Kendel Lynn - Elliott Lisbon 02 - Whack Job (17 page)

TWENTY

(Day #5: Tuesday Morning)

I stopped at the Big House shortly before nine a.m. Sid was due in thirty minutes, so I had to cram two hours’ worth of work into a short window. I was fairly optimistic until I entered the foyer.

Tea sets sat on tabletops, bookshelves, chairs, settees, and gasp, the steps of the staircase. I peeked into the library and the parlor, both stacked high with teapots and teacups and matching saucers. Those four foot tables I drudged out of the attic barely held a third of the china.

“You absolutely are not leaving today,” Tod said as I walked into my office. He stood in the doorway, hands on hips.

“What makes you think I’m leaving?”

He gestured drolly to my outfit. “Set up does not require silk shantung.”

I smoothed my gorgeous floral print tunic. “I’m having lunch in Charleston, but I’ll be quick. You won’t even miss me.” I moved two teapots off my chair and sat.

“I don’t miss you now,” he said and walked away.

“Don’t be so melodramatic, Tod,” I hollered toward the doorway. “You’ve got Jane and Busy and Carla to help.”

“Jane left for the day, sugar,” Carla said from the hall.

I reached for the hand-sani. “Is she sick?”

“She’s protesting,” she said, her voice fading as she continued by. “But I know she’ll circle back, trying to sneak into my kitchen.”

With both Jane and myself out for the day, there’d be no one to boss everyone around. Not good. I was counting on Jane to cover for me, even though I hadn’t asked her. She would’ve said no.

The only way to cancel lunch with Mimi and stay at the Big House was to secure tables. I pulled the list of party rental companies from my handbag and started dialing. By the seventh “sorry, ma’am,” I gave up. On the calls, not my hope. I was sure Mimi Ransom would come through.

Tod was not.

“Should I start arranging for plastic tablecloths to be spread across the grass?” Tod asked. “Doesn’t sound like you made progress.” He strode into my office and set another tea set on the desk.

“Those calls were just insurance. I’ve got a contact in Charleston, and I’m positive we’ll have tables.”

“Uh-huh. The Ballantynes arrive at four thirty this afternoon. In case you’d like to be here.”

“I’ll be here,” I said, opening my desk drawer. I found the pamphlet of Charleston antique shops in my desk and tucked it in my bag. “Do you happen to know which shop Zibby bought her teapot?”

“Nope.”

I stood and threw my hipster handbag over my shoulder. The edge caught a teacup and started a chain reaction of rattling, fine porcelain jostling against even finer porcelain. “It’ll work out. I’ll get the tables,” I said. “And Tod, you’re in charge this afternoon.”

“I’m always in charge,” he said.

I left Tod and the teacups behind and found Sid talking to Carla in the foyer.

“Carla, do you know where Zibby bought her teapot? The shop name or street or anything?”

“She called it a pawn parlor, someplace in Charleston,” Carla said. “But she did say she had a meeting at the grocery, that’s where she found it. I’m sure that helps.”

“Maybe I should call her,” I said. “I just don’t want her to know it’s broken. But I can’t find a replacement without knowing which shop. Which only she knows. Ideas?”

“Can’t reach her anyway, sugar,” Carla said. “She’s off hunting bobcats.”

“Hunting bobcats?” Sid said.

“Not with a gun,” I said. “With her conservation group. They search the forest preserves on the island. Like a safari, making sure there are no game hunters or traps, that they stay protected.”

“Sure, sure,” Sid said.

“No worries. In fifteen safari hunts, they have yet to spot a single bobcat.”

We said our goodbyes and climbed into Sid’s BMW X6. Half SUV, half coupe. And all white. Shiny white paint on the outside, soft white leather on the inside. So white, it made me nervous to sit on the seats, convinced the blue pen placed securely in my bag would somehow end up marking them. “Are you sure we shouldn’t take the convertible?”

“I’m not driving two hours in the soup can.” She powered open the sunroof and cracked the windows. “See? Just as airy as a convertible. But with twenty-four-way seats.”

“Yes, well, perhaps. Your electric seats may be snazzy, but my seats have hand pumps. Way more fun.”

She gunned her V8 and zoomed us out of Oyster Cove Plantation and onto Cabana Boulevard. Before long, we sailed over the Palmetto Bridge connecting us to mainland South Carolina. The tide was in. The water was so high and lively, sailboats from the marina visibly rocked in their docks. Sid was right, with the sunroof open, the briny sea salt scented air drifted in the same as in the Mini with the top down.

We hit I-95 a smidge after nine thirty and sped north. Sid kept the radio turned low and the speedometer on high.

“How was the mahj game?” I asked.

“I won two out of five. Deidre says I’m a natural.”

“A natural competitor.”

“You know it, sister. And those gals know what they’re doing.”

I remembered the women slapping tiles on the table with vigor. “Seriously. Any bits come up on Jaime?”

“Not much.” She hit the gas and passed a semi rumbling in the slow lane. “Alicia seemed hit the hardest, but didn’t want to talk about Jaime or Gilbert. Or anything really. She didn’t say much all night.”

“Even about me? After our skirmish?”

“Skirmish? You threatened kung fu fighting.”

“Accidentally.”

“Yes, well, she may have said something about you and what you could do with your kung fu. Miranda was a delightful host, though.”

“Which gets me no closer to the egg.” I stared out the window, the tall pines whizzing past. It was peaceful and calm and I hated driving in the car for two hours. I sighed. Loudly. And started to fidget with the air vents, then my seat extender.

“Tell me what you’ve got so far,” Sid said, clearly trying to keep me busy. “On your egg hunt.”

“Gilbert says he promised the egg to his patent attorney and will lose everything if he doesn’t get it by tomorrow. Or maybe Thursday, with the holiday. I’m not sure.”

“Lose everything? A murdered wife, a vandalized boat, a stolen heirloom, a destroyed wardrobe, a new residence in the clink…”

“Yeah, he’s pretty much lost everything. But he created a clothing thing and patented it. The filing fees have now come due. Pay up or the filing expires.”

“A patented clothing thing? Odd. But I guess it sounds like something Gilbert Goodsen would do.”

“Indeed. He thought he’d win back Jaime, but with her gone…” I said and shrugged. “Maybe he’s fixated on proving it to himself. Jaime thought he was a failure. Even with her gone, maybe because she’s gone, he really needs this to work out in his favor.”

“So who took his egg? You got a suspect list?”

“Firstly, I’ve got two appraisers: a pawn shop owner and a creepy antiques dealer. I’m guessing the pawn shop guy thought the egg was stolen or fake and wanted nothing to do with it. But the creepy guy really wanted the egg.”

“Creepy doesn’t mean guilty.”

“It means something. Like maybe he knew it was genuine,” I said. “Apparently fake Fabergés are more prolific than knockoff handbags. Secondly, we also have Jaime’s friends, Miranda and Alicia, and her sister, Judith, whom I’ve never met.”

“Miranda seemed oblivious at mahj. Not even a casual lean in when Gilbert’s name came up. I vote she’s too much of a longshot to be a suspect.”

“Maybe, but Alicia Birnbaum is no longshot. She has the most motive so far. She would’ve done anything to help Jaime, and she really, really despises Gilbert.”

“Agreed,” Sid said.

“On the list of folks closer to Gilbert, we have his assistant Mary-Louise and her boyfriend Bobby, the guy who tricked Gilbert out of fifty thousand dollars, then shot him and ran.”

“Wait,” Sid said and sped around a minivan going the exact posted limit on the sign. “You know who shot Gilbert? Seems like he’d be the number one egg suspect.”

“Yeah, but Mary-Louise ratted him out. She says it was only a scam. Bobby didn’t really take the egg.”

“Scam or no, his saying it’s a scam could be a scam. He’s definitely still on the list,” Sid said. “And you haven’t listed the obvious suspect: Jaime. The vindictive spouse who threw Gilbert out on his ass?”

“Yeah, I hear you. It’s totally in line with the rest of her nasty attack on all things Gilbert. The torn clothes, the vandalized boat. So yeah, why not prevent his life’s work? Steal the egg and ruin everything.”

“And it’s working. Gilbert’s meltdown centers around this egg. Jaime certainly knows Gilbert. Well, knew him.”

“Right. Knew him. She didn’t attack herself. Someone killed her and someone is harassing Gil. Someone has that egg. And you don’t kill someone over a fake Fabergé.”

I sat up straighter and adjusted the headrest. “Okay, here are my top three suspected egg robbers: Jaime, Jaime’s boyfriend, and Alicia.”

“Jaime had a boyfriend?”

“Yep. And it’s possibly Bobby, Mary-Louise’s boyfriend. The guy gets around. And if it’s Bobby, he not only shot Gilbert, he also strangled me in the Goodsen’s closet.”

“What?!” Sid hit the brakes, then punched the gas pedal to make up for the lapse. “Who strangled who where?”

“Didn’t I mention that? Saturday night—”

“Saturday night, after the regatta? When I asked how your night went, I recall you said something like ‘oh, I’m good, getting nowhere fast.’”

“I may have glossed over a bit or two. I went to calm down Jaime, found the Goodsen house in serious disarray, and the remainder of Gilbert’s wardrobe shredded in the closet. Then someone clobbered me from behind and started strangling me. He yelled that he wanted to get Jaime back. I think he thought she and Gilbert were reconciling on his boat, when actually she was vandalizing said boat.”

“Next time, you don’t gloss. What did your sexy lieutenant say? Did he investigate? Come to your rescue?”

“Sort of,” I said. “He told me to butt out.”

“How’s that working?”

“Calm down.”

“Well, not a whisper about Jaime’s boyfriend at mahj. And actually, not much gossip at all for a ladies league on Sea Pine Island. I expected better. They could’ve been reserved with me there, a new recruit. They gossiped freely when you were there. Though Alicia glared at anyone who mentioned Jaime’s name. Might take me a week or two to get in tight.”

“I have one day,” I said and watched more pines whiz by.

Sid took the Highway 17 exit east. We were halfway to Charleston and making seriously good time. The road was beginning to fill up, but nothing Sid couldn’t weave her way around.

“Where did Gilbert get the money to buy the egg in the first place, if he’s so strapped for cash that he can’t pay his patent attorney?”

I thought about Gil and his lifestyle. Ordinary. Not extravagant, not moneyed. I’ve seen moneyed. I’ve been to houses where the sofa cost more than my car. Actually, any one object cost more than my car. And it’s a nice car. Turbo. But the Goodsen house was very middle. A middle plantation with a middle hotel, the kind with some sort of kids eat free package. A middle-sized house in the middle of the subdivision, not near the beach or on an extra-wide corner lot. So where
did
he get the money? And was it my business?

You know it. You hire me, it’s my business.

“He makes money on insurance payouts, buying and selling expensive heirlooms,” I said. “He’s running a dozen whacky schemes.”

“How does that fit with the missing egg?”

“Lots of unhappy clients, that’s how.”

“Lots, huh? Your list is kind of long.”

“I’m aware.”

We crossed the Ashley River and rolled onto Cannon Street. Charleston is the most Southern of Southern cities. Streets lined with charming manors and towering palms. A culture rich in exquisite cuisine, fabled architecture, and mannerly residents. It’s nestled square between Sea Pine Island (two hours to the south) and Myrtle Beach (two hours to the north). And like another Southern charmer, Savannah, Charleston offered a glimpse into its distinctive history with tours of cemeteries, gardens, and ghosts.

It was nearly half-past eleven. Only one hour until my lunch date with Mimi Ransom. Plenty of time to meet Judith and find Zibby’s teapot.

Sid squeezed into a spot on Market, a lovely street lined with charm and hospitality. We walked a block to Durant Antiques and a tiny bell tinkled when we walked through the door. The shop consisted of one narrow room, crammed with kitschy finds from the forties through the seventies. Books, dolls, gadgets, linens, canisters, jars, and jewelry decorated every surface and wall space.

A woman with the tightest curls since Barbra Streisand rocked her
A Star is Born
perm emerged from the back. She wore cat-eye glasses and her bright pink lipstick feathered around her lips. She maneuvered a set of wide hips through the tight space and never once bumped a table edge.

“Help you ladies?” Her eyes were rimmed red behind her glasses.

“Judith? I’m Elliott Lisbon, from the Ballantyne. I know it’s a bad time, but I was in Charleston and was hoping we could talk about Jaime. If you’ve got a minute?”

“Sure, I guess.” She looked from me to Sid, who didn’t introduce herself. “As long as it’s not too personal.”

“You two go ahead,” Sid said. “I’ll be over here out of your way.” She walked over to a display of vintage cookbooks and started browsing the faded cloth spines.

“I appreciate this,” I said. “I’m so sorry about Jaime. Were you and your sister close?”

“Not so much anymore. You know, time passes. You grow apart.” Judith paused, then sighed. She picked up a chipped coffee cup with lipstick decorating the rim. Took a long sip. “Who am I kidding? We weren’t ever really close. Not like I thought we should be,” she said with a wistful tone. “I watched every episode of
Little House on the Prairie
. Mary and Laura shared everything. I wanted that.”

“But Jaime didn’t?” I asked softly.

“We were so…different. We were raised in a little town out near Greenville. I loved it, never wanted to leave it. But Jaime, she was itchin’ to get out. Loved to go to the big city.”

“New York?”

“No, Charleston. This big city. She’d beg our mama to drive us here, practically every Sunday after church. Something about the bustle of the port and the pretty window displays, even walking down the streets drew her in. Even way back when.”

“But now you live here and she doesn’t,” I said.

“Life’s funny like that.” She gazed out the picture window into the street. “After mama sold the house, which was to pay for the home we put her in, which didn’t matter none since mama died later that summer…” She looked back at me. “Jaime convinced me to move to Charleston. She had such a slick way with words. She could twist them ’til you didn’t know what you were agreeing to. But then she met Gilbert at a fancy golf tournament down in Sea Pine. All very cosmopolitan. She never came back.”

I kept my expression neutral at calling Sea Pine Island “cosmopolitan.” But perhaps it was when compared to a small town in rural South Carolina. “Jaime loved Sea Pine,” I said. “We weren’t very close. I’m closer to her husband, Gilbert. I’m helping him…get through this.”

“Gilbert’s a fine man. Makes a good living selling insurance, but Jaime always wanted more. Not to speak ill of my sister, but her sights were always set higher. She liked the finer things.”

“Do you know if she had a Fabergé egg?”

Judith laughed, spontaneous and short. “Hardly. She doesn’t have the Hope Diamond either. Her sights were high, Miz Lisbon, but not that high. She wasn’t aimin’ to be the Queen of England.”

I nodded and casually glanced around her shop. A fancy blue egg would stand out like a rose bush in a junk yard. “Gilbert claims Jaime took it from him. Blackmail in the divorce, knew it meant a lot to him. Maybe she gave it to you to hide? No disrespect,” I added.

“None taken. Sounds like my sister. She didn’t always play nice as a child. Though if she took it, she wouldn’t give it to anyone, not even to hide it.”

Judith probably wouldn’t have told me if she did have it, but I believed her. She stood wilted, holding her cracked coffee cup, with her Streisand curls and outdated glasses, missing her sister and the relationship that never was.

“You ever heard of a pawn parlor?” I asked.

“You mean like a pawn shop? Not on this side of town.”

I tried to picture Zibby with her orange hair and her enormous Cadillac trolling the streets in the wrong part of town. It scared me how much trouble that woman could get into.

“But there’s dozens of antique shops up and down Market. I wish you could stay, I’ve got a lovely selection myself, but I need to close up. Jaime’s visitation’s tonight on the island. Will I see you at the viewing tomorrow or the funeral Thursday? It’s at Bennett’s on Sea Pine. You know, Jaime so wanted to be on your Ballantyne board.”

“She would’ve been a wonderful addition. I’m sure I’ll see you, Judith. Thank you.”

Judith took her coffee and zigzagged through the hutches and cabinets toward the back.

I found Sid outside and checked the time. “We’ve got forty-five minutes before we meet Mimi at Charleston Place. Where should we start?”

“Judith mentioned a bunch of shops out here on Market,” Sid said.

I raised a brow.

“You know I listen.”

We stood on the sidewalk in front of the shop, looking up and down the narrow street. Market Street. “Carla said Zibby talked about a meeting at a grocery store,” I said. “Grocery, Market, pretty close, right?”

“And Meeting Street is only a few blocks from here. A Meeting at the Market.”

“It’s got to be one of these shops. Let’s split up, we’ll make better time.”

“I have no idea what this teapot looks like.”

“Orange poppies in a kind of chintz pattern.”

“That doesn’t help.”

“Right. Stick together.”

We found six potential shops on the opposite side of the street, but none had a teapot even close to Zibby’s. On our way back toward Judith’s, three other shops didn’t sell fine china, and another two only sold artwork.

I called Zibby.

She must have still been out hunting the bobcats, because it went straight to voicemail. I left a vague message, implying both urgency to return the call immediately and irrelevancy that nothing major was at stake. Like her injured teapot.

We were almost at the last shop when we came across a tiny storefront with fancy script on the window. The Boardroom: Consignment & Collectibles. Every Deal is Negotiable.

“Hey! I bet this is it,” I said. “We call the Ballantyne Boardroom the parlor. This must be what Zibby was talking about. Consignment is like pawn, right? Luck is turning our way! Finally.”

“Not really, sweetie,” Sid said and pointed at a sign taped to the door.

Closed for Holiday.