A Fatal Appraisal

by J. B. Stanley

  "What happened?" Jessica asked.

  "T.J. came into the shop and I knew I was in trouble. Even though I lowered my voice, T.J. had superhuman hearing and when I told the customer that the piece came from a family in central Pennsylvania—which it did—T.J. started clearing his throat. Before I could reach him to shut him up, he drawled, 'Well, I dunno 'bout that bein' a Pennsylvania piece. Looks more like a southern piece to me."

  Borris frowned. "But didn't the woods indicate where the piece was made?"

  "Of course they did!" Clara nearly shouted. "That corner cupboard was made of maple with birch secondary! No way was it southern, but my customer was new to antiques, and all she saw was an old man who looked like he'd been around since the piece was made—somewhere around 1820—and I lost the sale!" Clara took a gulp of tea. She was really worked up now. "I could have killed that man! Every time he came in I stood to lose a sale, but I couldn't toss him out because he knew everyone in the business and wouldn't hesitate to blacken my name if I treated him rudely."

  Molly finally stepped into the room and sank into the nearest chair.

  "Hello, madam. Where did you come from?" Clara smiled at her fondly. She always called Molly "madam" when she was in a good mood.

  "Hi." Molly poured herself some tea. "Telling war stories?"

  Borris passed her a plate of heart-shaped Linzer torte cookies. "These little tidbits are baked with Mrs. Hewell's homemade blackberry jam. Out of this world. They simply melt in your mouth."

  "You've got powdered sugar all over your shirt, Borris." Jessica pointed at him, laughing.

  Borris smiled in return and then turned his attention back to Clara. "So you're glad to be out of the shop business? I was dreaming of getting into it. This traveling is wearing me down."

  Jessica looked worried. "I'll tell you another shop owner's tale of misery and wretchedness from my days as a proprietor. I had these two lawyers across the street from my place who decided to redecorate their offices with antique pieces. They repeatedly came into the shop, dithering over what they would like to put in their waiting room."

  Molly sank her teeth into the buttery, sugary heaven of a blackberry Linzer torte and watched her mother and her two friends with pleasure. She felt safe and enveloped in the warmth of the room and the coziness of good food and even better company. She felt as if she could officially put Frank's murder behind her.

  "You see the size of me, right?" Jessica held out her thin arms. "I'm no Hercules, but those men used to ask me to help carry chairs and desks and tables across the street to their office. Then I'd have to stay there and watch as they rearranged the stuff. Meanwhile, my shop stood unattended."

  "Did they end up buying a lot?" Clara giggled.

  "That's the thing! After all of that muscle work, they decided the look wasn't right and I had to help carry it all back. In the end, I think they bought one chair and one stand from me. All the heavy stuff got carried back to my store. Ugh!" Jessica held her clenched fists in the air. "I could have strangled those men with their own ties."

  Borris was staring at Molly's blanched face and unfocused eyes. "Maybe we should change the subject, ladies. Molly here looks a little wiped out."

  Clara took her first good look at her daughter. "What is it, sweetheart?"

  Molly thought she was completely recovered from her afternoon scare, but she felt her eyes suddenly grow moist. She took a deep breath and told them all about her encounter with Randy. When she was finished, her mother's arms were around her and Jessica was fussing over her empty teacup.

  "I'll teach that boy a thing or two when he gets out of jail," Borris threatened, his voice coming out in a low growl.

  Molly smiled weakly. The concern and sympathy shown by her mother and her two new friends restored her spirits enormously. "Thank you, Borris. Thanks to all of you, but I don't think any brute force will be necessary. I think Randy's going to be in jail for quite a while."

  The skinny pencil lines forming Jessica's dark eyebrows rose up on her forehead. "Why do you say that?"

  Molly filled her rapt listeners in on the details of the black mold and her discovery of the rag in the back of Randy's truck.

  "Is Randy's motive strong enough?" Clara seemed dubious. "He disliked his employer, but so do thousands of workers."

  Molly shrugged. "Maybe Randy just meant to make Frank really miserable. Maybe he didn't know how severely that mold would affect his boss. But there was another factor, I think. When we were all at lunch the day Frank was killed, Randy was staring fixedly at Victoria." Molly broke off another piece of cookie and held it between her fingers. "His eyes were really boring into her, but with desire, not malice. Kind of how I'd look at this cookie before taking a bite out of it." She popped the piece in her mouth.

  "But if he had feelings for Victoria, would he let her go to jail for a crime he committed?" Jessica asked doubtfully.

  Molly frowned. "That would be pretty cold, wouldn't it? The good news is Randy's now in jail and Victoria's being released. The police have no reason to hold her anymore. Apparently, they've gotten hold of her phone records from the hotel. She made several calls to New York from her room during the hours Frank most likely died, and she was never alone long enough that afternoon to put the mold on the slant-front desk. So she's in the clear. She said she'd be at the group dinner tonight."

  "Where are we eating?" Borris asked Jessica. "Or should I say, where are you driving me tonight, dear?" he added teasingly.

  "A place called Elmo's. It's all the way out in the next county, but they're supposed to have these fabulous steaks covered with bordelaise sauce and melted blue cheese crumbles." Jessica smacked at Borris with her napkin. "What would you do without me as your chauffeur?"

  "Be miserable," he answered softly with tender honesty. Suddenly, the room was filled with the tumult of the unspoken feelings between the two appraisers. Jessica flushed right up to the roots of her spiky hair and then quickly reached over and grabbed Clara's hand. "Come with us tonight. You and Lex. It'll be fun."

  Clara squeezed Jessica's hand. "Of course we will. Who in their right mind would say no to a good steak?"

  ~~~~~

  After tea, the group headed up to their respective rooms for a little rest. Molly had difficulty focusing on the quaint Scottish village mystery she had brought. As she lay on her bed, her thoughts kept straying to her last date with Matt. She pictured his warm smile as he held her hand under the table and told her about his dreams of becoming a doctor one day.

  Now he was somewhere in Ohio and he hadn't even tried to reach her. Garrett's face also appeared in her mind and Molly thought back to the moment she had kissed the dashing Englishman. For all his charm, there was still something missing in Garrett's personality. Molly felt that she really hadn't seen the real Garrett, while Matt was instantly and utterly sincere. Every emotion played across his sweet face like an open book.

  Resolved to get in touch with Matt, Molly sat up on her bed, grabbed the phone, and punched in the numbers to Clayton's direct line.

  "Mr. Fabulous speaking," Clayton answered.

  Molly chuckled. "Now, that's an interesting way to answer the phone."

  "Why beat around the bush?" Clayton drawled. "If it's that stud from the Greensboro Times calling, I want him to know exactly who he's dealing with. I've gotten quite a few hot dates answering the phone that way. People automatically ask me why I'm Mr. Fabulous and of course, I have to elaborate about my skills—"

  "Okay, you don't have to tell me," Molly hurriedly interrupted as Clayton could go on for hours about his superior qualities. "I know that you're a fine vintage."

  "Ew, that makes me sound old, darling. I'm more like a bottle of 1990 Dom Perignon. Rosy-colored and very expensive."

  "Clayton, are they any updates on Matt?"

  "None that I know of, honey. Did you ask the new receptionist?"

  "That little twerp? I already can't stand her," Molly complained as she recalled the strained conversa
tion she had had with Brittani.

  'Tell me about it! She's a cute little thing but those clothes! Dresses like she’s standing on a street corner looking for her next client. Ugh. I think she wore pants made out of pink Lycra yesterday. I nearly spit out my Cafe Americano!"

  Molly smiled over Clayton's love of the theatrical. "Can you see if Swanson knows anything I don’t know? I'm getting worried about Matt. He always checks in and this time, he didn’t even leave a number. Here's my number at the hotel, by the way."

  "Hold your horses, girl. Clayton doesn't keep a pen behind his ears, you know. Might mess up my perfectly coiffed hair."

  As Clayton wrote down Molly's information, the undeniable grumbling of their boss, Carl Swanson, could be heard in the distance. It seemed to be coming closer and closer to Clayton's desk. The next thing she knew, Molly was suddenly speaking to Swanson instead of Clayton.

  "Appleby? That you?" he grumbled.

  "Yes, Carl," Molly answered quickly. "How are you?"

  "Who gives a damn how I am?" he howled into the mouthpiece. "I've been trying to reach you on your cell phone for hours! All I've been getting is your damned voice mail, which you apparently never check! You've got a dead appraiser up there and I have no article about it! What the hell is going on? Are you a reporter or not?"

  Molly knew Swanson would track her down over this subject sooner or later. The death of someone well known in the antiques world always skyrocketed the paper's circulation, and a questionable death really sent subscriptions through the roof.

  "Carl." Molly tried to soothe her boss. "The facts of the case haven’t been made clear yet. I mean, the cause of death is known, but the current suspect is—"

  "You get me a five hundred-word teaser as of five minutes ago! I mean it! I am holding the presses on the front page until I get an email from you. Now get off the phone and start writing! And the next time someone falls over dead around you, I want to be the first to know! You got that?"

  Molly held the receiver away from her ear as this torrent of words assaulted her. She could then hear grunts and an "unhand that phone, you brute," from Clayton.

  Breathlessly, Clayton’s voice reappeared on the line. "Lord help us! If that man doesn't start smoking again I will simply die! If I didn't hate the smell so much, I'd cover my clothes in Eau De Marlboro just to tempt him back to the Land of Tobacco Addiction."

  Molly snickered. "He's worse than ever. I guess I'd better type something up. Clayton, please call me if there's any word from Matt."

  "I will, sugar. Are you behaving yourself up there?" he asked and Molly felt a guilty flush rising up her cheeks as she thought about kissing Garrett.

  "Mostly," she said before hanging up.

  She booted up her laptop and got to work on a short piece concerning Frank's death. As she typed up the few facts she felt safe revealing to the public, she couldn't help but think about the slant-front desk. She knew she would have to e-mail Swanson a photo of the piece to go along with the article, but she hated to have it viewed as a negative object. The desk might be seen as a thing of evil as it had basically been used as a palette for the murderer's weapon.

  Where was the desk now? Was it sitting in some dark room in the police station? Did anyone there appreciate the piece's superb craftsmanship or recognize the loving toil that the carpenter had put into making it so many years ago?

  Molly pushed thoughts of the desk out of her head and quickly finished her article. She emailed the teaser, along with a photo of Frank leaning over the slant-front desk, and shut the lid of her laptop down with a satisfying thud. She never considered that she’d spent more time grieving over an inanimate piece of furniture than for the dead man who was the real subject of her article.

  ~~~~~

  Jessica and Borris led a small caravan of cars west on I-64 toward Charlottesville. Molly, Clara, and Lex followed in Molly's Jeep, while Alexandra, Patrice, Lindsey, Alicia, and Tony were packed into a rented minivan. Garrett offered to pick up Victoria from her hotel, but she’d needed a few extra minutes to change and collect herself, so Garrett let Molly know that they would be at Elmo's about twenty minutes late.

  "Save me a seat," he had said with the pleading tone of an elementary school student.

  For the first time, Molly noticed that Jessica's rental car bore the bumper sticker EVE WAS FRAMED. Jessica and her car seemed well matched, Molly thought. I bet she put that sticker on there herself.

  After a fifteen-minute drive, the caravan got off at the first exit in Goochland County and drove into the parking lot of a strip mall.

  "This town is loaded with strip malls," Molly complained.

  "Most towns are," Lex said, "but you're only seeing one side of Richmond. After all, we're still on Broad Street, the same street that the museum is on."

  "That's true," Clara agreed. "Think of how charming the downtown area is, especially near Monument Avenue. I simply love all those stately old houses lining that road."

  "Maybe I'll stay an extra day and really explore the city," Molly suggested more to herself than anyone else. Lex held the restaurant's glass door open for Clara and Molly and they were led into a private room by the hostess.

  The room was painted a warm mustard hue above the wainscoting and a cranberry red below. Oversized paintings of rearing horses were hung in the center of each wall. Rotund marigolds and fern leaves filled the small vases on their table and tea lights flickered in welcome on top of a perfectly pressed white tablecloth.

  I never expected this kind of elegance tucked away in a strip mall, Molly thought.

  After the group had taken their seats, bottles of wine seemed to magically appear on the table. Clara ordered her usual Crown Royal and club soda.

  "No ice, please," she added and gave the waitress a stern look which translated to, "My drink better not be weak or you will hear about it."

  When it arrived, alongside Molly's screwdriver and Lex's Jack and Coke, Clara took a sip and beamed at the waitress. "Perfect." She then took a bite of Elmo's fresh bread covered by a sun- dried tomato spread and moaned in delight.

  Before leaving their bed and breakfast, Molly had silently predicated that the group would be subdued after Frank's death, but she was wrong. The news of Randy's arrest coupled with the flowing wine and delicious appetizers appeared to put every appraiser in the best of moods.

  Clara was enjoying herself immensely. She stabbed a piece of her Portobello mushroom appetizer cooked in a balsamic vinegar sauce and covered in four different cheeses while telling Borris about a set of medical encyclopedias she had at home.

  Borris's eyes were alight with interest as he speared a shrimp cooked with butter, white wine, and garlic. Lex and Tony were laughing over the silliness of toy commercials over the years as they shared a plate of fried calamari. When they broke into song with the Slinky jingle, a few of the other appraisers joined them. Alexandra rolled her eyes in disgust and turned to Patrice for a bit of sophisticate conversation.

  "I know you only pretend to be French, but at least that shows you might be able to hold your wine without singing jingles from the telly. I might need to host tomorrow and I don't think that—"

  "Not to worry, Alexandra dear," said a voice from behind Alexandra's chair. She swiveled her aristocratic chin and with a swing of gloriously shiny hair allowed her eyes to fall upon the figure of Victoria, looking refreshed in a white suit with a black and white polka-dotted blouse. Victoria gave an expressionless perusal of Alexandra's outfit, which included a form fitting, immaculately pressed silk cobalt blouse and a vintage Hermes scarf with an equestrian design tied into a perfect knot around her graceful neck.

  "Nice scarf," Victoria said in her toneless manner before taking her seat at the head of the table. “Too bad you won’t be wearing it to host the show tomorrow.”

  Tony grabbed his wineglass and raised it in Victoria’s honor. "Welcome back! We knew you were innocent! Cheers to Victoria for holding up so well after a day of hardcore questioning!
" Others joined in the toast and Victoria was given with a round of applause. Garrett took a seat next to Molly while Victoria tugged on her pearls and smiled.

  While the group waited for the main courses to arrive, Alicia described a portrait she had appraised earlier in the day.

  "It was of Ulysses Grant. Just a black and white drawing, actually. I saw it on my way out this afternoon. This woman was loading it in her car. It wasn't even signed, but there was something about it that just spoke to me. Grant was sitting at a campaign desk and was leaning his head against one hand, like the weight of all that he was facing was just too much."

  "Did you give the woman an appraisal?" Lindsey asked.

  "Just a ballpark. Actually, I referred her to a Civil War art expert I know." Alicia took a sip of wine. "I see so much art every week that it takes something special to make me stop and really be struck by a piece. I haven't felt that pop in a long time."

  "I know what you mean," Lindsey agreed. "I see hundreds of examples of linens and quilts and every kind of embroidery imaginable, but then someone walks in with a piece that just makes my heart stop. That's why I do this job, I guess."

  As sizzling steaks loaded with melted blue cheese arrived at the table, Borris began to tell the group about an interesting set of books he had appraised that day.

  "Lee's biography in a four-volume set," he said, describing the books. "They're not that rare. Dated 1937. Good shape. I've seen a bunch of them. But these were the first set I've seen signed and dated by the author, a guy named Douglas Freeman. He also wrote an inscription in each volume. A quote from Lee."

  "Which one?" Lex asked with interest "I love that kind of stuff! I've watched that Ken Burn series on the Civil War at least twenty times."

  Borris nodded. "The quote was, 'A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others.'"