The Ming and I

by Tamar Myers

  “You can never be too careful,” she said, getting slowly to her feet. She was speaking loud enough to satisfy the nosiest of neighbors. “Nowadays, with the ozone like it is, folks are dropping from skin cancer right and left. Still, the gardening has to be done, doesn’t it?

  “I suppose you’re wondering why I don’t hire someone to help me with the work. Well, I’ll tell you—what with the minimum wage and civil rights laws, good help is impossible to come by anymore. Things aren’t like they used to be, that’s for sure. In my day southern ladies had creamy white skin.”

  “Just some of them,” I said. “You told my son you had a book for me?”

  She led me inside. “Actually there is no book. I just wanted to talk to you. Will you excuse me for a minute while I clean up?”

  She was only gone a minute, but when she returned I hardly recognized her. The hat was gone—although her damp gray hair still held its shape—but more importantly, the dress was gone as well. Of course she was still wearing slacks and a top. But the tan cotton slacks had been replaced by a pair of hot pink spandex ones that left nothing to the imagination, and a bright red tank top that was stretched taut across her sagging but nonetheless straining bosom.

  “Oh,” was all I said. After a heavy lunch I preferred the taste of blood to shoe leather.

  “Have a seat, please.”

  I sat on an enormous white sofa, and she sat on an identical one across the room. Despite their camel-backs, the sofas were contemporary, as was the glass-and-brass coffee table between us. I suppose I had expected overstuffed armchairs with doilies pinned on them, or at least a clutter of Eastlake mahogany pieces. I certainly hadn’t expected a 1990s look.

  “Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Anne said. Her voice was suddenly deep and gravelly, a full octave lower than her usual shrieks and shrills.

  I stared stupidly. I was getting rather good at it.

  “Had you fooled, didn’t I? That flowery little granny routine is just for show. But it’s a real pain in the ass.”

  My mouth, always ahead of my brain, fell open of its own volition.

  Anne hooted and slapped her thigh. She was obviously enjoying the effect she was having on me.

  “I was his mistress, for chrissakes—I met him at a horse show in Atlanta—but folks would never have given me the time of day if I’d just been myself. Flowery and prissy improved the product in their eyes. Every damn time I went into town to shop for groceries, medicines for her, you name it, I put on my getup and pranced around like a churchgoing goody two shoes. That made it easier for them to forget who I was and what I did for a living—not that they really ever knew. The concept of mistress was all they could handle.”

  “Well, uh—”

  “I was damned lucky, you know, getting a break that late in life. I was the oldest one in the stable, but my jockey wouldn’t kick me out. Too many good years together, he said. Although face it, dear, eventually he would have had to put me out to pasture. A really old mare can’t even earn her feed doing tricks.”

  I was confused. Things just weren’t adding up.

  “Were you a horse trainer, dear?” I asked politely.

  She thought that was hilarious, and slapped her thighs until mine began to sting out of sympathy.

  “I was the horse!” she finally gasped.

  Surely I had misunderstood her. Okay, so she hung out at horse shows, belonged to a stable, and employed a jockey. But that didn’t make her a horse any more than my profession made me a Biedermeier bed. Although she could certainly neigh as well as a horse.

  “I’m afraid I misunderstood you,” I said. “I thought you said ‘horse.’”

  “Close enough, dear. Just leave off the ‘s.’”

  I blushed the color of her spandex slacks. “This really isn’t my business.”

  She neighed again. “You’re embarrassed, aren’t you? Well, don’t be. It’s just a fact—I was a whore, and a damn good one. Be the best you can be, they say, and I was. I slept with four U.S. presidents, thirteen governors, and more senators and congressmen than I could keep track of. And foreign heads of state, too. Why, there was the prime minister of—”

  “Please stop,” I begged. No doubt I had turned the color of her tank top.

  “You young people are such prudes, but oh well, I’m sure you’ve gotten my point. I was persona non grata just for being Billy’s mistress. Could you imagine what my life would have been like—would be like—if folks knew the whole truth?”

  “They’d tie you to the Civitas and pelt you with hymnals?”

  The Civitas is a set of four female statues of mammoth proportions sculpted by Audrey Flack. They were especially commissioned to mark the Dave Lyle Boulevard entrance to Rock Hill. They are glorious gals, and the community should have been proud of them from the get go. But, alas, the bronze beauties were created with brazen nipples, a fact that horrified local Bible thumpers, who wouldn’t stop thumping until the nipples had been sandblasted to mere nubs. The Civitas is the most likely place to hold a public execution in Rock Hill.

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, in that case, why are you trusting me with your secret?”

  “Because I need your help.”

  That was about as likely as the Charlotte Hornets needing me to score baskets. “I don’t even live in Rock Hill anymore, dear. Those Civitas gals have more influence around here than I do.”

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on you, Ms. Timberlake, and I’ve decided that I can trust you.”

  “My lips could sink a navy, dear.”

  “Your mother thinks you’re the salt of the earth.”

  “I pay her to say that.”

  She waved a hand impatiently. “I need your help, and I don’t know where else to turn.”

  I sighed. “What exactly do you want me to do for you?”

  “A cousin of mine was recently murdered. I need you to help me find her killer.”

  Thank God my hair is short, because it was standing on end. I stood up to keep it company.

  “Me? Why me? Just because people are dropping like flies wherever I go doesn’t mean—”

  “My cousin was June Troyan,” she said. “She was killed in your shop, Den of Antiquity. She was killed because of you.”

  20

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You and June Troyan were cousins, and that’s why she moved here from Florida when her husband died. You were the one who put her up for the docent’s job. You and June were as thick as thieves, and she knew all about your past, including your—uh—career in Atlanta.”

  “You listen well.”

  “But I don’t get it. What does any of this have to do with June’s murder? Or with me, for that matter?”

  She snorted. “June stopped by here the morning she was killed. She said she was on her way over to see you, but when I told her about the blackmailer—”

  “Hold your horses,” I said. “What blackmailer?”

  “Oh, I didn’t tell you yet, did I?”

  “Apparently not. You wouldn’t have anything to drink, would you, dear?”

  Please believe me. I am not a tippler, and I don’t usually request refreshments that haven’t been offered, but it was turning out to be a rather long and difficult day. A little scotch on the rocks, maybe some mud in my eye, and I might still be sane enough to keep my date.

  “Would sweet tea be all right?”

  “Preferably something you hide when the preacher comes,” I said. I blushed at my inadvertent innuendo.

  Anne shook her head. “Sorry, but I don’t drink. Never have, never will. It isn’t good for you.”

  “But—”

  “That’s just an act. Throws them off the scent, so to speak. Give them enough to criticize, and they won’t feel the need to dig any deeper.”

  That had a certain logic.

  “Sweet tea will be fine,” I said. “On the rocks.”

  She brought me a huge plastic tumbler filled to the brim. The wors
t tea I had ever tasted. Even a Yankee wouldn’t drink that stuff. But I was raised to be well mannered, so when Anne’s back was turned for a second, I shared the vile brew with the pathos plant at my side.

  “Tell me about this blackmailer,” I said. “Who was he trying to blackmail—you?”

  She nodded. “There was a note. It said that if I didn’t come up with fifty thousand dollars, my past was going to be dragged through every parlor in Rock Hill.”

  “May I see the note?”

  She shook her head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  “You do still have the note, don’t you?”

  “I gave it to June.”

  “What?”

  “She asked for it. My cousin was a real pistol. Very headstrong, but very protective of me.”

  “Did you at least show the note to the police first?”

  “June said to wait until she’d had a chance to talk to you. She said she had a theory.”

  “Why me?” I wailed. The goose on my grave was doing a rumba. “A theory? About what? Did it have to do with a—” I caught myself just in time. I wasn’t sure I trusted Madame Holliday.

  Anne was leaning toward me. I could feel her willing me to finish my sentence.

  “—mahogany sideboard?”

  Anne frowned. “June never mentioned a sideboard. As for her theory, I couldn’t say. She was going to tell me all about it after she got back from seeing you.”

  I felt as if I was being accused of something, but of what I hadn’t the slightest idea. Anne had no way to know that I had ignored her cousin’s first foray into my shop.

  “She must have told you something,” I said.

  “Not one word. The poor woman talked less than a stump post.”

  Well, she was at least right about that. June hadn’t said one word to me—on either of her two visits to my shop. Perhaps if she had I would be at work now, merrily ringing up the register, instead of sinking ever deeper into the mire of murder.

  I leaned back against the puffy white sofa. I was beginning to feel a little dizzy. Perhaps there had been something sinister in the tea, something so potent that just one sip was enough to do me in. I glanced over at the potted pathos. It did seem a bit pooped.

  “What is the point in telling me all this?”

  “I wanted to warn you.” My goose had forsaken the rumba and had taken up the tango.

  “About what?”

  Anne rose from her puffy white sofa and crossed the room to a rather severe chrome-and-glass desk. The drawers were see-through, but even then she fished around in the top left-hand drawer for an interminable length of time. I was beginning to think her hand had gotten stuck—either that or she had found, and was loading, a gun.

  I breathed a sigh of relief when she turned around with nothing more than a piece of paper in her hand. “This came in Saturday’s mail,” she said.

  I stared at the paper. Even from where I sat, and without my bifocals, I could tell that the paper had come from my shop. My logo—a lion in a den full of period furniture—takes up almost a third of the page. It is impractical as stationery, but cute, and my customers love it.

  “Was the first note written on my stationery as well?”

  “No, it was on plain paper. With cutout newspaper letters pasted on it. But it was very neatly done. It almost looked typed.”

  “Neatness is not my style,” I said quickly.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  I ignored her insult. “Is this another demand?”

  “No. This one has just one word on it.”

  “Oh?”

  “Does the word Ming mean anything to you?”

  The tango had proved too tame for my goose, who was now doing a rousing flamenco. I shouldn’t have been surprised by Anne’s question, however. She was not on the board because of her knowledge of collectibles. And Ming is not a household word. What did I know, for instance, about tweeters and woofers, until I heard my son, Charlie, use them in a sentence? Then, rather emotionally, I demanded that he account for his vulgar language. Tweeters, my son patiently explained, was not his nickname for his stepmother. As for woofers, to his limited knowledge they were not, and probably would never be, obtrusions on Tweetie’s chest.

  I tried to shrug nonchalantly. Instead I must have looked like a condemned woman shrugging off the hangman’s noose. Either that or I had a severe itch on my back that had gone unscratched for weeks.

  “I don’t know. I suppose so. It could be part of a word—like coming. Or it could be referring to a particular Chinese dynasty.”

  “Well, it doesn’t mean anything to me. Still, I’m taking this one to the police.”

  “Let me take it for you. I mean, my—well, you see, it just so happens that I’m having dinner tonight with a Charlotte criminal investigator.”

  “But this is Rock Hill.”

  “Where was it mailed from?” I asked calmly.

  “Charlotte.”

  I smiled reassuringly. “Then it would definitely be a matter for the Charlotte police.”

  The old gray mare had a lot of mule in her. “Maybe. But it arrived here in Rock Hill. I’ll take it to them myself.”

  “Fine, suit yourself. But I don’t see why you bothered to tell me any of this. Just because one of your so-called blackmail notes was on my notepad doesn’t prove anything.”

  “So called?” she brayed. “Are you calling me a liar?”

  “Well,” I said patiently, “for all I know you were in my shop and swiped the damn thing.”

  She bristled. It was a good thing she claimed to be a horse and not a porcupine.

  “Why, you little witch! I may have broken a few commandments during my career, but stealing was never one of them. You take that back!”

  Perhaps it was because she was wearing red. Perhaps it was simply the stress I’d been under, but I forgot my training as a southern lady.

  “I will not! And don’t you even try to implicate me as your blackmailer, or everyone in York County will know that you used to make your living working as a hoofer.”

  “You mean hooker.” She laughed mockingly.

  I jumped down from the puffy white sofa. “Whatever! But don’t think I’m kidding, because I’m not. My mama knows everyone who is anyone in Rock Hill. In five minutes flat we could have you tarred, feathered, and headed south to Chester.”

  Anne remained seated. “But no one will believe you,” she said calmly. “Anne Holliday, the mistress with the heart of gold, is a Rock Hill institution now. Did you know I joined the First Baptist Church? I sing in the choir, just like your mama.”

  “My mama is not a piece of white trash,” I hissed.

  I was shown the door.

  Of course I headed straight over to Mama’s. If Anne Holliday, the mistress of disguise, did point the finger at me, I needed Mama in my corner. Mama does know everyone in Rock Hill, but she would need a head start rounding up the tar-and-feathering team. There might well be some serious convincing to do first. After all Anne Holliday had indeed managed to fool all the people, all of the time.

  She certainly had Mama fooled. “Give it a rest, Abby,” she said for the third time. “I’ve known Anne Holliday for twenty years. I was one of the few people who spoke to her when she came into town to shop at the Commons. I ran into her at the Harris Teeter almost every week. She was always very polite. And I play bridge with her every week, for heaven’s sake.

  “No, Anne Holliday might be a bit fond of the sauce, but she’s no stripper from Atlanta.”

  “Prostitute,” I said.

  Mama flinched at the “p” word. “Well, she’s certainly not that. She sings in the Methodist choir, you know.”

  “I thought it was Baptist.”

  “Well, it’s one of those churches on Oakland Avenue, and it’s not the Episcopal church. Not that we couldn’t use another soprano.”

  “That’s only her fake voice. She probably sings bass.”

  Mama instinctively put her h
and up to my forehead, and finding it normal, felt my cheeks and then my neck.

  “Well, you don’t feel feverish,” she concluded, “but to be on the safe side, you should go to bed. It’s a good thing Greg canceled your date, because you can stay here and I’ll—”

  “Greg what?”

  “He called about an hour ago and left a message. Apparently there’s been a new development in one of his cases, and he had to fly down to Tallahassee at the last minute. He asked if he could reschedule dinner for Thursday.”

  “Mama! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  Mama’s hand flew defensively up to her pearls. “Because you didn’t give me a chance, that’s why. You were too busy attacking one of my friends.”

  “I was not attacking her. I was merely repeating what she told me.”

  Mama clucked sympathetically and shook her head. “You poor dear. Maybe it’s something you had for lunch. But don’t you worry, Abby, I’ll fix you right up. I have some castor oil in the medicine cabinet and—”

  I wandered off to use the phone.

  21

  Calling on Shirley Hall was not just a whim. I’d been meaning to, anyway—maybe to ask her out to lunch—as part of a new plan that I had to make more friends. Although I lived and worked within thirty miles of my hometown, I seemed to be suffering from a dearth of friends now that I was only half of a couple.

  Oh sure, Wynnell and the Rob-Bobs were great friends, and even C.J. was a friend, if the truth be known, but a body needs more than four friends. Especially these days.

  Ask Mama. Her best friend of fifty-five years, Karen Leis, moved all the way to Alaska to be with her daughter and her family—a pitiful excuse in Mama’s eyes. Then when Rebecca Thompson had a fatal stroke, and Caroline Crawford died of cancer, Mama was left virtually friendless.

  “You’ve still got your bridge club,” I told Mama regularly.

  “It’s not the same. We play bridge, but we don’t share. It’s all fluff conversation between hands. Real friendships take time.”