Statue of Limitations (9 page)

“G
reg, darling,” I cooed, “will you be a doll and fetch the saltshaker from the kitchen.”

“It's right here on the table, hon. Next to the pepper.”

“Those are both peppers, dear. You'll find the saltshaker on the top shelf above the refrigerator. The step stool is getting kinda shaky, so you'll probably want to get the aluminum stepladder from the garage.”

At least I can be thankful that I did not marry a fool. Greg's eyes locked on mine, holding me in my seat just as securely as if he'd grabbed my shoulders.

“Somebody please tell me what I've missed.”

“Nothing, dear. Just a little problem with Wynnell.” I tried in vain to force my gaze away from Greg so I could glower at Mama.

“Horse dooky,” Greg said, out of deference to his mother-in-law.

My sigh flickered the flames on the candles Mama had set out as a centerpiece. “It's just that Marina Webbfingers—you know, the woman whose bed and breakfast I was decorating—was bashed over the head with a heavy object—”

“You don't need to be so graphic,” Mama objected.

“Anyway, she's dead, and the police think Wynnell did it, on account of she was last seen and heard having a screaming fight with the deceased. Now darling, you know I wouldn't normally interfere, but Wynnell's lawyer asked me to gather what information I could.
And
, coincidentally, Mr. Webbfingers himself asked me to entertain his guests until they were free to leave.”

“That part sounds suspicious to me,” Toy had the nerve to say.

This comment from the peanut gallery irritated me so much that I was able to break free of Greg's hold and glare at my uninvited house guest. It was, however, a very short glare, because clerical collars can be rather intimidating.

“You weren't there. It made perfect sense to me.”

“Does it still?” Greg asked softly.

It took awhile for his question to register. I couldn't believe my beloved hadn't blown his stack. As a former Charlotte detective, he is intimately acquainted with just how dangerous a
murder investigation can be—especially for the nonprofessional.

“Do you think I'm being set up?” I finally asked.

“It's something to think about. Charleston isn't exactly Podunk, Nowhere. Most visitors find there is too much to do and see, and that they don't have enough time. I've never heard of someone needing to be entertained.”

“Well, then think of me as a tour guide. We have plenty of those.”

Three pairs of eyes looked pointedly at me.

“Okay,” I wailed, “so maybe it is a little odd. But I'm not an idiot. I know how to take care of myself.”

Greg cleared his throat. “Like that time you found yourself in a suit of armor about to be dumped into Lake Wylie?”

“Or,” Mama said, not without the tiniest bit of glee, “the time you almost became a life-size, glass-encased statue, intended for someone's foyer down in Miami? Abby, you hadn't even shaved that day. You would have had stubble on your legs for years. Maybe even centuries.”

I clapped my hands over my ears. “So I've had a few narrow escapes. So what?”

“So,” Mama said triumphantly, “that's why your brother Toy will be helping you with this investigation.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me,” Greg said before I could protest.

“I don't mind, sis,” Toy had the temerity to say.

One of the worst things about having such short arms is that I couldn't stab people like Toy with my fork without having to first get up. Not that I would have hurt him, mind you. But he deserved a little prick.

I was clearly outnumbered. For now. But Toy was sure to do something so irresponsible that even Mama would send him packing. And if he didn't, well—perhaps I could get him distracted enough to bolt from the case on his own. I still wasn't sure which team my brother batted for, but either he was gay or he wasn't, and I had single friends of both genders. In fact, the first thing I would do the next morning is try him out on C.J.

“Well then, I guess it's settled,” I said.

Greg raised a neatly trimmed eyebrow. “Abby?”

“What?”

Mama didn't believe me, either. “She's got something up her sleeve, Toy darling. Don't let her out of your sight.”

Toy winked at me. “Don't worry, Mama. I've got her covered.”

“Yeah right,” I muttered. Little brother was no match for me.

 

I awoke to the competing smells of sizzling bacon and fresh-brewed coffee. The clock face read seven, which meant Greg had been gone two hours, and Mama still had a good hour to go before she began yet another day in the 1950s. This meant that some stranger had broken into my house and was cooking himself, or herself, breakfast. Not a common occurrence, I'm sure, but it does happen. At any rate, I had already dialed nine and one when somebody rapped loudly on my door. Terrified out of my wits, I accidentally dialed the second one. Meanwhile Dmitri, who'd been curled up on Greg's side of the bed, jumped off to hide under it. A guard cat he is not.

“Sis, you up?”

I was only partially relieved to hear my brother's voice through the door. Before I could respond, someone on the other end of the phone line demanded my attention.

“Nine-one-one dispatcher.”

“Uh—sorry, but I dialed the wrong number.”

The phone rang the second the receiver was back in its cradle. “Mrs. Washburn?”

“Yes?” I tried to sound innocent, but thanks to my caller ID, I knew exactly who it was.

“This is the Charleston police. Is everything all right?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“Do you mind if we send a uniformed officer to your home?”

“There is really no need. Like I said, it was an accident.”

“Mrs. Washburn, we have an officer in your area. He will be there in about five minutes.”

“But—”

Nine one one hung up on me. In the meantime, Toy was trying to reconfigure my bedroom door with his knuckles.

“Sis! The eggs will be cold if you don't eat them soon.”

I flew to the door, but remembered just in time that my sleeping apparel was not intended to be seen by anyone except Greg. Fortunately I keep my robe on a chair by the door, but I was panting when I opened the door.

“Well,” he said with a smirk, “maybe breakfast can wait after all.”

“Greg has been gone since five. Toy, what's going on? Who's cooking?”

The smirk morphed into a smile. “I am.”

I put as much stock in my brother's answer as I do White House press releases. “Toy, so help me, if you've dragged Mama out of bed to make her cook—”

He put his hands up in a mock defensive posture. “Come see for yourself, sis. I hope I remem
bered correctly—you do like your eggs over easy, right?”

The doorbell rang. I knew exactly who it was.

“Toy, be a doll and get that, will you?”

My little brother loped obediently away, but was back in a few seconds. “Abby, it's the police. They want to speak with you.” He put his arm around my shoulder. “Hey sis, whatever trouble you're in—well, I just want you to know that I'm here for you.”

“I'm not in any trouble. I called nine one one by mistake, and it's their policy to come in and look around. See if everyone is really all right. Trust me, it's happened before.”

Toy hadn't heard a word I'd said. “This may come as a shock to your ears, sis, but I love you.”

I cinched my robe tighter before following Toy back to the living room. The world was turning topsy-turvy on me. A loving, protective brother who cooked breakfast without being asked? I never could have even dreamed that up. Not in a million years. Did this mean I was going to have to rethink the last thirty years and forgive the man? The day had gotten off to a rotten start.

 

The police were there for only a minute, and Toy's eggs were still warm. Delicious, too, I'm loath to say. Mama, who had been unnecessarily roused during the cursory search, was quick to compli
ment her son on his culinary achievement. But cooking eggs is not brain surgery, or even antique-collecting. A hen and a Charleston sidewalk in the summertime—that's all one really needs.

After Toy loaded the dishwasher and wiped down the counters—again, without being asked—we left for the Den of Antiquity. Mama waved us off with a conspiratorial grin. A stranger might have thought we were newlyweds. Okay, so I'm much older, but that kind of thing happens more and more these days.

At any rate, when we got to my shop, I was almost ready to believe that my baby brother had turned over a new leaf—a great big banana leaf in his case. C.J. wasn't there yet, and when I gave him a quick tour of the place, he actually asked questions.

“So what's your markup on this stuff?”

“That depends on how much I paid for it and what I can expect to get. Three times the acquisition price is what I strive for.”

He nodded. “Say, sis, I don't suppose you could float me a loan, could you?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Not a big loan—just a little cash to hold me over.”

“How little?”

“A hundred thousand, that's all. I promise to pay you back—and you name the terms.”

“Say what?”

“I wouldn't ask you, sis, but I got in a little deep with some loan sharks, and the word on the street is that they have Mafia connections. You wouldn't want to see me get my legs broken, would you?”

M
y petite patootie connected with the nearest chair while I struggled to catch my breath. So the leopard hadn't changed his spots! I knew it! And what really made me sick to my stomach was that if I didn't help Toy out of this jam, he would no doubt hit Mama up for the money. Perhaps he already had. Maybe that's why they'd had their heads together so long the day before.

“You haven't changed a bit,” I gasped, “have you?”

“Psyche!”

“What?”

“Isn't that what we used to say as kids when we fooled somebody.”

“Maybe you said that—wait a minute. Do you mean you aren't trying to borrow money? That the Mafia doesn't want to break your legs?”

Toy laughed heartily. He'd either picked up the skills of a good actor while in Hollywood—de
spite never getting an acting job—or he was as sincere as a nun on her deathbed.

“Sis, I may not have a whole lot of money, but I don't have any debts, either. I don't want anything from you—well, except—well, I thought maybe we could be friends.”

“Is this another ‘psyche'?”

He raised two fingers. “Scouts' honor.”

“Toy, how do feel about taking a lie detector test? I have a friend in the police department who could arrange one.”

That was actually a bit of a fib. When Greg was a detective up in Charlotte, he might have been able to arrange such a thing.
Might
. Sergeants Scrubb and Bright on the Charleston force knew me, but they weren't likely to do any favors for me. Of course I had yet to sleep with them—and probably never would.

Ever lucky, Toy was saved by the sudden appearance of C.J. The big galoot likes to come in through the delivery entrance, she claims it makes her feel special, on account of the fact that customers aren't allowed through that door. When I remind her that neither do the customers have keys for the front door, she shakes her massive head and sighs.

“Abby,” she says, “you don't have a sense of drama, do you?”

C.J. has nothing but. This morning she popped out from behind an armoire like the killer in a horror movie. That's what it must have seemed like to Toy, because he let out a bona fide yelp when he looked over and saw the clumsy gal looming behind me.

“Holy—uh—moly,” he said, catching himself just in time.

My friend and employee is without guile. “So who's the hunk, Abby?”

“He's no hunk! He's my brother. Toy.”

“Ooh, don't tease me, Abby. You said your brother was a scumbag, not a priest.”

I could feel my toes swell as the blood drained from my cheeks. “C.J.!”

Toy chuckled. “That's all right, Abby. You have my dispensation for any unflattering remarks you may have said in the past.”

“He's not a real priest yet,” I hissed.

I'm not sure either of them heard me. There were so many pheromones wafting back and forth between the two of them that I found it hard to breathe. My summer allergy pills don't cover sexual stimuli. At least I finally knew which direction my brother's pendulum preferred to swing.

I jumped off the chair and grabbed Toy's arm. “We have some serious sleuthing to do, remember?”

“Ooh, Abby can I come, too?”

“Someone needs to mind the shop, dear—and last time I signed a paycheck, it had your name on it.”

“But three heads are better than two.”

“Two will do just fine.”

“That's what cousin Merckle up in Shelby said, but was he ever wrong. When he had that third head removed, he just couldn't make up his mind anymore.”

I turned to Toy. “C.J. is originally from Shelby, North Carolina. She has a very—how should I put this—interesting family.”

“I'd like to hear more about your cousin Merckle,” Toy said. He sounded genuinely interested.

My young friend smiled gratefully. “Well, he was born with three heads, you see. They were normal-size heads, too, but he only had one body. It was a cesarean delivery of course. Anyway, this was the first time in history anything like this had happened in Shelby, and everyone said that cousin Merckle was going to be in all the record books, and that would put Shelby on the map. And cousin Merckle was going to be really famous, too, 'cause the job offers just came pouring in even when he was a baby. You wouldn't believe it, Abby—”

“I'm sure I wouldn't.”

Toy glared at me, so I put a sock in it. “Go on,” he said kindly.

“This big company in New York wanted him to model hats. Another wanted him to model sunglasses. Ooh ooh, and this shampoo company wanted to do a commercial where they washed each head with a different kind of shampoo to compare the differences.” She hung her enormous, but single, head and sighed. “Of course none of that happened after he had the third head removed.”

I looked down at the floor so I could discreetly roll my eyes. “C.J., with all these endorsement offers pouring in, why did he have the third head removed?”

“Because he got tired of looking different than the other members of his branch of the family—the Wicky Fork Ledbetters. So he had the doctors take off one head—the middle one, of course—but like I said, it was a huge mistake. You see, that was the head that made compromises between the other two, which clearly had minds of their own. From that day on cousin Merkle was never able to make another decision. And of course all those job offers fell through, now that he looked like everyone else in his clan.”

“Toy, darling,” I said, trying not to smile, “I keep a saltshaker in my locker in the storage room. How many grains would you like?”

“What I'd like to do,” he said, without missing a beat, “is to ask you out, C.J.”

“Be careful, C.J. It might be a ruse. He could be after your money.” Despite the fact that she works for me, C.J. has done quite well for herself. She had her own shop up in Charlotte.

“Don't worry, Abby. I can't date a priest.”

“Episcopal,” Toy said quickly. “We're allowed to date—just as long as we're not married. Of course the people we date should be single as well.”

I have never seen C.J. look so happy. “Do you like hops and scotch?”

“Never tried them together, but I'm game.”

“Then pick me up at seven.”

“Excellent.”

I couldn't move fast enough to avoid C.J.'s arms. To say she gave me a bear hug would be the understatement of the year. It was more like the embrace of an amorous yeti. Not that I've experienced a whole lot of those, mind you.

“Ooh Abby, I owe you one.”

“You'll owe me a new set of ribs if you don't let go.”

Toy tried to hug me as well, but I saw that coming, and the second C.J. released me, I dashed for the door. “Toy, if you're coming with me today, you've got to keep up.”

He reluctantly followed me out to the street.

 

There was something fishy about Fisher Webbfingers, something I couldn't pinpoint, but I aimed to discover what it was. Maybe it was just his weird request that I entertain his guests, although the more I thought about it, it seemed strange that a couple with marital difficulties, but no apparent financial difficulties, would open a bed and breakfast. What was in it for them?

“Toy,” I said, continuing my train of thought aloud as we drove from the shop to double 0 Legare, “can you think of any way we can check on somebody's financial history?”

“Abby, you're not Internet savvy, are you?”

“I am so. It's just that I'm too busy to spend a lot of time cruising the Net.”

He laughed far too long and hard. “That's surf, sis, not cruise. Unless you want to pick up guys.”

“Whatever. Well, can you?”

“No problemo. But it would help if we had his Social Security number.”

“Yes, but how do we get that?”

“He's alone in the house now since his wife died, right?”

“Except for the maid. But so what?”

“So you distract him outside, and I'll slip in and have a look-see.”

“What about the maid?”

“I'll seduce her.” There wasn't a trace of a smile on his face.

“Toy, she played with God as a child. She may even have been His baby-sitter. Besides, you're supposed to be a man of the cloth.”

That's when he grinned. “Just kidding, Abby. It's fun to pull your leg, sis, you know that?”

But when we got within spitting distance of double 0 Legare street, it began to look as if seducing anyone was a moot point. There were no cars parked on the street anywhere near the place and, we soon discovered, the two car garage was empty.

“Perfect,” Toy said, and rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

“But it's already nine, and we're all supposed to meet here at ten.”

“Maybe they didn't like the breakfast that was served. It doesn't matter, does it? We're in luck. Now remember, your mission is to head straight for the office—”

“Excuse me?”

“Every house has an office, Abby. It may not be a special room, but there's always at least a corner with a desk in it, or at the very least, a box of papers stashed somewhere. What you're after is anything with a Social Security number. You know, three digits, dash, two digits, dash, four.”

“But I'm not going in, you are!”

“Think about it, sis. They already know you. If
they catch you, they're more likely to accept your story than mine. I mean, how do explain a strange priest in your house? You could at least claim you needed to use the bathroom.”

“Which Marina never allowed me to use.”

“There you go—that's your cover. You felt insulted by that, and since there was no one home, and you had to go—you decided to take a stand. Or a sit, as the case may be.”

“After breaking and entering. Toy, I could be arrested for that.”

“Don't worry. Unless someone bothered to put the security system on—and believe me, a lot of people only use theirs after dark—I can get you in without the breaking part. You can say you found the door unlocked.”

“And what if the security system is on?”

“Then we run like hell.”

By then I was parked along the curb, so I was at liberty to turn and stare at him. “Have the folks who run your seminary ever met you?”

“Good one, sis.” He unbuckled his seat belt. “Okay, are we on the same page?”

“We're not even in the same book, Toy. In fact, we're not even in the same library. I'm not going to trespass, and that's that.”

His blue eyes didn't waver. “How bad do you want to clear your friend?”

“That's not fair.”

“And I thought you were a sleuth, Abby.”

“A law-abiding one.”

I doubt if he heard me. He'd turned and was scrutinizing the main house like a hawk hovering over a meadow.

“Aha! We're in luck.”

“You've come to your senses?”

“That upstairs window is open. Chances are security is off, but we can test it.”

“How?”

“I'll throw a stick through the window. It's not as likely as a rock to break something, and the movement will set off the censors.”

“Even so, how do you propose that I get up there—assuming I agreed.”

“That's a piece of cake. I'll hoist you up to my shoulders, then you can grab that vine—wisteria, right? All you have to do is go in through the window. You can come out through a door.”

“For your information, that's not wisteria. It's creeping fig.”

A relative of the edible fig tree, the creeping variety
(Ficus pumila)
looks nothing like its cousin. Its juvenile foliage is delicate, and the tracery of the vines adds architectural interest in brick and stucco walls. But as the plant climbs, the foliage triples in size and the vines become woody. The only way to maintain the more desirable form is to keep it heavily pruned.

Wynnell tried to get Mrs. Webbfingers to let her remove the vine altogether, so it wouldn't ruin the brickwork with its roots. But Mrs. Webbfingers said it was too late, that the roots had already dug in too deep, and that removing it would create “an eyesore.”

Just thinking about my pal made me ache to help her. But I was a soon-to-be respected member of the community. How could I even contemplate doing something illegal?

Of course Toy didn't care two figs about my angst. “Great,” he said. “All those roots should keep you nice and safe.”

There must have been a small part of me that wanted to break the law. How else can I explain the phrases that pushed their way into my mind.

If I am not Wynnell's friend, then who is?

If I don't act now, then when?

I flung open my car door. “Let's get going, then, before they get back. And keep in mind, Toy, that I don't look good in horizontal stripes. Vertical, on the other hand, might add the illusion of an extra inch or two. Oh, and make sure someone remembers to feed Dmitri.”

“Will do, sis,” he said with a laugh.

But it was soon no laughing matter.