by Tamar Myers
For a split second I thought of emptying out the contents of the drawer and crawling inside. There are actually advantages to being small, but even if I managed to fit, who was there to close the drawer? Besides, a neatnik like Fisher was going to notice a mound of files sprawled across his floor. Now if this was Elias Hammerhead’s office, I could hide behind existing piles on the floor. Properly supplied with food, water, and bathroom necessities, I could live the rest of my life undetected by the attorney and his freshly shorn secretary.
Dang it, Abby, think! I kicked one slim ankle to jump-start the process.
Alas, I am perfectly capable of hurting myself, and my yelp all but drowned out the sound of the front doorbell. Fortunately it rang twice.
I froze. Doorbells, even more so than phones, are almost impossible to resist. “Opportunity knocks” is not so much an adage as it is a universal hope that good fortune will miraculously appear at our doorsteps—although these days a serial killer is more likely to show up than a great opportunity. At any rate, whoever was approaching the Webbfingerses’ office made an abrupt turn and thundered down the steps to answer the door.
“Mr. Webbfingers?” I heard Toy ask loudly. “I’m the Reverend T. J. Wiggins. I’m here to express my heartfelt condolences on the recent passing of your wife. May I come in?”
I couldn’t hear Fisher’s response.
“That’s all right,” Toy shouted. “I’m an Episcopalian. We’re very inclusive.”
A fear-filled moment of silence followed. I realized what Toy was doing, but I didn’t know if he’d succeeded. After what seemed an eternity—hopefully baggy shorts had finally gone out of fashion—I heard the door close. Then I heard Toy’s voice on the inside.
“Mr. Webbfingers, it’s all right. Crying is a natural response at a time like this.”
I didn’t stay put to hear more. In what I considered a brilliant act on my part, especially given the stress, I quickly wrote Fisher Webbfingers’s Social Security number on my wrist, using a felt-tip pen I found in one of the cubbyholes. After returning the pen to its proper place and closing the file drawer without making a sound, I removed my shoes and tiptoed back across the hall.
But climbing down a vine from a second story window is not nearly as easy as climbing up. And what about the ten foot drop at the end? Well, they say there are no atheists in foxholes, to which I will add, neither are there atheists on creeping fig vines.
“Oh Lord,” I prayed, “help me get down safely, and I promise to give Toy a second chance.” That was, I am ashamed to say, my first prayer in—oh well, does it really matter?
Of course one has to back out when exiting a window that high. Having failed every P.E. test I took, and possessing the upper body strength of a Muppet, I clung desperately to the windowsill with both hands while my bare toes tried to make purchase with the vine. C.J., I’ve noticed, has toes like fingers; I wouldn’t be surprised to learn she types with them. In contrast, my tootsies are so tiny that my toes are like skin tags with nails.
I scraped a good deal of skin off my forearms before I managed to grab a stout vine between my big toe and its sister. From that point my descent got a little easier, until I reached the juvenile foliage. The leaves here grew flat along the face of the wall, and their stems were as thin as toothpicks.
“Holy guacamole,” I said. I still hadn’t looked down.
“Jump, Mrs. Washburn. I’ll catch you.”
I gasped and nearly lost my grip. About four feet below my dangling extremities was the handsome head of Nick Papadopoulus. Thank heavens I was wearing white cotton slacks that morning—although my underwear is almost always in good repair.
“This isn’t what you think,” I whispered.
He smiled. “It’s not important what I think, is it? It’s more important that you get down in one piece.”
“Are you sure you can catch me?”
“Pretty sure.”
My fingers were beginning to grow numb. “That’s not good enough.”
“What other choice do you have?”
“Bonsai!” I yelled, and trusted my fate to the man from New York.
16
For what it’s worth, the tourist from the Big Apple smelled like limes and salt. Add two ounces of premium vodka, a splash of orange liqueur, and he was a walking margarita.
I may be happily married, but I didn’t park my hormones at the door of the church. Alas, my fantasy was short-lived, for almost immediately my right arm became tangled in his web of gold chains. The more I struggled to free myself, the more entangled I became. The fact that I accidentally grabbed a handful of chest hair shows you just how desperate my situation was.
“Ouch!”
“Sorry, but I seem to be trapped.”
“Hold still, please, Mrs. Washburn.”
“No problemo.” I threw back my head and willed myself to go limp, like a Victorian damsel who had fainted. Except that I kept one eye open. I don’t know how long Nick held me in that position, but it wasn’t long enough.
“What the heck is going on?” Irena Papadopoulus glared at me beneath her two-tone do. I was suddenly glad there had been no recent reports in the Post and Courier of rabid skunks.
“Sorry.”
“Put her down.”
“Sorry.” The second apology, which was whispered, was for my ears alone.
Nick set me carefully on the grass in front of the window. It took him a minute to untangle the chains from my arm, which gave me time to think of an excuse for being in his arms. To be absolutely honest, I thought seriously of being wicked and collapsing at his feet, but in the end I was a good girl.
“I started to pass out,” I said. “The heat does that to me. Your husband very kindly caught me.”
Irena wasn’t buying it. “Alcohol makes people pass out, too, Mrs. Washburn.”
“I haven’t had a margarita—or a drink of any kind—all day.”
She approached and actually began to sniff me. You can bet I backed away. Of course I wasn’t looking where I stepped, or I wouldn’t have trod on a sharp twig.
“Dang!” I hopped up and down on one foot.
Irena’s beady eyes widened. “Where are your shoes?”
“My shoes?” My shoes! What a dingbat I was. I’d left my sandals behind in the Webbfingerses’ bedroom. How else could I have climbed down the vine like a mini-Tarzan, using my toes as well as my fingers? It came back to me in an unpleasant flash. I’d carried my sandals from the office to the bedroom and set them on the bed while I gathered enough nerve to slip over the ledge. I had every intention of putting my shoes back on again, but once the necessary adrenaline surged through my body, all I could think about was making it safely to the ground.
Irena had little patience. “I’m waiting for your answer, Mrs. Washburn.”
“I must have forgot to wear them.” It was, after all, the truth.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve a good idea what you’ve been up to.”
“I seriously doubt that. But I swear, it had nothing to do with your husband. I have a hunk—I mean a husband—of my own. I’m happily married. See?” I waved my left hand.
At least a little luck was with me that morning, because the sun hit my engagement ring just right, and the minuscule stone appeared much more impressive than it usually does. At least it was enough to make Irena Papadopoulus back off a bit.
“Hmm. Well, I suggest you run along to Payless and pick up another pair of shoes. We wouldn’t want you to hurt your feet.”
“I didn’t buy them at Payless,” I snapped. “I bought them from Bob Ellis on King Street. They cost me over three hundred dollars.”
With some effort, she arranged her thin dry lips into a smirk. “Just so you know, Nick and I won’t be joining this little jaunt of yours this morning.”
“Yes, we will.” The man of few words emphasized each one.
There are those who might find it exciting to watch a married couple square off in public. I am not among t
heir number—which is not to say that I didn’t experience schadenfreude whenever Nick seemed to get the upper hand. He spoke softly and sparingly, but his steady gaze and calm spirit prevailed—although I had no doubt the two would exchange more words later. Just not equal numbers.
“I’ll see y’all at ten o’clock then,” I said, resurrecting my perky pageant voice. One of my best kept secrets is that I was once third runner-up in the Miss Kudzu contest of York County, South Carolina. I may not have been elected the Kudzu Queen, but I did bring home a trophy and the title of Miss Kudzu Personality.
Kudzu, for y’all who don’t know, is a vine with large leaves and sweet smelling flowers that grows faster than a teenage boy—up to sixty feet a year. It was first introduced in this country in 1876 by the Japanese in their garden display at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. In the early part of the twentieth century it was touted both as forage for cattle and as an effective way to control erosion. It was commonly shipped to various parts of the Deep South by mail. Today it covers over seven million acres and advances farther north each year. Due to its explosive growth rate, landowners have to be constantly vigilant about its encroachment. The South may have lost the war, but its secret weapon, kudzu, will someday strangle unsuspecting folks north of the Line. One morning, in the not-too-distant-future, Yankees will wake up to find their houses and places of business smothered in green, and by then it will be too late to do anything about it. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
It was already nine-thirty, so I decided to wait for Toy in my car. I also put on a spare pair of shoes. The veteran of numerous mishaps (please don’t think I’m bragging), I never go anywhere without a complete change of clothes in my trunk. I have also found large plastic garbage bags, a shovel, a high-powered flashlight, and mixed nuts to be invaluable—although that is neither here nor there.
No sooner had I changed into my running shoes than the passenger door opened and Toy slid in. “Did you get it?” he demanded without preamble.
“What?”
“Mr. Webbfingers’s Social Security number.”
“Yes! Thank you, Toy. That was brilliant—you showing up at the door like that.”
“I saw him drive up, sis. I couldn’t abandon you.”
“Did he fall for your sympathy bit?”
“It wasn’t an act. Even though you’d told me he and his wife had been having troubles—well, you just know that on some level the guy had to be hurting.”
“Even if he’s the one who killed her?”
“No one is entirely evil, sis.”
I leaned over to open the glove box.
“What is it you want, sis? I’ll get it for you.”
“There should be a plastic spoon in there somewhere. I’d like to gag myself with it.”
He grinned. “I’m glad to see you haven’t lost your spunk. Okay, I’ll stop the moralizing. How about you show me that number?”
I turned over my wrist. “Voilà.”
Toy groaned. “The last two digits are smeared, sis.”
“What?” Sure enough, the two numbers on the right were nothing more than blue streaks. All that work and risk had been for nothing—well, if I didn’t count the naughty moment in Nick’s arms. “Sis—”
“I couldn’t help it. The window ledge did it. But don’t worry, I think I remember that this one was an eight—or was it a three? And that was definitely a five—unless it was a zero.”
“What I was about to say, sis, is that I think we’ve got enough to go on. It will just take a little more time.”
Poor Wynnell. This meant more time in the slammer for her. On the plus side, it gave Ed more time to revamp her shop. With any luck, absence would make both their hearts grow fonder, and they’d rediscover the vampish sides of each other. Just as long as Wynnell didn’t leave a boyfriend named Bertha behind in the lockup.
“How much time?” I asked.
He shrugged. “You said you had a lawyer lined up for your friend. A Mr. White, was it?”
“Hammerhead. He’s way up on King Street, almost to the Crosstown.”
“Drop me off at the house, Abby, so I can pick up my car. I’ll pay Hammerhead a visit—maybe he can help me run down these numbers. In the meantime, you take these folks on the outing you promised them.”
“What about my shoes?”
“What about them?”
“I’m afraid these aren’t the same ones I wore into the Webbfingerses’ house. In my hurry to get out, I left my sandals behind.”
Toy’s frown was so brief it really didn’t count. “Don’t worry, how many men do you know who keep track of their wives’ shoes? Chances are, he won’t look at them twice.”
“You’ve got a point, except for one small detail—how many women do you know with feet my size?”
“No offense intended, sis, but unless it involves food, sex, or sports, he’s still not going to think anything about it. He’ll just assume your sandals were left there by a niece, or a neighborhood kid—if he thinks about it at all. He certainly won’t suspect that a four-foot-eight-inch, antique-dealing, detecting dynamo scaled the wall while he was out.”
“I’m four-foot-nine. But thanks, Toy. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”
“Hey, what are brothers for?”
I didn’t answer the question, lest I stick my foot in my mouth. They may be minuscule feet, but so is my mouth. Literally, that is. Instead of unloading my litany of “Where were you when?”s, I managed to stick to small talk all the way back to my house.
Before Toy hopped out to get into his own car, he gave me a peck on the cheek. “Don’t take risks, Abby.”
I dutifully promised to behave—through gritted teeth, of course. But when I returned to La Parterre a few minutes later, I saw that I already had my hands full.
17
I am no prude, but Belinda Thomas’s outfit was way off the charts for Charleston. Maybe in Calamari, California, one got away with sightseeing in a halter top and spandex shorts, but not in the Holy City. Belinda bulged in all the right places, and a few of the wrong ones. If we were seen together, Mama’s church lady friends were going to suffer sore tongues from all that wagging.
“Belinda,” I said, ratcheting my perk factor up a few notches, “perhaps you’d be more comfortable in something else. The sun here is very strong, and I’d hate to see you get burned.”
She flashed me her caps. “Thanks for your concern, but you can see that I’m quite tanned.”
I could see that her spray-on tan was streaking even worse today. She looked a bit like a blond tiger, with unusually large breasts and pink claws, in a hootchie-mama outfit.
We took three cars, forming a miniature caravan. The affable Zimmermans rode with me, the hunky Nick and his suspicious wife followed closely in their rental car with Irena at the wheel, while the Calamarians from Cambria lagged an inconvenient distance behind. They stopped at every yellow light, which, as every South Carolinian knows, is only optional. In fact, in parts of the Upstate there is a persistent rumor that five cars must go through a yellow light before it is allowed to turn red. As Charleston is not unknown for its curbside parking, the calm Californians raised my blood pressure fifty points by the time we reached the Cooper River bridges.
There are currently two bridges that span this busy port entrance, and a third in the making. All three structures are nosebleed high, and not a day passes that at least one acrophobiac refuses to cross the river at this juncture. To add to the general discomfort, the older of the two existing bridges, Grace Memorial, appears to be held together by nothing but a thick layer of rust. One gets the feeling that the backfire from a truck or a sudden gust of wind could reduce the bridge to nothing more than a pile of red dust. On this account, Greg even refuses to eat beans before crossing.
The Arthur Ravenel Bridge, as the new one will be known, will surely be one of the architectural wonders of the century. Purported to be the longest single-span suspension bridge in the count
ry, it soars so high that a few of our more devout citizenry believe it an affront to the ultimate architect Himself and vow never to use it.
Most of us, however, look forward to using the new bridge. “Wow, just look at that,” I said proudly. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
Estelle Zimmerman, who was seated in the passenger seat beside me, wrinkled her nose. “I suppose they have to build it that high to allow big ships to pass under. But the bigger and grander it is, the more people will want to commit suicide here.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is the number one spot in the world for suicides. The official count already exceeds one thousand, but some Coast Guard members have estimated the actual number may be ten times that. Some psychologists say that the spectacular setting is one of the reasons that bridge is so popular. If you’re going to jump, why not there, instead of splitting your head open on some dirty sidewalk?”
“Why not, indeed?” What else was there for me to say?
“My Estee knows everything,” Herman said. The pride in his voice was touching.
“Well, I’m sure the Charleston and Mount Pleasant police will figure out how to keep people from jumping off the Arthur Ravenel Bridge when it opens.”
“Have they figured out how to extract the bodies from the old bridge?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, in the 1940s a barge broke loose in a storm and hit a piling. A green sedan carrying six people plunged into the Cooper River, and of course they all drowned. Then when the bridge was being repaired, two workmen fell into the cement form of the new piling, and are said to remain there until this day.”
“Ah, so you’ve been boning up on Lowcountry ghost stories.”
In the rearview mirror I could see Herman lean forward and rap the back of his wife’s seat with knuckles the size of walnuts. My guess was that he was trying to get her to shut up.
“Estee and me don’t believe in ghosts.”
I was about to comment on how curious it was that a woman from Wisconsin would know this bit of local lore when my rearview mirror revealed something quite disturbing. The Thomases’ rental car, a dark green, was nowhere to be seen.