Ride a Painted Pony (Superromance)

by McSparren, Carolyn

  He slipped the gloves on. “What’s the sentence for breaking and entering in Mississippi?”

  “Actually, we’re not breaking anything—we’re only entering. Besides, we won’t get caught.” She slid out of the car. Nick followed her to the front door and waited while she rang the bell. It echoed inside the house. When no one answered after several moments, Taylor fitted a pick into her little device and bent to the lock. As she rested her hand on the doorknob, it turned. The door swung open silently.

  Taylor stepped inside and pulled Nick after her. He shut the door.

  “Anybody home?” Taylor called. Silence. Dust motes danced in the shadowy hallway. The whole place had a disused air, as though Clara Eberhardt and her husband had left months before. Taylor moved to the living room.

  “Damnation!” she swore.

  “What?” Nick asked as he came up beside her.

  Taylor spread her hands. The place looked as though a tornado had swept through it. Chinese porcelain jars lay broken on the oriental rugs, books were torn from bookcases and from their leather bindings. Every piece of upholstery had been slashed. Feathers coated every surface like an early snow.

  An antique lady’s desk in the corner had been turned on its side, its fragile legs fractured as though a heavy boot had stamped them. “Someone hasn’t just searched this place, they’ve vandalized it.” Taylor picked her way through then dining room and then to the kitchen.

  The Eberhardts had owned lovely things. And someone obviously hated them for it.

  Taylor’s steps crunched the shards of delicate crystal goblets. She picked up half a dinner plate and turned it over. “Lowestoft,” she read, and sighed.

  Someone—working like a centrifuge—had flung sugar and flour around the kitchen, then broken a jar of molasses on top of the mess. The room stank of it.

  Taylor turned to find Nick standing in the doorway.

  “This is sick,” he said. He stooped to pick up a Georgian silver teapot in his gloved hands. Its lid had been stamped flat.

  For the first time, Taylor felt afraid. Clara Eberhardt’s murder had been savage, but swift. The destruction of this house had taken time, energy and boundless rage. She turned around slowly like a child in a game of blindman’s bluff.

  “I don’t think they found what they were looking for,” Nick said. He set the lidless teapot on the kitchen table.

  They found more destruction upstairs. Ten minutes later, shaken by the devastation, Nick took Taylor’s arm. “We need to get the hell out of here, Taylor.” When she didn’t move, he took her arm. “Now!”

  He half dragged her to the truck and hoisted her into the passenger seat. He went to the driver’s side, started the truck and drove away. At the first corner, he stopped and turned right into a residential area.

  They both heard the sirens behind them. Taylor twisted in her seat. An Oxford police car slid to a stop in front of the Eberhardts house, and two uniformed policemen climbed out. Nick drove away well under the speed limit.

  “Vollmer must have identified the body,” Taylor whispered. “He must have found her purse.”

  “Come on, let’s head back to Memphis,” Nick said.

  “THERE’S SOMETHING fundamentally wrong with me,” Taylor said as Nick turned onto Highway 7.

  “You sick?” Nick asked. “Want me to stop somewhere?”

  She shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. That house affected me more than Clara Eberhardt’s body did. How can I care more about things than about people?”

  He dropped a hand on her knee. For a moment she considered removing it, but it felt comforting.

  “The murder doesn’t seem real. That—” he jerked his head back towards Oxford “—that’s insane.”

  Taylor shuddered. “You felt it too? It wasn’t just me?”

  “Either we’ve got one murderer and one lunatic, or the killer did the searching. Probably last night while we were entertaining your friend Vollmer.”

  “You think the killer got angry because he didn’t find what he was looking for?”

  “No. That was personal. Who breaks the legs of desks like that?”

  Taylor smiled. The destruction of wood affected him more than the destruction of porcelain or crystal, no matter how beautiful. “What was he looking for?”

  “Could be a she.”

  “I realize that.”

  “Maybe evidence linking him or her with Eberhardt and the theft.”

  “I wish we’d had time to search. Mel’s taught me some great hiding places even the police sometimes overlook.”

  “The last thing we needed was to get caught by the cops in that house.”

  “They couldn’t blame you for the destruction. You were with me and the Homicide Division’s finest until two in the morning.” Even as she said the words, she realized their import.

  So did he. “I could have driven to Oxford in an hour, spent an hour wrecking that house, driven home and still met you with plenty of time to spare.”

  “Yes, you could have. But I don’t think you could have broken that desk.”

  “So what now?” he asked.

  “Do you know where Eberhardt’s shop was?” Taylor asked.

  Nick nodded.

  “Could we drive by? I don’t know what it would accomplish, but it’s stupid not to take the opportunity while we’re here.”

  Nick turned right on the bypass. Taylor had expected the store to be near the center of town. Instead they drove four or five miles past the city limits before she saw the blackened building on her left.

  The store had been housed in a large, low metal complex. The front half facing the road still seemed relatively intact. As they drove into the parking lot, however, they could see that the entire back half had melted and twisted like candle wax.

  Nick pointed to the ruins. “The report in the newspaper said they found Eberhardt’s body back there where he did his restoration.”

  Taylor opened the door of the truck. Surely after a week the stench should be gone. Was she imagining the odor of roasting flesh? She took a few extra seconds getting out of the truck.

  A man came out the front door. He was wiping his hands on a filthy cloth. There was soot on his face, on his jeans and on the black T-shirt that stretched across his barrel chest. He was shorter and younger than Nick, but outweighed him considerably. His shoulders sloped down from his neck—or what passed for his neck—at close to a forty-five-degree angle. His arms hung down nearly to his knees. His body screamed “power-lifter.”

  “We’re closed, man.” He pointed to the sign, moving in a miasma of unwashed armpits and ash.

  Taylor breathed through her mouth and handed him a card that said, Wendy Wright, Estate Sales. He took the card, raked Taylor with prurient eyes and pulled his short upper lip down over a set of yellow teeth that would have benefited from orthodonture and regular flossing.

  Taylor did not offer to shake his hand. She smiled brightly and asked, “And you are Mr...?”

  “Eugene Lewis.”

  She heard Nick’s low growl behind her. She continued pleasantly, “I’m interested in carousel animals, Mr. Lewis. A friend told me you might know where I could find some.”

  “I don’t know who the hell told you that. We ain’t got no carousel crap now and never did have. I told you. We’re closed.”

  “How soon do you plan on reopening?”

  “Who said we did?”

  “Listen, friend,” Nick said, “I know somebody who bought a carousel animal here less than a month ago and I know you’ve got more. Answer the lady’s question.”

  “Shoot, I ain’t answering nothing. Now y’all git or I’ll call the sheriff.”

  “For what? Asking questions with intent?” Taylor said. “Who are you anyway? You own this place?”

  “It ain’t none of your business, but I work here. I’m trying to salvage what I can. And I ain’t found no animals, alive or dead.” He grinned as though he’d made a joke.

  Taylor
felt Nick close behind her and knew trouble was imminent. She turned around and herded him back toward the truck. “Come, dear, let’s let the nice man get back to his job.” When Nick refused to move, she took his arm. “Quickly, dear—” she wiggled her eyebrows at him “—before Mr. Lewis has more company.”

  Nick nodded, climbed in, slammed the truck into gear and spun rubber out of the parking lot.

  “Son of a bitch,” Nick snarled.

  “Several generations back, I’d say,” Taylor answered. “Did you notice his shoes?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Our Mr. Lewis was wearing steel-toed work boots. He’d probably enjoy destroying china. The question is whether he’d enjoy destroying middle-aged matrons even more.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “HELLO, MOTHER. SORRY I’M LATE.” Taylor pulled out her chair without waiting for the maitre d’ to hold it for her. She plunked her satchel onto the floor by her feet. She should probably have left the Glock in the car, but she didn’t want it stolen, and recently there had been a series of thefts from the country club parking lot, much to her mother’s chagrin.

  “You look nice, dear,” her mother said. “That’s a very becoming shade of lipstick.”

  Taylor smiled and accepted the compliment. It would do no good to tell her mother that she had dressed to con The Peabody parking lot attendant.

  Irene continued, “If you’d just let your lovely hair grow, maybe use some hot rollers, a few highlights in the front...” She reached out red-tipped fingers to touch Taylor’s hair. Taylor drew back as though she were being confronted by a striking copperhead. Her mother dropped the offending hand and let out a small but perfectly audible sigh.

  Taylor spoke through clamped teeth, “I like my hair, I like my clothes, I like my job, I like my life.”

  Her mother stiffened. “Why do you always attack me? I’m only trying to help. You used to be such a lovely woman. And you’re still young. Well, youngish. It’s not too late for babies yet. You could probably still have almost any man you choose. You got Paul, after all.” She caught her breath. “Oh, dear, I didn’t mean to open old wounds. I am a stupid old woman.”

  “You’re barely sixty, you have an I.Q. of one-thirty, and why you persist in this Billie Burke imitation I will never know. It went out of style with the Eisenhower administration.”

  Her mother reddened and opened her mouth to retort.

  Before she could speak, however, a shadow fell across the table. Both women looked up.

  “Irene, darling, I haven’t seen you for ages. And Taylor. How lovely of you to ask me to join you.”

  Taylor knew she’d been sandbagged. She’d figured her mother’s luncheon invitation involved throwing Taylor at Irene’s latest prospect for replacement son-in-law. Instead, here was CeCe Washburn, owner of the new antique shop. Another attempt to prune Taylor from her unsuitable employment with Mel Borman.

  But this time her mother’s plan might not be so bad. CeCe Washburn could be a plu-perfect source of information about Helmut Eberhardt, the business of fake antiques, and possibly Nick Kendall as well.

  Taylor turned on a genuinely welcoming smile.

  “CeCe, I couldn’t be more delighted. Sit down, please. We’re just about to order. Would you like a cocktail, maybe? Glass of wine?” Taylor rested her cheek on her hand and simpered. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught her mother’s startled glance. Taylor smiled at her.

  Irene narrowed her eyes.

  CeCe drained her fourth frozen margarita forty-five minutes later, and fished around in her salad bowl for any stray shrimp that might be hiding under the arugula. Taylor drank her iced tea and wondered at CeCe’s ability to suck up not only the alcohol but the calories without any appreciable effect on her fashionably skeletal frame.

  “So you see, darling, I really do need an assistant manager for the new shop. And since your degree is in interior design, naturally your name popped right to the front of my poor little brain,” CeCe said, and signaled to the waiter. The fifth frozen margarita appeared at CeCe’s elbow.

  “Sorry, CeCe, I have a job.”

  Taylor heard her mother’s sniff. “But you’d meet the loveliest people with CeCe, dear.”

  “As opposed to the scum of the earth and the dregs of humanity with whom I presently associate?” Taylor said.

  Irene tittered. “Dear Taysie, you get so prickly whenever I mention that nice Mr. Borman and his...clients.”

  “Sorry, Mother.” Then the demons that invariably beset her whenever she was around her family began to dance a jig in her head. She leaned closer to her mother and whispered, “You’d be amazed at how many of those dregs are lunching in this room as we speak.”

  Her mother jumped and began to peer around myopically. Taylor sat back and smiled. CeCe had been too involved in licking the salt from the rim of her glass to notice their exchange.

  “CeCe, did you ever run across a man named Eberhardt?”

  CeCe’s tongue stopped in mid-lap. CeCe took a sip and set her glass down. “Terrible tragedy. Of course I never did business personally with him.”

  Taylor nodded. “Not too savory a reputation?”

  “My dear, the man was a crook. Sold overpriced nineteen-twenties’ reproductions as eighteenth-century English. I’ve heard he even commissioned pieces to order. If a client was dying for a William and Mary dining table, Eberhardt would magically discover one.”

  “Did he ever fake a provenance?”

  Again the darting tongue was still a moment before CeCe replied. She cleared her throat and shook the heavy gold cuff on her right hand. “Possibly. ‘Course the man made a mint. Some people are so crass.”

  Taylor couldn’t have said why she asked her next question, but the moment the words were out of her mouth she knew she’d hit pay dirt. “Did you ever work with a cabinetmaker named Kendall? He’s dead now.”

  CeCe blinked at her and burst into loud laughter that grated like a flock of guinea hens running from a raccoon. “Oh, Lord, that man was a genius!” She looked around the room, leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I wouldn’t tell just anybody this, but what with you possibly bein’ in the trade and all. What old Nicholas Kendall didn’t know about furniture hasn’t been invented. He could fake fresh mahogany so you’d swear the worms ate on it in seventeen-fifty.” She caught herself. “Not that he ever faked anything for me, you understand, but when you’re replacing veneer and paneling and things, you have to make the new parts match the rest of the piece.”

  “Of course.” Taylor smiled. “Did you like him?”

  “What an odd question.” CeCe took a hefty swig of her margarita. The four-carat diamond on her ring finger glittered in the light from the chandelier. “Frankly, I loathed the sanctimonious old fart.”

  Taylor stifled a giggle at her mother’s horrified expression.

  “Ever meet his grandson?”

  “God, did I ever!” CeCe clasped a hand over her sternum—every inch of which was visible beneath her pebbled skin. “If I’d been five—well, maybe ten—years younger, I’d have bought him a closet full of Armani suits, chained him to my bed and screwed his brains out until neither one of us could stand up.”

  Taylor laughed out loud. She didn’t dare glance at her mother.

  CeCe blinked. “Whoo-ee, I am drunk as a skunk.” She flipped her diamond-encrusted hand over her shoulder. “Armande! You’d better call the store and tell Felix to come on over and get me in the panel truck. That is, if I can walk.” She struggled to her feet. Armande took one elbow, Taylor took the other.

  “Lordy! I better go lie down in the ladies’ room until Felix gets here. Thanks for lunch, Irene.” CeCe minced off as though she were picking her way through a minefield. Both Taylor and Armande followed two steps behind, ready to catch her if she stumbled.

  When Taylor resumed her seat, she bit her lip to avoid cracking a smile.

  “Well, I never. Taylor, you egged that poor woman on. Obviously, she wasn’t paying a b
it of attention to how many margaritas she’d had. It’s your fault if she gets sick all over the ladies’ room.”

  “Obviously.”

  In her mother’s world, women who wore big diamonds didn’t talk like field hands and inhale margaritas like elephants at a watering hole. But Taylor was feeling much too good to be annoyed at her mother’s arcane value system. She knew CeCe would have a doozy of a hangover by sunset.

  Taylor reached for her satchel and stood. “Thanks for lunch, Mother. I mean that. It’s been very informative and a heck of a lot of fun, but I’ve got to get back to work.”

  “Taysie, you can’t go. You haven’t told me anything that’s been happening with you.”

  For a moment Taylor’s demons begged her to sit back down and regale her mother with tales of bloody corpses and long nights spent with homicide detectives. She smacked them back and prayed the newspaper wouldn’t mention her name in connection with the murder.

  Taylor leaned over and kissed her mother’s silken cheek. On impulse she hugged her. “I love you, old girl, I really do. And I’m fine. I wish you could believe that. I promise I’ll call you.”

  She threaded her way among the tables feeling a sudden sense of sadness. Why couldn’t families just accept one another? She tried to accept her mother and her brother, but neither made much attempt to reciprocate. At the doorway she turned. Her mother still sat at the table watching her, her eyes bright with unshed tears. Taylor felt her own eyes sting. She must be a terrible disappointment. She waved. Her mother waved back.

  Now she knew why Nick’s spotless reputation was important to him. He was living down the reputation that old scoundrel, his grandfather, had bequeathed to him. She’d have to do some further checking on Nicholas Kendall Senior. Did the old man’s lessons in woodcraft include failsafe methods for faking antiques? And did those antiques possibly include carousel animals?