long shot of the dense mist hovering over the market, and the long line waiting to go through the admission gate. But that’s not what she was looking for. ‘Wow!’ And there he was. Dr Norman Trask, a man she knew peripherally through Bradley, who’d clearly gotten on to the field well ahead of the rest of them. As they were just clearing the gate, the tall silver-haired surgeon was heading in the opposite direction toward the parking lot pushing a battle-scarred shopping cart laden with bulging cardboard boxes and a large wooden clock, hastily wrapped in a stained blanket and duct tape. The expression on his face a combination of exertion and glee. ‘Wow!’ she repeated, as Ada emerged from the bedroom. With her tea in hand, she looked at the photo.
    â€˜What a difference a day makes,’ was her somber comment. ‘He seems happy at least.’
    â€˜He does, and now he’s dead.’ Lil looked at Ada, her eyes bright, her spiky silver hair squished down on one side. ‘How’s your head?’ she asked.
    â€˜Nothing a lobotomy couldn’t fix.’
    â€˜Do you mind checking on them?’ Lil asked, referring to her mother, Alice and Aaron over in Ada’s condo.
    â€˜Later,’ she said. ‘You know, sleeping dogs and all that. Quite a Scrabble game,’ she commented.
    â€˜I thought it was brilliant,’ Lil said, referring to last night’s somewhat bizarre events.
    â€˜If nothing else, it helped Mom. That woman likes nothing better than trouncing me at Scrabble.’
    â€˜I still don’t think all those interrogatives count. I mean really? “Er, hm, uh”; I don’t think so.’
    â€˜Rose Rimmelman knows her two-letter words.’
    â€˜I think she cheats. And exactly how much of the Yiddish-English dictionary is acceptable?’
    â€˜Apparently a lot,’ Ada said, ‘at least according to the Oxford Unabridged. What a night . . .’
    â€˜It wasn’t boring,’ Lil said, feeling pulled. It was clear Ada wanted to rehash the events of