Statue of Limitations Page 16

  “Keep the flowers right where they are. Last time I watched Randy eat, I had nightmares when I went to bed.”

  “It isn’t Randy.”

  “Oh. Well, that mystery writer friend of yours with the frizzy blond hair isn’t so bad, once you get to know her. But I doubt if she wants to look at me. She once called me an illiterate pipsqueak.”

  “That’s because you criticized one of her books. Writers think of their books as their children. They never forgive slights. Besides, it isn’t her, either.”

  I gulped. “Not Mr. Mansour!”

  “Abby, in all fairness, it was you who said he’d attract less attention by wearing one of his Persian carpets than with that hideous comb-over he has now.”

  “But I said it to you, not him. You weren’t supposed to pass that along.”

  “So I had too much to drink that night. We all did. I’m sure Manny doesn’t remember a thing.”

  “Then who is it?” I shrieked.

  “Did y’all want something?” Bob called from the kitchen.

  We ignored him.

  “It’s C.J. and your brother, Toy,” Rob said. His arms were out, as if to block me from running.

  “Get out of town! You’ve never even met Toy.”

  “Still haven’t. Mozella came in earlier this afternoon and spilled the beans. Bob and I thought we’d take advantage of your distracted mind and meet the brother-from-hell. We weren’t ever going to get a chance otherwise. Fortunately, he and C.J. were flexible about their plans.”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t invite Mama and Greg.”

  “We did invite Mozella, but The Amazing Race is on tonight. She says she never misses an episode. But you can forget about your studmuffin. As long as you’re sore at him, he’s in our doghouse as well.”

  That’s what friends are for! What a lucky woman I was to count these two dear, sweet men among my budding list of buddies. I felt the same way about them. I might not be willing to lay down my life for the Rob-Bobs, but I would definitely give the cold shoulder to any exes they wanted snubbed. Just as long as my friends didn’t snub each other.

  Still, it wasn’t fair of them to invite my baby brother without first checking with me. They’d heard all my Toy horror stories, but they had no way to know that Toy and I had forged a temporary truce. Perhaps the Rob-Bobs were hoping for a spat of sibling incivility to serve as the evening’s entertainment. I was about to give them what was left of my mind when the doorbell rang.

  22

  I must admit that Toy and C.J. make a handsome couple. Both of them are tall, blond, and robust. They definitely look more like brother and sister than Toy and I do. If their relationship ever became serious, it would behoove me to question Mama about any trips to Shelby she might have taken when I was a little girl.

  At any rate, C.J. had changed into a white cotton eyelet dress, and looked cool and comfortable. On the other hand, not only was Toy still wearing his apprentice priest clothes, but he’d added a baseball cap to his ensemble.

  “What gives?” I asked.

  “Don’t tell me you’re not a Braves fan.”

  “It looks silly, Toy. Take it off.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Come on.” I reached for it, but he jerked away.

  “You’ve been away from the South for a long time, bro. Maybe in L.A. they wear hats indoors, but not here.”

  “Toy’s a grown-up,” C.J. said. “You can’t tell him what to do. Besides, I think it’s cute.”

  I glared at the big galoot. “He’s my brother. I can tell him what I want. And anyway, C.J., this isn’t your business.”

  “Leave her alone, sis,” he hissed.

  “Fine. Just take it off.”

  Toy whipped it off. It was the most surreal experience I’d had since my wedding night. Not that I was little Miss Innocent back then, mind you; it’s just that I’d never seen a naked one eye-to-eye—so to speak. At any rate, my baby brother was now as bald as Dr. Phil McGraw—that is to say, he had some hair. However, unlike the pop psychologist, Toy Wiggins’s locks had been reduced to scattered patches of fuzz located hither, thither, and yon. And a lot more yon than anyplace else.

  “Toy!” I gasped. “What happened to you?”

  “Take a guess, Abby.”

  “Not Mr. Hammerhead!”

  He nodded ruefully. “But I got the info you wanted, sis. Fisher Webbfingers is loaded—at least by my standards. I don’t think he was after insurance money.”

  My peepers brimmed with tears. What a loving thing for my little brother to do on my behalf. I reached up to give him a kiss, probably the first since he’d been out of diapers.

  “Thanks, Toy. I’m really grateful.”

  “It’s okay, sis. It had to be done.”

  Meanwhile, Rob was staring at us dumbfounded. His only sister is a pillar of society up in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was a safe bet that Rob would never let a lawyer cut his hair, no matter what was at stake. It was an even safer bet that Rob’s sister would never put him in that position.

  “Toy had the most beautiful blond hair,” I tried to explain. “Like Doris Day, but even thicker. Mama used to say that if he’d been born a girl, she would have named him Rapunzel. She’s going to freak when she sees this.”

  “Que sera sera,” Toy said bravely.

  “Well I like it the way it is,” C.J. said.

  Toy blushed. “Can I put the cap back on now?”

  I attempted a warm smile. “By all means, dear. But at this point wouldn’t it make more sense to just shave your head altogether?”

  “That’s easy for you to say; it isn’t your noggin.”

  “I have the prefect razor for the job,” Rob said. “We can be through by the time Bob gets dinner on the table.”

  “I don’t know—”

  “Ooh, ooh,” C.J. cooed. “Shaved heads are sexy.”

  Pseudosister or not, C.J., bless her overgrown heart, was the perfect addition to this last minute dinner party. “This is the best albino Albanian artichoke aspic I’ve ever eaten,” she said, taking a third helping. “It reminds me of Granny Ledbetter’s pink Portuguese parsnip pudding—except for the color, of course. And that just comes from adding a few strawberries.”

  Bob beamed. “Thanks, I’m glad you like the aspic.”

  “And the alpaca was superb. Most people undercook it, you know.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded her lioness head vigorously. “Really. A lot of folks these days think that food has to be undercooked for it to taste good or be nutritious. Restaurants especially. They wave their veggies over steam for a few seconds before they serve it. The truth is that many canned and frozen foods actually retain more vitamins than their fresh counterparts, because they are picked at the height of ripeness and processed immediately, whereas the vegetables you buy at produce markets are generally picked green and shipped long distances. Besides, you don’t have to worry about lizard heads blinking at you.”

  Bob blanched. “I beg your pardon?”

  “C.J. found a lizard head staring at her from her steamed broccoli once,” I said, hoping to cut the story short.

  “It wasn’t just staring at me, Abby; it was winking.”

  I sneaked a peak at Toy. Perhaps the two of them were meant for each other. Between her tall tales and his flat-out lies, they would never find themselves wanting for entertainment.

  “Dead reptiles don’t flirt,” I said gently.

  “This one did.”

  Three of us rolled our eyes, while the fourth licked his lips in anticipation. My brother had to be in seventh heaven. Without even trying, he’d found a Carolina girl as kooky as any in California. And if he played his cards right and married her, she would, no doubt, continue to work and put him through seminary. What’s more, Calamity Jane has what the folks up in Shelby call “breeding hips.” In a few years my late blooming brother could be the patriarch of a swarm of wee Wigginses—as numerous as locusts, but without any of their
good qualities. Yesiree, from Dumpster digging to dynasty building, things were finally looking up for Mama’s baby boy.

  But in the meantime I had an investigation to conduct. “C.J., darling, why don’t you tell Bob about that new recipe your Granny Ledbetter sent you?”

  “The one for rhubarb and possum pie?”

  “That’s the one.”

  C.J. was happy to oblige me. “The trick,” she said to Bob, “is to start with a really tender possum, preferably one under a year old…”

  I leaned across the table and poked my daydreaming brother with my fork. “I’ve got some bad news. Wynnell’s husband, Ed, is in the hospital.”

  “What happened?”

  “Diabetic coma. It happened in Wynnell’s shop. I was there. We were talking, and suddenly he just slid out of his chair.”

  “How are you dealing with it, Abby?”

  I shrugged. “This was the first time I’ve actually seen someone come so close to dying. It still doesn’t seem real. When it sinks in—”

  “You’ll call me, right?” Rob’s eyes shone with devotion.

  “Right.”

  “And me,” Toy said. Perhaps I’m an optimist, but he sounded jealous.

  “I’ll call you both. I promise.”

  “Because your little brother is here for you, Abby. I mean it.”

  “Thanks.”

  Rob opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. “Toy, did you hear about the statue?”

  “Yeah. I was—uh, being shorn when he got the call. Abby, did you see it when you were remodeling?”

  I would have hung my head in shame had not my nostrils already been too close to my plate. “Yes, I saw it. But Toy, there are so many cheap knockoffs of David—I just assumed it wasn’t real.”

  “Real?”

  Rob sat straighter. “Abby showed me a Polaroid. It looks to me like a maquette, possibly a model for the real David.”

  Toy whistled, drawing Bob and C.J.’s attention as well. “This is getting interesting. What’s a thing like that worth?”

  “That all depends on whether or not it can be authenticated. If it can be, then theoretically it’s priceless. But as most of you already know,” Rob said, looking pointedly at Toy, “in this business there is always a price.”

  “Not being in the biz,” Toy said, “I haven’t a clue. Can you give me a ballpark figure?”

  “Whatever the market will bear. A lot of it depends on whether or not there is a prior claim on the piece.”

  “He means ‘stolen,’” I explained. “It’s one thing to pay a fortune for a status symbol; but it takes a special customer to shell out money for something that only they will ever see. Not that I have any personal experience along these lines.”

  Toy winked. “Of course not, sis. Who are these special customers?”

  I turned to Rob. “This is your area of expertise,” I said wickedly.

  “Thanks a lot, Abby,” my friend said. “Like I knowingly deal with thieves on a regular basis.”

  “Then tell Toy what you unwittingly do from time to time.”

  “Well, it used to be that wealthy Japanese businessmen and Saudi Arabian potentates were happy to spend megabucks on private collections—things viewed only by them—just for the joy of having something unique. But the bottom pretty much fell out of the Japanese market when their economy took a nosedive following nine eleven. The Saudis have been cutting back on collecting items that are distinctly Western, or have non-Muslim religious themes. That pretty much leaves Europe, where collectors have traditionally been more frugal.”

  “What about America?”

  “Anything’s possible, but we Americans like our possessions to be noticed. If it’s not going to show up in a glossy magazine, with our names attached, then why bother?”

  “Aren’t you generalizing?”

  Although Rob’s forehead barely puckered, I could tell he was annoyed. “Of course I’m generalizing. I’m just trying to convey a sense of what black-market antiquing is like.”

  “You still haven’t named a price.”

  Rob’s puckers became furrows. “Because it’s not that simple. But okay, if a number is what you want—let’s say a million dollars.”

  “A million?”

  “That’s just an example—the first number that popped into my mind. It could be worth ten million. A lot depends on what precedents have been set. To my knowledge, this would be the first known maquette of David—if indeed that’s what it is.”

  “So now you’re suddenly not sure?”

  “I never said I was sure.”

  “You sounded pretty sure to me. You even named a price.”

  “Because you pressured me to.”

  Perhaps I’m more wicked than I thought, because it amused me to see my flesh-and-blood brother and my brother-in-absentia posturing like a pair of stags in autumn over a doe that neither of them could claim. What a waste of energy. Toy would always be my kin, and Rob would always be my friend. Nothing was going to change that.

  I cleared my throat. “Boys, may I have your attention?”

  “It’s about time, Abby,” Bob boomed.

  C.J. clapped hands the size of Virginia hams. “Give them heck, Abby!”

  I cleared my throat again. “If you please, no interruptions from the peanut gallery. Now, first thing tomorrow morning, I’m going to call Detective Scrubb to see if we can’t get a look at that thing—whatever it is. In the meantime, can we just enjoy our dinner?”

  Bob brightened. “So you like my dinner.”

  “Like it? It’s absolutely remarkable.”

  “Sounds like dubious praise,” Rob whispered.

  Perhaps because his ears stick out from his head at right angles, but Bob is capable of hearing a frog fart at forty paces. “And what exactly is that supposed to mean?”

  I started to applaud. “Kudos to the chef!” I yelled.

  C.J. clapped twice, but stopped abruptly. “Granny Ledbetter knows the best recipe for kudu.”

  “I said kudos, dear, not kudus.”

  “Oh, I know, Abby. A kudu is a species of large African antelope. Granny got some kudu meat as a gift once. The way she fixed it was so good, my tongue wanted to slap my head silly.”

  Bob bounced in his chair with excitement. “I know where to get kudu meat! I just got this catalogue of exotic meats from a game farm in Texas…”

  I had to tune them out in order to finish my meal.

  I slept in the Rob-Bobs’ guest room. Their Queen Anne bed is said to have belonged to the grand dame herself. The silk damask bed-curtains purportedly provided the royal body privacy, but thank heavens the guys have changed the bedclothes since then. Nothing beats a four-hundred-thread-count sheet from Linens-n-Things.

  I’ll blame it on the food, but that night I had the weirdest dreams. I dreamed I was the other Queen Anne, the one who lost her head in the tower of London. Already headless, I was wandering around the halls of a dank, dark castle, searching urgently for a replacement. Alas, there were no new noggins to be found, but in one spidery corner I spied a giant Albanian albino artichoke. Desperate, I tried it on for size. To my amazement, it fit perfectly.

  “Abby,” a male voice called from just behind me.

  I whirled, but the leathery leaves prevented me from seeing anything.

  “Abby, can you hear me?”

  “Yes, I can hear you.” But the artichoke didn’t have a mouth and I knew my muffled words weren’t being heard in return.

  I started to run, but managed to take only steps before my assailant tackled me and I fell flat on my vegetable face.

  23

  “Abby, it’s me—Rob!”

  I tore at my artichoke head.

  “Hey, hey, take it easy, Abby. No one’s going to hurt you; I’m only trying to help. You’re all tangled in that sheet.”

  Dream and consciousness duked it out until the latter won. I was indeed wrapped in a sheet—that delicious four-hundred-thread-count creation—
but I was also, thank heavens, swaddled in one of Rob’s T-shirts. I may as well have been wearing a floor-length nightgown.

  “Uh—sorry. I was having a nightmare.”

  “Bob’s cooking will do that.”

  I sat and wedged two large fluffy pillows behind me. “Thanks for letting me stay over.”

  “Any time. Look, Abby, it’s almost nine. I’ve got to run. Bob’s already left to open up our shop. I just wanted to touch base before I split.”

  “Nine? In the morning?”

  “I certainly hope so, or else I really overslept. And speaking of sleep, you got a full twelve hours sleep. You should be raring to go.”

  I groaned. “I feel like something Dmitri dragged in through his pet door.”

  “Stress will do that.” He picked up a tumbler from the bedside table. “Here, I brought you a magic potion.”

  I made no move to take it from him. “What is it?”

  Rob laughed. “It’s an elixir Bob made. It’s supposed to get you from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye.”

  “Zero to sixty what?”

  “Who cares? I wouldn’t drink it if I were you.”

  “I don’t plan to. But what’s in it?”

  “Let’s see—it’s got vodka, soybean milk, castor oil, carrot juice, balsamic vinegar, and a dash of cayenne pepper. Oh, and a raw egg. Bob calls it his Wake the Devil Morning Special.”

  “Yuck!”

  “How about if I dump this crap out and start with a fresh glass. I just squeezed a pitcher of orange juice. I’d be happy to add a splash of vodka to make it qualify as medicinal.”

  “OJ straight up is fine. Thanks—and I mean for everything.”

  “My pleasure.” But instead of fetching the liquid gold, Rob sat on the bed.

  “I thought you were in a hurry.”

  “I am. But I’ve been thinking. If the statue in that Polaroid really is the maquette for Michelangelo’s David, and therefore worth a fortune, why the heck did he throw it in the harbor?”