Poison Ivory (11 page)

While that kind of news is far from boring, it didn’t make for an evening of good entertainment. After we ate, Greg kept asking if I’d finally show him what jumpy-jumpy was, and again I was simply in no mood to be jumped. By the time Monday morning rolled around (I fell asleep before Mama came in) I was actually looking forward to going to work.

Don’t get me wrong; I love what I do, and my dear friends with whom I work. It’s just that there are days when I’d like to knock about the house in my pajamas all day, maybe even sprawl across the couch and watch
The View
while eating chocolate-covered bonbons. Or maybe read. Who has enough time to just read?
Eat, Pray, Love was
a good book, but I needed to get beyond memoirs and self-help books, and tragic Oprah picks, and above all, books that scream:
this book is literary, punctuation optional
. Maybe someday I’ll get it together to read something that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Maybe someday I’ll read a good novel—like a mystery.

Perhaps it was the theory of reciprocity at work, but when I got to the shop—early, mind you—I found Wynnell Crawford already there. The poor woman was pacing up and down in front of the register like a caged tigress.

“Abby, can we talk?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Can we go someplace private?”

“Wynnell, the shop doesn’t open for another
forty-five minutes. It’s just you and I, and a bunch of old things.”

“A collection of preowned treasures, Abby: that’s what you taught us to say.”

“Good for me.” I steered her into the Den of Antiquity’s holy of holies: my private office. This windowless room is literally smaller than the walk-in closet I had in my home up in Charlotte when I was married to Buford the Timber Snake.
Much
smaller. It’s just big enough to contain a desk (topped by a computer, of course), three filing cabinets, and two chairs.

Both my employees have unlimited access to the break room (such as it is), but except for the days on which they are hired, or fired, entry to my office is restricted to this Big Cheese alone—or perhaps I should say this Mini Gouda Wheel. Thus it was that when I bade Wynnell sit, she took her sweet time staring at the wall art first.

“Gracious me, Abby, are those calendar pictures you have hanging on your walls?”

“Yes, but they’re nicely framed, and the pictures themselves are quite striking, don’t you think?”

“I suppose—if you like kittens. And I know you do, Abby, and that’s all right with me. But personally, I prefer dogs. There’s nothing cuter on God’s green earth than a Pomeranian puppy. I personally believe that’s the breed He gave Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.”

Wynnell is a Southern Baptist of the literal persuasion, and while I have nothing against these good folk, I have long since learned that it is a
waste of breath to try and convince them that there were no dogs present at the moment canines were created. If indeed creation happened in six twenty-four-hour days, there were wolves present, but no dogs. Dogs were bred from wolves, just as tomorrow’s dog breeds will descend from today’s dogs.

“Pomeranian puppies are adorable,” I said agreeably. “Now tell me what’s on your mind.”

“Is the door locked?”

I got up and locked it.

A
re we expecting terrorists, Wynnell?” I asked.

“No—well, you can never be sure, can you? Anyway,
she
might barge in at any minute.”

“She who? Is there an Apparition American living in my shop that I don’t know about?”

Wynnell’s hedgerow eyebrows met as she clucked impatiently. “No, Abby, I mean C.J.!
She’s
what I want to talk to you about.”

“What about her?”

“
What about her
? I can’t believe you just said that. Abby, you and I used to be best friends—”

“We still are.”

“But lately you’ve been taking C.J. with you everywhere and taking her into your confidence. It’s like what you did with me in the old times, Abby, and I miss it. Am I jealous? Yes! Am I a lesbian? No! Besides, your boobs are way too small for my taste.”

“
What
?” Surely I hadn’t heard right.

“Just kidding!”

“Wynnell, you don’t have a funny bone in your body. That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about you. You’re deadly seriously, and slightly boring—to the point of endearment, of course. I mean, funny people are a dime a dozen. But with you, well, I always get strong opinions—albeit a little to the right of George Walker Bush—but at least I know where you stand.”

The eyebrows parted like the leading edges of the Red Sea. “Thanks, Abby—I think.”

“You’re welcome!” Enthusiasm can go a long way to confusing an issue, which was exactly my intention.

“But, Abby, you still think that C.J. has better decorating skills than I do, don’t you?”

“Decorating is for cake makers, dear. We stage vignettes; we stage rooms; we stage entire houses; why, I bet you could upstage anyone if you set your mind to it.”

“You really think so?”

“Absolutely. Upstage, engage, enrage, Wynnell Crawford is incomparable.”

My shaggy-browed buddy beamed. “Right back at you, Abby.”

“Thank you. Wynnell, did C.J. fill you in on what we did Friday?”

“No. Except that the two of you had fun together, and then C.J. came back here and earned a huge commission.”

“Well, I wouldn’t call it fun, exactly. I’d asked C.J. to help do a little undercover work in my quest to catch the ivory smuggling ring, but she wasn’t
able to stick with the assignment. And do you know why?”

“Why?”

I lowered my voice and put my finger to my lips. “Because our big galoot, as bright as she is, lacks your maturity.”

“Really?”

“She’s only twenty-six. And you’re how old?”

“Old enough not to answer that question, Abby.”

“Anyway, while C.J, was earning her commission, you were earning time and a half for holding down the fort.”

“I
was
?”

“Make that
double
time.”

“Oh thank you, Abby!”

“You’re very welcome, but you have to keep this between the two of us.
Capisce
?”

“Okay, now you’ve confused me; what does this have to do with fancy lettuce?”

“Huh?”

“It was bad enough when folks started putting spinach into salads, then along came this ridiculous radicchio stuff, and now there’s
capisce
? Abby, I’m telling you, it’s the Yankee influence. We used to boil our greens with fatback—except for bib lettuce, which was so bitter you had to put something on it—Mama let us put sugar on it. Then along came the snow bunnies with their salad bars and now the sky’s the limit for what constitutes a salad. Last night we ate supper down at Hush Puppies, that new restaurant on Route 17,
and they have Snickers bar chunks in their fruit salad section. And folks wonder why they gain weight when they only eat salads.”

I love it when Wynnell goes off on a tangent—if the timing is right—and this seemed to be just such an occasion. C.J., and the favoritism I’d appeared to be showing her (believe me, it was unintentional on my part) seemed to have been put behind us. I would do what I could to pave over that sore spot with more quick-drying concrete.

“And speaking of Yankees,” I said, “I read somewhere that there is a grassroots organization that believes building a wall along the Mexican border, while basically a good idea, should take second place to building a wall along the Mason-Dixon Line. The trouble is what to do with the border territories, not to mention all the people who already live in the South. Should they receive compensation for their property? What do you think, Wynnell?”

“I think you’re trying to play me for a fool, Abby, that’s what I think. Now tell me, when do I get to play sleuth with you?”

“Uh—well—”

“I’m not letting you off the hook,
best
friend.”

“How good are you at applying makeup? I mean, like stage makeup?” As far as everyday makeup went, Wynnell’s skills rated a minus two on a plus scale of one to ten—and I say that charitably. Her “old man” bushy eyebrows were actually a blessing in that they kept one’s eyes
focused above the scene of most of her artistic damage, which was just about anywhere on her face.

“Abby, before I met you I used to do makeup for various Charlotte community theaters, and before that I did makeup for church and school plays.”

“Why Wynnell, you’re just a barrel of surprises!” Now what was I going to do? I really didn’t want to use her, yet I was in need of someone.

“Oh, and I forgot, I worked behind the makeup counter at Belk’s Department store—but I got fired. They said I made the customers look like clowns.”

“Did you?”

“That was back in the ‘natural look’ days, Abby. It was so boring; I was just trying to spice things up a little.”

“Hmm. Wynnell, Wednesday morning I need to look like I’m at least ten years older. Do you think you can pull that off?”

Wynnell squinted and cocked her head, first one way and then the other. “The good news is that you already look a good deal older than you are. The bad news is that Wednesday is my day off, remember? Ed and I were going to drive up to Georgetown and kayak on the Black River. Our goal is to kayak on every stretch of black water in the state before the mosquitoes come out again.”

I shuddered, having almost lost my life to alligators in the Black River, but that was another
story. It was good to hear that the Crawfords were doing things like this together. Several years ago when their marriage hit a dry patch, Wynnell ran off to Tokyo to become Japanese, a venture that didn’t quite work out. Still, some valuable cultural lessons were learned: she became an aficionado of sumo wrestling
and
installed a squat toilet in her house.

“Wynnell, dear—
best
friend—I’ll buy you both dinner at Frank’s up in Pawley’s Island if you stop by on your way up to Georgetown and turn me into a believable fifty-eight-year-old woman.”

“Frank’s? You’ve got a deal.”

“But keep it subtle.”

A cheerful Wynnell is a worrisome thing. It’s like driving on a limited access highway, without a spare tire, when suddenly a large bulge appears on one of your four radials. What do you do? Pull over and wave down some help? Stop the car and run before it blows? Kick yourself for the millionth time because you let your AAA membership lapse, and besides, your cell phone isn’t charged? I found myself giving her wide berth, lest I be in too close proximity when she exploded.

In fact, smiling is so foreign to Wynnell that by lunchtime she had the beginnings of a migraine, so I let her go home. Being that it was the slow season anyway, C.J. and I could handle what little street traffic there was, and finish marking down our red dot items. A lot of antiques stores—
especially high end shops—don’t have clearance sections—but I have found that most customers—even the very wealthy—like to think they’ve gotten a bargain. What they don’t know is that I’ve already taken the discount into mind when I assigned the original price. As the Rob-Bob’s would say, “Our little Abby knows more ways to make a buck than a herd of does in heat.”

I was putting a sale tag on an Edwardian era armoire when I became acutely aware that I was being scrutinized by someone, or
something
. My first thought was that I had somehow disturbed an Apparition American—perhaps one associated with the armoire. This is not such an uncommon event amongst Charleston shop owners. Bed and breakfasts are particularity vulnerable to visits by former tenants who have been unable—or in some cases, unwilling—to depart the premises. This entity was behind me, but standing so close that I could hear him breathe, although I had heard no footsteps.

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who pull the covers up over their heads and scream, and those who grab the broom in the corner and give the boogeyman under the bed a good thrashing. Through no credit of my own, I’m the kind who screams
while
they thrash with the broom. I’ve also been known to exaggerate, so it wasn’t that bad this time. Still, it was awfully rude of Phillip Canary to sneak up behind me on cat’s feet.

“Hey, hey, easy now,” he said.

“You couldn’t cough or something? I think I just used three of my lives.”

The handsome young man chuckled. “That’s all?”

“That’s all I have left. Now if a silverfish runs across the floor tonight on my way to the bathroom, I’ll drop over dead—all because of you!”

“They’re the nastiest critters, aren’t they: silverfish? Did you know that they can go a year without eating?”

“That bit of arcane knowledge is just the thing your girlfriend can put in one of her books. Isn’t that the kind of experience that readers want? To learn something while they’re being entertained?”

“Yeah, but I think they want to learn about something that has to do with the subject of the mystery. Let’s say it’s set in an antique store—kind of like yours—why the heck would they want to learn about bugs?”

“No offense, Mr. Canary, but you can be a very contrary man. I was only making small talk.”

“You were being sarcastic, and you well know it.”

“I suppose right now sparks are flying off the page—so to speak.”

“Don’t you be flattering yourself, Miss Timberlake.”

“Aha! So at least you’ve got my name right this time. Sort of. I am, in fact, Mrs. Washburn. Miss Timberlake is merely my business name. You know, like a stage name. Or a nom de plume.”

He scowled and put his hands on his hips. “If my wife used her divorced husband’s name just to make a few extra dollars, I’d tell her to keep it. Permanent-like.”

“Well, what I do isn’t any of your darn business. Now, how can I help you?”

“I want to see that ivory you advertised,” he said without missing a beat.

“First, you tell me how you managed to track me down.”

“There wasn’t any tracking needed.
I
didn’t recognize you because I’m working in the market all of the time, and I don’t ever shop on King Street, most especially not in fancy antiques stores. But after you stormed out of there—Wanda, she has the stall next to mine—told me all about you. Said that not only were you a big-time, up and up, antiques dealer, but that she’d seen your picture in the paper lots of times—on the society page. So I figured that you have too much to lose to be scamming anyone. As for finding you, heck, once Wanda told me the name of this shop, it was easier than finding my own big toe.”

“You have such a charming, colloquial way of speaking, although a copyeditor would defecate a brick.”

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know—it just slipped out. I visited a lot of European castles last summer; maybe I contracted turret’s syndrome.”

“Miss Timberlake, I may not be as educated as
you, but I can tell when I’m being played for a fool. You don’t have any ivory to sell, do you?”

I took a depth breath. The newspaper ad had been such a stupid ruse. It had been like throwing a chunk of bacon into the harbor and hoping to catch a tuna. Instead I was pulling up crabs. Not there’s anything wrong with crabs—but meanwhile the tuna was swimming free and would probably get away.

“You’re right, Mr. Canary, I don’t have any ivory to sell. I apologize for wasting your time.”

He looked stunned. “That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”

“What else can I say? I didn’t ask you to come to my shop.”

There, I felt immensely relieved. Now, if only he would go away. But Phillip Canary didn’t seem to want to let me off the hook that easily. His dark brown eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared.

“Something doesn’t exactly smell right.”

“Look, I said I was sorry; what more do you want?”

“How about the truth?”

That did it; that hiked my hackles. I’d barely taken any of this man’s time at the market; I surely didn’t owe him an explanation for my behavior, and I certainly didn’t owe him the
truth
.

“How about you get out of my shop?”

“Why? Aren’t I free to look around, and maybe buy something, just like anyone else?”

I pasted on my best saleslady smile and drew on a remnant of holiday cheer. “How may I help
you, Mr. Canary? Are you looking for anything in particular?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m looking to buy some ivory.”

“Why I declare, Mr. Canary, you’re beginning to sound like a broken record. But with a name like yours, coming up with a new tune shouldn’t be all that difficult. Do you sing, Mr. Canary?”

Much to my astonishment, he grinned. Then he threw back his head and sang, in a lovely baritone, a rousing rendition of “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” from the opera
Porgy and Bess
. As I watched open-mouthed, a small crowd gathered: first Wynnell; then customers who were browsing in my shop; then folks from off the street.