Monet Talks
Page 22
“Not even close. She was bound with duct tape and stashed in the bell tower of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church.”
“Sorry sis, but I like my scenario better. It’s more realistic. Can’t you just see Mama trying to organize a game of bingo—”
“Toy, I’m not kidding.”
“Yeah, right. Who put you up to this? C.J.?”
“Shut up, Toy—please. I really did find Mama in the bell tower. She’s dehydrated, and her ears hurt, but the doctor says she’s doing pretty good for a woman in her late sixties—considering.”
“Jeez, Abby, you’re for real?”
“As real as your engagement to C.J.”
“Shoot. Give me a second while I sit down.”
I counted to thirty by tens. “It’s a long story, Toy, that involves a gilded birdcage and a mynah named Monet—”
“C.J. told me about that. Said the bird was a hoot, and that his cage was awesome.”
I rolled my eyes. Was the world really ready for an Episcopal priest who said “awesome”? Just a few months ago Toy had been parking cars for stars in California. Maybe this seminary phase was just that: a phase that would pass, leaving us the irresponsible Toy we all knew, and some of us loved. That Toy was easy to compete with—it wasn’t even a contest. But Lord knows, if he really was getting his act together, I was going to have to pedal hard just to keep up.
“Speaking of your fiancée,” I said, “here she comes now. I’m going to put her on the phone and let her tell you the rest.”
“Thanks, Abby. And sis?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I love you.”
“Uh—me too. What brought that on?”
“I’ve been kind of a jerk my whole life, Abby. I want things to be different from now on.”
I crossed my fingers. Yeah, me too.”
Mama reigned majestically from her hospital bed. Yes, she was traumatized by her experiences in the bell tower, but that didn’t stop her from milking those who loved her for all the sympathy she could get. As her strength and confidence returned, she turned her milking skills on the public. The woman was brilliant at PR.
The three major networks did live remotes from her hospital room, which Mama had us record and play back to her ad nauseum. She was a natural-born performer, with impeccable timing. She flirted with Charley Gibson, complimented Al Roker on his weight loss, and told Julie Chen she wished she had a daughter just like her. Mama’s only gaffe was to tell Katie Couric that she really preferred to be interviewed by Matt Lauer, who happened to be on vacation that week.
In addition to the electronic media, Mama gave interviews to dozens of journalists, including a few of the less scrupulous. It was her own fault, therefore, when headlines on a supermarket rag read: SIXTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD GRANDMOTHER HAS MICHAEL JACKSON’S BABY.” Mama was incensed and demanded a rebuttal. “I’m only sixty-eight,” she said angrily on Larry King Live.
Even when not embellishing the truth, details of her captivity made for fascinating copy. Martin Gibble, it would appear, had been petrified by my half-pint parent. Her wish was his command—except, of course, her wish to go free. Martin had come every evening to feed her and let her use the comfort room. For the latter, the nasty napper had to carry Mama down and up the zillion steps. And on two occasions she sent him back to a restaurant to get new meals, complaining that the ones he’d brought were too cold. During the day, she slept on a goose down comforter, folded to make a bed, or watched a battery-powered television, which she listened to through headphones.
Just because Martin jumped when Mama told him to didn’t make him a good guy. He’d wanted, of course, to frighten me with the parcels containing her crinoline and pearls, respectively, but Mama had refused to part with them—even when staring down the barrel of his gun. Martin had to settle for a secondhand crinoline from Granny’s Goodies on King Street and “pearls” from a discount department store.
Monet was almost as difficult to deal with as Mama. He talked up a storm, but said nothing revelatory about a stolen painting. Then Martin, who was convinced I knew something about the theft—thus my fierce bidding—tried to get Monet to talk into a tape recorder. Martin would then use the bird’s voice when he made his ransom calls. It was, at least in theory, a brilliant plan: the FBI would be stumped, unable to match the mynah’s voice to any human voice pattern. But the black bird from India would not cooperate. Instead, he got into a rut, reciting nursery rhymes he’d learned from a previous owner.
Although it was the Charleston police who rescued Monet from Martin Gibble’s house, he was put in the temporary custody of the Feds, as was the Taj Mahal. I would like to say that I stewed and fussed about Monet’s welfare, but the truth is, Mama demanded, and received, almost all of my attention. The rest of my energy went to Greg.
My darling husband had made a convincing show of remorse upon his return from McClellanville. When he wasn’t with me at the hospital, he was home burning supper or trying to master the great mysteries of vacuum cleaners and washing machines. The man certainly gets an E for effort.
I returned from the hospital one evening to find Greg entertaining a beautiful young woman with legs up to her armpits. Before I could jump to conclusions, my beloved jumped to his feet.
“Hon,” Greg said, “this is Agent Krukowski. She wants to talk to you about Monet.”
I shook the proffered hand. “I’m afraid you’ve wasted your time, Agent Krukowski. I know very little about the artist—or his work.”
“Mrs. Washburn, it’s the bird I want to talk about, not the painter.”
I was suddenly overcome by a wave of emotion. It was as if she had come to deliver bad news about a loved one.
“What happened?” I demanded.
“Relax, Mrs. Washburn, he’s fine. He came through the surgery with flying colors.”
“Surgery?”
“Yes. We gave the bird an ultrasound—to see if perhaps he’d been embedded with a chip of some sort, or surgically implanted with a key. What we found was rather startling.”
“Go on!” I wanted to yank the words out of her with a tongs.
Agent Krukowski reached into a scuffed leather briefcase and took out a small envelope, the size of a seed packet. She dumped the contents into her hand.
Greg reacted first. “Wow! Is that a diamond?”
Agent Krukowski nodded briskly. “Not just any diamond. The finest in the world.”
“A Golconda diamond from India,” I said, which startled the agent, but caused my husband to smile proudly.
“That’s right, Mrs. Washburn. Once we had the diamond, we were able to trace its provenance, due to its rarity and size. As you can see, it’s heart-shaped. This diamond is, in fact, named the Heart. In Hindi, the word heart is mun. We believe that ‘Monet’ may have been a corruption of mun. The courier on this end may well have misunderstood what he was told during the handover. At any rate, it is absolutely flawless and weighs 47.5 carats, with an insured value of five and a half million dollars.”
Greg whistled. “That’s a lot of moolah.”
“Indeed it is.”
“Wait just a cotton-picking minute,” I said. “Are you saying that this was inside Monet?”
“I am. But don’t worry, Mrs. Washburn. We’ve learned that it was placed in his gizzard by laparoscopic surgery, and that’s how we removed it. Because birds lack teeth, they normally eat small stones to help them grind their food. This is, of course, much larger than any gravel he would eat on his own, but I can assure you it caused him minimal discomfort.”
“What happens to Monet now?”
“That’s why I’m here. To put it crudely, we’re through with him. Legally he is yours, and you may have him back. I just wanted you to know that another party is interested in acquiring him, if only to nurse him back to health.”
“Another party?”
“A Mr. Bubba Johnson. He’s been following the story on
the news. Just so you know, Mrs. Washburn, we’ve checked him out, and he seems to be quite an expert on birds.”
“Tell me about it.” I clamped a hand over my mouth.
Greg was too busy planning his next question to notice. “What happens to the diamond?”
“I was waiting for someone to ask that. Its rightful owner is an Englishwoman, the widow of a former rajah, living in Agra.”
“That’s the city where the Taj Mahal is,” I said.
Agent Krukowski’s brow furrowed slightly. “You certainly are well-informed, Mrs. Washburn. As I was about to say, we will be returning both the cage and the jewel to their rightful owner.” She slipped the diamond back into the envelope, which she tucked deep into her briefcase. “Well, I think that’s all. Here’s my card. Let me know what you decide about the bird as soon as possible. By tomorrow if you can.”
We walked her to the door. It was only then that I noticed a car idling across the street. The uniformed man sitting in it was undoubtedly her security guard.
“Agent Krukowski,” I said as we shook hands again, “what is Monet’s real name?”
“Blackie.”
“Excuse me?”
She smiled for the first time. “Not very imaginative, is it?”
About the Author
TAMAR MYERS is the author of eleven previous Den of Antiquity mysteries: Larceny and Old Lace; Gilt by Association; The Ming and I; So Faux, So Good; Baroque and Desperate; and Estate of Mind; A Penny Urned; Nightmare in Shining Armor; Splendor in the Glass; Tiles and Tribulations; and Statue of Limitations. She is the author of the Magdalena Yoder series, is an avid antiques collector, and lives in the Carolinas.
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Den of Antiquity Mysteries by
Tamar Myers
MONET TALKS
STATUE OF LIMITATIONS
TILES AND TRIBULATIONS
SPLENDOR IN THE GLASS
NIGHTMARE IN SHINING ARMOR
A PENNY URNED
ESTATE OF MIND
BAROQUE AND DESPERATE
SO FAUX, SO GOOD
THE MING AND I
GILT BY ASSOCIATION
LARCENY AND OLD LACE
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
MONET TALKS. Copyright © 2005 by Tamar Myers. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © JANUARY 2007 ISBN: 9780061861789
Version 06152012
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