A Killing in Antiques (7 page)

Wilson’s eyebrows rose. “What on earth makes you say that?” he said.

He walked away shaking his head when I replied, “I just know it, that’s all.”

S
ilent Billy was in big trouble if the rest of the world were as easily convinced of his guilt as those three. I turned back to the food truck and saw that several new people were now in front of me in the line. I was ready to begin squawking a loud objection when I noticed a fluttering from the side of my eye.

It was Baker Haskins waving a napkin at me. Baker was mouthing my name, too, as if calling me, but, with his mouth full of food, his calls were a pantomime. He was
silently
calling me and waving his napkin from several trucks away. The fact that he had caught my attention this way tapped a vein of silliness in me, and this chipped a crack in my bad humor.

Baker is fascinating. He’s the subject of much conjecture in the antiques world, and in other worlds as well. I strolled over to where he stood. He’s a tall, awkward-looking man, and he was eating a huge piece of pastry. It was shaped like a cow patty and had been liberally dusted with powdered sugar. As Baker nibbled one end of the pastry, the other end sprinkled powder over the front of his clothes. The sugar did no damage; it merely masked previous spillings. It looked like he’d been here awhile, but that was not so, and it turned out that he had missed Natalie, too.

Baker is one of the few friends that Hamp and I share, but know separately. Hamp knows him from the halls of academe, and me from our shared passion for antiques. Well, we know him together, too, but it’s a different relationship than with our other friends. Hamp has little interest in antiques, and I have little interest in intellectual pursuit, and Baker thrives on both.

For almost thirty years we’ve enjoyed his company as if he were another couple, perfectly matched to us. Somehow, when he’s been one-half of an actual couple, it hasn’t worked. We’d seen less of him both times he’d been married. But when he was single, as now, and as most of the time, we saw him often.

He wore a wide-brimmed straw planter’s hat that shaded his pale eyes and protected his huge shining head from the sun. Numerous bags hung from straps crisscrossing his chest and shoulders.

“I didn’t want to lose my place in line,” he explained with his mouth still full, “and anyway, you were in the wrong line, Lucy.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because the food over there tastes like an old sneaker, and because that’s where Wilson caught up with you.”

“So what do you prescribe, Dr. Haskins?” I asked.

He was, after all, a doctor of the PhD variety. He had, I knew, a collection of PhDs.

“I recommend the souvlaki and a chat,” he said. “Eating and talking will make you feel better, and it’ll give me a better feeling for what’s really been going on around here.” Bits of pastry flew from his mouth and sugar continued to drift into the air between us as we progressed to the front of the smoothly moving line.

Baker ordered for both of us, then popped the last bit of cow patty into his mouth. He told me that when he’d arrived at Brimfield, barely fifteen minutes before, he’d heard rumors of the murder. He’d then spoken to a police officer directing traffic. The cop told him that Billy had been taken into custody, charged with murder, and handed over to the state police.

I’d been buzzing around Town Hall for over an hour, killing precious time, learning nothing, and Baker had stood on Route 20 for a few minutes getting the official story. We carried our food over to an empty table, and I asked Baker what he meant by the Wilson crack.

“Not much,” he said. “He’s been overbearing when I’ve worked with him, but as long as he stays out of my face I can handle it.”

“You guys work together?”

“Occasionally. Museum galas, fund-raisers, that sort of thing. Temporary situations. The man has trouble letting go,” he said.

I nodded. “He had no trouble letting go of me,” I said.

“A run-in?” Baker asked.

“A misunderstanding. When we first moved here I answered a call for volunteers for the Storybook Ball. I presented myself to Wilson, told him that I’d been a board member, a fund-raiser, and a very active volunteer at the Ruby Museum. The man fell all over himself welcoming me to the fold.”

“Sounds like a good beginning.”

“Well, it turns out that Wilson mistook me for a heavy donor type of fund-raiser. When he realized that the Ruby was a tiny museum that our local historical society had put together to honor the memory of the Ruby family, and that our fund-raising consisted of bake sales, car washes, and flea markets, he dropped me with a thud.”

Baker laughed. I joined him, but in fact I had been embarrassed, and could still feel the sting of being dropped all those years ago.

“He raises funds for a number of good causes,” he said.

“Yes, and to give the devil his due, I’ve found him to be pretty knowledgeable about antiques,” I said.

“Don’t count on everything he tells you,” Baker said. “He has a need to be seen as an expert, but he’s lazy. If he’d cut out the Machiavellian behavior, and worked a little harder at actually learning something, he could be a true authority.”

When we were seated he crossed his long legs and said, “So, what gives?” I filled him in on what I knew about the murder and Billy’s trouble. He nodded and chomped and sipped until I wound down. It turned out that he was right; I did feel better eating and unloading my feelings.

“I agree with you, Lucy. The police have the wrong man. Silent Billy doesn’t have it in him to harm anyone.”

“I’m sure that sooner or later the police will realize that,” I said. “But in the meantime Billy’s in trouble.”

“Don’t be so sure the police will discover their mistake, Lucy. When they have a suspect, they’ve been known to build a case around him.”

“They can’t—” I bit the words off. I know they can. They didn’t know Billy. If they believed he was guilty, why should they look for someone else.

“I saw Billy just yesterday,” he said. “When he delivered a candlestand to my office.”

“Something Monty picked for you?”

“I’m not sure,” he said.

We finished the last morsels of our yogurt-soaked bread at the same time and leaned back to savor the rest of the coffee.

I reached into my purse for some foil-wrapped wet napkins to wipe our fingers, and Baker reached into one of his bags for a cigarette. I held my tongue about the smoking. Baker is an adult. I had a tired old speech about the evils of smoking, but I had listened to myself once, and it stunk worse than the smoke.

“I used to ask if people minded if I smoked,” he said, “but now that the whole world has seen fit to become sanctimonious about it, I’ve quit asking. Besides, this is a roller-coaster business for many of us, Lucy, and smoking helps to even out the jolts.”

I suppressed a laugh. It’s true that we’re in a wildly bumpy business, but Baker is well cushioned from jolts. He’s richer than God. He has old money and new money and in-between money, and he has lots of it. The media records its fluctuations. Baker manages the managers who manage his money, but he finds none of it as interesting as antiques.

Baker’s true love is his
Learned Informer’s Antiques Review
, a trade newspaper that he founded, on a whim, when he was still in school, years ago. The
LIAR
, as it calls itself, chronicles the happenings in the antiques world with more excitement and wit than is usually found in the antiques trade’s press. It is a weekly newspaper, and though it is heavily subscribed to, and packed with advertising, its likely contribution to Baker’s wealth is minor compared to his other assets.

“Did he say that the candlestand was something you always coveted?” I asked. That was one of Monty’s standard marketing ploys.

“No, that’s what I expected when he called, but it’s a Shaker piece, and I’ve never collected Shaker furniture. So he must have been telling the truth. Unless he developed a new selling technique.”

“What do you mean, ‘telling the truth’?” I asked.

“Well, Monty called me early yesterday and told me he had something he wanted me to see. I tried to dust him off, Lucy. I don’t want any more stuff. I’m trying to weed out, and get rid of my extra stuff, so I discouraged him.”

I nodded. I knew that nothing could discourage Monty, but I also knew that Baker was always trying to “weed out” his extra stuff.

“Did he tell you to reserve judgment until you saw it?” I asked.

“That’s what I expected, but he was very mysterious, told me he only wanted me to hold the piece for him, that I couldn’t
buy
it if I wanted it. He said that he’d try to deliver it personally.”

That certainly sounded like a new gambit for Monty. “But he sent Silent Billy instead?”

“Yes, and naturally Billy didn’t say a word about it. He came in, put it in my office, tipped his cap, the way he does, and left.”

“Was there anything unusual about the candlestand?”

“I don’t think so, Lucy. I hardly looked at it. It doesn’t fit in with my other furnishings, so I wasn’t interested.”

We sat quietly for a minute and thought it over.

“I wonder if it has anything to do with his murder. Do you think it could, Lucy?” he asked.

“Baker, I think he was murdered for his wad of cash, and I think that the candlestand is just a candlestand. It’s something that Monty thought when you saw it, you would want it.”

“But Shaker isn’t me,” he said.

“Baker, you’re all over the place. It’s hard to predict what you’ll be into from one week to the next.”

He smiled sheepishly. “You’re right, Lucy, but I’ll give it another look-see when I go back to the office tonight, to figure out why he found it so interesting.”

With that settled, he turned to other issues. “Would you like anything for dessert? There’s a strawberry shortcake stand.”

“No, you enjoy it, Baker. I’ve just missed another opening. I’d better be on my way. I’m sure I’ll bump into you regularly this week.”

“Believe it. I’ll be here every day. Are you planning the picnic for Friday?”

I hadn’t been planning the picnic at all. The picnic had expanded. Once a pleasant little luncheon among friends, it had lately taken on the features of a big-time tradition, and for me it’s become cumbersome. When it was smaller, just half a dozen or so of us, we’d gather up food from the marketplace, squeeze into someone’s car, and find a nice spot to stop and eat.

Friday afternoon is a great time for visiting. We entertain one another with stories of the monstrosities and masterpieces we’ve spotted around the fields. We compare
this
Brimfield with previous Brimfields. We socialize. It is a nice way to visit and gather energy before the arrival of the amateurs over the weekend.

Lately, though, I spend more time and energy on the preparations. Scouting a place takes time. It has to be conveniently located, but suitable for accommodating at least fifteen, sometimes closer to twenty of us. And with interest growing, there is another problem: With the increasing crowd we have to choose a place that’s public property.

When it was a smaller event, we’d often picnicked on privately owned land. We’d feasted, visited, and carried out our trash in the same bags we’d brought the food in, leaving little or no sign that we’d been there. No one had ever raised an eyebrow at us. Now, just carrying out the trash had become a major job.

All of this finding, and fetching, and carrying has traditionally been done by me, with help from Mr. Hogarth. It takes time and expends energy. By Friday I usually find that my time, and my energy, are lagging a bit. I try not to show it, since Mr. Hogarth, more than thirty years my senior, takes it all in stride. But I’ve been finding it tiring. Not to mention that with all of the housekeeping duties, I do less visiting, and visiting is my main reason for having the picnic in the first place.

“I’m not sure I even want to bother this year, Baker.” I was about to explain, when his expression stopped me.

“That’s where I hear my best reports of the Spring Brimfield,” he said. “That’s where I decide what tone to take in writing about the events here. Why, that little picnic mirrors the Brimfield phenomenon exactly.”

He couched his words in theatrical body language, but I could see grievance in his face, hear plaint in his voice.

Rats. I liked the picnic, too. But with the added preparations and cleanup, it was getting to be more work and less play than I wanted.

“Okay, Baker, fine. You want the picnic, we’ll have the picnic, but you, and anyone else who shows up, will have to get involved in the preparations.”

“Okay.”

“I mean it, Baker, I’m getting too tired to put that sort of thing together.”

“Okay, I’ll help.”

“Just a nice, simple picnic. That’s all I’m up for, Baker. No extravaganza.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“What sounds good?” I asked, suddenly interested.

“Helping with the arrangements,” he answered. “I’ve wanted to get involved, but you’ve been so proprietary about it that I didn’t want to usurp your turf.”

Proprietary?

“Friday afternoon?” he asked, grinning.

“That’s still a good time. We can firm up the details as the week progresses.” That satisfied him.

I gathered myself together and took my leave. In fact, the picnic was a fun event. Sheesh! I liked it, too. I’d walked halfway to my destination when I remembered that I’d forgotten to ask Baker if he knew anything about that old trouble that Matt had handled for Monty long ago. I’d ask him next time.

On my way, I stopped at a mover who works the Brimfield show. I’ve used him regularly to move my heavy furniture into my storage space. He turned me down for a better deal on a long haul. I’d have to look for another mover later.