A Killer Collection (24 page)

"I'd better get back to my
mother," Molly said, smiling shyly. She looked once more at Leslie's
stomach, swollen with new life. With hope. "She'll be saving some of your
delicious fried chicken for me."

Gratefully, Leslie took Molly's
hands and placed the shoebox in them. "This little guy belongs to you now.
He's had some bad treatment and could use some love."

"Thank you. Good luck with
everything, Leslie."

The older woman gave her a weak
smile. "Please come back and see us. Anytime."

~~~~~

"She let you keep the rabbit? Clara asked on the
ride home, eyeing the shoebox on her daughter's lap.

"Yes." Molly gazed out
the widow. It was hard for her to carry on a conversation when her mind was
spinning. Leslie had confessed, but nothing was simple about this crime. What
should she, a newspaper reporter, do with the truth? All this time she had
played detective, and now that she had discovered the answers to all the
riddles, she wished she were still in the dark.

After a pause, Molly explained why
she had the clay animal. "Leslie said the rabbit brings up bad memories
for their family." And she shared the detail about Jack breaking the
pieces of kiln number 43 after Lilly Ann's death. That was the only confidence
she shared.

"I can understand that,"
Clara said. "And I am so glad they are back in the swing of things. Jack's
work is better than ever—I hope you got enough pictures—and I hear he is going
to have another son around Christmas. How wonderful! Someone to learn the
family business. Jack Junior can't seem to settle down long enough to make a
pinch pot.

I have never seen such a whirlwind
of energy. Have you? Molly?"

After such an emotional day, the
vibrations of the car and her mother's prattling proved to be too much. Molly
was fast asleep, the shoebox cradled in her arms.

~~~~~~~~~~

I have seen many people who have come to understand more about
themselves through making things with clay and fire.

-HENRY MEMOTT, from
Discovering Pottery

Carl Swanson approached Molly’s desk chewing feverishly
on a piece of gum. He tossed an envelope at her and cleared his throat.
"I've got a great assignment lined up for you. You know that TV show,
Hidden
Treasures
?" he asked without expecting a reply. "They've agreed
to let you spend a week with them this September while they tape an episode in
Richmond."

"That does sound like good
material for a piece," she

agreed and watched as her boss
puffed out his chest.

" 'Course it does," he
snarled in between chews.

Picking up the envelope she asked,
"What's this?"

"Look for yourself," he
mumbled. "Mr. Macintosh wanted to give you a bonus for helping circulation
reach an all-time high."

"Oh, thank you!" Molly
was delighted. Mr. Macintosh was the paper's owner.

"Don't thank me,"
Swanson said, truculently. "If I had my way, you wouldn't get paid extra
just for doing your job."

As he turned to plod back to his
office, Molly noticed a patch on his right arm. Good thing she was getting out
of town to cover several auctions this summer since her boss was going to quit
smoking. If people thought he was a S.O.B. before...

She tore open the envelope and was
elated to see the equivalent of a month's pay. Macintosh had been very
generous. Molly paused for a moment, feeling the weight of her decision about
Leslie's secret cloud her happiness.

Molly had written a short letter
to Officer Bennett, explaining that Leslie had given George Bradley a shot of
insulin at C. C.'s kiln opening with the intent of making him ill. Molly also
described how George Bradley had killed Lilly Ann and asked Bennett to look for
George Bradley's confessional letter to Bunny. It was probably somewhere in
Susan's house, unless she had had enough time before her arrest to destroy it. Lastly,
Molly pleaded with Bennett to go easy on the Grahams, emphasizing Leslie's
pregnancy.

It was with shaking hands that
Molly had dropped the letter in the mailbox. The truth was a heavy burden, and
she did not want to be the one to decide what decisions were to be made in the
name of justice.

Afterwards, Molly couldn't
possibly interview Jack Graham for her final pottery article, but instead wrote
a short piece on his return to the public eye and included several descriptive
photos from the kiln opening.

Once the article went to print,
Molly put all thoughts of secrets and murder out of her head. Every time she
glanced at Jack Graham’s rabbit, she assured herself that she had done the
right thing and tried to focus on what to do with her extra money. Sitting at
her desk at the end of the day, an idea bloomed in her mind. She shut down her
computer and picked up her purse.

At that moment, the door to Matt's
office opened and a familiar pair of long legs attached to a slim, female body
strode out.

"I can't believe you ditched
the party, Matt," Amy Byrd cooed. "I was looking for you all
night."

"I'll catch up with Paul to
do some guy things," Matt said dismissively then bid her a hasty goodbye.
She stood open-mouthed at his brusqueness as he made his way over to Molly's
desk.

"Hi. Thought I might take the
woman of the hour out for a real date," he said loudly enough for Amy to
hear. "How about dinner and a movie?"

A real date! Molly couldn't hide
her joy. Was he asking her out just to get rid of Amy? No, she didn't think so.
Her face flushed with radiance as she accepted. Amy Byrd stormed off in a huff,
but neither Matt nor Molly gave her any notice.

"Look." Molly waved her
check. "Let me take
you
to dinner. I don't have extra money too
often." She told Matt about her surprise bonus.

"You can buy me pizza some
other time. You need to treat yourself to something special with that money.
You deserve it after the month you've had. Let's see, how about a shopping
spree, a day at the spa, a weekend in the Outer Banks..."

"Actually, I was thinking of
taking a class over at the Cultural Arts Center."

Matt smiled and picked up her work
bag as they headed out to the front door. Outside, sheets of rain fell on the
warm ground as steam sprang up from the concrete sidewalks. Matt opened a large
golf umbrella and beckoned Molly to join him under its protective cover.
"But you're already smarter than all of us," he teased. "What
kind of class?"

"The kind that starts
Friday." Molly turned a beaming face up to his and called loudly over the
beating rain, "It's called Pottery for Beginners."

~~~~~

Rookie officer Monica Clarke was irritated that she was
always assigned the job of fetching and sorting the police station's mail.
Organizing a stack of letters and catalogues for Officer Bennett, Monica
noticed that the current edition of his weekly sports magazine featured
swimsuit models instead of football players.

"Men," she muttered,
cramming Bennett's mail together in a sloppy pile. If Bennett asked her to get
him another cup of coffee she would threaten to sue on grounds of gender
discrimination. Little did Monica know that Officer McLeary, a large, muscular
African-American man, had also been forced to fetch coffee for Bennett before
he was allowed to work the beat. All the rookies started off doing desk work,
and they had all gotten Bennett coffee, regardless of gender.

Monica also wasn't aware of the
existence of a small envelope addressed in neat handwriting to Officer Bennett.
It was from a woman named Molly Appleby. Shoved between the pages of his sports
magazine, the missive was completely hidden from view.

Bennett looked up from a thick,
uneven stack of paperwork as Monica entered the room. He groaned at the sight
of his pile of mail and knew he would never be free to take his new bride out
for lunch.

He brightened when he shifted
through the pile and his gaze fell upon the lithe tanned body of a brunette in
a white string bikini. He gazed furtively at the cover, knowing that his
possessive wife would not approve of him ogling other women, even airbrushed
ones.

Bennett was just about to settle
down to a leisurely viewing of a dozen swimsuit models when he heard the
familiar clipping of high-heeled shoes and a perky, bright voice moving through
the station's main room.

His lovely bride would reach his
office in seconds. In a blind panic, Bennett shoved the magazine into the paper
shredder and pressed it down firmly into the biting, metal teeth. As his wife
stepped into the office, picnic basket in hand, her fiery red hair and wide
smile quickly made Bennett forget all about swimsuit models.

Along with a letter detailing the
death of a notorious collector, the models had all become narrow, feathery
ribbons of scrap paper.

~~~~~~~~~~

The clay sank into the wheel like an old man dropping
into a deep, soft chair. The mouth of the bowl spun into a lopsided yawn that
seemed to mock the young hands upon its smooth, wet body.

The potter placed his hands
over the boy's, cupping the bowl until the walls sprang high again. The clay
recognized the tie between the two sets of hands and began to respect the
strength of their union. Together, they forced it to behave with all the love
and firmness of a father.

The door to the shed opened and
the potter's wife brought in tall, sweating glasses of lemonade. The potter
drank the sugary sunlight and smiled in contentment.

Alone, the small hands held the
clay steady for a few more turns of the wheel before the bowl keeled over to
one side like a sinking ship. The child looked pleadingly at the potter.

Reshaping the fallen clay into
a firm ball, the potter replaced it on the wheel. He patted his son on the back
and held his shoulders as it began to spin.

"You can make
another," he told him gently, his voice filled with pride.

The potter was right. He would
make another. And another.

He would make thousands.

~~~~~~~~~~

Faces have keen given to ceramic vessels throughout
history. From Egyptian canobic jars to English toby mugs, face vessels have
appeared across the centuries in a multitude of cultures. Though no one knows
for certain
why
the first American face jugs were created, historians do
know
where
these fascinating objects began to be produced with
regularity.

In the western part of South
Carolina, in a region called Edgefield, several potters created face jugs, also
referred to as "ugly jugs" during the middle of the nineteenth
century.

Many of these potters were African
Americans. These jugs or bottles were turned in the regular manner, and then
decorated with applied eyes and horizontal bits of teeth often made with
unglazed porcelain. Over time, the subjects of these clay portraits have been
lost to us, creating a sense of mystery around each nameless face vessel with
its two eyes, two ears, a nose, a mouth, and rows of teeth. One thing is
definitive, however, and that is that no two-face jugs are alike.

In the early part of the twentieth
century, face jugs were not a common part of the southern potter's bread-and-
butter sales. During the 1930s, several North Carolina potters began to produce
face vessels to sell, but were still relying on their traditional utilitarian
wares to support their families. Eventually, technological advancements allowed
for the mass production of ceramic ware, and the individual potter either
packed it in or found a new attraction to keep his customers returning. For
some potters, this attraction was the face jug. Hoping to appeal to tourists,
potters spent a great deal of extra time creating a lifelike face or at least
one unique enough to catch the eye of a customer.

In the 1960s and 1970s, more and
more southern potters began creating face jugs for the tourist trade. Though
especially prolific in North Carolina and Georgia, potters throughout the
United States made faces on jugs, cups, pitchers, vases, and a variety of other
vessels. In the last few decades, those faces have gotten fancy too. Examples
such as the female face, war-painted Native Americans, devils, Medusas, and
even animal face vessels have been introduced into the mix. Some potters have
also made two-faced jugs, with one side being a devil and the other an angel, a
man and a woman, a happy and a sad face, or a two-faced, irreverent
representation of the politician.

The face jug has been called
"grotesque" in the past and it is true—many are a bit daunting with
their pointed teeth, bleeding eyes, long fangs, or devil horns. But the face
jug is an excellent example of how an art form can be created in a few
workshops in one area in the country, and then slowly appear in other regions.
For whatever reason that first American face vessel was made, whether for
religious or ritualistic purposes, as a gift, or simply as an artistic
experiment, the face jug was born to be embraced by thousands of artists and
collectors.

~~~~~~~~~~

JB Stanley/Ellery Adams grew up on a beach near the Long
Island Sound. Having spent her adult life in a series of landlocked towns, she
cherishes her memories of open water, violent storms, and the smell of the sea.
Ms. Adams has held many jobs including caterer, retail clerk, car salesperson,
teacher, tutor, and tech writer, all the while penning poems, children’s books,
and novels. She now writes full-time from her home in Virginia.