Statue of Limitations Read online

  “Great,” Bob said, when I agreed to his plan.

  “Not so fast!” Maybe it’s because Rob took two years of ballet when he was boy, but that man can move as silently as a puma in slippers.

  Bob crossed his rather spindly arms. “I’m not backing down. Abby’s my guest.”

  “Correction—she’s our guest.” Rob stooped to kiss my cheek. “You okay with that, Abby?”

  “Sure, but I thought—”

  “That was just to throw him off track. Serve him right to worry even more.”

  Supper wasn’t for a number of hours—alpaca roasts, even when well-marinated, are best cooked slowly to ensure tenderness—so there wasn’t any point in my hanging around the shop. I tried calling Wooden Wonders several times to see if by chance Wynnell’s husband, Ed, was there, but kept getting a busy number. Instead of adding to my frustration level, I decided to tool out there in person.

  Compared to the old Cooper bridges, the Ashley River Memorial Bridge is sedate and dignified, almost European in appearance. Because the latter does not have to accommodate container ships, very few people who use it come down with high-altitude sickness. On a trip across the Ashley one invariably sees sailboats, and if headed into town, the Ashley Marina presents one of the prettiest sights on the Eastern seaboard.

  When headed out of town, the first right turn puts you on St. Andrew’s Boulevard. By bearing left and staying on Route 61, the traveler finds him- or herself on Ashley River Road, downriver from some of America’s finest antebellum-era plantations. Magnolia Gardens, Drayton Hall—this is the Old South about which Margaret Mitchell rhapsodized. It is still there—sans slaves, of course, and with ice cold beverages at one’s fingertips, if one has the fortitude to make it past the strip malls and other dubious achievements of urban development.

  Wynnell’s shop is in one of these microshopping centers, sandwiched between a Subway and a coin-operated laundry. Her customer base tends to be drop-ins from the Laundromat, lower-income women who, unable to purchase washers and dryers of their own, are unlikely to buy “used furniture” at such fancy prices. An occasional well-heeled woman with a hankering for a low-fat sub will wander in out of curiosity. If it weren’t for the munching matrons, Wooden Wonders would never have floated at all.

  The front door was locked, but I could see Ed on the phone, his back to me. I rapped on the smudged glass with my knuckles until he turned around. He held a finger up as if to signal I should wait a minute, but then he hung up almost immediately.

  “Abby,” he said, struggling with the lock, “what a nice surprise.”

  “Ed, how was the arraignment? Were you there?”

  “No. It happened too fast—but that was Wynnell on the phone just now. The arraignment was moved up. There was an opening on the docket, and so they were able to convene a grand jury this morning.”

  “And?”

  “She”—his voice broke—“my Wynnell’s been indicted for murder. In the first degree.”

  “Just like that? On what evidence?”

  “Apparently there were several eyewitnesses who heard her threaten the deceased. And the so-called murder weapon was found.”

  “Yes, a statue. What about bail?”

  “Denied. Too great a flight risk.”

  “Why? Because she once ran off to Japan with a group of tourists?” I immediately regretted my words. That episode occurred during a particularly low dip in their marriage—I wasn’t aware of any equivalent high points—and undoubtedly brought back sad memories. Ed had to travel to Tokyo, where he made a public appeal to reclaim his bride of over thirty years. The Crawfords have all the luck of Saharan surfers, so it came as no surprise to me when Ed found himself on a Japanese television game show, encased to his neck in green tea-flavored gelatin, while a pair of trained seals vied to balance balls on his nose. Still, it had made sushi converts out of both Crawfords, and Ed now prefers sumo over baseball.

  “Have you spoken with her lawyer?” I asked gently.

  “Just got off the phone with him. He seems like a nice enough man. Said you brought in another helper.”

  “My brother, Toy. Ed, you mind if I have a seat?” Without waiting to be asked to sit, I wrestled a Victorian side chair out of a tangle of its littermates. The furniture hadn’t been dusted in weeks.

  “If Wynnell is going to make it in this business, she’s going to need my help. From now on we’re in this together. And Abby, thanks for offering to take us under your wing.”

  “My pleasure. Ed, the afternoon that Marina Webbfingers was killed—did Wynnell seem particularly upset?”

  He jerked to attention. “Upset? What are you implying?”

  “Nothing, dear. It’s just that several witnesses claim to have overheard Wynnell and Mrs. Webbfingers fighting—well, at least arguing vociferously. They could be lying, of course.”

  Ed studied his knuckles. His lifestyle was such that he would never get all the grease from the creases.

  “I suppose,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “that you already know that the two of them didn’t get along, on account of the bathrooms in the main house being off limits.”

  “When a gal’s gotta go, a gal’s gotta go. I don’t blame Wynnell for finding it demeaning.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “That’s because I was remodeling the guest rooms, not working in the garden. There were facilities at my disposal all day long.”

  “But you’re right, Abby, the day Mrs. Webbfingers was murdered—well, let’s just say my Wynnell was fit to be tied.”

  “Tell me more about it.”

  “Well, you know she’d already done her job—been paid and everything—and then suddenly she gets this call saying a lot of the flowers were dying. So Wynnell closes up the shop early, goes over, and sure enough the flowers are wilted, but it’s not her fault. Someone had turned off the drip hose.”

  “Drip hose?” What I know about gardening can be contained on the back of a seed packet.

  “Like a garden hose, but with pinprick-size holes in it spaced at even intervals. It’s left on all the time, but just enough water seeps out—and to just the right spots—so that nothing gets wasted. Farmers use them a lot.”

  “Hmm. Why would someone mess around with a hose that wasn’t theirs?”

  “Unless it was Mrs. Webbfingers. This may surprise you, Abby, but some folks get their kicks from being nasty.”

  That saddened me, but in no way was I surprised. Marriage to Buford had prepared me for anything—well, maybe not alpaca in yogurt and cumin sauce.

  “What did Wynnell do, besides turn the hose back on?”

  “Nothing—not to Mrs. Webbfingers. Yeah, they exchanged words, but I’m the one that caught the real heat when she got home. What’s that old saying, you only love the ones you hurt?”

  Again I thought of Buford. He must have loved me very much. He obviously still adores our children, since he never calls them—not even on birthdays or holidays.

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “But we both know Wynnell’s bark is worse than her bite.”

  He settled on a chair opposite me. At least our backsides were good for dusting.

  “Abby, what do you know about real estate law in South Carolina?”

  “Virtually nothing—except that everyone needs a will. Daddy and Mama had good up-to-date wills, and when Daddy died, that made everything fairly easy for Mama. It’s funny how intelligent, organized people freeze up when it comes to wills. Like talking about them is bad luck.”

  “Yeah, wills. Always a good thing. But what about property rights when there isn’t a death but one of the parties is—uh, well, you know.”

  “Incarcerated?”

  He looked away. “I mean, that could happen, right?”

  “What could?”

  “She could be found guilty, right? And if that happens, who gets the shop?”

  “Whose name is it in now?”

  “Hers, but I cosigned. Wynnell wasn’t wo
rking then and…”

  I tuned him out. Could it possibly be that this uninteresting man, who had only slightly more personality than a rutabaga, and was frankly less handsome, had framed his wife for murder? But why? The shop was failing, not making a dime—unless—no, there was no way he could count on a death sentence, so life insurance was out of the question.

  This was nonsense thinking on my part, but just further proof that living with Buford is enough to make an incurable cynic out of the most trusting of maidens. Besides, there was another possible motive; perhaps Ed had been one of Marina’s lovers. They were not from the same social set, to be certain, but maybe one day when he’d stopped by to pick Wynnell up from her gardening project—which he’d done upon occasion—the two locked eyes and in the words of Magdalena Yoder, engaged in the horizontal hootchy-kootchy. Absurd? Yes, but not out of the realm of possibility. Sex, especially when meant to punish a third party, often makes no sense.

  So Wynnell found out about her husband’s upscale lover, and confronted the woman. She then confronted Ed, who decided to capitalize on his wife’s temper and have her locked away for good. Thereafter he would be free to lead the life of his dreams, the life he’d missed out on as a rug-weaving mill worker: fishing in the morning and shagging on shag carpets by night.

  I tuned Ed back in. He was regarding me through hooded eyes, his lips slack, like he was in the process of dozing off in front of the TV. Thanksgiving afternoon football games came to mind. If indeed he was a killer, he wasn’t a threat to me just then. Besides, unlike just about everyone else that day, he couldn’t read my mind.

  “Ed, darling,” I said, as I stood and pushed my chair back, “I’ll stay in touch. We’ve got to concentrate on clearing Wynnell, but then—and I promise—we’ll do something about this shop.”

  He wasn’t paying attention. Hadn’t even bobbed his head when I stood up. How rude was that? Any Southern gentleman worthy of his sweet tea will automatically rise when a woman rises or enters a room. Even murderers (or so I suppose). This shocking turn of events could only mean one thing: the carpet maker had just exposed himself as a carpetbagger. Edward Eugene Crawford had Yankee blood coursing through his veins!

  Suddenly I didn’t know my best friend’s husband at all. His strong Piedmont accent, his passion for the Panthers, his preference for vinegar-based barbecue sauce over tomato, were these just all affectations? A man capable of concealing Northern roots was capable of anything. How ironic that just a few weeks before, Wynnell had prattled on and on about the presence of Yankee spies among us. Was she trying tell me something then? Had I, in my enlightened arrogance, ignored a buddy’s desperate cry for help?

  Maybe Wynnell hadn’t known then, maybe our conversation that day was merely coincidence. But there was no escaping the facts now. My friend was going to be heartbroken when she learned that the man to whom she’d pledged her troth, the man with whom she’d shared a bed all these years, was actually from “up the road a piece.” Talk about the ultimate betrayal. At least there were no offspring from this unholy union.

  Not being the least bit prejudiced myself, I didn’t for a second think that a Yankee killer was any more diabolical than a Southern one. Good manners mean little when one is being murdered. I gripped the Victorian side chair and pushed it between me and Ed. Let the S.O.B. from W.O.T.A. try and get me. I’d show him that we belles had balls—in a manner of speaking, that is. I mean, there wasn’t a Yankee alive that could drink a Miss Kudzu contestant under the table.

  One of the chair legs hit a knot in the pine floor, and when I jerked it past the rough spot, it hit the floor again with a thunk. It wasn’t much of a jolt, but apparently it was enough to send the slack-jawed Ed sliding to the floor.

  It took me a few seconds to scream.

  20

  Ed Crawford was either dead or in a coma. In either case, a phone call made a lot more sense than screaming. Still, a good scream has therapeutic value, so I held off summoning help until I was quite sure I’d exhausted all the benefits of vocalization. Then, as I was halfway across the room to use Wynnell’s phone, it occurred to me that calling on my backup cellular, outside and in the bright sunshine, was the only way to go. Someone could have been hiding behind the heavy wooden stacks being peddled as furniture, or a dangerous substance might have been smeared on the receiver, which he had touched minutes before he died.

  But outside in the glare reflected from parked automobiles, and the heat rising from the asphalt, death seemed far away. Still, just to be safe, I waited in the Subway, in the greasy Formica booth nearest the front door. The only other people in the shop were a pair of teenage employees, who were too busy popping toppings into each other’s mouths to notice me. Lord only knows why they hadn’t heard me scream.

  The men in blue showed up almost immediately, which made me think I’d been followed. Before I could address the issue—like why the heck didn’t anyone respond to my screams—Sergeant Scrubb walked in. My sigh of relief may have carried with it a few disobedient pheromones.

  Sergeant Scrubb is a dead ringer for actor Ben Affleck, a man for whom he is constantly mistaken. The sergeant treats these cases of mistaken identity with good humor, as does his lucky wife, Aleena. The two give the impression of being happily married, which is good news for American women of all descriptions. Trust me, Aleena Scrubb looks nothing like Jennifer Lopez.

  “Abby,” he said “an ambulance is on its way.” A second later it arrived. Sergeant Scrubb excused himself to confer with EMTs and watch them load Ed’s body into the vehicle. When they left, sirens screaming, he immediately returned to me. “Okay, Abby, from the beginning.”

  I had many beginnings, because no sooner would I get started than one or another of the men in blue popped in to report to Sergeant Scrubb, or to ask him a question. I began to feel like the Pause button on a remote control. Finally the sergeant issued orders for us to be left alone.

  “Sorry, Abby.”

  “No problemo. I’d kind of forgotten, but we mothers are used to that.”

  “One more time, if you will.”

  “You sure you don’t want a sandwich first? This might take awhile.”

  “We prefer doughnuts, but what the heck. A roast beef with extra jalapenos sounds pretty good right now. How about you? Can I get you something?”

  It seemed wrong for me to chow down while my best friend’s husband was literally cooling his heels in the back of an ambulance. Besides, the kids hadn’t been wearing disposable gloves during their food fun. On the other hand, the promise of an alpaca supper wasn’t much to look forward to, and an empty stomach was only going to make me crabby and difficult to deal with later on that evening. Thinking only of others, I had the detective buy me a white chocolate and macadamia nut cookie, and a diet soda. Chocolate has been proven to contain medicinal properties, and the sugar-free beverage washes away any residual guilt.

  While Sergeant Scrubb made short shrift of his spicy sandwich, I described what had transpired at Wooden Wonders. Uninterrupted, it took only a few minutes.

  “So,” I said, as I deftly licked a dainty finger, “that was it. He just slumped to the floor. One minute he’s alive and well, and the next minute he’s dead.”

  “How do you know he’s dead?”

  “Well, I don’t. Isn’t he?”

  His eyes answered my question, without committing him to an answer. “Abby, I realize there is no point in demanding that you back off this case”—he paused—“is there?”

  “None. Wynnell is my best friend—after Greg, of course.”

  “That’s what I thought. But we can agree that you want her cleared and Marina Webbfingers’s real killer caught.”

  “Of course. That would be Ed’s killer, too, right?”

  I couldn’t tell if he winced or winked. “Trust me, Abby, we will find this person—or persons. And as much as we appreciate your willingness to help, it’s our job, not yours.”

  “Yes, but—”

 
; “You could help us out a lot, Abby, if you concentrated on your area of expertise.”

  “Oh?” Flattery will get anyone just about anywhere with me. That’s how I ended up with the surname Timberlake.

  “You’re an authority on antiques, am I right?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t say that—although there are those who would.”

  “Abby, what I’m about to say is confidential.” He let his gaze linger on me until I broke eye contact. Another couple of seconds and I would have offered to raise his child by another woman.

  “I won’t breathe a word,” I gasped softly.

  “Something was found in the harbor this morning—a little statue of some kind. It has what appears to be a bloodstain, and it was recovered only a short ways from double 0 Legare Street. The lab is checking it now to see if there is a tissue match.”

  I nodded. Knowledge is power, but silence is the most powerful tool of all. As far as I was concerned, there was no need for the agreeable Scrubb to know just how much—or little—I already knew about the case.

  “How can I be of help?”

  “I want you take a look at a Polaroid of that statue. See if it rings a bell.” He extracted a photo from his shirt pocket and handed it across the table. The picture was still warm from his chest. If I’d been by myself, I might have given it a quick sniff.

  Instead, I pretended to examine it closely. “Yes, I’ve seen that statue before.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere. It’s a copy of Michelangelo’s David. They’re as common as garden gnomes. More so even, because a lot of people decorate indoors with them. Can you believe that? I mean, not that I’m being snobbish or anything—but you know what I mean.”

  He gave me no sign that he did. “Is it possible you’ve seen this very one?”

  I shrugged. “There was one in the Webbfingerses’ garden, but like I said, they’re ubiquitous. And they all look alike.”

  Sergeant Scrubb was far more skilled than I when it came to the silence game. He sat entirely motionless, like one of the statues in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in New York City the last time I was there. The figures are eerily realistic; even the vein patterns in the eyes have been duplicated, and each hair is reportedly applied by hand. Some of Madame Tussaud’s statutes seemed more likely to move than the detective did just then.