The Ming and I (14 page)

I
stepped outside and nearly ran into Greg. He was headed for Frank’s shop.

“You heard about Frank?”

“Yes. I can’t believe it. I told Wynnell I’d seen almost as many bodies as Jessica Fletcher, and that’s who I’m starting to feel like. Hanging around me is a surefire way to die. Dr. Kervorkian should just bring his patients shopping at the Den of Antiquity.”

Greg chuckled, but his Wedgwood blue eyes seemed to cloud over. “You’re not taking this very well, are you?”

I bit my lip to keep from bursting into tears.

“Dinner tonight?” he asked gently.

I nodded.

“I’ve got kind of a full schedule. Is eight too late?”

I shook my head.

“Abby, there’s something you need to know.”

I held my breath. The last time Greg and I had an extended fight, he took up with that girl with enormous hooters. He was not the kind of guy to sit at home and twiddle his thumbs.

“I was going to wait and tell you tonight, because there are a few more details I’m trying to clarify,” he said with maddening slowness.

“You mean you’re running a credit check on her?” I asked sweetly.

The blue eyes stared blankly, then twinkled. “It’s not about a woman. There is no other woman. It’s about the gun that was used to kill the countess.”

“Y’all found it?”

He shook his head. “Not the gun itself, but another bullet from it.”

“Where?”

“In Frank McBride’s body. The same gun killed both the countess and Mr. McBride.”

I let the news percolate for a moment.

“Abby, did you hear what I said?”

I felt an immense surge of relief sweep through my body. “You mean that bullet wasn’t meant for me?”

“That’s right. The bullet that killed the countess was meant for Mr. McBride. He was standing behind you, remember? Between you and the street where the gun was fired.”

I percolated some more while Greg waited patiently. “Why would anyone want to kill poor Frank?” I asked at last.

“It’s a good question, and one I was hoping you could help me figure out.”

“Me?”

“You’re Miss Fletcher, right?”

“I’m afraid I just attract victims, not answers. Frank was a little inconsiderate at times, but I don’t know that he had any enemies.”

“In what way was he inconsiderate?”

“Well, take the party.” I realized that Greg had yet to mention my “date” with Frank on Saturday night. Either he had a lot more self-confidence than I gave him credit for, or else he didn’t care.

“Yes? About the party?”

“Yes, the party,” I said quickly. “
Both
Mama and I arrived with Frank, but the minute we got there, he deserted us. Spent the entire time yakking up a storm with the hosts. That’s inconsiderate, isn’t it?”

“Very,” Greg said. “I would never do such a thing.”

I searched his face for a smile, but found none. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”

“Absolutely not. A man gets lucky enough to have you for an evening, he’d be a fool to leave you even for a second. Hell, I’d slap a pair of cuffs on you if I had to, but I wouldn’t let you leave my sight.”

“Greg!”

Greg stooped and gave me a peck on the top of the head. “See you.”

“What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”

I whirled around. “C.J.!”

“It does happen, you know. My cousin Vern back home in Shelby was playing with his cat once, flicking his tongue in and out, letting the cat bat at it. Well, Vern’s cat Puffy had real sharp claws—you should see Vern’s furniture. Anyway, Puffy accidentally got her claws stuck in Vern’s tongue—”

“I don’t want to hear anymore,” I said.

C.J. sighed. “It was no big loss. Vern never was much of a talker. Then again, neither was Cousin Homer, and he had a cat, too.”

“So, did you and my mother succeed on y’all’s quest?” I asked dangerously, which just goes to show you how much I didn’t want to hear another of her stories. Cat-created mutes indeed!

“Oh Abigail, that place was gross! It smelled like my high school gym back in Shelby, and the tattoo artist was a woman named Dagger. There was no way I was going to let her even touch me, much less with a needle.”

“Did Mama get her tattoo?” I was ready to clamp my hands over my ears if the answer was “yes.”

“No. Your mother turned six shades of green and backed out faster than a gopher from a snake hole.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Anyway, I convinced her there are other ways to
honor Lawrence Welk besides having his name tattooed on your bum.”

“
That’s
what she wanted?” I shrieked.

“Well, sure. Inside a little heart, of course. My aunt Mildred had one just like it, but then one day—”

It was time to cut her off at the pass again. “What are you doing on Selwyn? I thought you were off today.”

“I am off. I just wanted to see how Wynnell was doing. She all right?”

“She seems to be doing fine. I showed her the cap. She said it was genuine.”

“Imagine that! Just think, Abigail, what if we were in England and saw the ghost of a king, and he left
his
hat behind. Who would get to keep it? It might be something worth checking into.”

“Maybe you’ve got a point there. Unless—”

“Unless what?” She sounded as if she were being forced to throw away half her Halloween candy.

“Unless that was just a sound-and-light show we saw last night.”

A carload of whistling and gesticulating young men drove by. C.J. ignored them, but I sucked in my tummy and threw back my shoulders. It never hurts to look your best.

“Abigail! What more proof do you need? Wynnell said it was the real thing. If someone was playing a trick on us, they wouldn’t need to wear a genuine Civil War uniform, would they?”

I shrugged. “Maybe he meant to leave that cap behind. Maybe it didn’t just fall off.”

“Oh Abby, you’re so silly. The next thing I know you’re going tell me that it wasn’t necessarily even a man. That it was a woman all dressed up.”

“It could have been.”

C.J. frowned. “Well, there
was
a woman in Shelby
who dressed up like a man pretending to be a woman—”

“That was
Victor Victoria
,” I said. “You need to document your sources, dear.”

C.J. stomped off to see Wynnell. I stomped off just for the heck of it. Inadvertently I stomped into Bob Steuben, who was unlocking the door to The Finer Things.

“Whoa!” he boomed. “You pack a lot of punch for someone—”

“So short?” I snapped. I’d heard short jokes my entire life, and they have never ceased to irritate me.

“Hey Abigail, come on in,” Rob said, running interception for his partner. “We just got back from Purvis’s.”

The Rob-Bobs gallantly ushered me into their shop in front of them. They both seemed to be in exceptional spirits. High as Himalaya kites.

“Purvis had some good stuff this morning, huh?”

Bob beamed. “We got a seventeeth-century Ushak kilim.”

I must have looked particularly vacuous.

“A kilim is a flat-woven rug that uses a slit tapestry technique,” Bob said. “Ushak is the village in the Anatolia region of Turkey where this one came from. Only ten Ushak kilims that old are known to exist.”

“And we own one!” Bob was bouncing up and down like a schoolboy who’d just found a truly rare and valuable baseball card in a pack of cheap gum.

“So you’re going to keep it?” I asked.

Rob glanced at Bob. “That’s still up for discussion. There’s a lot of money tied up in that thing.”

“It’s an investment,” Bob said.

“Only if we intend to sell it again.”

“But we have the perfect space for it.” Bob was practically begging. “Abby, you know where I mean. In the den, where we have that hideous Heriz.”

“I gave that to you for your birthday,” Rob cried.

The last thing I wanted was to be caught up in a domestic dispute about old rugs. When a couple starts to argue about carpets, the magic is beginning to go, if you ask me. I showed them the Union cap as a diversionary tactic.

“I had a great-great-great uncle who fought in the war on the Union side,” Bob said. “That might be his cap.”

“We’ll forgive him,” Rob said. I already knew that he had at least two ancestors who fought for the Confederacy.

I told them my ghost story. They were impartial listeners. Both of them were open to the idea of ghosts, but neither had any personal experience with the phenomenon.

Rob laid a comforting arm on my shoulder. “You don’t have to go back there, do you?”

“I told Miss Lilah that I would do the inventory for her. I would hate to renege on our deal just because I’m a chicken.”

“It would scare the piss out of me,” Bob said. It was hard to imagine a basso profundo peeing out of fright. “I’ve never been there, but I’ve heard that it can be spooky.”

Rob nodded. “Frank said it gave him the heebie-jeebies.”

“Frank McBride?”

“Yes. I still can’t believe it. Two murders on Selwyn Avenue, and in broad daylight. What is the world coming to?”

“It’s already
gone
,” Bob boomed, “to hell in a handbasket.”

“That’s what Wynnell says,” I told him gently. “She blames it on you Yankees.”

Bob blushed. He now considered himself a southerner—if not by birth, then by the grace of God—and hated being reminded of his Toledo origins.

I turned to Rob. “Did poor Frank go there often?”

He shrugged. “I just know that he went there for some fund-raiser. Maybe about a year ago. Just after the state sold it.”

They obviously knew the late Frank McBride better than I did. “Did Frank know June Troyan?”

“I don’t know. I kind of doubt it. Frank liked to hang out with the fast crowd. He partied a lot.”

Like Bea and Jerry, I thought. “How do you know?” I asked. “Did you party with him?”

They laughed, completely at ease with each other again. “Abby, you’re a hoot,” Rob said. “Bob and I hardly qualify as part of the fast crowd. But from what I hear, you do. Didn’t you party the other night with a jet-setting countess?”

Bob nudged Rob, whose turn it was to blush. Clearly he’d forgotten that I had been standing next to the countess when she was shot.

“Pardon him,” Bob said, “while he extracts a size eleven from his mouth.”

“No harm done,” I said. I wasn’t being generous, just fair. Perhaps it is because I have small feet, but I stick them in my mouth so frequently, I wear only slip-on shoes.

“You
sure
?” Rob asked.

I waved a hand to show him that it was already forgotten. “What’s going to happen to Frank’s shop now? Does he have survivors?”

“Only a brother that I know of,” Bob said. “He’s a courier or something. Travels all over the place.”

“Think he’ll take over the shop?”

Rob shook his head. “Frank’s lawyer was down at the barn this morning talking to Purvis. There’s going to be an auction on May fourth. Open to the trade only.”

I felt a fleeting pang of guilt. Poor Frank wasn’t even in the ground, and already I was salivating at the thought of his stock being auctioned. Frank’s
was one of the more upscale shops on Selwyn Avenue, with a lot of European pieces one didn’t normally find in Charlotte. Perhaps his roaming brother had something to do with that.

“—had a physique like Arnold Schwarzenegger,” Bob said. “What do men see in a woman like that?”

“Or any woman,” Rob said. “As a matter of fact, even Arnie is too pumped for me.”

Bob grinned. “I was hoping you would say that.”

“I beg your pardon? What woman, and what does the Terminator have to do with this?” I seemed to have missed something.

“We’re talking about Frank’s lawyer,” Bob said. “Some woman from Rock Hill who obviously lifts weights. I’ve never seen such bulging biceps on a woman.” He shuddered.

“But with a small head and a little ferret face?” I asked not unkindly.

They nodded in tandem. “You know her?”

“Gloria Roach,” I said.

The goose that had taken to dancing on my grave lately was doing a slow shuffle.

I
called Rock Hill information and was given Gloria Roach’s office number. Her secretary, a young woman named Angel, was not as forthcoming.

“Whom may I say is calling?”

Whom
? Boy, was I impressed.

“Abigail Timberlake.”

The ensuing pause was of such duration that I could have filed my nails.

Angel returned to the phone slightly breathless. “Ms. Roach isn’t in at the moment; may I take a message?”

“This is Abigail Timberlake calling. Could you tell me when I might be able to speak to her?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I’m not at liberty to say.”

“Would it be possible to make an appointment to see her today?” I asked politely.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but she’s booked solid for today.”

“Would you be an angel, dear, and see if you have an opening for tomorrow?”

“Just one moment, please.”

A bottle of Peach Glow and I could have polished my nails and had them dry by the time Angel got back to me.

“I’m sorry, but Ms. Roach is no longer taking any new clients.”

“But I’m not a client, dear. I’m a friend. She was at my mother’s house for a party on Saturday night,” I said in a foolish attempt to strengthen my position.

Angel sighed. “I’m sorry, Miss Timberlake, but Ms. Roach doesn’t wish to speak with you. Perhaps—”

“You have such a lovely voice,” I said. “And an impressive command of the English language. Are you an attorney yourself?”

I’m sure that someone with better hearing than I could have heard Angel smile. “No, ma’am, but I have an associate’s degree in business from York Technical College.”

“That doesn’t surprise me a bit. I could tell from your voice that you are a well-educated woman. Ms. Roach is lucky to have you for her assistant.”

“I’m just her secretary,” she said, her resentment barely perceptible.

I ran with what I had. “That’s a shame. Still, it must be thrilling to work for Ms. Roach.”

“A thrill a minute.”

“I bet. I hear she’s kind and gentle, generous to a fault. They say she’s a veritable saint. How would you describe her?”

“Well, she’s—uh—”

“A ferret-faced, muscle-bound cretin with the personality of a pit bull?”

“She’s taking her lunch break today at one.” Angel spit out the words as if they were bones in a salmon steak.

“Watkins Grill?” I asked, naming a Rock Hill eatery that was popular with lunching attorneys.

“Tam’s Tavern,” she said.

I thanked her profusely and urged her to get a law degree. We can always use an angelfish in a profession dominated by sharks.

Tam’s Tavern is
the
place to eat in Rock Hill. It’s where one goes to celebrate special occasions, to see and be seen by the cream of the “Hill.” As a bonus, it serves some of the best food in town.

I would have bet my shop that Gloria Roach was a prompt person, so I pulled into Tam’s parking lot at precisely five minutes after the hour. Angel had indeed told me the truth. The black Cadillac with the personalized plate that said
SHARK
confirmed it.

Marlene, the hostess, gave me a quizzical look when I told her that Ms. Roach was waiting for me, but nonetheless she led me to a round table near the fireplace. Gloria’s back was to me, her broad, muscled shoulders straining against the confines of her steel gray business suit.

Taking a deep breath, I quickly skirted the table and slipped into a chair. Gloria’s expression was priceless. I never knew so much emotion could be expressed on such a tiny face.

“Did Angel tell you I was here?” she snarled.

“Angel’s lips were sealed. I came here because I’m hungry. What looks good today?”

She took a sip from a glass of ice water. “I’m not going to be able to shake you, am I?”

“Think of me as a vicious little terrier hanging on for dear life.”

Gloria stared at me, and then grinned. Well, actually it is hard to tell in her case, but the corners of her mouth were at least horizontal.

“You’ve got chutzpah,” she said, pronouncing the “ch” as in child. “Normally I like a woman with chutzpah.”

“I swing the other way, and even then I’m not very good at it,” I said modestly.

Gloria grimaced. “You’re funny, too. However—”

The waitress arrived to take our orders. Gloria ordered teriyaki chicken, and I ordered the chicken
quesadillas. We both asked for sweet tea—the Carolina term for iced tea with sugar.

“However what?” I asked, picking up the thread of our broken conversation.

“However, I just don’t like you. The moment I saw you, I took an aversion to you.”

I was shocked. How could someone not like
me
?

“Ditto,” I said when I found my tongue. “You push all my wrong buttons.”

“You’re petite and pert. I hate that.”

“You make me sick,” I said. “Big muscles, big mind. You’re a caricature. Oh, by the way, you forgot perky.”

“Well, at least we both call them like we see them.”

“More or less, dear. I may have been holding back a little.”

She smiled. I was sure of it. I could see her teeth, tiny pointed things, barely larger than the serrations on a grapefruit knife.

“Truce?” I asked.

“Truce. So, Ms. Timberlake, why have you been chasing me all over town?”

The waitress brought our orders. I waited until she was gone before answering.

“I wanted to ask you about Frank McBride.”

Ferret face didn’t flinch. “What about him?”

“Did you know he was killed yesterday?”

“Yes, I saw it on the news.”

“Did you know him well?”

“No, I did not.”

Some truce. I felt as if I were Perry Mason cross-examining a hostile witness.

“But he’s your client!”

“I don’t know all of my clients well. How well do you know your customers?”

“You can bet I know the big spenders like the back of my own hand.”

“Frank McBride was not going to make me rich.”

“That’s right. He owned an antique shop; he didn’t drive an ambulance.”

“Very funny. Can you get to the point, Ms. Timberlake? My chicken is getting cold.”

So was mine, which was a shame. It really was tasty.

“What was Frank’s connection with Roselawn?”

“I’m really not at liberty to discuss my clients. Lawyer-client privilege,” she said slowly, for my benefit. As if I had never heard the term before!

“I don’t want to know his shoe size, dear. I just want to know what he had to do with Roselawn. Was he ever on the board?”

Her beady little eyes squinted at me over her congealing chicken. “If I give you some basic, unprivileged information, will you shut up long enough for me to finish my lunch?”

“Stick a needle in my eye and hope to die.”

“Frank was never on the board of directors of the Upstate Preservation Foundation; however, he was considered for a position at one time. A
certain
member, who shall remain nameless, was insisting that we get an antique expert on the board. We asked around, and Frank’s name came up. But Frank didn’t want the position—there was no pay, and a lot of work was involved. In the end we decided that five members were all we wanted on the board anyway. A nice uneven but democratic number. Not that the board is even remotely democratic.” She bared her serrated gums, so I supposed she was laughing.

“Miss Lilah,” I said. “The nameless member, not the expert. And Frank wasn’t much of an expert on antiques, if you ask me.”

You bet your bippy I was hurt. No one had asked me to serve on the board, and I was a native of Rock Hill.

“If you say so,” she said. “Anyway, Frank asked me to be his attorney, so I agreed. You know, routine things, wills, that sort of thing.”

I was reminded of the fact that I had yet to get a will drawn up since my divorce from Buford. Every now and then that fact rears its ugly head and strikes terror in my heart. What if I were to die in an automobile crash on the way home? Who would inherit my shop? My personal belongings? The humongous sapphire ring I inherited from a friend that I keep in a bank box because it is, ironically, too valuable to wear? Would Buford get it all? Surely not! But, because I find the subject too uncomfortable to deal with, Buford’s name remains on the yellow document I keep in a shoe box on the top shelf of my closet at home.

If
he was my heir, that meant that Tweetie was as well. Just the thought of having that twenty-two-year-old bimbo co-owning my business and strutting around with my sapphire was enough to give me heart palpitations.

“You all right?” Gloria asked. “You look a little green around the gills.” She moved her plate as far away from me as possible without removing it from the table.

“Your secretary said you aren’t taking any new clients. Is that true?”

She licked her lips with a flick of the ferret tongue. “A property settlement?”

“No, but I could order some coffee and spill it in my lap.”

She shook her head sadly. “Then you shouldn’t have told me of your intentions.”

“It’s only a goddamn will,” I almost shouted.

“Call Angel. Set up an appointment.” I have scheduled pap smears with more enthusiasm than that.

“Thank you very much,” I said, minding my southern manners.

We finished our chicken in silence.

“Can I get y’all some dessert?” our waitress asked.

“Chocolate mousse,” I said without hesitation.

Gloria stood up. “None for me. I’ve got to be running. I’ll be late for my two o’clock appointment as it is.”

The waitress and I watched her stride away. “Wow! I bet she was in the Olympics,” the waitress said. “I bet
she
leaves a big tip.”

I looked down at the table. Gloria hadn’t even bothered to pick up her check.

I left a fat tip and paid both bills. Then I swung by the Queen Mum’s house to pick up the book she so desperately wanted me to have. She lives several streets back from University Drive. It is a respectable neighborhood, but a definite comedown from Roselawn Plantation. The brand new Oldsmobile Supreme was more impressive than her house.

It was a warm afternoon, but not too hot to garden if one was truly determined. Anne Holliday was truly determined. She was wearing slacks under her dress—for modesty’s sake—and an enormous straw hat, bedecked with orange and pink silk flowers, to shade her head. A Mexican hat dancer would die of exhaustion just getting halfway around that thing.

“You can never be too careful,” she said, getting slowly to her feet. She was speaking loud enough to satisfy the nosiest of neighbors. “Nowadays, with the ozone like it is, folks are dropping from skin cancer right and left. Still, the gardening has to be done, doesn’t it?

“I suppose you’re wondering why I don’t hire someone to help me with the work. Well, I’ll tell you—what with the minimum wage and civil rights laws, good help is impossible to come by anymore.
Things aren’t like they used to be, that’s for sure. In my day southern ladies had creamy white skin.”

“Just some of them,” I said. “You told my son you had a book for me?”

She led me inside. “Actually there is no book. I just wanted to talk to you. Will you excuse me for a minute while I clean up?”

She was only gone a minute, but when she returned I hardly recognized her. The hat was gone—although her damp gray hair still held its shape—but more importantly, the dress was gone as well. Of course she was still wearing slacks and a top. But the tan cotton slacks had been replaced by a pair of hot pink spandex ones that left nothing to the imagination, and a bright red tank top that was stretched taut across her sagging but nonetheless straining bosom.

“Oh,” was all I said. After a heavy lunch I preferred the taste of blood to shoe leather.

“Have a seat, please.”

I sat on an enormous white sofa, and she sat on an identical one across the room. Despite their camel-backs, the sofas were contemporary, as was the glass-and-brass coffee table between us. I suppose I had expected overstuffed armchairs with doilies pinned on them, or at least a clutter of Eastlake mahogany pieces. I certainly hadn’t expected a 1990s look.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Anne said. Her voice was suddenly deep and gravelly, a full octave lower than her usual shrieks and shrills.

I stared stupidly. I was getting rather good at it.

“Had you fooled, didn’t I? That flowery little granny routine is just for show. But it’s a real pain in the ass.”

My mouth, always ahead of my brain, fell open of its own volition.

Anne hooted and slapped her thigh. She was ob
viously enjoying the effect she was having on me.

“I was his mistress, for chrissakes—I met him at a horse show in Atlanta—but folks would never have given me the time of day if I’d just been myself. Flowery and prissy improved the product in their eyes. Every damn time I went into town to shop for groceries, medicines for
her
, you name it, I put on my getup and pranced around like a churchgoing goody two shoes. That made it easier for them to forget who I was and what I did for a living—not that they really ever knew. The concept of mistress was all they could handle.”

“Well, uh—”

“I was damned lucky, you know, getting a break that late in life. I was the oldest one in the stable, but my jockey wouldn’t kick me out. Too many good years together, he said. Although face it, dear, eventually he would have had to put me out to pasture. A really old mare can’t even earn her feed doing tricks.”

I was confused. Things just weren’t adding up.

“Were you a horse trainer, dear?” I asked politely.

She thought that was hilarious, and slapped her thighs until mine began to sting out of sympathy.

“I was the
horse
!” she finally gasped.

Surely I had misunderstood her. Okay, so she hung out at horse shows, belonged to a stable, and employed a jockey. But that didn’t make her a horse any more than my profession made me a Biedermeier bed. Although she could certainly neigh as well as a horse.

“I’m afraid I misunderstood you,” I said. “I thought you said ‘horse.’”

“Close enough, dear. Just leave off the ‘s.’”