Gilt by Association (13 page)

“As in automobile?”

“What other kind is there? When she was a teenager she stole a car in Charlotte and drove it down to Myrtle Beach.”

I was taken aback. “Well, I suppose we all made dumb mistakes when we were kids. Tipped over garbage cans, that sort of thing.”

“I didn't. Anyway, once a thief, always a thief, if you ask me. Frankly, I'm surprised Amy hasn't stolen back the furniture you bought. She's always been one to have her cake and eat it, too.”

She stood up. “Well, it's been real, Mrs. Timberlake. If you change your mind—”

“I know where to find you,” I said. “At Rumpelstiltskin's, playing the piano and singing Doris Day songs.”

I hadn't meant to sound sarcastic, I really hadn't. I adore Doris Day, and
someone
has to perform in piano bars. Nonetheless, Toxie took offense at my remark and blew a final blast of smoke in my face, before wobbling off, half a foot above the floor. It took fifteen minutes for the smoke to clear enough for me to spot Norma.

 

“This isn't my station,” Norma said. She looked bone-tired, although she had just started work. “If you sit over there, I'll try and spare a few minutes. Or do you want to eat this time?”

“How about a large order of Beijing barbecue?” She smiled, her wad of gum tucked safely in her cheek.
“I see we're getting really authentic here. Bubba buys his sauce from an old man down in Fort Mill, South Carolina.”

“Red Bailey?” His sauce was legendary throughout York and Mecklenburg counties.

She nodded. “It would be cheaper if you bought the sauce directly and made your own chicken for supper. That's what I do when I'm off.”

But my mouth was craving
Bubba's
Beijing barbecue then, so I kept my order for the large platter and switched tables. What I didn't eat I'd take home in a doggie bag and Dmitri and I would polish it off in front of the TV as our supper.

I had come dangerously close to spoiling that plan, and had eaten over half the platter when Norma slipped into the booth opposite me. Her open palm was extended. The girl was absolutely right. Buying from Red Bailey directly would have been a whole lot cheaper.

“I'm not NationsBank,” I said sweetly. “I'm divorced as well.”

She stood up. “And I'm on duty.”

I dropped a ten-dollar bill in her hand.

“Is this my tip?”

“Five more, and that's all you get.”

“So what do you want to ask me this time?”

“Well, you said before that your husband—I mean your ex-husband—did odd jobs. Did he perchance ever work for an auctioneer named Purnell Purvis?”

Her molars beat a furious tattoo on that wad of gum while she considered this.

“Purnell Purvis,” I repeated, and patted my purse provocatively.

“You mean that guy in Pineville?” she asked at last. “The one with the barn?”

“That's the one.”

“Yeah, I think sometimes he did. Only he hated it. That
Purvis guy has two sons, both of them meaner even than Arnie. One day
he
came back from there with a black eye. It was all I could do to keep from laughing.”

It was all I could to keep from singing. Finally something that made sense. Another piece for my puzzle.

“I'd like a doggie bag,” I said politely.

When she was gone I did a shameful thing and skipped out without paying. Bubba would undoubtedly dock her for my meal, but I had given her more than enough money to pay for it, plus a nice fat tip. Besides, now she could take the leftover chicken home.

T
here are certain advantages to being slight of stature. Because Purvis's warehouse is even more cluttered than Wynnell's shop, Jimbo and Skeet didn't see me coming. By treading lightly and keeping to the shadows, I was able to sneak right up on them and catch them smoking in a little cove they had created among the packing crates. That should have startled the pee out of them, and maybe it did, but those two are masters at faked nonchalance. They pretended not to notice me and kept on puffing, no doubt hoping that I would just go away.

“Hey, fellows,” I said cheerily. “How are you this afternoon?”

It was forced cheer, of course, but I'm a good actress. Just ask Buford.

Jimbo gave me a pained expression. “I ain't doing so good. Pulled my back the other day loading the truck. I was just fixing to quit and go home.”

“Me, too,” Skeet said, and threw his cigarette butt on the floor, where it lay smoldering, dangerously close to a packing crate. “The quitting part, I mean. Been here since six o'clock this morning.”

“Well, in that case, how about I buy you both beers?”

That threw them for a loop.

“What do you want, ma'am?” Skeet said. He was a tall, skinny man, topped by a shock of unruly blond hair.

I smiled pleasantly. “I want to show my appreciation for y'all delivering that armoire yesterday. I think I forgot to tip you.”

“You tipped us just fine,” Jimbo said. He was short and heavy-boned, and I could see how eighty pounds might well turn him into his father.

“No, I insist,” I said. “Beers on me.”

“I'm religious now,” Skeet said. “Don't drink no more.”

I chuckled appropriately. What a hoot. The fruit of Purvis's loins pretending to be a teetotaler.

“Naw, I mean it. I'm Pentecostal. Ain't' I, Jimbo?”

“But you still smoke,” I said pleasantly.

He still spat as well. “The Bible don't say nothing about smoking. Jimbo, you tell her I'm serious.”

“Yup, he's serious, all right,” Jimbo said. The sadness was clearly evident in his voice. “Had his head on straight though until he married Becky. But I enjoy a nice cold one from time to time.”

That sounded like acceptance of my invitation. Unfortunately it was meant for
both
of them. After my close encounter with that loathsome lothario who called himself a doctor—Bobby Bowman, I mean—I wasn't about to take on a single man in some dark bar. Not even a pudgy man with a bad back.

I glanced at my watch. “Well, look at that. It's quarter to three already. I guess I don't have time for that beer after all. But I do have time for a few questions.”

“I ain't got none to ask,” Skeet said. He started shuffling off.

“No, no, I want to ask the questions. They won't take long, I promise.”

Skeet turned and nodded in the direction of Purvis's tiny office.

“Oh, it's quite all right with your dad,” I said.

“'Cause he don't like us taking his valuable time chatting with customers.”

“Well, you were both just fixing to quit for the day,” I reminded them.

“That's right,” Jimbo said. “So we're outta here.”

“Your daddy know y'all smoke around his valuable merchandise?” I asked pleasantly.

“Ask them questions fast,” Jimbo grunted. “My back's killing me.”

I almost believed him. “Well—I mean, didn't y'all think that armoire was a little heavy for its size? You know, the one y'all delivered for me yesterday?”

“You're damn straight,” Skeet said. “how the hell do you think Jimbo here hurt his back?” Apparently he hadn't been religious long enough to clean up his language.

“Did y'all think to look inside it?” I asked gently.

“Hey,” Jimbo growled, “the police already asked us that. Like we told them, it ain't our business to look inside the merchandise.”

“And anyway, it was locked,” Skeet said.

I thought about that. He was right. The armoire had been locked, at least upon delivery. The key, however, had been in the door. Still, it was easy to believe that both brothers were too lazy to turn the key. Or maybe they had, but found that the eighteenth-century mechanism required too much precision for their fumbling hands.

“Why of course it was. How silly of me,” I said. “Well, you didn't happen to see anyone unusual hanging around the storage room or loading dock after the auction, did you?”

They both looked at me like I was crazy.

“Monday is auction day,” Skeet said. He spoke loud and slow, as one might speak to a foreigner who had only a rudimentary command of English (
and
who was hard of hearing).

“I know Monday is auction day,” I said irritably. “That's when I bought the armoire.”

Jimbo decided to translate for his brother. “Yeah, but he means that on Mondays there is always a bunch of strangers hanging around. People poking around here and there, wanting to get a last look at something they wished they bought but didn't. And sometimes it's just people poking. People who don't got no business being here.”

“He got that right, little lady,” said a third voice.

I turned. It was an obviously perturbed Purvis.

“Hey,” I said amiably.

“Mrs. Timberlake—”

“That's
Ms.
,” I said.

He waved a pudgy hand impatiently. “You and I do business on a regular basis. You're a good steady customer, and I like that. I know you can always pay, because you always do. But that doesn't give you a right to be bothering my boys.”

I tried to disarm him with one of my more charming smiles, but I must have had some of the Beijing barbecue stuck in my teeth.

“You got any more questions to ask, Mrs. Timberlake, you ask them of me. Jimbo here is a little slow, and Skeet—you know what too much religion does for a man.”

“
Daddy
,” one of them said.

“Well, okay, Mr. Purvis, I do have a question. As a matter of fact, I asked it before, but you weren't inclined to answer it. Not honestly, at any rate.”

“You calling me a liar, ma'am?” His pink proboscis fairly glowed.

“No, sir. Perhaps just forgetful. I forget things myself now and then, and I'm perhaps a year or two younger than you. Just yesterday, as a matter of fact—”

“Ma'am?”

I inhaled deeply, willing myself to remain calm. It isn't
easy for me to lie, even to call someone's bluff. “Norma Ramsey, Arnie's widow told me that he was working for you the day he was murdered. But you denied that when we had our little chat yesterday.”

Purvis squinted at me. The afternoon sun was full in his face. It would have been a handsome face without the Pernod nose, plus the absence of a few pounds.

“I don't want any trouble, Mrs. Timberlake. I've been in business here twenty-eight years, and I've never had any trouble. Not with the police. And like I said, my boys are good boys. They won't ever amount to much, and they move slower than snakes in a bucket of ice, but they're good, honest men.”

I can recognize a plea of clemency when I hear one.

“And I don't want to cause any trouble, sir.”

He sighed, and I could smell fumes that were practically flammable. It was a good thing the boys had stopped smoking.

“About that Arnie Ramsey guy, he does—I mean did—do a little work for me now and then. Sometimes Jimbo's back just plumb gives out on him, and Skeet—well, before he found religion, he wasn't always so reliable.

“But Arnie wasn't working for me Monday. Come to think of it, I haven't had to use him since after Labor Day.”

“That's when I found religion,” Skeet said. “Me and Jimbo was fishing on the Catawba River and our boat sprung a leak.”

“It didn't just spring a leak,” Purvis explained. “The water was low and they hit a rock. Tore up my boat good and I just bought it in May.”

Skeet waved a hand impatiently, no doubt a habit learned from his father. “Anyway, that boat filled up faster than a bathtub with both faucets turned on full. There was no way we could make it back to shore before it sank
out from underneath us. Jimbo can swim some, but I can't. So I was drowning, you see, and asked God to save me. I promised that if he did, I'd start going to the first church I saw.”

“The Tabernacle of Truth and Holiness Pentecostal Church,” Purvis said, the disdain in his voice quite evident to me. “That's a little too much religion, if you ask me. Still, it has kept Skeet sober.”

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” I said. “So you didn't need Arnie after Labor Day, is that right?”

Purvis shook his head. “Came close, though, a couple of times, because of Jimbo's back.”

“Are you sure Arnie wasn't working for you on Monday?” I asked for the last time.

Purvis's eyes narrowed. He'd had enough of my interrogation.

“You couldn't prove it if he did,” he snapped.

“The Lord could heal Jimbo's back if he'd let him,” Skeet said. “I know he could. I've seen it happen myself.”

“You don't know shit,” Jimbo growled.

“Fuck you,” Skeet said.

“Boys!”

Poor Purvis. No wonder he had a penchant for Pernod. It was a wonder he didn't hire someone like Arnie full-time.

“Well, y'all have been very helpful,” I said. “I guess I'm going to have to dig around elsewhere for information on Arnie Ramsey.”

“I have his address,” Purvis said, now that I no longer posed a threat. “But it won't do you much good. I think he moved out on his wife.”

“Well, there is his girlfriend,” Skeet said.

Jimbo nudged his brother and mumbled. Skeet didn't seem to notice.

“I don't know her real name, but they call her Kitty.
She's a waitress at the Top Half. Of course you wouldn't want to go there. Not by yourself, anyway.”

“Oh?”

“It's a titty bar,” he said. The Pentecostals were going to have to work harder on their convert.

I thanked the three of them for cooperation.

“Hey, I didn't mean nothing personal,” Purvis said. “Mrs. Timberlake, I hope you and I continue to do business for a long time.”

“I hope so too,” I said, and I meant it.

 

My blind date wasn't until seven, so I had plenty of time to drive over to my ex's and see how Charlie was doing. Susan was already in college, and so basically out of the house when Buford and I divorced. Charlie, however, is still living with his father, and stepmother, in the same house he grew up in. Because of that, I think the divorce has been harder on him than on Susan.

I know it isn't easy for me to drive up to the same house I'd lived in for so many years and have the door answered by someone named Tweetie Byrd Timberlake. Ironically, in the past few months, Tweetie Byrd—my silicone replacement—has begun to look up to me, almost like a big sister.

“Abby!” she cried when she saw me at the front door, and literally pulled me inside.

“Tweetie, you all right?”

She burst into tears. “No, I'm not.”

I gave her a perfunctory hug at arm's length. Frankly it bothers me to have even fleeting contact with the implants that displaced me. What is it about the female mammary glands that men find so attractive? Our closest relatives, chimpanzees, don't have breast fetishes. Breasts are, after all, simply mini food factories for babies, and most men don't find babies all that interesting.

Although I haven't personally interviewed any of them,
I bet those men who live in cultures where the women go topless all the time, and come dangerously close to stepping on their own breasts, don't have a bigger-is-better attitude. But even if I allow for the average American male's obsession for that two pounds or so of fat that encase our lactose glands, what
is
so damn attractive about breasts like Tweetie's? Her silicone cones started out as petroleum, for pete's sake. Ditto for Deena, and probably Kitty.

“Oh Abby, I'm so glad to see you,” Tweetie blubbered.

I didn't see how she could see anything. In a few seconds her tear ducts had turned those multiple coats of mascara into black rivulets that oozed slowly out between clumped lashes. I couldn't see her irises at all. You would think that with all Buford's money, and her penchant for plastic, Tweetie would forsake her mascara and wear a fresh pair of false lashes each day. I suppose, though, old habits die hard.

“There, there,” I said and guided her to a couch that I had selected during one of the happier years of my marriage. Incidentally, it was not beige, but a cheerful blue and yellow cabbage rose chintz.

“Oh, Abby, I just don't know what to do,” she sobbed.

“You can start at the beginning, dear.”

“It's Carla, his secretary.”

“So we've come full circle, have we?” I asked gently.

“What?” Tweetie and Jimbo are intellectual equals.

I wanted to reminded her that she had once been Buford's secretary and that not long ago I had been crying in Mama's arms about
her
—Tweetie, that is. I wanted her to realize that she had caused me the same pain Carla was causing her. But—and I know this will sound like a cop-out—what was the use? We human beings are skilled at justifying our own behavior, even when it is identical to behavior we abhor in others.

“Are you
sure
?” I asked.

“Oh, I'm positive.”

“What are the signs, dear?”

“He doesn't talk to me anymore, Abby. I mean, really talk.”

“What else?”

“When I tell him I love him, he says, ‘Me, too'.”

“Go on.”

“And he never gives me presents anymore. When we first—well, once he gave me a gold, heart-shaped locket, with a tiny diamond on it.”

“So that's what happened to it!” I said.