by Tamar Myers
C. J. chortled. “Ooh, Abby, we’re going to rob a bank?”
“No, dear. We’re going to get away from Greg.”
She chortled again. “Ooh, I love hide-and-seek.”
“This isn’t hide-and-seek, dear. Greg’s riding patrol tonight and—well, there was this minor incident involving my car alarm, and now he hardly wants to let me out of his sight.”
“So where do you want to go? I hear Maine is very nice this time of year.”
“Not that far, dear. Just to the Rob-Bobs. There’s something I want to show them, but I don’t want Greg to follow. Do you think you could swing by in exactly twenty-two minutes?”
“No problemo. My car’s already running; AC is on and everything.”
“Were you going someplace?”
“Oh, no.”
“Then why is it running?”
“Just in case I did go somewhere. And you see, now I am going somewhere, and we don’t even have to wait for the car to cool down.”
Trust me, despite the fact that C. J. is one side short of a triangle, she’s nobody’s fool when it comes to business. Okay, so she wastes gas, but we all have our own little areas of careless spending, don’t we? My point is, C. J. has at least a few wires plugged into reality at all times, and I had no compunctions about riding with the woman.
“C. J., dear, don’t even stop when you get to my house. Just slow enough so that I can jump in.”
“Will do!”
5
C. J. followed my instructions to the letter. She slowed to a crawl in front of my driveway, and I was able to hop in while the car was still moving.
“Hit it,” I sang. “Press the pedal to the metal.”
“Gee, Abby, you’re a lot of fun, you know that?”
“Thanks.” I looked in the side mirror. There were no other moving vehicles on the street.
“So, what do you think of my outfit?”
I looked at C. J. for the first time. She was dressed in black from head to toe, and I mean that literally.
“Lose the ski mask, dear. It’s the middle of summer. You look like a bank robber.”
She peeled it off and tossed it into my lap. “It belonged to my Uncle Arnie. He was a bank robber, you know.”
“You don’t say. In Shelby?”
“Yup. He robbed eight banks there and never got caught.”
Who knew Shelby had that many banks? “So, he retired then, did he?”
“Tried to. In fact, he tried to quit after the very first one, but he couldn’t get the mask off so he robbed a second. Later he moved to California and became a full-gospel preacher. Auntie Lula Mae sent me the mask after Uncle Arnie died. She said in her note that it was one of his most prized possessions. She found it lying right next to his King James Bible.”
“You don’t say?” I flipped the thing to the floor with the corner of my pocketbook. “C. J., do you have any plans for this weekend?”
“Well, actually I do.”
“What are they?” C. J. is like a daughter—no, make that younger sister—to me. I figured I had a right to ask.
“I’m going to string popcorn.”
“Whatever for?”
She looked at me like I was pumping only one piston. “Christmas, silly.”
“But Christmas is still five months away.”
“I know, but I always get so excited then that I eat most of it. This year I’m starting early. Maybe by Christmas I’ll have enough to wrap around the tree twice.”
“Need some help?”
“Oh, Abby, I’d love it if you came to help out. But I’m planning to wear duct tape around my mouth. I won’t be able to talk much.”
Darn, but my timing was bad. “Unfortunately, I can’t make it. But I know a nice gentleman who can.”
“Abby, are you setting me up?”
“You bet I am,” I said cheerily. “And he’s from Shelby, too.”
C. J. squealed with delight. “Ooh, Abby, you are the best friend a girl ever had. What’s his name?”
“Uh…Bowater. Look, C. J., I don’t know his first name, but he’s in the Charlotte police department now. I just call him Sergeant Bowater.”
C. J. giggled. “Jane Bowater. I like it. Is he cute? Do you think we’ll hit it off?”
“Trust me, dear, you two are like peas in a pod. Goobers in a shell. Now will you step on it? You’re not even up to the speed limit.”
“Sure thing, Abby.” She drove at an acceptable speed for all of one block before slacking off again. “What’s that you’ve got wrapped in a sheet? That isn’t Dmitri, is it?”
I glanced down at my hands. “This is a pillowcase, dear. And you don’t hear any meowing, do you?”
“He’s dead?”
I sighed patiently. “Dmitri’s at home, safe and sound under the couch. This”—I gently rocked my precious bundle—“is what’s going to make me a very rich woman.”
C. J.’s eye—the one that I could see at the moment—widened to the size of your average hot tub, and her gasp momentarily depleted the car of oxygen. “You had a baby?”
I may be on the short side, and I was properly buckled in, still I managed to slide my leg over and press down with my toe on the arch of C. J.’s foot. The little car shot ahead.
Rob Goldburg opened his condo door before I could even locate the bell. “You said on the phone it was extremely urgent, Abby. What’s wrong?” He glanced at C. J.’s black clothes. “Somebody die?”
“It’s not her cat,” C. J. said helpfully. “She won’t confirm it, but I think she had a baby. Rob, did she ever look pregnant to you?”
I gave her a friendly push into the best-appointed salon this side of the Atlantic. Rob and his life-partner, Bob, are also in the business. Their shop, The Finer Things, is arguably the South’s most upscale antique store. Vendors come all the way from Paris to haggle, and tourists from L.A. just to drool. The Rob-Bobs have decorated their oversize condominium with the finest from The Finer Things. Their Louis XIV furniture bears the teeth marks of Louis XV.
“Please, sit down,” Rob said, ever the southern gentleman.
I selected a chair that I knew bore no impressions of royal baby teeth. This Louis XIV, upholstered in floral Genoese velvet, had a solid silver frame. It was my favorite piece in the Rob-Bob’s collection but, alas, far too heavy to ever steal. C. J. settled into a companion chair that, although it looked the same, had a frame constructed of gilt over carved wood.
Rob, who was still standing, stared at my bundle. “What do you have there, the crown jewels?”
C. J. gasped. “Oh, Abby, you didn’t!”
I shook my head to reassure her. “So, where’s Bob?”
Rob studied his hands. They were a patrician’s hands. Louis XIV must have had hands like that, only smaller.
“He’s gone home.”
“But this is his home,” C. J. said before I could hop off my chair and clamp my hands over her mouth.
“He’s gone back to Toledo.”
“Toledo?” C. J. and I chorused.
“That’s where his family is. His real family.”
I leaned forward. “But you’re his family.”
“I thought I was.” He looked sad.
I wished with all my heart that C. J. would temporarily just disappear so I could speak with Rob alone. “What did you fight about?”
“Chicken.”
“What?”
“Oh, that’s quite common,” C. J. assured us. “My cousin Lenora fights with her chickens all the time. Especially with that big Rhode Island red she calls Annabel.”
Rob smiled. “We didn’t fight with chickens; we fought about chicken. I like mine fried; Bob has to have his marinated in some sauce or another, and then washes that all off to get rid of the calories.”
I nodded sympathetically. Rob might look patrician and have patrician taste in decor, but gastronomically he belonged, and would always belong, on the sunny side of the Mason-Dixon line. He was Jewish, of course,
but southern Jewish. His mama rolled her chicken in seasoned matzo crumbs before committing it to grease. Bob, on the other hand, was a connoisseur of emu, which he thought of as just a big chicken with a lot of potential.
C. J. shook her head. “Y’all broke up over something as stupid as chicken?”
Rob blushed, and it was rather becoming. He has classically handsome features and is just beginning to gray at the temples, even though he has passed the half-century mark.
“Well, I got tired of being his culinary guinea pig. I have rights, too, you know.”
C. J. rolled her eyes. “This isn’t about fighting with chickens or eating guinea pigs. Granny Ledbetter always said that behind a little fight is a little problem, and behind a big fight is a big problem.”
“She’s right, you know,” I heard myself say. “Rob didn’t go back up north just because of fried chicken. There’s something else going on here.”
Rob said nothing.
“All right, then, don’t tell us.” I counted to five under my breath, and mercifully C. J. kept mum. “Okay, do you now want to see what I brought?”
Rob shrugged. “Sure.”
Slowly, and with as much drama as I could muster—which was considerable, if I do say so myself—I removed the loosely rolled canvas from the pillow case. “Voilà!”
Rob and C. J. stared mutely. It was quite apparent that they were both in shock.
“Isn’t it gorgeous?” I cried.
C. J. winced. “Abby, you’re not serious, are you?”
“The color,” I almost shouted. “The texture! Feast your eyes on a masterpiece!”
“Ooh, Abby, I don’t think so. My cousin Arvin did a picture just like that with his finger paints. Even his mama thought it was so ugly that she wanted to hold him back another year in kindergarten.”
“This isn’t a piece of refrigerator art,” I shrieked. “This is a van Gogh!”
C. J. twittered while Rob, bless his heart, teetered. I thought the man was going to collapse at my feet.
“Where did you get that?” he rasped.
“At the Episcopal Church of Our Savior in Rock Hill. I got it tonight at a white elephant auction.”
Rob extended a long, elegant finger but couldn’t bring himself to touch the work of art. “It just might be, you know?”
“Of course it is! I’ve only seen a picture of it once—and that wasn’t in color—but this most definitely is Vincent van Gogh’s last study in green. The elusive Field of Thistles!”
“The brush strokes,” Rob muttered. “The depth of feeling. The man was a genius.”
“Then my cousin Arvin is a genius,” C. J. snapped. The woman hardly ever gets irritable, so this was a bad sign.
Although Rob smiled, the look of condescension on his face would have made a Parisian proud. “Art appreciation is a highly personal thing.”
C. J. has a lot of moxie for a twenty-four-year-old. “I suppose you like Jackson Pollack.”
“Another genius,” I chirped.
C. J. treated us to pitying looks. “You and Rob like these weird paintings because they’re…they’re…well, they’re what snobby people like.”
It was a good thing I was seated, because I reeled with shock. “There isn’t a snobby bone in my body, C. J.”
“Actually, there is,” Rob said quietly.
“What?” I reeled again.
“Face it, Abby. We in the biz do tend to think we know what defines good taste. It’s only natural. But like I said before, these are subjective opinions. C. J. is in the biz, too; she just happens to have different tastes.”
C. J. beamed. “I like the Dutch masters. The ones before van Gogh. I like Rembrandt and Rubens.”
Rob nodded. “So did van Gogh. He was particularly fond of Rubens.”
“Can we get back to the subject at hand?” I wailed.
“Ah, yes, the Field of Thistles. Funny, but I just read an article recently that mentioned the painting.”
“You did?”
Rob selected a Georges Jacob mahogany chair and finally sat. “It was an article about the Holocaust, actually. About a family in Antwerp, Belgium, who hid their artwork in a false floor in the attic only hours before being hauled off to a concentration camp. Only the father survived, and when he returned after being liberated, the house was no longer standing. Anyway, one of the paintings said to have been in his collection was the Field of Thistles.”
I was on my feet. “What else did it say? Was there a picture?”
“I’m afraid not, Abby. Not of any paintings, just of the house—before the war, of course. The article was really about the family. Art was tangential.”
“But it was mentioned!”
“Yes, Abby, but only briefly. There was another line, though, about the painting…hmm, let me think.”
“Think!”
“Something about it being one of van Gogh’s more questionable pieces. Ah, the author said the painting belonged to van Gogh’s ‘apocrypha.’”
I sat weakly. “Oh.”
“But Abby, even if it was painted by one of van Gogh’s disciples, it could still be tremendously valuable.”
“How valuable?”
“Six figures, at least, for a painting that size—if we put it up for auction in New York. Could even be a lot more.”
“Hot damn!” C. J. bounced on her genuine Louis XIV chair. “I’m taking a whole bunch of Cousin Arvin’s paintings to the Big Banana.”
I grimaced. “That’s Big Apple, dear.” I turned to Rob. “Who do we contact?”
“We? Abby, are you offering me a commission?”
“Yes,” I said gratefully.
Rob grinned. “I just happen to have a friend who is an Impressionist expert. He owns a little gallery called Bons in midtown. I’ll give him a call first thing in the morning.”
I glanced at the eighteenth-century longcase clock on the floor behind Rob. It was after eleven. I had yet to negotiate a percentage with Rob, and it was possible that if I offered him fifty percent, he would call his friend at home—assuming he knew the number—and thereby undoubtedly ruin a very good working relationship. Possible, but not likely.
“Do you want me to leave the painting?”
“That would be helpful. It’s easier to describe something when I’ve got it right in front of me.”
“Okay, but you lose it, you bought it.” I said that only half in jest.
“I’ll put it in my safe.”
“You have one? I’ve never seen it.”
“That’s what makes it so safe. No one, except for Bob, knows its location.”
“Ooh, Abby, never put something really valuable in a secret safe. Back in Shelby—”
I took pity on Rob and steered her to the door.
6
Some folks think that just because I’m in business for myself, I can set my own hours. That’s true as long as I keep my shop open forty hours a week during prime business hours and spend another eight or ten hours attending sales. Not to mention the hours spent cleaning and organizing any subsequent purchases. I know what they mean, though. If I’m late to the shop, I may lose a valued customer, but I won’t lose my job—at least not in one fell swoop.
I didn’t think I’d ever get to sleep Wednesday night, and I didn’t. It was well into the wee hours of Thursday morning when I stopped counting green thistles and drifted off. When my alarm beeped, I managed to turn it off in my sleep. Either that or, in my excitement, I had forgotten to set it. At any rate, the telephone woke me up at 9:30, a half hour later than the time I usually open my shop.
“Muoyo webe,” Mama said cheerily.
“What?” I pushed Dmitri off my chest and sat up.
“Life to you, Abby. That’s how they say ‘good morning’ in Tshiluba.”
I glanced at the clock. “Oh, shoot! Mama, I’ve got to run.”
“I know, dear. I tried the shop first and got the machine. Abby, you really should consider getting a professional to record your messa
ge. Someone who sounds…well, more cultured.”
“Like Rob?” I remembered the painting. “Mama, sorry, but I really can’t talk now.”
“Fine,” Mama said, her cheeriness deserting her. “I guess, like they say, bad news can wait.”
I sighed. Mama baits her hooks with an expertise to be envied by the best fly fishermen.
“Sock it to me, Mama. But make it quick.”
“Are you sitting down, Abby?”
“Mama, I’m still in bed!”
“Abby, I’m afraid I have some horrible news to tell you about one of your former boyfriends.”
“Greg?” I managed to gasp after a few seconds. “Did something happen to Greg?”
“No, dear, it’s Gilbert Sweeny. He’s dead.”
I wanted to reach through the phone line and shake Mama until her pearls rattled. “Gilbert Sweeny was never my boyfriend!”
“Abby, apparently you didn’t hear what I said. Gilbert Sweeny is dead. He committed suicide. The police found him an hour ago.”
“But that can’t be true! I just spoke to him last night.”
“It is true. I heard it from Barbara, who heard it from Dorothy, who heard it from the Queen herself.”
My head spun. “Are you sure? How would Priscilla Hunt know? And so soon?”
Mama sighed. Clearly, she had failed me as a mother. Everyone knew that Priscilla Hunt was a veritable human switchboard, who not only monitored the townsfolk’s movements but interfered at will. She regularly told Ben Hunter when to cut his grass and forbade Sarah Jenkins to hang purple drapes, and when that new family from Germany built a tree house in their backyard, the Queen sent a petition around asking for signatures to force the young family to tear it down. Mama says the Queen knew—and disapproved—when she switched toilet paper brands and bought that new quilted stuff. Mama also says she doesn’t care and is not switching back.
“Mama, Her Majesty must be wrong this time. The police don’t rule suicides this quick.”
“They do if there’s a note.”
“There’s a note?”
“Abby, did you get your hearing checked like I told you to last month?”
