So Faux, So Good

by Tamar Myers

I gave him an encouraging smile. “With you that makes twelve. That’s exactly how many Jesus had.”

  “Jesus didn’t have a mortgage, sister.”

  It was hard to imagine that this church did either. At least not much of one. Then again, financial burdens were relative.

  “I’m sorry about what happened to your congregation, sir. But small businesses fold all the time. Surely you knew it was risky.”

  “Just because I’m a believer, doesn’t mean I’m not stupid. You didn’t see the charts and graphs. She even had blueprints of the proposed expansion. But it was all a lie, all part of a con job. There never even was a automobile company interested in Somerset. Bedford Tool and Die never planned to go through with their expansion. Word has it that Artie Teschel needed to pay off gambling debts. Although apparently our money wasn’t enough, because he went bankrupt anyway.”

  “Couldn’t you sue to get your money back?” Buford, for one, would never handle a case that small.

  Richard Nixon hung his head. “We didn’t see a need to sign anything. Sister Leona—Leona,” he corrected himself, “was a fully baptized member in good standing. Anyway, it was our word against hers.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes. He had painted a very different picture of Leona Teschel, and despite his unfortunate name, I found him easy to believe.

  “Is she really blind?” I asked at last.

  He nodded. “Legally blind. I think she has limited vision in one eye.”

  “Well, for what it’s worth, she’s had a hard row to hoe. I can’t imagine what it would be like going through life with a handicap like that. Who knows, if I had been born blind—”

  “Born blind?” He was sitting bolt upright. “Is that what she told you?”

  I recounted Leona’s biography for him. He shook his head throughout, his small mouth closing and opening in stifled protest. I was reminded of Charlie’s guppies when he forgets to change the water in their bowl. When I was through, Brother Nixon took a couple of deep, gasping breaths, not unlike the guppies do just before they go belly up.

  “Are you all right?” I stood, not knowing what to do. I was really going to have to learn CPR, either that or stop causing the men around me to hyperventilate.

  He waved me to sit again.

  “Leona Teschel was not born blind! She could see perfectly well the first time she walked through that door. The last time she walked through it too, come to think of it. No, sister, Leona Teschel brought her blindness on herself.”

  “She did it to herself?”

  “Car accident. Leona Teschel was driving drunk as a skunk the night she plowed into Sam Yoder’s car.”

  “The same Sam Yoder who owns the corner grocery?”

  “The same. Leona ran the stop sign on Hershberger Road. Sam’s daughter Rebecca was killed instantly. Leona took glass shards in both eyes and broke a rib or two. Her husband Artie wasn’t so lucky—or maybe he was, depending on how you look at it. He died before the Hernia Volunteer Rescue Squad could get him to the hospital in Bedford.”

  I was stunned. No wonder Sam Yoder detested the woman.

  “She told me her husband died of a heart attack,” I said.

  “He did. Indirectly. Apparently he had a weak heart, and if it hadn’t been for that, he would have survived the accident. There wasn’t a scratch on him.”

  “I see.”

  “Leona Teschel was convicted for vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison. She served eighteen months. Got out on good behavior. Ha!”

  I shook my head. “There is no justice.”

  “Sam Yoder sued the Teschels and won. Won big time. But he turned around and donated all that money to MADD. People said he was a saint for doing that, but he should have given some of that money to us. To the church, I mean. That’s where some of it came from, didn’t it?”

  “Perhaps he didn’t know.”

  “I told him.”

  “You didn’t have proof,” I reminded Brother Nixon.

  He stood and stretched. On tiptoes he might have been able to touch the ceiling.

  “You never did tell me why you’re interested in Leona Teschel,” he said.

  If I could have just three wishes—personal ones, mind you, not noble things like world peace and food and shelter for the homeless—they would have to be three inches added to my height, a chance to kiss Joey Anderson, my senior prom king, and the ability to lie like my children.

  Susan and Charlie can spin seamless stories at the drop of a hat. It is only through luck and the occasional flash of intuition that I am able to breach their fortresses of falsehood, and then my work has only just begun. To get down to the real truth, I have to peel them like onions. Layer upon layer of protective outer lies must give way before the facts are exposed, by which time my children have forgotten why they are in trouble, and I am too exhausted to pursue the matter further.

  I would like to have told Richard Nixon that I worked for the IRS and was investigating Leona Teschel’s tax history. It would have been gratifying to tell him that she was facing a twenty-year sentence for cheating Uncle Sam. A really clever Abigail would have concocted a story in which the Department of Commerce, working in conjunction with the Bedford County Better Business Bureau, was just minutes away from arresting Leona Teschel for fraud.

  “It has to do with her son, Billy Ray,” I said.

  He stiffened. “You a friend of Billy Ray?”

  “No. I never met him.”

  Daddy Long Legs relaxed. “I didn’t think so. You’re not from around here, are you? I can tell by your accent.”

  “I’m from the Carolinas. I never heard of Billy Ray until a couple of days ago. For some reason, however, he died with my engagement announcement in his wallet. I find that strange, to say the least.”

  “Nothing surprises me about the Teschels.”

  “Is it true Leona has another son? One named Tommy Lee?”

  His face darkened, as discernibly as if the lights in the small church had flickered, or the door had blown shut.

  “Well?”

  “You want to stay away from Tommy Lee,” he said quietly. “The good Lord help you if you don’t.”

  “I’m not afraid of a two-bit punk who is such a jerk he doesn’t attend his own brother’s interment,” I said, perhaps a bit brashly.

  Brother Nixon glanced at the door and then back to me. “Just the same, that man could give Beelzebub a run for his money.”

  “Do you know where I could find him? He isn’t listed in the phone book.”

  The narrow shoulders approximated a shrug. “If he’s dead, he’s in hell. If he’s alive, he’s on his way there.”

  “I take it then that you either don’t know where he is, or else you’re not saying?”

  Brother Nixon retrieved the roll of paper towels from the floor. With a grunt he unscrewed the cap from the bottle of Murphy’s Oil Soap and resumed polishing.

  When I set off to peel Leona’ s onion, I was already in a foul mood. It didn’t improve my mood to discover that I had Murphy Oil stains on the back of my white cotton slacks. I had to either backtrack to Bedford and change at the motel, or find some place in Hernia that sold club soda, that all-time favorite when it comes to removing stains. Since Sam Yoder’s Corner Market was the only place in Hernia likely to carry the product, and I was not yet ready to see him and offer my apologies, 1 reluctantly 1 headed towards town. Surely, I reasoned, I would find some place that sold club soda before I got all the way back to the Roach Motel.

  I stopped at every establishment that was likely to sell club soda, but for some reason, every place was sold out.

  “It’s the golfers,” a sixteen-year-old sales clerk told me. “They soak their balls in it.”

  I nodded solemnly. Buford only played tennis, but he had some pretty peculiar hygiene rituals of his own.

  Just outside Bedford, however, my luck turned, and I found a Mini-Mart that not only sold club soda, but had a special going on M
ighty Mousers’ Cream of Liver Pate, Dmitri’s favorite brand and flavor of cat food. I suppressed a squeal of delight. In my haste to pack, I had forgotten to throw in a few cans, and my fussy feline had been turning his pug nose up at the substitutions I’d been offering him. I grabbed a shopping basket and filled it with a dozen cans of cat food, a two-liter bottle of club soda, a twelve-ounce can of root beer, a loaf of bread and a jar of extra chunky peanut butter, a can of Beanie Weanies, and a bag of plastic tableware. In case you have yet to guess, the last four items were to be my lunch.

  The clerk at the Mini-Mart was the nosiest woman I’d ever met—with the possible exception of my Aunt Marilyn. She couldn’t take her eyes off me. When she took the bottle of soda from me, she asked to see my driver’s license.

  “Very funny,” I said. “Besides, the only part of me-under twenty-one is the crown on my upper right molar.”

  “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “No, ma’am.” I reached for my wallet.

  “You don’t have a sister named Adrienne, do you?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Wow,” she said.

  “What’s the quickest way back to Hernia, dear?”

  “Hernia—wow,” she shook her head. “This is really weird. Who do you know in Hernia?”

  “A couple of people,” I snapped.

  “Who?”

  I plonked the correct sum on the counter and told her to can the inquisition. Then while Watson chowed down I repaired to the ladies room and tackled the oil stains on my slacks. I may as well have been giving Lady MacBeth’s hands a good scrub. Finally I wised up and drank what remained of the club soda. In a couple of days the citizens of Bedford County were never going to see me again, or if they did, it would be in my shop as tourists. Then they would be the ones with the wrinkles and stains.

  Having come to my senses, I stood with my fanny to the sun while I placed a call on the phone outside the Mini-Mart.

  “The Finer Things Antiques,” Rob said with remarkable cheerfulness.

  “This is Abby, dear. It’s sounds like everything’s coming up roses.”

  “Bob’s decided to go to Charleston next week on a buying trip,” he whispered. “He’ll be gone three days. Just imagine, three whole days without those jealous eyes following me around accusingly.”

  “Y’all need to see a relationship counselor,” I said, somewhat sanctimoniously. Who was I to talk? Buford and I had both refused to see one; he hated the idea of paying someone by the hour just to talk, and by the time I realized we needed one, it was clear that Buford had already done the deed with titillating Tweetie.

  Rob sighed. “Now you sound like Bob. Space—that’s all I need. Maybe we’ll both get some much needed perspective.”

  “Be careful. There are a lot of cute guys in Charleston, dear. Bob might get snapped up by one of them and never come back. Then how would you feel?”

  “Uh—well, I mean, you don’t really think that something like that could happen, do you?”

  “Absolutely. Bob may be average in the looks department,” I said generously, “but face it, dear, he’s got that voice that could calm the Bosphorus Straits. Throw in his intelligence and charming wit—”

  “Bob, witty?”

  “It’s a dry, sophisticated wit. Just the kind to appeal to those cultivated Charlestonians.”

  “Hmm.”

  “And creative! Who else do you know comes up with recipes like emu enchiladas?”

  “Hopefully no one,” Rob said and laughed.

  “So, how did it go with Purvis’s sons? Skeet and Jimbo doing all right?”

  “Skeet says he’s doing fine, now that he’s got religion. Jimbo’s taking it pretty hard. I think he’s been drinking. Both boys want to sell the place. They have a couple of interested buyers already.”

  “Oh, no!”

  “Oh, yes. They want to build a miniature golf course down at Myrtle Beach.”

  “But that’s stupid. Myrtle Beach has more miniature golf courses per capita than Russia has toilets. Can’t you talk them out of it?”

  “So far no luck. Who knows, maybe whoever buys the Auction Barn will want to keep it that way. But frankly, Abby, rumor is that it will be turned into another strip mall—you know, a party supply store, a quick copy shop, and a Chinese takeout.”

  “Civilization as we know it in Charlotte has ended,” I said bitterly. “Without our Monday morning auctions, what is there to live for? I may as well stay up here in Pennsylvania.”

  “Seriously, Abby, maybe you should. At least for a week or two.”

  “What? I was just being melodramatic, for Pete’s sake.”

  “Well—and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to tell you this—that damn Major Calloway has been opening his big mouth in all the wrong places.”

  I felt a chill go up my backside. It was either a premonition, or the club soda had begun to evaporate.

  “Tell it to me straight, dear. I can take it.”

  “This morning, less than an hour ago in fact, an investigator from the Charlotte/Mecklenburg County police department stopped by. She asked questions about you.”

  “Lord have mercy,” I said, and gripped the phone box with my left hand to steady myself. “What kind of questions?”

  “You know, the usual. How long had we known you. Did we hear anything suspicious that morning.”

  “We lied through our teeth, Abby. We told her you were a saint.”

  “This isn’t funny!”

  “You’re right. Sorry. Seriously, we told her that we hadn’t heard anything, that you’re above suspicion, and that the major is a crackpot.”

  “Do you think she believed you?”

  “I don’t know. I sure hope so, because it gets even worse, I’m afraid.”

  I leaned against the phone box. “Shoot. Out with it.”

  “The major was right about one thing. Old Purvis did not die of natural causes. He was poisoned.”

  17

  “What? I didn’t do it!” I screamed. Fortunately there was no one else in the parking lot, although I could tell by the clerk’s reaction that she heard me.

  “Of course you didn’t,” Rob said calmly, “and she wasn’t accusing you, she was just asking questions. Still, it might be better for you to lay low for a while.”

  It was all so hard to take in. Why would anyone want to kill Purnell? He was a crotchety miser we all loved to hate, but we all depended on him as well. Perhaps it was connected with the William Cripps. Come to think of it, Billy Ray had an ad for silver in his wallet. Maybe he was the one who sold my silver to Purvis and then…my mind was getting ahead of my mouth.

  “Did she come right out and say that it was poison?”

  “No, not in so many words. You date an investigator, Abby. You know how cagey they can be about official business.”

  “You’re not telling me everything!” I shouted. “An investigator is not going to just drop hints about poison. Not if they’re being cagey, like you said. You heard it from someone else, didn’t you!”

  The clerk had left her post and was staring at me through the window.

  “All right, I’ll tell you, but you have to swear you won’t tell a living soul.”

  “You have my word.”

  “Say it like you really mean it.”

  “I swear on Buford’s life.”

  “I’m not kidding, Abby. This is serious. I’ve broken a confidence as it is.”

  “I gave you my solemn promise,” I said angrily.

  He sighed. “Let’s just say a friend of a friend did the autopsy. He said Purvis died from pulmonary edema.”

  “Come again?”

  “Fluid in the lungs.”

  “Apparently he ingested a chemical called dimethyl sulfate. It’s a colorless, odorless, somewhat oily liquid that is used in manufacturing dyes. Anyway, it’s extremely toxic, especially if combined with alcohol. My guess is that someone slipped it into—”

  “His Pernod!�
��

  “You got it.”

  “But he didn’t have his flask with him when he came to see me. Although I suppose he could have left it in his car.”

  “That’s the thing. Dimethyl sulfate has a delayed reaction time. Sometimes up to twelve hours.”

  “Which means I couldn’t have done it,” I crowed. “Not since he collapsed right away.”

  “Unless—”

  “Unless what?” I shrieked.

  The nosy clerk rapped on the window and in a moment of childish weakness I stuck my tongue out at her. It is hard to be a southern lady in a Yankee parking lot, drying your buns in the sun, while someone eight hundred miles away is insinuating that you are guilty of murder.

  “Unless,” Rob said, his voice suddenly testy, “you paid him a visit the night before.”

  I slammed the phone back into its cradle and strode righteously away, my head held high. Unfortunately one of my strides brought my right foot down in the middle of an oil slick, and I hit the pavement like a ninety-eight-pound sack of potatoes. I wasn’t hurt—except for my pride—but my backside now resembled a Rorschach inkblot test. My cotton slacks were the perfect blotter, and there was no point even trying to get the foul stuff off.

  “The heck with it,” I said, or something perhaps a little stronger than that. The way my luck was going there would be several more patterns to add before the day was through. Perhaps in some weird twist of fate, a New York art dealer, vacationing in Pennsylvania Dutch Country, would spot my mottled tush and offer me a million bucks for my britches. Let C. J. try and top that!

  My fantasies sustained me, so I was practically purring when I rejoined a sated Dmitri in my rented rattletrap. The cat hair that stuck to the grease and Murphy’s Oil Soap added just the right amount of texture. And believe me, the Mushroom Man’s car was none the worse for the wear.

  There was a sleek new car parked in Leona’s driveway. It was one of those trendy dark green shades billed variously as burnt emerald, unripe eggplant, singed moss, you get the picture. My initial reaction was joy that someone—perhaps from the church—had chosen to visit the helpless old woman. Then I remembered that the helpless old woman was in fact a con woman and a convicted murderess.