The Ming and I Page 11

  “The pleasure has been all mine, Abby,” she said. “Your mother has told me so much about you.”

  I glared at Mama. “Then I’m sure she has told you I now have a night job—of sorts—and won’t be able to join you for supper tomorrow evening.”

  “You weren’t invited,” Mama said.

  I glared again for good measure. “Well, have a safe trip back to merry old England, and say ‘hey’ to the queen for me.”

  “Her Majesty—” the countess said, and then dropped dead at my feet.

  13

  “And then what happened?”

  Greg balanced his notebook and pen on his knees while he fished in his pocket for a handkerchief. Bea and Jerry had kindly allowed us the use of their kitchen, but apparently they didn’t believe in stocking facial tissues, and Mama had my purse.

  “And then she just fell. It was awful.” I cried a little and dabbed my eyes and nose before continuing. “Greg, I could see her falling, but I didn’t move fast enough to catch her. In fact, I didn’t move at all. I couldn’t. It was like I was watching her fall in slow motion, but I was frozen in time.”

  Greg snatched the handkerchief from me and caught a large drop that was about to dribble off the tip of my nose.

  “It happens like that,” he said, “even to seasoned pros. Something totally unexpected happens, and you don’t react. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “But it seemed like forever between the time I heard the shot and when she started to fall. I should have reached out. I should have done something.”

  “You’re too hard on yourself,” he said kindly. “There was nothing you could have done to help her. Abby, please remember, what happened wasn’t your fault.”

  “I didn’t even scream. I just stared.”

  “Your reaction was normal, Abby.” He picked up the notebook and pen, and crossed his legs at the knee. “Tell me about your relationship with the victim.”

  “Victim? She had a name. Even a title! Her name was Caroline.”

  “How well did you know her?”

  “I met her tonight. But we hit it off immediately.”

  “So you had only just met her.”

  “Yes, but we talked about everything. She was so nice!”

  “I’m sure she was.”

  He waited patiently while I caught the next drop on my own.

  “She and Mama were supposed to have supper together tomorrow night.”

  “Where?”

  “At Mama’s. Only I wasn’t invited.” I was babbling like a crazed idiot.

  “I see. Abby, try and picture how it was just before she got shot. How were you standing? How was she standing?”

  “We were facing each other, of course, because we were saying good-bye. She had her back to the house. I had my back to Mama’s car. Mama was standing between us on the left.”

  “And Mr. McBride?”

  “He was behind me someplace, I guess. He was supposed to be getting the car. The valet parking was only to impress the duchess.”

  “I see. Were there any other people around outside that you were aware of? Your hosts, for instance?”

  I crinkled my nose, and not to stop it from running. “They didn’t even walk us to the door. Wynnell would call them Yankees.”

  “Any unexplained movements in the periphery of your vision?”

  “No.”

  “Do you remember any cars driving by at about that time?”

  “No.”

  “Anything at all that you can remember that you haven’t told me?”

  “I remember Caroline’s left eye exploding,” I sobbed, and threw myself into Greg’s arms.

  Mama stayed with me in Charlotte. Neither of us could go to sleep right away, so we sat up and drank a pot of decaf and picked at a jigsaw puzzle I keep on my breakfast room table. There’s nothing like putting together a puzzle to help sort out the mind.

  “This was the worst evening of my life,” Mama said simply. She was trying to cram a blue center piece into a green edge.

  “Worse than when Daddy died skiing?”

  She tossed the piece back on the pile. “No, that was worse. I saw that seagull dive-bomb your daddy, but there was nothing I could do. Your uncle Gooch stopped the boat as soon as I yelled, but not before your poor daddy smacked into that pontoon boat and—Oh well, you know the rest. He had a brain tumor the size of a walnut, you know.”

  “Uncle Gooch?” I knew Daddy didn’t.

  “No, the seagull. According to a state biologist, that damned seagull shouldn’t even have gotten airborne.”

  I patted Mama’s hand. After eighteen years, talking about Daddy’s death still brought tears to her eyes.

  “But tonight might have been worse,” she said, picking up that same damn blue piece.

  “How?”

  “It might have been you instead of Caroline. If I’d lost you, too, Abby, I wouldn’t have been able to take it.”

  It was a sobering thought I had yet to dwell on. “Oh, Mama, you’re right! If the killer had been off by just a couple of inches, that might be me in the morgue.”

  Mama jammed the blue piece into the green border. “No, Abby, you’ve got it wrong. It’s because the killer was a lousy shot that you’re still alive. Whoever it was most certainly was aiming for you, dear.”

  “Me?”

  She jammed a predominantly yellow piece in next to the blue one.

  “Why would anyone in the Carolinas want to kill an English countess? Who even knew she was here?”

  “I don’t know! But why would anyone want to kill me?”

  “Think, dear. You don’t suppose it could be Buford, do you?”

  Buford a killer? That was too much for even me to fathom. Murder was not Buford’s style; torment was. Buford was the type to send a suicidal person a gift-wrapped loaded pistol, complete with instructions on how to use it. My ex-husband did not pull the legs off flies when he was a boy. He did, however, keep an open jar of honey in a little screen box in his bedroom.

  “It’s not Buford,” I said. “I can’t think of a single reason someone might want to kill me.”

  Mama cleared her throat, and then patted the pearls as if to apologize to them.

  “But someone was killed in your shop recently, dear.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “And it wasn’t an accident, was it?”

  “The possibility hasn’t been ruled out, Mama. There were no reliable witnesses, and of course there hasn’t been a confession.”

  “But what if whoever killed—what was her name?”

  “June Troyan.”

  “That’s right. Well, if Miss Troyan’s killer thought you might have seen—”

  “The shop was packed, Mama. They know I didn’t see it happen.”

  “They don’t know that for sure.”

  I got up and checked the kitchen door. It was locked. I pulled the blinds closed.

  “What is the killer going to do? Kill everyone who was in my shop?”

  “No, of course not. I just feel that there is a connection. I can smell it.”

  “Leave your nose out of this,” I snapped.

  It was fear speaking. They say animals can smell fear, so why not someone with a highly developed proboscis like Mama’s?

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I meant it. She was only voicing her concern.

  Mama waved off my apology. “Forget it. But you need a gun, dear.”

  “No, I don’t. You know how I feel about guns.”

  “Maybe it’s time to rethink your position.”

  “What kind of a message would I be giving Susan and Charlie?”

  “They wouldn’t need to know,” Mama said coolly.

  “What if I panicked some night and accidentally shot one of them? Or you?”

  “You would use the thing for self-protection. Not to pop someone sight unseen.”

  “A lot of people who keep guns end up being victims of their own guns.”

  “Liberal poppycock,” Ma
ma said stubbornly. “You don’t think Caroline’s killer will bring along his own gun?”

  “Mama, I just don’t believe it’s the right thing to do. It makes me a part of the problem. It’s against my principles.”

  “Phooey on principle,” Mama said. “Do you think Caroline’s killer will take that into consideration? I’m not saying you should buy yourself a cannon and join the NRA. But you should have something to protect yourself with in this house.”

  “I have you, Mama. At least for tonight.”

  Mama hugged me. We were pals again. But when she tried to cram another blue piece into the green border, I slapped her hand.

  The next day was Sunday. By convention, area antique shops remain closed during church hours (a vestige of the old Sunday blue laws), and open at noon or one. Since I am a churchgoer myself, I open at one. That particular day I should have just kept the shop closed. But I hate to disappoint customers, and Captain Keffert was planning to come in and buy a birthday present for First Mate Keffert, his wife.

  The Kefferts are an eccentric couple who live in a boat-shaped house in Belmont, North Carolina. They are exceedingly rich. Periodically one, or both, of them will drop a huge bundle into my coffers in exchange for a one-of-a-kind piece. I had recently acquired an eight-foot-tall wooden statue of an Indonesian garuda, a mythical creature that is half eagle and half man. Believe it or not, but a good garuda is hard to come by in the Charlotte area, and Captain Keffert was looking for one, so this fellow was a sure sale.

  I did skip church, however, and paid for that sin all morning long. A wiser woman would have disconnected the doorbell, or at least refused to answer it.

  “Good morning,” the Rob-Bobs said in unison with practiced cheer.

  I glanced at the ship’s clock I keep on the mantel. It was nine o’clock. Mama was still sawing logs.

  “Morning.”

  Bob held out a towel-wrapped tureen. “We brought you this to help you start your day.”

  “He brought it; I didn’t,” Rob said.

  I cautiously took the tureen. “What is it?”

  “Moroccan ambrosia. Couscous, chopped dates, raw brown sugar, and goat milk.”

  “You can get goat milk in Charlotte?”

  “Harris Teeter sells it in cans. But fresh is better, of course.”

  “Of course.” I invited them in, then minded my manners by serving three bowls of the warm concoction. My portion, incidentally, was very small.

  “Delicious,” Bob said, “isn’t it?”

  “Indescribably so,” I said. Actually it wasn’t half bad. It was certainly better than the emu egg omelet he cooked last time he made breakfast for me.

  “Abby,” Rob said, mashing his ambrosia with his spoon but never actually taking a bite, “you should get yourself a gun.”

  “I’ve been over that with Mama,” I said calmly, “and the answer is no. Hey, how did you two know about what happened, anyway?”

  “We heard it on the radio last night, and it made this morning’s paper.”

  “But it was too late to make the front page,” Bob said, and gave me a sympathetic look.

  I sat up straight with a start. “Oh shit, this means that Susan and Charlie know.”

  I gently evicted the Rob-Bobs and called my children. Both of them were royally pissed at being awakened at such an hour, and both of them thought it was cool of me to be so close to a murder.

  “I can’t wait until tomorrow,” Charlie said. “The kids at school are going to love this.”

  “Did she, like, scream when she fell?” Susan asked.

  It was almost a relief when the doorbell rang again. This time it was C.J.

  “Oh, am I disturbing something?” she asked, looking past me into the dining room, where the Rob-Bobs still sat.

  She was cradling a cardboard box that said Mr. Coffee on the sides. I already had a coffee maker, but hey, one never knows when an emergency wedding present might come in handy.

  “Not at all, dear. Please come in. Bob brought over something called Moroccan ambrosia. It’s made with goat milk.”

  C.J. blanched. “Ooh, Abby, I wouldn’t eat goat milk if I were you. My granny Wiley used to keep goats at her place just outside of Shelby. She used goat milk in everything. Even poured it on her cereal. Then one day she noticed that her toenails were getting real thick and brown, kind of like little hooves.”

  “That’s toenail fungus, dear. It has nothing to do with goats.”

  “That’s what we all told her—at first. But then she started growing whiskers on her chin.”

  “Many older women do.”

  “Yeah, but then Granny Wiley started butting people with her head. When Pastor Andrews came to call on her, she butted him from behind and sent him flying across the lawn. Poor pastor had to wear a neck brace for a month.”

  “Sounds like it was your granny who should have worn the neck brace,” I said pleasantly. “Perhaps one attached to a straitjacket.”

  “Why, Abigail Timberlake! I didn’t come here to be insulted.”

  “Why did you come, dear?”

  “To give you this.” She thrust the cardboard box at me.

  “Oh, C.J., you shouldn’t have.”

  “I didn’t.” She opened the box. “I found it by my front door this morning.”

  Inside was the missing Ming.

  14

  “It’s definitely the same vase,” Rob Goldburg declared ex cathedra.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  He tilted the Ming. “There is a hairline crack in the glaze here, just to the left of this flower. It’s the only flaw on the damn thing.”

  “Have y’all heard of the Yüan dynasty?” I asked casually. I didn’t want them to think I was challenging their expertise.

  Rob and Bob exchanged modest glances. I should have known. If it was older than the expiration date on the milk in my refrigerator, they not only had heard of it, but were undoubtedly world-class experts.

  “Well, anyway,” I said, “at that party Frank took me to, there was a ewer that looked a lot like this. The colors and design, I mean. But Frank said it was Yüan, not Ming.”

  A scowl distorted Rob’s handsome brow. “The Chinese weren’t using polychrome overglazes during the Yüan dynasty. Blue and white was their big thing.”

  “Wow, I go my whole life without seeing a Ming, and in the same week I see two of them.” I shuddered. “This is really creepy. First this one gets dropped off at my shop by a woman just about to be killed—”

  “I’m doomed,” C.J. wailed. “Just like Granny Ledbetter!”

  “You have enough grannies to fill a nursing home,” I said, not unkindly.

  “This is serious, Abby. Granny Ledbetter found a pair of bright red shoes on her back porch one day.”

  “Had Dorothy stopped by on her way to Oz?” Rob had a twinkle in his eye.

  “If she finds an oil can, let me know,” Bob said. “My Power Master has been squeaking lately.”

  C.J. was not amused. “Granny died because of those shoes!”

  “Please, go on,” I begged politely.

  C.J. glared at each of us in turn and then took a deep breath. “Granny had no idea where the shoes came from, but they fit her perfectly. One day she wore them into town on a trip to the doctor—she’d cut her hand on a piece of baling wire and it wouldn’t heal up.

  “Well, her regular doctor was away on vacation, but his substitute was there, only he didn’t bother to read Granny’s chart thoroughly, or else he would have known she was allergic to penicillin. He gave her a shot, and she died that same day.”

  “Sounds like a lawsuit,” Rob said sympathetically.

  “I’m sorry about your granny,” I said gently, “but I don’t see how the mysterious red shoes had anything to do with her death.”

  “That’s because I didn’t get a chance to finish my story!”

  “Please, finish,” we chorused.

  She took her time before speaking. “There was a
n article in the paper the very next day about a woman over in Polk County whose body had been found in the woods. She’d been missing for two weeks. Her husband said that when they found her, she was wearing the exact same clothes he’d last seen her wearing—except for her shoes. Her shoes were gone, and they were bright red shoes!”

  “Well, uh—but, C.J.,” I said, “I already had the vase, and nothing happened to me.”

  “Wrong, Abigail! Something did. Last night you almost got shot. It was in all the papers. I even heard it on the radio on my way over here. The curse isn’t over, Abigail, it’s just begun. You and I are both doomed!”

  I will admit that for a couple of seconds I felt that proverbial goose do a soft-shoe (red, of course) on my grave.

  Greg handled the vase like Buford handled newborns. I’m surprised Greg didn’t drop it.

  “So this is a Ming vase?”

  “A particularly fine one. Rob said this one is over three hundred years old and in almost flawless condition.”

  “And you’re positive it is the same one that was left in your shop the day June Troyan was killed?”

  “The Rob-Bobs have declared it so.”

  “I’d like to take it back with me to the lab,” he said reverently.

  “Just give it a bottle every four hours, and check now and then to make sure it’s dry.”

  Greg has a smile that could light up New York City in a blackout. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

  “Shakespeare was right; sleep really does knit up the raveled sleeve of care.”

  He looked around. “Where’s your mother?”

  I pointed to the guest bedroom. “Still knitting, I reckon.”

  “I got the ballistics report.”

  “And?”

  “The countess was killed by a Colt Model 1860.” He paused.

  “Yes?”

  “It is a cap-fired .44 caliber percussion piece.”

  “So?”

  “So, the revolver in question dates to the Civil War.”

  “No shit!” There are times when one is just too shocked to be a proper southern lady.

  Greg nodded. “A real antique. Doesn’t that guy across the street sell antique guns?”