Shadows at the Fair (16 page)

“Is your family going back to Massachusetts today?” Maggie asked Gussie, turning toward her friend’s booth. Maggie had to focus on the job at hand. It was Sunday morning, customers were browsing along the aisles, and everything was as it should be on the closing day of the Rensselaer County Spring Antiques Fair.

Except that Harry and Susan were dead.

“Jim has to get back, so he’s leaving this morning. But the family decided they’d tour the area for the day and then come back tonight and help me pack up before we all head home. We all have to leave reach numbers, of course, but we’ll be off for the Cape early tomorrow morning.” Gussie paused. “The police seem in a quandary. I think Susan’s death caught them short. It seemed such an easy case when they had Ben as a suspect in Harry’s death. But now Ben isn’t the only possible suspect. And with Susan’s dying, there are all kinds of other questions.”

Susan might have died of poison. John Smithson had died of poison last week.

Maggie nodded. “The charming and sweaty Officer Taggart certainly didn’t look thrilled at being here to begin with. I think he’s sure we all intentionally arranged two murders in his territory to ruin his Memorial Day weekend.”

“Makes sense to me,” Gussie agreed. “Did he ask you what Susan had eaten yesterday?”

“Yes; I assume he’s checking everyone’s story against everyone else’s.”

“Before you got here, he talked with Joe, and the Wyndhams, and then with me. And”—Gussie gestured down the aisle—“it looks as though he’s chatting with Will now.” The rotund officer looked like Tweedledee standing next to Will, who towered at least eight inches over him. “And, if he hasn’t already, I guess he’ll talk with Vince.”

“Speaking of Vince, did you notice him near Susan’s booth a few minutes ago? I could have sworn he was carrying something under his jacket.”

Gussie shook her head. “I was busy with a customer. That’s the third person this weekend who’s asked me about twins memorabilia! All of these multiple births resulting from fertility pills seem to have brought back the market for anything to do with twins or supertwins.”

“An interesting marketing angle.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t have anything left in those categories to market at the moment!” Gussie rolled her eyes. “A few years ago those items were so specialized only a few collectors were interested. Where was my crystal ball then? I should have been picking things like that up when the prices were lower.”

Maggie nodded. Hindsight was always easy. “Joe’s been on his cell phone for the past half hour.” She looked across the aisle to where Joe’s telephone was balanced between his cheek and his shoulder as he took notes on a pad.

Gussie glanced over. “He’s called a lot of Susan’s and Harry’s friends in New York, to let them know.” She paused. “Although I’d guess the newspapers are doing a pretty good job at communicating the story, too. And I’m pretty sure I overheard him trying to reach his lawyer.”

“Lawyer?” Maggie looked across at him.

“Maybe we should all have them, the way those detectives are checking up on what we’ve been doing this weekend. Didn’t you get Susan some lunch yesterday?”

“Tuna sandwich.”

“Well?”

“I am not going to call a lawyer. Yet. There’s no word of a solution to John Smithson’s murder. That’s three antiques dealers dead in one week. It doesn’t make sense to think there’d be three different murderers. But nothing is making sense. The big question is motivation. Who would have wanted Harry and Susan—and John Smithson—dead?”

“It could be more than one killer. Maybe someone is taking advantage of the situation to make everyone think there’s only one person involved. There could be two—or even three—separate killers.”

Maggie shuddered. “But why?” She twisted an escaped strand of hair around a finger. “Why here, at the show? If someone really wanted to kill Harry or Susan, why not do it far away from a large crowd of people; here someone was bound to see something.”

“What about John Smithson last weekend? Maybe there’s some pervert around who’s preying on antiques dealers.”

“What connection could there have been between Harry and Susan and John Smithson?”

Gussie shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t even think they knew each other, other than seeing each other at this show.”

“That’s why I keep thinking we’re missing something. There’s a piece of this puzzle we’re not seeing.”

“Isn’t it dreadful? That awful detective is saying that someone killed poor Susan!” Lydia Wyndham’s voice was higher than usual. “I feel like a pig in a paper bag! Dark corners everywhere you turn. There’s just no way to explain this. Susan was a little silly, of course, but such a dear, sweet person. And so careful of her health.”

Gussie and Maggie looked at each other.

“It just goes to show: you never know what tomorrow will bring. Just yesterday Susan was so sad about Harry. I made her a cup of chamomile tea, because that’s calming you know, and she said it truly helped. Susan always liked my teas, although she always added too much honey for my taste, and here it’s one day later, and she’s gone to the Lord. Mr. Wyndham is just awfully upset, too, you know.”

Maggie glanced over at Silver in Mind. Abe was sitting in his customary chair at the side of the booth, reading the same book he’d been reading since Friday. If he’d been any more upset, he might have blinked.

“In any case, though, dears, life does go on, doesn’t it, and, Maggie, have you had a chance, and I know you certainly have had your mind full, what with Harry, and Susan, and customers, and all, but have you had a chance to look for those herb prints you said you might have?” Lydia turned to Gussie. “You know, tomorrow is another day, and my niece will still be getting married, and I just had it all planned that I could give her and her husband-to-be those prints of coffee and tea plants.”

Gussie smiled sweetly at her. “Well, certainly, priorities are priorities, Lydia.” Gussie almost winked at Maggie. “Maggie, you have looked for those prints, haven’t you?”

“Actually, no, I haven’t, Lydia. But I was just about to do that.” Maggie patted Lydia on her shoulder. “I know they’d have to be in one of a couple of portfolios, so it won’t take long for me to look.”

“Thank you so much, dear. I do hope you’ll be able to find them for me.”

Lydia smiled at Joe, who was still talking earnestly into his cell phone and ignoring two customers who were looking through his Hemingways and Faulkners, and returned to her booth. Her perennial cup of tea was waiting, as was a woman looking for a sardine fork in the Chantilly pattern. Sundays weren’t usually heavy customer days, but you could still make some good sales.

No customers were in Maggie’s booth, however, so she resolved to put aside thoughts of murder and concentrate on prints. She had several portfolios of prints from classic British herbals. Collections of drawings and descriptions of plants that had practical uses, whether for food, medicine, scent, or flavor, were particularly popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many of the plants and flowers in the prints were considered only decorative today, such as the rose or the lily. Their popularity in medieval gardens was based on their “virtues,” or religious associations or their edibility. Some of the earliest herbals were beautifully hand-drawn and colored and had carefully scripted Latin descriptions of what the plant could be used for.

But none of those would contain coffee or tea, Maggie realized as she interrupted her search to sell two astrological prints to a gentleman wearing a Hawaiian shirt just short enough to reveal a rolling stomach.

Chamomile or sage or dandelions or poppies or tobacco or marijuana she could find, but not coffee or tea. She thought a few minutes. Coffee and tea were both evergreen trees, or large bushes. She did have a portfolio full of prints of trees, with full descriptions of the uses of their berries, leaves, or bark, and their pharmaceutical uses. Some, like the willow, the source for aspirin, had been used in Native American medicine. Some, like coffee and tea, had found their way into mainstream contemporary life. That was the portfolio she needed.

As part of her marketing and presentation strategy, Maggie always researched the subjects of her prints. That meant digging up historical details about the subject of the print, or particularly interesting information about the artist or engraver who had produced it. For some of her botanical prints Maggie had researched the uses of the plants. She often shared them with her social history classes to illustrate changing cultural perceptions of the environment.

She pulled out a portfolio labeled “Misc. Trees & Plants, with Historical and Current Uses” and quickly thumbed through it. Some were trees whose fruits or nuts had dual uses, some whose bark was used for medicines, some, like coffee and tea, whose berries or leaves were used. Willows, hickories, elms, azaleas, spruce—and here were coffee and tea. Luckily for Lydia Wyndham’s niece they would make a nice matching pair.

Maggie tucked the portfolio under the table and took the prints over to Lydia. “This is the only pair I have. Look them over, and if you’re still interested, I’ll quote you a dealers’ price.” Lydia nodded eagerly and then was distracted by a customer.

There were no customers in Maggie’s area. She walked up the aisle a little and looked at Susan’s booth. It was closed; chairs blocked the entrance. Someone had put two lilies of the valley on the center chair.

A nice gesture. Although Susan wasn’t exactly the lilies type, Maggie thought ironically. She focused on what was displayed in the booth. Vince had been carrying something under his coat this morning, and he had left it here. She was sure of it. Why would he have had something that belonged to Susan? And if he did have something, why return it today?

Nothing was noticeably different from yesterday afternoon. There were four Japanese wood-block prints; the pedestal was still in place; the embroidered hangings were still all here.

Suddenly she sensed someone near her. She whirled around, coming almost face-to-chest with Will.

“Whoa!” He took a step backward. “Sorry to crowd you!” Will’s green-and-blue tie was crooked; Maggie resisted the urge to reach up and straighten it.

“Sorry. I’m a little jumpy. You’ve talked with the friendly local policeman?”

He nodded. “Pretty awful, isn’t it?”

“Especially for those of us who brought Susan tuna salad for lunch yesterday.”

“At least you didn’t go home and whip up your own special mayonnaise to mix in it.”

Maggie made a face at him. “Will, do you remember talking with Vince this morning?”

“Sure. He came by to make sure Susan’s booth was closed off. He’s going to get some porters to help repack her stuff in the Art-Effects van tonight once the police have finished going over it.”

Her van. The last place I saw Susan, Maggie thought. She tried to erase the picture of Susan lying on her cot, pale and exhausted.

“Vince and Joe are going to make sure all Harry and Susan’s stuff gets back to their loft.”

Maggie nodded. For disposition by whoever was their beneficiary. She shuddered a bit. She knew all too well just how complicated dealing with estate laws and lawyers could be. And she hadn’t had to handle anything as remotely complicated as the Findleys’ estate would be.

“Will, I’m pretty sure I saw Vince hiding something under his jacket when he was here this morning, and then, later, when he was talking with you, whatever he was carrying had disappeared.”

“Dr. Summer, your eyes are not failing you. But your intuition may be turned on high. Vince wasn’t hiding anything. He was just returning a temple lion he had borrowed from Susan.” Will gestured toward the back table in Susan’s booth, where a pair of bronze Chinese chimeras, each standing about a foot tall, were facing each other.

“Of course.” Maggie looked at the lions. “There was only one here yesterday, and they almost always come in pairs. You know, I admired that lion on Vince’s desk Friday; it was with a couple of other Asian antiques. He said they weren’t his, but I didn’t connect it with the one Susan had.”

“Well, the lion is now back where it should be. He said he’d borrowed it from Susan so a photographer could take some pictures of it for his next brochure advertising dealers’ trips to Asia. He wanted to make sure it was back with her things before they were packed up and sent back to New York.”

“That makes sense.” There were often photographers from the antiques trade papers at the Rensselaer County Fair, and one of them might have volunteered to do a special job for a few extra dollars.

She looked at the lions. “They are handsome. Do you think anyone would mind if I took a closer look?”

“I’ll fight off the hordes. No one said anything about not touching her booth; it’s just closed to the public.”

“And we’re not public—right?”

Will smiled. “I’ll stand guard.”

Temple lions traditionally guarded the entrances to important tombs in southern China. These appeared identically and elaborately molded in bronze; every surface was etched or sculpted, from their large, clawed feet to their traditionally fierce faces. The bronze was slightly worn by time, and perhaps weather. Maggie lifted one. It was heavy. About the weight of the ten-month-old baby one of her students had brought with her to class a week ago—perhaps eighteen pounds. She examined the lion carefully.