by Lea Wait
“The ‘usual talk’?” said Maggie incredulously. “What’s ‘usual’ about discriminating against someone who lost his brother in a terrorist attack?”
“People listen to the news, and they worry. They go on the offensive,” said the detective, adding, “And I guess you know his mother killed herself.”
“I’d heard.”
“Abdullah was the one who called 911 when it happened. She hung herself. Left a note about being tired and not able to cope anymore. It wasn’t pretty.”
“She killed herself because of the prejudice?”
“It looked as though that pushed her over the edge, after her older son was killed.”
Al asked, “There was no question it was suicide?”
“No question. From the investigator or from her son. She did it.”
“This is awful,” said Maggie. “I can’t believe you’re rehashing all the terrible things that happened to these good people in the past, when I’m sure someone else set that bomb!”
Detective Luciani continued, unfazed. “Will Brewer has no record of any sort we could find, although we have faxed the police in Buffalo to verify that.”
Maggie almost stamped her foot in rage. Was all this necessary? There was a killer out there! And these idiots were investigating victims, like Abdullah, and innocent bystanders, like Will.
“The only one here who had any sort of significant record was Claudia Hall.”
“Claudia?” Maggie stood absolutely still.
“Yup. She has a sheet.”
Maggie felt a bit faint.
“Shoplifting, a couple of times, about ten years ago. Drug possession, once.”
“Drugs?” croaked Maggie. The woman who was condemning her for drinking diet cola?
“Marijuana. She was in a car accident; police found it in her pocketbook. And there was a protective order taken out against her, four years ago.”
“A protective order?” Al frowned. “She was abusing someone?”
“Harassing. Former boyfriend. He said she was following him and sending him threatening letters. She was pissed because he had a new girlfriend. A couple of new girlfriends, actually.” Detective Luciani shook his head. “Anyway, it didn’t come to anything. She stopped bothering him, I guess.”
“But she did send threatening letters.” Al was looking back toward the gym, where Claudia was working.
“She did. And,” Detective Luciani looked at Maggie, “she does have a gun.”
“I know that. It’s licensed.” Last fall Maggie had had a serious talk with Claudia about why one shouldn’t carry a gun to work in one’s pocketbook. Even if it was licensed.
“And, luckily for her, it’s not the same type used to shoot Mrs. Sloane or her son. But we’re going to watch her, I have to tell you. If you see anything suspicious, with her or anyone else, let me know as soon as possible.” Luciani paused. “Maybe it would be a good idea if she didn’t work so closely with you on this show.”
“No!” said Maggie. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for everything. And let’s assume for a minute that she is responsible for all this chaos. Which I don’t for one minute believe. Wouldn’t it be better if she were right here with us, so we could keep an eye on her?”
“I suppose that’s right, Professor Summer. But be careful. She might be a dangerous person.” Luciani looked down at his notes. “And then there’s Hal Hanson.”
Maggie felt her level of frustration rising. “I suppose he’s a dangerous criminal, too?”
“Possibly, yes.”
Maggie took a deep breath. “What did you find out about Hal?”
“He was adopted about ten years ago, by Sheryl and Len Hanson, who lived in Somerville. Didn’t make a good adjustment; had been abused by his parents and as a kid in foster care, and was seriously hyperactive. So hyperactive the local school system said they couldn’t handle him; he was hitting other kids and throwing things out windows during classes. His parents had him in counseling, tried different medications and different schools. None of them worked out.”
Maggie listened carefully. Life had been difficult for Hal. And his adoptive parents.
“After he set a few small fires at home, he ended up at an adolescent psychiatric facility in Pennsylvania.”
Fires.
“He was released from that hospital late last fall and moved home, on medication.”
“And in January his parents’ home burned down, killing them both,” said Maggie quietly.
“That’s why we have a whole file on him. But I want to emphasize—there was no proof the fire was set, or that he had anything to do with it. It appeared to be electrical. Hal was in a first-floor bedroom; the fire started in the middle of the night. He called 911. His parents were in bed and trapped on the second floor. There was nothing he, or anyone else, could do.”
“You investigated and found nothing.”
The detective shook his head. “We had some questions, but nothing conclusive. Then the Drummonds took him in. They knew his history, and they believed he was innocent.”
Carole and her husband wouldn’t have offered Hal a home if they’d felt there was danger to their other children. Maggie was sure about that.
“So . . .?”
“No proof. No reason to investigate further. But Hal has a history of emotional disturbance and a connection with fires.”
Maggie thought a moment. “Has he had any connection with guns? Or bombs?”
“None that we know of.”
She nodded. “So it may all be a coincidence that he was here.”
“It may be,” agreed the detective. “And it may be a coincidence that all three of the young men here yesterday afternoon have lost family members to violence. But we in law enforcement don’t like it when there are too many coincidences connected with one event.”
“Incidents of violence and death of family members is much more common among adopted children and adults than it is among the population in general,” Maggie put in. “Two of those young men were adopted. And Abdullah lost his brother in the World Trade Center. You can’t put that loss in the same category as the others!”
“That’s very different, of course,” said Detective Luciani. “But it is interesting that the three of them were together.”
“All helping to support adoption,” Maggie reminded him. “Support adoption. Not threaten it.”
“We’re exploring all possibilities. Let me know if you hear or see anything that might be helpful to the investigation.”
“Of course,” said Maggie.
“Or if you see or hear anything that could potentially lead to another incident.”
“You mean another threat?”
“Another threat. Or worse.”
Chapter 35
Crossing a Deep Ravine Dangerous to Pafs (sic). One of six hand-colored etchings in the “Steeple Chase” series by Henry Thomas Alken (1785–1853), perhaps Britain’s most famous painter of sporting subjects. His satirical view of sports was popular in England in the 1820s and 1830s. This etching, published by S&J Fuller, shows four horses and riders in a race. One horse and rider have fallen into a deep ditch, while the other three proceed to the next hazard: bushes in front of a fence. Matted, in modern antiqued gold frame. Frame: 12.5 x 15.5 inches. Price: $250.
By one in the afternoon it was beginning to feel as though there might really be an antiques show.
Signs appeared all over town announcing the show and directing potential customers toward the college. And with the help of some ladders Eric had located, Skip Hendricks and his committee put a big vinyl banner on the gym declaring OWOC ANTIQUES SHOW—MAY 14 & 15 in red letters on a white background. Maggie had seen signs for professionally run shows that weren’t as clear.
Volunteers who believed in their cause were invaluable. Maggie realized it was a slight miracle that everyone who’d been working in the gym yesterday when her van blew up was back again today.
She looked around. Additio
nal handicapped parking spaces had been reserved.
The electricians had finished putting the cables and outlets down, tables were in the booth spaces, and dealer signs were in each space.
Maggie hated to do it, but, without giving a reason to anyone, even Will, she’d asked Will and Claudia to work together to check the booth contracts Gussie had organized, and to verify that each dealer had the electricity and the number and size of tables he or she wanted. Just in case one of the students had made an error or left anything in one of the booths. Or that Claudia had uncharacteristically left something undone.
I’m getting really paranoid, thought Maggie to herself. But she double-checked everything.
They’d shortened one line of booths to make up for a cancellation, and Gussie had the brilliant idea to use one of the canceled booths as a lounge, leaving a dozen extra chairs there for people who wanted to sit for a while, to wait for a spouse who was still shopping, or to make a decision about a major purchase.
The tables and chairs for the café looked fine. Ann would check that setup after the bank closed at three.
Eric had listened to Maggie’s concerns. Twice he’d assured her there was plenty of toilet paper in the bathrooms, including the bathrooms in the locker rooms. Maggie made a note to make sure the locker rooms were locked before the end of the day.
“Okay, Ben,” she said. “I think it’s time for you to be a porter and bring in Gussie’s and my stuff from the van so we can get our booth set up before the other dealers arrive. Will, if you want to start setting up, too, I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t. I might need your help with something else after the other dealers arrive.”
The people who’d volunteered to be porters weren’t coming until four, but Kayla and Kendall volunteered to help Will unload now, and Eric and Abdullah went to help Ben.
With that many porters, loading in was going to be easy, Maggie thought. At too many shows she’d had to heft and carry all her inventory and racks and table covers and tools herself. It often took over an hour just to get everything from her van to her booth.
Her van. She tried not to think about the logistical issues of not having any transportation, as she kept an eye on the door while Gussie supervised the unloading.
She’d mentioned the lockers to Al, and he was off making sure everything there was secure. If he needed a shower tonight, he assured her, he’d briefly unlock just one area.
So far, so good, Maggie said over and over to herself. No more threats. No more shootings. No more explosions.
Maybe whoever had done all this was satisfied he or she had already gotten enough people upset and wouldn’t try anything else.
Maggie’s fingers were crossed, and she looked around quickly for some wood to knock on.
“Your table covers or mine?” asked Gussie. “I think the guys have unloaded everything. Ben and I can set up our part of the booth, but you’ll have to put up your Peg-Boards and racks.”
Just like a regular antiques show, thought Maggie. She followed Gussie into the gym. She’d put Will’s booth across from theirs, and his porters had been working just as quickly. It looked as though almost everything he’d planned to display was piled on the floor between his tables.
They chose Gussie’s table covers, which were navy blue. Maggie’s were black, and today, they both decided, something a little brighter would be good. Ben set Gussie’s folding bookcases on the back of her tables, forming a wall of sorts to fill with dolls and toys, while Maggie attached Peg-Boards to the tables on the other side of the booth, so she could hang prints on them.
Setup would be much faster than usual, since she hadn’t brought many prints. She put a high rack in the corner to hold Victorian lithographs of children and used lower racks on the tables for the children’s illustrators she was going to feature.
She put Winslow Homer wood engravings on one end of the front table. No matter what show she did, she always took her Homers. Some Thomas Nasts were right for this show, too, since he had lived in New Jersey and his Christmas engravings featured Santa Claus and children. Even in May there were customers looking for Christmas gifts and collectors looking for Santa Clauses.
Several groups of hand-colored and lithographed flowers fit well in one corner of the booth, with a rack holding astronomy and astrology behind them.
There was less room for anatomy prints than she’d planned, so Maggie left prints of animal anatomy in her portfolio. She pulled out the 1912 foldouts of the digestive system of man, and of the stages of human pregnancy, and a wonderful Victorian lithograph illustrating where to provide pressure should the pictured mustached gentleman have the unfortunate luck to be bitten by a mad dog. Parts of the ear. Parts of the eye. Skeletal structure. Muscular structure. All wonderful prints for doctors, nurses, physical therapists, surgeons, and others professionally involved with the human body. At her last show she’d sold several skulls to a father who planned to give them as graduation gifts to his daughter, who was studying to be a psychiatrist. Skulls were always dramatic to put in front.
There. She pulled out one of a skull, front and back and top views, and one of a series of skulls showing anatomical differences in anthropological divisions of Homo sapiens. Interesting. She checked the date. Was this still as true as had been believed in 1888? Or was it politically incorrect now? She looked at it again. And then a third time. The skulls were labeled as different races, but many of them were what we would now call different cultures. Maggie put it in back of the other prints and stood back.
Not bad. Her part of the booth had come together better than she’d hoped, considering the short time she’d taken to go through her portfolios and then to plan what she would bring, and how she would display everything.
And, as often happened, going through her prints had calmed her. Had let her see life in a little different light.
Ben was arranging a group of cast-iron banks in the shapes of horses, elephants, and bank buildings on one of Gussie’s bookcases, while Gussie set up a lovely pink, flowered Victorian dolls’ tea set. “Make sure that’s not too close to the edge of the table,” Maggie advised. “There will be more children than usual at this show.”
“You’re right,” agreed Gussie. “In fact, I thought of that when I was packing.” She pointed at her front table. It contained more twentieth-century toys than Gussie usually brought, but they were certainly all collectible, from early Tonka trucks to elaborate pink and blue plastic 1950s dollhouse furniture. And Gussie had added a sign: EVERYTHING ON THIS TABLE $15 OR LESS.
Maggie gave her a “thumbs-up.” “Good marketing! And once you get the children occupied . . .”
“Then we entrance the parents with your prints and my nineteenth century French fashion dolls. The ones arranged far from the edge of the table.”
Chapter 36
Gathering Corn. Wood engraving from 1865 by Edward Forbes. Black man dumps basket of corn into a wagon pulled by a pair of oxen, one black and one white, who are nibbling on cornstalks. One white man shucks corn, while another removes cornstalks. 11 x 15 inches. Price: $60.
By three thirty Maggie was glad she’d finished setting up her booth early. Dealers and their vans and trucks lined the parking lot. She walked through the lot, checking to make sure she knew everyone there, and handing out name tags.
If people inside the building were not wearing name tags, they’d be stopped by Al or one of his assistants so their identity could be verified. If they didn’t have a good reason for being there or were just trying to get an early look at the merchandise, their names would be recorded—as they were accompanied to the door.
Luckily this was not far from standard procedure at many antiques shows. None of the dealers would suspect there were any more reasons to be concerned than the need to protect their antiques. But there are no secrets at antiques shows; within an hour of their arrivals, Maggie knew all the dealers would have heard about her van being blown up.
Violet, one of the students who’
d volunteered to be a porter, arrived. Kayla and Kendall left to pick their children up at day care. George Healy stopped in to check on Eric and make sure everything in the gym was all right.
Ann arrived with two friends, demanding that porters unload the small refrigerators she’d brought, along with cartons of napkins, cups, sodas, hot dog rolls, and what looked like four cartons of electric deep fryers (“So we can cook hot dogs!”) and frying pans (“For the onions and sauerkraut!”).
Maggie sent Abdullah and Violet off to find Eric and see if there were any additional dollies they could borrow for Ann. Gussie was still setting up her booth, but Josie Thomas had stopped in to see where the admissions table would be on Saturday, and Maggie recruited her.
Would she stay and check the dealers in, see that they paid the rest of their booth rent before they set up, give out the name tags everyone should be wearing by now, and keep a current list of dealers who’d requested porters? In the order they’d requested them, please.
Josie nodded and went to work.
Volunteers were wonderful.
Paul Turk arrived, as good as his word, to be a porter, and so did Oliver Whitcomb. Maggie put aside any hesitations about ordering a philanthropist to get his hands dirty. She asked Oliver to find George Healy and check that there was enough power for all the electrical appliances Ann and her café staff were unloading.
Another note for future shows, Maggie thought: ask café people how much power they’ll need.
And if there wasn’t enough power, Oliver would be the best person to tell Ann.
Was Ann really going to sue OWOC?
If she was going to do that, then why go to all this trouble for the show?
Maggie had a sudden horribly funny vision of Ann as the wicked witch in Snow White, handing out poisoned apple muffins to everyone at the agency.
It was not the moment to share that thought with anyone.
Abdullah was helping Will set up his booth. Where were all the other people who’d promised to be porters?
She breathed a sigh of relief when an OWOC parent waved to her from an SUV and unloaded six teenagers, four girls and two boys.
