by Tamar Myers
“They involved me!”
“Who is they?”
“Sergeant Scrubb and—who’s the other one, C. J?”
“Bright,” she purred. “He’s dreamy.”
Greg frowned. “What did the officers want?”
I swallowed hard. The pureed potatoes with goat cheese had formed a lump in my throat the size of Texas.
“They just asked some questions—like what was it we had to eat, who poured the tea, that kind of thing.”
“They asked me questions about glass,” Bob said.
All eyes turned to the cook.
“Glass?” Greg asked.
Bob nodded. “That Bright fellow had a box of shards. Said Abby told him they might be valuable.”
“Not the shards,” I hissed. “The original pieces. They were Lalique.”
He shrugged. “They may have been at one time. It was impossible to tell.”
“Lalique has a very distinctive look, Bob,” I said, measuring my words like drops of cod liver oil.
“That’s true, Abby, but none of the pieces I saw were signed.”
“Well, they were.” I jumped up from the table without excusing myself—thereby proving I didn’t belong in Charleston society—and retrieved the peacock’s head perfume bottle that had been sitting on my bedroom dresser. “Take a look at that,” I said and thrust it under Bob’s patrician nose.
He blinked. “Uh—”
“Look,” I said. “It’s right there. See for yourself.”
“Abby,” Greg said disapprovingly.
“That’s okay,” Bob boomed. He took the bottle, and despite the fact that he was wearing glasses, held it inches from his nose.
“Well?” I demanded.
Bob handed the piece back. “Sorry, Abby, but it’s not his.”
11
“What do you mean?” I try not to be shrill. The fact that a lonely seagull responded just outside the dining room window was sheer coincidence.
“Abby, how many L’s are there in Lalique?”
“Two, of course.”
“That has three. Forgers misspell all the time. Sometimes it’s carelessness, some think it protects them legally. Of course they’re wrong.”
I stared at the base of the bottle until I was in danger of needing glasses myself. There were three L’s. How could I have missed that? How could C.J. with her twenty-something eyes have missed it as well? Sure, she’s an egg short of an omelet, but when it comes to this business she’s absolutely brilliant.
You see what you want to believe, my daddy used to say. I can only hope he didn’t see the seagull that dive-bombed him. Perhaps the one outside my window now was an omen.
“I can’t believe this,” I said. “How could I have made such a stupid mistake?”
Bob, whose generosity exceeds even his talent as a cook, cleared his throat softly. “We’ve all been there, Abby.”
“But I—I feel like such a fool.”
C.J., who was sitting on my right, leaned over and patted my shoulder. Her hands are as big as oven mitts, and as heavy as oven doors. I had to struggle not to land facedown in the goat-flavored spuds.
“Don’t worry Abby, I’m sure you’ll straighten this all out. You always do.”
“Shhh.”
I’d said it quietly, but any man who can hear shrimp calling from the bottom of the ocean can hear his shushing wife the length of a dinner table. His eyes, still strangely gray, locked on mine.
“What did you say, dear?”
I smiled. “I merely said ‘shhh.’ C.J. needs to eat before her food gets cold. In fact, we all do. Bon appetit, everyone!” I speared a forkful of pancetta-wrapped grouper.
“Not so fast, Abby. You’re skulking around like an amateur detective again, aren’t you?”
I patted my cheek to indicate that it would be rude of me to answer with my mouth full.
Greg shifted his gaze. “C.J.? What do you know about this?”
I tried kicking her under the table, but my leg was too short. It wasn’t too short, however, to connect with the table’s leg. Sheer willpower kept me from howling, a fact for which my tablemates should have been grateful.
“Abby hasn’t said anything about investigating this murder,” C.J. said guilelessly.
“And I saw her in the shop today,” Bob offered.
Mama touched the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “But she did leave the store early. Over an hour, wasn’t it dear? That nice Mr. Johnson had to cover for you on his very first day.”
If looks could kill, I’d be an orphan now. “Mama,” I growled.
Alas, the woman is not easily stifled. “I’m not saying I blame Abby for wanting to clear her name of suspicion. After all, Mrs. Amelia Shadbark was the pinnacle of Charleston society. And as long as there’s any doubt at all, our pedigree will not be accepted in the right circles—although I still don’t understand why the DAR isn’t good enough.”
Greg stabbed his grouper, and then let the fork sink to the plate, where it connected with a clank. “So that’s why you suddenly decided to hire an assistant”
I smiled meekly. It is usually my best defense. Unfortunately, it’s getting harder and harder to manipulate my dear husband.
“I’m going to have to put my foot down this time,” he said, and actually stamped the floor. “This amateur sleuthing has got to stop. God knows it’s dangerous enough for us professionals. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let my wife get involved.”
That was going too far. “Are you forbidding me?”
Greg stared silently. His eyes were blue again—an icy blue.
“Well, are you?”
“Don’t make me say it, Abby.”
“Ooh!” It was an involuntary response from C.J., and she was immediately mortified.
I smiled at her. “Not to worry, dear, the dinner theater is over.” I turned my forced smile on Bob. “You simply must give me this recipe.”
“Sure, Abby. As soon as I get home—”
“Now.”
He did so in nauseating detail.
To his credit, Greg ate every last bite of his supper. In fact, we all cleaned our plates. C.J. was so nervous she even had seconds.
After coffee, I shooed Bob home at the earliest opportunity. Greg and C.J. went to bed early and at the same time—separate rooms, of course—which left just Mama to contend with. I’ll confess to wishing that she’d be struck with a sudden case of acute laryngitis. Had I been something besides a lapsed Episcopalian, I might even have prayed for it.
“Well, I declare,” Mama said, as she supervised me loading the dishwasher. “I never would have dared talking like that to your father.”
I tried to remember that far back. I had a vague recollection of sporadic tension at the dinner table, but never any raised voices. And Daddy certainly never stamped his feet. Mama, either, for that matter. Although—and I don’t mean to cast aspersions on the woman from whose womb I issued—it is harder to stamp pumps than wing tips.
“With all due respect, Mama, I refuse to discuss this.”
“But Abby, I’m your mother. You’re supposed to be able to discuss anything with me.”
“Anything?”
“Anything but sex.”
“I’m a mother, too, Mama. My rule handbook says to stay out of a grown child’s business. Especially if she’s married.”
“Why, I never!”
“Then please don’t start now.”
“Thirty-four hours of labor, and this is the thanks I get?”
“It was six.”
“What?”
“It was thirty-six hours of labor, not thirty-four.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’ve only said it a million times.”
“Well, nevertheless, the point I was hoping to make is that I think you should stand by your guns.”
“What?”
“Don’t let your husband tell you what to do. In the end, you’ll only resent him for it.”
I leaned against the upper rack of the dishwasher, and it slid away from me. Fortunately my reflexes are still pretty good. A year or two down the line and I might have ended up in the dishwasher altogether.
“I can’t believe you’re saying this, Mama.”
She stared down at her pink-and-white-gingham apron with the eyelet ruffle. “I wanted to work when your daddy and I were first married, but he forbade it. It put a huge strain on our marriage.”
“But you did work, Mama. You were a secretary—”
“That was a job, dear. I wanted to work at my vocation.”
“Vocation?”
“Abby, sometimes I think you just repeat everything I say.”
“Sorry, Mama. What was your vocation?”
When she looked up from her apron she was blushing. “I was going to be a lounge singer, dear. I sang—”
“Lounge singer?”
“There you go again!”
I clamped my hands over my mouth to show her I meant business.
She sighed. “Okay, but don’t interrupt again.” She sighed again for good measure. “I sang torch songs. I was good, too, if I have to say so myself. Some people even called me the next Patsy Cline.”
I tried to imagine Mama singing in a smoky bar attached to some Holiday Inn, but I couldn’t. At least not without imagining an empty bar, the bartender with his hands over his ears. You see, back in Rock Hill my mite of a mother sang in the church choir. She was what the choir director fondly called an “m and m” member. That’s because everyone said “mercy me” anytime she opened her mouth. Once, in an act of misguided kindness, the director gave her a solo. At the conclusion of the service the ushers found a pack of dogs on the front steps. One of them was dead from a brain aneurysm.
“Well, Abby, aren’t you going to say anything?”
“So, you wish you’d stood up to Daddy, huh?”
Mama stroked her pearls. “He was a dear, sweet man, and may he rest in peace. But just think where I might be today.”
I gave Mama a big hug and sent her off to bed. Alone at last, I got out the Greater Charleston white pages and looked up the name Shadbark. There was just one.
“Hello, Constance,” I said to myself with a smile. “I’ll be seeing you tomorrow.”
I slept fitfully and was wide awake when Greg left to go shrimping with C.J. How could I not have been? The love of my life clomped about the bedroom like a pirate with two peg legs. He slammed dresser drawers, closet doors, and even the toilet seat. Poor Dmitri, unaccustomed to the din, wiggled his way under the covers and took refuge between my feet. It was a wonder Mama didn’t come flying out of her room to mediate.
You can bet that I feigned sleep. Silence—and this is a lesson I’ve learned from all the men in my family—is far more effective than a raised voice. At any rate, after the bedroom door slammed for the last time, I tried hard to go back to sleep. I counted sheep, llamas, and chickens, but to no avail.
Finally I got up, took a long hot shower, and fixed myself a bowl of Raisin Bran—the kind with two scoops—and a cup of green tea. After eating, I remained in the kitchen nursing the brew, and brooding, until I heard Mama moving about in her room. Then I lit out of there like a coon dog with its tail on fire.
When I arrived at the shop, five minutes before opening time, Homer Johnson was waiting outside the door. With him were two anxious shoppers he’d snagged and already sold on the idea of redecorating their respective houses, using nothing but antiques. One of the two, a man with a Seeing Eye dog, had even agreed to buy a pair of Austrian lamps I’d been trying to unload for weeks.
I wisely let Homer do his thing, but when there was a lull in the lucrative activity, I pulled him aside. He came with me reluctantly. The mild-mannered man I’d hired the day before had metamorphosed into a merchandising monster.
“Homer, darling,” I said, pouring on the sugar, “I know this is only your second day here, but you seem to be doing exceptionally well. Would you mind terribly if I took the day off?”
He blinked behind the square wire frames.
“Only for today,” I promised. “Tomorrow you can have the day off.”
He blinked again. “It ain’t that, ma’am. It’s just that—well, I’m surprised you trust me, what with me being new at this and all.”
I laughed. “Homer, dear, you could sell the Grace Memorial Bridge.”
He smiled happily at the compliment. The bridge of which I spoke was the terror of all who passed from Mount Pleasant into Charleston. It was nosebleed high and barely wider than a skateboard. Burly men have been known to wet themselves on the way over.
“Thanks, ma’am. I enjoy selling, that’s all.”
“Well, you certainly have the knack.”
“There ain’t nothing to it, really. All you gotta do is tell the truth. Like, take that corner china cabinet over there. See how it gets its shape, almost like a heart if you were to look at it from on top? You don’t see that very often. And look at the wood—oak it is, but hand-rubbed with oil so shiny and smooth that every grain shows. Heck, you could put the crown jewels in that china cabinet they wouldn’t look outta place. You know what I think?”
“What?” I was staring at the cabinet with a new appreciation.
“I think that there cabinet belonged to one of them old Charleston families. During the war—and I mean the War Between the States—the womenfolk stuffed their skirts and petticoats in there to keep it from breaking from all them vibrations when the Yankees were shelling the Battery.”
“You don’t say!”
“Yes, ma’am, I do. I think this here piece meant something mighty special to one of them blue bloods. Then after the war, what with the carpetbaggers and all, things got real tight and the lady of the house had to sell it. You can bet she carried on something awful, but it had to be done. Thing is, only one who could afford it then was one of them Yankees.”
“What a shame!”
“Yes, ma’am, it sure is. So then this Yankee family has it for three generations. They put their laundry soap and what not in it, ’cause they don’t know its true value. Then when the last one dies, some distant cousins up in someplace like Minnesota, inherit it. Of course they can’t be bothered to haul it all the way up there, so they sell it at an auction.” He walked over and began to stroke the polished wood. “No, ma’am, this here ain’t just a work of art, it’s a piece of history. This is Charleston.”
“I want to buy it!” I clamped a petite paw over my pathetic maw. “I mean, don’t sell it, Homer. I want to take it home with me.”
He nodded. “There’s a right nice little dressing table over yonder that the lady of the house sat at, combing her hair, while she worked up the courage to part with this cabinet—”
“Say no more! I’ll take it as well!”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ll put it aside. Will you be wanting the bench, too?”
I fled the shop while I still had inventory left to sell. One thing for sure, with a man like Homer at the helm, I was certainly free to do a little poking around for clues to Mrs. Shadbark’s killer.
I hummed with satisfaction as I drove over to Mount Pleasant to interview Constance. I’d show Greg, and while I was at it, I’d clear my name of any doubt, and establish a reputation as a woman to be reckoned with. Maybe even one worthy of inclusion in Charleston’s coveted secret societies—as an honorary member, of course! Just as long as I didn’t poke the wrong person, or at least poke too hard, there was no harm to be done. No harm at all.
12
There are currently two bridges that span the Cooper River to connect Mount Pleasant with the Charleston Peninsula; the aforementioned Grace Memorial, which is one-way into Charleston, and the newer Silas N. Pearlman, which is two-way—most of the time. Although the latter is equally high, to allow for the passage of ships, the lanes are wider, permitting drivers to relax enough to enjoy the spectacular views.
With any luck one might pass directly over massive freighters from China or
Malaysia, or spot dolphins feeding in the aquamarine waters of Charleston Harbor. On any given day one can gaze down on Shutes Folly Island with its intriguing Castle Pinckney, or wonder at the size of the U.S.S. Yorktown, a retired aircraft carrier that served both in World War II and in Vietnam, and which is now a museum in its berth at Patriots Point.
I have been to Mount Pleasant many times, beginning with when I was just a little girl. In those days it was a charming, if somewhat sleepy town, shaded by spreading live oaks festooned with Spanish moss. There never was a mountain—the highest point barely reaching twenty feet—and water has always been the defining feature, from the shrimp boats of Shem Creek, to the tidal marshes and the harbor itself.
Today this once bucolic village is one of South Carolina’s fastest-growing cities. Beginning in the 1980s wealthy retirees from up North discovered the area’s charm, as well as the fact that it is only half as far as Florida, making trips back to see families all that more feasible. Ironically, the very things that brought this influx of new residents—the romantic scenery, the slower pace of life—are being replaced by upscale housing developments and traffic bad enough to make a New Yorker blanch.
The Gullah people, descendants of black slaves who have retained many African customs and created a Creole language all their own, have lived in the area as long as any Europeans. Today, however, the young people find themselves rapidly being priced out of the housing market by wealthy newcomers. There are still enclaves of Gullah living along the upper reaches of Rifle Range Road, but gated communities continue to sprout up like mushrooms after a summer rain.
I fully expected Constance Shadbark to live in one of these new moneyed neighborhoods—perhaps Park West, or the Estates section of Charleston National—but much to my surprise, she lived in Fig Tree Apartments, a lower-income housing project just off Highway 17. The apartments had been in the news just a week ago, when a badly decomposed body had been found in an upstairs unit. Police suspected foul play. If I remembered correctly from all the TV coverage, Constance lived just a few doors down from the scene of the crime.
