A Deadly Dealer

by J. B. Stanley

  Finally, his concentration was rewarded. One of the scales on the back of the cobra’s neck gave way to the gentle pressure of Pierre’s finger.

  “Ah!” Pierre exclaimed exultantly, opening his eyes and peering at the scale. He pushed on it with more force. Nothing happened. “Damn you!” Pierre shouted at the stick, and flecks of spittle fell upon the cobra’s white eyes. Pierre drank a fourth glass of wine and began to pace back and forth, all the while staring at the snake’s frozen, open-mouthed hiss in defiance.

  By now, Pierre should have completed practicing the concerto he was to perform within the next hour. He should have been upstairs, dressing in his finest attire in order to create a favorable impression not only upon the two composers Franz Liszt and Frederick Chopin, but upon his own father as well.

  Pierre’s father saw him as a useless dandy who would never contribute anything positive to the family name. Duke Avide had proclaimed more than once that Pierre had only been recognized as the heir because the Duchess seemed to only be capable of producing “a litter of females.” Luckily for Pierre, his late mother, his father’s former mistress, had been able to give birth to a healthy male and Pierre was immediately taken into the Avide household and raised as a nobleman.

  Despite all that was at stake, Pierre was so consumed in triumphing over the snake that he saw neither the death of the natural light beyond the windows nor heard the chimes of the mantel clock, warning him that his time to prepare grew dangerously short. Covering the snake’s entire head with his right hand, Pierre depressed the scale on the back of its neck and recommenced poking at the scales on the underside of the stick using his left hand.

  Pierre sank into the plump cushion of his chair and closed his eyes. He called up the memory of his favorite piano sonata and focused on the silent melody in his mind as his fingers searched the reptile’s scales. He listened to the sound of his fingertip on each scale more intently than he had ever listened to a note of music. Just as he was about to concede defeat, his middle finger met with a slight give as he pressed upon a scale directly beneath the cobra’s chin.

  With his right hand still blanketing the back of the cobra’s head, Pierre deliberately pushed upon the chin scale as forcefully as he could. A stiletto shot through the snake’s head, piercing Pierre’s hand and neatly severing the nerve between his thumb and index finger. For a moment, Pierre could only stare at the blade sticking out of his flesh. But as soon as he removed his left hand from the cobra’s chin, the blade instantly retracted, leaving Pierre to watch in horror as blood bubbled out of the hole in his right hand. He began to scream for help, feverishly wrapping his bleeding hand with a lace handkerchief.

  When no one came to his aid, he stumbled outside the music room and shouted hysterically, “HELP ME! HELP ME!” A bevy of servants came running and Pierre was half-carried to his feather bed. He was given a measure of brandy and a footman dashed off to fetch the doctor. While all of this was occurring, the butler, who had a propensity for listening on the other side of closed doors, stealthily entered the music room and collected the cobra cane. He eyed the stick curiously, saw not a trace of blood upon it, then carried it to the front hall. He placed it carefully in the umbrella rack along with a half a dozen other walking sticks and returned to his duties.

  The doctor arrived in due haste and despite his best efforts, mournfully proclaimed that Pierre would never play the piano again. His right hand would henceforth be crippled as a result of the severed nerve.

  The concert for the evening was cancelled and many days later, as Pierre lay abed, Duke Avide asked the butler to fetch him the instrument of his son’s musical demise.

  When the butler scurried off to retrieve the cane from the umbrella stand in the front hall, it was gone.

  Chapter 5

  “Many American doctors have a mistaken idea that the caduceus with two snakes climbing up a wand is the proper symbol of the medical profession. Mercury (Hermes in Greek) always had two snakes on his wand or baton, but he was the god of thieves.” Francis H. Monek, Canes Through the Ages

  Detective Butler requested that Molly and Clara meet him downtown at the police station so that they might provide formal statements. Molly explained that she was in Nashville on assignment and promised to be at the station once the antique shows had closed down for the day. After collecting their room number and cell phone numbers, the detective seemed satisfied with their arrangement and then shooed them off as his brother arrived, carefully wheeling a gurney down the curved pathway.

  Molly had no desire to lay eyes upon Tom’s lifeless face again, so she pulled a hesitant Clara away from the garden area and back to the elevator bays that would take them to their room. Once inside their spacious bathroom, Molly immediately took a long, hot, luxurious shower. She used greedy amounts of the free products provided by Gilchrest & Soames and tried to process the surprising events of that morning. Once she had finished drying her hair, she felt almost human again, as though she had been washed clean of the heavy weight that had accompanied her discovery of Tom’s body.

  As her mother claimed her turn in the bathroom, Molly dialed the cell phone number belonging to her boss, Carl Swanson. Even though she had experienced some level of shock, she was still a reporter and Swanson would want to be apprised of the sudden death of one of the Heart of Dixie dealers.

  “I’m fishing!” her boss barked into the phone by way of greeting. “And you just scared away my bass, Appleby!”

  “Sorry, Carl,” Molly replied, trying to keep a smirk out of her voice. “But I wanted to let you know that Tom Barnett, the owner of the Country Doctor, passed away this morning.”

  “At the start of Heart of Dixie?” Swanson silently pondered the news; Molly could only hear him breathing on the other end of the phone. Finally, he coughed and said,

  “Poor sucker. It’s always been one of the biggest shows of the year for him. Shoot, we wouldn’t get half of his advertising dollars without the sales from that show. Guess that’s the end of his ads altogether.” He paused. “What’d he die of?”

  “I don’t know.” Molly stalled, not wanting to tell Swanson any details about the undignified state of Tom’s demise.

  “Then who told you he was dead?” Swanson growled.

  “Um, I kind of found his body this morning. It looks like he collapsed in one of the garden beds here in the hotel,” Molly said and then winced. She knew her boss would pump her for information in search of a dramatic angle to lend to her piece on Heart of Dixie.

  “In a flowerbed?” Molly heard the distinctive click of a cigarette lighter. Swanson inhaled deeply and then said,

  “We should get a full memorial piece on him in Monday’s edition. Everyone on the East Coast knew Tom, and I want to beat that rat bastard at Fine Antiques Journal to this front-page story.”

  Molly sighed. Her boss and Prescott Perry, the editor-in-chief of the other major antiques and collectibles paper, had been rivals for years. Recently, one of Prescott’s writers had scooped a major story about an art forgery ring operating out of Maryland right from under the nose of a Collector’s Weekly staff writer. That writer had been demoted to auction reports until he came up with a story big enough to capture the front page and the envy of Prescott Perry. Molly sensed that her boss believed that she might be holding the key to such a story.

  “Now, I like Tom just as well as other folks, but we might have to sling a little mud to boost our sales,” Carl began as Molly groaned softly. “You’ll have to get a hold of his ex-wife.”

  “She’s actually here, working the show for a friend,” she was forced to admit.

  “Perfect! Make sure you get some juicy quotes from her. None of this ‘I’m going to miss him,’ or ‘He was a good man’ crap.” Carl inhaled deeply. “We’re going to get those cheesy lines from every dealer who knew Tom as is.

  I want to paint a full picture of what life is like for someone who was able to survive in this miserable, ungrateful business for almost thirty
years. I’ll do the man justice, but his piece can’t all be sunshine and roses.”

  “From what I understand, he actually was a good man,” Molly retorted. “Are you smoking? I thought you quit,” she added, feeling combative.

  “Only when I’m fishin’ and my wife’s not here to see me. Now, get off my phone line and write me a front-page piece. Your show coverage piece can wait until midweek, so make Tom Barnett your top priority,” Swanson said and hung up.

  Clara opened the door leading to the balcony and stepped outside, hairbrush in hand. As she began to brush her thick hair, she gestured at their breathtaking view with her free hand. “I think we should go ahead with our weekend. I feel terrible for poor Tom, but there’s no sense moping about this hotel room. It won’t bring him back to life.” She grew quiet, absorbing the comforting white noise created by the waterfall below them. The door to the balcony next to theirs opened and a young woman stepped out, speaking in hushed tones on her cell phone. As if a spell were broken, Clara beckoned Molly to follow her back inside their room. “The way I see it is this. You’ve got an article to write and I’d still like to see what gems the dealers across the street have brought . . . if there’s anything good left. Do you feel up to proceeding with our day as planned?”

  Molly watched her mother swish mouthwash around her cheeks. “I do, but we should stop by Tom’s booth before we go.” Clara spit into the sink. “What on earth for?” she asked with abruptness.

  “I think we should tell Darlene what happened to Tom, if no one has already. She’s going to take the news pretty hard.”

  “She’ll have a complete meltdown no matter who tells her,” Clara mumbled as she applied lipstick. “I don’t see why it should be us.”

  Molly took hold of her mother’s elbow and spoke to her reflection in the mirror. “Come on, Ma. It’s the right thing to do. Besides I’ve decided to buy that physician’s cane in Tom’s booth for Mark. The one with the snake and the hidden vials. Christmas is only two months away and I’ll never find a gift like that at the mall.” Clara gave her daughter a reproving glance as she shouldered her purse and opened the door to their room.

  “That’s a lot of money to spend on a boyfriend. Now, if he were your fiancé, then I could understand. Of course, a diamond would be a fair trade for a walking stick.” Walking briskly down the hall, she jabbed the elevator button.

  “When are you going to get that boy to propose?”

  Molly rolled her eyes and pressed the elevator button herself. “It’s only our second Christmas together. Sure, I’d love to find a little square box in my stocking, but I’m not going to press Mark by issuing an ultimatum. He . . . he does things in his own time and lately he’s been really busy.” She didn’t tell her mother that Mark had been preoccupied to the point of being negligent because she didn’t want Clara to think her relationship with Mark was in jeopardy. If she didn’t voice her fears than it was easier to pretend that they didn’t exist.

  The elevator car finally arrived and the doors opened to reveal a young couple embracing. Clara seemed to forget all about the subject of marriage as she fished around in her purse for a stick of gum, her mouth set in a frown of disapproval. Relieved, Molly whispered, “Let’s focus on how we’re going to tell Darlene that her boss is dead.” Inside the show, most of the dealers were busy rearranging their booths or unpacking fresh inventory due to a high volume of sales during the preview party the evening before.

  Molly couldn’t believe the change that had occurred in the Country Doctor booth. It was as though a group of fairies had appeared during the night and magically cleared the cluttered surfaces and artfully arranged the items in eye-catching and orderly displays. Darlene was placing a planter filled with cheerful yellow mums on the rough-surface of a pine farm table as they approached. A grouping of surgical cases had been arrayed in a fan pattern and covered most of the tabletop. Molly stared at three framed antique medical prints portraying a human skeleton in a variety of limber poses propped up in a precise row behind the surgical cases. In each print, the skeleton seemed to be wearing a smug and toothy grin, which unnerved Molly.

  Transfixed, she stood motionless as her mother put a hand on Darlene’s shoulder and whispered gently to her.

  Molly expected Darlene to burst out into boisterous tears upon hearing that Tom was dead, but instead, she sank noiselessly into a nearby metal folding chair, heedless of the paperback or cellophane-wrapped muffin that were now squished beneath her bottom.

  “I knew he was too stressed!” she declared as she accepted a tissue from Molly, who was holding a stack in her hand just in case. Darlene blew her nose with a gooselike honk and then fanned herself with her right hand. “Between his ex and that Rose man and that perfectionist Geordie person, it’s no wonder Tom’s poor heart quit on him!” Tears began to flow from her eyes and roll undeterred down her round cheeks. “What will I do now?” She looked at Clara beseechingly. “How am I going to handle this?” She waved her arm around the booth. “Should I close the booth? How could I get it all packed up?” She fanned herself with more vigor. “Should I stay open and sell what I can? I think Tom would want me to,” she babbled on, becoming increasingly worked up. “But I don’t even know what prices to put on the unmarked items! Tom’s inventory book isn’t here. Maybe it’s in his room. Maybe he—”

  “We’ll help you price these things,” Clara interrupted firmly. “The inventory book would have been helpful, but I am confident that I know the fair market value of most of these items. Geordie will insist on you staying open for appearance’s sake, so we might as well get busy. Now, wipe your face, put on some lipstick, and hand me a pile of tags.

  Molly and I will have this booth ready for when the doors open at ten.”

  Darlene nodded mutely and handed Clara a box of white tags and a black ballpoint pen. She had ceased fanning, but remained in her chair, where she sniffled and dabbed repeatedly at her eyes with the mangled tissue.

  “Tom would really appreciate you being so strong right now,” Molly said, giving Darlene a fresh tissue. “With his reputation as an honest dealer and a fine gentleman, you’ll probably sell everything in this booth. Just think what a tribute that would be to Tom.”

  Darlene sucked in a giant breath, nodded, and gave Molly a weak smile. “You’re right. I owe it to that dear, dear man to do my best in his name. Thank you both for being so kind.”

  “And, it just so happens that I’m your first customer this morning.” Molly returned the smile. “I’m going to buy this physician’s cane for my boyfriend.” Molly removed the stick from the umbrella stand and placed it gingerly on the table in front of Darlene. “Why don’t you write me a receipt while I help Ma with the pricing?”

  “I know that Tom would have given you a discount, being that he and your mama were friends.” Darlene examined the $750 price on the cane’s tag, her demeanor becoming more businesslike as she spoke. “How does $595 sound? Will you be paying by check?”

  Molly scribbled out a check and then tied price tags onto pieces of furniture, several canes, a few leather-bound anatomy books, and a phrenology skull made of painted ceramic.

  “All done.” Clara looked around the booth. “Luckily, Lex had a huge medical antiques auction this summer so I knew what the current prices should be.” She turned to Darlene. “Tom usually gave a 10 percent discount to most people who asked, but you should leave that to your own discretion. And don’t worry, we’ll be back to check on you this afternoon. From the way you’ve arranged this booth, I’d say you were a natural at this profession.” Darlene sat up straighter in her chair. “Truly? Maybe I can finish this show alone. Tom would have been so pleased.” She hesitated. “You will come back to check on me though, won’t you?”

  “Absolutely.” Molly gestured at the cane she had just purchased. “As a matter of fact, I’m going to leave that here with you and come back for it after lunch. We’ll bring you a tasty snack and I’ll cover for you if you need to take a break. B
ye now!”

  “Well, that’s enough kindness for one day,” Clara announced as she and Molly left the show room and headed toward the lobby. “It might be necessary to get downright nasty since we’re not the early birds at the tailgate show.

  That means if there’s anything left worth buying, we’re going to have to fight over it.” Molly chucked her mother in the arm. “Settle down there, Sugar Ray.”

  Outside, a gray sky was reluctantly giving way to pale blue and the air felt crisp. Walking alongside the long driveway leading to the front entranceway, the Appleby women were passed by dozens of taxis, rental cars, and small tour buses crammed with groups on their way to visit the Hermitage or gawk at the homes belonging to local country music stars.

  By the time the two women had risked their lives crossing McGavock Pike, they were overheated and thirsty.

  However, as soon as they made their way inside the hotel directly across from Opryland’s entrance, they forgot all about their discomfort. Satisfied shoppers carrying every conceivable collectible from folded quilts to shaker boxes to framed samplers marched through the automatic doors wearing pleased smiles.

  “Oh no!” Clara wailed, doubling her pace. “We’re getting such a late start!” Molly knew better than to respond. She followed her mother as Clara stuck her elbows out like a flustered hen and cut a swath through the departing customers. Card tables with multicolored tablecloths filled the lobby and every conference room within the hotel. Around the perimeter of the atrium, all of the hotel rooms stood with doors thrown wide open, inviting shoppers to enter and peruse the dealer’s stock within.

  At the first open hotel room, Molly and Clara separated.

  Molly wanted to see what kind of stock was displayed within the individual rooms while Clara sought a pewter seller who set up every year within the maze of dealers renting bona fide booths inside the atrium.

  At first, Molly felt extremely self-conscious about entering the hotel rooms. In many cases, the dealers had shoved the beds against the walls and rearranged the furniture in order to display as much of their inventory as possible. Vintage textiles were spread out over the unattractive hotel bed coverlets and several pieces of old oak furniture were tagged for sale amid the nondescript nightstands, television cabinets, and polished bureaus that were in every one of the hotel’s ninety rooms. Every inch of visible surface area in this particular room-turned-booth had been covered by pieces of cut glass, china plates, platters, teacups, and rows of porcelain figurines.