The Family Jewels (2 page)

I nodded in his direction. Definitely not a bingo babe. "Who's he?"

Edna pursed her lips and gave it some thought "Never seen him before."

When the pastor started to speak, he nodded toward the couple sitting near the flower arrangements, extending his sympathy to Miss Loudene's sister Nell Witherspoon, and her son, James.

"Her family," Edna whispered, loud enough for the rest of the bingo babes to hear. "She's got some nerve coming here."

"Shh," I said, swatting Edna's hand. "Everybody can hear you."

"Good," Edna said. "I want 'em to hear me."

After the service was over, while Edna and the others were admiring Miss Loudene's flowers, I drifted over toward Nell Witherspoon and introduced myself.

I held out a hand to her. "I'm Callahan Garrity. My mother and your sister were good friends. I'm sorry for your loss."

Nell Witherspoon gave my hand a hearty shake. I turned to the son. He merely nodded. "I'm James. I'm sure Aunt Loudene would be glad your mother and her friends came tonight."

"You notice there's none of that mill trash," Mrs. Witherspoon said. "Thank heavens for that
."

"The mill's been closed a long time," I offered.

"Not long enough," Nell Witherspoon said. "You know, the day I married Mr. James Witherspoon I promised myself I'd never step in Scottdale again. And I didn't. We had mama buried at my church, Tucker Baptist. But Loudene always insisted she wanted to be buried from Moody's. And we have to respect the wishes of the dead."

James nodded in silent agreement.

"I begged Loudene to move away from here," Mrs. Witherspoon said. "But she wouldn't do it. She said it was good enough for Mama and it was good enough for her." Nell Witherspoon's lips pursed, as though she were tasting sour milk. "Some people, they don't want anything better in life. That was Loudene. But not me. Not Nell Witherspoon. I was always a striver."

She patted her son's blue suited shoulder. "Jamie here, he's like me that way. Striving. He's a talented musician, you know."

Jamie smiled. "Mother, please. This isn't the place."

She forged ahead. "He's going to London. Next week. To audition for the symphony there."

"How exciting," I said. I looked around the dimly lit parlour, with its cheap blonde paneling and threadbare gray carpet. London was a long way from Scottdale, Georgia.

Jamie put a long slender hand over his mother's short, liver-spotted one. "Mother, we should go. It's late. And you know how it is over here after dark."

"Oh," Nell said. Her face reddened and she blinked back tears. "It's not safe over here. These animals. They killed my sister. The police said one of them bashed her head in with a brick."

She stood up, clutching her son's arm. She was tall and bulky, not at all similar to the late, spindly Miss Loudene.

"Poor old Loudene," Nell said, sniffing. "Why would anybody do my sister that way? Why?"

"The jewelry," I blurted. "Didn't the police tell you her jewelry was missing?"

Mrs. Witherspoon looked blank. "What on earth?"

"Your mother's jewels," I said, babbling now. "The peacock pin and earrings. The pearls, and the tiger pin and the watch from Tiffany's. I saw them. Miss Loudene showed them to me two days before she was killed."

"Mamaw's things," Jamie said softly. "I told Aunt Loudene she should lock those things up in a safe."

"Whatever for?" Nell Witherspoon demanded. "That old junk? Dime store stuff?"

"No," I said, interrupting. "She said your grandfather gave those jewels to your mother. That yellow diamond, it was at least a carat. I saw it, Mrs. Witherspoon."

Nell Witherspoon's round powdery face lost its mask of gentility. She laughed hoarsely. "Jewels? Don't make me laugh. We didn't even have indoor plumbing in that shack of ours until I was 18. My daddy drank and gambled and caroused his whole life. Mama's family had money, or so she said, but none of us ever saw any of it. And if we had, Daddy would have run through it right quick, you can bet on that."

"But she saved Mawmaw's jewelry," Jamie said. "She showed it to me too, one time, Mother. She kept it in a lard can." He looked up at me. "And now it's gone?"

Nell Witherspoon coughed loudly. "Well, if somebody killed her for that mess of rhinestones, they'll get what they deserve. Nothing." She pulled at her son's arm. "Let's go, Jamie."

I followed them out onto the concrete porch of the Moody Memory Chapel. A ginkgo tree shaded the cracked concrete driveway in front of the home, and already, fat golden leaves were sifting through the cool night air. Acorns crunched under Nell Witherspoon's sturdy black shoes. Her son opened her door and helped her into his car. Neither of them looked back as they drove away from Scottdale.

It was Edna's idea to take the bingo babes to the Knights of Columbus lodge over in Chamblee. "It's sauerkraut and Polish sausage night," she told
the others, herding them into the back of my pink van. She gave me a meaningful look. "Quarter beer, too."

On
ie and her son, D'Andre, watched me loading up the babes. Edna saw them. "You can come too," she said gracelessly. "Although the jackpot's only $5,000. Not up to your usual standards, I'm sure."

The Knights of Columbus Hall was thick with cigarette smoke and the smells of cooked cabbage and Old Spice. Edna and the others elbowed their way through the buffet line and found a table at the far end of the room. She sent me to get her cards, sixteen—eight for her and eight in the memory of Miss Loudene. They left a tiny patch of space a
t the corner of the table for Onie and D'Andre—only enough room for two paper plates of steaming sausage and kraut, and four bingo cards. Onie squatted there and glowered at the others, especially Edna.

"Saw you talking to that Nell Witherspoon woman," Edna commented, lining her bingo markers up in front of her. "What did she have to say for her sorry self?"

"Not much," I said, nibbling at a piece of kielbasa. "I don't think she and Miss Loudene had a lot in common. Her son is some kind of musician. He's going to London to audition for the symphony. And," I paused for effect. "Mrs. Witherspoon says all that jewelry was nothing but five and dime junk."

Edna shushed me then, as the caller seated himself at a table at the front of the room. The room got deadly quiet, heads swinging first from the electronic board displaying the numbers called, then back down to the cards arrayed on the table tops. After eight numbers, we heard a stir from our end of the table. "Hey, hey! B-B-Bingo!"

My mother slapped the table with the palm of her hand. "Looky there. Hey-Hey won! Loudene's looking down on us tonight."

It appeared she was. Bernie won the next jackpot, for $25 and a gift certificate to a steak house. Miss Mumbles won a toaster oven and $100, Edna hit for $25, and I even eked out a $10 round-the-world Bingo. The only one who didn't win were the two glowering prese
nces at the end of our table; Onie and D'Andre.

The last card of the night, two numbers were
called. On the second number, Onie cursed. She took her felt-tip markers, swept them into her tote bag and stood up. "These cards are junk," she announced. "Let's go." She and D'Andre lumbered towards the door.

It took
Edna maybe 15 seconds to seize the moment. She scooted over to Onie's chair, commandeered her remaining cards, and in a flash, dealt them out to the rest of the bingo babes. The game was a four corners. The caller seemed to enjoy dragging out the night. I'd crossed off nearly a dozen numbers on my card when Edna began breathing loudly through her nose, a sure sign that she was excited. "0-62," she was chanting. "Come on, 0-62." I glanced over at her cards. Sure enough, her marker was poised over a card with all but one corner scratched off.

The babes were watching. "Come on, Edna," they called to her. "Hit it, girlfriend."

Two more numbers. And she hit. 0-62. The jackpot was $5,000.

"P-p-praise the Lord," Hey-Hey shouted.

Edna beamed. She held up her winning card. "Know whose card this was?" she asked. "This is one of them junk cards Onie gave up on. Goes to show, don't it? Junk is in the eye of the beholder."

It got me thinking. I thought about it all the way home, and after I dropped the Bingo Babes back at F.W. Moody's Memory Chapel, I did some more thinking, about the perceived value of junk. I got out my criss-cross directory for the city of Atlanta and DeKalb County, and did some research.

The next morning, I borrowed Edna's Buick and parked outside the neat brick ranch house in Tucker by 8 a.m. The car backed out of the driveway at 10 a.m. It was easy to follow, a rusted blue Oldsmobile. The driver headed for the rarified atmosphere of Buckhead, and I followed. The driver made three brief stops, none of them taking longer than ten minutes apiece. Each time he emerged from one of the chic shops, his shoulders seemed more permanently slumped, his footsteps more dogged.

At his fourth stop, things seemed to be looking up. He parked the Olds at the edge of a parking lot full of shiny new sports cars and Mercedes and sport utility vehicles. The sign over the curved black and white striped awning said the shop was called Nouveau Riches. It certainly looked rich all right. On either side of the awnings
, display windows contained just one glittery bauble displayed on a black velvet-draped mannequin.

After 45 minutes, he finally emerged from the shop. He had a spring in his step and a smile on his face.

Inside, a severe-faced woman with a white chignon was arranging pieces on a velvet-lined tray. A bell tinkled discreetly as I stepped inside and she looked up expectantly.

"Yes?"

I'd dressed the part, just in case. My best black wool pantsuit, makeup, hair combed, the works. Maybe I didn't look authentic Buckhead, but I wasn't trailer trash either.

"Do you buy vintage jewelry?" I asked.

"Of course." She went on arranging the items on the tray in front of her. The pieces were all vintage earrings, bracelets, necklaces and brooches, exquisitely wrought of gold and silver, inlaid with colored stones and enamel and any manner of wonderful finishes. The tiger with the jewelled tail appeared ready to pounce from the tray.

I pointed at it "How much is something like that?"

She smiled serenely. "Something like it, or this piece exactly?"

"Is there a difference?"

"Oh yes,” she laughed. This piece is a signed Coco Chanel. There are knock-offs available, but this is the real thing."

"So the diamonds are real?"

Again the laugh. She was getting on my nerves. "Good God, no. It's costume. But the very best of the best. The Duchess of Windsor had the original of this pin, but of course, those were yellow diamonds, onyx and emerald chips."

"Worth?"

She was wearing tortoise-rim bifocals and looked down her nose at me through them now. "I just got this in today. Haven't had time to price it yet. But conservatively? I have a collector over on Tuxedo Road who buys signed Chanel. She bought a jaguar pin from this same series six months ago. I got $3,600 for it, and some of the small pave rhinestones were missing. This piece is in perfect condition. I doubt if it had ever been worn."

Not bad for junk.

I bit my lip. "I saw some other pieces like this one recently, at an antique show. It was a set—necklace, bracelet and earrings."

"A parure," she said silkily.

"Whatever. It had peacocks, silver with blue and green stones. Very flashy, sort of uh, 20s, I guess."

She stood away from the counter and narrowed her eyes. "What's this about?"

"Bingo," I said, reaching for the cell phone in my purse.

Frank Bayles caught up with Jamie Witherspoon at the airport, one
-way ticket to London in his hand. He let me go along for the ride, as a courtesy, you might say.

Witherspoon blanched when he saw Bayles' badge, but he didn't try to run. Guess he wasn't as much of a striver as his mother thought. Back at the station, Bayles counted out the bills he extracted them from the money belt he'd found wrapped around Jamie Witherspoon's midriff.

"Twelve thousand dollars," he said, placing the last of the hundred dollar bills on his desktop. "You killed your aunt for $12,000. Not much of a take, Junior."

"She wasn't much of a person," Witherspoon said bitterly. "All those years, she talked about Mamaw's jewels, but she'd never let me see them. Then, a month ago, she calls me up, swears me to secrecy. Says she's decided to get rid of the stuff. Do you believe it? None of it had ever been worn. All that money, laying around in a stinking lard can, in that filthy firetrap of a shack. I told her I'd help her sell it, help her buy a new washer-dryer, get her set up in a condo. She was going to give me money, for helping her."

"But you wanted more," I suggested.

"She would have died in a couple years anyway," Witherspoon said. "And what about me? My whole life was ahead of me. London, the symphony, everything. But it's so expensive. So obscenely expensive. Why shouldn't Mamaw's jewels go to me?"

"And you never had any idea they were only costume?" I said.

He sank his head down into his hands. "Never. My God. Do you think I would have risked everything for a lousy $12,000?"