Larceny and Old Lace (18 page)

“We gradually became friends. I'd drop by Eulonia's and there he'd be, out in his yard, or fixing something for her—” She stopped and opened her eyes. “That son of a bitch!”

“You go, girl!”

“Are you
sure
of this, Abby?”

“As sure as I am that the Carolina Panthers will win their division this year.”

That didn't stop Mama. “Well hell, Abby, what are we waiting for? Let's go kick some ass.”

“Sure thing, Mama, but now that we're together on this, I think we need to strategize.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, like they say, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.”

Mama frowned. “You're not planning to throw yourself at him, too, are you?”

I tried not to laugh too long.

“Mama, please. Don't make me sick. What I mean is, we have to think this through carefully first. Maybe there is a way to get my property back.”

“Oh yes, I forgot. Dmitri.”

“Yes, Dmitri, too. But I meant other property.”

“You didn't store your clothes there as well, did you? Oh Abby, I'm so sorry I didn't let you—”

“Mama, it's much bigger than that. Tony is walking away with Aunt Euey's house, shop, and furniture. All I get is navy dresses, her underwear, and those awful green drapes.”

“What?” The second goblet shattered safely within the confines of the hutch.

I nodded.

“But he can't! How!”

“You ever heard of the Society for the Reestablishment and Protection of the Carolina Parakeet?”

Mama's gray paled to light ash. “Yes.”

“You have?”

“Your aunt mentioned it a couple of times. Years ago. She was thinking of donating some money to it. You don't mean…” Mama was definitely a quicker study than I.

“Lock, stock, and barrel. Breck Whitehead says it's legal.”

Mama was on her feet and raring to go. I made her drink a glass of ice water first. It served as chaser for half a Valium.

M
ama stalled. I don't mean she delayed. I mean my Mama stalled like an old car on a cold day.

“I can't go anywhere like this, Abby.”

“Like what, Mama? You look great.”

“Can't you do some shopping? Give me an hour or so to fix myself up?”

“Mama, you're dumping the bastard, remember? You don't want to fix yourself up. You want to fix yourself down.”

“Abby!” she wailed.

I took off for an hour. First I headed over to Glencairn Gardens and wandered around the lily pools and old camellias which have grown into full-sized trees. Then I browsed through Upcountry Antiques and the Woodbin.

I got back to find Mama standing on her front porch, her car keys in her hand. She'd been shopping, too.

“Mama!” I shrieked.

She clutched the new strand of pearls around her neck, looking for all the world like Donna Reed again.

“We all have to deal with tragedy in our own way. Didn't I teach you that, dear?”

“You did, Mama, but—”

“Then hush, dear. I'm on my way over to Tony's alone. When I get back I don't ever want to hear his name again. Is that clear?”

“Yes ma'am, but I want to come with you. It's my inheritance he stole.”

Mama smoothed her full skirt over the layered crinolines. “He stole worse from me, dear.”

“Worse than a house and a shop?”

“He stole my self-respect.”

“I understand, Mama. But you're not going over there alone. What if he gets nasty?”

She ignored me. I made an attempt to physically restrain her, but Mama deftly sidestepped me and beat me to her car. After forty-some years doing housework in her spike heels, Mama can walk across gravel in those things and not teeter.

“Be sure and bring back Dmitri!” I yelled to the sound of her spinning tires.

 

Depression makes even stranger bedfellows than politics. Fortunately Wynnell Crawford and I were not in bed, but merely sitting on an Empire sofa tucked away in one of the many wooden coves of her overstocked shop.

“What else would you expect from a Yankee?” she asked matter-of-factly.

“Tony D'Angelo is not a Yankee. He's from Atlanta.”

“You sure?”

“Well, I haven't seen his birth certificate. Then again, I haven't seen yours, either.”

“Well, I never!”

“Give it a rest, Wynnell. Not all Yankees are evil, and we southerners have our share, that's for sure. This Tony D'Angelo is a slime-sucking, shit-eating, son of a bitch bastard, if you'll pardon my French. Cheating on Aunt Eulonia with Mama, and betraying them both!”

She nodded sympathetically. “Cheating is about the worst thing a man can do, if you ask me. Ranks right up there with murder. If my Eddy ever cheated on me, I'd find my biggest, sharpest kitchen knife…” Her voiced trailed off, and I had visions of Eddy doing the talk-show circuit and maybe even writing a book.

“Mama will give him hell, you can count on that. You should have seen her peel out of the driveway.”

“Must have been a sight, all right, and I hope she does give him hell.”

It might only have been the size of my thumbnail, but a red flag went up nonetheless. Wynnell Crawford does not agree with you twice in a row, not unless there is a decade stuck in there.

“What is it you want, Wynnell?”

“Nothing, why?”

“Cut to the chase, Wynnell. I know you want something.”

“If I help you find what you're looking for, Abigail, can I have a piece?”

“Excuse me?”

“The lace. I just want a small piece. The size of a walnut will do.”

It took me a minute to pick my jaw up from the floor. “What lace?”

“Oh, don't be coy, Abigail. The antique lace your Aunt Eulonia inherited from her mother's family. We all know about it.”

“Who is we?”

She waved an arm. “We, in the association.”

“Everyone?”

“Well, maybe not everyone. But Heather and Anita do, I know that. And I think the Major was there that day.”

“What day? When?”

“If I tell you, then will you give me a piece?”

For both our sakes, I sat on my hands. “Spill it, Wynnell.”

“Okay, okay. It was no big deal. A couple of us were sitting around after a meeting and Eulonia mentioned the lace. I can't remember all the details now, except that it was Venetian and very old. Fourteenth century, I think.

“Somebody—it might have been Heather—wanted to know how lace could get to be that old and not fall apart. How could it, Abigail?”

“Beats me, since lace wasn't even around then. You just added two hundred years to my aunt's lace, dear.”

Wynnell didn't bat an eyelash. Sometimes I think she's half cat; the woman has never been wrong in her life.

“So, you going to give me a piece of it?”

“Whatever for?”

“Oh, didn't I tell you? My Catherine and her Jimmy have
finally set the date. It's going to be Valentine's Day. I thought the lace would the perfect contribution to the ‘something old' department.”

I freed one of my hands. “Wynnell, dear, you have an entire store filled with antiques at your disposal. Why do you want to cut up a four-hundred-year-old neck ruff?”

She rolled her eyes, which looks defiant on a teenager, but somehow deviant on someone the shady side of fifty.

“Catherine can't wear a credenza when she walks down the aisle.”

Actually, Catherine could, but I am far too polite to point that out. Besides, I wasn't through with Wynnell yet.

“I'll think about it,” I said. “Did you happen to see a woman in a silk orange jumpsuit and black boots enter my shop this morning? Or leave it?”

“Was she a Yankee?”

“Wynnell!”

“To tell you the truth, Abigail, the only customers I've had all day were this morning, and they kept me jumping. We wouldn't even be sitting on this sofa if it weren't for them. They bought the love seat I had on top of it.”

You see what I mean about that woman's tendency to stack? If we were in California her shop would be in violation of several codes, I'm sure.

“Well, her name is Penny. She loves to wear hot clothes, even in this weather—”

“Then she is a Yankee. Did you look at her eyes?”

“What's that got to do with anything? You can't tell a Yankee by their eyes.”

Wynnell nodded vigorously. “Oh yes, you can. It has to do with the lack of sunshine they have up north. When they come down here they're always squinting. Haven't you noticed that?”

“She was wearing sunglasses, dear.”

Wynnell smiled knowingly. One day I was going to have to call her bluff and show up at her shop with a pillowcase full of Confederate dollars. Nobody minds Ulysses S. Grant, squinty eyes and all, on Union money. Wynnell included.

“Who'd your Mama take with her when she went to break it off with her boyfriend?”

“Nobody that I know of. Mama likes to operate on her own.”

“Your Mama went to see him
alone
?”

“There's no stopping a Wiggins,” I said proudly. “Even one by marriage.”

Wynnell's eyes were as big as magnolia blossoms. “This guy might. He could hurt your Mama, or worse. You thought about that?”

“Hurt Mama?”

Wynnell grabbed my wrist and squeezed it tightly with a bony hand. The woman might consider a career arm-wrestling in bars.

“It could have been this Tony guy who killed Eulonia, you know.”

“What makes you say that?”

“To get at her estate early. No offense, Abigail, but that woman might have hung on until the Lord comes back the way she was going.”

She had a point. I'm not claiming royal blood, but I am suggesting that the Queen Mother has a little Wiggins in her. When allowed to die naturally (something Daddy and Aunt Eulonia never got to experience) a Wiggins can outlive some landscape trees.

“May I use your phone?”

“If I can have a piece of that lace.”

“Your granny was a Yankee whore who came South with Sherman's troops,” I said calmly.

I went next door and used Heather's phone.

 

The phone was still warm in its cradle when Heather pounced on me like a teenager at a dessert bar. “What was that all about?”

I had neither the energy nor time to fill the woman in. It would take an hour just to get the time and dates down to her satisfaction.

“Mama's having a little problem with her boyfriend,” I said.

“Was that the police you called?”

“Just a friend, dear. It really isn't all that serious.”

In the meantime, Tony with the young voice and old face could be wrapping Mama up in butcher paper for next year's tetrazzini. There was no time for small talk.

“You see a silk pumpkin with black boots anytime this morning, Heather?”

She stole a glance at her watchless wrist. “At nine thirty-six she entered your shop, and left precisely at nine-forty-two.”

“She did?”

“I don't make mistakes.”

“That was rhetorical, dear. Do you know this woman?”

“No.”

“You've never seen her before?”

“I didn't say that. I saw her enter your shop on Wednesday morning at—”

“But you don't know her name? Where she lives, that sort of thing?”

“She lives in Charlotte, at least in Mecklenburg County.”

“How do you know that?”

“The inspection sticker on her car.”

“You've seen her car?”

Heather sighed patiently. I know I tax her sometimes.

“Not many customers walk here from their homes.”

“Do you remember her license number?” I asked hopefully. Given it was Heather, she probably had a printout of the woman's vital statistics.

“Nope. I'm afraid I can't help you there.”

“Why not?”

“She didn't have a license with numbers. She had one of those personalized tags.”

“So?”

Heather turned the color of a Yankee at Myrtle Beach. “I don't
do
words, only numbers.”

“What?”

Tears welled up and appeared enormous behind the Coke-bottle glasses. “It's been that way ever since I can remember.
“Why even on my first day of first grade, September sixth, nineteen—”

“You don't even have an impression what her license plate read?” I didn't mean to be rude, but my Mama's life was at stake.

“She needs to have her oil changed on October fifteenth, unless she puts another three thousand miles on it first,” she said helpfully.

I thanked Heather and boogied on out of there. I forgot to ask her if she had indeed heard about the lace. Live and learn, Mama likes to say. Sometimes, however, you don't get to do both.

 

“It was my day off,” Greg said nonchalantly. “I was just heading back from a little boating when I got your call. Came as soon as I could.”

I looked him up and down. Several times. The man should boat more often. He was wearing a white polo shirt and white shorts—not Bermudas, but sexy short shorts, like European men wear. Either his tan had gotten darker, or his blue eyes brighter, and he smelled like sun, wind, and just the right amount of testosterone.

“It's that gray house there. The one with the beige car in front of it. That's my mother's car. She's been in there for at least an hour. What are you going to do?”

He smiled, confirming the tan theory. Teeth that white could damage retinae if viewed too closely.

“I'm going to walk up there and ring the doorbell.”

“What? He could be armed and dangerous?”

“Would you prefer that I call the SWAT team?”

“Yes.”

I was serious. I read the papers. I know that even old men, with skin like starved elephants, are capable of heinous crimes.

Apparently Greg did not share my fear. It was all he could do to keep from smiling.

“Look, how about I give it a shot first? Here's my phone. If I'm not back in five minutes call—”

“I'm not worried about you,” I wailed. “It's my Mama.”

“Your Mama will be fine.”

Greg thrust the cellular phone into my hands and started up the walk at a brisk clip. I moved to stop him, I really did, but coward that I am, I gave up after a few steps. When it comes to saving my own Mama's life, I was unable to make a possible fool of myself in front of a man I had the hots for. There, I said it. I am pure scum.

I'm not going to trot out any clichés about it being the longest ten minutes of my life. Let's just say that I swear I saw the moss growing on the shady side of Tony D'Angelo's trees. Needless to say I was immensely relieved when the door opened and Mama came out.

“Where's Greg?” I shouted.

Mama came after me like that time I drew a hopscotch pattern on the living-room carpet with her lipstick. Of course I was six then and she could still outrun me.

“Abigail Louise Wiggins Timberlake!”

“Are you all right, Mama?”

“I
was
, young lady, until just now. I've never been so embarrassed in my entire life.”

“Yes you have, Mama. Remember when your garter belt broke at my high school graduation? You looked like that woman on
Mama's Family
.”

“Abigail!”

“Well, I was worried, Mama. What happened in there?”

“What happened is that I had a nice long talk with Tony. He wasn't two-timing me, after all.”

“They all say that, Mama.”

“Not everyone is a timber snake, dear. Tony and Eulonia were never—well, you know.”

“Intimate?”

“Yes, that's it. They were only friends and neighbors.”

“Oh yeah? Then how was he able to seduce her into deeding over her house and shop?
Friends
don't leave their estate to friends when there are living relatives.”