by Tamar Myers
I smiled. “Besides that. For instance—and I know this is going to sound preposterous—do you think she could be Amelia Shadbark’s daughter?”
“You’ve got to be kidding! Mrs. Shadbark was a tough old lady—kinda reminded me of my grandma in that way—but she was fair-minded. That society lady was always jumping to conclusions.”
“Yes, but was there talk?”
“Among?”
“Well—you and Brunhilde, for instance.”
“Abby, you’re not getting it. Bruney and I liked the old lady. We had other things to talk about.”
“Such as?”
He frowned. Clearly the young man did not understand that proper sleuthing required a goodly number of questions.
I moved on. “Did the police question you yet—I mean, in regard to Mrs. Shadbark’s death.”
“Yeah, they did their thing. Frankly, Abby, they didn’t seem half as suspicious as you.”
“I’m not suspicious of you!” I wailed. “I’m just trying to get the big picture. You’ve got to do that first, if you want to see the missing pieces.”
“This Sherlock Holmes stuff is really important to you, isn’t it?”
“It would be to you, too, if you were from off. Mrs. Shadbark was the first person south of Broad to invite me into her home. Then she dies. I don’t think the police suspect me, either, but what do you think this does to my social standing?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Man, I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Social standing!”
“That’s easy for you to say. You’re not from off.”
“From what?”
“From away, from someplace else. You mean you’ve never heard that expression?”
“Yeah, I suppose I have heard it, but it doesn’t mean anything to me. In case you haven’t noticed, Abby, I’m black. The society you’re talking about doesn’t care how long my people have been in Charleston. In that regard, I’ll always be more off than you.”
I pondered that for a moment. “But you have your own society, right? Your own pecking order.”
“Yeah, I suppose we do. Not that I give a damn—excuse my language. I make friends with people I like, not based on where they’re from, or who their ancestors were. This society stuff is just a bunch of bullshit. Again, excuse my language.”
“You young people can afford to be cavalier,” I said. But I knew he was right. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of “offers” moving into Charleston County every year. I could start my own little society. Of course a lot of the newcomers were Yankees, with hurried ways and harsh accents—I slapped my cheek.
“What’s the matter?” Percival asked. “Mosquitoes out already?”
“Something bit me, but I think I got it.” There was no need to explain that the bug was called “envy.” “Hey,” I said, forcing a brighter tone, “you ever going to show me what’s in that bag?”
“This seems like as good a time as any.” He handed me the bag carefully. “Go ahead. Take a peek.”
21
“Oh my God! Where did you get this?”
“I made it.”
“This isn’t a joking matter. This belonged to Amelia, didn’t it?”
“The hell it did.” He stood angrily. “You think I stole it?”
“No! I didn’t say that! But—but—it’s Lalique. I mean—well, where did you get it?”
Percival snatched the bag from my hands. “I didn’t steal it, that’s for damn sure.”
I stared up at him, and he stared back down at me. I knew he was lying, but what could I say? There had to be a reason he’d chosen to show me the piece, and alienating him was not going to get me the information I wanted.
“You ready to back off?” he finally asked.
“Yes.” Perhaps I mumbled. Then again, the fountain had a loud splash.
“I asked you a question, Abby.”
“I said yes!”
He remained standing, but took the piece of glass out of the bag and balanced it on the palm of his hand. “You only saw it for a second, Abby. What made you think it was Lalique?”
The work in question featured a mermaid in opalescent and blue-stained glass. She was about six inches high, but in a crouching position. Her face was partially buried in a sweeping bunch of flowers.
“I’ve seen that motif,” I said evenly. “It was one of his favorites. Besides, just looking at the quality of the glass, you can tell it’s his.”
Percival smiled slowly. “Do you think this piece is signed?”
“It should be. I know there are some exceptions, but—may I see?”
“Certainly.” Percival tilted the statuette so I could see its base, but he didn’t offer to let me hold it. I stood to get a better look.
“You didn’t!” I cried. “How could you?”
“But that’s my name.”
“I know it’s your name, damn it! How could you deface a piece of art?”
Percival’s answer was to rear back and pitch the figurine, as if it were a baseball, right at the Pineapple Fountain. Then he took off running.
“You’re crazy!” I screamed to his disappearing back.
The Pineapple Fountain has a twenty-foot diameter catchment basin and, mercifully, the mermaid landed in it. She made quite a splash in fact, only not quite as big as the one I made. The basin consists of a series of circular steps, and the statue came to rest in the deepest level, under the bulge of the monstrous fruit. I slipped while climbing down to retrieve it and, I’m ashamed to say, went totally under.
I came up sputtering and spitting—the city keeps its fountains clean, but not potable—and mad as a wet hatter. Perhaps I even swore a little bit before searching for the statuette. But find her I did, and to my great relief, she was still in one piece. I hugged her gratefully to my chest.
It was wonderfully cool there in the water, and since I was as soaked as I was ever going to get, I saw no reason to climb out right away. On many occasions I have seen children playing in the catchment basin of this and the park’s other fountain, and no one seems to mind. So who was going to object if a very small adult sat quietly in the water on a scorcher of a summer day?
“Abby, is that you?”
I slid back under the water until just my head protruded. Although it was as slippery as a politician’s tongue, I managed to hang on to the mermaid.
“Abby, that is you!” Rob Goldburg was standing not three feet away from the fountain’s base. He had one long arm draped around the shoulders of a stunningly beautiful woman.
“No it’s not.” I took a deep breath and plunged beneath the surface. I’m quite good at holding my breath, you know. Buford, my ex-husband, and I courted at a water park up in Fort Mill, South Carolina. I couldn’t swim very well at the time, but was too embarrassed to admit it. I let Buford take me out to the deep end of the pool on numerous occasions. Buford, who was so full of himself he should have been twins, didn’t seem to notice that every now and then I’d sink below the surface. You can bet I learned to hold my breath quickly. In fact, I learned the lesson so well that I have—at times when I needed a change—contemplated moving to Japan and becoming a pearl diver.
But even a loggerhead turtle needs to come up for air sometime. When I came up, sputtering and spitting again, Rob and the beautiful stranger were still there.
“Having fun?” Rob asked.
I pushed streaming tresses out of my eyes with one hand, while grasping the Lalique with the other. It is hard to glare through chlorinated fountain water.
“I’m having a ball,” I said. “You two want to join me?”
The handsome man laughed. “No thanks. These are eighty-dollar slacks.”
“How about you?” I said to the woman. “Your slacks obviously cost a whole lot less.”
“Abby!” Rob reprimanded me.
I stood. “Don’t use that tone on me, Roberto. It’s one thing to cheat on Bob, but to cheat on him with a woman! How could you?”
That sent
Rob and his bimbo into paroxysms of laughter. They laughed so hard they staggered, and the bimbo came dangerously close to joining me in the drink after all.
“What is so damn funny,” I demanded.
Rob clutched his well-toned chest. “Abby, do you think I’m straight all of a sudden?”
I shrugged. “A picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it?
“And that picture would be what? Me walking in a public park with my arm around a pretty lady?”
“There’s more to it than that. How about all the sneaking around you’ve being doing? Don’t think Bob hasn’t noticed.”
Rob flinched. “Bob said something?”
“Can you blame him? When I first learned that Buford had cheated on me with Tweetie, I talked to everyone with ears. Don’t you remember? You ought to—you and Bob spent that whole first night holding my hands.” I narrowed my eyes and looked at the bimbo. “The whole first night.”
“But Abby—”
“Don’t you ‘but Abby’ me!” I waded to the lip of the catchment. “The man is beside himself. He may be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.”
“He’s my brother!” the bimbo practically shouted.
It was my turn to yuk it up. “Right. Like I believe that. Rob only has one sister, and I’ve already met her. No offense, Rob, but your sister is nowhere near as pretty as this—this—”
“This is Bob’s sister, Abby.”
“Say what?” I could feel the blood draining from my face. Or was that just more fountain water?
“My name is Wendy Steuben. I’m Bob Steuben’s baby sister.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Bob’s sister won’t even speak to him because he’s gay.”
Wendy smiled. “That was the case. I led a pretty sheltered life in Toledo, Abby—may I call you that?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I had a hard time accepting that my brother was gay. Whenever he tried to talk about it, I refused to listen. Then, a couple of months ago, Rob called. At first I didn’t want to listen to Rob any more than Bob, but Rob put me in touch with a support group called PFLAG. They helped give me some perspective.”
Rob nodded. “Wendy’s still not okay with the idea of Bob and me as a couple, but she’d like to see him again. I flew her down here for a birthday surprise.”
“It’s your birthday?” I asked just to be polite. I couldn’t see how someone so pretty could have a brother who looked like Bob. Not that Bob is ugly, mind you. Thanks to a great wig and a skillful makeup job, he made an uncanny Barbra Streisand at my Halloween party—albeit one with an enormous Adam’s apple. But as himself, the man is agreeably homely.
“It’s Bob’s,” she said. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
Rob nodded again. “You got the invitation I sent, didn’t you? It said ‘regrets only.’”
“Yes, of course, but things sort of got in the way.”
Rob frowned. “How can you forget a free dinner at Magnolias?”
He had a point. If the food in heaven isn’t as good as the entrées chefs Barickman and Drake serve up, I’m sending it back. Every dish I’ve sampled is a party for the mouth, except for the Mocha Crème Brulee, which is a downright orgy.
“I think Bob’s forgotten it’s his birthday,” I said. When one has a weak defense, it sometimes works to point out the guilt in others. “If he remembered, he would have guessed that your mysterious ways were somehow related.”
Much to my relief, Rob agreed. “Bob’s in denial. It’s the big Four-O, you know. I remember when I turned forty I was so depressed I went bowling with my sister. We drank beer—straight from the bottles! Anyway, Abby, don’t forget. It starts at six o’clock, and you want to be there for the big surprise.” He gave Wendy’s shoulder a squeeze.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Great. You don’t think Greg, C.J., and your mother need reminding, do you?”
“I’m sure they don’t.” I smiled ruefully. “They haven’t been as self-absorbed as I have.”
“Abby was climbing the social ladder,” Rob said, “when one of the rungs broke.”
“It was the top rung,” I hastened to explain. “And I didn’t do it! I’m just trying to make sure no one accuses me of vandalism.”
“Perhaps we’ve taken this ladder analogy far enough. Remind the others for me, if you will—” Rob had spotted the little mermaid cradled in my arms. “What’s that?”
I held her out for him to take. “This, you’ll have to agree, is vandalism. Just look what someone has done to this perfectly lovely Lalique.”
Rob turned the piece over in hands worthy of a surgeon. He handed it back almost immediately.
“That isn’t Lalique.”
“Of course it is. It’s just that it’s been defaced by the forger’s name.”
“Look closer, Abby. Even without my reading glasses I can see that the name is not engraved in there. This signature—P. Franklin, whoever the hell he or she is—is part of the mold. Otherwise, it’s a pretty good fake.”
I reexamined the underside of the sculpture. It is amazing what one can miss while jumping to conclusions. Rob was absolutely right; Percival Franklin’s signature was not inscribed.
“Why, slap me up the side of the head and call me whopper-jawed,” I cried. “I can’t believe I missed that.”
Rob smiled. “Where did you say you got this?”
“I didn’t say. But I got it from Amelia Shadbark’s gardener.”
“Her gardener?”
“He’s an immensely talented young man. He has a stall in The Market—you may have seen it—where he sells wooden sculptures of local wildlife. Mostly porpoises and seagulls. They’re really good, but not even in the same class as a carved camellia blossom he gave me yesterday. That one is museum quality.”
“Ah, yes, I think Bob mentioned that. I tuned it out I guess.” He gave Wendy a merry wink. “No offense, but he was whining a lot.”
“No offense taken.”
Rob tugged the statuette out of my grasp. “Like I said, it’s a damn good fake. I would have been convinced of its authenticity, had it been signed by René himself. Or had I at least known its provenance. But this”—he rubbed a thumb over the telltale signature—“is incredible.”
“If you think this is incredible, you should have seen Amelia Shadbark’s collection. She had an entire room filled with this stuff.”
Rob grabbed one of my arms with his free hand. “Wait a minute. Are you saying the grande dame had a collection of forgeries?”
I remembered my prized peacock perfume bottle, which was indeed a forgery. “I didn’t actually look at the signatures—I was there for tea. And anyway, I was supposed to come back to appraise them.”
By that time the sun had dried everything but my sandals, and they were only the least bit damp. That’s more than I can say for Rob and Wendy. The latter, not being a Southern woman, had not been informed that we females of the gentler latitudes never sweat; we merely dew. There wasn’t enough dew in Dixie to account for her perspiration.
“Hey, how about we head for the shade,” Rob said, “and continue the conversation there.” Still gripping my wrist he steered me to the very bench that had been the scene of my little disagreement with Percival Franklin. The pretty girl from Toledo trotted amiably after us, dripping all the way.
“Now,” Rob said, when we were all seated, although nicely spaced out so that we didn’t touch in the heat, “do you think this gardener you mentioned really has the skill to do this?”
“The artistry, yes. But where would he learn glassmaking skills?”
Rob fondled the statuette with admiration. “Maybe you should find out.”
“Now you wait just one cotton-picking minute. You’re not suggesting Percival had anything to do with Amelia Shadbark’s death!”
He gave me a quizzical look. “Abby, I daresay you sound a little protective of this man.”
I gasped. “He’s young enough to be my son!”
> “Hey, take it easy. It was just an innocent observation.”
“Besides, he’s a very bright young man. He wouldn’t sign his name on a piece of glass and then try and pass it off as a genuine Lalique.”
“Unless,” Wendy said, “he wanted to get caught. That happens sometimes. I read mystery novels, you see.”
I resisted my temptation to glare at her. Charlestonians are known to be among the most courteous folks in the nation, and I would not be the one to sully our reputation. But mystery novels indeed! The girl had too much time on her hands if she could waste it reading fiction. I mean, what is the point, when it’s all made up? Now, a good solid text on antique restoration—that was something worth reading.
Rob sensed my exasperation. “Well, Wendy and I really have to get going. She needs to get back to the hotel—she’s staying at the Charleston Place, incidentally—and I better get back to the shop before Bob blows a gasket.”
“I understand. I’ll see you tomorrow evening.”
“Ciao, Abby.” Rob gave me a brotherly kiss on the cheek.
“Toodle-do,” Wendy from Toledo said.
They left me sitting on a park bench that was warm enough to roast a brisket. I waited until they were out of sight before hauling my brisket off the bench and getting back down to work. I wasn’t headed back to my shop, however, but to pay a second visit to the most likely suspect in Amelia Shadbark’s untimely death.
22
The traffic to Mount Pleasant was light that time of the day and I enjoyed my ride over the Silas N. Pearlman Memorial Bridge. A Chinese container ship was approaching the span, and I waved. I know, it was a silly gesture. I’m sure the crew had better things to do—like avoid the pilings—than wave at a car passing overhead, but I wanted them to feel welcome. After all, if I was from off, they were from way off. Hopefully someone would get the impression that the natives were friendly.
Not a total fool, I reappeared on Constance Rodriguez’s doorstep fully armed. I had a carrot cake from the Mount Pleasant Publix supermarket in one hand, and a cheddar loaf from the Atlanta Bread Company in the other. I rang the doorbell with my nose.