by Tamar Myers
Sergeant Scrubb seemed relieved as well. He loosened his tie and accepted the glass of sweet tea I offered him—although it was clear from the collections of plates and glasses in the kitchen that Mama had already done her social thing.
The investigator sat when I did. “Well then,” he said brightly, “shall we get down to business?”
“Grill away!” I cried.
He laughed. “Abby, we’ve been through this before. I’m not interested in grilling you. I just want to ask a few questions.”
“Then let me say flat-out that I’m sorry. What I did wasn’t right and I apologize.”
“Apologize?”
“For giving you the wrong phone number.”
“You did?”
I hung my head in shame. “The number I gave you for my shop is incorrect.”
He shrugged. “It’s really not such a big deal, Abby. People often forget their phone numbers. It’s not like you call your shop a lot, is it?”
“No, of course not.” I could feel the color saturate my face. What a certifiable fool I’d been to think that the cute sergeant had the hots for me. Oh well, at least I hadn’t shared that fantasy with anyone.
“So, Abby, you mind if I get to my question now?”
“Ask away,” I said as I jumped blithely to yet another conclusion. “But I’m telling you now, the answer is no.”
He took a sip of tea. “Well, then that’s a shame.”
“Excuse me?”
“I was hoping you’d say yes. That would make my job a whole lot easier.”
“And I want the merchandise in my shop to sell itself.” Actually, with Homer Johnson on board, my wish had pretty much come true.
Sergeant Scrubb grinned. It was definitely Ben Affleck he resembled, C.J. be hanged.
“I’m afraid you misunderstand me, Abby.”
“Oh, I understand you quite well. But just for the record, I did not kill Evangeline LaPointe. What would have been my motive? Except possibly to cover my tracks. If Ms. LaPointe had witnessed me killing Mrs. Shadbark—which I assure you didn’t happen, since I didn’t kill the woman. What would have been my motive in that case? I have money—maybe not as much as she had, but enough to buy me anything I really want. And even if I was as poor as my children will be when they first get out of college, how would murdering a wealthy widow solve that problem? It’s not like I was in her will. No, I’m sorry to disappoint you, detective, but you’re barking up the wrong tree here.”
He was grinning again. “Somehow I don’t think so. Abby, you’re just who I want to be my eyes and ears in this case.”
Fortunately I was sitting on my center of gravity. Otherwise I would have fallen out of my chair, and quite possibly induced a concussion from hitting my forehead against the Italian marble coffee table.
“Would you mind repeating that?”
“Permit me to expound, instead. Abby, it is clear to me that you are a woman who found herself in the wrong place at the wrong time—or even the right place at the wrong time. It doesn’t matter, so take your pick.
“The bottom line is, like it or not, you found yourself involved in the details of Amelia Shadbark’s demise. In order to prove your innocence, you involved yourself even further. Now, either we can have an adversarial relationship in which I grill you—as you so charmingly put it—or else we can work together. Sort of a partnership, if you will.”
I gasped. “You want to hire me on the force?”
Sergeant Scrubb laughed. “I wish I could, but you’d have to go through the academy first. No, I was hoping you’d function in an unofficial capacity. And sorry, but without compensation, I’m afraid.”
“I see. You want me to be an unpaid informant. A stoolie.”
“Well that’s one way to put it, I guess.”
“Don’t worry, I accept.”
“You do?”
“I don’t suppose there’s a chance I get to pack a pistol?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’m kidding, of course. It’s just that I saw Annie Get Your Gun when I was in high school. I wouldn’t really want to shoot anybody. Buford—that’s my ex—and I went target practicing once. I couldn’t even bring myself to aim at the cardboard cutouts. But listening and looking—well, I can do those in my sleep.”
Ben—I mean, Sergeant Scrubb—smiled warmly. “Good. Now here’s what I would like you to do.”
A taller woman would have scooted her chair—even if it was a William and Mary—forward a bit, just to indicate she was giving the matter her full attention. I, on the other hand, had to content myself with leaning forward on my aforementioned center of gravity, and then cocking my head like the old RCA Victrola dog.
“Yes?” I asked raptly.
“I’d like you to fill me on who you’ve talked to so far, and what, if any, conclusions you’ve drawn.”
“No problemo.”
I filled him in on the cocktail I’d shared with the newly departed Ms. LaPointe; my encounter with Percival Franklin, the artistic gardener; the words I’d exchanged with the epitome of Linen Ladyship herself, Mindy Sparrow; the breakfast I’d bought for the considerable Constance; and the surprising circumstances in which I’d found Orman Shadbark Jr. And it goes without saying that I reminded him of my earlier runin with Brunhilde Salazar, the cantankerous housekeeper, who, in my humble opinion, was still the most likely of the bunch to kill Amelia Shadbark.
Sergeant Scrubb was a good listener, and this time when he took notes, he asked me to stop so he wouldn’t miss anything. He was still using the pencil stub from the day before—either that or he had a collection of the miniature markers. Perhaps he bowled regularly, or played Put-Put golf.
“So, that’s about it,” I finally said. “Oh, except that it just occurred to me that since Brunhilde Salazar is a housekeeper, she’s also the most likely to have poisoned poor Ms. LaPointe. The two women must have known each other—at least they were aware of the other’s existence. It would have been a simple thing for Brunhilde to stop by with a lethal cake or something and—”
“Abby,” Sergeant Scrubb said, waving his notepad to get my attention, “Evangeline LaPointe was not poisoned.”
“She wasn’t? Then how did she die?”
“She was suffocated.”
15
I shuddered. “How?”
“With her bedroom pillow most probably. There were lipstick marks on the case, and minute pieces of lint on her tongue.”
I shuddered again. Collaborating with the police, at least in this situation, was not a task for those with weak stomachs.
“Abby, are you okay?”
“I’m peachy. I was thinking—I mean, a woman could have smothered her just as well as a man, right?”
He nodded. “Your account of how much she’d been drinking jibes with our lab reports. She might have already been passed out.”
“What time did it happen?”
“Between three and four A.M. That’s as close as we can get it at this point. But whoever did it picked a good time to commit a crime. Almost no one is on the streets at that hour—not in Ms. LaPointe’s neighborhood, at any rate. And if you drive a decent car, and obey the speed limit, the police aren’t going to bother you. They’ll just assume you’re a doctor who’s been called to see a patient at MUSC.”
“So there were no witnesses—no Evangeline LaPointes, so to speak.” I chastised myself silently for having spoken ill of the dead. According to Mama, just thinking such a thing put my own demise imminently near.
“Well, you’re right on that score. Most people are asleep by that time. And anyway, suffocation is generally a fairly silent means of killing someone. Especially since the subject was too drunk to put up much of a fight.”
In an effort to appear sophisticated in the ways of crime detecting, I pretended to ponder a moment. When I was ready to pontificate, I crossed my legs, folded my hands, and cleared my throat. A brilliant deduction deserves a good introduction, does it not?
/> “We can assume then—since we have two means of dispatching our victims—that we have two killers on our hands, possibly even two very different motives for murder.”
Much to my astonishment, Sergeant Scrubb shook his head. “We can’t assume that at all. The means in the second case may have been totally unplanned.”
“Oh.”
“For instance, the person who poisoned Mrs. Shadbark could well have intended to poison Ms. LaPointe—perhaps inserting a lethal substance into her breakfast marmalade. Or, more likely, in this case, her beverage of choice. At any rate, it may have been that when he or she found the intended victim in a stupor, he or she decided to capitalize on the opportunity. Smothering her there on the spot avoided a lot of potential complications.”
“I see.” This time I did. If the killer had, for instance, intended to crank up the toxicity of Evangeline’s hooch a notch, a third party—such as myself—might have taken a sip or two and lived to call the paramedics. How handy to be able to just smother her into eternal oblivion.
“Abby,” Sergeant Scrubb said, “I hope you’re getting the picture, that the mind of a successful criminal is nothing if not adaptable. And every criminal not yet caught is successful. I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about M.O.—modus operandi—and while there is truth to that, the really dangerous minds are unpredictable.”
“I’ve got the picture.”
“Good. Now a few ground rules. First, at no point are you to try and apprehend a suspect. Is that rule understood?”
“Of course. That would be plain silly of me.” I laughed pleasantly, and for just the right amount of time. “Do I look like a linebacker?”
“Your size has nothing to do with it. I’m telling you not to break the law.”
“But what about a citizen’s arrest. That’s legal, isn’t it?”
“Please, Mrs. Washburn, you’re to take no action of any kind.”
“But—”
“Rule number two, you may not mention to anyone—particularly anyone you suspect of either murder—that you suspect them. And under no circumstances are you to mention that you have any connection to the police.”
“So then what is there left for me to do?” I wailed.
“Like we discussed before, just keep your eyes and ears open, and report to me.”
“But that’s just what I was doing before—except for the reporting to you bit.”
“Exactly. Oh, and Abby, this conversation never happened.”
“Well, maybe not officially, but unofficially it did.”
He stood. “I was never even here,” he said softly.
I hopped to my feet. “Oh, but you were. I have witnesses. Besides, you probably left some of your DNA right there on that sweet tea glass. I could clone you as proof.”
Sergeant Scrubb gave me a courtly, if somewhat surly bow and strode to the door.
I can’t claim that the much loved threesome was waiting at the front door, with glasses of their own pressed to their ears, but they trooped back inside within a matter of seconds.
“Ooh, Abby,” C.J. cooed, “did he make you a detective?”
“Not hardly, dear.”
“He couldn’t have made her a real detective,” Mama said knowingly, “but he could have deputized her.”
“Actually, he couldn’t,” Greg said, “not unless it was an absolute emergency, and the circumstances were extraordinary. And that’s only if he were the county sheriff. A homicide detective doesn’t have that power.”
C.J. shook her big shaggy head. “Back home in Shelby—”
“He didn’t do anything,” I said, heading her off at the pass, “except to tell me to keep my ears and eyes open.”
“Which you were already doing,” Mama said. “So, what did he really want?” She was not only twirling her pearls, but her eyes were attempting to drill into the side of Greg’s handsome head.
I didn’t fall off the turnip truck. I knew Mama like only a daughter could. What she was really saying was Look out, Greg. That cute Sergeant Scrubb has designs on your wife. In fact, I was so sure of it that I decided to put myself to the test.
“Mama,” I said, “he isn’t the slightest bit interested in me.”
“Of course he is dear, didn’t you see how he—” Mama turned the color of cranberry relish. “For shame, Abby, playing a trick on your dear old mother that way.”
Greg turned and laughed. “Reading your mother’s mind again, hon?”
“Yes, but it’s getting harder. She’s so transparent I can see right through her to C.J.”
“Very funny, dear.” A blindfolded bat could have read Mama’s mind just then. She wanted to ground me to my room, with no TV for a week.
“Ooh, Abby, read my mind!” C.J. was jumping up and down like a six-year-old on Christmas morning.
I turned to the big gal, put my fingertips to temples, and pretended to concentrate. “Hmm. I see a woman in Shelby, North Carolina, and her initials are G. L. She was the best mind-reader who ever lived.”
“Abby, that’s right!” It’s a good thing I don’t live in an apartment with neighbors downstairs, or they might have called the police.
“That’s cheating,” Mama said. “Everyone who knows C.J. knows all about her Granny Ledbetter.”
“Ooh, but it wasn’t Granny Ledbetter, Abby was talking about. She meant Gizella Ledbetter, Cousin Alvin’s first wife. Isn’t that right, Abby?”
I took the shameful route and lied. “Absolutely. That Gizella was really something else.”
C.J. nodded vigorously. “She reads minds even better than Granny. In fact, Hollywood used her as an adviser on the set of a movie that just came out. It’s called What Men Want—you know, where this woman gets to hear what men are thinking.”
“You mean the silent movie everyone’s talking about?”
“That’s the one.”
Greg grinned. “Ladies,” he said good-naturedly, “how about we all go to lunch? I hear Poogan’s Porch is having rollback prices to the 1970s this week.”
That got everyone’s attention. Poogan’s Porch makes the best biscuits in the world—even better than Mama’s. All their food, which is Lowcountry in character, is quite yummy. A price rollback at this eatery is like getting an invitation to buy a Mercedes at Escort prices.
Then there is the ambiance of the place. Poogan’s Porch, at 72 Queen Street, was built as a spacious home in 1888, surrounded by a lovely garden and enclosed by a wrought-iron fence. In 1976 the owners sold their home and moved away, leaving behind their faithful dog, Poogan. The charming Victorian structure was subsequently turned into a restaurant, but Poogan remained, claiming a perch on the front porch, from which he greeted customers. The heartbreaking story alone makes this establishment worthy of a visit.
“Count me in!” C.J. and Mama shouted at the same time.
“Sounds great to me,” I said agreeably, although now that everything was hunky-dory between me and my hunk, I would just as soon dine a duo.
“Then,” Greg said, his grin broadening, “we can drive over to the Palmetto Grande—you know, the theater with the stadium seating—over in Mount Pleasant and take in a matinee. We can see the flick C.J. was talking about.”
“I’ll even pay for the movie,” C.J. said.
It was a done deal.
I begged everyone’s indulgence and while they headed for Poogan’s Porch, I made a slight detour. The Den of Antiquity is less than a three-minute walk from the restaurant, and I really felt an obligation to check in on Homer. Mama wanted to come with me, until I reminded her, in front of the others, that my new employee was married.
Of course I’d been foolish to worry. Homer was busy helping a Linen Lady load a set of medical textbooks into her car. The massive tomes had come as part and parcel of an estate sale, and even though they were well over one hundred years old, it was a very common edition, and the books were of surprisingly little value. I hadn’t had the heart to dispose of them, and had been considering dropping
them off at the library on the theory that those folks had more experience in such matters, and were therefore perhaps a bit more dispassionate. Meanwhile, the volumes, which were lined up atop an armoire, collected dust.
How Homer had managed to unload—well, load, when you come to think of it—this set of books was beyond me. The man was truly gifted. So gifted, in fact, that walking into my shop took my breath away.
“Homer,” I called when he came back inside, “can I see you for a minute?” There were three other customers lined up at the register waiting to pay for purchases, but I took precedence. The customer may be always right, but the owner is always first—at least in a good employee’s mind.
He trotted over, the dome of his head glistening with sweat. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Homer, you’re going to have to slow done a bit.”
“I’m fine, ma’am, really. I’ll catch my breath here in a minute.”
“No, Homer, what I mean is, if you don’t stop selling things so fast, I’m going to run out of merchandise.”
“Ma’am?”
“You see, Homer, I go to auctions and estate sales no more than once a week. Sometimes, if business is slow, I go only once a month.” I gestured at the space around me. “I had more furniture than this when I first got married.”
He chewed on that for a minute. “Ma’am, maybe I could go to these sales for you.”
I didn’t need to chew on that, however. Homer was a natural-born salesman, that much was clear, but that didn’t mean he had the ability to buy. That takes an eye that is years in developing.
“Maybe someday, Homer. But for now, tone down the sales pitch a notch. Just until I get a chance to replenish stock. If folks see an empty store, they may not bother to come back.”
He yawned, neglecting to cover his mouth. Since yawns are even more contagious than summer colds, I yawned as well.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said.
“Certainly, dear. I didn’t sleep so well last night myself.”
“Ma’am, I was reading in that little trade paper you have on your desk that there’s going to be an auction tonight over on James Island.”
