A Killing in Antiques (22 page)

Hamp closed the door behind us, and we both hurried out of our own clothes. Sensuously undressing each other is a fantasy of mine, but we’d never been able to work it into our repertoire. Never seemed to have time.

“Hamp, we don’t have to rush.”

“That’s right, Lucy-love. We don’t.”

God, he hadn’t called me that in ages. We dove into the bed and tried cuddling for a while. It turned out to be a short while. The past two, nearly three weeks had been tough. Though we hadn’t ceased all communications, there’d been a reserve between us, an artificial politeness.

Now, as the reserve crumbled, the cuddling was left behind, and we plunged into communicating with an intensity approaching frenzy. With the house empty, we didn’t even have to be carefully quiet. But maybe we were, from habit. I don’t remember. What I do remember is that we both seemed starved for contact with each other, and when we connected, our congress was profound. When sated, we sprawled back side-byside. Silent. I was incapable of thought.

I soon drifted into the sweet downy oblivion between waking dreams and sleeping dreams. Weightlessness tantalized my body. An indistinct web wrapped me in readiness for the dreams ahead, for sleep.

The body beside me rolled over, lifted its head, and mumbled, “Lucy?”

“What?” I was instantly awake.

“Don’t teach her how to make real macaroni and cheese, huh?”

I’d have killed him, but I was already slipping back into that wonderful place.

F
riday’s four a.m. reveille found my energy level somewhat reduced, but within seconds my DNA reminded the rest of me that I had promises to keep. Minutes later I was behind the wheel, mildly surprised to see Monica tucking herself in beside me. First stop, St. Elmo Fine Antiques.

The shop looked great. It’s one of my favorite places. Here, I’m the master of all I survey, I rule the roost, I’m in charge, my word is law, my decisions are final. God, I love it here.

This was Monica’s first visit to the shop, so I took a minute to show her around. The front door, flanked by two narrow bay windows, opens into a long, narrow showroom, my main selling space. I flicked the switch that lit about two dozen lovely vintage lamps. They’re part of my inventory, and they cast a warm glow over the place. I like it better than the spooky overhead fluorescent lights that came with the lease.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. Her gaze swept the room. “It’s so elegant.”

I could see that she was impressed, and it truly pleased me. “It helps that I have free rein with the decorating here,” I explained. “No worries over whose chair has to be placed next to a thousand-watt lightbulb.” She nodded, and encouraged, I elaborated, “On the other hand, no one can insist that dark rooms, featuring shadowy corners, make a cozy atmosphere.” I escorted her along the narrow center aisle that leads to the back of the shop.

“I usually keep my premium inventory in this aisle,” I said. “There are a few things here that I couldn’t afford to keep in our house.”

Mahogany and cherrywood stood radiant, glowing from within; no speck of dust violated the eye. Each piece of furniture presented itself on its best behavior. I’m exacting regarding the shop’s appearance.

“Dusting and polishing here is a different story than at home,” I said. A sore spot with me. My family finds it grand entertainment, this discrepancy in my standards. I braced myself for her comment.

“I can see why,” she said.

“What?” I looked at her.

“I’m sure it’s a pleasure polishing furniture like this.” She gestured toward a set of mahogany library steps, each stair glossy. “It’s beautiful. Even the corners gleam.”

She was serious. More of this and I’d begin twinkling myself. “I usually keep a folded piece of chamois in my pocket when I’m here,” I confided.

She nodded, and drifted down the aisle, mouth agape. She stopped in front of an arrangement of furniture. Her eyes swept the lines of a mahogany bowfront chest upon which I had placed a lap desk, an ink pot, and a quill pen. Next to the desk was a chair, the focal point. A simple mahogany Chippendale, made in Boston around 1770.

She looked at the price tag and raised her eyebrows. “Who can afford eight thousand dollars for a single dining room chair?”

I knew who could, but I had yet to tell him that I had acquired it. I wanted to enjoy looking at it for a few days. Instead, I told her who couldn’t. “Someone who doesn’t have Philip sitting on it, leaning backward, balancing on its hind legs.”

She giggled. “He warned me not to do that when he brought me home to meet you.”

“And you didn’t, but you’ll have to think twice before you begin furnishing a place that gets that kind of heavy-duty use,” I said. “That’s why I have that nice sturdy oak furniture at home.” I could see her absorbing that information. I’ve tried everything to get my kids to sit with all four chair legs on the floor. No luck.

“But why is a simple dining room chair worth so much more than everything else in this group?”

“Because this is an arrangement of Federal-
style
furniture. All of it is old, most pieces more than a hundred years old, making them officially antique. But the chair is the only piece that was actually built during the late Colonial–early Federal era.”

She hesitated, and then asked if the value of the more expensive piece would be devalued by its proximity to the less expensive pieces.

“Wow! Very perceptive question for a novice.” Now, I was truly impressed.

“It’s possible,” I said, pulling my thoughts together. “In this case, I think it works the other way. I have a specific buyer in mind for that chair. When he arrives, he’ll consider everything around it merely props for the chair. He’s one of the few buyers who come here looking exclusively for top-of-the-line antiques.”

“I thought the shop would look more like the house,” she said.

“My first shop was like that,” I told her. “Heavy oak furniture, some pine, mostly country furniture. Mission. I really snapped up the Mission back when it was more affordable. Arts and Crafts, too. My prices were cheaper, and my budget was smaller. I carried what I could afford on a tight purse, and I needed to sell it quickly. I sold the kind of things I could, and often did, use in furnishing our home.

“I still carry a lot of reasonably priced wares here.” I gestured around. “Though I notice that my definition of reasonable has changed a bit.”

She nodded, her eyes sweeping the place, still soaking up the ambience. She hadn’t stopped nodding affirmatively since we’d come in the door. I enjoyed her admiration. I was showing off and she was easy.

“Since I opened this shop, I’ve moved on a bit. I’ve upgraded. But still, you’ll notice that there’s only a smattering of the really fine furnishings, at the very highest end.”

“And that’s what you’ll be buying at Brimfield?” she asked.

I hesitated. “Sort of.” I didn’t want her to misunderstand our trip today. “Generally, the really high-end items come from fine auctions, estate sales, and an assortment of more obscure places,” I said. “But, just often enough, Brimfield offers up a fine Duncan Phyfe table, or an exquisite set of Meissen porcelain.

“More often it’s the bread-and-butter antiques that I bring home from Brimfield.”

She looked at me. “Maybe there’ll even be something that I can afford there,” she said.

“There will be plenty you can afford there,” I assured her. “But my advice to any novice, in addition to staying within your budget, is to only buy something if you love it.”

We drifted to the back wall of the shop and peeked inside the small storage room for a minute. TJ had it stacked full. He knows how to keep it packed and still maintain a narrow pathway through it so that I, and certain customers, can scout around in there.

“Wow.” Monica was wide-eyed.

“I rent a nearby garage for storage, too,” I told her, tickled at her reaction. “It should be packed to the rafters before the week is over,” I added. “I need even more space for storage, but good dry space is hard to come by here at the Cape.”

Some lumpy pillowcases, piled just inside the storage room door, caught her eye. They were stuffed with linens that I wanted to sift through before deciding which would end up in the shop and which would go on eBay. Monica poked inside one, and it interested her. Before she got too involved, I steered her away, turning again toward the front of the shop via the farthest wall.

Two large alcoves open off that wall, one step up to each. They were originally rooms in the building next door, which is attached to the shop. This little cluster of shops goes back to when the owners lived in the back rooms, or upstairs, or next door to their shops.

Today, even those living spaces have been converted to businesses. Mostly boutiques. The buildings have survived hurricanes, blizzards, and ocean breezes approaching cyclone force. They’ve become quaint. Thus, they attract more shoppers, making the area attractive to even more upscale businesses.

My business doesn’t depend on tourists—the inventory is hardly of the souvenir variety—but the neighborhood has become just right for the type of person who engages in a restful day of shopping for baubles: for the self, the family, or the home.

I’d enjoyed showing off, but I realized that I had to get moving. I told Monica to browse around while I took care of a few things. I needn’t have bothered. She was everywhere, a hummingbird in a new garden.

TJ had placed some of the new stock from Brimfield around the shop. His treatments were complementary. They freshened up my little arrangements. I keep the shop loaded with treasures. More than the eye can absorb in one visit. That’s how I want it. Elegant little vignettes at every turn, always drawing the eye, never the same scene twice. It’s the kind of place you know you have to return to even as you’re taking your first glance.

There were a few sales slips and notes under the brass inkstand by the phone. A note from TJ said that he’d see me at the early opening this morning. Great. He must have enjoyed the treasure hunt at Brimfield, because I had told him that I wouldn’t need him until noontime today. The note also said:
Lucy, You need a computer and a cell phone
. That’s how he ends every note.

He’d also left a sales receipt for the bisque hat pin holder. Great! It’d been around too long. I’d been thinking I’d have to send it to auction. It was so elegant that I’d been dejected when someone had called it a salt shaker. I chalked that up to unfamiliarity with turn-of-the-century customs, but I’d been dashed again when a most sophisticated customer asked me where the matching shaker was. And that, with a few hat pins stuck into it. TJ’s sale was proof at last that someone understood. I know I shouldn’t take these things personally.

While I was by the phone, I decided to call Natalie. There were no messages from her under the inkstand, or anywhere else. I fought the urge. Not quite four twenty in the morning. Might be a problem. But I resolved to reach her sometime today no matter what. I hadn’t seen her at Brimfield since that first morning. Like many dealers she closes her shop during Brimfield Week, but no one I’d met had seen her there, or anywhere.

Why? Could she have been so distraught about the murder that she was sitting out Brimfield? Monty’d been a good friend to her. He’d done a lot to get her business rolling. But that didn’t feel right. Murder was not what was keeping her away. It was probably not her love life, either. Though she gets skittish whenever the possibility of romance raises its lovely head, she calms herself by turning analytically abstract. So strike that.

She’d been so close to the spot where the murder took place that terrible morning. At that pickle castor booth, before his body had even been discovered. As I thought about that, it dawned on me that she could have seen something. If she did, maybe she was frightened?

That was it! I stood there figuring it out, so when Natalie said “Hello,” she startled me.

“Where on earth have you been?”

“Do you know what time it is, Lucy?” That old refrain.

“It’s time for you to greet the day,” I chirped. “Especially if you’re heading for Brimfield this morning.” I poured as much cheer as I could muster into my voice.

Monica, now tearing through the pillowcases full of linens, looked up at me with raised eyebrows. She couldn’t help hearing me; the shop was dead silent. I wiggled my fingers at her, nodding and smiling as I did, and she dove back into the linens.

I wished I had thought about what I’d say to Natalie. I could hear myself babbling, but I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want Monica to catch the drift of what I was talking about. The less she knew about murder and mayhem, and my part in it, the better.

“You are going today, aren’t you? I mean, Brimfield’s half over. This is your last chance to get the goods before the amateurs show up. And don’t forget the picnic.”

Nothing. I knew she didn’t hang up, though; I could hear her breathing. I had little interest in the picnic myself, but I clutched at straws. If it could get me off the hook here, I’d give it a shot.

“I give up,” she said. “What do you really want?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “I’ve been calling you, and looking for you. I’m sorry I missed you earlier this week, so I’ve been calling.” It sounded a little weak, even to my ears, but hey, what are friends for?

“I was in retreat.”

“From who?” She
did
know something.

“The world, Lucy. I needed to think.”

“About what?”

“About optimizing my alternatives.”

“What do you need optimized?”

I heard a breath of air escape. “My life, Lucy.”

Oh, that. “Well . . .” This was not the time for one of my little pep talks. She sounded aggrieved. The right platitude might be useful, but despite my firm commitment to platitudeanarianism, I couldn’t bring the right one to mind. Still, maybe she knew something. What the devil could I say? “Well, I miss you and I want you to come to the picnic.”