Nightmare in Shining Armor

by Tamar Myers

  “Say something! Anything!”

  “Abby, I lied.”

  21

  “Oh my God, you didn’t quit, did you? You’re having an affair with Barbie!” My heart was beating so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had torn through my chest.

  “Damn it, Abby, don’t you trust me?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “When I said I lied, I meant I gave you the impression that I quit this past Friday. But the truth is, I turned in my resignation over two weeks ago. Friday was my last day. That’s why I’m not working on Tweetie’s case.”

  I took several deep breaths, willing my heart to slow to a reasonable pace. I read somewhere that the elephant and the shrew, the largest and smallest animals respectively, have the same number of heartbeats. The shrew’s heart beats extraordinarily fast and it lives only two years, whereas the elephant, with less frenetic beats, lives half a century.

  “Why did you quit, Greg?” I asked with commendable calmness.

  “You know what it is I’ve always wanted to do?”

  I took a stab at the wildest fantasy I could remember Greg ever having shared. “You want to work on a shrimp boat.”

  “Bingo.”

  “That’s it? You quit to work on a shrimp boat?” It was coming back to me now. Greg had spent his summers on the coast while growing up, and after college had served briefly in the merchant marines. I’d heard of the sea getting to people’s blood, like some mysterious, impossible-to-kill disease. Perhaps the love of my life had become infected as a youth.

  “Abby, I’m forty-seven. I know I’ve been with the Charlotte Police Department less than fifteen years, and I won’t be getting any retirement, but hell, I’d like to do what really makes me happy. I know this sounds corny, Abby, but I want to look for my joy. You understand, don’t you?”

  I did, and I didn’t. Greg had joined the department later in life than most cadets. After the merchant marines, he worked for many years as an insurance adjuster. The career changes were his choice. I, on the other hand, had become an antique dealer out of necessity. Dealing was just a hobby with me when Buford traded me in for Tweetie. An enjoyable hobby, yes, but hardly one intended as a career. If I were to “look for my joy” I wouldn’t quite know where to begin. Surely not surrounded by other folk’s castoffs.

  “This means a move to the coast,” I said, thinking aloud. “Where?”

  “You remember my cousins, Skeeter and Bo?”

  “You may have mentioned them, but I never met them.”

  “Sure you did. At the reunion I took you to last year. Anyway, Skeeter and Bo own a shrimp trawler that operates from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. That’s just outside of Charleston—”

  “I know where it is,” I said dryly. “It’s a long way from here.”

  “Abby, darling”—Greg reserved the D word for special occasions—“I was thinking you would come with me.”

  “You’re kidding? Aren’t you?”

  “No, babes. I wouldn’t be making much, but if we’re tight, we could live off my salary. But I don’t think we’d have to, because you could keep your shop up here. Irene seems to be working out, doesn’t she?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And if you really wanted to, you could sell the Den of Antiquity and open up a new shop in Charleston.”

  He made it sound so easy. First a shop here, then a shop there…an antique business might sound portable, but it’s not. A business, any business, depends on its clientele base, and this must be built from the ground up. Often very slowly. A new shop, however, wasn’t the only issue.

  “What about Mama? It’ll kill her if I move away.”

  “Sweetheart, Charleston is only three and a half hours from Charlotte. It isn’t Timbuktu. Besides, I adore your mother. Why not just take her with you?”

  Now he was being ridiculous. “Mama would rather you rip her heart out through her throat than move. I bet she’d even sell her pearls first.”

  “It doesn’t hurt to ask her.”

  I tried to wrap my mind around all the ramifications of Greg’s decision. “What if I don’t want to move to the coast?”

  He was silent for a minute. “Then I won’t go.”

  “What did you say?”

  “There’s got to be something I can do around Charlotte. Abby, I may be over the hill, but I’m still damn near the top.”

  “But happened to following your joy?” I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic.

  He didn’t pause a beat. “You’re my first joy, Abby. Shrimping would have been my second. I figure that even if I end up taking a job packing groceries at Food Lion, I’m luckier than ninety percent of the men I know.”

  That touched my heart like nothing had since the birth of my children, and both floodgates opened. Thank heavens they were silent.

  “That’s the nicest thing anyone has ever said, dear.”

  “I mean every word, Abby.”

  “Stop it,” I said, my voice breaking. I dabbed at my face with the hem of my borrowed peach-and-white skirt, leaving huge smudges of Maybelline’s Very Black mascara. And just as a word of caution, be careful dabbing when wearing crinolines. I caught a bunch of the stiff material in with the skirt and gave my left eye a good poke.

  “You’re the most important thing in the world to me, Abby.”

  “I love you, too!” I wailed.

  The truth be known, I’d always had a hankering to live near the beach. When I was ten, before Daddy died, we spent the summer on Pawley’s Island with relatives. I remember learning to dance the shag, on clean white sand, to beach music played on cousin Annie’s transistor radio. Close to shore, but too far out to reach, dolphins cavorted. Those were simple times when happiness meant rinsing all the sand out of my suit, or helping myself to the unlimited supply of Popsicles in cousin Annie’s freezer. The days were long, hot, and glittering. The nights glittered, too, with stars the size and brilliance of the Austrian crystals on the chandelier that now hangs in my home. The beach music still echoes in my brain.

  But if I were to move to the coast, it would no longer be to the beach itself. Time has redefined my tastes and needs, and I require more than Popsicles and a sandless crotch. If I were to give up the Den of Antiquity in Charlotte, and leave my friends as well, it would have to be for a historic home in downtown Charleston, in the very thick of things. The sand and Popsicles would be mine on weekends.

  “I’ll broach the idea to Mama,” I said cautiously. “I won’t consider moving unless she comes, too.”

  He sucked his breath in sharply. “You mean it? You’re really considering the move?”

  “To Charleston, yes. Somewhere south of Broad Street.”

  He sighed. “But Abby, I hear those houses are very expensive.”

  “They’d better be. At this age I don’t want to live where just anybody can afford to be.”

  “Damn it, Abby, you’ve made me the happiest man in the world.”

  “It isn’t final,” I warned. “Remember Mama. She’s got her church, her friends, her Apathia Club, this house where she lived with Daddy—it’s going to be a hard sell.”

  “You can do it, Abby.”

  His tone suggested that he might not have been content with his first joy alone. On the other hand, perhaps I was being too sensitive. I decided to cut him some slack. After all, I had some business that needing attending to, if my next home wasn’t going to be behind bars. A change of subject was in order.

  “Greg, I know you’re off the force and all, but I don’t suppose there’s any way—any way at all—that you can fix it so I can get a peek at that armor. The suit Tweetie died in.”

  “Sorry, Abby, but I really don’t think that’s feasible. Besides—and don’t go getting your knickers in a knot—do you really think you could tell if it was authentic? I mean, armor isn’t exactly your specialty.”

  “Says who?” I snapped.

  He sighed. “Hon, you can’t be expected to know everything.”
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  “Well, I know enough to look for a little round dent somewhere on the breastplate.” There was no need to share with Greg just how new that knowledge was.

  He was silent for a minute. “There was a dent. Forensics determined it was made by some sort of percussion weapon, but one that doesn’t match anything out there now. And since the bullet didn’t penetrate the armor, and there was no corresponding wound on the body, they decided to leave that hot potato alone.”

  “That hot potato,” I said dryly, “was made in the late sixteen hundreds by the manufacturer. It was his mark of assurance that armor was bulletproof.”

  “Gee, Abby, you really do know this stuff.”

  “I have my sources,” I said smugly.

  “Sorry about that comment earlier.”

  “No problemo. So, you saw the mark yourself, did you?”

  “Yeah. Hey, you don’t mind if I pass this on to Investigator Sharp, do you?”

  “Go right ahead.” Discovering that I had a brain would, no doubt, set the bossy blond’s teeth on edge.

  “Thanks. Hey, we still on for seven o’clock?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I hung up, feeling more optimistic than I had since before the party.

  After hanging up the phone my first order of business was to shed Mama’s dress in favor of the jeans and T-shirt I’d packed in the overnight bag. Crinolines and stiletto heels are not practical sleuthing attire, not unless one is on the sound stage of a Leave It to Beaver reunion. Properly attired, I headed straight for the Keffert mansion.

  The couple lives in Belmont, North Carolina, on the upper reaches of Lake Wylie. Their house is a stucco replica of the Queen Mary, and although not quite as large, is every bit as impressive. While I would never live in such a bizarre abode, I will admit that it has some interesting features. The three giant smokestacks function as fireplace chimneys, the lifeboats serve as oversize hanging flower baskets, and the hundreds of portholes let in bright Carolina sunshine. Plus the retractable gangway is an effective security measure.

  The Ship of Fools, as it was originally called, has graced the cover of Architectural Digest, Life, People, and innumerable smaller publications. The Kefferts’ neighbors, rather than abhorring this monstrosity in the middle of their upscale subdivision, are rather proud of the distinction it lends their community. “We live near the boat,” they are reportedly fond of saying. Sure, there are a few dissenters, but nobody living on the Kefferts’ street can deny that there is at least one advantage in living so close to the stucco ship: both the police and fire departments know exactly where to find them. Even pizza deliveries have improved.

  The gangway was up when I pulled into the navy-blue concrete driveway and parked in the shade of an exceptionally handsome crape myrtle tree. From previous visits I knew to press a button cleverly hidden in a stout pier piling. The resulting blast of the ship’s horn made me jump, and I winced with pain.

  I refrained from pressing the button again and waited patiently. After a few minutes Mrs. Keffert—or First Mate Keffert, as she likes to be called—appeared on the lowest deck. She had a pair of binoculars in her hands which she tried to focus on me. I could tell she was having trouble, because they bobbed around like flotsam in a turbulent sea of jetsam. Finally she gave up and hung them around her wrinkled brown neck.

  “Oh, it’s only you,” she said, as if she hadn’t recognized me from the start.

  “Good afternoon, First Mate Keffert,” I called, my voice ringing with false cheer. “Is the captain in?”

  “He’s busy.”

  “This will only take a minute. May I come up?”

  “Mrs. Timberlake, I fail to understand why I should invite you up when you couldn’t be bothered to invite us to your party.”

  “Oh, didn’t I invite you to the most fabulous Halloween party of the decade?” I shouted. “What a shame. Why everyone who was anyone was there.”

  My ploy worked. Quicker than Rapunzel could let down her hair, First Mate Keffert lowered the gangway. “Come up!” she barked.

  I hobbled up the swaying metal walk. The second my injured foot touched the deck, the elderly woman grabbed me by both arms and literally dragged me to the doorway.

  “Get inside!” she hissed.

  I gasped, but not from pain. I gasp each time I see the Kefferts’ salon. Their decorating scene isn’t nautical in the least, but a bewildering collection of curios amassed through their life’s voyage together. For instance, there was a real, but stuffed, polar bear rearing up on its hind legs, a pair of very large and thankfully very old elephant tusks, an exquisite uchikake—a Japanese wedding over-kimono (worn by a life-size mannequin)—an almost life-size olivewood cross bearing an olivewood Jesus, and thirteen mounted gnu heads. Here and there was the odd piece of furniture; a rare floor model Bavarian cuckoo clock, a nineteenth-century English fainting couch, a maroon Naugahyde armchair, an Italian rococo settee with two matching chairs, and what I can best describe as a throne. The latter was an intricately carved chair, probably Chinese rosewood, that had been gilded to within an inch of its life. And folks think we native Southerners are the eccentric ones.

  “May I speak to the captain?” I asked.

  “He’s not here.”

  “But you said—”

  “Have a seat, Mrs. Timberlake.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” I said, and headed for the throne.

  “Not that one. Only the captain sits there.”

  I sighed and turned toward the nearest rococo chair.

  “That’s my chair,” she snapped.

  I took the hint and climbed into the maroon Naugahyde armchair. It smelled of old sweat and cigars. I ordered my stomach to ignore the stench.

  “First Mate Keffert,” I said, “I really need to speak to your husband.”

  “I told you the captain is out. You can speak to me.”

  “Well, okay, but—”

  “Not that there’s much you can say at this point to redeem yourself.”

  “Redeem myself?”

  “Mrs. Timberlake, I’m sure you have no appreciation for the amount of pain your slight has caused us, so allow me to fill you in. It’s never easy to move from one part of the country to another, but you folks here in the South have made this move a hellish experience for us.”

  “How so?” I am nothing but gracious to our immigrant populace from the North.

  “Well, for starters, you’re all a bunch of phonies.”

  22

  “I beg your pardon!”

  “Oh sure, the South is famous for its hospitality, but that’s reserved only for visitors. For people who plan to stay, it’s quite another thing.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  She was a short woman—even by my standards—with a thick neck and torso, but skinny legs. Seated as she was on the rococo chair, her feet didn’t touch the floor. When she shook her head vigorously the spindly appendages swayed back and forth like twin pendulums.

  “It’s the truth, Mrs. Timberlake. You natives—or perhaps I should say ‘y’all’—resent our presence. It’s like you’re afraid we’re taking over or something. Outwardly you’re too polite to say anything, but you show it in other ways.”

  “Like not inviting you to my party? Look—”

  “Oh, it’s not just that—although I guess that is the straw that broke the camel’s back. But take this house, every neighbor within a two-mile radius has seen the inside—taken the grand tour, so to speak—and we’ve had a number of couples over for dinner, but not a single one has invited us to visit their home.”

  “Maybe they’re intimidated.”

  “In that case they could invite us out to a restaurant, but the phone never rings.”

  “Perhaps you have a point, ma’am, but—”

  “There’s more. I joined a book club—there was an ad for it posted at the library—and has that ever been an eye-opener. Maybe half the women are from the North—the others from the South—but we northe
rn women have learned to keep our mouths shut. All the discussions revolve around the Southern woman’s point of view, the Southern cultural experience, the Southern this, the Southern that.” She took a deep breath. “Well, let me tell you, Mrs. Timberlake, in my book club back home in Connecticut, we never debated the Yankee point of view. We never even thought to consider it. We just read the damn books and discussed them.”

  Well—”

  “All this Southern talk isn’t limited to the book club, either. There isn’t a day that newspaper doesn’t have an article about some special aspect of the South. Radio and television do the same thing. It’s as if everything has to be interpreted in some sort of special Southern context. Back home we hardly used the word ‘North’ unless we were giving directions. We certainly weren’t obsessed with it.”

  “That’s because you were never an occupied nation,” I said quietly. I really didn’t intend for her to hear that, but the rich old biddy had the ears of a bat.

  “You were a separate nation for four years and that was one hundred and fifty years ago. Get over it!”

  I hopped to my feet, too angry to feel pain. “Maybe we resent you because you don’t make an effort to understand us. You equate our accents with ignorance and—”

  “I’ll have you know I do no such thing.”

  “Well, you certainly interrupt a lot, which is not a Southern trait.”

  Her face colored. “Point taken. But I’ve done everything else humanly possibly to fit in. I serve grits for breakfast, we eat hoppin’ john at New Year’s, and I’ve even learned to eat okra.”

  I felt sorry for the woman. She seemed every bit as sincere as Mama’s priest does on pledge Sunday.

  “It’s not purely a food thing, First Mate Keffert. It’s well—okay, if you really want to know, I’ll tell you.”

  She nodded vigorously, her legs rising and falling like ripples in the wake of a speedboat.

  “It’s all about manners,” I said, and not without a good deal of guilt. The way I’d been acting lately, I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up one morning in King Arthur’s Court. “It’s about saying yes ma’am, and no sir. It’s about biding one’s time and waiting patiently in line at the grocery store. It’s about—”