So Faux, So Good

by Tamar Myers

There was a startled gasp. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You seem to be jumping the gun, Major. I haven’t said much of anything yet.”

  “Well, whatever it is, I don’t know anything about it. I certainly didn’t do it.”

  “Didn’t do what?”

  “You can’t trick an old fox like me, Abby. I’ve been there and done that, as you young folks say.”

  “Thanks, but flattery won’t get you anywhere with me today. Look. Major, I’m not out to harass you. All I want is your cooperation.”

  “Cooperation is what made Britannia great,” he said cagily.

  “Good, then maybe this will be a piece of cake for you.” Who was I kidding? Syria would elect a Jewish prime minister before the major’s right hand cooperated with his left. It was a wonder the man could even tie his shoes.

  “But I’m not going to confess to anything I didn’t do.”

  “No one is asking you to. Besides, who says there is anything to confess to?”

  “Cut the crap, Abby, and state your point.”

  “Why Major Calloway, how vulgar of you. Okay, here’s the deal. I need you to get a message to Rob Goldman—or even Bob, for that matter—he doesn’t seem to be at the shop or at home. Tell him that my mother’s house was broken into and—listen, Major, what I’m about to say is strictly confidential.”

  I heard an indignant huff. “We of the Bombay Chargers are the soul of discretion. In fact, we had our own remedy for wagging tongues—we cut them off.”

  I nearly severed my tongue with my teeth. It was all I could do to keep from reminding him that his discretion had all but made me a murder suspect.

  “Just remember your own remedy, dear. Now, I want you to tell Rob that someone stole a silver tea service from my mother’s house. Tell him that I have reason to believe it was another William Cripps reproduction.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “A copy like the one I bought at auction. Tell him that.”

  “You don’t say!” The miserable man sounded gleeful.

  “Can you find him and tell him that?”

  “Abigail, I fail to see how this little bit of unfortunate news is urgent. Why don’t you tell him yourself when you get back?”

  “Because they need to start spreading the word. Whoever stole my mother’s silver tea set might try to sell it to Charlotte dealers. They might even try to sell it to Skeet and Jimbo. They’re a little slow on the uptake, you know.”

  “Ha!” The major had a laugh that could set dogs barking. “Those two lads are as dumb as posts, as you Americans are so fond of saying.”

  “Which is exactly why Rob needs to warn them. Unless, of course, you’d like to do it yourself.”

  “Ha!”

  “And another thing, it wouldn’t surprise me if whoever stole Mama’s tea set had something to do with Purvis’s death. I don’t know what it is yet, but I have a gut feeling it’s all tied together.”

  “You don’t say! Is this your roundabout way of confessing?”

  I slammed the phone in its cradle. I huffed and I puffed, but I did not blow the Coles’ house down. It was only by counting red tulips again that I calmed down enough to join the world.

  The Coles were still in the living room watching the “Green Acres” marathon. Much to my surprise, Betty Cole seemed mesmerized by the porcine program they were watching. Thanks to me the woman had finally found a worthwhile hobby.

  “Is this the episode where Arnold orders pepperoni pizza for everyone in Hooterville?” I asked. “Have they gotten to the part where he eats a slice and then realizes he’s just become a cannibal?”

  “Yes,” Ed grunted, “but it was sausage pizza, not pepperoni.”

  “Shhh,” Betty said.

  I tiptoed towards the door. “Thanks for letting me use the phone,” I whispered, “but I have one quick question before I go.”

  “Make it snappy,” Betty snapped.

  “Why is there just one yellow tulip on your kitchen border?”

  “That’s not a tulip, that’s mustard,” Ed growled.

  I closed the door silently behind me.

  Thank goodness Dmitri was right where I left him. In fact, he was the picture of contentment—stretched out under the rearview window, catching a stray ray of the afternoon sun—but the second that wily cat heard my footsteps on the pavement he assumed an attitude. You would have thought I’d stuffed him in a bag along with eight other cats and sent him to St. Ives.

  “Cut it out,” I ordered.

  Dmitri hissed at me, which is the cat equivalent of me cussing.

  “Okay then, no more Mighty Mouser Cream of Liver Pate.”

  Watson looked at me balefully, but hushed his hiss.

  “I have one more person to see, sweetie, and then Mama will take you back to that lovely motel.”

  Meow.

  “That’s right, dear. If anyone can shed some light on the subject, I bet she can.”

  21

  Magdalena Yoder was not happy when I showed up at PennDutch Inn unannounced.

  “Do you know what time it is?” she demanded.

  We were standing on the wide front porch. A southern woman would have invited me to come in and sit a spell, take the load off my feet.

  I glanced at my watch. “It’s six-nineteen—give or take a few minutes.”

  “Exactly. It’s supper time.”

  “This will only take a minute.”

  “Can’t you come back tomorrow, dear?”

  Dear?. The woman hardly knew me.

  “This is urgent.”

  “So is supper. Sly wants his pie.”

  “Stallone?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Who else?”

  “I suppose Pitt wants his grits.”

  “Actually he prefers oatmeal. With cinnamon and brown sugar.”

  The door behind her opened and a stout woman in Amish garb muttered something in Pennsylvania Dutch. I recognized the woman as Magdalena’s cousin, Freni.

  “Tell Cher I’ll be right there,” Magdalena said irritably.

  More muttered Dutch.

  “King can sing if he wants to. I just don’t want him telling those gruesome stories at the table.”

  The door slammed.

  “Celebrities,” I said, “you can’t live with them, and you can’t live without them.”

  “You deal with celebrities?”

  “They drop by my shop all the time. You know, Fonda on his Honda, Dolly on her trolley, Chase in his Chevy.”

  The beady eyes flashed. “It’s a Harley, not a Honda, and you’re a hoax. You don’t know any of these people. You’re just a celebrity-watcher, and we have a name for that around here.”

  “Is it ‘curious’?”

  “Trespasser.” Magdalena turned to go inside.

  “Okay, so I misrepresented myself. I’m sorry.”

  She stopped, but didn’t turn around.

  “I’m here investigating a murder.”

  Magdalena whirled and I nearly fell backwards off the porch I was so surprised. “That case is officially closed,” she snarled.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You meant”—she swallowed and wiped the palms of her hands on a crisp white apron—“tell me what you meant, dear.”

  “May I sit?” I pointed to the row of Adirondack rockers.

  Magdalena nodded and picked the closest chair for herself.

  I sat two chairs to her right. “Well, my name really is Abigail Timberlake, and I really am an antique dealer, but I’m not here to buy antiques.”

  She waved a hand impatiently. “You told me all that before. Your visit has something to do with Billy Ray. And like I told you before, I don’t remember going to school with him. Now what’s this about a murder?”

  “Forget school,” I said, willing my dander down, “but you know far more about the Teschels than you let on. Seems like everyone has a strong opinion where they’re concerned.”

  “I’m a Mennonite
. It’s against my beliefs to bad-mouth people.”

  I’m sure my eyes were flashing every bit as much as hers. “I don’t want gossip, I want facts. I believe that the Teschels are responsible for the murder of a friend of mine.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

  She sounded so sincere I felt guilty for fudging. “Well, not a friend exactly. More like a colleague.”

  “Here in Hernia?”

  “Pineville, North Carolina. Just south of Charlotte. Purnell Purvis was his name. He owned an antique auction barn and—well, it’s really hard to explain. But Purnell was poisoned and I think a Teschel did it.”

  “What do the police think?”

  “To be honest?”

  “The whole truth and nothing but the truth. The second you stop being honest with me, I scoot on back inside. Supper might be almost over, but afterwards Ringo wants to play bingo. Not for money, of course. We Mennonites don’t do that.”

  “Well, the whole truth is that some idiot—”

  “Ah, ah, ah, let’s watch our language, dear.”

  “Sorry. A fellow dealer who calls himself a major has been insinuating that I poisoned poor Purnell. He got that idea because Purnell was in my shop talking to me just minutes before he collapsed out front on the sidewalk.”

  “I see. So you’re up here trying to clear your name, is that it?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Been there, done that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Isn’t that what you English say when you want to convey the fact that you’ve been in a similar situation?”

  “I guess so,” I said guardedly.

  “Well, I’ve been in your shoes.” She glanced at mine, which were about half the size of hers. “So to speak.”

  “You have?”

  “As a matter of fact, on more than one occasion. Hernia is not as dull as it seems. Anyway, I know just how frustrating it can be. So, how do you think I can help you? Be specific, dear.”

  “I don’t know,” I wailed. “I can’t prove any of my suspicions.”

  Magdalena stood up. “I don’t have time—”

  “Okay, okay! I think the Teschel family is in the reproduction business.”

  Magdalena sat down. “Ach, they’re selling black market babies?”

  “What? No! I mean they’re reproducing silver English tea services. Very good ones. Good enough to fool the experts.”

  “Is there money in this?”

  “A whole lot.” Perhaps it was time to be as truthful as Magdalena wanted me to be. “I paid twenty thousand dollars for one of those tea services.”

  Magdalena rolled her eyes.

  “All right then, it was eighteen thousand, five hundred, but when you throw in taxes and buyer’s fee, it comes to just under twenty thousand—well, if you round it up.”

  “That much for a teapot?”

  “Sugar and creamer too, of course.”

  “You English and your ways,” she mumbled.

  I let it pass. “Like I said, I have no proof. I saw Leona’s house today—a great big old thing. They could easily have a workshop in there.”

  Magdalena shook her head. “I don’t know anything about silver-making, but I’ve watched the Amish shoe horses plenty of times. You need heat to bend metal.”

  No duh. “I’m sure Leona has a stove,” I said.

  “More heat than that, I think. But you may be on to something. Those Teschel boys were always topnotch artists.”

  “I thought you never went to school with them!”

  The beady eyes fixed on me indignantly. “I didn’t. You remember that railway viaduct between here and Bedford.”

  I confessed that I didn’t.

  “Well, anyway, for several years there it was a bulletin board of the Teschel boys’ filthy imaginations. Sam Yoder’s store got hit a couple of times too. Mayor Tudweiler—he was mayor then—tried to get the boys to channel their talent into something decent. Like a mural about the Amish.”

  “No go, huh?”

  “The Amish wouldn’t have it—they shun publicity. The Teschel boys’ drawings got even filthier after that. At any rate, they may have painted disgusting things, but they did it very well.”

  “That’s more than you can say about a lot of contemporary artists,” I said, hanging my head. I am not a prude, nor do I believe in censorship, but a lot of artwork I’d seen lately seemed created for one purpose only, and that was to shock. Perhaps somewhere there was an artist whose intent it was to instill other emotions, possibly delight.

  “The world has gone to hell in a hand basket,” I said. “Oops—pardon my French.”

  “Amen,” Magdalena said quietly.

  “But if what you said is true—about the heat, I mean—they would have to have some kind of studio or something.”

  “Or a factory.”

  “Right.”

  “Like the Bedford Tool and Die Company.”

  I looked up. “Yeah, right. Unfortunately the Bedford Tool and Die company is defunct.”

  Magdalena scratched her nose. “That’s news to me.”

  I smiled from the catbird’s seat. I actually knew more about the town than Magdalena.

  “The business went bankrupt after that automobile plant backed out of building that Somerset plant.”

  “Leona Teschel never filed Chapter Eleven.”

  “She didn’t? But the reverend—I mean, Richard Nixon said—”

  “Ach, the man is a simpleton.”

  “Your language, dear,” I chided her gently.

  “Well, it’s a fact. Richard couldn’t stack two stones if they were numbered.”

  “He said Leona swindled his congregation out of a great deal of money.”

  “That’s partly true. But I have it from a good source that the bulk of that money was invested in Atlantic City.”

  “Real estate?”

  “Ach,” said Magdalena throwing up her hands, “I’m beginning to think you’re not so bright yourself.”

  “Just call me Little Richard.”

  “Shhh, he’ll hear you.” She nodded in the direction of the dining room.

  My eyes widened to saucer size. “The Little Richard is in there?”

  “He’s a wonderful guest. Always brings me flowers.”

  I ached to crash Magdalena’s supper table, but good manners and the urge to end my sleuthing compelled me to focus.

  “You mean to say that Richard Nixon gambled away most of his church’s funds?”

  “Yah, I’m sorry to say it, but he did. And what a shame too—they had such a nice little congregation going up by the turnpike. Anyway, the man is a dreamer. He thought he could get a quicker return on the church’s money in the casinos. I heard he lost every penny—even his bus fare. He hitchhiked and walked back. It took him eight days.”

  “Wow. Now tell me, what do you mean Leona never filed Chapter Eleven?”

  “That was just a rumor. Maybe started by Richard himself.”

  “But your cousin Sam sued Leona in the wrongful death of his daughter, didn’t he? Or is that just a rumor too?”

  “Ach, but that man can talk. Yah, Sam did sue, but he lost. Apparently it wasn’t such a cut and dried case.”

  “Oh?”

  She stared at me, the blue eyes with their black pupils boring into my soul. “That’s family business,” she said.

  “I understand. I have two teenagers myself.”

  “Marijuana,” she whispered. “That’s what they said it was. Sam’s daughter Rebecca was, uh—”

  “High?”

  “Yah, high. She didn’t have a license either. Sam had to tread softly.” She wagged a long bony finger at me. “This is family business, you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But at least Leona spent eighteen months in jail, right?”

  “Right. For tax evasion. It had nothing to do with the accident.”

  “I see.”

  “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear.”

&nb
sp; If I resented her snide paternalism, at least I didn’t show it. Instead I managed a self-deprecating smile that was worthy of Mona Lisa.

  “At least the Teschels managed to pay their debts and still hang on to their business, right?”

  “Yah.”

  “But I looked in the phone book. There isn’t a Bedford Tool and Die Company listed.”

  “That’s because the name has been changed. It’s now the Southern Pennsylvania Metalworks Company. I understand they’ve expanded operations. In addition to tool-making, they now make wrought-iron products. But you shouldn’t have any trouble finding it. Just go back to Bedford and take Business 220 south. Just before its junction with regular 220 look to your left. It’s just a hop, skip, and a jump from your motel.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe it.”

  “Ach, don’t get me wrong! The wrought-iron bed I bought from them was for my room, of course. My guests expect Amish furniture.”

  “I mean I can’t believe what a fool I was. Taking Richard Nixon at his word just because he’s a church elder. If I was—forgive me—your height, I’d go back there and wring his scrawny neck.”

  “You mean his considerable neck, don’t you?”

  “What? The man looks like beanpole on a diet.”

  “Pinched, narrow face? Hair like a mop head?”

  “That’s him.”

  It was Magdalena’s turn to shake her head. “That isn’t him. Richard Nixon is built like a pot-bellied stove. That was Tommy Lee Teschel you spoke to.”

  22

  I nearly fell off my rocker. “Get out of town!”

  Magdalena gave me a quizzical look.

  “That’s just an expression, dear,” I said kindly. “It’s just that I can believe it. I was really played for a sucker. But I don’t get it, why would Tommy Lee pretend to be Richard Nixon?”

  Magdalena sniffed. I hope it was a cold coming on, and not her opinion of my intelligence.

  “He got you to believe that his company was defunct, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, but he said terrible things about Leona Teschel. His own mother!”

  “Didn’t you know?”

  “Know what?” I’d seen Eddie Murphy’s movie The Nutty Professor, but there was no way I was going to believe that the woman I met as Leona was Tommy Lee as well.