Nightmare in Shining Armor (19 page)

“I
f I may sit.” Both my ankle and head were throbbing.

“Be my guest.” He waved the gun at a contemporary armchair upholstered in cocoa-brown with navy piping. It looked really good with that rug.

I climbed into the chair, sighing with relief as the pain began to drain from my ankle. “Okay, tell me everything.”

He sat on a cream-colored sofa right next to me. It was a struggle not to smile with satisfaction. With any luck the recorder in my bra would pick up everything.

“You see, Abby, your timing was perfect.”

“
My
timing?”

“Throwing a costume party while Buford was on a trip to Japan.”

“That was purely coincidental,” I wailed.

“You know that, and I know that, but the police aren't going to know. Look at the facts, Abby—well, the facts as the police will see them. You arranged a costume party the weekend your
husband was overseas. Then you went to his house—for which you still have a key—”

“Says who?”

“Give me a break, Abby. Everyone knows that was your dream house, and that the only reason Buford ended up owning it is because he knows how to play the good old boy game. Any reasonable juror would believe you had that key hidden somewhere—maybe in your jewelry box. Besides, even if you didn't keep a key, you could pretty well guess where they hid it. Hmm, front door or back. I wonder which.”

“Tweetie was more imaginative than that. She kept it above the lintel. Besides, they would have changed the code for the alarm.”

Malcolm grinned. “But they didn't.”

“You sure?”

“Quite sure. I'm Buford's junior partner, remember? In his mind, that makes me an errand boy. I have my own damn key. Whenever they're both out of town I pick up the mail, water the plants, you name it. Hell, once I even defrosted the fridge. But where was I? Oh yeah. You'd just broken into Buford and Tweetie's house—”

“I did not!”

“Shhh. It's not polite to interrupt. So, anyway, you stole that suit of armor—one of many Buford recently acquired—lugged it upstairs at your house, and when the party was really cooking—which it was—you killed your ex-husband's wife and stuffed her in that suit. You know, the ex-wife
who seduced him away from you and those two precious children of yours?”

“If that's the case, what happened to the sheep?”

He scowled. “That damn sheep! I dumped it off in some farmer's pasture, but it shit in my car first.”

“Serves you right.”

“Spunky, like I said. Well, back to our little scenario. So you killed Tweetie—”

“
How?
How did I supposedly kill Tweetie?”

“Oh, I guess they haven't told you yet. It was cyanide.”

“Ha! Right! Like I have access to cyanide.”

“Actually you do. That cherry laurel in your backyard contains cyanide.”

“What cherry laurel?”

“That tree you made Tweetie tie her sheep to.”

“But I didn't even know it was a cherry laurel. I sure as heck didn't know it contained cyanide.”

“That's the breaks. What matters is that the police will think you knew. They'll also think that you planned to get your best friend drunk so she could find the body. Maybe even take the blame.”

I was up on my good foot. “That's preposterous!”

“Yeah, maybe it is. After all, it was Buford you were trying to incriminate. Everyone knows they'd been having their problems lately—”

“They had?”

He laughed. “Abby, you're so out of it.”

“That may be, but I'm not a cold-blooded killer.”

“But are you cold-blooded?”

“I beg your pardon?”

Malcolm laughed again, yawned, and stretched, the gun waving wildly at the ceiling. Had it not been for my game foot, I would have lunged at him, kicked him in the crotch, and maybe gotten the gun. Or I would have taken my chances by making a beeline for the door. Instead, all I could do was watch helplessly while the idiot put his chandelier into jeopardy. The worst of it, I guess, was that he didn't take me seriously.

“Do you like to swim, Abby?”

The light bulb inside my head clicked on. “What's with the riddles, Malcolm?”

I glanced surreptitiously around the room, trying to find something to use as a weapon. My business prevents me from watching much daytime TV, but I'd watched Oprah enough times on my days off to learn that the two best ways to physically disable a man are to kick him in the groin or hit him on the nose. Given the length of my legs, and the fact that one of them was game, I would have to go for the nose. A vase would do it. So would a nice heavy ashtray.

Malcolm didn't seem to notice my wandering eyes. “I'm giving you clues, Abby. It's up to you to guess the riddle.”

My eyes lit, just for a second, on the fireplace tools. With a poker I could deliver a nice hard jab to the Biddle family jewels. I might even be able to blind him in one eye. Either way, I'd have enough time to reach the door or call 911.

“What a lovely mantel,” I said, and began hobbling toward it.

“Sit down, Abby.”

“That looks like white Italian marble,” I said, making steady, but slow, progress. “Possibly from Carrara. Is it real, or simulated?”

I never got an answer. Instead, the light bulb inside my head went out, and I took an involuntary nap.

 

There is, believe it or not, an advantage to being conked over the head with the butt of a revolver. If one's noggin hurts bad enough, a sprained ankle becomes only a minor inconvenience.

I've always been of the opinion that wounds to the head are the most painful, simply because of their proximity to the brain. It is hard to mentally isolate one's head, when that's where one effectively lives. Injury to trunk, I've reasoned, is the second most painful, followed by injury to the arms and legs, and finally the extremities. Now I had a chance to put my theory to the test, and I am delighted to report that, at least in my case, I was right. My head felt like it was going to explode, whereas I could barely feel my ankle.

The light bulb remained out; for all I knew it may even have been broken. I couldn't see a thing. I tried opening and shutting my eyes, but that didn't help. Perhaps I'd been blindfolded. I tried reaching for my face, but discovered I couldn't raise my arm. I tried the other arm and got the
same lack of results. I tried my feet. They, too, were immobile. I had the strange sensation of being wrapped in metal. Cold metal.

Was it possible I'd been buried alive? Was it the sides of the coffin I was feeling? But wait a minute, weren't coffins lined with satin or other soft materials? Unless that was all for show, and after the mourners left the graveside, the cemetery workers dumped you into a plain metal container, an expanded version of a safety deposit box.

No, I remembered reading somewhere that casket linings served a distinct purpose; sopping up bodily fluids once decomposition set in. But still, I could be dead. All that business about the tunnel and moving toward the light was only conjecture, wasn't it? Sure, lots of folks claim to have had that experience, but none of them ever stayed. Maybe if you were
really
dead, it felt like being encased in cold metal. At least for a while.

But what about a coma? I'd read that folks in comas can hear everything, even if they can't respond, and I was suddenly hearing things. At first it was just the throbbing inside my head, but slowly I began to discern a low whine coming from outside my metal tomb, and then finally a muffled voice.

I am not a particularly religious woman in the conventional sense, but I definitely believe in God. I decided to take no chances.

“Is that you, Lord?” I asked.

There was a screech of metal alongside both ears
and I finally saw the light. In that instant I realized that I was neither dead nor in a coma. I was encased in a suit of armor.

Malcom Biddle's face loomed over the open visor. Above him I saw stars. Real stars.

“Like your new outfit, Abby?”

“Where the hell am I, and why am I dressed like this?”

He sighed. “You're not very good with riddles. I asked you before if you like to swim.”

“I don't,” I said. It was true. Buford and I had courted at the water park in Fort Mill, and ever since our divorce I'd been soured on the idea of swimming.

“That's okay, because you're not going to swim. You're going to sink straight to the bottom.” He laughed nervously. “That's what I'd do if I fell in. Never learned to swim.”

I was lying in the bottom of what appeared to be a bass boat. I struggled to sit. It was possible to move, after all, but it took great effort. Not only did I have the weight of the armor to deal with, but the fact that it hadn't been properly oiled in years. Perhaps centuries.

The sheer weight of the armor made sitting unaided difficult, but I managed to scoot sideways so that I was propped against the boat's side. The small vessel listed precariously.

“How do you like your suit, Abby? It's German. Sixteenth century. As long as I was going to swipe one from Buford, I thought I might as well make it two. Little did I know it would come in so handy.”

I only glanced at the armor. “Where the hell are we?”

“Such language, Abby. Still, I suppose you have a right to know, since this is going to be your last resting place. Remember Buford's fishing cabin on Lake Norman?”

“The one that should have at least been mine in the divorce?”

“That's the one. Well, we're in Buford's boat about fifty yards offshore. If I remember correctly, there's a nice little channel, which makes this about the deepest spot around. I'm going to leave the visor open, so that by the time they find you—assuming anyone ever does—the fishes will have done their job. Should make for some mighty big bass come spring.”

“You'll never get away with it!”

“Oh yes I will. It's Buford who won't. Sooner or later he'll be charged with both your and Tweetie's deaths. Hmm, I know I'm only a divorce lawyer, but perhaps I can volunteer to defend him.”

“Don't be stupid. Buford was in Japan when Tweetie died.”

“No he wasn't.”

“He called me from there.”

Malcolm laughed. “The man's an idiot. Deserved to have his wife run around on him. Buford called you from his new little love nest down in Hilton Head.”

“South Carolina?”

“Is there another?”

“But I heard Japanese announcements in the background and—”

“Buford has a tape, Abby. Actually he has several tapes. He can—or should I say could—call Tweetie from virtually every corner of the world. But he was still in Hilton Head.”

“But she was his wife! He'd have flown back immediately.”

“Would he have?”

The answer, alas, was no. Any man who did what Buford did to me was capable of just about anything. But not murder. It's
not
that the man had too much heart, it was just that he lacked the stomach.

“You'll still never get away with it,” I said.

“The hell I won't. And speaking of which, I'd say it was about time you visited it, don't you? It's starting to get a mite light over there in the east. And you know how early fishermen get up.”

“Very. There's probably someone watching you right now.”

Malcolm stood in the small boat. He was wearing a Charlotte Panthers jacket, and from the right pocket he took that nasty revolver.

“Up,” he ordered.

I sat, as still as a bronze statue.

“I'll shoot, Abby. The garniture you're wearing doesn't have a proof mark. The bullet could go right through it.”

“Or not. At this range it could just as well ricochet and kill you. Then who'd be feeding the fishes?”

Malcolm pondered that scenario for a moment, before returning the gun to his pocket. Then he charged at me. I can only assume his intent was to take me by surprise and hoist me out of the boat.

But during his moment of contemplation, I'd been doing some thinking of my own. It would take a monumental effort on my part, but one good move was all that was needed. And one good move I gave him. When Malcolm got within reach, I concentrated all my energy into my good leg, and managed to raise it about six inches.

Malcolm tripped and went flying over the bow. Then true to his word, he sank straight to the bottom of Lake Norman. At least I never saw him again.

“I
still can't believe you're moving to Charleston,” Wynnell said as she adjusted my veil for the umpteenth time.

“And I still can't believe Mama agreed to move so readily.”

A tug on my hem reminded me that my petite progenitress was still in the bride's changing room. In fact, she was down on her knees sewing a black thread into an otherwise white dress. There had been a bitter battle about the appropriateness of a mother of two walking down the aisle in the color traditionally reserved for virgins. I'd like to think of our compromise as more of a victory for me, but I knew Mama was taking tremendous pleasure in her task. If I didn't keep an eye on her, she was going to have the entire skirt bordered in black before it was time for me to make my grand entrance.

“I didn't need convincing,” the crafty seamstress said. “I've always loved Charleston. Abby should have known that. Besides, it's only three hours from here. My friends can visit me anytime.”

I thought about having a steady stream of Mama's friends underfoot. “Or you can come back here and visit them,” I said not unkindly.

“Don't be silly, Abby. You said there'd be a guest room.”

“Yes, but it might be occupied sometimes.”

I was thinking of my own friends; Wynnell, C. J., and the Rob-Bobs. The first two I would miss horribly. My daughter Susan had been unable to return from Europe on such short notice, so Wynnell was my matron of honor. She was also my very best friend. As for C. J.—well, she grew on you, not unlike a toenail fungus. I don't mean that in a bad way, of course. It's just that by the time you really noticed that she was part of your life, she'd already been under the surface of things for a long time. And like a toenail fungus, I had the feeling she wasn't going to be that easy to get rid of.

As for the Rob-Bobs, much to my shock, they had announced that they were also considering a move to Charleston. The men were still undecided, but had been toying with the idea for almost year. At first I'd been angry that they hadn't confided in me, but then I realized their silence was in keeping with who they were. Both Rob Goldburg and Bob Steuben are perfectionists—Bob more so than Rob. Until it was a done deal, nobody was going to know. It was only my action that prompted them to reveal the possibility.

Wynnell must have been reading my mind. “I'm going to miss you terribly,” she said, and gave me
a big hug. Unfortunately her left eyebrow snagged on my veil and she had to readjust it yet again. My veil, not the eyebrow.

C. J., who had insisted on being my flower girl, despite her advanced age, sighed. “Charlotte's not going to be the same without you, Abby, so I've been thinking about going back to Shelby.”

“But why? Your business is doing gangbusters.”

“That's just it. If you can let Irene run your shop, then I can find someone to run mine. Granny Ledbetter's been after me to help her start a business, and this might just be the time for it.”

Apparently Mama thought the black thread was not enough punishment. “What kind of business, dear?”

“It's called Bungee Munchies.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You see, in the summertime a lot of people go bungee jumping in the mountains west of Shelby. Only thing is, they can't eat anytime close to when they jump because it gets kinda messy. But Granny's been experimenting and she's come up with a kind of granola they can eat and still keep it down.”

“What kind is that?”

I gave Mama a sharp kick with the toe of my white bridal pump. With all the stiff crinolines in the way I'm sure she barely felt it.

C. J., who was studying the rose petals in her basket, pretended not to hear.

“Well, C. J.?” Mama demanded.

The big gal squirmed. “I promised Granny I'd
keep the recipe a secret. All I can say is that it's got glue in it.”

We groaned.

“But it tastes really good,” C. J. said defensively. “And our slogan is going to be
What Goes Down, Stays Down
.”

“If you can get it down in the first place,” I said wryly.

“Oh, no problem, because—”

Fortunately there was a light tap on the door, and a second later it opened. Charlie stuck his head in, and when he saw me resplendent in my white gown—the one I should have worn at my first wedding—his face lit up.

“You ready, Mama? Greg's standing up by the altar waiting, and I think the organist is about to start.”

I smiled at the young man who was going to give me away. “I'm more than ready.”

“But I'm not done,” Mama wailed.

“You better take your seat, Mama,” I said, “or you'll miss the procession.”

Mama fled, leaving her sewing basket behind.

One would think that my matron of honor would notice that Mama had left the needle embedded in my hem, but she didn't. As I walked down the aisle to the man I loved, I trailed a long black thread that grew progressively longer, until it pulled off the spool altogether.

But don't be misled into thinking the black thread was an ominous sign. Greg and I are still living happily ever after. In Charleston.