Larceny and Old Lace (14 page)

I pantomimed stabbing Peggy's toes with my fork. A glob of barbecue landed on the floor within reach and I stabbed it instead.

“You mean you haven't accepted his offer yet?”

“Well, I did want to think about it a day or two first. You know, scout around and see if there were any other antique stores that I could buy at a good price. I mean, why not have my cake and eat it, too?”

“Why not, indeed. So tell me, dear, when did the Major make you this lucrative offer?”

“Tuesday, I think it was. Yeah, that's it. I remember because I was in a hurry to get to the dry cleaners after work, and wouldn't you know, that's when the Major stopped by. We talked until seven, and I never did pick up my clothes.”

“You talked until six fifty-six.”

There was no mistaking Gretchen's precise enunciation. “Gretchen honey, is that you?”

“Abigail, you can come on out now. Your aunt with the blond wig left three and a half minutes ago.”

I scooted out and stood up with as much dignity as the situation permitted. If Father Pridgin hadn't been glancing in my direction right then, I might even have preserved my reputation as a deeply serious, religious woman.

“Hey!” I said when I saw Peggy's plate. “You've been holding out on me.”

She covered her barbecue protectively with her right hand and dodged into the crowd.

“I hope she chokes.”

“Careful,” Gretchen said. “Peggy said something similar about your aunt, and here we all are. At her wake.”

I smiled tolerantly. “This isn't a wake, dear. Wakes are—”

Gretchen was gone. In fact, I didn't see either woman for the rest of the day. As for the Major and Wynnell, I avoided them as much as possible. Anita had become something of a celebrity, and although I avoided her presence, I couldn't escape her altogether. She was all anyone wanted to talk about. Thanks to her performance, she was now a bigwig in Rock Hill and would undoubtedly be invited to all the parties.

“And to think she was right here in my very own home,” Mama said, as we were cleaning up afterward.

“Wow.”

Mama's fingers drummed at her throat, where her pearls had been.

“Mama, what's wrong?”

“I guess it's just nerves leftover from having a star in the house.”

“Anita is not a star!”

“You've always been quick to turn jealous, Abigail.”

I took a deep breath. “Mama, may I stay here tonight?”

“Well—”

“Please? You're always saying that I should consider your house my second home.”

“Yes, dear, but—”

“I have no place else to go,” I wailed.

I suppose I could have foisted myself on Bob again, or one of my unsuspecting friends, but mothers are meant to be there when you need them, aren't they? At least that's the job description that came with my title.

Mama glanced at her watch and then the phone. “Excuse me, dear.”

She ducked into her bedroom and closed the door. When she returned a few minutes later, she was carrying her purse and wearing a goofy smile.

“Are we going someplace, Mama?”

“Not you dear—me. Now listen up. The clean towels are still in the laundry room, and you might have to get a new bar of soap out for the shower. And I'm afraid there isn't any milk in the house, except for what's left in the creamers. Bye.”

The screen door slammed behind her.

“Mama!”

“Don't wait up,” she yelled over her shoulder.

I
will confess to tippling Mama's wine, but I maintain that I was stone sober when I drove to work the next morning. Still, I had a hard time believing my eyes when I got there just a few minutes after nine. Susan has never voluntarily gotten up before noon in her life, except for the day she moved out of Buford's house. Considering all the makeup she was wearing this morning, she must have gotten up before the birds.

“How dare you, Mama!” she said, proving that she was capable of speech before lunch.

“Sorry, dear, I would have gotten to work on time, except there was an accident on I-77 just north of Carowinds.”

“That's not what I mean, and you know it. You told Daddy on me, didn't you?”

“Well, dear—”

“Mama! How could you?”

“You see, dear—”

“Did you know that Daddy cut me off? He said he's not paying another red cent until I kick Jimmy out and move into what he calls a decent place. Can you imagine that?”

“In my fondest dreams.”

“But that's not all! He said that if I go back to boring old school he'll buy me a brand-new Porsche.”

“Why, the nerve of that man!”

Buford didn't care if I was driving around in a bucket of bolts held together by rust, but he was willing to pay the price of a small house to rescue his teenage daughter from sin. Not
that she didn't need rescuing, mind you, but he could have tried first with a cheaper car.

“What does Daddy think I am, a whore? Does he think I'm so greedy and shallow that he can buy me off with things? Doesn't he believe my love for Jimmy is real?”

I nodded up and down and from side to side. Susan could interpret as she wished.

“That's what I told him, Mama. I told him that Jimmy Grady is the only man I'll ever love and that
nothing
Daddy offers is going to come between us.”

I unlocked the shop, but Susan declined to go in. I suppose she thought it would be easier to escape if things got uncomfortable, if she were out in the open. I raised a smart child.

“What did he say?”

“He said that if I don't accept his offer, he's going to find someone who will, and that person will break both Jimmy's legs and ship him back to Puerto Rico where he came from.”

“Jimmy's from Puerto Rico?”

“No, Mama! You know how Daddy talks when he gets angry.”

I did, and nodded sympathetically. “Sweetie, it's beastly hot out here. Why don't you come in for a second.”

“I can't, Mama.”

“I have some Pepsi in the minifridge. And a Snickers bar.”

A breakfast like that was too hard to pass up, and Susan trotted in expectantly behind me. She smelled it first.

“Oh gross!” She pulled her T-shirt up to cover her nose.

I gagged politely into my hands.

“Mama! What is it?”

It
was something in the mail that was piled up beneath the door slot. I get tons of the stuff every afternoon, mostly catalogs and auction announcements but occasionally a bit of personal mail as well. The big bubble-lined envelope with the blue crayon address scrawled on it was definitely personal.

“You aren't going to open it, are you?” Susan made no attempt to distance herself from it.

I answered her by finding two plastic memo clips and clamping one tightly over my nose. Susan refused hers. The envelope was easy enough to open with my desk scissors, but
there was no need to open the newspaper package inside. By then the smell of dead fish was too strong to be stopped by a nose clamp.

There was a folded sheet of white paper attached to the newspaper with a small strip of masking tape along the spine. The words
SORRY CHARLIE
were scrawled on the outside in green crayon, and the words
IT'S YOUR TURN NEXT
on the inside in red. Despite a love of color, the author of this greeting card was not going to get a job at Hallmark.

I began to shake, faster and harder than any paint mixer I'd seen. A whirling dervish wouldn't have been able to keep up with me. It took me several minutes before I had a grip on myself. Someone had just threatened my son, and if that someone was the same person who'd taken a bell pull to my aunt's neck, they meant business.

“Oh, Mama, you can't possibly take this seriously,” Susan said. I suppose she was trying to be helpful in her own way.

“You bet I do.”

I called Charlie, but of course he was at school. Tweetie assured me that he was fine. She, however, had broken a nail
and
found two new spider veins. “But who would want to kill Charlie?” Susan demanded. “For all you know, the little creep himself sent you this.”

“Shut up, dear.” I said it gently.

Susan wisely obeyed. The young adapt remarkably well to odors. While Susan drank her Pepsi and ate her Snickers, I disposed of the bubble envelope. I may have small lungs, but I was able to hold my breath until after Flipper was in the trash bin outside and I was back in the shop with the air conditioner cranked up to max. I was still shaking slightly when I called Greg. To my astonishment I reached him directly.

“I'm at my shop,” I said, without introducing myself. “Someone has just threatened my son.”

“Be there,” Greg said, and hung up.

“Susan, put the
CLOSED
sign back on the door.”

She obeyed twice in a row.

“Now, dear, I wasn't going to say anything to you before, but I have to now. Do you think you can take it in the right way?”

“Mama!”

“It's about your Jimmy.”

She snatched up the black, fist-size purse she carries with her, regardless of the season, and headed for the door.

“I'm not
even
going to listen to this shit. It's none of your damned business if Jimmy is older than me, and just for the record, he didn't steal anything from UNCC. That's not why he was fired.”

“I don't care about his age either, dear.”

She stopped halfway to the door. “What then?”

“I care about the fact that he was proven guilty of aiding and abetting a murder.”

“What?”

“A friend's wife. In Georgia. Investigator Washburn can fill you in on the details when he gets here.”

Susan took a defiant step backward toward the door. “Oh, so now you've had him investigated?”

“Did you know he served six years in prison for that?”

“Then he paid his debt to society!”

When someone is barely three times more than six, how do you make them understand that a life is worth much more than a half a dozen years behind bars?

“Susie, listen to me, please. People don't change that easily.”

She stared at me, and to my surprise I could see the anger ebbing away. “Mama, did Daddy ever hit you?”

I wanted to say yes. Buford had done everything but
hit
me. Bruises, at least, you can prove.

“No dear.” My heart pounded. “Does Jimmy hit you?”

She turned half away. “That's why I couldn't come to Eulonia's funeral. It was too sore to put makeup on then.”

“Oh, baby!”

I tried to hug her, not so much for her sake, but for mine. I needed to reassure myself that my baby was okay. Susan, however, has never been demonstrative and is an expert at eluding my arms.

“Mama?”

“Yes, dear?”

“Would you choose a hot-red Porsche or baby blue?”

“Definitely red, dear.”

“Yeah, I think red, too.”

I didn't need the hug so bad anymore.

 

“You what?” Greg was flailing those handsome arms around like a traffic cop at rush hour. Apparently I had screwed up somehow.

“That stinking fish is in the garbage bin out back where it belongs.”

“That stinking fish is police evidence.”

Greg came back five minutes later, and if it hadn't been for the times I'd seen, and smelled, him prior to that, I wouldn't have let him in the door.

“The rest room is off the back of the storage room, and feel free to use those little soaps shaped like roses.”

He was barely out of sight when the front door opened and the woolly worm wiggled in. This time she was wearing an orange silk jumpsuit, zippered to the neck, and a pair of black snakeskin miniboots. At least the reptile was out of its misery.

“You spin your own cocoon, dear?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said I'm glad to see you back so soon, dear.”

“Yes, well, actually I came back yesterday afternoon, but there was a sign on the door saying you had gone to a family funeral.”

“There's a sign on the door right now, I believe. It says I'm closed.”

“The door was unlocked.”

“Yes, well, that's an oversight. Now, if you'll excuse me—”

She put an icy hand on my arm. “Everything all right?”

“No dear, of course not. My aunt is still quite dead, I assure you.”

She didn't have the courtesy to blush. “I mean, are you doing okay?”

I gave her a Susan-approved stare.

“Well, ask a silly question, I guess. Anyway, I'd like to look around for a while, if you don't mind.”

There's a secret to not blinking, and maybe someday I'll share it with you.

“I just love that secretary I bought from you.”

“As well as the Regency chairs you bought from Rob Goldburg?”

“I hate picking favorites. They're both to die for.”

“Excuse me?”

She paled against the orange. “I'm sorry, bad choice of words. You have my condolences.”

I put my hands on my hips like a good Yankee housewife. “Come off it, lady. You didn't buy Rob's chairs. They're still in his shop. I saw them for myself.”

“But I
did
buy them. I bought them and then returned them. You can ask Robby.”

I wish I'd taken the time to tease my hair that morning or at least put on heels. It's hard to look threatening and up at the same time.

“Either you tell me what's really going on, or I'm going to call the police.”

I must have been more intimidating than I thought, at least far more intimidating than I'd hoped to be. Cozy Wozy fled the shop like a coon with a pack of hound dogs on its tail.

 

“Like I said before, everyone is a suspect when it comes to that fish,” Greg said. “So you're right: she might be the one who sent it.”

“Which might also make her my aunt's killer?”

“Look, officially we have our suspect. Unofficially it isn't over until the fat lady sings. But if this woman is guilty, you've probably scared her off for good.”

It wasn't what I wanted to hear. “I was just postulating. You know, brainstorming. She's probably just a memsahib.”

“An Indian?”

“A rich, bored housewife. It's hard to fill up one's day entirely with lunches and phone calls.”

“So she shops for thrills?”

“Thank God for her kind.”

“Well, if you give me her credit card number—”

“She pays cash!”

Greg laughed. “That might be un-American, but so far it isn't illegal. Still, there's something about that woman that bothers me.”

“You and me both!”

“I mean from a professional point of view.”

I am much smarter than I look. “Hey, you don't suppose she's from New York?”

“You mean a tourist?”

“You have to admit it; she doesn't sound like a native Carolinian. But I was thinking more of a visitor than a tourist. Someone who came down to snoop.”

“About the lace thing?”

“Exactly.” I was on a roll. “Come to think of it, she didn't set foot in here until after my aunt was murdered. Now suddenly she's a regular.”

He shrugged.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

He shrugged again.

“Well?” I felt like grabbing him and shaking him, but decided to wait until we found ourselves in more favorable circumstances.

“Look, I've been in this business a long time. If I've learned anything, it's not to take anyone or anything at face value. Jumping to conclusions might be a great form of exercise, but it doesn't solve crimes.”

“You sure jumped to conclusions about Rob Goldburg.” Chalk one up to me.

“You're wrong.”

“Excuse me?”

“I wasn't jumping to conclusions about Mr. Goldburg; I was simply following procedure. We had circumstantial evidence, and pretty convincing evidence at that. You're the one who concluded he was innocent.”

“I didn't conclude anything. I
know
Rob is innocent. Wait a minute, what do you mean ‘had' evidence?”

How could such a handsome man look so goofy when he grinned?

“You mean he's out?”

“The lab report came back first thing this morning. You
were right about one thing: someone did sweat on the bell pull, and it wasn't Rob Goldburg. Not recently at any rate.”

I was so excited I had to catch my breath. “You know who?”

He laughed. “You made a good suggestion, and we took it. But we can't work miracles. I've told you everything I can at this point.”

“You know more?”

It wasn't any use pestering him for information. Maybe if I had been six inches taller and a blond. Boobs might have helped.

In the end I had to settle for a promise of timely updates on the case. Even as he promised, I realized that we were probably not envisioning the same timetable. He was undoubtedly two time zones behind me, but what choice did I have?

“I'm going to see what I can scare up on this woman,” he said casually. “It shouldn't be that hard to track her down. In the meantime, we'll have someone keep an eye out on Charlie. So don't worry.”

“Do you ask chickens not to cluck?”

“I realize this note seems ominous, but I don't think it's directed at Charlie.”