The Glass Is Always Greener (3 page)

Chapter 3

R
ob blanched and I pushed him toward the nearest chair. It was occupied by two pubescent girls in belly-baring T-shirts and miniskirts. I shooed them away with four words guaranteed to clear a room, much less a lawn chair.

“He might throw up,” I said. He really did look that bad.

“A-Abby,” Rob finally croaked. “Ask her what the hell she means.”

“She hears just fine, thank you,” Aunt Jerry said. “I was referring to the fact that I couldn’t stand your father—may he rest in peace. Your mother—well, all of my loser siblings and I had inherited a healthy little grubstake from our own parents—may they rest in peace—who’d arrived in this country with absolutely
nothing
in their pockets. Anyway, your father was a schemer.

“Now a dreamer, I can stomach. The Wright brothers were dreamers, and just look at their legacy. But your father was more like Bernie Madoff—but without the smarts. Yes, I know, you lived in a nice house in Myers Park while growing up, and you weren’t bright enough to get a scholarship to N.C. State, but they managed to pay for that—except that they didn’t.”

Aunt Jerry paused to let the horrible truth settle on Rob like a cold fog. He tried several times to speak, but it appeared as if it was too much effort for him. Meanwhile his normally rather haughty mother, bless her heart, who had emerged timidly from the kitchen, was mewling like a newly born kitten.

“I told your mother to poison him with her terrible cooking,” Aunt Jerry said. “I didn’t mean it literally, but that’s exactly what she did. Everything had to have at least a pound of butter in it, didn’t it, Chanti?” She was shouting through cupped hands by then. “That somehow made it French, didn’t it? And of course garlic. Garlic and butter—”

“Aunt Jerry,” Rob said, finally starting to get his mojo back, “I think that’s quite enough.” His relatives twittered in the background—and I mean that in the old-fashioned sense of the word.

“Enough?” she said, recoiling as if from a snake strike. “Oh dear, and here I thought that I was being ever so gentle.”

“If I may,” I said, “and I’m a total stranger here, you’re not just reading a will, you seem to have an axe to grind, and are taking great pleasure in doing so.”

The old lady smiled broadly. “I think I like you, Annie. I think you have a lot of spunk for being just a no-account, two-pint Gidget.”

“
I beg your pardon?
”

“Oh, didn’t Robbie tell you? When you moved to Charleston—”

“Aunt Jerry, stop! I forbid you!”

Everyone froze. It was like we were all playing that game called Statues that we used to play on long summer evenings when we were kids.

“No one forbids
me
,” Aunt Jerry said. “Annie,” she commanded, “come up here.”

“With all due respect, ma’am,” I said, “my name is Abby, not Annie.”

“Well, whatever. I said to come up here.”

“No, Aunt Jersey, I will not. Not unless you ask me nicely.”

“
Jersey?
Is that what you said?”

There was a smattering of applause and not a few giggles.

“I may have, ma’am. If you come down here, I’ll repeat myself.”

“Why shoot a monkey!” Aunt Jerry said. “If that don’t beat all. This gal is no two-pint, no-account Gidget; she’s more like a gallon of—of—well, name your favorite flavor. Personally, that new Cinnamon Buns flavor can’t be beat.”

“So now she’s talking about ice cream,” Rob said. “That’s why you shouldn’t listen to a word she says.”

I scrambled atop the table with just a little help from Aunt Jerry. “So,” I said to her, “tell me what happened when I moved to Charleston five years ago.”

“Well, you wanted Robbie to move down there too.”

“Of course; I wanted all my friends to move down there. What’s wrong with that? I didn’t force them to come.”

“Yes, but I had other plans for them. Robbie was supposed to be my companion during these golden years—seeing as how he had chosen not to take on the burdens of a wife.”

“But he had a partner!”

“Oh Lord, now look what Jerry’s done,” Rob’s mother said, frantically scanning the yard for someplace other than this table under which to hide. “Rob, she’s outed you!”

“Is Cousin Rob gay?” a teenage boy asked.

“Yes, dear, now shush,” his mother said.

“Cool! ’Cause so am I.”

“You see what you’ve done!” the boy’s distraught mother shouted.

“It’s your fault,” the boy’s father said to his wife. “I read that in a book.”

“Rob didn’t do anything to turn your son gay,” I said. “It just happens. Now go on with your story, Aunt Jenny.”

“That’s Jerry—oh, the heck with it. I deserve whatever name you choose to call me. There’s not much to the story. I offered Robbie an enormous amount of money if he’d stay in Charlotte and squire me to the occasional event—you know, charity balls and such, and make himself available for a dinner party now and then. But oh no, he turned me down for you. Of course I took it very hard, so that’s when he tried to make me feel better by putting you down—you know, with the two-pint comment.”

Words can describe how I felt, but I would never share such vulgar thoughts with anyone. Rob’s betrayal had hit me in the pit of my stomach, and that’s the doorway to bile. The best thing for everyone was for me to just keep my mouth shut—for now.

“Listen to me, Abby,” Rob pleaded, “I didn’t mean it. I just said it to get her off my back. I mean the proof is in the pudding, right? I moved down to Charleston, didn’t I? I sold my shop up here, and bought a new one down there. Hell, that’s more than most men would do for their spouses
and
I got Bob to move down there as well.”

“That’s right. What was he, a three-quart Moondoggie?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Abby. Moondoggie was Gidget’s boyfriend.”

I turned to Aunt Jerry. “You can have him back. Of course, with the real estate slump it might take him a while to unload his shop down there.”

“Oh honey, where I’m going he can’t follow.”

“You going to Columbia?” someone called out. “I hear that’s built over the gates of Hell.”

Aunt Jerry smiled, revealing lovely laugh lines. “That’s what they say, all right: Columbia, South Carolina is
the
most miserable place to spend a summer. But I’ve already been there, done that. But you know what, Allie? Not only can’t Robbie come with me, but none of my stuff can come with me either—not just my money. So here, I want you to have this.” Having said that, she slipped off an enormous emerald ring and tried to slip it on one of my fingers.

“No, no, I can’t.”

“Don’t be silly, of course you can.”

“Something like that should be kept in the family.”

“This family should be kept to themselves, that’s what. Here, take it. I
insist
.”

“But that’s got to be a ten-carat stone—at least.”

“Twenty-two-point-five-carat, grass green, and almost eye-clean. Even Queen Elizabeth doesn’t have one this nice—okay, so maybe she does, but I very much doubt if anyone else in Charlotte has one that comes even close to this.”

“All the more reason for you to keep it. It must be worth a queen’s ransom.”

“Seven figures.”

I felt my knees go weak, which is not such a good state of affairs when one is viewing the world from atop a picnic table. “Well then you
can’t
give it to me. I’m not related.”

“I can give it to whomever I want, and I want to give it to you. But since you’d rather not wear it now, then fine; I’ll wear it in the meantime. But it is still yours.”

“Fine,” I said, and jumped off the table. That was the last time I saw Aunt Jerry alive.

I am not one for gruesome details; therefore I feel no compelling reason to describe the scene of the crime in all its grisly accuracy. I shall, however, describe it truthfully, for the two terms are not mutually exclusive.

Because of our rift I was pretty much stuck at the event until I prevailed upon Rob to return me to the hotel, or until I could arrange for a cab. But it occurred to me early on in the game that this two-pint player stood a better chance of winning by not only outlasting my opponent, but appearing to have a better time.

To that end that I flitted and flirted about, making talk so small that even a microbe couldn’t hear it. The more I laughed and giggled, the more Rob glared. And even though Jerry was nowhere to be seen following the tabletop performance, not a soul left the premises. It seemed that the Ovumkoph clan desperately needed an excuse—any excuse—to party. Besides, there was always the chance Aunt Jerry might change her mind, return, and make someone’s day.

Eventually, however, I grew hot, tired, and bored. I can see how being the guest at someone else’s family gathering might possibly be fun for a gossip columnist, or maybe even a novelist, but for a little ol’ no- account antiques dealer, it’s about as much fun as a Brazilian wax, and without the benefits. Yes, I’d been given that fabulous emerald ring—but bear in mind, the giver was a lunatic; that gift was never going to be accepted as valid by the rest of the clan.

So at any rate, when no one was looking, I ducked into the walkout basement. It was hard to believe that I was the only one there. For heaven’s sake, there was a Ping-Pong table, an air hockey table, an enormous flat-screen TV! And, of course, there was that damn front-loading freezer!

Of course there was a refrigerator, and it was well stocked with beverages of many varieties, both alcoholic and non, and there were dips, and cheeses, and summer sausages, and who knows all what—it’s not like I took inventory. But everyone knows that a basement freezer in the South usually contains some part of a deer, some barbecue, and
ice cream
.

However, the first thing I noticed when I opened that damn freezer was poor Aunt Jerry. She’d been crammed in there in a fetal position, on her back, her face turned away from the door, so that only a shelf or two had to be removed. Sure enough, above her was a shelf of packages wrapped in white butcher paper and clearly labeled “dear steaks.” I can only hope that Ben was a bad speller, and not in the custom of freezing women. But back to Aunt Jerry, I am eternally grateful that I never saw her face; it was her outfit I recognized, the gorgeous mustard-colored sari. At this point she was minus the paper crown from Burger King, but the orange and purple faux leis still hung from her neck, for when the freezer door opened they spilled forth, adding to the drama. Again, was it any wonder that I screamed?

But try getting any sympathy from homicide detectives Krupp and Wimbler. They were polite enough, but I needed more than politeness; what I needed was a hug from my husband, Greg. At the very least I needed to have him talk to them—but these two detectives didn’t care two ripe figs that I was married to a former member of their department. They couldn’t even be bothered to call him to verify my claim.

Using the one-way glass wall of the interrogation room as a mirror, Detective Krupp scratched a bit of crusted makeup from the corner of her mouth with her pinkie fingernail before speaking. “So what were you doing in the basement, Mrs. Timberlake?”

“My answer is the same as the last time you asked,” I said, trying to both express my exasperation yet not be too antagonistic. “It was hot. I was bored. The basement door was unlocked.”

Detective Wimbler was a small man who seemed delighted by the fact that I was even much smaller than he. This went unsaid, but I had a strong hunch that if we’d met under other circumstances, and if I wasn’t married (he wasn’t wearing a ring), he would have asked me out.

“Mrs. Timberlake, were you aware that there was a large watermelon on a tub of ice in the kitchen?”

“Yes—sir. But I was a bit upset, and when I get upset, my metabolism speeds up—never mind. I guess I was operating on automatic when I cut myself a slice of watermelon.” How stupid was that, telling him I was upset? I may as well have painted a bull’s-eye on my forehead in neon orange!

“I hear you. Being smaller means we have to eat more often; it’s not something the rest can understand.”

“Give me a break,” Detective Krupp muttered, as she gouged the crud from the other side of her mouth. “Ma’am, how did you manage to sneak the knife downstairs? Did you hide it under your clothing?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The one you used to stab the victim—before she was dumped in the freezer.”

“Your prints are all over the handle,” Detective Wimbler said.

“You mean the watermelon knife?” I asked. “
That
was the murder weapon?”

“No, it was the candlestick in the drawing room,” Detective Krupp said. “Give us a break, Mrs. Timberlake. For someone who is supposedly married to a former detective, you ought to know that playing coy will get you nowhere.”

“Not just
supposedly
,” I said hotly. “Greg
was
on this force. And he was one of the best, unlike some—”

“Small people like us have a hard time catching a break sometimes, don’t we, Mrs. Timberlake?” Detective Wimbler had placed a miniature man’s hand on my shoulder in an effort to calm me. Whatever the department height requirements were, he had to have been fully extended—
on a good day
—in order to meet them.