Monet Talks (16 page)

Of course I couldn't keep the charade going all night, not with my darling, handsome husband expected home in three hours. I waited until the last spoonful of crème brûlée was safely down my gullet before coughing up the truth. Strangely enough, the Rob-Bobs were not amused.

“B-b-but Abby,” Bob bleated, “how could you!” He folded his arms across his chest and waited for an explanation.

“Well, it was Rob's fault. He jumped to conclusions. I just played along.”

“For shame, for shame, for shame,” Rob said, but try as he might, he is just too suave and good-looking to do a decent Gomer Pyle imitation. “I suppose this means you won't be spending the night with us. We were going to put you in the Queen Anne suite and serve you breakfast in bed.”

When the Rob-Bobs talk about their Queen Anne bed, they are not referring to a period or style of furniture, but to a bed in which the old gal herself counted sheep. Frankly, it's not all that comfortable, which is probably why she enumerated ewes. As for breakfast in bed, I was all too glad to escape another of Bob's creative repasts.

“Thanks guys, for everything. I really mean it. I love you two like the brother I wish I had.”

“We love you, too, Abby,” Rob said.

Bob immediately concurred. We might have progressed to a group hug had it not been for the fact that we were still sitting, and the table had very sharp corners. Since it would have been wasteful to let those good vibes dissipate unused, I asked my dear friends for a favor. They hemmed and hawed, but I put on the sugar. In the end they relented, but only after I promised to be in touch by cell phone the entire time. They also insisted on following me home—not because of any criminal threat to
my person, but because a humdinger of a thunderstorm was brewing. Still, I felt like I was under house arrest.

 

I wasn't being stupid when I asked the Rob-Bobs to drop me off at the shop so I could pick up my car; I was merely being deceitful. If my car wasn't home, safely ensconced in the garage, when Greg returned he would suspect that I'd been playing detective and that something had gone wrong. I would then be forced to listen to a safety lecture from a man who had just returned from a drunken spree in an unfamiliar city.

I'm pretty sure I would have kept my promise to drive straight home and lock the door behind me had it not been for the impending thunderstorm. High winds often accompany these fast-moving fronts, and while I was positive that the Den of Antiquity was locked up as tightly as a mass murderer on death row, I was not as sure about the small ventilation window in the storeroom toilet. This opening is too small and too high up to be of interest to a cat burglar, but in heavy downpours, overflow from the rain gutters sometimes finds its way inside. I once had a seventeenth-century gateleg table ruined by water seeping out from beneath the bathroom door.

Rain damage is a perfectly good excuse, and
no doubt about it, I would have been more responsible and informed the Rob-Bobs of my change of plans had not a second reason to return to my shop wedged its way into my already overloaded head. What if the package I'd been bent on ignoring had something to do with Mama and her disappearance?

I drove out of the alley first, the Rob-Bobs following, until I hit Queen Street. Normally I would take a right at this point, but when I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw that my buddies had somehow managed to disappear, I knew luck was with me. The instant the light turned green, I leapt across the intersection, slid over to the left lane, and turned on Broad to circle back to the store. Just as I was about to turn off my engine, Rob's voice came over my headset like the voice of Big Brother. That's not the sort of filial relationship I had in mind.

“Abby, where are you?” he demanded.

“The question is, where are
you
?”

“Bob saw something in a store window that he just had to see. We stopped just for a second, but you'd disappeared.”

“Well, don't worry. I'm almost home.”

“Are you telling the truth, Abby?”

“No. I'm already there.” I unhooked my phone, grabbed my purse, and slammed the car door. “You hear that? Now listen while I unlock the door.”

“I'm listening. Abby, this better be on the upand-up. I'll tell Greg all about your belly dancing escapade if you're lying.”

I jangled the keys into the phone, opened the back door to my shop, and punched in the security code. “You hear that?” I asked.

“Abby, if you're not telling the truth, so help me I'm going to tie you up and force-feed you Bob's llama lasagna.”

“Hey,” I heard Bob say in the background, “you're going to regret that, buster.”

I picked up the package, which was really just an overstuffed envelope. It was as light as I remembered; practically weightless. I pulled the tearaway tag on the back. As the contents pushed their way out I let loose with a bloodcurdling scream.

M
ama's crinolines weigh only a few ounces each, but I dropped this one as if it were made out of lead. There was no mistaking this was hers. Puffy slips are out these days, unless one is a member of a wedding party, or a square dancer. But Mama doesn't buy her undergarments from bridal shops or Western stores. She makes her own, and into the waistband of each she proudly sews her initials: MW. She is also amused by her own cleverness. “If I'm drunk at a party,” she's fond of saying, “I'll be able to find my own crinoline, even if I'm holding it upside down.” Never mind that Mama never gets drunk and seldom goes to parties.

“Abby, Abby!” I heard the sound of a distant voice.

Slowly I became aware that I was still holding the phone, clutching it tightly even, as if it was a proffered hand and I was dangling over a
precipice. It seemed to take all my strength to get it to my mouth.

“It's Mama,” I croaked.

“Mozella? Abby, where are you? What's happened?”

“I—I'm at my shop. There was this package—Rob, please, you've got to come right away.”

“We're on it. Abby, are you inside?”

“Yes, just barely. I'm in the storeroom—” The outside door, which I'd left open, closed with a bang, and I found myself enveloped in darkness. I screamed again and fumbled for the light switch. I found it after several long seconds, but when I flipped it, nothing happened.

“Oh shoot,” I said into the phone. Actually I used a stronger word, one which no lady should employ.

“Abby, I'm calling the police.”

“No!”

“Too bad, Abby, I'm doing it.” He hung up.

I groped for the door, found the release bar, and threw my weight into it. The door wouldn't budge. My fingers felt for the latch, which turned, but still the door would not open. Senselessly, I began pounding on the heavy metal. My fists might as well have been biscuits for all the sound they made. The panic I felt at being trapped, even in a place as familiar as my storeroom, caused my chest to tighten, and I felt like I could barely breathe.

“Stay calm,” I said aloud to myself. “Help is on its way.”

Immediately I heard a crash at the other end of the storeroom and a high-pitched scream. I gave the door one final, futile push, and then dropped to my knees. There is an Indonesian armoire to the left of the rear door, one that I have been planning to restore but had somehow never gotten around to. I scuttled in its general direction now, like a crab trying to escape a hungry gull. Crawling seemed a safer way to travel in utter darkness, but even then I slammed into a copper bin and banged my nose on the rung of a Shaker chair.

When I finally reached the armoire, my heart was pounding so hard that I was convinced the intruder could hear it. It was certainly louder then the squeak made by the hand-hewn door. Thank heavens the Indonesians are master carvers. The lotus pattern cut all the way through the panel, so I was able to pull it closed after me by wedging my fingers between the wood blossoms. No doubt it was an irrational feeling, but I felt safer surrounded by the faint smell of sandalwood incense and extraordinary beauty.

But a second crash, followed by another scream, made short shrift of my ill-perceived security. I curled in a fetal position on the floor of the armoire and, even though a lapsed Epis
copalian, prayed for divine protection. Normally I listen in disbelief to those folks on television who credit God for saving them from the ravages of weather, or perhaps a plane crash, while ignoring the fate of others who perished in the same event. Did God not have enough free passes for everyone? But let me tell you, just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are none inside Indonesian armoires.

It is difficult to measure time by heartbeats, especially if they are accelerated. But perhaps a million and a half heartbeats after taking refuge inside a piece of furniture, I heard a familiar voice.

“Abby! Abby! Where the heck are you?”

“Rob!” I shrieked, and flung open the door to the armoire so hard it slammed against the opposite side and bounced back, smacking my rather petite proboscis. The poor thing was taking a beating.

I saw the beam of a flashlight sweep across the top of a breakfront. What he thought I'd be doing on top of a seven-foot bookcase was beyond me.

“I'm over here—to the left of the back door.”

The light bobbed around the room like a giant firefly.

“The heavily carved Indonesian armoire!” I screamed.

“Why didn't you say so?” He scooped me up in his arms a second later. “Are you all right?”

“Yes—oh, Rob! The package—it's Mama!”

His arms shook. “What do you mean, ‘it's Mama'?”

I wiggled free of his embrace. “Not
her
, but her slip. Her crinoline—well, one of them. And the door's locked, and”—I started to whisper—“I heard two crashes and two screams.”

“That would be the pair of cats that streaked out the front door when I let myself in.”

“B-but the crashes. There was someone in here, Rob.”

“Yes, the aforementioned felines. Apparently they knocked over a lamp and a large urn. Were either of them particularly valuable, Abby? I can't remember.”

I was rapidly losing patience. “We're in the dark, for crying out loud. Someone cut the power to my shop.”

“It was the storm, Abby.”

“The storm?”

“Blew through here a million miles an hour. They said a tornado might have touched down briefly West of the Ashley. Thousands of people are without power, not just you.”

“Oh. But what about—”

“The piece of pipe scaffolding jammed between the concrete tire stops and your alley door? It's from that remodeling job going on behind you. Bob and I tried to yank it loose, but it's going to take some power tools. Don't worry about your car—it's fine.”

“Where's Bob?” I was only a teensy bit suspicious; Rob's answers were too convenient. But mostly I found it hard to take that I'd been cowering in an armoire all because of two amorous pussies.

“He's outside still trying to get through to911. The lines are jammed.”

“Tell him to stop!”

“Don't be foolish, Abby. What about Mozella's crinoline?”

“Mama's kidnapper said not to involve the police.”

“They all say that, Abby. You know that, you've seen the movies. You also know you can't solve this alone.”

“I don't have to—I've got you. And Bob. And Greg, when he gets home. Besides, the police aren't taking this seriously. Officially, she's only just now gone missing.”

“Let me see the crinoline, Abby,” Rob said gently.

I showed him the package and its contents. He examined them both closely with his flashlight. There was no note of any kind, no blood or anything else gruesome on the half-slip, and of course no return address on the envelope.

“You see,” I said. “This isn't going to prove anything to the police. It's bizarre, granted, but hardly criminal evidence. They might take it with them, file it away in some storage facility, but it won't be of any help in finding Mama.”

“Abby, how did you get to be so cynical?”

“By living four-plus decades. And watching presidential campaigns on TV. When I last checked, you were a couple of years older than I. Why is it you're
not
cynical?”

“Because if I allowed myself to go down that path, even just a little way, I might never get back to where I want to be.”

“And where's that?”

“Believing that most of the time the majority of the people are honest and competent. It's in my best interest to think the best of everyone until proven wrong. If I didn't do that, Abby, I couldn't get out of bed in the morning.”

I hugged my friend. “Now let's go tell Bob to put away his cell phone.”

 

It took only a cursory glance up and down King Street to make me realize just how lucky I was. The Den of Antiquity had essentially been spared, as had The Finer Things, but some of the neighboring stores had not. The Shabby Sheik, an importer of Persian carpets so old that Aladdin had ridden one, lost its plate-glass window. Pandora's Box, a jewelry boutique, was missing part of its roof.

When Bob saw that I was all right, he threw his spindly arms around me. “Thank God you're okay, Abby.”

“Right back at you. Now please, put your phone away.”

“But—”

“No buts. I insist.”

Bob sighed. “You know we have your best interest at heart, Abby.”

“Right back at you again.”

No sooner did Bob put his cell back in his shirt pocket than my phone rang. My heart skipped a beat, thinking as I did that the call might have something to do with Mama.

“Hello?”

“Hon, are you all right?”

“Greg! Yes, darling, I'm fine. Why do you ask?”

“I heard it on the radio. About the storm.”

“Yup, it was a doozy.”

“Your shop okay?”

“Essentially. There's something jamming the back door.”

“Look, hon, Mark wants me to be there when he tells Caroline. Do you mind terribly if I stay as long as he needs me?”

Of course I minded. Gregory Morris Washburn owed me big-time for going off on a drunken binge with a buddy and not telling me. Yes, he was looking out for his friend, but that was no excuse for letting me worry. But now that I knew where he was, and that he was safe and sound, I would just as soon he stayed away longer. It is hard to do a little personal detecting when your husband, a former profes
sional detective, is monitoring your every move.

I sighed for dramatic effect. “You have to do what needs to be done, right? Give Mark and Caroline both my love.”

“Hon, you're the best, you know that? Did I luck out marrying you, or what?”

“Back at you, darling.” That seemed to be my new mantra.

“Well, hon, I better go. The signal's getting weak.”

“One last thing, darling. There was a package—”

“Sorry, hon, you're breaking up.”

“I said there's a package—” There was no point in talking further; our connection was essentially terminated. “Well, at least I tried,” I said, turning my attention to the Rob-Bobs.

“Lost your signal?” Rob asked, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Yes. Oh, and he's not coming home tonight after all.”

“Hip hip hooray!” Bob brayed. “Now we get to tuck you into the Queen Anne and serve you breakfast in bed.”

“The bed part sounds nice, but I have a breakfast date with George.”

“Abby,” Rob said, “who is this George? We demand to know.”

“I told you before, she's one of my suspects.”

“He's a she?”

“
She's
a she, and a lot of it too. She was one of the top five bidders for the Taj Mahal. Do y'all want to join us?”

“No, thanks,” Rob said, his interest in George greatly diminished. “At least we still get to tuck you into bed.”

“There is one caveat,” I said.

“Uh-oh. I don't like the sound of that.”

“It's Dmitri. I've left him alone too much lately. Right now he's hiding somewhere in the house, pouting. You know what this means, don't you?”

“Scratch marks on the Queen Anne?”

“Throw up on my throw rugs?” Bob moaned. “The silk one in the guest room was handmade by a reclusive order of blind Tibetan nuns. It took them ten years to weave it, and it cost us a fortune. It's irreplaceable.”

“We could roll it up and put it away,” Rob said, “or we could simply replace it with a machine-made carpet that's attractive.”

“
Machine
-made carpet?” Bob had grown pale and beads of sweat were gathering on his forehead in front of our very eyes.

“Sorry I can't eat breakfast in bed, but I'll eat your lunch,” I said. “And I won't crack a single joke.”

“You'll eat
anything
I make?”

“Anything.”

“Deal,” Rob said. “I gotta see this.”

“Deal,” Bob said. “Have you ever eaten poached eels?”

“I can't say that I have.”

He grinned happily.

As for Dmitri, we found him in my laundry basket, doing what cats his age do best: sleeping.

 

The power was restored sometime after midnight, allowing me to keep my breakfast date with the buxom George Murphy at the Bookstore Café. She was already seated, facing the door, and she waved me over with a big smile on her face. You would have thought we were best friends.

“Abby! I'm so glad you could make it.”

I allowed her to lean over the table and do the kissy-cheek thing. “Good morning, George. Did y'all lose power over in Mount Pleasant last night?”

She shrugged. “I don't live there; I live here—on Tradd Street.”

Thanks to the magic of computer imaging, Tradd Street, which is not waterfront property, was transformed into just that in the movie
The Patriot
. Nevertheless, homes on this historic street sell for a premium. Normally, a physical therapist, even one employed in prestigious Mount Pleasant, would be hard-pressed to purchase a home on Tradd Street by herself.

“Do you rent?” I wasn't being rude, merely curious.

“No, I own. Where do you live, Abby?”

“Squiggle Lane.”

“Oh, I just love that little street. Which house is yours?”

“It's the one—that's hard to find,” I said, changing horses in midstream. If she was the one who had stolen Monet and mamanapped my minimadre, then she already knew where I lived. Darned if I was going to let her have fun at my expense. And even if she wasn't involved in these crimes, she no had business asking such a personal question.

If she found my answer peculiar, she didn't let on. “Abby, where are you going to put the birdcage?”