A Killer Collection

by J. B. Stanley

  “True, but what happened was that George-Bradley spent more and more time with people who shared his passion. Especially women. That woman you saw this morning, her name is Susan something, she wouldn't normally be attracted to someone with George-Bradley's looks, but when you find a person who loves what you love, it can change the way you look at them. You form this connection that’s deeper than mere physical attraction."

  "So why doesn't George-Bradley just get divorced?"

  "Who knows? Bunny’s always known about him running around, but she never sought a divorce either. Marriages are full of secrets. You never know what's really going on behind closed doors."

  The waitress arrived with delicious crepe-style pancakes, eggs, and very crisp bacon, as requested. Molly poured some pecan syrup in a thin drizzle over the melting pat of butter in the center of her light and savory pancakes and licked her lips in anticipation.

  Clara raised her eyebrows as she watched Molly pour, but refrained from saying anything about her daughter’s eating habits. Molly was on the plump side with her round hips and an ample bosom, but she was still a lovely woman. Clara always marveled at her daughter's flawless and luminescent skin and the sweep of long, dark eyelashes framing eyes that always held a glint of amusement.

  Such beauty and intelligence should not go to waste, Clara thought. "Now, speaking of marriage—" she began.

  "Don't start," Molly interrupted. "I just haven't found the right guy."

  "But you're thirty now. You'd better get a move on. I want grandchildren before you put me in the nursing home."

  Molly sighed. "I'm working on it, but if you keep nagging me about grandkids, you're going to that home much earlier than you'd like."

  As her mother fantasized aloud about where to hold the wedding reception, Molly's thoughts wandered to Matt Harrison, the marketing director at Collector’s Weekly. She’d had a crush on him the moment she joined the staff, but even after two years, they had barely exchanged more than a quick greeting in the break room or a wave in the hall. Molly could see into Matt's office from her desk, and for two years she’d furtively studied his tall frame and watched his shy smile as he talked on the phone or worked on his computer.

  As she wondered for the millionth time whether Matt had a girlfriend, her mother plowed full steam ahead on her usual litany regarding the family engagement ring that awaited Molly in Clara's jewelry box. Molly was saved from having to listen by the arrival of a group of boisterous newcomers who sat down at a neighboring booth. All three women were talking at the same time so that it was difficult to distinguish what was being said. They sounded like a gaggle of geese.

  As they settled into their seats, it became clear that loudest woman was speaking about George-Bradley. Molly and Clara's ears perked up.

  "This morning, at C. C. Burle's opening," the woman continued, relating her story to her two wide-eyed friends.

  "What happened?"

  "Well, Trish said he just keeled on over. Boom. Landed right on the grass without hurtin' a hair on a single piece of pottery."

  "Did he have a heart attack?" her friend asked.

  "I don't know. Trish said they picked him up in an ambulance and took him away. He was white as a sheet in bleach, but that's all I know. He was stuffing cookies in his mouth like they were goin' out of style, that's for sure. With the shape he was in, it could have been anything. When Trish told me, I wasn’t surprised a bit, but poor C. C. and Eileen."

  The women all clucked in sympathy. "Did George-Bradley cut the line at this openin’ too?" Someone asked after a moment.

  "Of course he did! Right in front of Hillary Keane. And Trish said he grabbed a face jug right out of Susan Black's hands. She was spittin' mad."

  "I don't know who he thinks he is, that George-Bradley," one of the women snarled. "When I was first collecting, he took an old crock right out of my hands at a tag sale. He told me it was damaged and I wouldn't want it. Stuck it in front of my face and said, 'See? Look at all them scratches.' Then he put a different crock in my hands and said, 'Allow me to advise you. Buy this one.' And stupid me, I bought it. I found out later that the scratched crock actually had a poem written on it about the potter's wife. It was late nineteenth century and worth over $1,000. I hate that man for cheatin’ me that way!"

  Her friends murmured in agreement.

  "Still, I don't wish a heart attack on anyone." The woman sighed reluctantly as if that's exactly what she wished. "If that's what happened."

  "Oh, we're going to find out," announced the third woman triumphantly, holding up a cell phone. "You know Randy, the guy I dated for a while? He works at Asheboro General? I asked him to send me a text message when he finds out what's goin' on with George-Bradley."

  Molly and Clara exchanged looks. They were done with their meals and their plates had been cleared. Normally, they’d be impatient to leave, but combination of the morning's events, their full bellies, and the opportunity to listen to interesting gossip rendered them immobile. They lingered over their cups of tepid coffee and openly eavesdropped.

  After the women in the next booth placed their orders, one of them said, "I don’t hear your phone beeping. Why wait for a text? Call that Randy and find out what happened."

  "I already tried. I'm sure George-Bradley will end up being fine. He'll be back at the next kiln opening breaking the bones of little old ladies and pushing people like me into the dirt."

  Clara could contain herself no longer. She couldn't resist leaving her neighbors unenlightened.

  "No, he won't," she inserted herself into their conversation with a conspiratorial whisper. "His days of being the rudest, greediest man in Asheboro are over."

  "Really?” asked one of the women. She was practically drooling as she leaned forward to listen to Clara.

  "Yes." Clara stood and placed a few dollars on the table for their waitress. "George-Bradley is dead."

  Molly also rose, watching the women's faces as they digested the news. She felt suddenly uneasy. Shouldn't they all be feeling more than morbid curiosity? Someone she’d just met, that she’d shaken the hand with and spoken to, was dead. A man's life was over.

  The spark was gone from the day. Molly was ready to go home.

  Above her head, the face jugs smiled crooked, sinister smiles from their lofty positions above the diners, their pointed teeth and slanted eyes gleaming sharp white from within the shadows.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 4

  The best pieces of pottery bring out in most of us on almost overwhelming desire to touch, caress, and hold them.

  —PETER CONSENTINO from The Encyclopedia of Pottery Techniques

  The trio of women at the Jugtown Cafe thanked Clara and she and Molly finally exited the eatery. Outside, the June sun was searing the ground and the humidity hung like a damp washcloth over the sky. The car was stuffy and filled with thick air. It was a typical summer day in North Carolina, the kind that drained people of energy and made them seek the shelter of rooms with air-conditioning or at least a ceiling fan.

  "Let's take the slow way back," Clara suggested as she rummaged around in the side pocket of her purse for her driving glasses. Replete with her tasty lunch, Molly eased the passenger seat back and stretched out her long legs.

  Avoiding the interstates, the "slow way" took them through flat farmland and quirky crossroads following a crooked trail from Seagrove to Pittsboro, which was just south of Chapel Hill. Clara always drove home this way if she wasn't pressed for time. She enjoyed the rural scenery and the lack of large trucks and other noisy traffic.

  They passed dozens of pottery shops on the way and Molly noted how different the signs for each pottery were. Some had been like C. C.'s—simple, hand-painted lettering on a white wood board. Some were even more rustic and were so faded that it was hard to distinguish the name of the pottery. Others were sparkling new and had clearly been made by professional sign makers. Their raised gold or green letters caught the eye and different graphic design
s of purple pots or rainbow vases were a sharp contrast to the hand painted letters wobbling across a board.

  Molly studied her brochure on Seagrove, which she had borrowed from her mother before proposing the article to her editor. More than one hundred potteries were speckled over an area of about twenty-five miles. Though they were visited by busloads of tourists every year, it didn't seem possible that all of the potters could earn a living from the same trade. After all, Molly had never even heard of the area until her mother mentioned it, and she had lived in North Carolina for ten years.

  Clara had informed her that many of the potters had full-time jobs. Some worked in the local mills or canneries, some raised livestock, and others worked as guest artists at schools around the state. Most of the potters were men. If they were married, their wives watched the "shop," which was often just a painted shed, while their husbands went to work. Over the weekends, the potters would turn and burn (an expression for creating pieces using the wheel then firing them in a kiln). Children of pottery families helped with the shop and if they showed the talent for it, began turning pieces or helping apply glaze at an early age.

  This family lifestyle that centered on clay had been in place for over three hundred years in rural North Carolina.

  Molly learned that most of the pottery was no longer made in the traditional way because very few potters could afford to pursue their craft on a full-time basis. Many now bought pre mixed clay and glazes to save time. Some potters even had commercial kilns, but most built their own, priding themselves on creating the vessel that would burn their wares. They often cut pine slabs from their own yards to feed the kiln's flames.

  The potteries Clara drove by grew more and more spread out as they left the heart of Seagrove behind them. Some, like Jugtown Pottery, were down small lanes slightly off the beaten path, but these remote locations never hindered their success. For decades, hundreds of buyers and apprentices alike had traveled to seek the wares and knowledge of the family of potters who’d been in the same spot for generations.

  Thin forests slowly gave way to pastures. Cows mingled lazily beneath the shade of ancient oak trees or slumped near the banks of small streams, searching for any available refuge from the heat. Both women were quiet in the car, conscious of the fact that they had both seen George-Bradley alive and well a few hours ago and now, in the space of a few heartbeats, he was dead.

  "I feel sorry for him," Molly said, breaking the silence.

  "Why?"

  "Well, it seems to me that he was, you know, probably pretty lonely. And yes, one might say he deserved it for being a first-class jerk to most people, but is anyone going to miss him now that he's gone?"

  Her mother shook her head. "I don't think so. That rude behavior at the kiln opening was so typical of George Bradley. He was ungentlemanly and condescending to anyone he thought was a class below him. He even patronized the potters. Despite his behavior, he felt that his money and his incredible collection earned him a place of honor in everyone's eyes. Maybe he has family who will grieve, but I don’t know a single person who will."

  "Yet everyone knows his name. All of Randolph County knew who he was and everyone in the pottery circle did too. But no one will care. See, it's kind of sad."

  "They'll care about his pottery, that's for sure. All the sharks will be circling around poor Bunny. People would kill to get their hands on George-Bradley's collection."

  "And she hated it all, right? So won't she want to sell it?"

  "You never know. She might want to hang onto the most valuable pieces for a while until the demand makes them worth even more money. She might want to give the whole collection to a museum. Then again, she might want to throw every piece against the wall. I don't know Bunny well. Like I said, she went her way and George-Bradley went his. Where that pottery is going to end up is a riddle I would love to be able to answer."

  "Listen, Ma. I feel like there's something not quite right about his death. I didn't think to tell you this before, but he was acting really weird toward the end of the...the grabbing session." Molly described what she had witnessed behind the barn.

  "Rubbing his stomach?" Clara was clearly perplexed. "I've heard of clutching your left arm during a heart attack, but this is a new one."

  "Why would he go behind the barn to unbutton his shirt in the middle of a kiln opening? And why was he so out of it? It was like ... I don't know, like he was drugged." The vision of George-Bradley's confused face nagged at her.

  Clara pursed her lips. "Well, there certainly were plenty of people there who'd like to see him dead. Anyone who collects has to fight him off at every sale, but if it wasn't an accident, the police will know soon enough," she declared with finality.

  "Maybe," Molly replied. Then because she didn't think her mother was taking her at all seriously, she added, "Or maybe I will. Knowing the complete truth is necessary if I want to write a killer article. George-Bradley is about to become more famous than he was before."

  ~~~~~

  Molly drove up to her little house feeling completely spent. Her cool, cozy rooms had never seemed so inviting. She sank down on her couch with a Diet Coke and some catalogues from her mail pile. Within seconds, a tan tabby hopped on her lap and began ‘making biscuits’ as Molly like to call it by kneading her stomach with the claws of his front paws.

  "Ow! Griffin! Here, have a nice pile of junk mail to sit on instead."

  Molly made a pleasant nest of envelopes and Realtor advertisements for her cat. He happily relocated onto the pile and circled himself around until he was in prime bathing position.

  "I swear, you are the vainest cat in all of Durham."

  As Molly glanced over the glossy pages of Pottery Barn's fall collection, she felt her body slowly relaxing. Griffin's steady purring and the whir of the air conditioner soon sent her off to sleep.

  The sound of the phone ringing jarred both her and the tabby into an upright position. They both blinked in surprise against the afternoon light but only Molly bothered to move from the sofa.

  "Hello?" she croaked into the phone.

  "Are you asleep when you should be in here typing up that article?" demanded the grating voice of her editor, Carl Swanson. He paused to take a drag from his cigarette. "I expect that piece on my desk by Monday!"

  Carl was an overweight chain-smoker with a truculent nature and an obsession with the paper's circulation rate. The entire staff of Collector’s Weekly lived in constant fear of Swanson’s volatile temper and horrible breath, which was a blend of nicotine and strong, black coffee.

  "I was at the kiln opening at dawn," Molly said defensively. "I certainly got enough information for an article, but maybe a little more excitement than I’d bargained for. However"—she gave a theatrical pause—"this might be just the article to help our sales. A famous collector died today, Carl. But that's not all." She hesitated again, wondering if she was about to say something she would later regret, but the nagging feeling that followed her home from the kiln opening would not let go. "I don't think his death was accidental."

  Molly could almost see her boss sitting up straighter in his chair, the ashes from his cigarette falling onto his expansive lap.

  "Well? Go on, girlie! Give me all the details and let's see what we can print!"

  Molly ignored his customary display of chauvinism and gave him a blow-by-blow account of the morning's events. Swanson was completely keyed up over the idea of publishing such a dramatic story.

  "Get in here right away. I want you to go over the details with Matt Harrison."

  Molly's heart skipped a beat. "Why Matt?"

  "He went to med school at Duke. Didn't finish, but he's got some buddies in hospitals around here and we need those medical details to be accurate. Can't have you writing the wrong stuff and getting us sued."

  Molly scowled at the implication that she would wouldn’t be able to acquire the correct information on her own and hung up on her boss as he began one of his lengthy coughing fit. She di
dn’t Brightening at the thought of seeing Matt, Molly went upstairs to change her clothes. She wanted to look her best now that she’d finally be working with the man of her fantasies.

  Twenty minutes later, Molly arrived at the paper’s office building in northern Durham and made her way to the ladies’ room, where she applied lipstick and ran a brush through her straight, dark hair.

  Swanson must have briefed Matt, for he was waiting for her with his desk cleared, a welcoming smile on his face.

  "I hadn’t realized you went to medical school," she began.

  A shadow crossed Matt's face. "For a little while, but I didn't finish. Listen," he said, hastening to change the subject, "why don't you tell me everything that happened this morning. Swanson’s indicated that you believe this collector's death is? Is that true? Could you explain what you saw?"

  Molly nodded, sensing a strong amount of doubt in Matt's voice. Still, she related her story once again, and he listened intently while occasionally jotting down notes on a legal pad. He was clearly more interested in the details of George-Bradley's demise than in the descriptions of the pottery or the behavior of the buyers after the rope was cut.

  "So you heard that he had diabetes?"

  "Yes, someone in line mentioned it after he was taken away in the ambulance," Molly said. “Or I might have heard it while he was stuffing his face with cookies. Either way, it seemed common knowledge.”

  Marie asked, "Did he look healthy?"

  "No. He was overweight and sweating a lot. He kept dabbing at his face with a handkerchief. Plus, he was drinking tea and eating every sugary snack to be had like it was his last meal."

  "Sweet tea?'

  Molly laughed. "Boy, you give away that you're not from around here when you ask that. Of course it was sweet tea! Is there any other kind?"

  Matt ignored her teasing. "It doesn’t sound like he treated himself too well."

  "Not in that regard." She proceeded to fill him in on the gossip about his affairs and his unusual marriage, pleased that she felt so comfortable talking to him. "The Stauntons," she concluded, "were a couple divided by his pottery collection. He put a great deal of time and energy into collecting. She hated everything he brought home."