by Moody, Mary
He nodded his head once, flashed his on-off smile again, and said, “Thank you for bringing that to my attention, little lady.”
He turned back to Sparkles. I was dismissed.
6
When I left the police station I decided against taking the time to get Supercart from the van. I had lost an hour, missed some of the best action in the fields, and worse, I had missed coffee with Natalie. I headed toward the Patio in case she had lingered, visiting with anyone there. I needed to figure out what to do next. Coffee might help.
There are few restaurants in Brimfield during the other forty-nine weeks of the year, but when the antiquers converge, a wide variety of temporary food enterprises surface. Not too many years ago your only choice in cuisine was the toppings offered for your hot dogs. Now, ethnic, exotic, and a wide variety of deepfried foods are featured everywhere.
Attempts at serving healthful offerings are becoming popular, too, but snacks totally devoid of nutrients still do the best business. Food is served from the trucks and tents and temporary stands scattered throughout the fields. They stand alone or cluster together in twos, threes, or more. Some offer seating, and part of the Patio’s appeal is that you can sit and visit awhile. It’s a good place to gather.
At the Patio, a wagon train of food trucks circles the edge of a pebbled parking lot. Picnic tables and an assortment of other outdoor furniture fill the space within. Some of the tables sport umbrellas. The Patio is comfortable when the weather is good.
Nothing at Brimfield is comfortable when the weather is bad. Fortunately, it’s rarely bad during the selling season. Rainfalls, high winds, occasional snow flurries, and ice storms are forgotten the instant the treasure hunt resumes. Today was balmy, developing into one of those glorious spring days that fatten a poet’s portfolio.
As I got closer, the smell of food whetted my appetite and I realized that I was hungry. I had left the sandwiches with the kid in the parking lot when I was still stunned by the murder, but now my stomach was sending messages about not being fed since the coffee on the drive here at two thirty this morning.
The day was getting away from me.
When I reached the Patio, I didn’t see Natalie, and I stood at the truck with the shortest line. One couple was ahead of me, a matched set. They were of similar shape: pearoid, with low centers of gravity. Both wore black sweatpants and sweatshirts printed with pink poodles. They carried large nylon tote bags embossed with dancing pink poodles. Both wore visored caps embroidered in pink poodlery. She wore earrings from which pink poodles dangled. His ears were nude.
They gave the man in the truck a complicated order that called for deep-frying spiced chicken wings, but without the batter that was the specialty de la GMC. The wings were to be accompanied by what sounded like batter-dipped, fried sneaker sandwiches.
The man who took their order grunted and without comment began preparing it. While he worked, they discussed their safety in the wake of today’s murder. The woman was fearful. I wondered who she was and eavesdropped.
“We should leave. This place is creeping me out,” she said.
“Let’s not be hasty,” he said. “We’ve come this far, so we might as well see what’s being offered.”
“Murder is what’s being offered,” she said. “And I’m not risking my life, or my collection, with some nut running around murdering people.”
She felt that Brimfield was dangerous because of Monty’s murder. The man appeared to realize that while it had certainly proved dangerous to Monty, the murderer was unlikely to drift by in the sunlight, randomly strangling yet more victims.
Minding my own business has always been difficult for me. I had just about decided to keep my mouth shut when the woman turned around, looked at me, and said, “Aren’t you afraid to be here alone?”
I knew I should respond sensibly, but I had used up any sense I had left back at the police station. I knew she needed reassurance about her safety, but I couldn’t think of anything reasonable to say, and the most neutral response I could dredge up was a lie. “I’m sorry. I’ve been daydreaming.”
“Don’t you know there’s a murderer running around loose here?” the husband asked.
Whatever happened to “let’s not be hasty”? They both looked at me. None of this was their fault. I wondered if a diversion might be a good tactic to keep me out of trouble. Diversions don’t work on my kids anymore, but occasionally I can still sidetrack my husband with them. I asked if they were poodle collectors or pink poodle collectors. I hit pay dirt, because their concerns about danger and murder were set aside, and both responded to my non sequitur.
“We’re pink now,” she drowned him out. “We began with anything poodlish, twenty-three years ago, but we’ve had to specialize in pink because we’ve run out of space twice.”
“Did you buy a bigger home?” I asked, managing not to smirk.
“We put an addition on our first home, but when we ran out of space again, we decided it would be easier to move rather than to build another addition.”
Mrs. Poodle described the changes in their homes as their collection grew. Her husband continued speaking at the same time. I couldn’t quite hear his words, but every so often he repeated his leitmotif, “Our house is a museum.”
I smiled a lot and murmured comments like, “How true” and “um-hmmm.” I didn’t know which face to focus on; they both looked at me while they spoke.
I realized that I had opened myself up for further enlightenment in the Art of the Poodle, and I gazed around the Patio looking for an out. Within my view were a few people I knew, and one of them was heading my way.
“Lucy,” he said, his rich voice carrying from several tables away.
John Wilson could have stepped out of an ad from a gentleman’s magazine. As always. His features are plain but his grooming and attire are meticulously detailed, in the tweedy manner of the English soap operas on PBS. His look evokes an image of fine old museums, and in fact, he is a curator at the Jeffries Jade Museum. The Jeffries is a little too new and a little too small to suit him for long. Wilson moves from museum to museum.
New England is loaded with wonderfully esoteric little museums. Wilson has worked, in various capacities, at a number of them, always moving upward. These museums are generally endowed by someone with scads of money, but on occasion they’re founded by someone who is merely eccentric.
The founder of Wilson’s current museum, Conrad Jeffries, may have been both, but his extravagant bequests have culturally enriched a number of communities in New England. It’s located in a depressed mill town north of Boston, which assures that Wilson will be off to greener pastures before too long.
I was surprised to see him here. Generally, when I bumped into him these days, it was likely to be at one of the high-toned auction houses. I visit them regularly, to see what’s going under the hammer in the big time. I also like to see who’s buying. It gets harder all the time to figure out who’s really buying. Even the new rich are getting cagey. But I’m good at it.
Wilson, with a healthy budget from his trustees, didn’t have to set his refined foot into Brimfield’s bedlam. He was very likely doing the same thing here that I do at the swanky auctions: checking out the trends, watching the movers and shakers. He’s not exactly a snob, but I think Brimfield is a bit uncivilized for his tidy nature. I suspect that he may not care for the saltof-the-earth flavor of the place.
I’d sensed, over time, that he’s not able to make up his mind about my flavor, either. He often finds me invisible, but not today. Today he must have noticed my transition into dowagership.
He took my hand. His smile, practiced and professional, swept over the three of us at the stand. He leaned toward me and spoke softly.
“Natalie was looking for you,” he said. “She left just after I arrived, about fifteen minutes ago.”
“Damn.” I never should have waited for that silly cop.
Mrs. Poodle stood back and admired Wilson openly, take
n with his well-cultivated looks and the charming way he was able to dismiss her with a smile; she even nodded her approval to me.
“I missed her,” I said.
“We only spoke briefly,” he said. “She seemed unsettled, distracted.”
“Did she say why?” I asked. She was probably upset with me.
“Who knows with Natalie,” he said. “She runs hot and cold.”
“Oh?” I wondered briefly if he was one of her rejected swains, but I was saved from asking.
Mrs. Poodle, smiling hugely, tapped Wilson on the arm and advised him that he shouldn’t leave me here alone, that she had just been warning me about the murderer.
Wilson turned to her, surprised by the intrusion. He took in her full measure, and I watched him decide to bestow some of his grace on her.
“Let me assure you, my dear,” he said, “that we are all safe from the murderer.”
His declaration took the rest of us by surprise, and we sent up a dissonant chorus of “Whys?”
Wilson replied gently, his pleasure at being the bearer of glad tidings evident, that the murderer was now safe in police custody and that we could all rest easy. Oh, God, he meant Silent Billy.
Just then the man in the truck handed their order out to the Poodles. I glanced at the sandwiches. There actually could have been a sneaker under all that puffy batter.
I began to explain that Billy didn’t do it. But the Poodles, who seemed overjoyed with Wilson for bringing news of their safety, were thanking him, as if he had single-handedly captured some lunatic mass murderer who’d been chasing them. Wilson was accepting his due. I was invisible.
The Poodles scampered happily over to a table and pounced on their chow. I stood transfixed.
“Why did you do that?”
“Do what?” he asked.
“Why did you lead them to believe that the murderer was Silent Billy?”
“Good Lord, Lucy, the police caught him—they have him in custody. I’m sure they’ve found out how badly Monty treated Billy. I wanted to assure those poor souls that they were safe, that we’re all safe.”
“Billy didn’t kill Monty,” I said.
Wilson’s eyebrows rose. “What on earth makes you say that?” he said.
He walked away shaking his head when I replied, “I just know it, that’s all.”
7
Silent Billy was in big trouble if the rest of the world were as easily convinced of his guilt as those three. I turned back to the food truck and saw that several new people were now in front of me in the line. I was ready to begin squawking a loud objection when I noticed a fluttering from the side of my eye.
It was Baker Haskins waving a napkin at me. Baker was mouthing my name, too, as if calling me, but, with his mouth full of food, his calls were a pantomime. He was silently calling me and waving his napkin from several trucks away. The fact that he had caught my attention this way tapped a vein of silliness in me, and this chipped a crack in my bad humor.
Baker is fascinating. He’s the subject of much conjecture in the antiques world, and in other worlds as well. I strolled over to where he stood. He’s a tall, awkward-looking man, and he was eating a huge piece of pastry. It was shaped like a cow patty and had been liberally dusted with powdered sugar. As Baker nibbled one end of the pastry, the other end sprinkled powder over the front of his clothes. The sugar did no damage; it merely masked previous spillings. It looked like he’d been here awhile, but that was not so, and it turned out that he had missed Natalie, too.
Baker is one of the few friends that Hamp and I share, but know separately. Hamp knows him from the halls of academe, and me from our shared passion for antiques. Well, we know him together, too, but it’s a different relationship than with our other friends. Hamp has little interest in antiques, and I have little interest in intellectual pursuit, and Baker thrives on both.
For almost thirty years we’ve enjoyed his company as if he were another couple, perfectly matched to us. Somehow, when he’s been one-half of an actual couple, it hasn’t worked. We’d seen less of him both times he’d been married. But when he was single, as now, and as most of the time, we saw him often.
He wore a wide-brimmed straw planter’s hat that shaded his pale eyes and protected his huge shining head from the sun. Numerous bags hung from straps crisscrossing his chest and shoulders.
“I didn’t want to lose my place in line,” he explained with his mouth still full, “and anyway, you were in the wrong line, Lucy.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because the food over there tastes like an old sneaker, and because that’s where Wilson caught up with you.”
“So what do you prescribe, Dr. Haskins?” I asked.
He was, after all, a doctor of the PhD variety. He had, I knew, a collection of PhDs.
“I recommend the souvlaki and a chat,” he said. “Eating and talking will make you feel better, and it’ll give me a better feeling for what’s really been going on around here.” Bits of pastry flew from his mouth and sugar continued to drift into the air between us as we progressed to the front of the smoothly moving line.
Baker ordered for both of us, then popped the last bit of cow patty into his mouth. He told me that when he’d arrived at Brimfield, barely fifteen minutes before, he’d heard rumors of the murder. He’d then spoken to a police officer directing traffic. The cop told him that Billy had been taken into custody, charged with murder, and handed over to the state police.
I’d been buzzing around Town Hall for over an hour, killing precious time, learning nothing, and Baker had stood on Route 20 for a few minutes getting the official story. We carried our food over to an empty table, and I asked Baker what he meant by the Wilson crack.
“Not much,” he said. “He’s been overbearing when I’ve worked with him, but as long as he stays out of my face I can handle it.”
“You guys work together?”
“Occasionally. Museum galas, fund-raisers, that sort of thing. Temporary situations. The man has trouble letting go,” he said.
I nodded. “He had no trouble letting go of me,” I said.
“A run-in?” Baker asked.
“A misunderstanding. When we first moved here I answered a call for volunteers for the Storybook Ball. I presented myself to Wilson, told him that I’d been a board member, a fund-raiser, and a very active volunteer at the Ruby Museum. The man fell all over himself welcoming me to the fold.”
“Sounds like a good beginning.”
“Well, it turns out that Wilson mistook me for a heavy donor type of fund-raiser. When he realized that the Ruby was a tiny museum that our local historical society had put together to honor the memory of the Ruby family, and that our fund-raising consisted of bake sales, car washes, and flea markets, he dropped me with a thud.”
Baker laughed. I joined him, but in fact I had been embarrassed, and could still feel the sting of being dropped all those years ago.
“He raises funds for a number of good causes,” he said.
“Yes, and to give the devil his due, I’ve found him to be pretty knowledgeable about antiques,” I said.
“Don’t count on everything he tells you,” Baker said. “He has a need to be seen as an expert, but he’s lazy. If he’d cut out the Machiavellian behavior, and worked a little harder at actually learning something, he could be a true authority.”
When we were seated he crossed his long legs and said, “So, what gives?” I filled him in on what I knew about the murder and Billy’s trouble. He nodded and chomped and sipped until I wound down. It turned out that he was right; I did feel better eating and unloading my feelings.
“I agree with you, Lucy. The police have the wrong man. Silent Billy doesn’t have it in him to harm anyone.”
“I’m sure that sooner or later the police will realize that,” I said. “But in the meantime Billy’s in trouble.”
“Don’t be so sure the police will discover their mistake, Lucy. When they have a suspect, they’ve been
known to build a case around him.”
“They can’t—” I bit the words off. I know they can. They didn’t know Billy. If they believed he was guilty, why should they look for someone else.
“I saw Billy just yesterday,” he said. “When he delivered a candlestand to my office.”
“Something Monty picked for you?”
“I’m not sure,” he said.
We finished the last morsels of our yogurt-soaked bread at the same time and leaned back to savor the rest of the coffee.
I reached into my purse for some foil-wrapped wet napkins to wipe our fingers, and Baker reached into one of his bags for a cigarette. I held my tongue about the smoking. Baker is an adult. I had a tired old speech about the evils of smoking, but I had listened to myself once, and it stunk worse than the smoke.
“I used to ask if people minded if I smoked,” he said, “but now that the whole world has seen fit to become sanctimonious about it, I’ve quit asking. Besides, this is a roller-coaster business for many of us, Lucy, and smoking helps to even out the jolts.”
I suppressed a laugh. It’s true that we’re in a wildly bumpy business, but Baker is well cushioned from jolts. He’s richer than God. He has old money and new money and in-between money, and he has lots of it. The media records its fluctuations. Baker manages the managers who manage his money, but he finds none of it as interesting as antiques.
Baker’s true love is his Learned Informer’s Antiques Review, a trade newspaper that he founded, on a whim, when he was still in school, years ago. The LIAR, as it calls itself, chronicles the happenings in the antiques world with more excitement and wit than is usually found in the antiques trade’s press. It is a weekly newspaper, and though it is heavily subscribed to, and packed with advertising, its likely contribution to Baker’s wealth is minor compared to his other assets.
“Did he say that the candlestand was something you always coveted?” I asked. That was one of Monty’s standard marketing ploys.
“No, that’s what I expected when he called, but it’s a Shaker piece, and I’ve never collected Shaker furniture. So he must have been telling the truth. Unless he developed a new selling technique.”