Tiles and Tribulations Read online

  The odor emanating from C.J.’s punctured drywall smelled more like ten dead Georges. It was strong enough to make Cheech cover her nose and mouth with her hands. Chong, however, didn’t seem to notice a thing.

  “What the hell is that?” Cheech had turned around when the kettle hit the wall.

  “Heck if I know.” I grabbed a dishtowel from the oven door handle and held it over my mouth. Even with the towel for a filter, my stomach did a couple of turns as I approached the hole—really a half-moon gash caused by the bottom of the kettle.

  I closed one eye and peered inside. There wasn’t much to see but darkness. My head, small as it is, kept blocking the light. I crouched and tried to look up. More of the same. I arched my back and looked down. Finally I saw something; a bit of white, a hint of blue.

  “What do you see?” Cheech demanded.

  “I’m not sure. I’m going to need a flashlight. Or else we need to make this hole bigger.”

  “I’ll get it,” Chong said.

  I thought the little man was going to bring me the torch. Instead he elbowed me aside, and then in a remarkable display—given his slight build—he ripped off a huge chunk of the drywall with his bare hands.

  “There,” he said with a grin. “That was a man’s job.”

  Cheech loomed over both of us. “Well? What the hell is in there?”

  Chong and I vied for viewing space. Alas, being smaller and quicker, I won. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was to reach into the hole and touch what I saw. I still don’t know why I did that, except that for the second time that morning, I was having trouble believing my eyes.

  Again, I needn’t have doubted them. That was definitely a skeleton, wedged between the kitchen and dining room walls. The part of the skull I touched—the forehead—was smooth and white. The cheeks, however, still had desiccated tissue clinging to them, and there appeared to be a full head of long brown hair. I couldn’t really see the body because it was wrapped in a blue shawl, but I could tell—maybe it was the hair—that the deceased had been a woman.

  I took a few steps backward, pushing my way past Cheech, and sat on the floor. It was Chong’s turn to peek. He took only a few seconds, and then appeared to pass out.

  This reaction didn’t seem to surprise Cheech at all. She merely pulled her partner aside and peered into the hole, her ample derriere looking for all the world like a large globe in that position. While the woman took her sweet time staring at the remains, I contemplated the theory of continental drift. Finally Cheech turned and straightened.

  “What do you know about this?”

  “No more than you do, although I’d say it’s a safe bet we just found C.J.’s ghost.”

  “Ghost?”

  “Well, Apparition American would be a more sensitive way to put it. Anyway, this house is clearly haunted. Here’s the reason why.”

  “Nonsense. Ghosts don’t exist.” Cheech didn’t possess quite the upper body strength the diminutive Chong possessed, but with the aid of one of C.J.’s butcher knives, and a screwdriver I found in a drawer, she managed a fairly speedy demolition. Meanwhile, the prone Chong caught up on a few Zs.

  I watched with horror and fascination as the fully clad figure of a woman was exposed. Somehow I’d missed that, atop all that brown hair, was a white drawstring cap. Beneath the shawl, and extending the length of her body, was a loose gown. She was barefoot.

  “Nightclothes,” I heard myself say.

  “Maybe. That’s for me to determine.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the police—I mean, Sergeant Scrubb?”

  Cheech gave me a look that could have withered a silk flower. Then she reached into the wall cavity and tried to extract the corpse.

  “Stop that.”

  Cheech froze. “What did you say?”

  “I said leave her alone.”

  “That’s what I thought you said. May I remind you, Mrs. Washburn, that it was you who found me the knife and screwdriver.”

  “Yes, but it’s one thing to get a better look, and quite another to actually disturb her. I mean, shouldn’t we at least call a minister first?”

  “Dead is dead,” Cheech grunted, “and I sure the hell don’t need you telling me how to do my job.”

  “I’m not telling—merely suggesting. It’s just that it seems wrong.”

  “Then close your eyes. Better yet, wait in the next room.” Cheech returned to her grizzly task.

  “Leave her alone!” I’m physically incapable of roaring, but I can manage a loud squeak when properly motivated.

  Cheech ignored me. Bones fell out of the loose gown. The skull tipped back and—well, I won’t go into details. I felt both sick to my stomach and mad as hell. This was a real person whose sanctity was being violated.

  I had no option but to sucker punch Cheech on her ample behind. I hit her square in the middle of South America, launching her forward into the hole. In retrospect, I only made matters worse.

  Sergeant Scrubb shook his head. “Abby, I really wish you wouldn’t have done that.”

  “But she was desecrating the corpse. Surely that wasn’t the proper procedure.”

  We were in his office, where I’d been released in his custody. He sat behind a desk that looked like an exploded mail truck, and I perched on the edge of an ancient and institutional wood chair. He sighed as he leaned over the mess and handed me a tepid cup of coffee the consistency of molasses. I’d asked for milk and sugar, and had gotten artificial sweetener and a landslide of that powdered cream substitute.

  “Believe me,” the detective said, “those two will be reprimanded. I wouldn’t be surprised if Cheech (he used her actual name) is suspended.”

  “And what will happen to me?”

  “Essssss,” he said, sucking in through his teeth.

  “That bad, huh? Well, if Charleston City Jail is going to be home, do I at least have a choice of outfits? I mean, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little on the short side for horizontal stripes.”

  He chuckled. “Abby, prisoners don’t wear stripes anymore, at least not in city jails. But they do wear shackles—which reminds me, I need an ankle measurement.”

  I could feel the blood drain from my face, and since it didn’t have far to go, the aforementioned ankles swelled. It occurred to me that this was a good thing. If I put my feet up later on, the swelling would go down and I might be able to slip out of the shackles.

  “Abby, I was only kidding! You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  “No shackles?”

  Scrubb shook his head and laughed. “I’m not even going to lock you up.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Nah. I’m just supposed to put the fear of God in you a bit. Punching a cop is a serious offense, but there weren’t any witnesses now, were there?”

  “You’re right. It’s just my word against hers. Officer Chong was still out cold.”

  He smiled. “Officer Chong is originally from up the road a piece. What can you expect?”

  “You mean a Yankee?”

  “Yeah, from one of the square states, I believe.”

  “Shame on us,” I said. “My granddaddy was a Yankee.”

  “And so was my mama.”

  We hung our heads in mutual shame for a moment. Most folks can’t help where they’re born, and those who can—well, they must have had darn good reasons for choosing the northern tier.

  Officer Scrubb broke our minute of silence. “As for Officer Cheech, she’s a rookie—a transfer in from another part of South Carolina. She’s not typical of the Charleston Police Department.”

  That was quite true. The Charleston Police Department, under the brilliant leadership of Chief Reuben Greenberg, is one of the finest in the country.

  “Well,” I said, as the dust from my sigh of relief settled, “I guess I’ll just be skedaddling then.” I set my coffee cup on the corner of his desk. The plastic spoon stood at a forty-five degree angle, not touching the rim.

  Sergea
nt Scrubb stepped between me and the door. “Just one more thing, Abby.”

  “You can have my firstborn,” I wailed. I meant that literally. Neither Sergeant Scrubb nor my daughter Susan was married. True, the sergeant had a good ten years on my daughter, but that just meant he was financially more secure. And quite possibly more mature.

  Scrubb laughed again. “You can keep your firstborn—for now, at least. I’m already in a relationship. But I’ll let you know if that falls through.”

  “She’s real pretty,” I said, to cement the thought. “She’s a good six inches taller than me and blond—well, in the chemical sort of way. So, what’s the one more thing?”

  His demeanor became professional again. “First you have to promise me that you won’t meddle in this case. No matter what.”

  “I promise.”

  “And what I’m about to say is confidential. Do you understand? You are not allowed to tell anyone.”

  “Not even Greg?”

  “Greg you can tell. In fact, I plan to call him this evening. Professional courtesy, you might say.”

  Until we moved to Charleston, my husband Greg had been one of Charlotte, North Carolina’s top detectives. In fact, some of his coworkers took to calling him Columbo, despite the fact that Greg is a good deal younger than Peter Falk and has never owned a trenchcoat.

  Without being invited this second time, I took a seat. I have a fairly well developed intuition, and my inner voice was screaming at rock concert decibels.

  “Sock it to me,” I said.

  Scrubb cleared his throat. “Your fingerprints were on the cassette recorder we retrieved from under Miss Cox’s dining room table.”

  “I told you I tampered with the tape. It was just a joke, for crying out loud.”

  “Yes, and I can see the humor in it. Unfortunately, your fingerprints weren’t the only thing the lab boys found.”

  He paused so long that rap musicians the world over grew old and died, their music along with them. “What did they find?” I practically shrieked.

  “Poison.”

  “Poison? What kind?”

  “That, I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Which really means you don’t know, right?”

  Scrubb frowned. “Damn women’s intuition. But the lab’s working on it. At any rate, it was apparently absorbed through the skin. When she pressed the buttons.”

  I frowned as well. “Which means,” I said, thinking aloud, “that the poison was applied to the buttons sometime between my arrival at the house and the when the séance began.”

  He nodded. “Abby, I’m not asking about your mother—so don’t get me wrong. But is there any possibility that Miss Cox could have been involved?”

  “Could have been involved? Is that a euphemism for cold-blooded killer?”

  “You sound angry?”

  “No, I don’t. I sound mad as hell. C.J.—and I’ve made this clear in the past—is the type of woman who helps bugs get out of the garden fountain. After a rain once, I saw her pick worms off the sidewalk and put them back into the grass.”

  “Okay, I get the picture. In that case, how long was it between the initial guest’s arrival, and the beginning of the séance?”

  I cocked my head to think. “I’m not sure, because we served refreshments first. Madame Woo—what’s-her-name—insisted on that. The later we started the séance, she claimed, the better. I think she just wanted to make sure she got to eat—in case the séance was a bust. Well, she was right on that score, wasn’t she?”

  “How long, Abby?” Sergeant Scrubb was a patient man, but he didn’t suffer fools.

  “I’d have to guess. Between forty-five minutes and an hour.”

  “And did the guests have access to the dining room where the séance was held?”

  “Well, it wasn’t shut off, or anything. But we didn’t eat in there. We loaded up our plates and ate in the living room. The medium insisted on that too. She wanted to ‘maintain the sanctity of the space’—whatever that means.”

  “Sounds like church talk. So, theoretically anyone could have had access to the table, and therefore the recorder.”

  “Right. And that includes Madame Woo-Woo.”

  “Are you suggesting she might have killed herself?”

  I shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on the bank accounts of her family and friends, would it? Assuming you can do such a thing.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “To see if any major insurance policies have been cashed in.”

  Scrubb used a stub of a pencil to jot down a few notes. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of that on his own. Or perhaps he had, and he was playing me like a well-tuned fiddle. In any case, it wouldn’t hurt to toss him a few more notes.

  “The best time for one of the Hustlers to have tampered with the machine was while I was out on the front steps doing the greeting, or just after, when I helped Mama serve the cake.”

  The stub was worn to a nub by more scribbling. “You know, Abby, you just might have missed your calling.”

  I beamed with cautious pride, lest he was just fiddling with my fiddle. “Anytime you want to bounce ideas off me, you know where I live.”

  “I do. And that’s where I hope to find you.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Abby, the last time you got involved in a case, you remember what happened?”

  “Yes, but that was different! That person wanted me dead.”

  “You can’t assume this person doesn’t want the same thing. Abby, you are to stay completely out of this. Do you understand? I realize you have a shop to run, but you have an assistant now. If it isn’t necessary to go in, I’d just as soon you didn’t.”

  “So what does this mean? Are you putting me under house arrest?”

  “Not yet.” He gave me a faint smile. “But if I need to…. Let’s hope for both our sakes, that I don’t.”

  “That sounds like a threat,” I growled. A small part of me will always be a teenager.

  “Consider it advice. Incidentally, Greg called from the boat. He’s having trouble getting back into port. Something to do with the tide.”

  There were footsteps outside the door and guarded voices. Familiar voices. Then a soft knock.

  “Ah.” Scrubb looked relieved. “Your escort has arrived.”

  10

  “My what?”

  He opened the door. There stood my two second-best friends in the world—after C.J.—looking miserable and embarrassed.

  The Rob-Bobs, as I call them, are life partners Rob Goldburg and Bob Steuben. Their shop, The Finer Things, was across the street from mine up in Charlotte; now it is literally next door. I think of the men as the brothers I wish I had. My own brother, Toy, heterosexual to a fault, is now in seminary training to be an Episcopal priest. But until this recent development, he had time for every other woman on the planet except for Mama and me. Years went by when he lived out in California, parking cars for the stars (being a star was his ambition), and we saw neither hide nor hair of him. He wasn’t even willing to pick up the phone when we called.

  But I digress. The Rob-Bobs are good friends—not double-crossers. Cross-dressers maybe—well, just Bob, and only upon occasion. If they were in on some plot to limit my freedom, they had every right to look miserable and embarrassed.

  “Well, well,” I said, “if it isn’t Judas II, and his buddy, Judas III.”

  “Abby!” Sergeant Scrubb said with surprising sharpness. “Be fair. They didn’t volunteer for this assignment. We asked them to come.”

  “The ‘we’ being you and Judas IV stuck out on the boat?” When Greg did get in with his load of shrimp, this shrimp wasn’t taking any of his load. Believe me, for the foreseeable future, the temperature in our boudoir was going to be on the frosty side.

  “Abby, be reasonable.” That was Rob Goldburg, a handsome man in his early fifties who looks like a younger James Brolin. Bob Steuben, by the way, makes a passable Barbara St
reisand at costume parties, and he can even sing vaguely like her, although his normal speaking voice is a basso profundo.

  “Reasonable?” I shrieked. “How would you feel about having baby-sitters?”

  “We’re not here to baby-sit you,” Bob boomed. “We just want to show you a good time until Greg gets back.”

  “Don’t you have a shop to run?”

  “What’s the point of having an assistant? Carmen can run it.”

  “Good for her. I still don’t need a sitter.”

  Rob’s grin could charm six legs off a spider. “Come on, Abby, we’ll have a good time.”

  “Can we go shopping?” I don’t mean to stereotype these two, or to imply that all gay men have great fashion sense, but these two are a blast to shop with. Whereas Greg sits outside the dressing room, slumbering, until I poke him to prompt an opinion, the Rob-Bobs bring armloads of clothes for me to try on. What’s more, their taste jibes with mine.

  “Absolutely. Where do you want to start?”

  “Saks, here we come!”

  “And then,” Bob said, “I’m treating you to lunch.”

  “Where? At Magnolias, or Slightly North of Broad?”

  “Abby,” Rob said gently, “he wants to make it.”

  That put the kibosh on my quiche. Bob Steuben fancies himself a gourmet cook. Perhaps he is—if you go in for such things as Albino Eels en croute, or Marinated Emu Tenderloins on a Bed of Goat Cheese-Infused Potatoes.

  “Well, instead of Saks downtown, why don’t we shop at Dillards up at Northwoods Mall. We could grab a bite at the food court?”

  Sergeant Scrubb cleared his throat. “Would you three mind making your plans outside? I have some paperwork to catch up on.”

  We stepped into the hall, and Rob pulled the door shut behind him. “We could do it all. Sort of like a scavenger hunt.” He leaned down and whispered in my ear. “Bob’s already got lunch planned; Fennel-Seared Pig Tails with Rhubarb Chutney and Essence of Pigeon Droppings.”