The Ming and I (11 page)

“I
t’s definitely the same vase,” Rob Goldburg declared ex cathedra.

“How can you be so sure?”

He tilted the Ming. “There is a hairline crack in the glaze here, just to the left of this flower. It’s the only flaw on the damn thing.”

“Have y’all heard of the Yüan dynasty?” I asked casually. I didn’t want them to think I was challenging their expertise.

Rob and Bob exchanged modest glances. I should have known. If it was older than the expiration date on the milk in my refrigerator, they not only had heard of it, but were undoubtedly world-class experts.

“Well, anyway,” I said, “at that party Frank took me to, there was a ewer that looked a lot like this. The colors and design, I mean. But Frank said it was Yüan, not Ming.”

A scowl distorted Rob’s handsome brow. “The Chinese weren’t using polychrome overglazes during the Yüan dynasty. Blue and white was their big thing.”

“Wow, I go my whole life without seeing a Ming, and in the same week I see two of them.” I shuddered. “This is really creepy. First this one gets
dropped off at my shop by a woman just about to be killed—”

“I’m doomed,” C.J. wailed. “Just like Granny Ledbetter!”

“You have enough grannies to fill a nursing home,” I said, not unkindly.

“This is serious, Abby. Granny Ledbetter found a pair of bright red shoes on her back porch one day.”

“Had Dorothy stopped by on her way to Oz?” Rob had a twinkle in his eye.

“If she finds an oil can, let me know,” Bob said. “My Power Master has been squeaking lately.”

C.J. was not amused. “Granny died because of those shoes!”

“Please, go on,” I begged politely.

C.J. glared at each of us in turn and then took a deep breath. “Granny had no idea where the shoes came from, but they fit her perfectly. One day she wore them into town on a trip to the doctor—she’d cut her hand on a piece of baling wire and it wouldn’t heal up.

“Well, her regular doctor was away on vacation, but his substitute was there, only he didn’t bother to read Granny’s chart thoroughly, or else he would have known she was allergic to penicillin. He gave her a shot, and she died that same day.”

“Sounds like a lawsuit,” Rob said sympathetically.

“I’m sorry about your granny,” I said gently, “but I don’t see how the mysterious red shoes had anything to do with her death.”

“That’s because I didn’t get a chance to finish my story!”

“Please, finish,” we chorused.

She took her time before speaking. “There was an article in the paper the very next day about a woman over in Polk County whose body had been found in the woods. She’d been missing for two weeks. Her husband said that when they found her, she was
wearing the exact same clothes he’d last seen her wearing—except for her shoes. Her shoes were gone, and they were bright red shoes!”

“Well, uh—but, C.J.,” I said, “I already had the vase, and nothing happened to me.”

“Wrong, Abigail! Something did. Last night you almost got shot. It was in all the papers. I even heard it on the radio on my way over here. The curse isn’t over, Abigail, it’s just begun. You and I are both doomed!”

I will admit that for a couple of seconds I felt that proverbial goose do a soft-shoe (red, of course) on my grave.

Greg handled the vase like Buford handled newborns. I’m surprised Greg didn’t drop it.

“So this is a Ming vase?”

“A particularly fine one. Rob said this one is over three hundred years old and in almost flawless condition.”

“And you’re positive it is the same one that was left in your shop the day June Troyan was killed?”

“The Rob-Bobs have declared it so.”

“I’d like to take it back with me to the lab,” he said reverently.

“Just give it a bottle every four hours, and check now and then to make sure it’s dry.”

Greg has a smile that could light up New York City in a blackout. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“Shakespeare was right; sleep really does knit up the raveled sleeve of care.”

He looked around. “Where’s your mother?”

I pointed to the guest bedroom. “Still knitting, I reckon.”

“I got the ballistics report.”

“And?”

“The countess was killed by a Colt Model 1860.” He paused.

“Yes?”

“It is a cap-fired .44 caliber percussion piece.”

“So?”

“So, the revolver in question dates to the Civil War.”

“No shit!” There are times when one is just too shocked to be a proper southern lady.

Greg nodded. “A real antique. Doesn’t that guy across the street sell antique guns?”

“Major Calloway? That’s all he sells—that and military paraphernalia. Some of it rather bizarre. Last year he sold a pair of Hitler’s pajamas.”

Greg laughed. “Civil War guns?”

I shrugged. “That’s one area of the business I know nothing about. All guns look the same to me.”

“Perhaps I’ll have a little chat with the major.”

“He’s a feisty old goat; he’ll probably chew you out. Anyway, I don’t think it will do you any good.”

“Vee haf our vays,” Greg said.

“I’m sure you do, but that’s not what I mean. I’m guessing that this revolver and the Ming come from the same place, and it isn’t Major Calloway’s Antique Gun Emporium.”

Greg raised his eyebrows. Unlike most men I’ve dated, he has two of them.

“You know a dealer who carries both?”

“No, it’s not a dealer. It’s a plantation.”

“Whoa, Abby. Now you’ve lost me for sure.”

“Roselawn Plantation,” I said patiently. “You know, the place where the late June Troyan worked as a docent. You have checked out everyone involved with that place, haven’t you?”

“Now Abby—”

“You at least interviewed the docents and the board members?”

His eyebrows plunged. “We are professionals, Abby. We know our job. How often do I give you advice?”

I stood up. I was livid. My raveled sleeve had come all the way undone and hung in tatters from my wrist.

“Gregory Wayman Washburn! Any idiot can put this two and two together. Docent from old plantation drops off an old vase and gets killed. Vase disappears. Then someone tries to shoot me, and the next day vase reappears.”

“Who was trying to shoot you, Abby? When?”

I whirled. Mama was up, and by the look on her face I had managed to unravel her carefully knit sleeve all to hell.

“Not now, Mama, I—”

“Out with it, Abby! I’m your mother. I have a right to know.”

“I’m talking about the party, Mama. The shot that killed Caroline was really meant for me. You said so yourself.”

Mama blanched, swayed, and steadied herself by leaning on an end table. Then she turned to Greg. “So I was right? Someone really wanted to kill my baby girl? My precious little Abby?”

I blushed, undoubtedly deeper than the time Mama brought my lunch bucket to school. I hadn’t really forgotten it. It took me the rest of the year to live down the pearl-encrusted doilies and pink satin bows.

Greg, thank the good Lord, didn’t even grin. “It’s beginning to look like that.”

Mama’s color returned. “Well, I’ve reconsidered,” she said, “and I think the idea of anyone trying to kill my Abby is ridiculous.”

Greg swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple a cork dragged underwater by a big bass. “Well, actually, it’s not.”

“The bullet didn’t have her name on it, for Pete’s sake.”

“No, but this did.” Greg pulled a crumpled piece
of paper from his vest pocket and smoothed it out along the palm of his hand. It was a sheet of note-size paper with a business logo at the top.
Den of Antiquity
, it read. It was definitely mine.

“So?”

“We found this on the sidewalk in front of the Tudor mansion.”

“That doesn’t prove anything.” Mama was as stubborn as a grounded teenager trying to borrow the family car.

Greg turned the paper over. On the back someone had scrawled Bea and Jerry’s address.

“This isn’t your writing, is it?”

I shook my head.

“We calculated the distance from which the revolver was fired by taking into account the size of the projectile and the entry wound. This paper was found within a five-foot radius.”

“I see. Were there fingerprints?”

“Yes. We got several good sets.”

“And? What did you learn?” I wanted to shake the information out of him.

“Well, the prints weren’t yours, for one thing, meaning that this sheet of paper was not the first or last one in the tablet.”

“What else?”

“The paper was handled by a right-handed person.”

“How can you tell?”

Greg gave us a complicated explanation of radial and ulnar loops, whorls and tented arches.

“That’s as clear as Catawba River mud,” Mama said crossly. “We’ll have to take your word for it.”

“Male or female?” I asked.

He shook his handsome head. “Race and sex are two things you can’t tell from prints. There are some slight statistical differences between prints taken from the various races, but they are not reliable or
significant enough to go on. As for sex, a large woman will have larger prints than a small man. And vice versa.”

I chewed on that for perhaps three seconds. “Well, get on down to Rock Hill and fingerprint everyone connected with Roselawn Plantation.”

Greg chuckled. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“You bet I am! Round them up and print away.”

Greg folded the paper and returned it to his pocket. “On what grounds?”

“Murder.” I started to cry for the second time in as many days. I do not cry easily. To my knowledge I have never cried from physical pain. Emotional pain has brought tears to my eyes upon rare occasions, but it was utter frustration that made the damn burst for me.

“Now see what you’ve done,” Mama said. She rushed over and threw her arms around me, which just made things worse. I can’t stand to be comforted, especially not in front of a third party.

I boo-hooed and blubbered like a tired child whose favorite doll has been snatched from her hands. I slobbered and sniffled as well. No doubt my nose turned cherry red and giant blotches appeared on my cheeks. Thank God that I had at least applied waterproof mascara the day before and had been too exhausted to remove it the previous night.

Poor Greg. He looked as if he’d rather be in Shanghai eating a live snake than watching me cry. He crossed and uncrossed his legs several times and made jerky, haphazard movements with his hands. I chose to interpret that the latter were intended to be helpful.

“Well, don’t just sit there like a big dumb ox,” Mama said. “Bring that box of tissues from the kitchen.”

Greg sprang to his feet, eager to do her bidding.
Retrieving a box of facial tissues was a lot easier than eating a live snake.

“There, there,” Mama said when he was gone.

“There, there what?” I wailed.

“Beats me, but that’s what one says at a time like this.”

We looked at each other and started laughing simultaneously, and by the time Greg returned with the tissues, we were all but rolling on the floor. Not that the tissues weren’t needed, mind you, because the dam was still overflowing.

Greg stared at us, trying desperately to comprehend. After a moment he shook his head.

“Women,” he growled. “Go figure.”

I calmed down enough to repair to the bathroom for some major repairs. When I returned, Mama and Greg were having coffee. Mama was fully dressed.

“Greg has offered me a ride to Rock Hill,” she announced.

“Ah, so you are going to interrogate that bunch!”

“Interrogate is putting it a little too strongly, Abby. But I am going to poke around and ask a few questions.”

“Poke hard,” I said, jabbing the air with a forefinger.

Greg smiled. “I’ll poke as hard as I legally can. Now, in the meantime, you have to do something for me.”

“Yes?”

“Stay away from those folks. Stay away from Roselawn. You got that?”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“And there is one more thing I want from you—”

“I just said yes, and I already said you could take the vase. What else do you want, the rest of my life?”

There was a stunned silence. I could not believe I had been so flippant. Loose lips might sink ships
sometimes, but mine were capable of capsizing the entire Spanish Armada. Even Mama was horrified, too upset, in fact, to reach for her pearls.

“Well,” Greg finally said, “that might not be such a bad idea.”

Never accuse Abigail Louise Wiggins Timberlake of not being able to turn on a dime.

“Not such a bad idea?” I barked. “Is that all you can say?”

I heeled and stomped from the room, slamming the door behind me. When I got to my bedroom, I slammed that door as well. My blood was boiling so noisily I didn’t even hear Greg and Mama drive away.

C
aptain Keffert was a no-show. The least he could have done was call. I waited patiently all afternoon, and for practically nothing. This is a funny business; one day it’s feast, the next day it’s famine. That Sunday afternoon my cash register was so hungry, it would have gladly taken payment in pennies.

“How much is this?” a well-dressed, obviously well-heeled patron asked. She was referring to a six-by-four-inch seventeenth-century Russian icon in a silver case embedded with semiprecious stones.

“Forty-five hundred,” I said.

Her reworked nose tilted upward. “I saw one just like this in St. Petersburg, Russia. They wanted only two thousand for it.”

“How much were your airfare and your hotels?” I asked pleasantly.

“Tell you what, I’ll give you twenty-five hundred.”

I am always open to any reasonable offer, but that wasn’t one of them. I smiled sweetly.

“Four thousand is the best I can do.”

Actually I was prepared to go as low as thirty-five hundred. There isn’t a whole lot of call for icons in Charlotte, and valuable items that small can be a pain in the neck. You have to keep them locked up
behind glass, or they’ll grow legs, a peculiar side effect of sticky fingers.

Moneybags had the gall to call me a tightwad, so I graciously showed her the door. I was seriously toying with the idea of locking it behind her and closing early, when the phone rang.

“Den of Antiquity.”

The ensuing pause should have tipped me off.

“Yes?” I snapped.

“Did you get the vase?”

An entire flock of Canada geese abandoned their favorite lake on the golf course to dance on my grave. It was Androgynous again.

“What vase?” I wrote down the number displayed on my caller ID panel. Unfortunately my service does not show the caller’s name.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Abigail. I sent it to you this morning, in care of one of your friends.”

“Well, it hasn’t arrived yet, dear,” I said sweetly. “I’ll call you when it does.”

Androgynous obligingly hung up so I could call Greg. Unfortunately, tall, dark, and handsome was off in Rock Hill jousting dragons on my behalf. Melody Brzezinski, a coworker, picked up for him.

“I need to trace a number,” I said, then briefly described the situation.

As it turned out, Greg had already filled her in. She told me to hold the line, that it might take a few minutes because they were understaffed on Sundays. However, she got back to me in a matter of seconds.

“That one’s easy,” she said. “It’s a public phone on Selwyn. It must be only a block or two from where you are.”

“Damn!”

“Sorry, Abby. Do you want me to have Greg call you back?”

“You can tell him to go to hell,” I said.

“If it’s any comfort, that’s one confused puppy you have there. He absolutely adores you, you know, but he has trouble understanding you at times.”

“His skull is thicker than an oak plank.”

“You’re talking about that offhand proposal this morning, aren’t you?”

“He told you about that?”

“I think he’d like to rip his own tongue out,” she confided.

Melody is single, but she has never shown the slightest interest in Greg. She has her own boyfriend, Tom.

“He said that?”

“I think he’d propose all over again, correctly, if you’d only give him a chance.”

“Drop him a few hints about candlelight dinners, soft music, and, of course, a ring.”

“Of course. What size?”

“Six. And my preference is oval-cut diamonds.”

“Will do,” she said, and I knew she would. Now all I had to do was sit back and see if Knucklehead would take her hints. If he didn’t I might be forced to propose to him myself. It was the nineties after all, even in the Carolinas.

I needed to work off steam, and I could think of no better way than driving down to Roselawn and working on Miss Lilah’s inventory. I decided to take the back way, and avoid Rock Hill and the possibility of running into Greg—until I was good and ready. My route took me down U.S. 521 across the border into South Carolina as far as Andrew Jackson State Park, and then right past Van Wyck and across the Catawba River. Between the towns of Catawba and Lesslie, I made a sharp right turn on Live Oak Road.

This road is the plantation’s only vehicular access,
and it is nothing more than a private, single-lane dirt track. From the very beginning the Upstate Preservation Foundation had been in a quandary over whether or not to improve the road, and had ultimately decided against it. It wasn’t a lack of money that settled the issue, but ecology. There simply was no way to widen and surface the lane without causing extensive damage to the root systems of the live oaks that gave the road its name. In the interest of safety, however, the board posted a speed limit of fifteen miles per hour, and warned motorists that they might be sharing the lane with oncoming traffic.

Apparently there are some illiterate drivers, and among their number at least one board member. First, Angus “Red” Barnes nearly sideswiped me in a cloud of dust. Were it not for the grace of God and my antilock brakes, I would have kissed a live oak on my way to heaven. Then, while I sat there still shaking with fear, he had the temerity to back up and roll down his window.

“What the hell are you doing here this time of day? The goddamn place is closed.”

“I’m counting on that,” I said through gritted teeth. “I’ve come out to work on Miss Lilah’s inventory. What are
you
doing?”

“It’s none of your damn business what I do, is it?”

“It is if you run me off the road.”

“It sure the hell—” Red stopped, no doubt distracted by the blond head that had bobbed up from the general region of his lap. The tart was rubbing her noggin and moaning, clearly unhappy about her latest encounter with a steering wheel.

I laughed, perhaps cruelly. “The law clearly states that seat belts must be worn at all times, dear. And you, Red, have you nothing to lose?”

Red’s face flushed with anger, clashing with his freckles yet again. “You tell Miss Lilah that she and
I are going to have ourselves a little talk. Then we’ll see who gets the last laugh.”

I brayed like a donkey, but unintentionally, of course. Ladylike laughs have never been my forte.

“Does Miss Lilah know that you use Roselawn Plantation as a love motel? Or your lovely wife, for that matter? I bet the charming Mrs. Barnes would be interested in knowing that her husband doesn’t keep his barn door shut when he’s away from home.”

The color drained from Red’s face, exposing his freckles like shells on a beach at low tide. He seemed temporarily incapable of speech.

The tart, who looked familiar, stopped rubbing her head and stuck her tongue out at me. “Bitch.”

“Does your mama know where you are?” I asked calmly. The girl looked no older than my daughter, Susan.

“You leave my mama out of this!”

I recognized her then. All Mattie Markham’s daughters had distinct lisps. But this wasn’t Phyllis Sue, the first of Red’s Markham conquests.

“You’re Phyllis Sue’s younger sister, aren’t you?”

“I am not Phyllis Sue’s sister.” She sounded like a pot of water boiling over on the stove, thereby proving that she was indeed who she claimed not to be.

“For shame,” I said gently. “And with a married man, too.”

“Red’s going to get a divorce and marry me. Aren’t you, sweetie?”

Red blanched so white, even his freckles paled. “I didn’t say that, Bobbie Jo. I said that I would
consider
divorcing Marsha and marrying you.”

“And?”

Red looked at me, and I gave him the best blank stare I could muster. He was going to get no help from me.

“And,” he said, “I have decided to stay with my wife. I still love her.”

“You said you didn’t love her anymore. You said you only loved me.”

Even tarts have broken hearts, and it hurt me to hear the pain in Bobbie Jo’s voice. She was, in fact, younger than my daughter, Susan. If memory served me right, she was in Charlie’s grade at school. Quite possibly she wasn’t even eighteen. Still, she was old enough to know better than to play around with a married man. Someone needed to teach her a lesson.

“Seems like I have a dilemma,” I said. “Do I, or don’t I, tell Bobbie Jo’s mama what she’s been up to?”

“Please don’t tell Mama,” she sobbed. “She couldn’t take it. Not after what Phyllis Sue put her through.”

I shook my head sadly. “Don’t young folks have any morals these days?”

She looked up at me through tear-swollen eyes. “But I do have morals,” she hissed. “I hardly ever go all the way on the first date.”

I sighed. “I won’t tell your mama if you promise to straighten up your act. No more ‘dates’ with married men. In fact, you might try laying off the dates until you’ve found someone who really does intend to marry you. Preferably someone your own age.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The edge of defiance to her tone could barely have cut butter, so I felt as if I was making progress.

“But if you simply must date, then please make sure you use protection.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I turned to Red. “Now what am I going to do about you?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“I would hate to have to hurt Marsha, but you seem beyond redemption. Chances are she is going
to get hurt, so maybe sooner is better than later.”

“Hey now, little lady, not so fast there. You’re talking to a reformed man.”

“Since when?”

“Starting now. I mean, I realize now that there is no way to keep these things a secret. Somebody always finds out, right? And hey, I don’t want to hurt my Marsha.”

“Talk is cheap.”

“I swear I won’t look at another woman besides my Marsha. I mean it. I won’t even watch ‘Bay-watch’ unless you say it’s okay.”

I was supposed to chuckle, but I didn’t even crack a smile. “You’re funnier than a screen door on a submarine,” I said.

“So you won’t say anything to anybody?”

They were both staring at me, their eyes full of doomed hope, like pathetic little puppies at the dog pound. I’m sure if they’d had tails to wag, I would have taken them both home and foisted them on Dmitri.

“Go on, get out of here,” I said sternly.

For the rest of my drive up Live Oak Road, I felt like a priest who had just heard confession and given absolution—not that I knew what a priest felt, mind you. A real priest would probably have taken the time to do more active listening, to find out why a middle-aged man was boffing his second teenager, and why the Markham teenagers made such good marks. A real priest would have done a better job of dealing with the chain of events that was about to unfold.