A Killer Collection (19 page)

"Get the wheelbarrow. We've
got to clean some of this out of here."

The men worked quickly, joking
with one another and sharing stories as they tore out the wood and piled pieces
into the wheelbarrow. In the comer of the back wall, Walt dug his crowbar
through the panel against the floor. The hooked end of his tool went deep
behind the wood, meeting with no resistance. Surprised, Walt knelt and began
prying the fractured wood away from the initial hole. Instead of seeing the
same cracked wall behind the panel, a dark space peered back at him.

"Roy, hand me your
flashlight."

"Sure, chief."

Walt stuck the small face of the
flashlight into the hole and switched the light on. The beam fell onto a trio
of white shoeboxes, nestled like sleeping geese on a pile of newspaper.

"What's that, chief? Secret
hiding spot?"

Walt removed the flashlight and
stood. "Yeah, I think so. I'd better get Mrs. Staunton. Don't touch
anything."

Walt found Bunny outside, cutting
plum-colored roses. She carried a wide, flat basket and hummed as she selected
dozens of plump blooms for her arrangements. A large straw hat with a black
ribbon masked her face.

"Ma’am?" Walt called as
he approached her.

"Yes?" Bunny spoke
without glancing away from her task.

"We've found something in
your husband's ... well, inside one of the walls."

Bunny looked at him in confusion.
"
In
the wall?"

"I think you'd better come
inside."

After a moment’s pause, Bunny
nodded and put her basket down. She followed Walt quietly into the library,
where the noise had ceased and the men stood around in a cluster, waiting to
see what would happen next.

Walt led Bunny to the hole in the
back wall and handed her the flashlight. As she switched on the light, Walt
ushered his men out of the room.

"Give her some privacy,"
he scolded. He was curious too, of course, but made it a rule not to get
involved with his client's personal business. If they wanted to have affairs
with the gardener, fine. If they had stashes of drugs or cash hidden behind the
wall, fine. As long as he did his job and got paid for it, the wealthy citizens
of Asheboro could lead their eccentric lifestyles. Walt worked in construction,
not in therapy or criminal justice. He knew when to make himself scarce.

"Come on, boys. Coffee
break."

~~~~~

Bunny reached inside the hole and pulled out the three
shoeboxes. She noticed a latch on the panel’s frame, which must have served as
the release button though it was hidden to the naked eye. A person would only
need to press the right place on the frame and the panel would pop open a
crack. Hidden behind a large wingback chair, no one would have randomly bumped
against the spot. No wonder Bunny hadn't been aware of the existence of a
secret panel in her husband’s study.

Her hand resting on the dusty lid
of the first box. Bunny hesitated. Did she really want to know what was inside?
She knew enough of her husband's sordid past as it was. What else was there to
damage her memory of him? Illegitimate children? A secret will?

Bunny sighed, and for the
millionth time thought about her life with George-Bradley when they had first
been married. They had lived in a quaint cottage outside of town. She had grown
vegetables in the small garden out back. He had practiced law and tinkered at
his workbench, making wind chimes out of scrap metal. They ate watching
television, drank lots of wine, and made love every night. When they moved into
this house, bought with the money Bunny inherited from her parents, she thought
she was living in a dream.

But the dream slowly faded. Unable
to have children, Bunny began growing prize roses obsessively, and
George-Bradley began collecting pottery. She took gourmet- cooking classes but
her husband was never home to eat her creations. She knew he was seeing other
women, and her only comforts became the blue ribbons her roses won and the food
she cooked. She put on weight; he stayed downstairs in his wing of the house
until bedtime. When he finally got into bed, reeking of cigars and bourbon, he
immediately turned away from her and went to sleep. Their only physical contact
occurred when Bunny had the pleasure of jabbing her husband in the belly with a
small needle twice a day. What had happened to their marriage?

Bunny looked at the gutted walls.
The oldest of two children, Bunny had inherited a larger portion of her
parent's estate. Her sister, Caroline, had money too, but she never spent any.
A spinster, she was a teacher at the nearby middle school. Her retirement was
coming up in a few months, and the two sisters decided to meet old age
comfortably together in Bunny's house. Bunny wanted to create a separate
apartment suite for her sister. She wanted it to be bright and cozy and
feminine. No trace of her husband would remain.

There would be no more secrets in
Bunny’s life either. She would tell Caroline that she was in love with
Emmanuel. Finally, she would surrender the sham that she had had the perfect
marriage. She would drop the role of grieving widow and get rid of all those
ridiculous photographs in the living room. People she actually cared about would
be placed in those frames.

Taking in a deep breath that
tasted of wood and dust, Bunny decided that her husband no longer had the power
to hurt her. She popped off the lid of the first box. Inside were neat piles of
bills, held together with rubber bands and covered in plastic wrap. Bunny saw
that they were all stacks of 100s. A few thousand dollars of ready cash. This
was certainly a positive discovery.

Relieved, Bunny set the box aside
and opened the second. Documents were rolled up neatly inside a plastic tube.
Flattening them revealed a pile of bearer bonds, in denominations of ten
thousand dollars. Bunny counted the bonds. A quarter of a million dollars
worth! Why had George-Bradley stashed away all this money? Perhaps he was
planning to divorce her so he could get back together with Susan Black. Why
else would he hide bonds in a secret panel?

Clutching the papers in anger,
Bunny swore.

"He must have been stealing
from our joint account for years! I'd kill that bastard myself if he wasn't
already dead."

She stared at the third box.

"Now what,
George-Bradley?" she asked the still air. "You haven't done enough to
ruin my life?"

The third box revealed a solid,
heavy lump wrapped in newspaper. Bunny broke through layers of tape and
newspaper with her long, sharp nails. Unwrapping the object inside, she stared
down at it, perplexed. This required further examination.

Gathering the boxes in her hands,
she headed for her wing of the house, giving a brief nod in the foreman's
direction to signal that she had completed her business. He immediately called
his men back to work.

Safely in her study. Bunny dumped
the boxes on her desk. After staring at the object in the third box for a long
moment, she picked up the phone and began dialing.

"At least I know how to get
rid of you. You aren't even glazed.

Probably worth nothing, just like
my jerk of a husband." She jabbed the object with a scarlet talon,  and
then turned her attention to the voice on the phone. "Lex Lewis,
please."

~~~~~~~~~~

Warmth and sunlight woke the clay. Even through the thick
wrapping it could sense the power of release. The clay waited patiently while
the folds of newspaper were removed from its curved body. It seemed like eons
since its pores last breathed the moving air. Blinded by light, it lay
impassive as it allowed the dust to swirl curiously around its form, settling
into the round lines of its tail and between the nooks of its paws.

Nails scraped along its body,
harshly scratching at its exposed skin, still fragile after so much time alone
in the damp darkness.

The rabbit was turned upside
down. Its ears hung above the ground, listening for the sound of the heavy
footsteps of the man who had hidden him away. His scent lingered, but there
were other, more recent smells too. The strong tinge of enamel paint, the
rubbery smell of caulk, and a brush encrusted with polyurethane. Then there was
the scent of the woman. Flowery and strong, it spoke to the clay of disguises.
It shrank away from the nails and the chemical-tinged perfume, turning back to
the fading memory of the potter's hands.

The clay was carried off
irreverently on one of the woman's palms and then dumped onto the polished
surface of a black lacquered desk. It listened to her voice, brittle and
demanding, drift off to another place beyond the room.

"You 're not even
glazed," her cold voice judged the clay, turning it back and forth and
upside down before dismissing it as an item of little worth.

The woman left, taking with her
a cloud of anger and disappointment. The quiet crept in on light feet, settling
around the clay and soothing it with gentle strokes of stillness and sunshine.

Outside, a few leaves drifted
lazily onto the shady slopes of grass. A thin wisp of air carried a gift of
magnolia blossoms and boxwoods to the clay. Yellow finches gathered near the
west window, darting flashes of color before the clay's parched eyes. Calmed,
it inhaled the summer, the season of its birth.

With the ancient knowledge of
the stones and water that had come together to form its heart, the clay knew
that someone was coming for it. Someone was coming, someone who had the right
hands. Someone who recognized the spirit, the spark of life residing deep
within the clay.

The potter was gone and the
clay had been alone for a long time now. But soon, very soon, it would be given
a home, and a place of honor among the other things birthed from wood and stone
and earth. Soon.

The clay opened up its pores to
capture the soft breath of wind seeping through the sills. It could wait here
for a while. For now, no more darkness would follow.

~~~~~~~~~~

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that
this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

—2 CORINTHIANS 4:7

Clara called when Molly was in the middle of previewing items
at Bud Earl's Auction Company in Greensboro. As a writer for
Collector's
Weekly
, Molly was allowed a private preview. Lingering over a folk art
painting of the Statue of Liberty, Molly was so captivated by the bright
colors, polka dots, and stripes decorating the frame that it took her a minute
to recognize that the annoying buzzing interrupting her concentration was
coming from her purse.

"Hello?"

"Madam? Are you still at
Earl's?" Clara asked.

"I am." Molly moved on
to the next painting. It was a primitive work of an African-American man being
chased by an oversized snake. Simply called "Black Snake" by the
artist, it had been painted on a piece of pine that had once served as part of
an outhouse door.

Yesterday's threatening voice mail
had almost faded in light of the lively folk art and the warm memory of Matt's
kiss, which she replayed in her mind again and again.

"He have anything good?"
Clara broke into her daughter’s reverie.

"Some great folk art,"
Molly reluctantly admitted. After all, other auction companies were direct
competition for Lex.

"Can you do Lex and me a huge
favor?" Clara asked.

"What is it?"

"Bunny found one more piece
of George-Bradley's pottery. Would you mind picking it up? I've got an
appraisal in Raleigh so I'm too busy to drive two hours the other way to fetch
it."

Molly was a bit apprehensive about
seeing Bunny after witnessing her face-off with Susan, and yet she was already
halfway to Asheboro. Not only that, but she could use this opportunity to dig
more information up on the Staunton marriage and George-Bradley's last morning
alive. Molly was certain she'd get some kind of vibe about whether or not Bunny
was guilty of murder. Maybe she'd even learn more about the mysterious letter.
"Sure," she told Clara charitably. "What is the piece?"

"Don't know, but Bunny said
it wasn't glazed, so it's no keeper. We just want to keep her happy because she
gave us George-Bradley’s collection and she does travel in influential
circles."

"Maybe, I'll just offer her
some cash for the piece," Molly joked. “Use it as a paperweight at work.”

"Go right ahead. Lex doesn't
even want it. It won't fit in with the rest of the collection we're auctioning
next month. And after all the money we got for that woman for the first group
she didn't seem the least bit grateful."

Molly paused. "It's not the
money, Ma. The pottery just held bad memories for her. She just wants to be
done with it."

"As we want to be done with
her. Thanks." Clara rang off.

Stuffing her phone back in her
purse, Molly finished viewing the artwork. Earl had over two dozen primitive
folk art paintings from a variety of North Carolina artists. Folk art was
becoming a hot item across the East Coast and Molly had decided to write an
introductory piece about folk art in addition to her article describing today’s
auction. She hoped Swanson would approve. Taking down some notes on several of
the artists, she thanked the auctioneer and headed once more for Bunny's house.

~~~~~

After ringing the doorbell for the third time, Molly let
out a sigh of frustration. Clearly, no one was going to answer. Through the
front window, she could see a shoebox propped on the hall table with the words
Lex
Lewis
marked on it. Boldly, Molly decided to try opening the door. To her
surprise, it was unlocked.