Monet Talks Read online

  “Hot damn,” Bob said, “it’s still there.”

  “In all its avian glory,” I gasped.

  “Mind if we check it out?” Rob asked.

  “Knock yourselves out.”

  There, before my eyes, two of Charleston’s most elegant men turned into the Hardy Boys. They were all over that birdcage, like butter on grits. Bob pulled out the tray and held it to eye level. Finding nothing unusual, he had Rob hold the cage aloft while he got on his knees and peered upward. The four outside minarets were of such intricate and delicate design that I insisted the Taj not be laid on its side.

  “Hurry up,” Rob said. “This thing is heavy.”

  “I’m hurrying as fast as I can.”

  Rob switched arms. “What’s this thing made out of, Abby? Gold?”

  The Taj was painted white. I had assumed it was made from wire scrollwork. But what if it wasn’t? What if that was gold under the paint? What if Monet the bird and Monet the artist weren’t even part of the equation? That much gold would be worth a mint, particularly if it was of high purity. But gold, being a “noble metal,” remains unaffected by most elements. Getting paint to adhere firmly to gold is like getting it to stick to glass. But what if one first coated the Taj with an epoxy of some sort, or a resin?

  I leaped to my feet. I am no expert on precious metals, but ever since the third grade I’ve been an expert on scratching things. One spring day when Jimmy Campbell was out on the playground trouncing the other kids at dodgeball, a shy but precocious Abby Wiggins removed a barrette from her stick-straight hair and scratched A.W. + J.C. on the front of her hero’s lunch box. Then, carried away by my newfound skill at engraving, I gave Lassie horns and a billy goat beard. When Jimmy saw what I had done, he burst into tears and ran from the room. A part of me blames myself for Jimmy’s metamorphosis into playground bully and later into a petty criminal, one who spends more time in the slammer than out. At any rate, the time to scratch painted metal again had arrived.

  “Y’all have any barrettes on you?”

  “What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Bob said.

  “I need something sharp.”

  “There’s a tweezers somewhere in my left pocket,” Rob said.

  “Be a gentleman, will you, and fish it out?” A lesser woman might have paused to wonder what he was doing with tweezers in his pants.

  Rob fumbled a bit with his left hand before retrieving the smallest tweezers I’d ever seen. “It came off a Swiss army knife,” he said. “Sometimes when I’m out driving in the sunlight and look in the rearview mirror, I spot a stray hair. You know, in my nose or ears.”

  “TMI!” I grabbed the tweezers and gave one of the cage bars a good scrape.

  “Hey,” Bob cried in dismay, “you’re going to ruin this thing. I’ll admit I wasn’t so wild about this birdcage in the beginning, but it kinda grows on one. It’s really quite camp, Abby.”

  I examined my handiwork closely. There were, in fact, many layers of paint, but at the bottom of the gouge I spotted the telltale glint of gray.

  “Oh phooey, it’s just base metal.”

  Rob laughed. “You didn’t really expect to find gold, did you, Abby?”

  “Don’t be silly, Rob. But if it was made in India—well, they’re famous for their silver filigree.”

  “This isn’t a ring, Abby. This is an animal house the size of Grand Central Station. Say Bob, you making any progress on discovering your false bottom? My arms are about to fall off.”

  “My false bottom?” Bob boomed.

  My desk phone rang before I could think of a clever quip. I ran to answer it, but thanks to my less-than-perfect floor plan, the machine picked up before I got there. And just a second after that the front buzzer sounded.

  “It’s our assistant,” Rob shouted. I heard the jangle of bells as the door opened, and then Rob’s voice again. “A small crisis across the way, Abby. We’ll be back in two minutes.” The door slammed.

  By then my caller had had ample time to leave a message. The caller ID read “blocked” again, a good indication that a telemarketer had been itching to waste my time—either that or it was the kidnapper. But there was no way I could resist listening to the message. For the first time I found myself hoping against hope that the caller was trying to convince me to refinance.

  “Damn,” the voice said, “I was hoping to get you. Listen hon, I just want you to know that I’m with Mark, and that I’m okay. Love you, babe. Catch you later.”

  I was still holding the receiver to my ear when the Rob-Bobs returned. I must have listened to that message a hundred times. When I became aware of their presence, I set the phone gently back in its cradle, as gently I would lay an infant in its crib.

  “You were right,” I said.

  “Of course,” Rob said. “I’m always right.”

  “Not you—Bob.”

  “Uh-oh,” Rob said, and moved in to hug me, but I backed away.

  Bob cleared his throat. “What was I right about?”

  “Greg. He’s run off with his buddy from McClellanville.”

  “What?”

  “She’s kidding,” Rob said. “Good one, Abby.”

  My legs felt rubbery so I backed up until I was leaning against a file cabinet. “I’m not kidding. If you don’t believe me, pick up the phone and dial Star 98.”

  Rob’s jaw tensed as he listened to the message. He listened to it twice. When he was done, he set the receiver down slowly as a grin spread across his face.

  13

  “That doesn’t sound like a man in love, Abby. That sounds like a drunk trying to talk despite his hangover.”

  I grabbed the phone and retrieved the message. I listened to it three more times Greg’s phrasing, the slight slur of certain words, it was all reminiscent of a call I received the morning after a bachelor party from which eight men—all of them detectives—disappeared. They were later found in the basement of the best man, most of them so drunk they couldn’t stand up.

  “Holy smokes,” I shouted, “you were right, Rob!”

  “Of course I was. Aren’t I always?”

  Rob wasn’t being arrogant, just cocky. There is a boyish quality about him that makes his self-confidence endearing. Poor Bob, on the other hand, revisits every decision, and agonizes over his mistakes. As Rob strutted with his chest out, Bob studied the moons on his fingernails.

  “I’m really sorry, Abby. I guess I succumbed to Gay Fantasy Number One.”

  “Which is?”

  “That inside every good-looking straight man there is a gay man waiting to come out.”

  “Forget about it. I’m just as guilty for jumping to conclusions. Okay, guys, what do we do next?”

  “Well, for starters,” Rob said, “we’re not leaving your side for a minute—well, maybe for the occasional minute, but we’ll be right outside the door. And of course you’re spending the night at our house. As will the birdcage.”

  “Thanks, guys.”

  “We’ll have a good time,” Bob said. “I’ll make us a nice squab salad—got them from the pigeon egg dealer—followed by hare simmered in white wine and served with a cream sauce, and top it off with a bleached loganberry torte. After dinner we’ll watch the Amazing Race on TV. And just so we get really into the international spirit, we’ll munch on freshly popped millet drenched in melted yak butter.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Abby,” Bob said, “you still seem distracted. I apologize again for misleading you.”

  “It’s not that. I’ve been thinking: I’ve been spending too much time investigating everyone who really wanted to acquire this stupid cage—”

  “Tut-tut-tut,” Rob said. “It’s not a stupid cage; it’s the Taj.”

  “Whatever. But what I haven’t done is trace its origins.”

  “You mean you’ve been chasing after the who, and not the why.”

  “Exactly.”

  “In that case, it’s back to my car, and out to the Auction Barn.” />
  “Makes perfect sense to me,” Bob said. He was obviously relieved that I seemed to be recovering.

  “Last one to the car is a rotten pigeon egg,” I said.

  Of course I was the rotten egg. After all, my legs are about as long as Rob’s thighs. Besides, the Rob-Bobs didn’t hesitate, however briefly, to glance at the package, which still lay where I’d tossed it, just inside the door.

  The Lowcountry Auction Barn is located right across the highway from the Binh Minh Vietnamese restaurant, which, incidentally, serves the best Vietnamese food east, or west, of Ho Chi Minh City. If you’re ever up that way try the beef satay, as well as the salty lemongrass chicken. You won’t regret it.

  At any rate, the Lowcountry Auction Barn parking lot was deserted except for John Norman’s car. The auctions are only on Saturday mornings and Tuesday and Thursday evenings, but there is more than enough paperwork to keep John busy the rest of the week. We found him in his windowless office, practically hidden by stacks of invoices, receipts, and photographs of various pieces too large, or redundant, to make their presence feasible. John is a quiet, unassuming man who expresses himself with his neckties, which he insists on wearing even on the hottest days. This afternoon his choice of tie depicted a portion of a Salvador Dali painting. The melting timepieces reflected the way I felt walking from the car.

  John Norman seemed pleased by our interruption. “I’d offer y’all cold drinks,” he said, “but the soda machine needs servicing. The best I can do is lukewarm. What’s it like outside? Still hot?”

  That silly question is one I hear thousands of times during the dog days of summer. Yes, it was still hot. The air was so thick that one could practically slice it with a knife. Having done that, one could conceivably ship the slice to one of the poles and exponentially hasten global warming. The melted polar ice would increase rainfall and winter snow. The increased snow amounts would create new glaciers and subsequently usher in a new ice age, thus eventually cooling the Carolinas. In the meantime, I’d have to put up with that rhetorical question about the stupid weather.

  “We’re fixin’ to have a bodacious thunderstorm,” Bob said without cracking a smile. Every now and then the transplanted Yankee trots out what he considers to be a southernism. One must at least appreciate his attempt to assimilate.

  John winked at me. “You mean a frogstrangler?”

  “Well—”

  “Or do you mean a gully-washer? Or a trashtoter? Or a fence-lifter? Or a chunk-mover? Or a clod-buster? Or a goose-drowneder? Possibly even a turd-floater?”

  Bob knew his chain was being yanked, and good sport that he can be, grinned. “It’s going to rain hard.”

  “We sure could use it,” John said. He scrounged up three cracked plastic chairs.

  “John,” I said, now that the ice had been broken—so to speak, “I need to ask you some questions about that birdcage shaped like the Taj Mahal.”

  “Funny, because you’re not the first one this week.”

  The hair along the nape of my neck saluted. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Yesterday this woman with one eyebrow comes in—”

  “Those are two eyebrows, just very closely spaced. And her name is Wynnell Crawford. She’s a dealer from West of the Ashley.”

  “Right. Anyway, she wanted to know who the five people were who bid against you at crunch time. Said you sent her.”

  “I did indeed.”

  “Good, because I had a busy day staring me in the face and didn’t have time to check her story. Just gave her the info she wanted and sent her along. It’s not like it’s a secret or anything.”

  “Then you won’t mind giving me even more information?”

  “It’d be my pleasure, Abby. Assuming I can.”

  “Anything would help. But for starters, where did you get the birdcage?”

  “Well, as you know, that particular day I was selling the Cornmesser-Thornbright estate, along with some odds and ends on consignment. That piece, however, was one of my own.”

  “Your own?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I call a ‘pity buy.’ This sailor comes by one day—takes a cab over from the docks—had that birdcage tied on the roof. Says his captain won’t let him keep it any longer, but that he didn’t want to sell it, either. Said he wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but in the meantime could I keep it as collateral and loan him some money. I asked him what he thought a fair price would be, and he says a hundred bucks. I figure I can’t go wrong. A lot of work went into that thing. I’m no expert on the Taj Mahal, but that looks pretty darn close if you ask me. And all those stones got to be worth something. A shame to use it as a birdcage. I can picture something like that in a folk art museum, or as a foyer showpiece in a large home.”

  My head swam. “Uh—did you say one hundred dollars?”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid so. To be flat-out honest with you, I’ve been feeling kinda bad about that ever since. I should have given him at least two hundred. In fact, I would have tracked him down and given him the extra money, but I didn’t have anything to go on. Then about two weeks later I read in the paper about this guy who gets killed on one of the loading docks when a crane operator sets a container down right on top of him. Well, that’s what the police think at first. But the autopsy showed that the man had been dead for a couple of hours before being squished like a pancake.”

  “Ew,” I said, the taste of IHOP still in my mouth.

  John Norman is a kind man, quick to show concern. “Is something wrong, Abby?”

  “Our Abby is a recovering pancaholic,” Rob said.

  “I cannot deny that,” I said. “John, can you describe this man? Could he have been Indian? From India, I mean.”

  “Perhaps. Or maybe southern Mediterranean. Heck, he could have been any number of things, but he was a good-looking guy, I can tell you that.”

  “What kind of accent did he have?”

  John shrugged. “Well, he wasn’t from around here. But he didn’t sound like Peter Sellers, either, if that’s what you mean. He didn’t even speak English that well.”

  “What can you tell us about the bird?”

  “Clever, isn’t he? Speaking of the weather, I was getting dressed one morning, and I thought I heard the weatherman from Channel 4 telling us a tornado watch was in effect. I looked at the window, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was that darn bird.”

  “So he came with the cage, right?”

  “You better believe it. I told the sailor I didn’t know the first thing about caring for a bird, but he just kind of shrugged. Like I said, his English wasn’t the best.”

  “But he did tell you the bird’s name was Monet, right?”

  “Something like that. I wrote that on a note that went with the cage. But it was more of a guess.”

  I felt lower than the belly of a mole. Monet the mynah and Monet the painter might not even be connected. My disappointment must have shown on my face.

  Bob cleared his throat, which is usually the preamble to speech or a morality lecture. I cringed.

  “John,” he said, “you made it sound like there was a connection between the loading dock incident and the guy who sold you the cage. Was there?”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Robert. When you get to be my age, your thoughts tend to wander a bit, and you don’t always get back to where you started. Anyway, that container really did a job on that guy—sorry, Abby. As a result, the police were unable to even get a good set of prints, much less a positive ID on the victim. The coroner wasn’t much help, either, other than determining the time of death based on body temperature. The deceased may have died of a heart attack and gone unnoticed, or he could have been the victim of foul play. The best the police could do was to check the crew manifests and the lists of people cleared to work on that dock, but no one showed up missing. But when I read that article I just somehow knew that the sailor who brought me the birdcage and the dead guy on the dock were the same person. And I knew in my gut that he was indeed the v
ictim of foul play.”

  I hate sounding like a moralistic prig, but John is a mature adult, and by now should be used to people like me. “So,” I said, unable to help myself, “you decided to keep mum about the Taj.”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “I would,” Rob said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t,” Bob said.

  I gave him the thumbs-up. “Thank you. No offense, John, but you might have been able to help the police. You might still be able. Yes, they might hold the Taj Mahal as disputed property—until you can prove rightful ownership, or no one else claims it after ninety days—but it would be worth it if it helped put a killer away, right?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “The Taj isn’t mine to hand over now, is it?”

  Stupid, stupid me. I’d been so sure about walking the high ground that I walked right into quicksand. “Well, uh—it’s different now. I paid ten thousand for the Taj, you only shelled out a hundred.”

  “I see. So we get to lower our moral standards if enough money is at stake?”

  “He’s got you, Abby.”

  I glared at Bob. “Well, it really is different now. I didn’t know anything about the sailor when I bought it, and I haven’t had that so-called gut feeling John had. In fact, I don’t remember reading anything about this in the paper.” I turned to John. “How long ago was it, anyway?”

  “A year.”

  “A year?”

  “I guess I’m not as morally bankrupt as you thought.”

  “Hmm. You could have told me you waited a year. Ayear ago—wait, how close to a year is it?”

  “A year and two days from when he brought it in until the day I put it up for auction. The two days were insurance for my ailing conscience.”

  “Touché. Well, this explains why I never read about him in the papers. At the time he was found, Greg, Mama, and I were whale-watching in Nova Scotia.” I turned to Rob. “I suppose you guys read about him, too.”