Monet Talks (19 page)

There are fishing stations at regular intervals along the pier, but Catherine insisted that we plod all the way out to the end and sit under the gazebo. At regular intervals she glanced furtively over her shoulders, as if we might have been followed by the FBI. For the first time, I was grateful for all the tourists. If not for them, I was beginning to fear, Catherine might do me in, and toss my lifeless body into the sea.
While I have always wanted to go to Africa, floating was never my conveyance of choice.

“Okay, Catherine,” I said after we'd taken seats at a picnic table, “we're closer to Casablanca than we are to Charleston. Tell me your big secret.”

“I
'm in love.”

“What? You dragged me out to the edge of the earth to tell me that?”

“I'm in love with a man who is not my husband.”

“Oh. The limo, yes?”

“I knew you saw me. I thought I could get away with not acknowledging you, but I could see that when you left my shop you thought I was hiding something. Well, Abby, everyone knows that once you sink your teeth into something, you're like a rat terrier that never lets go.”

“Please don't use the word ‘rat.'”

“You know what I mean. You weren't going to stop until I told you everything. Yes, I wanted to buy that splendid birdcage for Nelson, because he really seemed to like it, and yes, that was him you saw at the IHOP, and of course you saw his limo. But you see, Abby, I still love my husband. I can't explain it—loving two men. They're very different, so I guess they
fill different needs. I thought I was being discreet by meeting him for lunch at the pancake house in Mount Pleasant—it never occurred to me that somebody I know would actually eat at one of those places.”

“I love pancakes and I love IHOP. What's wrong with that?”

Catherine shuddered. “Well, it's so—gauche. So middle class. People eat in flip-flops and shorts.”

“Forgive me, but how many home decorators are upper class?”

“Abby, you're being rude again.”

“Sorry. Catherine, were you really willing to pay over sixteen thousand dollars for a birdcage?”

“What does one get for a man who has everything? And it's not like Willard—my husband—would miss the money. This would have come from money my mother left me to do whatever I please with. It's in a money market account with my name only on it. Willard never asks about it.”

“Is your lover married?”

“Yes—but his wife is a witch.”

“I'm sure they all say that. So tell me, how would he explain such a gargantuan birdcage to his wife?”

“He's getting us an apartment. A love nest where we can be together and not worry about being seen.”

“Catherine, tell me, if your paramour is so wealthy, why didn't he buy the birdcage himself?”

“As you recall, Abby, it was a dealers-only auction. I sneaked Nelson in. And although he really liked the piece, it wasn't like he was egging me on to bid. That's why it would make such a good gift. I mean, how many times have you admired an outfit that you wouldn't buy for yourself, but if your husband did, you'd be happy as a bag of peaches?”

“What?”

“Nothing—just something my daddy used to say.”

I don't know what possessed me to do so, but I leaned across the table and gently peeled the sunglasses from her face. “Is that really why you want the Taj Mahal?” I asked, staring into her eyes.

“Yes, of course,” she said without blinking. “Why would I lie about that? I already told you the secret part.”

“Okay, I believe you.” I did, in fact.

“You won't say anything to Willard?”

“I don't know Willard that well, and besides, it really isn't any of my business.”

“But you will sell me the birdcage—if you decide to sell it, that is?”

“Like I said, it isn't any of my business. In other words, I want nothing to do with your
love triangle. That includes helping to feather your nest.”

She snatched her glasses out of my hand. “Why I never! This is the last time I'm confiding in you, Abby.”

I didn't know what to say. It wasn't like we were even friends, much less bosom buddies who shared confidences. I just happened to be the business acquaintance, who just happened to walk outside some friend's shop at the wrong time. The best thing, I felt, was to say nothing.

Catherine was not okay with that. “You should at least say you're sorry,” she told me on the way back from the island.

“Sorry for what?”

“You know.”

“No, I don't.”

“If you apologize, I'll tell you what you really want to know.”

“I'm not interested in the sordid details of your love affair, Catherine.”

My tone was gentle, and my spoken words far kinder than the thoughts that were swirling about in my head. Nonetheless, Catherine slammed on the brakes and jerked the car over onto the shoulder of the road, practically landing us in the marsh. The driver of a pickup, which was towing a boat behind us, leaned on the horn while shouting colorful obscenities. I'm sure I said a few impolite things myself.

“Abigail Washburn,” Catherine shouted over the din of two pounding hearts, “don't you dare take that high tone with me. I know that you're a divorced woman. I'm sure there are a few skeletons in your closet I could drag out.”

“Drag away, darling. Yes, a love affair—make that multiple love affairs—contributed to the breakup of my marriage. The thing is, I wasn't the one cheating.”

Unable to glare at me, she snorted a couple of times and pounded the steering wheel. “Fine!” she said. “Condemn me for having an affair. Well, it isn't my fault, Abby. I just fell in love. One can't help that.”

Again I chose silence. One doesn't just fall in love, like they fall off the edge of the Grand Canyon because they couldn't see it coming. There are always signals of some kind, and we either choose to back away or continue on a life-altering course. Not that my views on the subject mattered. I hadn't gotten up that morning, leaving behind the comfort of the Rob-Bobs' one-thousand-thread-count sheets, intending to preach to anyone. All I wanted to do was to find Mama.

“Very well,” Catherine said, and jerked her car back on the road. “Even if you won't apologize, I'll still tell you what you really want to know.”

“I'd appreciate that.”

“It's the dry cleaner who stole that bird of yours.”

I stomped on an imaginary brake. “Bubba Johnson?”

“I guess that's his name. I've seen his ads on TV, but he just calls himself Bubba. Anyway, he was there that day at the auction, bidding against me. And you, of course. Then a couple of days ago I saw him walking down Broad Street—right in front of my shop—and he was carrying this thing with a towel draped over it. It was kind of breezy that day and he was having trouble keeping the towel on. So then he stopped—right outside my door—and took the towel off, and rearranged it. I could see then that it was a birdcage he was carrying, and that there was a bird inside. Abby, I swear, it was the same bird that came with the Taj Mahal.”

“What makes you think I'm all that interested in this?”

“Isn't that why you came around the other day and started up a conversation about the cage? You were really interested in who stole your bird, weren't you?”

“Jig's up,” I said. “You got me.”

We made small talk all the way back into town. Against my wishes, and despite my complaints, I learned that Catherine's lover, Nelson, was a real estate developer, which of course explained his great wealth; there is oodles of
money to be made by raping the South Carolina coast. It's been several thousand years since God stopped creating new coastline, but there has been no shortage of new humans, many of whom desire to live near the ocean. As a consequence, development, especially along the salt marshes, is spreading like an insidious cancer, eating up the very vistas that made the Lowcountry a popular place to live. And Nelson, apparently, had a gift for getting his projects past the zoning boards.

But raping coastlines is hard work, so much so that poor Nelson hadn't found the time to develop a permanent relationship—not since the collapse of his third marriage, at any rate. That's why Catherine was such a godsend—that, and the fact that she could decorate all his spec houses. So you see, theirs was a pseudo-marriage made in heaven. Just as long as Willard didn't find out—which was all up to me. Go figure.

“You promise you won't tell him,” Catherine said for the umpteenth time.

I'd asked her to let me out on the corner of Broad and East Bay. This is the defining line of historic Charleston, and this junction is always overrun by tourists.

“Promises are made to be broken,” I said, and ducked into the crowd.

 

I know it was cruel of me to leave Catherine swinging like that, but she hadn't been paying attention, now had she? Feeling not in the least guilty about my glib answer, I decided to enjoy the walk to my next destination. Along the way I got caught up in a throng of tourists who were far too happy for that hour of the day. It soon became clear that they were from Minnesota, which explained their ebullient mood. With only three frost-free months a year at their disposal, they knew that they needed to make hay while the sun shone.

The good folks from Duluth either didn't care or didn't notice that I was along for the walk. I wisely kept my mouth shut, my vowels safely crammed down my throat. I wouldn't have known what to say anyway. My temporary friends were all doctors, and were discussing a medical case. You would have thought they were speaking Latin.

They were headed for the Battery, which was perfect for me. I stayed with them until we approached Stolls Alley and the mansion owned by Bubba Johnson, bird collector extraordinaire. My plan was to gradually lag behind them and then stealthily cross the street and then—well, I really didn't have a “then.”

Needless to say, I couldn't believe my luck when I saw a taxicab waiting in front of the mansion. My luck got even better when I ob
served Bubba Johnson's white maid come out the front door, lock it behind her, and literally skip down the walk to the waiting cab.

This meant there was no one home! At least not Bubba Johnson. There was no way the white maid would feel free to use the front door if he were around. Besides, if he was at home, she wouldn't have to lock it behind her. Okay, maybe she would have needed to lock it, if he was too lazy to do it or felt it was beneath him. But in any case, she wouldn't feel free to frolic down the sidewalk like an eight-year-old girl. I had a hunch, given the maid's demeanor, that she was on her way to a tryst. No woman is that happy to go grocery shopping, and since it wasn't yet noon, it couldn't already be quitting time. And if she was stealing a few minutes to be with a lover, she sure as shooting wouldn't have taken the time to set the alarm—although the odds are she didn't even know it. Even though my cleaning lady is bonded, I certainly wouldn't give her my security code.

Therefore it was with a pounding heart—but sturdy knees—that I walked around to the back of the house and rang the bell. I rang it a couple of times, and waited a full two minutes before concluding for sure that no one was home. Most folks don't wait long enough, you know. (There is nothing worse than hearing a bell, pulling one's panties up to one's knees, waddling to the door, and peeking through the blinds, only to
see the mailman walking blithely off with one's return-receipt-requested package.)

When, after this decent interval, nobody answered, I tried the door. It was locked. Then I went to collect the key from its obvious hiding place. Bingo! No, it was not under the mat; it was under a fake stone next to the fountain depicting Leda being raped by the swan. To celebrate my brilliant piece of detective work, I skipped from the fountain to the house. If the maid could do it, so could I.

Yes, I know that breaking into and entering someone's house is not only wrong, it's illegal. But I was merely entering. Besides, it's not like it was the house of a total stranger. Most importantly, let's not forget that this was for a good cause.

The door opened easily, and just as I'd guessed, the alarm had not been set. The table, however, was still covered with breakfast things. A leftover piece of cinnamon toast—completely untouched—beckoned from a fine porcelain platter. I quickly polled me, myself, and I. We unanimously agreed that the toast would only go to waste if not added to our waist, so we did the thoughtful thing and licked the plate clean.

Feeling fortified by the riboflavin, I set my purse carefully down on a clean spot, put an only slightly used starched napkin over my nose, reclaimed my purse, and headed straight for the dining room door. This time the stench
was ameliorated somewhat by the cloth, but my eyes stung just as much as they did the first time they beheld Bubba Johnson's strange hobby.

Nevertheless, it was fascinating to walk leisurely between the rows of stacked cages. There were birds of all feathers surely, and just as surely they were flocked together. One section was devoted solely to canaries. Who knew there were so many different breeds? German Roller, American Singer, Waterslager, Norwich, Red Mosaic—that's just a fraction of what I saw. Next were the noncanary finches—there must have been a hundred different types of those. There were fewer parakeets—at least fewer of the little budgies that sit on one's finger—but there were plenty of their larger cousins, and when it came to parrots proper, what had once been a drawing room was filled from floor to ceiling with talking, whistling, and shrieking birds of the family
Psittacidae.

In the downstairs powder room (the toilet wouldn't flush) I found a dozen different kinds of mynahs. That's what the plaques said at any rate. Frankly, they all looked alike to me, and not one looked exactly like Monet. What I mean is, my missing mynah had a certain
je ne sais quoi
that these bundles of feathers lacked.

But I hadn't gained entry into the mansion in order to bird-watch. My primary mission was to find Mama, or at least some clue that led to
her whereabouts. I searched all the downstairs rooms, finding only more birds, or bird paraphernalia, such as seed, gravel, and stacks of newspaper to line their cages. One room, probably intended as a library, was filled with empty, and gleaming, birdcages, arranged on display. There were wooden cages that ranged from simple bamboo to elaborately carved hardwood structures—one appeared to be ebony with ivory inlay. Then there were metal cages ranging from cast iron to gold plate, and even one solid gold cage—albeit no more than three inches high, but studded with gemstones. Each cage was displayed alone on a pedestal or shelf, with a brass plate that told where and when the cage was purchased, and in some cases, the manufacturer. But none of the cages, no matter how exquisite, surpassed the Taj Mahal in beauty. It was immediately apparent why Bubba Johnson coveted this masterpiece. Of course Mama wasn't in any of these cages, and I didn't have time to tarry. Still, it was hard to tear myself away from the museum to avian imprisonment.