by Tamar Myers
I sighed deeply. It was such a disappointment to find so little to criticize. I’d been selling to the Larkins for years, and recognized the rug as one of my former wares. Still, it would have given me great satisfaction to learn that they had been secretly buying kitsch, worthy of the Kefferts, from other dealers.
“Here you are,” Regina said, interrupting my reverie. She was carrying a sterling tray, upon which she’d arranged a plate of cookies, two cloth napkins, and a pair of very tall glasses filled almost to the brim with tea. Her movements were graceful and the tea was in no danger of slopping over the edges—not until a glass found its way into my hands.
I decided to postpone my fate by starting with a chocolate chip cookie. Just for the record, they were the soft variety, and so good I had my doubts they were homemade. Even good cooks like Mama tend to overbrown the edges.
“So,” I said, willing myself not to make smacking noises, “from what I can see, your armor is not in a climate-controlled environment. Isn’t that important?”
Regina took a leisurely sip of her sweet tea. I regret to report she didn’t spill a drop.
“The house is air-conditioned in the summer and heated in the winter. That’s certainly what I would call climate-controlled.”
I reached for my tea with studied casualness. Before the glass cleared the tray I managed to spill a good tablespoon full. I mopped the silver tray with my napkin. At least the cookies were still dry.
“But you keep them in the foyer,” I said stupidly. “Isn’t the humidity a problem?”
“Heavens no. In Europe you’ll find armor in the dankest castles you can imagine. Of course you wouldn’t want to get the pieces wet, if you can help it, but it’s not like we wash them.”
“Do you ever take them outside?”
She took another sip of tea. “Oh, I get it now. You think there’s a possibility one of us wore a suit of armor to your party. Is that it?”
“I said no such thing.” If I was that transparent, just like the Invisible Man, I was going to have to pay closer attention to what I ate.
“Because that wouldn’t make any sense, would it? Donald came as Geppetto, and I came as Pinocchio. You spoke to us both, don’t you remember? Or have you forgotten that terrible scene in which you threw us all out on our ears?”
I shook my head. No doubt I’d go to my grave with that mark against me. I could see the epitaph carved on my tombstone now. “Here lies Abigail Louise Wiggins Timberlake, who threw a hissy fit, and in the process tossed Charlotte’s crème de la crème out on their collective ears.”
Oh well, at least I’d be immortalized. “Don’t do what Abigail Timberlake did,” generations of Carolina women would whisper to their daughters as they prepared for Cotillion. And if any of these young women heeded that sage advice, my death would not have been in vain.
Regina had the grace not to smile openly at my discomfort. Instead she smirked behind the rim of her tea glass, her chin protruding just below the bottom.
“Besides, Mrs. Timberlake, that wasn’t a German suit we saw at your party last night.”
I nodded. “It was Italian. Mrs. Larkin, I don’t think you or your husband dressed up in that suit, but—well, is it possible you loaned it to a friend?”
Even a Southern lady—and Regina was only a pseudo-Southern lady—can be pushed only so far. With a trembling hand she put down her glass and then stood.
“Mrs. Timberlake, you’ve said quite enough. As I’ve already told you, the German armatures in the foyer are the only two we own. But even if that were not the case, why would we, or any of our friends, wish to kill the second Mrs. Timberlake? If you ask me, you, more than anyone, had a motive.”
I’m a fairly good actress, and indignation has always been my forte. I jumped to my feet, let out a loud cry of pain, and sank back on the pale rose couch. I think my guardian angels must have been on red alert, because not a single drop more of tea spilled from my glass.
Regina smiled in relief. “Look, Mrs. Timberlake, perhaps that was unfair of me. I can understand how desperate you must be to have the killer apprehended, but you’re barking up the wrong tree. There were folks with motives there last night—besides you, I mean. However, my husband and I did not number among them.”
Boy, did that get my attention. “Who?” I cried.
She picked up a cookie and pretended to nibble, but she wasn’t fooling me. It wouldn’t have surprised me if her tea was unsweetened.
If I’d had longer arms, I might have been tempted to slap the cookie out of her hand. “Who had a motive to kill Tweetie? And please don’t say Wynnell Crawford.”
Her eyes widened. “Why on earth would I say that?”
“No reason. Whom did you mean?”
“Well,” she finally said, “there’s that Lynne Meredith.”
“The mermaid? But that wouldn’t have been possible. Even if Lynne had brought the suit of armor with her and kept it in the car, hoping to stuff Tweetie’s body in it, she couldn’t have done it. She had a tail, for crying out loud. She couldn’t even walk.”
“Ah, but Neptune could, right?”
“His name is Roderick. And I suppose he could, but—say, you didn’t see him leave the room for any length of time, did you?”
She shrugged and put the cookie down. “There were a lot of people. I suppose he could have set that Meredith woman on a chair, or couch, and excused himself for a few minutes. Or”—she leaned forward conspiratorially—“the mermaid could have hired a hit man.”
“But why? What would her motive be?”
“Mrs. Timberlake, haven’t you heard?”
I smiled smugly. “Of course, but it’s just a rumor. Roderick was Tweetie’s tennis instructor—for a little while at least—but he never slept with her.”
“Oh, but he did.”
“Says who?”
Regina’s eyes burned brightly with the joy that comes only by imparting a juicy morsel of gossip. “That Meredith woman told me herself.”
“Get out of town! Why, just today at lunch the two of them told me that was just a rumor.”
“She said that as well?”
I nodded. “But I guess I should have known better, because he was copping a feel that very moment.”
Regina frowned. She was either too highborn to know the expression, or was feigning ignorance.
“He was groping me,” I explained. “Right in front of Lynne—well, maybe not right in front, but behind the table.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Tell me about it. I stabbed him with my fork.”
“You didn’t!”
I hung my head. “Yes, I did.”
“You go, girl!”
“What?” I looked up at a brand-new Regina. Gone was the pseudo-Southern Stepford wife. In her place was a red-blooded, all-American girl. Not that we Southerners don’t have red blood as well, but you know what I mean.
“Abby—do you mind if I call you that?”
“Not if I may call you Regina.”
“Please do. Anyway, the same thing happened to me.”
“You stabbed the boy toy?”
“No, but I wish I had. We were having lunch at the club—say, you don’t belong, do you?”
I shook my head. There was no point even in asking which club. I know she didn’t mean the American Automobile Association, which, outside of my book club, the Blue Stockings, is the only nonprofessional organization to which I do belong.
“Well anyway, as I was saying, Donald and I were having lunch, when this Meredith woman with her—what did you call him?”
“Boy toy.”
“Yes! She’d been having a tennis lesson and they were still dressed in their whites. She claimed to have met me at some fund-raiser last spring. Of course I didn’t know who she was from Adam, although the young man looked vaguely familiar. I’d probably seen him out on the courts. At any rate, we didn’t even invite them to sit, but they did anyway. Can you imagine that?”
&nb
sp; “How rude,” I said sympathetically.
“Oh, but that was only the beginning. She said she liked the looks of my shrimp salad, and before I could do anything to stop her, she’d picked up my dessert fork and taken a bite.”
I gasped. Surely that was rude in all fifty states.
“Did you say anything?”
“I suggested she might like to order one of her own, and do you know what she said? She said it hadn’t tasted all that good, so she ordered chicken instead. But that didn’t stop her from taking two more bites!”
“With her used fork?”
“Yes.” Regina closed her eyes at the painful memory. “So you see, Abby, I was already distracted when I felt something rubbing against my leg under the table. At first I thought it was a cat or something, and was trying to figure out how one had gotten into the club, and then—well, it soon became very clear this wasn’t a cat.”
“What did you do?”
“I told Donald I was feeling sick—which I was by then—and we came right home.”
I wanted to ask her just exactly what it was that Roderick was rubbing against her, but although we were now on a first-name basis, we weren’t that close. In the end I decided it had to be one of his feet. Either that or my ex-husband Buford was not the poster boy for American manhood that he claimed to be.
“So when did Lynne Meredith tell you Roderick was cheating on her?”
“That very night. She called to say there was something she just had to tell me, and could she please come over. I told her we had plans for the evening, that we were going out, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She asked if she could tell her problem over the phone. I said no as politely as I could, but it was like she hadn’t even heard me. She plunged right in and told me the whole sordid tale.”
I could feel my mouth salivating in anticipation of the juicy details. “And?”
24
“Well, it seems that woman received an anonymous call from a female telling her where and when she could find the tennis instructor in bed with another woman. So that woman—”
“You mean Lynne Meredith, right?”
Regina showed her good breeding by restricting her eye rolling to a quarter of a turn. “That’s correct. Anyway, as I was about to say, that woman raced over to her lover’s house—they don’t live together, you know—and found him in flagrante delicto with Tweetie Timberlake. There were, of course, words exchanged, in which the woman recognized the voice of the second Mrs. Timberlake.”
I gasped. Why on earth would Tweetie set herself up for exposure, no pun intended? Unless—that was it! To get back at Buford! Tweetie had been sleeping her way around town to punish one of the most powerful men in Charlotte. Had I not had two children to consider when Buford stepped out on me, I might have done the same thing. I wouldn’t have slept with Ed Crawford, of course, but I might have had a good time playing with the boy toy. Might have. I’d like to think my morals exert a stronger pull than my hormones. It’s just that I know I’m not perfect.
“Did you ever met the second Mrs. Timberlake?” I asked.
Regina shook her well-coiffed head. “No, but I’d seen her picture on the society page a number of times. I knew exactly who that horrible woman was talking about. At any rate, Ms. Meredith asked what I would do if I were in her place. Can you believe that? As if I would ever cheat on my Donald.”
I murmured sympathetic noises of disbelief and outrage.
“Perhaps it was unkind of me, Abby, but at that point I just hung up the phone.”
“You did?” My heart sank. No juicy tidbits were ever garnered from a phone in its cradle.
“I certainly did. Forgive me for saying this, Abby, but I was horrified to see that woman and her boy thing show up at your party last night.”
“That’s boy toy,” I said kindly.
Regina waited for me to continue, perhaps even to apologize. Either way she was out of luck. I had people to see, and miles to drive, before I slept. But my visit to Regina had been far more productive that I’d dared hope. I’m no psychologist, but if you ask me, the two biggest motives for murder are greed and revenge. I saw both of those at play here. Roderick would have been very angry at Tweetie for potentially sabotaging the arrangement he had with Lynne Meredith, and hence the revenge aspect. As for the greed, well—Lynne was the goose that laid the golden eggs, and as such, a far more valuable bird than Tweetie.
I stood. “You’ve been very gracious, Regina. The tea and cookies were absolutely delicious.”
“I’m glad you liked them,” my impromptu hostess said somewhat stiffly. I could tell she was still miffed because I’d corrected her.
We headed for the door, just as the bell rang. Instinctively I hung back.
“Go ahead and answer it,” I urged. “I’ll wait right here. I just remembered there is something rather important I forgot to say.”
Poor Regina looked like a couch potato who’d been asked to choose between the remote and a bag of chips. She did a little two-step that got her nowhere, but when the bell rang again, the die was cast. I retreated further into the living room while she practically sprinted to the door.
“Oh,” I heard her say. “I didn’t expect you this early.”
“I would have called, but I lost your number.” This speaker was male and sounded vaguely familiar. “And,” he added, an edge of accusation to his voice, “you’re not listed.
“Well this is rather an awkward time, you see, because I have company.”
There was either a long pause, or the parties at the door were whispering. Unable to contain my curiosity, I crept in their direction. I would have tiptoed but my sprained ankle prevented that.
“Do you still want it?” he asked.
I froze.
“Yes, of course I still want it. At first I thought it was too big, that it wouldn’t fit.”
“Did you measure your space?”
“This morning. It will fit fine. But like I said I have a visitor.”
The man at the door mumbled something that I couldn’t follow, but I very clearly heard Regina say my name. Throwing caution to the wind I stepped boldly in their direction, and in so doing placed my foot in such a way that a lightning bolt of pain shot up as high as my armpit. My howl of pain was short-lived, because I hit the floor like a chicken on a June bug. For a moment I didn’t even know what had happened to me.
The next voice I remember hearing was Regina’s. “I’m sure she’ll be all right,” she was saying, as she slid an ottoman under my injured extremity. I was lying at a forty-five degree angle across one of the rose couches.
“Well, well, well,” the man said, shaking his head. He towered over me, his face in the shadow, but I recognized now the voice of Moses, AKA Allan Bills, the antique dealer from Charleston, South Carolina.
“A well is a deep hole in the ground,” I said.
“That joke wasn’t funny even in the fourth grade, Abby. Surely you can do better than that.”
I glared up at the giant. “I thought you went back to Charleston.”
“Not without transacting a little business first. Otherwise this trip would have been a total waste.”
“I don’t see how you can say that. Didn’t you have fun dumping that bowl of punch on my Berber?”
He chuckled. “That was mildly amusing, yes.”
“And I’m sure you plan to tell everyone you know in Charleston about that fiasco of a party.”
“Of course.”
I struggled to my good foot. “Then your trip was worth every penny you spent on it. You don’t need to be undercutting my business by selling to my customers up here.”
“Abby,” Regina said with surprising sharpness, “who I buy from is really not your business.”
She was right, of course. But Alan Bills had the entire low country of South Carolina at his disposal. He didn’t need to peddle his wares up in Charlotte. In fact, it just didn’t make sense. There were too many fine shops in the area. Whatever it
was he had, I was sure Regina Larkin could find locally. That didn’t stop me from being irritated.
“For your information, Mr. Smarty Pants,” I said, reverting to the fourth grade Abby, “I’m moving to Charleston, and I plan to open a shop there. How will you like it if I poach some of your customers?”
Alan Bills, who was dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved navy polo shirt, didn’t look anything like Moses by the light of day. His sneer, however, was worthy of pharaoh.
“You opening a shop in Charleston? Boy, that’s a laugh.”
“I don’t have to stand here and be insulted,” I humphed, and limped to the door.
Regina suddenly remembered her Southern manners and flew to open it. “Abby,” she said softly, laying a well-manicured hand on my shoulder, “what I said about that Meredith woman and her, uh, plaything—”
“You mean boy toy, don’t you?”
“Yes, well, you won’t repeat that, will you?”
“Don’t be silly, dear.”
That wasn’t good enough for Regina. “Abby, do you promise?”
I tried to slip past her. I am not a habitual gossip, mind you, but this tidbit might come in handy in assuaging Mama, assuming she wasn’t wild about my forsaking the house next door and moving to Charleston. Besides, you never know when a promise made in good faith will suddenly turn on you, biting you on the behind.
Regina grabbed my left arm. “Abby, promise!”
I crossed the fingers on my right hand. “Okay, I promise.”
The talons released me, and she arranged her lips into a smile that would make a Junior Leaguer proud. “Y’all come back now, hear?”
“Y’all is a plural term,” I said meanly. “You should know that by now.”
I stumbled to my car, thoroughly ashamed of myself, and not a little bit pleased.