Tiles and Tribulations

by Tamar Myers

  “Frankly, dear, I’m surprised to see you. After what I heard last night—I expected you to be in bed all day.”

  “Heard?”

  Mama waggled her scant eyebrows. “You know.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t.” I wasn’t being coy; I really didn’t.

  “Abby, there’s no point in pretending with me. I know all about it. How do you think you got here? Although frankly, I haven’t heard such carrying on since the time your daddy and I broke the bed at your Aunt Marilyn’s house.”

  Then it dawned on me what she meant. I clapped the bagel over one ear, my free hand over the other.

  “Mama, I don’t want to hear another word.”

  She said a few more undoubtedly provocative things while I sang “Pop Goes the Weasel” at the top of my lungs. The second her lips stopped moving I got straight to business.

  “Just for that you’re coming with me to C.J.’s.”

  “I am? Whatever for, dear?”

  She had that flight or fight look in her eyes, so I stepped back into the doorway. “There are a few things I need to check out, Mama, and I’m not going back into that house alone.”

  “Well, don’t expect me to come with you, dear. Just the thought of that woman, stuffed in the wall, gives me the shivers.” To prove her point, Mama shimmied and shook like a drunken belly dancer. “Besides,” she said, catching her breath, “what would Greg say?”

  “My darling husband has given me his tacit approval.”

  “He said you could meddle?”

  “He said he knew he couldn’t stop me, so he warned me to be careful.”

  “Well, he can stop me. I have no intention of going.”

  “Mama, you owe me.”

  “What did you say, dear?” Mama had her hands on her hips, framing her still tiny waist. The thirty-six hours of agonizing labor was written all over her face, but at least I hadn’t ruined her figure.

  “Okay, so maybe you don’t owe me, but you owe it to C.J. None of this would have happened—the stolen tiles, the body discovered in the wall—if it hadn’t been for your meddling.”

  Mama grabbed her pearls and gave them a good hard spin. She was nailed to the wall, and she knew it. Of course, Mama is as stubborn as a blue-nosed mule, and had to get the last lick in.

  “I suppose this is the thanks I get for all the sacrifices I’ve made.”

  “No, this is the thanks.” I gave her a loud smooch on the cheek. “Please get ready, Mama. Time’s a’wasting.”

  Mama got ready by untying her lace-edged, heart-shaped apron and turning her pearls so that the clasp was in back. Her sleuthing outfit was what she always wore; a nineteen fifties dress with a pinched waist and full circle skirt fluffed out by yards of starched crinoline. Her stockings had seams in the back, and her high-heel pumps tapered to points, and could be used as ice picks in an emergency. In other words, I was taking Donna Reed with me on this follow-up investigation.

  In contrast I was wearing knee-length white shorts, a silk blend T-shirt, and white strap sandals. This was barely acceptable summer attire for year-round-residents. Only a hooch or a tourist would wear a halter top in Charleston.

  Although I’d brought my key with me, I made Mama open the door with her key. She protested at first that she didn’t have one, but sure enough, there it was inside the handbag that matched her shoes. The key was knotted in a handkerchief embroidered with violets.

  The second she opened the door, the sweet musty smell of death assaulted our nostrils. “Abby,” Mama cried, “I’m not going in there!”

  “Put the handkerchief over your nose and mouth, Mama. It’s just an old smell, one that’s been bottled up in the wall for a hundred and fifty years.”

  “But, Abby, it smells like a mausoleum.”

  I had no time to ask her how she knew what a mausoleum smelled like, and it was clear she wasn’t going to be much help if I ever got her inside. Fortunately C.J. has a nice shady patio. Like most of the city’s gardens, it is small, but big on charm. The brick walls are traced with creeping fig and Confederate Jasmine. The miniature planting beds were chock-full of ginger, fatsia, and cast iron plants. A lion’s head fountain hung on one wall and there were two wrought iron chairs and a round iron table in the middle of the space. An exceptionally handsome loquat tree presided over the scene.

  “Mama, hang out in the garden while I go in. But keep your ears open, just in case I scream.”

  Mama clutched her pearls. “Abby, is there something you’re not telling me? Do you think someone’s hiding in there?”

  “No, Mama. I said, ‘just in case.’ I’ll be fine. Honest. But—and this is another ‘just in case’ scenario—if I’m not out in twenty minutes, go next door and call Greg.” I could slap myself for not having remembered to bring my cell phone.

  She nodded. “I’ll be praying for you, Abby.”

  I was touched by her offer, but not altogether comforted. The only prayer I’ve heard Mama say aloud, other than the ones in the Book of Common Prayer, is her daily plea that my brother, Toy, will get married before his fortieth birthday.

  I left Mama clutching her pearls and mouthing silent prayers while I braved the sweet musty smell of death. And man, was I wrong! There was no way I could ever get used to that. It was as if, during the night, the walls had given up every bit of odor they’d been hoarding over the last century and a half. Believe me, I worked fast.

  I bounded straight up the stairs—well, a woman my height doesn’t bound up anything, but you get my drift. When I reached the second floor I made a mad dash through the master bedroom to C.J.’s private bath. Of course it was silly of me, but I had a strong feeling that I was being watched. And why wouldn’t I? One of the walls downstairs had eyes and ears, didn’t it?

  Fortunately, the stealthy renovators had limited their activities to the third floor. Just as one can tell the age of a tree by counting its rings, the peeling layers of paint and wallpaper in C.J.’s private bathroom marked the decades. As fascinating as that history was, I headed straight for her plumbing fixtures. First I tapped them, then I managed to unscrew a faucet handle and test its weight in my hand. Lacking my reading glasses, I located a magnifying makeup mirror and held the fixture up to it. The reflection was, of course, backwards—K41—but it told me everything I needed to know. The handle was solid gold.

  “Lord have mercy!” I said aloud.

  “Mercy!” Either there was an echo in the room, or the walls did indeed possess another mouth.

  I didn’t stay to find out. I high-tailed my hiney out of there faster than greased lightning.

  21

  Thank heavens Mama was still in C.J.’s garden, sitting in one of the wrought iron chairs.

  Alas, she was not alone. Gladys Kravitz with the marshmallow chin was sitting in the other chair, and the two of them were laughing like nobody’s business.

  Despite the fact that I was panting like a fox at the end of a chase, they neither heard nor saw me coming. I waited until there was a lull in the laughter before speaking. Both women jumped, and when their bottoms reconnected with the metal chairs, I could feel the thunk on the brick pavers beneath my feet.

  “Land o’ Goshen!” Mama cried. “Abby, you about scared us to death.”

  Gladys Kravitz was breathing as hard as the aforementioned fox, but she didn’t say a word, preferring to glare at me over that edible chin.

  “Sorry, Mama.” I turned to Gladys. “Sorry, ma’am.”

  The woman grunted.

  “Abby,” Mama rasped, “I want you to meet my new friend, Gloria Krantz. Gloria, this hooligan is my daughter, Abigail Wiggins Timberlake Washburn.”

  Gloria Krantz? Well, that certainly wasn’t far off the mark. But who was Mama kidding? I hadn’t been gone more than five minutes, and she’d made friends with C.J.’s busybody neighbor. You can see why I have to look out for her. I’m talking about Mama, of course. C.J.’s neighbor was quite capable of looking out for herself, and everyone else in the
neighborhood.

  I nodded curtly. “We’ve met.”

  “Yes, we have,” Miss Krantz said. “Your daughter came skulking around the house the other day.”

  “I wasn’t skulking, ma’am.”

  “And then the police showed up. I couldn’t see everything that was going on—”

  “Try as you might.”

  “—but I’m pretty sure there was a scuffle of some kind, because one of the police officers came out with her hands over her face. There was blood everywhere.”

  “I didn’t do it!” I wailed. And I didn’t. One doesn’t get a bloody nose just from being whacked on the behind. Can I help it if Officer Cheech bumped her nose trying to get it out of that musty hole?

  Miss Krantz smirked. “I heard that the officer required thirty-seven stitches to close the gash, and had to have her nose set in some sort of a special cast.”

  “You heard no such thing,” I snapped.

  Mama gasped. “Abby, be civil!”

  “But Mama, it isn’t true.”

  “Abigail!” Mama gave me a look that could have turned milk into cottage cheese. Then she turned to her new friend and smiled sweetly. “Gloria here invited me to a party Saturday night. Isn’t that nice?”

  “What?”

  “Abby, are you losing your hearing?”

  “No, ma’am, but Gloria claims her family has lived in Charleston for three hundred years. I think maybe it’s you who heard wrong.”

  “Oh no, your mother heard right.” Gloria stood and tried to smooth the wrinkles on her linen skirt. “See you at six, Mozella?”

  “With bells on,” Mama said, and twittered shamelessly.

  “No bells, please,” Gloria said, and walked imperiously away without another word.

  I dropped Mama off at the house, picked up a diet cola and a handful of Hershey’s dark chocolate and almond Nuggets—it was going to be a long ride—and headed out to see Thelma Maypole again. I tried to call her, but got the sort of busy tone that indicated she was on the computer. No matter. Although it was hot enough outside to fry spit, it was also a beautiful, cloudless day.

  The Ashley River sparkled like Greg’s eyes, and small sailboats were out in force, practicing for an upcoming regatta. On a day like this, I feel the urge to get down on my knees and thank my Maker that I now live within the smell of salt water. But it is generally unsafe to drive while kneeling, so instead I sang the hymn “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee”—well, those words of it which I could remember. It had been a while since I’d been to church.

  I made good time on Bohicket, but hit a snag at the entrance to Kiawah Island. I had not been able to get through to Thelma when I called from home, and the guard at the gate insisted that my name had to be on the list of expected visitors. I asked the guard to call Thelma on my behalf, which she did. Alas, the line was still busy.

  I would have tried calling Thelma on my cell phone, but I had left it at home on my kitchen counter when I picked up the chocolate. Feeling somewhat desperate, I implored the guard to let me through anyway. I even offered her a piece of chocolate. Not only did the woman refuse, but adamantly so. I will not disparage the guard’s origins, other than to say that she was apparently from up the road a piece and may not have liked my accent.

  Thus I was forced to backtrack several miles to the nearest public phone just outside the Piggly Wiggly. I like using public telephones about as much as I enjoy chewing gum scraped off the sidewalk, but I had no choice. There were two machines, one a little less grease-smeared than the other, and after fumbling around in a purse messier than a teenager’s dresser drawers, I managed to locate enough change.

  The static was horrible, but Thelma picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Maypole, this is Abigail Washburn—Mozella’s daughter.”

  “I don’t have a daughter. You must have a wrong number.”

  “I know you don’t have a daughter, ma’am. I’m Mozella Wiggins’s daughter.” I shouted so loud that a woman pushing a buggy full of groceries to her car veered away from me, glancing anxiously over her shoulder.

  Thelma Maypole hung up on her end.

  I switched to the greasier phone. I had just enough coins to make one call. This time, however, I got another busy signal.

  “Damn!” I said a few other choice words as well, words a Southern lady of good breeding ought never to utter.

  “Abby, is that you?”

  I dropped the phone and whirled. Thelma Maypole was standing not two feet away. The sunlight glinting off those hexagonal glasses was blinding. I looked away to spare my eyesight.

  “Miss Maypole, you can’t be here. I just called your house, and you were on the phone.”

  She laughed politely. “I haven’t been home all morning, Abby. And please, call me Thelma. I thought we agreed.”

  “But I just called your house—like just seconds ago.”

  Wrinkles appeared above the weird lenses. “Constance!”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The maid. Constance comes in three mornings a week, supposedly to clean. She does a terrible job, though—just pushes the dust around. Frankly, I’ve been trying to work up the courage to fire her. This might be the straw that broke the camel’s back—although an earlier version of that proverb has it feathers breaking a horse’s back. Speaking of horses, did you know that the horse family evolved mainly in the Americas, then spread to Europe via the land bridges, but became extinct on this side of the Atlantic between eight and ten thousand years ago? It wasn’t until the Spanish explorers brought horses here in the early fifteen hundreds that the circle was complete.”

  “No ma’am, I didn’t know that. Ma’am—I mean Thelma, do you mind if we continue this conversation at your house?”

  “My house?” She looked alarmed, but sounded pleased.

  “I was just coming to see you. Like I said, I tried to call.”

  “Will you be staying for lunch?”

  “Well—”

  “And of course I have plenty of room, should you decide to spend the night.”

  I’m sure I looked alarmed. “I was thinking more along the lines of a brief conversation. We can talk right here, if you don’t mind.”

  “Very well.” There was no disguising the disappointment in her voice. “But I have a few things to pick up in the Pig. Will you at least walk with me?”

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  I meant it. It is always a pleasure to shop at the Pig, as we fondly refer to the Piggly Wiggly supermarkets. Many of them play classical music, and there is usually free coffee by the door, and oftentimes doughnuts or samples of cake.

  We were in luck. The bakery department had left out a plate of glazed doughnuts and there were thermoses of chicory-flavored coffee as well as regular. I poured cups of chicory for both of us and snatched a doughnut. While I was pouring, Thelma Maypole downed an entire doughnut and reached for a second.

  “Thelma,” I said, and moved away from the door in hopes that she would follow, which she did. “Thelma, I learned something very interesting yesterday.”

  “You too? Did you know that half of the world’s six thousand, eight hundred languages face extinction by the end of this century?”

  “I did not know that. But—”

  “For instance, there are only six people left who speak Arikapu.”

  “Ari—what?”

  “It’s a language spoken in the Amazon jungle.”

  “Well, that is indeed very interesting, almost as interesting as the fact that you once owned Jane Cox’s house.”

  We’d been strolling past the deli counter, which was fortunate, because I was able to beg some paper towels from the woman filling up the olive bins. My bit of news seemed to have caused Thelma to spill her chicory coffee down her ample bosom.

  I let her do the dabbing. “So it’s true?” I asked.

  “Abby, she’s not going to sue, is she?”

  “Why would she do that?”

&
nbsp; “I didn’t know what else to do.” Thelma handed me a wad of shredded towels. “It’s not like I could prove there was a ghost. I don’t think anybody can, can they? I asked Chiz—I even checked with my lawyer. Neither of them seemed to know the answer, so I did what I had to do. I sold the damn place.” She took a deep breath. “So sue me. I couldn’t live in that house any longer. Not with all the wailing going on. Besides, I had my eye on this Kiawah property.”

  “Relax,” I said. “No one’s going to sue—not to my knowledge. I just found it interesting that you neglected to mention owning Jane’s house.”

  “It didn’t seem important.” She picked at some of the paper remnants on her chest. “Abby, a word of advice to the wise is sufficient—that’s what my mother used to say. So take it from me, someone who knows. Don’t ever buy a house way out someplace where you don’t know anyone. It isn’t that easy to make friends, especially when you’ve reached a certain age.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind. So, Thelma, how long did you live in that house on Colonial Lake?”

  “Oh, I was born and raised there.”

  “Come again?”

  “Abby, do you have a hearing problem? It is not at all uncommon for someone our age, you know. The earliest hearing aids consisted of—”

  “Thelma, I don’t think we’re quite the same age, and no, I do not have a hearing problem. I just can’t believe you waited so long to sell that house, if you couldn’t stand living there.”

  “Well, I had no choice, you see. I had to wait until my parents died, and Daddy died only last year. He was born and raised in that house as well. It would have killed him to leave.”

  I left the irony of that alone. “So how long was this house in your family?”

  “Since before the war.” We had reached the bakery department, where we discovered a plastic tray of sugar cookies waiting to be devoured by children with dirty fingers, and adults who couldn’t stick to their diets. Thelma and I each had one. Then she had a second.

  “I suppose you’re referring to the War Between the States,” I said, with my back to the bakery. The sugar cookies were the best I’d ever tasted.