Kendel Lynn - Elliott Lisbon 02 - Whack Job (13 page)

SIXTEEN

(Day #4: Monday Afternoon)

I walked into the Big House and straight into a fight in the foyer.

Carla stood to the right of the staircase, brandishing a supersized whisk, waving it willy-nilly at Jane, who did not seem the least bit intimidated.

“I demand to know what the hell you’re doing with all that frosting,” Jane said and pointed at five buckets of colorful frothy confection, in colors Willy Wonka himself would appreciate. Strips of masking tape adorned the side of each, marked with names like flamingo pink, buttercup yellow, and leprechaun lime.

“You don’t demand anything of me,” Carla replied, pointing her whisk back at Jane. “You need to stop disrupting my kitchen.”

“I’m the chair of the board, I don’t disrupt, I lead.”

“You’ll lead yourself right out of my kitchen,” Carla said.

“Jane, can’t you trust Carla on this one?” I said and stepped between them, though slightly closer to Carla. “You know she’ll do right by the Tea.”

“Trust? This isn’t a party for Sandra Dee, Elliott, where we pinky swear, then braid our hair,” Jane said. “It’s a business. Start treating it like one. I expect a full menu on my desk by this afternoon.” She glanced down at Carla’s whisk, then walked away. She may have muttered “amateurs” on her way across the foyer.

“That girl is wound so tight, her head’s going to spin off,” Carla said.

“Don’t I know it,” I said. “How’s things?”

“Fine. Jane-zilla just wasted half my morning, we still have no furniture for the Tea, and Edward left you a message. Tate Keating tracked him down for a comment on tomorrow’s headline.”

I didn’t know which was worse: the lack of tables or the headline.

“And Zibby came by to check on her tea set.”

I grabbed Carla’s arm. “Oh shit, the broken teapot. I completely forgot.”

“I told Zibby it was already in pre-set up holding and she’d have to wait to see it on Wednesday, along with everyone else.”

“You’re my hero,” I said.

“I’m aware, chicken. Now let me get back to the kitchen before Jane climbs through a window. You better solve some of these problems. I’ve got enough of my own.”

She tucked her whisk under her arm and picked up two buckets, then walked toward the kitchen.

Carla was right, I needed to start solving problems. That was my job, and usually, I was quite good at it. Which is why the Sea Pine Police agreed to be advisors to my PI license. As long as I produced results and kept local squabbles off their desks, they signed my PI paperwork.

Until Lieutenant Nick Ransom came back to town.

I wondered if he was the reason I’d been so distracted lately. It was as if I couldn’t focus on the task before me. Any of the tasks before me. I once thought maybe he was the love of my life, but a twenty-year hiatus without communication tends to change relationships. And ours was more complicated than ever. Considering the last time I talked to him, he arrested my client.

Oh! The last time we talked, he mentioned his mother had tables. I wanted to slap myself. What was happening? I used to be able to juggle six wet cats while balancing a bowl of Jell-O on my head. Now I couldn’t locate a cat if I stood in a barn with a can of tuna in one hand and a mouse in the other.

I plopped into my chair and dialed Mr. Ballantyne. While the line rang, I looked up Mimi Ransom’s number in my rolodex. Proving to myself I could still multi-task. If two tasks constituted a multi.

“Elliott? Are you there?” Mr. Ballantyne yelled into the phone.

“Mr. Ballantyne! How are you, sir?”

“Doing dandy, my dear,” he shouted, his voice booming as if phoning from the space station. “We’re just leaving the most amazing bale of turtles. A dozen hatchlings!”

“That sounds wonderful, sir,” I shouted back, even though I heard him just fine.

“Carla mentioned the Tea was progressing splendidly, said she has a big surprise for the children.”

“Indeed, going to be a stunner,” I said, as if I knew exactly what the surprise was. Which I didn’t. But unlike Jane, I trusted Carla and her culinary vision.

“I don’t have a lot of time, my dear, but I’m worried about our Gilbert Goodsen. Been told he’s in jail. Arrested for murder? Does that sound right?”

How does word travel so freakin’ fast? The man’s in Alaska for shit’s sake. “Not arrested, sir, he’s a cooperating witness,” I said. “Doing everything he can to help the police with his wife’s death. He’s a trooper, our Gilbert.” A bit of a fib, but Mr. Ballantyne wouldn’t be home for a week, and it would all be over by then. I’m nothing if not optimistic.

“Bravo, then,” he shouted. “And his missing egg? Unless you’ve found it? Can’t be too difficult, right, my dear? Nothing like a rousing egg hunt,” he said with a chuckle.

“Agreed, sir. I haven’t tracked it down yet, but I’m getting close. Actually have quite a few solid leads I’m working on today.”

“Good to hear! We don’t want donors to think we don’t care. He’s part of the family! And how’s that short list for the board coming? I hear there’s a new name.”

I thought of Gilbert in his torn clothes and broken demeanor. Probably not a viable (or stable) candidate anymore. But perhaps Busy made progress getting her name penciled in after all. “Busy’s been a big help, for Gilbert and for the Tea, sir.”

“She’s a charmer, that one. Vivi adores her. Be good to see her, and you, my dear. We’ll fly home tomorrow for the Tea. Going to arrive late, but Zibby convinced Vivi she’s winning the Particularly Peculiar for her tea set. The top prize! We wouldn’t miss it!”

And with that, he was gone.

I was so relieved he didn’t mention Tate and whatever outrageous headline he was planning, it took a full minute before I realized what Mr. Ballantyne said.

They were flying home tomorrow. For the Tea. For which we had no tables. Or a winning teapot for Zibby, Vivi Ballantyne’s cousin.

I quickly dialed Mimi’s number.

“Mrs. Ransom,” I said when she answered. “It’s Elliott Lisbon, from the Ballantyne Foundation.”

“Elli, dear, how are you?”

“I’m well. But in a pinch.”

“Yes, I heard. I might be able to pull a string or two. Are you available for lunch tomorrow? Say twelve-thirty at the Palmetto Café, inside the Charleston Place hotel?”

I made a sound, a cross between a choke and a gag. She really wanted us to lunch? Seriously? Me and my ex-boyfriend’s mother? Our paths had crossed maybe once or twice over the last twenty years on the South Carolina fundraising circuit, but we hadn’t actually shared a meal since the Thanksgiving before Ransom abandoned me and our relationship a week before Christmas. I recalled a minor mishap with a pan of brown sugar carrots and Mimi’s silk dining chairs.

“I would love to,” I replied. I was a professional and I did what needed to get done.

“Lovely. See you tomorrow,” she said.

She hung up before I could ask more about the tables. It was cutting it close, but close didn’t mean it wouldn’t get done.

Not one to put all the eggs (I knew the location of) into that particular basket, I made four more calls to party rental places. Three still closed for the holiday, and one answered, but nary a table to rent or a chair to spare. Charleston for lunch was my top option.

I opened my lower desk drawer to find my folder of Charleston maps, and saw Zibby’s broken teapot, now slipped into my desk. Carla always had my back. I jotted down a description of the pot including the maker’s mark stamped on the bottom.

I had just tucked it away when Jane passed my open office door.

“Jane, wait,” I hollered.

I scrambled up to catch her before she disappeared down the hall, but she had actually stopped when I hollered, and I nearly chest bumped her in my doorway.

“What is it now?” she said, standing a mere six inches from me.

“It’s about the Fabergé egg, the one I mentioned yesterday.”

She turned and started walking away, and I quickly followed.

“Unless you’re about to tell me exactly what Carla’s concocting in the kitchen, I’m busy,” she said over her shoulder.

“I don’t know what she’s doing in the kitchen, but I need—”

She whirled so fast we actually did chest bump that time.

“What do you mean you don’t know what’s going on in the kitchen? What kind of rumpus house are we running?”

“I mean, Carla has a plan, and I have complete faith—”

“Your faith fails to impress me.” She blinked slowly, waiting for me to continue. Clearly unimpressed by any of me.

“Back to the egg,” I said. “I know I saw one in your shop, or at least something like it. It was ruby red?”

“Yes, I’m aware of the Fabergé egg in my own shop.”

“What’s the value?”

“Worth more than your faith.”

“I’m serious, Jane, what value did you assign to that egg?”

“That particular egg was worth close to four million dollars.”

I choked. “Four
million
?”

“Yes, it was an Imperial egg.” At my blank stare, she continued. “Carl Fabergé created eggs for the Romanov family, given as gifts to their wives at Easter. Forty-two survived the Revolution.”

“What about all the other eggs?”

“Other eggs?”

“Aren’t there other Fabergé eggs? I’m thinking in the fifty-thousand dollar range.”

I thought she’d laugh at me, but she didn’t. “Carl’s grandson made limited edition eggs, many years after the fall of the House of Fabergé. While not one-of-a kind Imperial eggs, they still hold value. Also, some elaborately adorned Fabergé ‘style’ eggs range from fifty thousand up to the millions.”

“My investigation centers around a missing egg, this is helpful. Thank you.”

“Any other antiquities I can help you with? Perhaps you discovered the lost Ark of the Covenant at a yard sale?”

“One last question. How would you sell another egg, if you got it?”

“After verifying provenance, auction, of course. Unless I contacted a private seller.”

“So not a pawn shop?”

“Only if you are an idiot.” With a slight emphasis on “you,” she walked back down the hall.

Regardless of the opinion of one Jane Walcott Hatting, I was not an idiot. However, I wasn’t the one trying to sell a Fabergé egg, Gilbert Goodsen was. Or at least his client was.

I went back to my desk and dialed Sid. Like most professional PI’s, every now and then I needed backup.

“It’s all over the senior’s phone tree,” Sid said. “You wrecked Gilbert’s boat, found Jaime Goodsen drowned in the harbor, got stuck in a bucket of chum and Detective Handsome arrested your client. Good Lord, woman, tell me all about it.”

I rolled my eyes. “How you believe any of that nonsense is beyond me.”

“Uh-huh, sugar. How much is incorrect?”

“Jaime’s body was on the boat, which was not wrecked by me, I’m guessing by Jaime, and I may have accidentally gently kicked a tiny pail of fish. Barely made a splatter.” I shivered as I remembered the fish juice splashing from my shoes to my face. “Besides, that was yesterday. I’ve got new problems. I know it’s Labor Day, and you’re probably celebrating on Milo’s yacht, but I need a quick favor.”

She sighed. “Not today, though I wish I were. Stuck working at the hospital again. What’s up?”

“How about a day in Charleston tomorrow? We can do some shopping, have a little lunch…”

I opened the folder of Charleston maps and started rifling through the stack.

“You? Shopping?” Sid said. “What’s the catch?”

“I need to track down Judith Durant, Jaime’s sister. She owns an antique shop in Charleston, but she might know something about this egg I’m trying so unsuccessfully to find. While we’re there, we need to find an identical teapot to match the one I broke of Zibby’s at some kind of pawn parlor, and then also have lunch with Mimi Ransom, who may or may not pull a string to get me tables for the Wonderland Tea on Wednesday.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“For now, but I’m off to a different pawn shop, so who knows what else will come up?”

“A pawn shop? If money’s tight, sweetie, you know I’m here for you.”

I found a thin pamphlet naming all the local antique shops in downtown Charleston. “Bingo!” I said, and circled Durant’s Antiques, then focused back on Sid. “Not me. Not yet anyway. The Fabergé egg. Gilbert had an appraisal from a local pawn shop. Seems too lowbrow for such a valuable heirloom and I want to check the place out, see if maybe Jaime went there, too.”

“Jaime? Why would she go there? Aren’t you supposed to be finding Gilbert’s egg, not investigating his wife’s murder? Won’t Lieutenant Handsome be unhappy about this?”

“I’m not fully investigating her murder, just her possible involvement in the case of the missing egg. Plus, Gilbert’s in jail and I can’t let him sit there. Something’s not right with this egg, Sid. After my last fiasco investigation, I’m not ignoring anything. Or skipping any steps.”

“Yes, Elli, please remember the last fiasco. You can skip a step if it means staying safe from the crazies.”

“I’ve yet to encounter a single crazy,” I said, then thought about Ransom wanting to stick Gilbert in the looney house. “Mr. Ballantyne expected me to fix the Goodsens. Now one spouse is dead and the other’s in jail. That’s not mending the fence. I have to find this egg. Period. If Ransom doesn’t like it, he can suck it.”

“Uh-huh. Do you have to be so competitive?”

“Ransom called it an egg hunt, for shit’s sake. And the worst part is, I haven’t even found it yet.”

I sailed over the bridge and into Summerton before lunch. With the top down, but the windows up, the air conditioning kept the interior cool while the warm air swirled my hair into a wild wig of wonder. I carefully reached around to the compartment net behind my seat and plucked out a fisherman’s hat to stick on my head.

I turned off Cabana Boulevard near the downtown traffic circle in Summerton and into a commercial part of town. Strips of industrial warehouses and machine shops fronted a half-dozen seedy streets. Rusted dumpsters sat on weeded patches of broken asphalt near the curb. Two dogs roamed around an old Winnebago, the once orange W now faded to a weathered gray.

According to the pawn slip tucked into the folder on Mary-Louise’s desk, Bucky’s Pawn and Cash Exchange appraised the Fabergé egg nearly three months earlier. For whom, I didn’t know. And how it figured into someone stealing the egg, I didn’t know. Gather information first, answer questions later. Not every tidbit mattered, but I wouldn’t know which ones did until it was over.

I located Bucky’s at the end of E Street between a tattoo parlor and an old-fashioned barber shop with a chipped red striped pole in front. Bucky’s was closed, but the cardboard clock sign on the door indicated he’d be back at eleven twenty-five. A fifteen minute wait. Which gave me plenty of time to huddle in the Mini and strategize.

How in the world was I going to get Bucky the pawn broker to tell me about a Fabergé egg he appraised three months ago? Maybe as an interested buyer? I could pretend to be a wealthy collector who heard a rumor he’d nearly acquired the rare egg. I glanced down at my cargo capris and faded tennies. Throw in the tiny Mini Coop and the fact I hadn’t even worn makeup, a wealthy collector might be a stretch. A scout for a collector, like a shill? More like a lackey. That might work.

I still had ten minutes to wait, so I cleaned out my hipster, dumping two empty Tic Tac cans into my Mini litter bag. Organized my CDs. Both of them. Checked my voicemail. One message from Judith Durant saying she’d be in the shop all day tomorrow, I was free to call anytime. Perfect, though I’d planned to pop over, not ring back. I might actually find the egg before Mr. Ballantyne returned to the Big House.

A shiny black Cadillac SUV pulled into the lot, backing into the space directly behind mine. Now there’s a wealthy collector. If he headed into the barber shop, the owner might assume the Caddy was mine. I quickly hopped out of my convertible, eager to disassociate myself with the go-cart I drove up in.

The driver door opened and a husky man with a long white beard slid out. He looked like a cross between a guitarist from ZZ Top and Santa Claus. He crossed the lot, straight to the pawn shop door, with a ring of keys large enough to open every lock in a tri-county radius.

“Morning, ma’am. Come on in,” he said and held the door for me. “Help you with something today?”

He ambled over to the other side of a long glass counter case and flicked a row of switches on the wall, then punched a series of numbers into a blocked code box.

“Good morning. I’m here about a Fabergé egg.”

“You wanna sell it or pawn it?” He took a handgun from a drawer and stuck it in the back of his waistband.

I cleared my throat. “Neither. I’d like to buy it. Buy one. If you have one, of course.”

He slowly looked around the shop with a skeptically raised bushy brow.

There were guns everywhere. So so many guns. On the walls. In the cases. On the shelves. Shotguns, rifles, handguns. Probably BB guns, nerf guns, glue guns, and squirt guns. If it could shoot something out the front and had a trigger down below, I bet this guy had one.

And guitars. Rows of guitars. And guitar-like equipment. Amps, speakers, tuners. Old wagons, vintage tools, and more electronics than Best Buy. It was all so manly. Even the jewelry. Very clean, but all chunky gold and thick watches. Not exactly Fabergé egg compatible.

“I see your point,” I said. “But I heard you recently had one here in the shop. Blue enamel with an orange fire opal?”

“Don’t believe I ever acquired one for the shop.” He sat on the short stool behind the counter, hands folded across his round middle, patiently waiting for me to spit it out.

I was sure the ticket I glanced at for all of one second in Mary-Louise’s file said Bucky’s Pawn on the top. “Maybe you didn’t acquire it, but perhaps you appraised it? Possibly?”

“Well, now. I do lots of private consultations for folks. But, like I said, those’d be private.” He glanced down at my handbag, then back to my face. “Confidential like.”

Now I’m getting somewhere. I quickly brought out my wallet, the old-fashioned method of obtaining information. One didn’t need a ruse, one needed cash.

Unfortunately, my bright orange floral pouch held seven dollars in paper money and approximately nineteen cents in change. I smiled up at him. “Do you take Visa?”

“Yep. Take a look around. I’ve got something for everybody.”

“And if I find something I’d like to purchase, you think you’ll remember the egg?”

“Quite possible.”

Well, I certainly wasn’t about to buy a gun. Or a guitar. Even though I detest shopping of any kind, I do have a weakness for vintage games. My collection includes a Batman radio and a 1940s Parcheesi board. But nothing of the sort in this shop. Though he did have a shelf of books.

I moseyed over to the bookcase in the far corner. “I like to read, I guess.”

“There’s a first edition Stephen King right there.”