Killer Market dk-5

by Margaret Maron

  “You know, I can think of at least two chains who could fit these headboards into their stores very nicely,” Pell said and rattled off the names of some head buyers. “Give me your card and I’ll send them around.”

  The Stanberrys were so excited by the prospect that they almost didn’t want to take my check for the balance I owed them.

  Almost, but not quite.

  Dixie was waiting for us in high good humor.

  “One of my retailers finally got some of his own back,” she said as we miraculously found a half-empty elevator after waiting only eight minutes.

  “How?” we obligingly asked her.

  “You know those flipping eight-hundred numbers?”

  She’d lost me.

  “Only because you haven’t bought much furniture in your lifetime. Open any home furnishings magazine or tune into any home-shopping program and you’ll see ads exhorting you to call a one-eight-hundred number—‘Buy direct from the manufacturer at wholesale prices,’ they say.”

  “That’s bad?”

  “Disaster for my people. In the first place, buying direct means a lost sale for my little retailer. In the second place, Ms. Bargain Hunter never buys sight unseen. She wants to see the piece, sit on it, feel the fabric samples, maybe even use the computerized video display to see exactly what that fabric will look like on the couch she intends to buy. So she goes to my retailer, ties him up for an hour or two, writes down the style numbers, thanks him sweetly, then goes home and dials one-eight-hundred.

  “One of my retailers down in Columbus finally got fed up with a customer like that. She’s been doing this to him for years and he’s had to smile and pretend he doesn’t know what she’s up to, hoping that eventually she’d realize how much service she’s been getting from him even though she’s never bought much beyond a couple of lamps and some throw rugs.

  “But this time, when the expensive couch arrives from the wholesaler, Ms. Bargain Hunter is horrified. She calls one-eight-hundred, finally gets transferred to a human voice and shrieks, ‘I wanted pink rosebuds on my couch, not orange and purple plaid.’

  “ ’I’m sorry, madam,’ says the wholesaler, ‘but you ordered fabric number 4879-J and that’s what we sent you.’

  “So she calls to scream at my retailer, who says, ‘Did you think I said 4879-J? Oh, no, no, no, ma’am, I said 4879-A. 4879-A’s the rosebuds. Orange and purple plaid doesn’t suit your decor? Sorry, ma’am. If you’d bought it from us, we could make it right, but since you didn’t, I’m afraid we can’t help you.’

  “ ‘Sorry, madam,’ says the wholesaler’s customer service manager. ‘But we sent what you ordered, so it’s your fifteen-hundred-dollar problem.’ ”

  “The customer is not always right,” Pell told me as he unlocked the van.

  “Damn straight,” said Dixie. “ ’Specially if she’s not a paying customer.”

  “Why does Savannah think that Drew’s her daughter?” I asked as the porch swing moved gently back and forth like a small boat caught in the shallows.

  Dixie shook her head. “I don’t know. You, Pell?”

  Hie sun was sliding down the western sky and I was again on Pell’s screened side porch, a glass of wine in my hand. Dixie was in one of the wicker chairs, her long legs tucked under her as she waited for the Ragsdales to bring Lynnette back. Pell was in the kitchen putting together a coq au vin for their supper later, but he had opened the sliding glass window over the sink so that he could hear and be heard.

  “It’s only when she’s off her medications,” he said. His voice was muffled as he turned away to slide the casserole into his oven.

  “Heather McKenzie said that, too,” I said, “but why?”

  We had told Dixie about Heather’s trip to Georgia back in the winter, so she was up to speed.

  “Crazy people have crazy ideas. That’s how you know they’re crazy,” she said.

  “No, I mean why Drew? Why not Evelyn or some other child?”

  “I don’t know,” Dixie repeated. “We weren’t here when it started and Evelyn was older by the time we moved.”

  But I was remembering something. “You said she had affairs with some of the biggest names in High Point. And Jay Patterson was one of them, right?”

  “That’s only gossip. I wasn’t here then.”

  Pell had finished in the kitchen and as he joined us, I said, “You were here in High Point then, weren’t you?”

  “High Point, low point, what’s the point?” Pell asked lightly as he poured himself a glass of wine. “There is no point.”

  “Yes, there is!” I said sharply. “The point is that Chan’s dead and she may have killed him with my penicillin. Even if it makes no sense to us, there has to be a reason that makes sense to Savannah.”

  “Maybe.” He turned his wine glass in his hands and stared into the golden liquid, then sighed. “Okay. Yes, she did have an affair with Jay Patterson. Two affairs, actually. The first one ended when Elizabeth announced that she was pregnant—with Drew, as it turned out—and that was the first time Savannah took off. I guess it hurt too much to stay around and watch him make like a doting king awaiting the birth of the heir apparent. They said she was gone four months. She’d been back about six months when I started working at Mulholland and it was still fresh enough for me to hear all the gossip. For a while, it was all very civilized. She and Patterson acted more like old drinking buddies than past lovers.

  “And she certainly wasn’t celibate. Back then she could drink like a sailor and swear like a lumberjack—or is it the other way round? What Heather told us about Savannah’s mother? I didn’t know it, but I’m not surprised. Savannah was always there with gracious thank-you notes, bread-and-butter letters, flowers at the appropriate moment. Underneath all the brittle cynicism, she was Old South proper. But she was always taking on various freelance projects for Fitch and Patterson and I remember her bugging him once because the pictures of Drew that he carried in his wallet weren’t up to date.”

  He took a small sip of wine. ‘The first time I noticed anything odd though was when Patterson brought Drew out to the studio one day when she was about three. Savannah had someone bring up an armload of dolls from the prop shelves for Drew to play with, and after she and Patterson finished discussing business, she got down on the floor and played tea party. This was not a woman who normally went gooey-eyed over children, but she even got Patterson to sit down on the floor and sip imaginary tea, too. You know the way some men are about their daughters? Especially Southern men?”

  I nodded. My own daddy has a little of it in him although he never played tea party with me. (And not just because I was too busy running after my older brothers to sit still with a tea set.)

  “I think Savannah fell in love with Drew that day.”

  “And Jay Patterson fell for her again?”

  Pell shrugged. “That I can’t say, but they did become lovers again for a while. That picture you said Heather McKenzie had? It was taken around that time.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know that anything dramatic actually happened. I’ve often thought they just realized that their moment had passed. Things were intense for a few weeks, then it was as if the sexual part simply burned itself out. They stayed friends and she always had a soft spot for Drew.”

  “Which probably ensured that he’d always have a soft spot in his heart for her,” I said, remembering how he’d helped Savannah fill her baggies with fried chicken and cornbread on Thursday night.

  It was almost dark when I left for the restaurant and the Ragsdales had not returned with Lynnette. The coq au vin had cooked and cooled and still they didn’t come. Dixie was striding back and forth in her living room and beginning to think such anxious thoughts that it was taking all of Pell’s gentle reasoning to keep her from calling the police.

  “But what if they’ve decided to go ahead and just take her back to Maryland with them?” she said fearfully.

  “Never,” Pell sco
ffed. “The girls are probably having so much fun that they’ve lost track of time.”

  “It’s none of my business,” I said, “but did Evelyn leave a will?”

  Dixie nodded. “Soon as Lynnette was born, I nagged them both till they went to an attorney.”

  “Who did she name as guardian in the event they both died at the same time?”

  She didn’t want to say it.

  “She named his sister, too, didn’t she?”

  Dixie’s head came up defiantly. “And what if she did? I don’t care, Deborah! She never expected it to happen this young. She was thinking years from now, when I might be too old to cope with a teenager.”

  “You’re going to be the same age when that time comes,” I said mildly.

  “I’ll be here,” Pell said with his crooked smile. “I’m two years younger. I’ll help her cope.”

  I could make the usual arguments, but how valid would they be?

  Besides, from my time in domestic court, I know that families come in all flavors these days.

  Truth to tell, they probably always did.

  20

  « ^ » “The democratic industrial movement of the present era of civilization tends towards increasing the circle of the consumers of luxuries.”The Great Industries of the United States, 1872

  J. Basul Noble’s is located across from the Radisson in what could have been a clothing store, judging from the full-length front windows. The interior walls were painted to suggest a stone farmhouse somewhere in Tuscany, the farmhouse perhaps of a prosperous peasant. Trompe l’oeil windows overlooked pleasant gardens and primitive “paintings” of naively drawn farm animals decorated the walls. The heavy walnut side chairs had rush seats and a rooster carved in the middle of each back. The dishes were colorful pottery pieces handpainted in rustic Italian patterns.

  The snowy tablecloths, the soft lights, the flash of jewelry, the hum of conversation, the entrancing smell of herbs in unfamiliar combinations—it was a heady mix of money and power at play.

  I later learned that there was a more casual jazz bar downstairs, but upstairs was clearly the place for fine dining during Market, the place to see and be seen.

  By the time I’d driven downtown and found a place to park my car, it was a few minutes past eight when I approached the maitre d’.

  “Judge Simmard’s table?” I asked.

  “Oh, good,” said Elizabeth Patterson from behind me. “We aren’t the last after all.”

  “Good evening, Mrs. Patterson, Mr. Patterson,” said the maitre d’, beaming at the three of us indiscriminately. “You aren’t late at all. Judge Simmard has only been here a few minutes himself. If you’ll follow me, please.”

  Easier said than done in that crush. The tables and chairs were so closely placed that we almost had to turn sideways to pass between. Happily, Judge Simmard’s table for eight was near the front of the room—probably so that his wheelchair would disrupt the fewest possible diners as he came and went. We were tightly jammed against the wall, but surrounded by fewer tables.

  The men were in dinner jackets and black tie. Elizabeth Patterson wore a beautiful champagne silk organza shirt-dress with long full sleeves and gold embroidery on the cuffs and collar. Her diamond earrings were even more stunning than her rings. The other woman—in the confusion of round-robin introductions, I wasn’t sure if she was Mrs. Simmard or Mrs. Craft or, indeed, neither—wore an understated rose brocade evening suit.

  I was in my all-purpose black raw silk that could be dressed up or down. Local judges often invite me to dinner as a courtesy when I’m in their towns, and I never know if I’m going to find myself at a country club or sitting on a stool in a strip mall’s bar-and-grill, but this dress can handle either. The skirt is short and the front has a simple square neckline that looks great with my chunky silver necklace. With the jacket, the dress is proper enough for a church funeral; without the jacket, narrow straps crisscross a back cut so low that I have to wear a special bra. Silver earrings, black stockings and high heels complete the look—and the look I got from my dinner partner, Mr. Han (“Call me Albert”) Shu-Kai assured me that my dress could certainly hold its own with those of the other two women, with or without diamonds.

  Superior Court Judge Cicero “Chick” Simmard frankly looked like Mr. Toad of Toad Hall, but he was an affable and considerate host. On my right, next to him, was Mr. Han, CEO of a Singapore company that exported huge amounts of rattan and wicker furniture to the U.S. On my left was Lester Craft, a thin, friendly-faced man with dark curly hair and glasses. Beyond him were Elizabeth Patterson; a robust Californian named Bob Something, who headed an international robotics company; Jay Patterson; and the soft-spoken woman they called Nancy, whose last name and connection I never did quite understand.

  That’s the trouble with tables for eight (tables for ten are even worse). Eight for dinner may be fine in a quiet private home, but dropped down in a crowded restaurant? There’s no way, short of yelling, to be heard across the table, so you settle for conversation with the two on either side of you at best

  The cuisine tended toward northern Italian and ordering took time as Judge Simmard conferred with the waiter about appropriate wines.

  A Beaujolais and a Macon Blanc arrived at our table and were poured and then lifted in toast “Welcome to High Point my friends,” said Judge Simmard, “and here’s to a killer market for everyone—figuratively speaking, of course!”

  There was a moment of shocked silence, then Chick Simmard flushed like an embarrassed schoolboy. “Oh, my goodness! Jay, Elizabeth, I’m so sorry. How stupid of me to forget. I do apologize.”

  The Pattersons made appropriate murmurs.

  “That’s right,” said Han in flawless, colloquial English. “Nolan was your VP of Sales, wasn’t he, Patterson?”

  Albert Han was solidly built, fortyish, and urbane. His gold watch and signet ring were clearly expensive, yet unostentatious. His dinner jacket was impeccably tailored and his nails were more beautifully manicured than mine.

  “Do the police have a suspect yet?” he asked Simmard.

  “I’m afraid I know nothing more than you,” he said, smiling at Han blandly as he turned to Jay Patterson and the quiet woman between them on his other side.

  Since he knew enough to send me his phone number through Detective Underwood, I appreciated Simmard’s discretion.

  As our appetizers appeared, so did three attractive young women. Drew Patterson and a couple of her friends stopped to say hello on their way to the jazz bar downstairs. There were shadows under Drew’s eyes that hinted at the sadness of the past two days, but she was still lovely in a midnight blue dress that clung to her upper body, then flared at her knees for dancing.

  “Ah, the Princess Patterson!” said Simmard as the other men rose. “Forgive me if I don’t stand, my dear.”

  “Oh, don’t get up for me,” she said, her hand on the back of his wheelchair.

  It was evidently an old joke between them and she dropped a kiss on his jowly cheek as she greeted her parents’ friends and smiled at me across the table.

  She really was a princess, I thought. Poised and well-schooled in graciousness, yet nevertheless basking in her position and their approval. And if there was a trace of “I’m entitled” in her smile, well, who could blame her for growing up a little spoiled when one saw such overwhelming pride on Jay Patterson’s face and such uncritical love in Elizabeth’s eyes?

  They left, and the noise level in the room continued to climb until conversation was possible only with the persons nearest, so I turned to Albert Han and asked the usual questions. He volunteered interesting facts about rattan and wicker and some amusing anecdotes regarding the perils of international trade. And he was courteous enough to ask me about life as a district court judge. I responded in kind with the tale of two drunk hunters who shot up a strip of retread from a tractor-trailer tire thinking it was an alligator.

  Chick Simmard was back for the punch line and chuckle
d appreciatively. “I heard about that the last time I was down in Beaufort. Darlene Leonard was telling it. She speaks mighty highly of you, Judge Knott.”

  “Please, it’s Deborah,” I said. “And I think highly of Mrs. Leonard, too.”

  As he and Han began to exchange deep-sea fishing experiences, I glanced at Lester Craft on my left. He was at the fringe of a four-way conversation between the Pattersons, the Chicago robotics executive and the quiet woman who, I’d decided, was not Mrs. Simmard, and he seemed more than willing to turn to a one-on-one.

  “Are you with the furniture industry, too?” I asked.

  He smiled. “You could say so. I’m the editor of Furniture/Today.”

  Normally a slick, full-color weekly, the tabloid-size trade paper comes out every day during Market with fresh updates on what’s hot, who’s buying, national and international trends, and provocative columnists, along with who’s hosting the best parties, and discreet gossip. Today’s front page carried as much news as was known about Chan’s death: Chandler Nolan Dies at Market/Foul Play Suspected in Sales Veep’s Death.

  “I understand you’re a friend of Nolan’s mother-in-law,” he said. “And that you were with her when she found him.”

  “Is that what Heather told you?” I parried.

  “Who?”

  “Heather McKenzie.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think I know anyone by that name.”

  I smiled. “I wouldn’t have thought your editorial staff was so large that you wouldn’t know all your reporters.”

  He continued to look at me blankly, still shaking his head. “We don’t have a Heather McKenzie on our staff.”

  “But she has a Furniture/Today press badge. She’s a reporter—”

  “Not for me, she’s not,” he said emphatically.