Gilt by Association (22 page)

“Like I give a damn,” he said.

From that point on he had no trouble being professional.

 

The 911 team knew Greg. They also knew that something was up between us because they kept exchanging knowing glances. Outside of that, they, too, were very professional.

“The perpetrator came through the back door, ma'am,” the one named Jim said.

“No shit Sherlock,” I said, but being a Southern lady, I said it so softly he couldn't hear.

“Apparently you forgot to lock your door, ma'am, because there's no sign of forced entry.”

Greg gave me an I-told-you-so look, and I tried not to grin foolishly.

“I was late for a funeral this afternoon,” I said. “What else can you tell me?”

“That the perpetrator was a female.”

That surprised me. “Shoe or boot prints, eh?”

Jim held up a cigarette butt. “We found this lying in the heel of one of the boot prints. It hasn't been stepped on. Apparently she left just about the time it stopped snowing.”

“How do you know it was a she?” I asked.

To his credit, Jim did not smirk. “I know that is an assumption, ma'am, but this cigarette butt has lipstick on it.”

So it did.

Maybe it was time to call C. J. after all.

D
espite our little misunderstanding, I fully expected Greg to ask me if he could spend the night. But he denied me the opportunity to refuse him, and left even before the 911 team. I had no intention of spending the night alone, however, and called my faithful buddies, the Rob-Bobs.

“Sure thing,” Bob boomed. “We'd be happy to have you. You have dinner yet?”

“Stuffed,” I lied.

“Well, you can watch us eat then. I made Japanese tonight. You ever have
unagi
?”

“I can't say that I have.”

“It's grilled eel. Basted with soy sauce and sweet sake. It's supposed to be grilled over hot coals, but it's damn cold outside, and Rob won't let me bring the grill into the kitchen. I'm going to have to broil it in the oven.”

Rob got on the line. “I know that year-round barbecuing is a Carolina thing, but how did this Yankee from New York get hooked?”

“Toledo,” Bob reminded him. “And I'm a Charlottean now.”

“Anyway,” Rob said, “you're more than welcome to stay with us. But besides that, is there anything we can do?”

“No. Like what?”

“Anything. Like talk to what's-his-name for you. You know, the good-looking stud who's probably gay and just doesn't know it yet.”

I laughed. “I don't think so, dear. Or else he deserves an Academy Award. I'll be fine, really. Anyway, it's my fault.”

“Don't say that,” Bob practically bellowed. “He's the one who's demanding it be either feast or famine. Ah, speaking of feasting, I have to go now. The eels are calling me.”

He got off the line, but Rob stayed on. There was a long pause.

“Hurry, Abby,” Rob whispered. “I don't want to eat those damn eels any more than you do. I'm going to need some moral support at the very least.”

I promised to be right there, and then I remembered C. J. She kept coming back to plague my thoughts, like unfinished homework. Maybe she would, or maybe she wouldn't, have any light to shed on my chainsmoking nocturnal visitor. Either way, it was time to call her and get it over with.

It took her nine rings to answer. Not everyone uses an answering machine. And ever since I read—in Ann Landers, I think—that one should wait ten rings before hanging up, that's exactly what I do. I know from personal experience just how frustrating it can be to interrupt one's bodily functions just to talk to a dial tone.

“Huh?” C. J. said. She had been sleeping.

“C.J., it's me, Abigail.”

“Do you know what time it is, Abigail?”

“Quarter after seven,” I said. “Do I win a prize?”

“Very funny. I was asleep, you know. I had a hard day.”

“C. J., you're twenty-three years old, for pete's sake. You should be out partying. Meeting guys.”

“I don't party,” C. J. said somberly. “Especially on
days when I have to do somebody else's job along with mine.”

“I'm sorry about the phone calls. Who was it this time?”

“I'm talking about waiting on your customers. I had to close my shop to open yours with that key you gave me. You might have cost me a very important sale.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

She clucked her impatience. “That man the Kefferts sent over to pick up the armoire.”

I wanted to reach through the receiver and grab her shoulders. Maybe if I gave her a good shake she would awaken to make some sense. It occurred to me that she might have been drinking. That would certainly explain her early bedtime.

“C. J., dear, have you been sipping the sauce?”

“What?”

“Hitting the bottle. You know, drinking.”

“I beg your pardon, Abigail! I'll have you know that I'm a Christian.”

How stupid of me to forget that some non-Episcopalians eschew alcohol. Perhaps some Episcopalians as well.

“Well, you just aren't making sense, dear. Nobody picked up the armoire because I haven't sold it to anyone. And as for the Kefferts, they were with me at the funeral this afternoon. You must be mistaken.”

“What?” Her pique had turned to alarm.

I repeated myself.

“Oh no,” C. J. moaned. “The same thing happened to my Uncle Delbert and Auntie Nina. Only with them it was an expensive car. You see—”

“Damn it, C. J.! Spare me the family reminiscences and cut to the chase. What
happened
? To my armoire?”

“He assured me it was all right,” she said. She sounded close to tears. “He mentioned your name several times.
Said you had told the Kefferts that they could buy the armoire after all, and that he had been sent to pick it up. He had a check with their name on it, and everything.”

“Check? For what amount?”

“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” she said.

I took a deep breath. If the Kefferts were going to cheat me out of an armoire, I guess it wasn't so bad if they paid for it through the nose. The first mate had met my offhand figure, and added an extra five. Nice touch.

“What did you do with the check, C. J.?”

“It's right here. I brought it home with me. You aren't mad?”

“Hell yes, I'm mad. But what's done is done, I guess. Did you remember to write up a bill of sale?”

“Un-hunh. I brought that home, too. Just in case.”

“Good girl,” I said. “Now tell me, C. J., what does this man who works for the Kefferts look like?”

“Just regular.”

“What do you mean, ‘just regular'? He's not a grade of gas, is he?”

“Uh—no. I mean he had sort of brown hair and was sort of normal tall. I don't remember what color his eyes were, if that's what you're going to ask me next. I guess someone your age might think he was sort of cute.”

“How old was he?”

“Pretty old.”

I prayed for patience. To someone C. J.'s age, anyone old enough to remember Donny Osmond was old.

“How old is ‘pretty old,' dear? As old as I am, or older?”

“Uh…older, I guess. Kind of really old. Maybe as old as my dad.”

“How old is that?”

“Forty-five.”

C. J.'s dad was three years younger than I. I didn't know whether to thank her for thinking I didn't look
“kind of really old” or wring her neck for thinking forty-five fell in that category. I decided to merely hope that she aged badly and looked like a prune by the time she was thirty.

“So somebody you don't know from Adam shows up and hands you a check, and you let them cart off the most valuable thing in my shop?”

“They said it was all right,” she whined. “And there is the check. Personally, Abigail, I think that's a lot of money for that piece.”

I mumbled something about that not being the point.

C. J. decided it was time to distract me. “Oh, but there was a phone call for you, too, Abigail. I'm not an answering service, you know.”

“Who from, dear?”

“Somebody named Riggs. Gorman, or something like that.”

“That's Garland, dear. What did he say?”

“That you should call him back. That it was very important.”

“Was it
urgent
?” I asked.

“Huh?” Sarcasm, like youth, is wasted on the young.

 

I called Garland at the nursery, but even after ten rings there was no answer. I would have thought he would still be open, selling Christmas trees, or whatever it is nurseries do that time of the year.

The Kefferts were the next scheduled victims of my index finger. The first mate picked up after the first ring. I took a deep breath, willing myself to sound calm. Vexed, but calm.

“This is Abigail Timberlake. I think we have something to discuss.”

“It was the captain's idea,” she said quickly. “Would you like to speak to him?”

“No, you'll do just fine, dear, since you were obviously a part of it, too.”

“I'm only the first mate, remember?”

“Don't give me that sexist nonsense, Mrs. Keffert. You were obviously in on it. I made it very clear that I didn't want to sell just yet.”

“But you named a price.”

“Yes, an exorbitant price, I want you to know.”

I waited for that to sink in. If it did, she didn't do me the courtesy of acknowledging that it had.

“So who was the errand boy that did your dirty deed?”

“That was August. He does our yard work. But he just did what the captain asked him to do, Mrs. Timberlake.”

“I'm sure. And so did you. It has a certain Germanic ring, doesn't it? You realize, of course, that what you—the captain—did is illegal. I could have him arrested for fraud.”

I could hear her gulp. It was a satisfying sound, one I would play back in my head after I had banked the twenty-five-thousand-dollar check.

“However, I have decided not to press charges,” I said magnanimously.

Her sigh of relief was louder than her gulp. “Thank you, Mrs. Timberlake.”

“But I do have one word of advice.”

“Yes?” she asked eagerly.

“Mutiny.”

“Pardon me?”

“I said ‘mutiny.' You and this August fellow should mutiny. Tie up the captain and lock him in the brig. Then you and August can sail off into the sunset together. From what I heard, someone your age might find him ‘sort of cute.'”

“Mrs. Timberlake!”

I rang off.

 

“So, how was the eel?”

I had arrived later than I had hoped, and apparently eel is better not left waiting.

“Delicious,” Rob said.

“Bullshit,” Bob brayed. “You only ate one bite.”

“I ate two.”

“Well, you win some and lose some. Tomorrow night it's going to be
ika toh uni
.”

“What's that?” I asked pleasantly.

“Squid with sea urchin roe,” Bob said. He made it sound like a dish fit for a king. Neptune, I guess.

Rob blanched. “Uh—I prefer not to eat anything with suction cups.”

“This is squid, not octopus. The suction cups are very small. And besides you like squid. You raved about my calamari.”

“I don't suppose steak is ever going to be on the menu?”

“Now, now, you know red meat is bad for you.” Bob added one last dish to the collection piled in his arms.

“Lean ground beef then. One hamburger, broiled, once a week. That's not so bad.”

Bob mumbled something about not having his efforts appreciated by the philistines among us, and scurried off to the kitchen.

“I love him dearly,” Bob whispered as soon as the door swung shut, “but I've got to get my hands on some good old-fashioned American food. You didn't happen to sneak a hamburger in with you, did you?”

“No.” I hung my head in shame and pointed to my overnight bag. “But I will confess to swinging by Dunkin' Donuts on my way over here. I lied about eating supper. I was going to eat them tonight after y'all were in bed.”

“I'll give you two bucks a donut plus father as many children as you want. You have any cream-filled?”

It was quite an offer coming from Rob. Hurriedly I put my coat back on, and he his, and we sneaked out onto the balcony to gorge on donuts while the grumbling gourmet washed the dishes. I supposed we should have helped him—Rob should have, at any rate—but our stomachs were demanding precedence.

Besides, it was too beautiful out there to even contemplate exchanging the balcony for a steamy kitchen. I am not a fan of cold weather, but not only had the snow stopped, but the moon was out, almost full. Native Carolinians both, neither Rob nor I had had many chances to observe moonlight on snow, and before Christmas yet.

“It's gorgeous,” I said, my mouth full.

“Takes your breath away,” Rob said.

“Isn't it funny how life is such a mixture of, well—”

“The hideous and the sublime.”

“Exactly.”

“This is definitely sublime.”

“Arnie's body in the armoire was hideous. So was that break-in tonight. If there wasn't a sublime every now and then, I'd plumb give up.”

“I know what you mean.”

We were both silent for a minutes, the only sound our chewing, and a sporadic drip coming from a corner of the balcony above. As we might have expected, the early snow was not going to stick around for long.

“Abby,” Rob said suddenly, “I suppose it would be redundant if I told you to be careful.”

“Yes, but I appreciate it. And I am careful.” Yeah, right. So careful I hadn't bothered to lock the back door.

“I mean,
real
careful,” Rob said, his words muffled by a wad of donut. “Don't trust anyone until this whole thing is resolved.”

“Well, I have to trust some people. Like Mama and my children. And Greg. And even you and Rob.” I laughed nervously. “I can trust you guys, can't I?”

He finished chewing slowly and swallowed. “Yes, you can trust us, but nobody else.”

“Well, I certainly can't trust any of the Barras clan, that's for sure. And that includes the Captain and Tennille.”

He honored me with a short but forced laugh. “I mean
anybody
else, Abby. Like Purnell Purvis, for instance. Or that waitress Norma you told me about.”

I chewed on that for a while myself. “You're scaring me, Rob.”

He put his left hand, the sugarless one, on my shoulder. “I mean to, Abby. It's a scary world out there. A lot of wolves in sheep's clothing.”

“Well, I can certainly trust Wynnell—she's practically my best friend, and doesn't have a thing to gain by any of this. And I'm sure I can trust C. J., too.”

“Can you?”

I could feel that old goose revving up, ready to run over my grave again. “What do you mean?”

“What do you really know about her?”

“Well…she's just a kid, Rob. And she doesn't have a drop of Barras blood that I know of.”