First Gravedigger (10 page)

Wightman's mouth didn't exactly drop open, but it came close. “But the porcelain!” he whinnied. “They aren't handling the porcelain right! They don't
know
anything about porcelain!”

“Again I have to disagree. We have a man named Holstein out there who is well on his way to becoming
the
authority in the field.” I was sure Wightman knew Holstein was fresh out of college and still learning. “As a matter of fact, I'm thinking about transferring him to Pittsburgh. Take some of the burden off your shoulders. You wouldn't mind a little help, would you, Wightman?”

This time his mouth did drop open. I left him standing there agape while I went to collect my bride. We'd be gone for a month or two; let him stew.

I pried Nedda loose from the arms of a man whose name I couldn't remember and steered her out the door. The caterers would clean up and the security guards would lock up. All we had to do was make our getaway.

“What on earth did you say to Wightman?” Nedda laughed as the limousine pulled away from the house. “He looked as if you'd dropped a bomb on his head.”

“Just gave him a little bad news I'd been saving until the last possible moment.”

“Oh? Like what?”

“Like don't be too sure of your job, old bean.”

“You're going to sack him?”

“The minute we get back.”

Nedda looked thoughtful. “You really think you should? I know he's a horse's ass, but the man is an expert.”

I put my arm around her and drew her close. “So are a lot of other people I know. Nedda, don't worry. I know what I'm doing. Now for god's sake let's stop talking business—I've got other things in mind.”

She grinned. “You'd better.”

At Pittsburgh International the collapsible tunnel you walk through from the waiting area to the plane wasn't working or something, and we had to go outside to board. I had my foot on the bottom step when a movement off to my left caught my eye. I looked toward the observation platform—and got the shock of my life.

For there on the platform, leaning against the safety rail, stood the last man in the world I wanted to see—none other than Charlie Bates himself. Waving his arms, bobbing his head, mouthing
Good luck
at me. Grinning, happy, carefree.

Good old Charlie Bates.

CHAPTER 6

Hell of a way to start a honeymoon.

Nedda knew immediately something was wrong. I pleaded a slight indisposition and retreated to one of the rest rooms the minute we were airborne. When I got back to the seat, Nedda handed me some Dramamine. I took it; it gave me an excuse to lie back quietly with my eyes closed.

Just when everything was coming to fruition for me—that's the moment my old buddy Charlie had chosen to make his reappearance. He'd been smiling and wishing me luck—his intentions seemed benevolent. That wasn't the problem. It was his loose lip I was worried about. Charlie Bates's mouth would always be a threat.

What the hell did he think he was doing, showing up like that? Charlie was such an ass he could have thought I'd been worrying about him and would be glad to see he was alive and well. That was the
last
thing I wanted to see. Where had he been all this time? He hadn't gone back to his apartment; I'd checked. Somehow he'd avoided both his creditors and his own self-destructive impulses. Or maybe I'd misread the situation. Yes, that must be it. All that bullshit about killing himself—it had been just another Charlie Bates play for sympathy and I'd fallen for it. I'd believed him because it suited my plans to believe him.

But then why had he gone through with the murder of Amos Speer? It didn't make sense. If it had all been nothing but talk, Charlie would never have pulled that trigger—he would have ducked out the minute he was out of my sight. So that meant I was right the first time: he
had
reached the end of his rope and had fully intended to kill himself.

But something had happened to change his mind, and that something could only have been the sight of Amos Speer lying there with his brains pouring out. Charlie had gotten scared, it was that simple. It was nothing more than sheer wishywashyness that had made Charlie rewrite the ending. And put me squarely behind the eight ball.

If I had to name the one person in the world who could never be trusted to hold his tongue, I would say Charlie Bates without a moment's hesitation. Charlie was a compulsive talker, afraid to let a silence develop, afraid not to use every available second to sell himself. He'd say anything to hold your attention—like threatening suicide when he thought that would do the trick. And this was the man who carried my secret around with him. This was one punch I couldn't roll with; something was going to have to be done. Charlie wouldn't want to talk, he'd even try hard not to. But he'd never manage it. Sooner or later he'd shoot off his mouth and that would be the end of Earl Sommers. No, as long as Charlie Bates was alive, I was in danger of losing everything—Speer Galleries, the Duprée chair, Nedda's money. Nothing was safe. The more I thought about it the clearer it became there was only one solution: I was going to have to kill Charlie.

No long-distance weapons this time—I'd have to do the job myself. The thought of
that
made me break out in a cold sweat, prompting curious looks from Nedda. I'd have to locate Charlie, make my plans, and then somehow crank myself up to going through with it. I'd have to. It was the only way. Yes.

Once I'd made the decision I began to relax. Charlie had kept his mouth shut so far; I was going to have to rely on his keeping quiet a little longer, until I got back. That was the weak part of the plan: the fact that Charlie hadn't spilled the beans so far didn't mean he wouldn't be seized by an urge to confess tomorrow morning. But there was nothing I could do about that. I'd have to bank on his continued silence until I could make sure he was silenced permanently. So be it.

By the time we were approaching Orly I had experienced a miraculous recovery from my indisposition. We'd leased a villa outside Nice, and I gave myself over to one long period of self-indulgence. France was beautiful, Nedda was beautiful, and at times even I felt beautiful. There were days when I could forget Charlie Bates for hours on end. I tried not to keep thinking I ought to be back in Pittsburgh taking care of the one man who could destroy me. But walking out on the honeymoon would be an invitation to a divorce, so I concentrated on enjoying myself.

When we'd been there a month, I started dropping little hints that it was time to be thinking of getting back. Conjugal bliss was great stuff, but business was business.

Nedda didn't take to the idea too well. “Well, thanks a lot, Earl,” she said in mock-sarcastic tones. “That says a lot for the trip.”

I sighed dramatically. “Nedda, love, life with you on the Côte d'Azur is nirvana itself. But all good things must come to an end.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why must all good things come to an end?”

Because I've got to go back to Pittsburgh and murder somebody
. “I don't
want
to end the honeymoon, Nedda,” I said, overstressing the difference, “it's just that I think I
ought
to be getting back.”

“Quibble, quibble.” Nedda didn't want to leave yet and that was that. We stayed.

Part of me (the irrational part) was glad she was being so inflexible. France had something to offer I just couldn't get enough of: its chairs. My god, the chairs! Beautiful, exquisite pieces that delighted the eye and fed the soul. We took a few quick trips to Paris and other places, and I made some incredible buys. A Louis XIV walnut fauteuil dated 1680. An 1850 cane-seated papier-mâché chair inlaid with gilt and mother-of-pearl. A pair of Louis XV waxed beechwood chairs signed “Nagaret à Lyon.”

But the biggest find was a High Gothic throne chair dating from the fifteenth century. The seat had been replaced sometime during the last century, but the cresting was intact and the bookfold paneling on the front and sides was original. It would complement without matching the grand English oak box chair Robin Coulter had bought for me from Mercer Gallery. I told Nedda what we could sell this one for, how much profit we'd realize on that one—all the time knowing most of them would end up in the house in Fox Chapel.

Amazing how quickly one adjusts to spending large sums of money. My days of hustling Hepplewhites were over (thank god; I hate Hepplewhite). I could indulge what Nedda jokingly referred to as my chair fetish without worrying about the bank balance, without worrying about being caught.

When we'd been there a little longer, I tried again. “It's been six weeks now, Nedda. I was counting on staying only a month.”

She gave me her innocent look. “Is that why we paid two months' rent on the villa?”

I'd been hoping she wouldn't remember that. “When we were circling Orly, we talked about it. We agreed to stay a month.”

“Did I agree to that? I seem to remember being told we'd stay a month.”

“Nedda, if I'm going to run the galleries, I ought to be back there doing it.”

“Relax, Earl. The business isn't going to collapse just because you're not there. Or is that what you're afraid of?”

I didn't have a snappy comeback for that, so I let it drop. It wasn't just Charlie Bates now; I was beginning to worry about the business a little too. I'd left Peg McAllister in charge and I knew she wouldn't let anything happen. Still.

We took a drive to Avignon; there was a showroom there I wanted to visit. The selection turned out to be disappointing—until I came to a chair that made me stop dead in utter astonishment.

It wasn't French. Never in their most manic moments had the French produced anything like that chair. No, the English were going to have to take the blame for this one. It was a Regency armchair built by someone who'd flipped his lid over a fad of the times. The Regency period was a time of extremes—simplicity was fashionable but excess was admired once in a while in relief. The man who'd made this chair had opted for the latter. English Regency was the more graceful counterpart of the trend-setting French Empire style—the last two consistent styles before nineteenth-century mass production, mass imitation. Both English and French styles went ape on occasion, trying to outdo each other in ornamentation that caught a popular rage of the times: a fascination with Egypt and all things Egyptian.

So what we had here was an English Regency Egyptian chair that must have been an elaborate imitation of a French Empire Egyptian chair. A mishmash. I couldn't tell at first glance what kind of wood had been used; every visible inch of it had been either gilded or painted black. Sphinx-head handgrips, lion-paw feet, other ornamentation in the form of lotus leaves, scrollwork, sun-and-pyramid, chimeras, crossed whip and scepter, ankhs, winged lions, scarabs, ostrich feathers, wheat sheaves. The chair that had everything. Even the three-inch spindles gratuitously inserted into the shortened back were delicately carved representations of cats—sacred ones, no doubt. Incredible, utterly incredible. I was laughing so hard my eyes were watering.

“I have a husband who laughs at chairs,” Nedda said amiably.

What a preposterous chair. It had a lovely silhouette—but who pays attention to silhouette with such a whizbang display of ornamentation to distract the eye? Such a pretentious chair, a downright ridiculous chair, a wonderful chair. I bought it, of course.

“Do you really think Pittsburgh's ready for that?” Nedda smiled.

“Well keep it around a while for laughs,” I said. “Then we'll look for someone with enough sense of the absurd to appreciate it properly.”

Nedda finally agreed to return to Pittsburgh, but only when eight weeks had passed. She'd intended to stay the full two months all along. I mentioned earlier that Nedda was used to having her own way; now I had a closer view of how she went about getting it. By mild resistance, evasive action, teasing answers to serious questions. No direct lay-down-the-law confrontations. But we ended up doing what she wanted. Wasn't it Jeanette MacDonald they called the iron butterfly? Bad analogy, don't know why I thought of it; there was nothing at all butterflylike about Nedda.

The iron panther?

Two things needed immediate attention.

First, locating Charlie Bates. That meant calling in outside help. Much as I thought about it, I couldn't see any way around it. I couldn't find Charlie myself (I'd tried once before), so I'd have to use a private investigator. So if Charlie's body were found after I'd killed him, I'd be up to my eyeballs trying to explain to Lieutenant D'Elia why I'd hired a detective to find him. Therefore I was going to have to figure out a plan that made sure Charlie completely disappeared from the face of the earth. Think that's easy? Try it sometime. Anyway, I contacted a big agency that claimed discretion was its middle name and told them to find Charlie Bates.

The second thing was taking care of Wightman. I'd originally planned to fire him the minute I got back, but in France I'd had time to think about it a little. It would be more fun if I did bring in that bright young kid from the San Francisco office. Let Wightman squirm a little first. I'd give more and more of his work to the kid and then sit back and watch the countermeasures Wightman would be sure to take. Should be quite a show.

But I never got to see it. When I called the manager of the San Francisco branch, he told me the kid had quit to go work for one of our competitors.

Hell.

The detective's name was Valentine, and the head of Triangle Inquiry Consultants (what a euphemism) had assured me he was “one of our best men.” Valentine was rather colorless in appearance, a man easy to forget—a requisite in his trade, I suppose. He was curiously soft-spoken and polite, even overpolite. Not at all what you'd expect in a private eye. But even his elaborate courtesy couldn't take the sting out of what he was saying.