Larceny and Old Lace (3 page)

M
y phone rang off the hook. Virtually every other shop owner in the Selwyn Avenue Antique Dealers Association called with words of sympathy. Some of it heartfelt.

“Sorry to hear about your aunt,” Rob Goldburg said. “I didn't mean the terrible things I said yesterday at breakfast. I really didn't. Is there something we can do to help?”

He sounded sincere. I said no, and thanked him. The “we” was undoubtedly meant to include his new partner, Bob Somebody-or-the-other. I had yet to meet the fellow, but rumor had it that he was from New York, a real expert on some of the upscale merchandise that the rest of us just dabble in. Rumor also had it that Rob and Bob were more than business partners.

The rumor-spreader must have been hard at work.

“Abigail? Wynnell here. I just heard the news and I'm sick to my stomach. How awful for you. You want me to close up shop for a few minutes and come on over?”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I'm doing fine.”

“You sure, dear? I can't imagine I'd be fine if my aunt was raped and then decapitated.”

“That's not what happened.”

“Oh, was it the other way around? Good Lord, what's this city coming to? Charlotte used to be such a good place to live in. I'll tell you what the trouble is, Abigail. It's those damn Yankees.”

“She wasn't raped or decapitated, Wynnell. She was stran
gled by a bell pull. And what's this about Yankees? As far as I know the police have no suspects.”

“Well, if it wasn't a Yankee, then it was someone influenced by a Yankee. If you ask me, we should build an electric fence along the Mason-Dixon line. Then you'll see. Our crime rate would plummet.”

“And so would our sales, Wynnell. What percentage of your sales is to tourists?”

“There are southern tourists as well, Abigail. We don't need murdering Yankees to survive.”

I prayed my most frequent prayer, the one for patience. “The police haven't fingered a Yankee, Wynnell. At this point the killer could turn out to be anybody. Who knows, it could even turn out to be you.”

“That isn't funny, Abigail. I was going to apologize for what I said about your aunt yesterday at breakfast, but now maybe I won't.”

I could feel Wynnell's withering look from four shops away. The woman missed her calling. Somewhere there's a classroom full of unruly kids who could benefit from the juxtaposition of Wynnell Crawford's eyebrows.

I succumbed to temptation. “Wynnell, dear, just the other day I heard that not only did you have a Yankee in your woodpile, but it was Sherman himself.”

“Why, I never!” she said, and slammed down the phone.

Peggy got through next. She must have been horny again, because I could hear her chewing. Peggy isn't married and, unfortunately, has an exceptionally strong libido. When Peggy can't fill her sexual needs, she does the next best thing and fills her stomach. Peggy would be fat if it wasn't for the exercise she does get those times she's lucky enough to have sex.

“Abigail?”

“Is it blueberry or pumpernickel?” Mama can smell trouble. I like to think I can smell food over a phone.

“Cinnamon raisin. Picked it up at the Bagel Works Delicatessen. There's a new guy working there who's to die for. Oops, sorry, Abigail. Sorry about your aunt, too.”

“Thanks, dear. You aren't by any chance calling because
you're nervous about something you said at breakfast yesterday?”

Who knew a bagel could be deafening? “What? I don't know what you mean, Abigail.”

“I think you do, dear, but not to worry. We all shoot our mouths off from time to time, and then live to regret it.”

There was a moment of silence and then the sound of throat muscles trying desperately to forward the bagel on to the stomach. Even cartoon pythons aren't that loud.

“I only said she was tacky, Abigail. I didn't threaten her.”

“But you preferred her out of the way, didn't you, Peggy?”

“I'd prefer to get rid of some wrinkles, too, but I have yet to get a face-lift. And those alpha hydroxyl creams I use don't count. They're more like wishing your lines away—which is kind of like what I did to your aunt. I wished her away. I didn't kill her.”

I wished Peggy a good day.

My daughter Susan called next. Susan has had one year of general studies at the University of North Carolina here in Charlotte, and already she knew more than her father and me combined. One more year and she would have been a match for Phil Donahue.

“Mama!”

“Hey, Susan. I suppose you heard the bad news about your great-aunt Eulonia. Did Grandma call you?”

“No. What's up?”

I was surprised. This semester Susan has moved out of the dorm and shares an apartment with two other girls. As part of her strategy to convince herself of her independence, she contacts her parents only when she needs money. Or someone to dump on. Since her father has oodles of money, and I don't, guess who gets dumped on. This, however, did not sound like a dumping day.

“Aunt Eulonia died last night. No, let me rephrase that. She was murdered.”

“Bummer. Mama, I've got a problem you wouldn't believe.”

“I said your great-aunt is dead, dear. Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I heard you. But Mama, my problem is serious. You have a minute or what?”

Actually, at the moment there was a young couple hovering around a Victorian parlor set that had been in my inventory far too long. They alternated between sitting on the pieces and carefully examining them for flaws. At one point the wife stepped back and made blocking gestures with her hands. To be sure, all five pieces were being lined up against imaginary walls. A well chosen word or two would put their cash in my coffer. I really didn't have time to be dumped on.

But I am a mother. “Spill it, dear.”

The bomb dropped without further preamble. “I quit school today.”

“You what?”

“I went to the registrar's this morning and withdrew. It wasn't too late. Of course I won't get all my tuition back, but who cares?”

I bit my tongue and counted to ten. Twice. Once in French and once in Spanish.

“Why did you drop out?”

“Because school's a drag. You know I've never liked school. And besides, I was at Belk's Department Store in South Park Mall last Saturday and they need someone in the cosmetics department. I've decided that's more real. School is too phony.”

“If you're no longer in school you're going to need a real paycheck, dear. Didn't Dad say he was going to pay your share of the apartment only as long as you stayed in school?”

During the ensuing silence I watched the young couple slip slowly out of love with my parlor set. If I hadn't been held bondage by maternal strings, I might have been able to salvage the deal. I made a desperate attempt anyway.

“Ten percent off today,” I called out cheerily.

“What?” Susan sounded aggravated with me. “Mama, my life's a mess and you're haggling with customers?”

“Oops, my mistake. It's actually twenty percent off,” I yelled.

They shook their heads and walked slowly out of my shop. They had my number. Undoubtedly they'd be back the next
day and try for 25 percent off. With any luck I'd be on the phone again and give them thirty.

“Mama! Don't you care?”

“Of course I care, dear. What is it you want from me?” Besides my figure, my patience, and the best years of my life. She had already taken those.

“Mama, I'm not going to be making that much at Belk's. Not to start. Aren't you going to offer to pay my rent?”

I would not. That was the
only
thing Buford and I agreed upon. We would support the children financially only as long as they remained in school. Otherwise, they were on their own. With Buford's money, Susan could have gone on to medical school or something else equally time-consuming. But since she wanted to play apartment without the benefit of an education, she was going to have to do it on her own. Maybe then she would reconsider school.

“I'm the meanest Mama in the whole world,” I said, pre-empting my lovely daughter.

“Mama!”

“And I'm so unfair!”

Susan hung up. But what else could I do? I didn't have the money to support her while she played at having a job. If she wanted to move in with me, I'd be delighted. But Susan would rather floss three times a day than do that. After all, I'm prone to wild and wacky behavior, such as sleeping when it's dark and washing the dishes before the mold on them requires mowing. Not to mention I vacuum up my dust balls before they get too big to trip over.

During the brief respite that followed Susan's call I hurried over to the parlor set that had so intrigued the young couple. It was early Eastlake and in excellent condition. I took a minute to admire the burled walnut frames and the dusty pink velvet seats. Then I removed the old price, replacing it with a figure 30 percent higher. Even if I was caught on the phone when they returned, I could still afford to be generous.

I thought sure the next phone call was going to be from Buford. He sees it as his sacred duty to yell at me every time one of our children is unhappy or does something stupid. Even though he and I agree on Susan's education, it is undoubtedly
somehow all my fault that Susan has decided to drop out of school and live in near poverty. Since I produced the egg that hatched Susan, I am responsible for her behavior. What else would one expect from a lawyer who once sued a pencil company because they didn't warn their customers that a sharpened lead can put out an eye?

“Den of Antiquity. Guilty party speaking,” I said cheerfully.

Gretchen Miller gasped. “Oh, Abigail, you didn't do it, did you?”

I think as fast on my feet as a doped walrus. “You bet I did. She had to learn a lesson.”

“But, Abigail, isn't decapitation a little too severe? And the rape, you didn't do that, too, did you? I mean, it isn't physically possible, is it?”

My brain had caught up with my ears. “Gretchen! Of course not! And she wasn't decapitated, she was strangled. Only I didn't do that, either. I thought you were someone else.”

Gretchen's sigh of relief could have extinguished a candle a yard away. “I'm so glad, Abigail. I mean, that you're not guilty. Do the police know who is?”

“If they do, they're keeping it from me.”

“Any suspects?”

“You tell me, dear. You were at that breakfast yesterday morning.”

Gretchen sneezed. I imagined her pushing her round, owl glasses back up on her stub of a nose.

“Abigail, if you'll recall, I stuck up for your aunt yesterday. I said she was a ‘jewel.' You remember that?”

“Yes, dear, I do. That was right before you complained about her place being run down.”

She sneezed again. “Sorry Abigail. It's the pollen count. I'm almost positive it's not a cold. I usually don't get a cold until November, and then—”

“Is business slow today, dear?”

“Business is good, Abigail. I just sold that bronze statue with the you-know-what.”

“The ‘what' was a penis, dear. So, if business is good, why are you calling?”

I imagined Gretchen's faded gray eyes widening behind thick lenses.

“Well, I—uh—I wanted to expresses my condolences on your aunt's passing. That's really all.”

I accepted her condolences gracefully, even though I would hardly refer to being strangled as “passing.” Even sans the rumored rape and decapitation, my poor aunt had done more than pass from this life to the next. Catapulted was more like it. No wonder they say ghosts are usually the products of violent death. I'd have trouble finding my way through the veil, too, if my last memory was a bell pull tightening around my neck. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if Aunt Eulonia's spirit hung around her beloved Feathers 'N Treasures trying to comprehend recent events.

Perhaps it would benefit my aunt if I stopped by her shop and had a chat with her. One-sided, I hoped. You know, kind of explained what happened. And if the case ever got solved, tell her why it happened. Fortunately her shop was still off-limits to anyone but the police; the yellow tape across the doors made that perfectly clear. For the moment that was fine with me. I was in no hurry to see where dear Aunt Eulonia had lain gasping, perhaps thrashing, on the floor of her run-down shop.

To take my mind off the ghoulish spectacle I turned on the TV.
All My Children
was about to start.

T
he cowbell rang on the stroke of one. It didn't jangle this time, it rang. Bells all over heaven rang as well. God's gift to women—at least to me—had just stepped through the door.

I ran to be of service. “Yes? May I help you?”

“Ms. Abigail Timberlake?”

“Yes.”

“I'm Investigator Greg Washburn, Charlotte-Mecklenberg police. We have an appointment.”

I held out an eager hand. His hand may not have been so eager, but when it touched mine, electricity flowed—from my hand to my heart, to my head, to my feet. My entire body was paralyzed. It was a good thing I had worker's compensation insurance.

“Ma'am, is there someplace we could talk?”

I stared at a youthful Cary Grant. No, Greg was a little taller and broader through the shoulders, his tummy firmer. His hair was darker, curling under where it hit his collar. The chin cleft was there, but so was a dimple on his left cheek. His eyes, rimmed by long black lashes, were intensely blue.

“Contacts?” I asked. At least my mouth was working, if not my brain.

“Ma'am?”

“I mean, you must have many contacts in your line of work. Ah, yes, we can talk back there by the counter, if you like.”

I willed two rubbery pedestals to move my body and my
head to the back of the shop. Somehow they made it. My brain arrived a few seconds later.

“Identification?” I asked.

It was all there. Unfortunately it didn't tell me everything I wanted to know.

“Satisfied?”

I nodded. Of course I turned off the TV. Even Tad Martin can't compete with Investigator Greg Washburn.

“Sit?” Did he think I was talking to a dog?

The blue eyes danced. There was only one chair. “Why don't you sit, ma'am? I'd prefer to stand.”

I didn't need to be coaxed. I could will those rubbery pedestals to walk, but I couldn't keep them from shaking. Except that, if I sat down, those blue eyes would be too far away. I would need opera glasses to get as close as I wanted.

Investigator Washburn and I did not share the same agenda. “Ma'am, what can you tell me about your aunt?”

“She's dead,” I said. So was my brain.

He smiled, flashing teeth as straight and white as piano keys. “Yes, we've determined that. Can you describe what she was like when she was alive?”

“Old.”

He glanced at a pocket notepad. “She was eighty-six, right?”

“Right. She would have been eighty-seven the day after Christmas.”

“A little on the senior side to still be working. Did she have plans to retire?”

I laughed and then became acutely aware that laughing can produce spittle. There are more effective ways to attract a man than drenching him.

“Let me tell you about my aunt. Her grandmother was born on a farm down near Columbia. Great-Grandma Wiggins was fourteen when the Union army swept through, burning everything in their path. She was home alone at the time but managed to save the farm. Her weapons were two muskets, a pitchfork, and a mind as sharp as a scalpel. Just how she did it is a long story, but the point is Aunt Eulonia was every bit a Wiggins. Oh yeah, Great-Grandma Wiggins died at age one
hundred seven. She still lived on that farm. By herself.”

He jotted something on his pad. “Sounds like quite a lady. You know anyone who might have had it in for your aunt. Besides the Union Army?”

I swallowed first before laughing pleasantly. “Well, that's kind of a messy question. Can you be more specific?”

A black eyebrow arched slightly over a dancing eye. “Is there anybody that you can think of who would have wanted your aunt dead?”

I tried not to squirm. “Well, yes, and no.”

The blue eyes stopped dancing. “Tell me about the yes first.”

If it was in for a penny, in for a pound, why was I always throwing my entire checkbook in the ring?

“Everybody—well, just about everyone who owns a shop on this street wanted her dead. Maybe not actually dead, but gone somehow.”

“Why?”

“It was an image thing. You've seen her shop. Aunt Eulonia had no interest in living up to anybody else's standards or expectations. She didn't give a damn about what people thought.”

“And the no part?”

The blue eyes were fixed intently on me. It might have been due to the feeble air conditioner I have out back, but I was burning up. All I could think of was jumping into those clear blue eyes and taking a swim. I had to lasso my frolicking thoughts, tie them up with words, and force them out of my mouth.

“Well, like I said, they wanted her gone, not dead. I mean, who would really want to kill an eighty-seven-year-old woman just because she kept property values down and scared off a few rich customers? At her age, how much longer could she have held out?”

“Twenty more years?”

He had a point. “Still,” I said, “I can't imagine any of these people actually going ahead and doing it. Killing her, I mean. Not most of them, at any rate.”

Both eyebrows shot up. The blue intensified.

“Well, there is Major Calloway,” I said. I wasn't trying to be vicious and pay back his rudeness. He really was the most likely candidate.

“Please go on.”

“He collects and sells weapons and things. ‘Antique military paraphernalia,' he calls it. But I don't think Hitler's pajamas count as paraphernalia, do you?”

Investigator Washburn laughed. He had a pleasant laugh, with little or no spittle.

“I think I read once that Hitler slept in the nude. Sounds like this guy's trying to pull the covers over the public's head.”

“There! That's a form of strangulation, isn't it?”

He laughed again. “Did you ever hear Mr. Calloway make any threatening remarks to your aunt?”

“No. Not to her directly.”

“Did he ever make threatening remarks concerning your aunt to anyone else?”

“Plenty of times. Only yesterday he told our entire group that Aunt Eulonia should be shot by a firing squad.”

A smile played about the perfectly formed lips.

“What group is this?”

“The Selwyn Avenue Antique Dealers Association. We were having our monthly breakfast together at Denny's. We were all there except my Aunt Eulonia.”

He jotted some more down. “Do all the antique dealers on Selwyn Avenue belong to this association?”

“All the ones concentrated in these two blocks.”

“Your aunt included?”

“Aunt Eulonia was a charter member, but she stopped being active when she found out that we—well, some of us—had an agenda.”

“Which was?”

I recrossed my legs. “To set and maintain standards for shops and dealers in this area.”

“Did you endorse that agenda?”

“Well, I—uh, of course I'm all for standards. I mean, this is a nice part of town and we, as antique dealers, want to have
a certain reputation. If this were your shop, would you want a junk shop next door?”

He shrugged. “I've always been fond of junk shops. Found a child's pedal car in a junk shop once. It was made back in the early fifties. Always wanted one of those. Anyway, this one was in great shape. Even had all four wheels.”

My wheels were spinning. Was he a boy back in the early fifties? There wasn't a gray hair on his head that I could see, and I'd counted them twice. He had a full contingent.

“Very nice,” I said. He could take it any way he chose.

“Ms. Timberlake, when is the last time you saw your aunt?”

“Let's see-hey, wait just one minute! You're not suggesting that I had anything to do with it?”

He displayed the piano keys casually. “Until charges are pressed, there are no suspects.
And
, everyone is a suspect.”

Drop-dead gorgeous can go a long way, but there are limits. “Look here, buster. She was my flesh-and-blood aunt. My father's only sister. I did not kill her.”

I leaned back in my chair huffing and puffing until it was time for round two. “And besides, do I look like I could strangle someone?”

The piano keys disappeared. “Your aunt was eighty-six. Almost eighty-seven. You could do it.”

I stood up. “This interview is over. Don't let the door slam too hard behind you.”

He still towered over me. “This isn't an interview, ma'am. It's an investigation. I can have you brought down to the station if you like.”

I didn't. I had never been to a police station, or wherever it is investigators hang out. Not even that time Buford landed in the hoosegow for goosing a housewife he thought was a stripper. I let his good-old-boy buddies bail him out. What else are his friends for?

Perhaps I'm a product of too much television, too many grade-B movies on late-night TV. Somewhere along the line I got the impression that women who visit police stations out of uniform are manhandled by monolithic matrons with flashlights in their hands. Need I say more?

“I'll sing like a canary,” I said. “You just name the tune.”

The blue eyes danced while the piano keys played.

“I just want the truth, ma'am. Your full cooperation.”

“Ask away.”

“Were you her next of kin?”

“Only blood kin she had that I know of. Me and my kids. Except for my brother, but he doesn't count.”

“Why doesn't he count?”

I sighed. It seemed futile to pick open that scab again.

“Toy lives in California. But even if he were here, you could cross him off your list. Toy is about as energetic as a turtle on tranquilizers.”

He nodded. “Laid-back, they call it out there. You have a key to her house?”

I scratched my head while I tried to wiggle out of that one. “Well, sort of. I mean, not exactly.”

Both the eyes and the piano did a little ragtime. “I've heard high school boys in dresses come up with better explanations than you.”

I felt myself blush, although it could have been a mild hot flash. Inspector Washburn had succeeded in thoroughly confusing my hormones. One minute they were happily on their way to an early retirement and the next they were doing the hundred-yard dash.

“It's like this. Aunt Eulonia gave me a key—” I paused and glanced at the front door. It was stupid of me not to have left a straight aisle between it and the register. With his long arms he could probably stop me before I got around the counter anyway. In that case, it didn't make a difference that the storeroom was cluttered as well.

“Yes? May I see the key?”

“I don't have it, sir.”

“You don't?”

“No, sir. My aunt and I had this little disagreement—you know, like all families do—and I think she took the key back.”

Who would have thought that blue could be a mocking color? “You
think
?”

“I have been known to, yes.”

The full, perfect lips parted unevenly. I took it as a snarl.

“Well, it's hard to say,” I said quickly. “I mean, I had it on my key ring, and then one day I looked, and it was gone.”

“Where do you usually keep this key ring? During working hours, that is.”

“Here, on this hook beneath the counter. Nobody can see it, and that way it's easy to grab when I need to unlock display cabinets for customers. I tried wearing it on my belt like some dealers do, but the jingling about drove me crazy.”

“I see.”

I hoped he did. I was trying my best to be cooperative, I really was. I offered to answer any other questions he had, no matter how silly or embarrassing. He took me up on my offer and asked me a billion more questions, but I seemed to disappoint him each time. I might even have confessed to something—maybe a traffic violation or two—just to get those eyes dancing again, when his beeper went off.

“May I use your phone, ma'am?”

“Please, be my guest.” As soon as he left I was going to disconnect that phone. In a very dilute form Investigator Greg Washburn was going to spend the night with me.

He talked just a few seconds on my phone. His lips never touched the receiver. His hands barely held it. It was hardly going to be worth unplugging.

“Ma'am, that'll be all for today. It's been a pleasure.”

“There's still five more minutes on
All My Children
,” I said. Trot out the big guns when you have to.

“I'm taping it at home. Thanks, anyway.”

And then he was gone. I would have kicked myself, had I not been wearing pointed shoes. I'd forgotten to look for a ring.

 

I am not a masochist, even though Mama thinks I am. I honestly didn't know Buford was the scum of the earth until he took up with Tweetie. The only reason I decided to drive by the homestead that evening was because I wanted to talk to our son Charlie. In person. Charlie and his great-aunt had been close. And it was more than the twenty bucks, and then fifty, Aunt Eulonia used to slip into his birthday cards. The
two of them, although seventy years apart in age, were cut from the same cloth. You couldn't find fabric that wide at the Piece Goods Shop in Rock Hill.

Bob and No-Bob opened the door. Those are my names for Tweetie's breasts, although I'm sure she has her own. One of her breasts—the left, I think—bobs up and down when she walks, while the other is rigid. Her surgeon should have been more careful.

“Well, lookie what the cat drug home,” Tweetie said.

I smiled pleasantly, ever the southern lady. “Is Buford here?”

At the sound of my voice, Scruffles came running. It wasn't his fault he nearly knocked Tweetie over. Good plastic surgeons should consider their patient's balance before agreeing to operate.

“Hey, boy!” I said.

“My husband is at his office,” Tweetie said. She started closing the door before Scruffles could get in a single lick.

I took a cue from the Major and stuck a shoe in the door. My foot is a lot smaller than his, but then again, Tweetie is no Wiggins.