Gilt by Association Page 2

  We dealers must make a profit to survive, just like anyone else. If we’re very lucky we are occasionally offered first crack at someone’s estate before they die. Folks moving into nursing homes or retirement centers obviously can’t take it all with them. Sometimes after a death, relatives will invite me over to the deceased’s house and ask me to make an offer. But I don’t have the connections Purnell Purvis does, and most Monday afternoons will find me down at Purvis Auction Barn, bidding on pieces that I think will sell well in my shop.

  I must confess that until recently the Den of Antiquity has housed an eclectic collection of middle-of-the-road items that date from the early eighteen hundreds through the Great Depression. The fine pieces from the Barras estate would have been out of my reach, had it not been for the windfall of Aunt Eulonia’s estate. But I must emphasize that I cannot afford to keep such expensive items in stock. I must turn them around, and soon, if I expect to remain in business.

  At any rate, the antique community in the greater Charlotte area is a close knit one. We are like family. Sometimes we love one another, sometimes we hate one another. Monday afternoons at Purvis Auction Barn is our family reunion, and we don’t cotton much to outsiders. Old Purvis only lets them into the barn because they have money. But as I said, he doesn’t advertise, so thankfully the outsiders are few and far between.

  “It’s basically an auction among friends,” I added.

  The eyebrows came down. “You said before that yesterday was mostly just dealers. Were there other folks there as well?”

  I shrugged. “There might have been. Every now and then one of the public wanders in, and if they look like they can rub two nickels together, Purvis lets them stay. But we’re a big group, and things can get really hopping. So I can’t say for sure if there were any drop-ins yesterday.”

  Before he could ask me anything else, a uniformed officer walked into the room without knocking and whispered in Greg’s ear. I never knew men were capable of conversing so softly. When the interloper left, Greg settled back in his chair like a cat about to nap. He may have been relaxed, but my heart was pounding.

  “You ever see the deceased before?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “No. I never saw the body until I opened the armoire door.”

  The Wedgwood eyes regarded me calmly. “He has a name, you know.”

  I nodded. Let him try to trick me into saying a name I’d never heard. He would have to wait forever.

  Greg suddenly leaned forward. “It’s Arnold Ramsey.” He sat back again.

  The name meant nothing. However, hearing the name had a strange effect on me. Until that moment, because of shock, the body in the armoire had been just that—a body. A corpse. My concern had been my business and visitation rights to my son. The body was just a thing. A hunk of meat. It may as well have been a cow. But a name changed everything. Suddenly that was a man, a person in my newly purchased armoire. And he was dead!

  I began to cry.

  “There, there,” Greg said, in that helpless tone men use when they encounter tears. He gallantly handed me a handkerchief.

  I graciously accepted it. But to my disgust, the handkerchief, which was clearly a man’s handkerchief, smelled like a woman. A woman who wore cheap perfume.

  “The redhead?” I asked, immediately handing the cloth back.

  He crossed his arms. “It was your idea that we cool it for a while, Abby. It was you who suggested we date other people.”

  I crossed my legs. “I only wanted to catch my breath, Greg. Things were moving faster than I expected. I didn’t want to end up married again before I knew what hit me.”

  He was kind enough not to laugh, but not kind enough to suppress a huge grin. “Who said anything about marriage? I thought things were fine as they were. We were both having a great time, weren’t we?”

  “Were we?”

  “The sex was super,” he said, the grin bigger than ever.

  I stood up. I am on the short side—four foot nine without heels. Unfortunately, because I had planned on unpacking my new purchases, I was wearing a pair of old flats. A good pair of spikes can push me up to five feet and do wonders for my self-esteem, not to mention the respect I get.

  “We never had sex, buster. You must have me confused with Silicone Sally.”

  “Her name is Deena,” he said. “And we’re just friends. I was only kidding about the sex.”

  I forced a big grin of my own. “No, you were right the first time. We did have sex. Only it was so mediocre I must have blocked it out.”

  He glanced around nervously. No doubt our conversation was being monitored, if not taped. It had been stupid and unprofessional of him to forget that.

  “Very funny,” he said softly.

  “Yes, sex with you was often very funny,” I said loudly. “Remember the time we traded clothes—”

  “Abby!”

  I relented and backed off, for old time’s sake, if for nothing else. Greg had always been a gentleman, and I mean that as a compliment. And even though I was furious at him for dating Deena, there was no point in burning bridges. A little grovelling and a dozen yellow roses can go a long way with this gal.

  “Well, back to my business,” I said briskly.

  He pointed soberly at the chair, and I sat back down.

  “Yes?”

  “Did you know those two guys who delivered your armoire?”

  “Jimbo and Skeet?”

  He shrugged. “You tell me.”

  “Well, I don’t know their last names, if that’s what you want. I just know that they called each other Jimbo and Skeet. So yes, I have seen them before, but I don’t really know them. I just know that they’ve worked for old Purvis for years.”

  He glanced down at a tablet in his lap. “And what can you tell me about Purnell Purvis?”

  I sighed. “The old coot’s a tyrant,” I said charitably. “He can turn honey into vinegar just by looking at it. Still, Purvis would never do anything like that. Force someone into an armoire and then kill them.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I just do. He might be as mean as a knotted-up snake, but he has principles. Ask anyone.”

  “No, what I meant was, how do you know that Mr. Ramsey was forced into the armoire and then killed? How do you know it wasn’t the other way around?”

  “Well, that should be fairly obvious to anyone who has seen the armoire.”

  “Yes, but pretend for a moment that I haven’t seen the armoire. If I looked at it through your eyes, what would I see?”

  “Well, I mean, right there on the back wall of the armoire there is a message written in blood. A dead man can’t write, can he?”

  I had never seen Greg more attentive. If only finding dead bodies wasn’t so stressful, it could sure put the life back into a relationship.

  “A message? What did it say?”

  “You mean you didn’t see it?”

  “Ah, of course I did. But I’m interested in your interpretation.”

  I knew he was bluffing, and it’s frightening when you see things that a trained police investigator misses. Maybe all that training to look for hairs and dust molecules out of place has left them blind to the handwriting on the wall.

  “Of course, it wasn’t a whole message,” I said. “Just the letter ‘B,’ but you can bet it stood for something important. I know I wouldn’t waste my time or blood writing meaningless graffiti if I were dying. Say, you wouldn’t happen to know a surefire way to remove bloodstains, would you?”

  “I’ll ask the lab,” he said. He was scribbling furiously on his pad.

  I waited patiently, content for the moment just to watch him. Greg Washburn is easy on the eyes. No, make that the most handsome man I have ever met. I know that beauty—especially physical beauty—is subjective, but if Greg Washburn were on TV or in the movies, millions of women would fall in love with him. Yet he had picked me to date, when there had to be thousands of other Charlotteans who would jump at the chance. Perhaps I had been precipitous in reining in our relationship. Even if I lost my head entirely, there had to be worse things than waking up some morning and finding out that I was Mrs. Greg Washburn.

  “Greg?”

  He looked up, the Wedgwood-blue eyes half-shaded by long black lashes. “Yes?”

  “I was thinking. I mean, maybe we could start over. If you know what I mean.”

  “You know this Arnold Ramsey after all?”

  “What?”

  “How well did you know him, Abby?” he asked. He wasn’t kidding.

  I stood up again. “Look, I told you I didn’t know him. So, if you’ll excuse me—” I took a small step toward the door, waiting for him to stop me.

  “I’m going to have to impound the armoire,” he said quietly.

  I stopped. I tossed my head. Unfortunately head tossing is a gesture that is far more effective when one has long hair.

  “Impound it then. Now can I go?”

  He had stopped scribbling and was obviously doodling. “And I’m afraid that includes the other three pieces you bought as well.”

  I stared, first at the tablet, then at him. It was a remarkably good sketch of me. The man must have had art lessons somewhere along the line.

  “Do what you have to do,” I said as nonchalantly as I could.

  “That’s what I’m leading up to. Abby, I’m not doing this to be mean, honest, it’s just procedure.”

  My children accuse me of having a warning bell in my head. Perhaps they are right, because my head was certainly buzzing.

  “There’s more, isn’t there?”

  He clipped his pen to the top of the tablet. “I’m afraid your shop is going to have to be off-limits for a while. Just until we complete the investigation,” he said quick
ly.

  “What? But you can’t do that! It’s only three weeks until Christmas!”

  He stood up. At six feet even, he towers over me.

  “It’ll only be for a few days, Abby. And it’s not like you sell Christmas merchandise.”

  I was fit to be tied. What did he know about the market? I might not sell glove and scarf sets, or bottles of cheap cologne, but I do a healthy trade at Christmas. Outside of the summer tourist season, Christmas is the time in the antique business. What better gift can one give than something that has been appreciated enough to have been given before?

  “You can’t do that! There are laws,” I sputtered. In my moment of temporary insanity I was even thinking about calling Buford. Fortunately that moment lasted only a minute. Buford had been my ally when we were dating in college, but early on in the marriage—after its consummation on our wedding night—he began his rapid metamorphism into adversary. When my insanity had safely passed, I realized that Buford would happily have me—as well as the furniture—impounded.

  Greg put a huge hand on my shoulder in a clumsy attempt to calm me. I shrugged it off. If it hadn’t been for my certainty that we were being watched, I would have slapped it away.

  “I’m sorry, Abby,” he said. He sounded sorry, too.

  It was too much to take. “This will hurt me more than it will you,” Mama used to say before she spanked us children. I didn’t need to hear that from Greg as well.

  “You find whoever killed Arnold Ramsey,” I said. I left the room.

  No one made a move to stop me. Perhaps they would have, had they known that I had no intention on waiting for them to solve the case. I wish I could say that my motives were pure, that I had a burning desire to bring Arnold Ramsey’s killer—or killers—to justice. But I didn’t. With just three weeks left until Christmas, and the most expensive merchandise I’d ever owned just sitting there as if it were in storage, I had one thing on my mind. It was time to liberate my shop.

  3

  There was no practical reason for me to return to my shop that morning, but I had to nonetheless. When I’d left the Den of Antiquity in the care of a blue-suited officer an hour and a half earlier, I never dreamed that it would be off-limits to me for a while. I needed to say good-bye.

  My timing couldn’t have been worse. The folks from the Charlotte Observer—the city’s largest newspaper—and the folks from Channel 9 and Channel 3 were out in force, and when they saw me, I may as well have been the rabbit at a greyhound race. I had already parked the car and was about a block from it when they spotted me. Unlike that bunny on a stick, I had no guarantee of outrunning my pursuers. Given my short legs it was doubtful I would have outrun any of them, except maybe for that one gal who was wearing a six-inch heel on one foot and a cast on the other. Frankly, if it wasn’t for Wynnell Crawford, who owns Wooden Wonders, I would have been rabbit hash.

  “Get in here!” Wynnell shouted.

  I ducked into her shop and she slammed the door shut behind me, locking it with one expert stroke. The handful of customers browsing about were just going to have to be patient.

  “How long have they been out there?” I huffed.

  I’m pretty sure Wynnell scowled. She has eyebrows the size and shape of dwarf junipers, so sometimes it’s hard to tell.

  “They’ve been out there for at least an hour. We told them you weren’t coming back for the rest of the day, but they wouldn’t listen. Why are you back?”

  “To say good-bye.”

  “They are not hauling you off to the slammer,” Wynnell exclaimed.

  Wynnell is my dearest friend. But outside of our mutual love of antiques, we have nothing in common. Even that’s stretching things. I tend toward ornate pieces. Lots of detail. If heaven isn’t furnished with gilt rococo, I’m going to be deeply disappointed. Wynnell, on the other hand, adores blocky Federal Period sofas and massive Victorian beds. I prefer to “display” my merchandise, whereas Wynnell stacks her stuff, leaving only narrow and somewhat dangerous passageways for her customers to navigate. Still, we are best buddies.

  “They did, dear,” I said, “but they aren’t locking me up. It’s my shop I’m talking about. They’re locking it up for the next couple of days.”

  She gasped appropriately. “So close to Christmas?”

  “What do they care? Oh Wynnell—”

  There was a sharp rap at the door and much to my surprise—and dismay—Wynnell darted down one of the narrow passageways and opened it. The new arrival was not a reporter, but Jane Cox, the new owner of Feathers ’N Treasures, my aunt’s old shop. In the process of letting in Jane, Wynnell expelled all her customers with the exception of one young couple who were doing unseemly things on a four-poster, rice plantation bed. Wynnell sells a lot of beds and no doubt it is at least partly due to her lenient policy of allowing her customers to try things out.

  “Hey,” Jane said, “I heard the news. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  I bided my time, thinking carefully before answering. Jane Cox is a mere child of twenty-three, and an orphan to boot. One can’t help but feel motherly toward her. On Selwyn Avenue we have already taken to affectionately calling Jane “C. J.” We do it to her face, but she doesn’t seem to mind at all. She thinks we are purposefully inverting her initials, like folks have to invert their names on some documents. Cox, Jane, that sort of thing. The truth is—and this is highly confidential—the C. J. in this case stands for Calamity Jane. That woman could take a freckle, turn it into a mole, turn that into melanoma, and wipe out the entire population of the United States with the world’s first contagious cancer. Calamity Jane can do that in the time it takes me to put a new roll of toilet paper on my bathroom spool.

  “Thank you for offering,” I said with a smile. “I’ll be just fine.”

  She paled. “They’ve arrested you, haven’t they? First-degree murder, isn’t it? I have a cousin whose brother-in-law was convicted of murder. Down in South Carolina. They gave him the death penalty. Lethal injection. Do you know what he had for his last meal? Fried okra and collard greens. Can you imagine that? Now Abby, when they ask you what you want for your last meal, order something really expensive. Lobster maybe. You won’t have to pay for it. Ha! While you’re at it, have something really fattening for dessert. You won’t have to worry about gaining weight either. Ha!”

  “I haven’t been arrested,” I said patiently. “They just asked me to close down my shop while they investigate.”

  She sucked in her breath sharply. “Ooh, I saw that in a movie once. The cops put a police tape around this woman’s house—supposedly there had been a murder there—and the next thing you know a moving van pulled up and the cops robbed this woman of everything she owned. Even her grandbabies’ pictures in those Kmart frames. Only they weren’t cops you see, but just some very clever burglars. Well, don’t worry. If they clean you out, I’ve got some stuff in my storeroom that I just don’t have floor room for. I could let you have it real cheap.” Calamity Jane was nothing if not generous.

  I patted her arm gratefully. She usually goes on much longer than that.

  “Thanks for your offer, dear, but would you mind awfully if I spoke to Wynnell alone? It’s strictly business,” I added, so she wouldn’t get hurt.

  Calamity Jane slapped her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, I’m so sorry! My Uncle Maynard had to file for bankruptcy too. It was awful. The poor man—”

  “Please,” I cried, clapping my hands over my ears.

  Wynnell, bless her, grabbed one of C. J.’s elbows and steered her over to the door. By then the couple on the rice plantation bed were eager to exit as well. Buying a bed was the farthest thing from their minds.

  “Lordy, she wasn’t on to something, was she?”

  “No, dear,” I assured her. “You wouldn’t happen to have an aspirin, would you?”

  She found two in her desk drawer. I took them without water, chewing them thoroughly instead. It’s an acquired taste, but the drug enters your bloodstream a lot faster that way.

  “You know, I’ve been thinking,” Wynnell said.

  “Yes?”

  “Your killer is a Yankee.”

  I should have known. Wynnell smells a Yankee behind every nefarious deed ever committed. She once tried to talk me into believing—unsuccessfully, I might add—that Hitler’s maternal grandmother was originally from Massachusetts.