by Tamar Myers
I shrugged and smiled. “Mr. Shadbark, I’m really sorry about your mother’s passing. I hope you don’t think I had anything to do with it.”
“Did you?” The bloodshot eyes regarded me calmly over the Bloody Mary.
“Of course not!”
“Then I don’t blame you. Constance now—wait, didn’t you just say you were her friend?”
“I fibbed. I just met her today.”
“Oh, well, in that case”—he took a sip—“the woman is a bitch.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It was bad enough she broke Mama’s heart like that, running off with a pencil sharpener salesman, but—”
“Erasers.”
“What?”
“Her husband sold pencil erasers.”
“It doesn’t matter what he sold,” he said, his voice as cold as Mary Beth’s gin. “The point is, it broke Mama’s heart.” He paused for a vitamin fix. “When I think of all the pain Constance caused, and her not even being Mama’s daughter—”
“What?”
Orman smirked over the rim of his glass. “Oh, you didn’t know that little detail, did you?”
I wanted to wipe that look off his face with his bow tie—after I throttled him with it. “Suppose you tell me about it,” I managed to say calmly.
He took a swig of vitamins. “Daddy committed an indiscretion shortly after he and Mama were married.”
“You mean he had an affair?”
“I suppose you could call it that, but it was only with the maid. Anyway, the girl didn’t have any family—which wouldn’t have been such a big deal, I suppose, except that she went and died on him.” He laughed. “Well, not on him, exactly—not literally, but during childbirth. You know what I mean.”
I got the picture all right. The Shadbarks didn’t consider sleeping with the servants a sin, or even just plain unethical. It could, apparently, create inconvenient consequences.
“Let me guess,” I said. It was a good thing the Orman’s carpet was already ruined, because the sarcasm dripping from my voice would have done the job. “Your parents did the honorable thing and took the baby in, and that baby just happened to be Constance.”
Orman chugged the rest of his health drink. “Well, it wasn’t that simple, of course. They had to go through certain legal formalities. In fact, it could have been really tough, if Daddy hadn’t known the right people. And I must say, it was really generous of Mama to go along with it all. I know it couldn’t have been easy for her, having Constance always there as a reminder.”
“Did no one in your parents’ social milieu find it strange that they adopted the maid’s baby?”
“If they did, they kept it to themselves. I’m sure you’ll find Charleston a very civilized place, Ms. Timberlake.”
I already did. Believe me, I didn’t, for a minute, think the majority of the inhabitants, even the blue-blooded elite, were necessarily anything like the Shadbarks. Or their nosy neighbor, Evangeline LaPointe, for that matter. I’m old enough to know that no one group of people has the market cornered on vice, or virtue, for that matter.
“You know,” I said, finding it hard to believe myself, “that Constance doesn’t even know the circumstances of her birth. She thinks your mother turned away from her because she was a girl, and not the male heir your father desired.”
The sneer was becoming a familiar landmark on Orman’s pickled face. “Of course Constance knows.”
“But she said—”
“Constance lied to you. She hated the fact her biological mother was the maid. She took those feelings out on Mama. Me, too. She used to pinch me when no one was looking. Until I got big enough to fight back, I looked like a purple-and-white checkerboard.”
This new version of the Shadbark family’s dysfunction sounded plausible, but that didn’t mean I believed it. Constance had come across just as sincere. One thing both stories had in common, though, was that there had been animosity between mother and daughter.
“I’m sure the police have informed you, sir, that your mother was poisoned.”
He waved the empty glass, sending dregs of tomato juice into the air. “A horrible way to die.”
“Do you think your sister is capable of such a thing?”
“Constance?”
“Do you have another?” I asked with remarkable patience.
“Of course not.” The red eyes turned into glowing slits, affirming for me that Constance and Orman shared at least some genetic material. “I hate to say this,” he continued, “but the answer is yes. You see, I don’t think the woman has a conscience.”
“That’s a pretty strong statement.”
He licked a pinky and dabbed at the lapel of the seersucker suit, where a speck of tomato had landed. “But it’s true. Did you ever watch the Addams Family on TV?”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t have a conscience,” I said quickly.
He actually smiled. “But then you’re familiar with the character Wednesday, the one who cut the heads off her dolls.”
“Constance did that?”
“She cut heads off my G.I. Joe action figures, too.”
I shuddered. If what he said was true, Constance had been one troubled little girl. Still, it was a long way from decapitating Barbie to poisoning one’s mother. Well, at least for most folks.
“Mr. Shadbark, you mentioned something before about telling Constance she had to wait for her money until the end of the month. What was that about?”
He looked longingly at the empty glass. “Ah, that. You see, my daddy left us each a small trust fund, something to see us through hard times, should they ever come. He didn’t want us sponging off of Mama. Anyway, Constance turned hers all over to that con man with the pencil sharpeners. Even though the two of us have never gotten along—well, I can’t let her starve now, can I? She’s still my sister.”
I didn’t know what to think. It couldn’t have been very much of a trust fund. Even if he did give some of his money to Constance—I glanced around me again. Buford and I lived almost that well right out of college. (However, when Buford started law school, we gave up our cute ground-floor apartment and rented a third-floor walkup, where we shared a bathroom with a one-legged man who peed in the sink.)
“Are you retired, Mr. Shadbark?” It was meant to be a loaded question.
He recoiled. “I have a nervous condition, if you must know.”
“What was your profession?”
“I am—well, I was—a gentleman of means. I guess you could say I was a philanthropist.”
“I see. Well, I was inside your mother’s house only once, but I daresay she appeared to have a lot of extra room. And seeing as how she was up in her years—”
He didn’t touch me, but he used his breath to chase me to the door. “I wouldn’t dream of sponging off my mama, Ms. Timberlake.”
I felt behind me for the knob. “Well, it’s been a pleasure talking to you, Mr. Shadbark. You’ve been very helpful.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” My fingers found the knob. Seconds later my lungs were blessed with fresh air.
Orman followed me out to the concrete slab that served as a porch. “I didn’t kill Mama, if that’s what you think!”
I turned heel and scurried to the safety of my car.
C.J. was pacing back and forth across my driveway when I returned home. When she saw me approaching she waved her gangly arms in an exaggerated motion, as if to divert a herd of bulls. Since one of her dreams is to run in front of belligerent bovines in Pamplona, I thought for a second she might be practicing some sort of emergency procedure. When I stopped in the street to watch, however, she waved even harder. I stared dumbfounded as she ran right up to my driver’s side window.
“Go, Abby, go!” she shouted.
I lowered the glass. “C.J., what on earth is going on?”
C.J. stuck her horse-size head in the car. I would have given her a sugar lump if one had been
handy.
“Just go, Abby!” she practically shouted in my ear. “I’ll meet you at Waterfront Park in twenty minutes with everything you need.”
“What?”
“You know, things like food, water, and your jammies. Although, personally, Abby, I don’t wear pajamas. Granny Ledbetter says it’s healthier to sleep in the clothes we were born in, which, of course, is nothing, unless you’re Cousin Alvin. You see, his mama had this bad habit of sucking on blankets, sort of like Siamese cats sometimes do. Anyway, she must have swallowed a lot of lint, because Cousin Alvin was born wearing a little pink onesie. Of course it didn’t have any snaps, because Auntie Agnes hadn’t bothered to swallow any of those.”
I groaned. “What I meant, C.J., is why am I in such a hurry to get to Waterfront Park? What’s happening there?”
“Hopefully nothing, Abby. That’s why it will be a good place for us to rendezvous. Ooh, I just remembered, do you have a passport? If you don’t, you can borrow mine, but you’ll have to explain to customs officials that the picture was taken when you were having a good hair day.”
“C. J!” I screamed loud enough to scare a bull away, “what are we rendezvousing for? And why on earth do I need a passport?”
She backed from the car, looking as baffled as the bull would have been had I asked it the same question. “Abby, you mean you don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Abby, you’re wanted for murder!”
14
“Don’t be ridiculous, C. J.! Sergeant Scrubb knows I didn’t kill Amelia Shadbark.”
The big gal nodded vigorously. “That may be so, Abby, but what about Miss Point?”
“Miss who?”
“Point. I think that’s what he said. Anyway, her first name is the same as the title of that Longfellow poem.”
“Evangeline?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. I had to memorize that in the sixth grade—”
“Get in!” I ordered.
C.J. clambered around to the passenger side, while I fumbled with the power door lock. I’m not saying I was nervous, but I gave all four windows a good workout before I found the right switch.
The second she was belted—I always insist on that—I tore out of there like a greyhound from a cat show. When I got to the next block I made a hard right turn and then slowed down to conversational speed.
“Evangeline LaPointe is dead?”
“Ooh, Abby, you really didn’t know?”
“Of course not!” I pulled over and parked in the scant shade of a towering palmetto. “When did this happen? Where?”
“Sometime last night. The cleaning girl found her dead this morning. Ooh, Abby, I was so afraid for you.”
I had no trouble composing a stern face. “Shame on you, C.J.! To think I would actually kill someone.”
“But if you had, Abby, I was prepared to help you get away. You’re my best friend, you know.”
I was touched. “That’s very loyal, dear, but helping a murder suspect escape is not only against the law, it’s immoral.”
“Maybe you had your reasons.”
“C.J., you’re a good friend, I appreciate that. But I’m disappointed that you think I’m capable of murder.”
She hung her massive head. “Sorry Abby. I keep forgetting that you’re not a Ledbetter.”
“Y’all do a peck of murdering?” I asked in my best Shelby accent.
She seemed genuinely surprised at the question, which was meant entirely in jest, by the way. “Abby, don’t tell me you’ve never heard of the Ledbetters and the McCoys!”
“That’s the Hatfields and the McCoys, dear. And that was up in Kentucky and West Virginia.”
“Oh no, Abby, that was in Shelby—”
I gave her a meaningful look, one I’d used many times on my own two kids when they were teenagers. C.J. was not my child, of course, and she was a grown woman, but she got the point.
“Still,” she said, “I want you to know I would have visited you in prison.”
“I suppose you would have baked me a cake with a file in it.”
“Don’t be silly, Abby, I’ve learned my lesson. I baked one of those for Cousin Alvin, and it only got him into a whole lot more trouble.”
“Let me guess. The guards found the file when they put the cake through the metal detector.”
Her head sunk until her chin was resting against her chest. “Naw, it wasn’t that kind of file, Abby. It wasn’t metal.”
“Then what kind was it?”
“It was his IRS file. They audited him the next year, and he didn’t have a thing to show them.”
I sighed. I’d wasted far too much time humoring my friend.
“C.J., let’s get back to Evangeline LaPointe. How did you hear she was murdered?”
“Sergeant Clean. He’s here right now—I mean at your house. Didn’t you see his car?”
“Who’s at my house?”
“You know, the same detective that was there yesterday with Sergeant Bright. Sergeant Bright, by the way, is the cute one. Sergeant Clean looks like Matt Damon.”
“You must mean Sergeant Scrubb! And it’s Ben Affleck he resembles.”
“I don’t think so, Abby. Cousin Alvin looks like—”
I waved a hand impatiently. “He’s there now?”
She nodded miserably. “Ooh, Abby, I think he’s waiting to arrest you.”
I made a U-turn, nearly clipping the palmetto trunk. It was time to face the music.
“There she is!” Mama sang out when I walked through my front door. “My firstborn, the boon of my old age. My Abby has never done anything but bring joy to those around her. Why, when she was only four years old she donated her entire allowance—all fifty cents—to the Salvation Army pot outside Woolworth’s. When she was seven—”
“Mozella,” Greg said gently, “she’s not on trial here.”
I stared at the tableau in front of me. Mama was seated in one of the yellow and blue William and Mary wing armchairs, Greg was standing in front of the other, and the good-looking Sergeant Scrubb was standing by a silk-covered settee that is said to have pampered the bottom of none other than Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America.
It was the sight of Greg that unnerved me the most. If he’d been summoned back to port on his shrimp trawler, then I was indeed in serious trouble. For a split second I regretted not having fled with C.J. One is forever hearing of innocent people ending up behind bars. This is a tragic thing to happen to anyone, but would be even worse for me than for most folks, because a woman my height simply does not look good in horizontal stripes.
“I’m innocent,” I wailed.
Greg left his station, strode to me, and clutched me to his chest—actually, it was his stomach; yet another disadvantage of being four feet, nine inches. Since he smelled only a wee bit fishy, I concluded he hadn’t had a chance to haul his nets in even once.
“He hasn’t charged you with anything, hon.” He kissed the top of my hard little head. “He only wants to ask you a few questions.”
I pushed out of his arms so I could see his eyes. While not exactly sparkling, they were pretty much their normal sapphire-blue.
“You don’t sound angry, dear.”
That brought on a few twinkles. “I’m not always a grouch, Abby.”
“But I didn’t listen to you. I was off meddling again this morning when they called you in from the boat. I think I may be getting somewhere though because—”
Greg finished my sentence with a kiss. He has incredibly full lips for a man his age, and I adore kissing him. It’s possible that on this occasion I was so relieved to discover he wasn’t angry that I got a little carried away.
“Please,” Mama begged, “can we stop with the CPAs?”
I stopped. “That’s PDA. It stands for public display of affection. A CPA is someone you hire to do your taxes.”
Mama scowled. “I know of which I speak, Abby. Ever since your daddy died I’ve been t
aking my taxes to Stanley Mucklehouse, that CPA over on Cherry Road. And every year, when we’re done going over the forms, and I’m saying good-bye, he grabs me and kisses me.”
“He what?”
“You heard me, Abby. Last year he even tried to French kiss me.”
“Mama!” I shrieked and slapped my hands over my ears. They stayed on a full two seconds. “Why do you keep going back?”
Mama patted her pearls. “I’m a widow woman, Abby, why else do you think? Each year I tell myself, this might be the last time I’m ever going to be kissed like that by a man. Of course I hate myself afterward, but then the following year when Stanley tries his moves—well, I find that I can’t resist. Who knows when I’m going to get another chance.”
“But he only kisses you, right?” My head was bobbing up and down with the rapidity of a jackhammer. I was willing her to agree with me.
Mama looked genuinely shocked. Her hands hovered above the pearls in mid-pat.
“Why, Abigail Louise Wiggins Timberlake Washburn! Shame on you! Don’t you listen to a word I say? I said Stanley tried to put his tongue in my mouth. Of course I didn’t let him. That would have been going too far. That would have been dishonoring your daddy’s memory.”
“How did you stop him?”
Mama smiled. “Let’s just say Stanley Mucklehouse speaks with a lisp now.”
“Oh, Mama,” I moaned. And to think I tried to discourage her that time she ran off to Dayton, Ohio, to become a nun. Thank heavens they caught her wearing curlers under her wimple and singing on the stairs.
Inspector Scrubb coughed, presumably to get our attention.
“Abby,” Greg said, “Sergeant Scrubb would like to speak with you alone.” Greg nodded at Mama and C.J., indicating that it was time for them all to leave.
It was a wasted gesture. Mama had suddenly found her pearls even more fascinating than ever, and C.J. had picked up Dmitri and was nuzzling him, and cooing as if my ten-pound feline was a human baby.
“Let’s go,” Greg said with surprising authority. He headed to the door and held it open.
The two recalcitrant women inched from the room. C.J. cast me a pitying look, but Mama mostly looked miffed. Frankly, I was glad to see them go.