Beware False Profits (26 page)

I clapped when she finished, and she turned and beckoned me forward. “I wanted to talk to you.”

I found my shawl on the way to the front and draped it over my shoulder. “What did I do now?” I asked, only half joking.

“I was here when the caterer arrived. She wanted to use the church punch bowl to save her from hauling her own back and forth. We couldn’t find it. I just wondered if you knew where it was.”

“Why does everybody associate me with the punch bowl?”

Esther just gazed at me, as if she was sure I could make that connection by myself. She’s incapable of accusing looks, but her pale blue eyes—a close match for her silver hair—were assessing me.

“Okay, here’s the story.” I launched in, glad to bare my soul and ask for advice. I had run out of leads.

“So, will they string me up, do you think?” I finished. “Or sentence me to hard labor?”

“You should have come to me before. I’m good at finding things.”

I knew that was true. Esther comes away from garage sales with priceless treasures for under a dollar. Tell her you wish you could find a piece of sterling to fill out a place setting, and she’ll find it within a month at a price you can afford. Not in a catalogue, not on eBay, but in somebody’s attic or under a pile at the local flea market. Still, I’d never considered asking her to find the punch bowl, because it hadn’t seemed quite the same. The punch bowl was missing due to my own carelessness.

“Do you have any ideas?” I asked.

“Well, I was helping in Aunt Alice’s Attic that first day, you know. I used to run it all alone but I let Fern take over a few years ago. I’m still the one who figures out what qualifies as treasure, and this year I did morning duty. Who have you checked with?”

I felt too achy to leap with joy, but I was beginning to take heart. I recited my list.

“You missed somebody. Did you talk to Betsy Graham?”

The name was vaguely familiar. I could picture a dark-haired woman, short, midfortyish, energetic. “The name never came up.”

“Betsy’s not at church a lot these days, because she and her husband are renovating a little cottage out on Lake Parsons, and weekends are the only time they can work on it. They’ve about finished now. I was out there a few weeks ago to see it. Anyway, she was buying all kinds of things to furnish it at the sale. I remember she bought several boxes of glasses.”

“Wouldn’t she notice she has the punch bowl by now?”

“She might just be piling everything up until all the little details are finished on the cottage and they can move in.”

“Thanks, I’ll look her up in the directory.”

Esther frowned in concentration, as if she was visualizing Betsy’s whereabouts. “No, you probably won’t find her at home. I’ll give you directions to the lake. You can drive out if you can’t reach her.”

I rummaged through my purse, past my keys and Maura’s, past my wallet and a wad of tissues. I scrawled the directions on the back of a receipt.

“You won’t mention this to anybody? I’ll have to come clean if Betsy doesn’t have it. But if you’ll give me a short reprieve?”

“My lips are sealed. It’s your show, dear.”

I refrained from hugging her. The best thank you gift I could give Esther was a clean bill of health.

“I’ll let you know,” I promised.

“You don’t have to. I know you’ll find it there.” She went back to Bach, and I went back to the parsonage to wonder if she was right.

Ed made carrot and ginger soup for our dinner and put me on the sofa with a tall glass of orange juice and a box of tissues. Deena brought me one of Junie’s crocheted afghans, and Teddy made a get well card with crayon drawings of Moonpie gazing wistfully at Pepper and Cinnamon, her guinea pigs. The guinea pigs, which in real life have no expression whatsoever, were clearly gloating behind the bars of their cage. I wondered what Moonpie had done to deserve Teddy’s scorn, but I felt too lethargic to ask.

Junie set a steam vaporizer several feet from the sofa, then cranked it high enough to make sure everything in the room would be dripping by dinnertime. Black mold was on the bedtime agenda.

“Herbal tea on the way,” she promised.

“I’ll pass on the tea,” I croaked.

“No, precious, you won’t.”

I closed my eyes. Nobody woke me until the soup was ready, but of course, before I was allowed to eat it, I was treated to Junie’s home brew. She added enough honey to send all the worker bees in local hives out on strike, but at least the honey made the herbs tolerable.

After dinner, I was allowed to choose whatever I wanted to watch on television. I settled on
Surgery Saved My Life
on the Discovery Channel and watched my squeamish family scatter. I closed my eyes, victorious, and slept until bedtime.

Feverish and awake through the night, my mind raced in unpredictable directions. I kept thinking about Chad and Chad’s parents, trying to reconcile the happy boy in those photographs with the young man who so recklessly destroyed the hopes of so many. The photos were a slide show in my head. How does a parent prevent a child from becoming a monster?

I imagined an older Deena leaving her selfless Peace Corps boyfriend to shack up with a greedy brain surgeon who owned a stable of racehorses in Lexington. I saw Teddy in Cinderella’s golden coach scattering moldy bread crumbs to a starving crowd of homeless children.

I dragged myself out of bed and took a handful of over-the-counter meds guaranteed to either bring my brain back online or send me peacefully to an easier world.

The next morning as everybody tiptoed through the halls with elephantine grace, I slept in. By the time I could sit up, I was fairly certain I had survived to live at least one more day.

Ed came in with a tray. “Feeling any better?”

My eyelids were stuck halfway. I was afraid my voice had been extinguished. “Ergh…galumph…”

He seemed perfectly satisfied. “How clever of you to get sick first, so you could get it over with. Everybody’s on extra rations of vitamin C until you’re well enough to take care of us.”

“I’m…moving away.”

“Sorry, but you’ll owe us. Are you up for scrambled eggs?”

Surprisingly, I was, and for the toast that went with them. And the pot of Lady Grey tea—who may or may not have been related to Earl but who certainly knew her way around a teapot.

Ed came back up for the tray and perched on the edge of our bed. I noted the sizeable distance but refrained from reminding him I had breathed on him all night long.

“You’re planning to take it easy today, right?” he asked. “The girls are gone, and Junie’s going to be out all day. I can work here if you think you’ll need me.”

I had an errand I had to do. The punch bowl crisis had finally come to a head. Either I solved it with a trip to find Betsy Graham, who had not answered any of the calls I’d managed last night, or tomorrow I told Sally the truth.

“I’ll be fine.” I gave him my prettiest dimpled smile, spoiled somewhat by my nose choosing that moment to salute Niagara Falls.

He looked relieved. “I’ve got a pile of meetings, but you can always reach me on my cell. I’ll leave it on.”

I blew hard, then harder. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

“I’ll come home at lunchtime—”

“Not necessary. I can heat soup. It will do me good to move around.”

“Don’t overdo.” He stood and took the tray.

I blew him a kiss so he wouldn’t have to come any closer. “Thanks for everything.”

I got up and took a shower, and when I came out the house was empty. I threw on whatever was in the front of my closet, looking down once I’d finished to note I was wearing an orange and yellow striped shirt, lavender capris, and lime green sneakers. Maybe I could paint my face and juggle bowling pins to throw Betsy off guard. Then while she was still dazzled by my performance, I could rush into her cottage and steal the boxes.

By the time I got downstairs I thought I’d probably live. I didn’t feel any worse than I had at the memorial service. Maybe I’d sink with the sun again, but until then, I was well enough to see this through. I wrote Ed a note in case he came home and worried I might be vacationing on a slab in the Emerald Springs morgue, then I locked the house and took off for Lake Parsons. I gripped the wheel and turned up the radio as loud as I dared, to make sure I didn’t get sleepy at the wheel.

Lake Parsons is a forty-five-minute drive through rolling farmland. The lake itself is small and marginally scenic. Houses crowd the waterfront and spill back along side roads. The biggest draw is a policy that welcomes every feasible type of watercraft capable of skimming the surface, with no restriction on size. At the height of summer vacation, Parsons is an earplug-friendly community. In May, however, I could appreciate the rippling surface and the large evergreens that still cast shadows on remoter coves.

The Grahams’ cottage was situated on one of those. I gratefully followed Esther’s directions as the road looped back and forth, teasing me with views of the water, then catapulting me back along deserted streets.

At last I pulled up to the right cottage and gathered my strength. The house was small and sided in cedar shingles with a screened porch stretching along the front to offer views of the lake. If my geography was correct, the sunset would be beautiful here.

I got out at last, girded somewhat for the confrontation, and dragged myself to the front porch. I rapped twice and waited. A Pontiac was parked in front, and I counted on somebody being home.

The woman I had visualized yesterday came out on the porch. When she saw me her eyes widened.

“Aggie? Aggie Wilcox?”

I didn’t remind her of the hyphen, or my decision to retain my identity as someone other than Ed’s spouse. She could have called me Bozo. I just wanted to sit down again.

“How are you, Betsy?” I smiled and felt my reserves of energy seeping away.

“What on earth are you doing all the way out here? Not that I’m not delighted to see you.” She opened the door and ushered me into a cozy living room paneled in knotty pine.

Without waiting for an invitation I fell to the sofa. “I’m so sorry to barge in like this. But I’m desperate.”

Then, without fanfare, I launched into my story, starting with Mayday! and moving right along at a snail’s pace. My talent for editing was on hiatus, along with clear nasal passages and any hint of energy.

Betsy perched on the edge of a chair and listened patiently. When I finally finished I was afraid I was going to witness the spectacular sunset myself. But she had allowed me my say.

Now she shook her head. “I feel so bad. I could have saved you all this trouble. I’ve just been so busy, and I haven’t been back to town in weeks, and the phone service out here is spotty. The phone company keeps insisting nothing is wrong, but we can’t get to the bottom of it because every time I try, the phone goes out.”

“You have the punch bowl?”

“I do. But I didn’t know what it was when I bought it, of course. I was stocking the cottage cupboards. I grabbed a couple of boxes of glasses thinking they’d do me awhile until I could find something I really liked. Then I…I ummm…looked inside one day and realized, well, what was there. And I’ve been trying to, you know, get it back into the closet.”

I wasn’t sure if my spinning head was making hash of this, or if there really was something odd about Betsy’s explanation. But I didn’t care. I could get the punch bowl and take it back to church. Thanks to Esther, another mystery was solved. If my luck held Joe would come home unharmed, dress the front porch dolls like Sonny and Cher whenever he felt the urge to perform, and never leave Emerald Springs again.

I got to my feet. “I’m just glad you have it. And I’ll be thrilled to reimburse you for the glasses you didn’t get. May I take it now?”

“Oh, of course. And you don’t need to worry about the glasses. I feel bad enough that you had to drive all the way out here.”

She started toward the back of the house, and I followed her. The kitchen was small but charming. I could imagine tasty meals at the oak table as motorboats and Jet Skis roared by on Lake Parsons.

Betsy went into a small pantry and returned with a cardboard box. She set it on the table and unfolded the flaps. There, nestled in a flannel sheet, was the punch bowl. Gleaming and lovely, without a smudge of chocolate.

“That’s a beautiful sight,” I said.

She looked relieved. “I’m so glad you’re not angry, Aggie. And I do apologize.”

“Let me take it to the car and get out of your hair. And thanks for washing it. I’m sure that wasn’t any fun. But at least the chocolate coating wasn’t my fault.”

“Let me carry it for you. Are you feeling okay? You’re a little flushed.”

On the way out we talked about spring allergies and colds, about how much she liked her cottage, and how some of the residents were trying to get the local township to pass a law limiting horse power on the lake, but nobody thought they would win.

I opened the back of the van and Betsy put the box inside. I started to fold the flaps over the top of it, but my hand faltered. I stared at the bowl, then with Betsy still standing beside me, I lifted it out of the box and turned it around, then around once more.

Betsy shifted from foot to foot.

I carefully returned the bowl to the box, folded the flaps, and faced her.

“The church punch bowl had deeper sawtooth edges, and a couple of them were worn. This is so close. You must have searched every antique store for a hundred miles.”

“I’m about to apologize again.”

I closed the back of the van carefully, then I leaned against it. “So what happened?”

“Aggie, I feel awful about this. I really hoped nobody would notice. I figured if nobody noticed, nobody would be upset. And this is a gorgeous antique, same time period, almost exactly the same as the other one. It’s every bit as valuable.”

“I can tell.”

“I dropped the darn box. I thought it seemed awfully heavy for a carton of cheap glassware, but I never even considered something else might be inside. I was carrying it in and I tripped over our threshold. We’d been working on it, and it was loose, and I just went down with the box in my arms. I could hear the glass shatter. After I nursed my pride and my bruised knee, I opened it to see if anything had survived. And I saw what I had done.”

“You must have felt terrible.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Or maybe you do? You’ve had a couple of bad weeks over this, too.”

“So you decided to replace it?”

“I thought about coming clean and giving a big donation so the Society could pick out another one, but I knew people would be upset, not just with me, but about what had happened. Plus, I figured they would be upset with whoever had put it in that box in the first place.”

“I’m
sure
you’re right about that.”

“So I started looking. I put together what I could and sent out photos to a bunch of dealers who specialize in the American Brilliant period, and one of them came up with this. It’s so close. I really didn’t think anybody would notice. It has the fans. Everything but the edge is nearly identical. Unfortunately, it took the dealer awhile to get it here. He wanted an independent evaluation for insurance. It just came a few days ago. I was going to bring it to church this weekend and leave it in the closet.”

I stared at her; she stared at me. Then we both started to laugh.

“What a pair of doofuses,” I said, when I could speak.

“You’ve got a good eye. I bet not one other person will catch this. Most of the time when people expect to see one thing, they don’t notice it’s something else entirely. But if you decide the truth has to be told, blame me for everything.”

“I think I need to pay for half of this. The mix-up was my fault.”

“Not a cent. It’s my donation.”

I told her I’d give her a hug once I was well again, she told me about a shortcut out to the main road, and I left.

I smiled for the first ten minutes of the trip. Little by little the smile disappeared. In the same way my mind had latched on to little things through the night and gnawed them to the bone, it was latching on again.

Betsy had said that when people expected to see one thing, they rarely noticed it was something else entirely. I wasn’t sure why that resonated so deeply now. I thought my temperature was spiking again. Maybe if she’d said that ice cream was cold and should be eaten with a spoon, I’d be worrying about that now. But I didn’t think so. Something was struggling to be heard, some piece of a puzzle I hadn’t paid enough attention to, and Betsy’s words had brought it back.