The Ming and I (15 page)

I blushed the color of her spandex slacks. “This really isn’t my business.”

She neighed again. “You’re embarrassed, aren’t you? Well, don’t be. It’s just a fact—I was a whore,
and a damn good one. Be the best you can be, they say, and I was. I slept with four U.S. presidents, thirteen governors, and more senators and congressmen than I could keep track of. And foreign heads of state, too. Why, there was the prime minister of—”

“Please stop,” I begged. No doubt I had turned the color of her tank top.

“You young people are such prudes, but oh well, I’m sure you’ve gotten my point. I was persona non grata just for being Billy’s mistress. Could you imagine what my life would have been like—would be like—if folks knew the whole truth?”

“They’d tie you to the Civitas and pelt you with hymnals?”

The Civitas is a set of four female statues of mammoth proportions sculpted by Audrey Flack. They were especially commissioned to mark the Dave Lyle Boulevard entrance to Rock Hill. They are glorious gals, and the community should have been proud of them from the get go. But, alas, the bronze beauties were created with brazen nipples, a fact that horrified local Bible thumpers, who wouldn’t stop thumping until the nipples had been sandblasted to mere nubs. The Civitas is the most likely place to hold a public execution in Rock Hill.

“Exactly.”

“Well, in that case, why are you trusting me with your secret?”

“Because I need your help.”

That was about as likely as the Charlotte Hornets needing me to score baskets. “I don’t even live in Rock Hill anymore, dear. Those Civitas gals have more influence around here than I do.”

“I’ve been keeping an eye on you, Ms. Timberlake, and I’ve decided that I can trust you.”

“My lips could sink a navy, dear.”

“Your mother thinks you’re the salt of the earth.”

“I pay her to say that.”

She waved a hand impatiently. “I need your help, and I don’t know where else to turn.”

I sighed. “What exactly do you want me to do for you?”

“A cousin of mine was recently murdered. I need you to help me find her killer.”

Thank God my hair is short, because it was standing on end. I stood up to keep it company.

“Me? Why me? Just because people are dropping like flies wherever I go doesn’t mean—”

“My cousin was June Troyan,” she said. “She was killed in your shop, Den of Antiquity. She was killed because of you.”

“L
et me get this straight,” I said. “You and June Troyan were cousins, and that’s why she moved here from Florida when her husband died. You were the one who put her up for the docent’s job. You and June were as thick as thieves, and she knew all about your past, including your—uh—career in Atlanta.”

“You listen well.”

“But I don’t get it. What does any of this have to do with June’s murder? Or with me, for that matter?”

She snorted. “June stopped by here the morning she was killed. She said she was on her way over to see you, but when I told her about the blackmailer—”

“Hold your horses,” I said. “What blackmailer?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you yet, did I?”

“Apparently not. You wouldn’t have anything to drink, would you, dear?”

Please believe me. I am not a tippler, and I don’t usually request refreshments that haven’t been offered, but it was turning out to be a rather long and difficult day. A little scotch on the rocks, maybe some mud in my eye, and I might still be sane enough to keep my date.

“Would sweet tea be all right?”

“Preferably something you hide when the preacher comes,” I said. I blushed at my inadvertent innuendo.

Anne shook her head. “Sorry, but I don’t drink. Never have, never will. It isn’t good for you.”

“But—”

“That’s just an act. Throws them off the scent, so to speak. Give them enough to criticize, and they won’t feel the need to dig any deeper.”

That had a certain logic.

“Sweet tea will be fine,” I said. “On the rocks.”

She brought me a huge plastic tumbler filled to the brim. The worst tea I had ever tasted. Even a Yankee wouldn’t drink that stuff. But I was raised to be well mannered, so when Anne’s back was turned for a second, I shared the vile brew with the pathos plant at my side.

“Tell me about this blackmailer,” I said. “Who was he trying to blackmail—you?”

She nodded. “There was a note. It said that if I didn’t come up with fifty thousand dollars, my past was going to be dragged through every parlor in Rock Hill.”

“May I see the note?”

She shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“You do still have the note, don’t you?”

“I gave it to June.”

“What?”

“She asked for it. My cousin was a real pistol. Very headstrong, but very protective of me.”

“Did you at least show the note to the police first?”

“June said to wait until she’d had a chance to talk to you. She said she had a theory.”

“Why
me
?” I wailed. The goose on my grave was doing a rumba. “A theory? About what? Did it have
to do with a—” I caught myself just in time. I wasn’t sure I trusted Madame Holliday.

Anne was leaning toward me. I could feel her willing me to finish my sentence.

“—mahogany sideboard?”

Anne frowned. “June never mentioned a sideboard. As for her theory, I couldn’t say. She was going to tell me all about it after she got back from seeing
you
.”

I felt as if I was being accused of something, but of what I hadn’t the slightest idea. Anne had no way to know that I had ignored her cousin’s first foray into my shop.

“She must have told you something,” I said.

“Not one word. The poor woman talked less than a stump post.”

Well, she was at least right about that. June hadn’t said one word to me—on either of her two visits to my shop. Perhaps if she had I would be at work now, merrily ringing up the register, instead of sinking ever deeper into the mire of murder.

I leaned back against the puffy white sofa. I was beginning to feel a little dizzy. Perhaps there had been something sinister in the tea, something so potent that just one sip was enough to do me in. I glanced over at the potted pathos. It did seem a bit pooped.

“What is the point in telling me all this?”

“I wanted to warn you.” My goose had forsaken the rumba and had taken up the tango.

“About what?”

Anne rose from her puffy white sofa and crossed the room to a rather severe chrome-and-glass desk. The drawers were see-through, but even then she fished around in the top left-hand drawer for an interminable length of time. I was beginning to think her hand had gotten stuck—either that or she had found, and was loading, a gun.

I breathed a sigh of relief when she turned around with nothing more than a piece of paper in her hand. “This came in Saturday’s mail,” she said.

I stared at the paper. Even from where I sat, and without my bifocals, I could tell that the paper had come from my shop. My logo—a lion in a den full of period furniture—takes up almost a third of the page. It is impractical as stationery, but cute, and my customers love it.

“Was the first note written on my stationery as well?”

“No, it was on plain paper. With cutout newspaper letters pasted on it. But it was very neatly done. It almost looked typed.”

“Neatness is not my style,” I said quickly.

“I didn’t think so.”

I ignored her insult. “Is this another demand?”

“No. This one has just one word on it.”

“Oh?”

“Does the word
Ming
mean anything to you?”

The tango had proved too tame for my goose, who was now doing a rousing flamenco. I shouldn’t have been surprised by Anne’s question, however. She was not on the board because of her knowledge of collectibles. And Ming is not a household word. What did I know, for instance, about tweeters and woofers, until I heard my son, Charlie, use them in a sentence? Then, rather emotionally, I demanded that he account for his vulgar language. Tweeters, my son patiently explained, was not his nickname for his stepmother. As for woofers, to his limited knowledge they were not, and probably would never be, obtrusions on Tweetie’s chest.

I tried to shrug nonchalantly. Instead I must have looked like a condemned woman shrugging off the hangman’s noose. Either that or I had a severe itch on my back that had gone unscratched for weeks.

“I don’t know. I suppose so. It could be part of a
word—like
coming
. Or it could be referring to a particular Chinese dynasty.”

“Well, it doesn’t mean anything to me. Still, I’m taking this one to the police.”

“Let me take it for you. I mean, my—well, you see, it just so happens that I’m having dinner tonight with a Charlotte criminal investigator.”

“But this is Rock Hill.”

“Where was it mailed from?” I asked calmly.

“Charlotte.”

I smiled reassuringly. “Then it would definitely be a matter for the Charlotte police.”

The old gray mare had a lot of mule in her. “Maybe. But it arrived here in Rock Hill. I’ll take it to them myself.”

“Fine, suit yourself. But I don’t see why you bothered to tell me any of this. Just because one of your so-called blackmail notes was on my notepad doesn’t prove anything.”

“
So called
?” she brayed. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“Well,” I said patiently, “for all I know you were in my shop and swiped the damn thing.”

She bristled. It was a good thing she claimed to be a horse and not a porcupine.

“Why, you little witch! I may have broken a few commandments during my career, but stealing was never one of them. You take that back!”

Perhaps it was because she was wearing red. Perhaps it was simply the stress I’d been under, but I forgot my training as a southern lady.

“I will not! And don’t you even try to implicate me as your blackmailer, or everyone in York County will know that you used to make your living working as a hoofer.”

“You mean
hooker
.” She laughed mockingly.

I jumped down from the puffy white sofa. “Whatever! But don’t think I’m kidding, because I’m not.
My mama knows everyone who is
anyone
in Rock Hill. In five minutes flat we could have you tarred, feathered, and headed south to Chester.”

Anne remained seated. “But no one will believe you,” she said calmly. “Anne Holliday, the mistress with the heart of gold, is a Rock Hill institution now. Did you know I joined the First Baptist Church? I sing in the choir, just like your mama.”

“My mama is not a piece of white trash,” I hissed.

I was shown the door.

Of course I headed straight over to Mama’s. If Anne Holliday, the mistress of disguise, did point the finger at me, I needed Mama in my corner. Mama
does
know everyone in Rock Hill, but she would need a head start rounding up the tar-and-feathering team. There might well be some serious convincing to do first. After all Anne Holliday had indeed managed to fool
all
the people,
all
of the time.

She certainly had Mama fooled. “Give it a rest, Abby,” she said for the third time. “I’ve known Anne Holliday for twenty years. I was one of the few people who spoke to her when she came into town to shop at the Commons. I ran into her at the Harris Teeter almost every week. She was always very polite. And I play bridge with her every week, for heaven’s sake.

“No, Anne Holliday might be a bit fond of the sauce, but she’s no stripper from Atlanta.”

“Prostitute,” I said.

Mama flinched at the “p” word. “Well, she’s certainly not that. She sings in the Methodist choir, you know.”

“I thought it was Baptist.”

“Well, it’s one of those churches on Oakland Avenue, and it’s not the Episcopal church. Not that we couldn’t use another soprano.”

“That’s only her fake voice. She probably sings bass.”

Mama instinctively put her hand up to my forehead, and finding it normal, felt my cheeks and then my neck.

“Well, you don’t feel feverish,” she concluded, “but to be on the safe side, you should go to bed. It’s a good thing Greg canceled your date, because you can stay here and I’ll—”

“Greg
what
?”

“He called about an hour ago and left a message. Apparently there’s been a new development in one of his cases, and he had to fly down to Tallahassee at the last minute. He asked if he could reschedule dinner for Thursday.”

“Mama! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Mama’s hand flew defensively up to her pearls. “Because you didn’t give me a chance, that’s why. You were too busy attacking one of my friends.”

“I was not attacking her. I was merely repeating what she told me.”

Mama clucked sympathetically and shook her head. “You poor dear. Maybe it’s something you had for lunch. But don’t you worry, Abby, I’ll fix you right up. I have some castor oil in the medicine cabinet and—”

I wandered off to use the phone.

C
alling on Shirley Hall was not just a whim. I’d been meaning to, anyway—maybe to ask her out to lunch—as part of a new plan that I had to make more friends. Although I lived and worked within thirty miles of my hometown, I seemed to be suffering from a dearth of friends now that I was only
half
of a couple.

Oh sure, Wynnell and the Rob-Bobs were great friends, and even C.J. was a friend, if the truth be known, but a body needs more than four friends. Especially these days.

Ask Mama. Her best friend of fifty-five years, Karen Leis, moved all the way to Alaska to be with her daughter and her family—a pitiful excuse in Mama’s eyes. Then when Rebecca Thompson had a fatal stroke, and Caroline Crawford died of cancer, Mama was left virtually friendless.

“You’ve still got your bridge club,” I told Mama regularly.

“It’s not the same. We play bridge, but we don’t share. It’s all fluff conversation between hands. Real friendships take time.”

“And effort,” I said.

“Exactly. Making new friends is like dating. You reveal just bits and pieces of yourself at a time, and hope the other person doesn’t run off screaming.”

I had to wonder what Mama’s dating years were like. How many guys had she sent running, and was Daddy ever among them? The only time I ever sent a boy running was that time when I opened the front door to get the newspaper, forgetting that I was in the middle of a mud facial. You should have heard Larry Janz scream.

Shirley Hall, however, seemed delighted to see me. “Come on in, Ms. Timberlake! Sorry I’m not dressed for company, but I’ve been relining my kitchen shelves.”

“Please, call me Abby.”

“Then you call me Shirley.”

I nodded gratefully. I never know what to call folks who have their initials along with a diploma.

“When did you move, Shirley? Isn’t this the same address that’s listed in the phone book?”

“Yes. I mean, no, I haven’t moved. I’ve lived here on College Avenue for the last twenty-two years. Why?”

I couldn’t imagine relining shelves unless it was absolutely necessary, and told her so. She laughed.

“Well, when I got done cleaning my oven—”

“You cleaned your oven, too?”

“Every Monday, like clockwork,” she said cheerily.

I wasn’t about to run away screaming, but these were not bits and pieces I wanted to hear. I cleaned my oven last January, but only because I couldn’t decide if the black lump at the back was a chunk of meat loaf or something worse.

Shirley had me sit on an immaculate white sofa that was every bit as big and puffy as Anne’s. Where was I when the decorating police decreed that white sofas were in? Well, too bad, I was perfectly happy with my pumpkin orange sofas.

“Goose down,” Shirley said.

“What?”

“It’s much softer than foam rubber.” She giggled. “It feels good on my bottom.”

I shuddered at the thought of hundreds of geese having their tummies plucked just to pamper Shirley’s ample tush.

“You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to find a sofa in this style and with this fabric that has goose-down filler. I spent three days looking up in Highpoint, North Carolina, before I found this style, and then I had to special order the upholstery.”

I shuddered at the thought of having so much free time on my hands.

“Care for a glass of fungus?” Shirley asked.

“I beg your pardon?”

She laughed merrily. There was something to be said for merry friends. Wynnell could be a bit of a grouse sometimes.

“It’s called Manchurian tea,” she explained, “but it’s really just a big old fungus. Sort of a pancake-shaped mushroom.”

“You make tea out of it?”

“Heavens, no. The tea is what the mushroom grows in. You make a new batch every week, and while the new mushroom is growing, you drink the liquid from the old one. Four ounces every morning on an empty stomach. Although sometimes,” she giggled, “if I need a little mid-afternoon pick-me-up, I’ll drink a second dose.”

“Why? I mean, what does it do for you?”

She bounced up from her end of the white sofa. “Oh, it’s practically a miracle drink. It does just about everything but wash your windows.” She chuckled. “I do those myself—every other week.”

I wanted to gag.

“Look,” she said, doing a pirouette like a first-year ballerina, “don’t I look five pounds thinner?”

Than what? “Absolutely,” I said.

“You see, it speeds up your metabolism and the
weight just drops off. It also erases wrinkles, turns gray hair brown, eliminates age spots, boosts your immune system, gives you extra energy, and heightens your sex drive!”

The last thing I wanted was to look even younger
and
be horny. The boosted immune system and extra energy, however, I could go for.

“My, my,” I said politely.

“You want to try some? Only two deaths from it that I know of, and they most certainly weren’t following directions. You can tell if it’s gone bad by its taste.”

“What’s it taste like?”

“Vinegar mostly. You see, besides the tea you put in brown sugar and vinegar.”

I went for it. I tossed back a juice glass full of the brew. It wasn’t bad, perhaps a bit slimy, and with a slightly vinegary aftertaste.

“I feel better already,” I said.

She laughed again. I know it is wrong to stereotype people, but Shirley had the sort of tinkling, jolly laugh I associated with overweight women.

“Now you’re being silly. It takes a couple of months to get the full effect. Would you like to take a mushroom home with you?”

“Sure, why not?” As long as it didn’t get into a fight with Dmitri, I was all for having another pet.

She bounced off into the kitchen—a testimony to extra energy—and I followed. The mushroom, which inhabited a four-quart Corning ware bowl on her kitchen counter, resembled a shiny plastic pancake, except that it was taupe instead of golden brown.

Shirley scrubbed her hands as thoroughly as a surgeon and dried them on paper towels.

“You have to keep it in a sterile environment, otherwise it will act as a growing medium for whatever bacteria it comes in contact with. Never, ever put it
on a counter where there’s been raw chicken.”

“Yes, ma’am, I hear you loud and clear.”

“Now look here.” She fished out the pancake, which flopped about like a rubber bath mat held on end. “You see, a baby always grows on top of the old one.”

I watched her detach the so-called baby from its mother. The two were connected in numerous spots. It was like watching footage of conjoined twins being separated. Carefully she placed the detached baby into a gallon-size freezer bag and slid the mama back into her bowl.

When she was through she washed up again and handed me two sheets of paper. “This tells you all about it, and how to care for it. Follow the rules exactly, Abigail, or you might get sick.

“And here.” She handed me a plastic jug, the kind Mama buys her orange juice in. “Take this with you. There’s enough Manchurian tea in there to last you until you can harvest your own. Just remember to take it on an empty stomach.”

I promised that I would, and I meant it. The stuff hadn’t tasted that bad, but after having viewed the mushroom close up, there was no way I could keep its byproducts
and
food down.

We sat and visited for a while longer. She really was a delightful person. Her only drawback was that she disliked the South. Of course, I should be horsewhipped for having asked her the question in the first place. It was very unsouthern of me.

“I’m afraid you’re not going to like my answer,” she said.

“Nonsense. This is a free country, isn’t it?” I was expecting her to complain about the heat and humidity, possibly even the size of our bugs.

“The South is culturally dead,” she said.

“What do you mean? Winthrop brings in performing artists all the time. We have community theater
and concerts right here in Rock Hill. Even a terrific museum. And if that’s not enough, you can find anything in Charlotte—even things that are banned in Boston.”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean intellectual life—the life of the mind.”

I still didn’t get it. “There are oodles of writers living in the area. Dori Sanders, Gwen Hunter, Mignon Ballard, oh, and that frizzy-haired blonde—I forget her name—who thinks she’s a mystery writer.”

She shook her head, no longer looking jolly, but dejected. “That’s not it. I mean that people don’t engage in deep, intellectual conversations. There’s no sharing of ideas—one-on-one. I don’t feel challenged.”

“Ah, I see. Well, Shirley, in the South good manners are very important, and it is considered bad manners to contradict someone, unless something very important is at stake.

“But close friends can agree to disagree. I have many stimulating conversations with my friends.” Suddenly I wasn’t feeling quite as bereft of friendship.

Shirley sighed. “I guess I don’t have any close friends then. Not here. Back home in Yosilanti—that’s just outside Ann Arbor—I had plenty of friends. You might even say I was popular. But now look at me. Twenty-two years at Winthrop and in Rock Hill, and what do I have? Just a mushroom, for chrissakes.”

“Now that you’re retired, why are you staying?” I asked gently.

“Inertia, I guess. It’s too much trouble to move. Besides, I’ve been away too long—things will have changed. At least here I know my way around. Where to find things on the grocery shelves. Where to buy gas.”

“Well, maybe we can be friends,” I said, although I was no longer quite so sure, mushrooms and plucked geese aside.

She smiled. I could see the spark again.

“Thanks, Abigail. Maybe we could do dinner sometime. Go to a movie and discuss it afterward.”

“I’d like that.” I could always make excuses later.

“That’s why I agreed to serve on the board of the Upstate Preservation Foundation, you know. I thought I might be able to make friends with the other board members, or even some of the docents.”

“And?”

She laughed, this time nervously. “They’re all a bit strange.”

“Gloria Roach,” I said needlessly. Her bad Yankee influence was wearing off on me.

“Yeah, and the others. Take Miss Lilah—such a grande dame, but she’s penniless, you know.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Oh yes. Why do you think she puts on all those airs? Cream of the crop, indeed. If people only knew.”

“Shirley, dear, in the South breeding takes precedence over bucks any day.”

“Yes, well…” She glanced out the window and then back at me. “Not everyone is who they seem.”

“You mean Anne Holliday, don’t you?”

She didn’t bat an eyelash. “Exactly.”

“The Queen Mum act, those awful hats—who would have thought?”

“Certainly not me.”

“I can understand her position, but playing a Baptist tippler, that’s carrying it too far, isn’t it?”

“Beyond the pale,” Shirley said, wagging her head solemnly.

“At least old Mr. Rose knew what he was getting into, if you’ll pardon the pun. He saw a horse and thought he could turn it into a winner.”

“Kind of like Black Beauty,” she said, and plopped back against the plump softness of her plucked feathers.

I sucked in my breath. It had suddenly dawned on me that Shirley had no idea what I was talking about.

“How tragic for a nun to have her life turn out this way,” I said softly. “And all because the bishop died in her arms.”

“Really?” She sat bolt upright, a Pillsbury dough girl on a Pillsbury doughboy couch.

“Absolutely. He was blowing up balloons for a church picnic, and he inhaled when he should have exhaled, and well…His last word was
screeeeech
. Then he fell right into her arms.” I said it all with a straight face, thanks to C.J.

She waved her chubby arms impatiently. Apparently balloon-blowing bishops didn’t interest her.

“But a nun? You said she was a nun?”

I fixed an image of Julie Andrews in my mind. There was no need to lie about that.

“Definitely a nun. And a great singer, too.”

“The kind of nun that wears a habit?”

“Wimples instead of flowered hats.”

She giggled. “And takes a vow of chastity?”

That was a bit of a stretch, even for Julie Andrews. “Your all-around basic nun,” I hedged.

“Totally awesome,” she said. Her ex-students would be proud of her.

I stood up slowly, stretched casually, and yawned. “Well, I better be going.”

She popped to her feet with remarkable agility. “Don’t forget to take your fungus home with you. It might get a little carsick—it’s very sensitive to its surroundings—so I suggest that you sing to it. You know, lullabies, that sort of thing.”

My brother, Toy, unlike Mama, can’t carry a tune in a suitcase. He sounds worse than a long-tailed cat
on a porch full of rockers. I, however, have inherited a pretty decent set of pipes. Still, I would feel a little foolish singing to a mushroom.

“Won’t the radio do? You know, easy listening, that sort of thing? Of course, no hard rock.”

Shirley frowned. “It’s the radio waves. Sometimes they have bad reactions.”

I crooned Righteous Brothers tunes to the fungus on my way home. Halfway through “Unchained Melody” I thought I saw the freezer bag twitch. No doubt the fungus was writhing in agony. So much for my good pipes.