The Glass Is Always Greener Read online

  “Yes, ma’am.” I took a sip. Whatever harmful parasites I might have been harboring at the moment were, without a doubt, instantly killed. Ditto the good ones. It was going to be a yogurt kind of evening for me once I returned to the hotel—assuming I survived. The wine I’d swallowed wasn’t rotgut bad, it was eat-a-hole through my guts bad.

  “Good, ain’t it?” she said. “One night Aaron didn’t come home, and I just knew he was cheating on me with that no good sister-in-law of mine, so I drank me two boxes of this stuff. Got me a good buzz going that night, I tell ya.”

  “I bet you did,” I said. “Say, Caitlyn—I’m sorry, but you really do look like one—I mean, Melissa, what did you think of Aunt Jerry’s taste in jewelry? Pretty gaudy, if you ask me.”

  “Oh no, hon, ain’t no such thing as too gaudy when it comes to hot rocks—that’s what I call them big stones. The bigger, the better. They’s some that just goes in for diamonds, but Aaron says you gotta keep an eye out for them colored rocks too, because some of them is just as valuable.”

  “Like the emerald ring she tried to give me?”

  “Yeah. But you didn’t want it. You said that loud and clear in front of God and everybody. Tell me, Aggie, are you nuts, or what?”

  “Probably the what. But I didn’t refuse it; I just refused to wear it then.”

  “Oh no, ma’am. We all heard you tell her that you didn’t like them big stones and that she could shove it up her you-know-what.”

  “I did not!” I said.

  “Cheese and crackers, you don’t need to get so worked up about it none. I’m just saying that’s what it sounded like to some. Personally, I didn’t hear exactly what you said—uh, anyway, that was the impression I got.”

  “Well, hear me now, please. The ring is still legally mine.”

  She stared at me. “Yeah, like whatever.”

  I tried out various smiles, but after getting no reaction after far too long a period of time, dove back into the fray. “Did you know that the ring was stolen off her cold dead finger sometime before the police arrived yesterday? Of course there is an excellent chance that the thief and the killer are one and the same person.”

  Melissa’s eyes grew as wide as dessert plates, and her mouth gaped open to the point that I could see what she’d had for breakfast. Seriously, I am entirely certain that she was genuinely shocked by the news.

  “H-how do ya know?” she finally gasped. “Who told ya the ring was missing?”

  “The police told me.”

  “Wh-when did they tell ya?”

  “Last night. I’m a suspect too, you know.”

  She deftly snatched my glass of maroon poison away from me. “Just one minute there, hon. Maybe you’re a suspect, but we ain’t.”

  “You mean the police haven’t interviewed you?”

  She was on her feet in a clichéd flash, motioning vigorously toward the door. “You need to be leaving now, Aggie; our visit is over.”

  I took my time standing. “Mind if I have a Moon Pie for the road?” I said.

  She held out the plate of pies, still in their cellophane wrappers. “Take two—three if you wish,” she said. “I ain’t trying to be dis-sociable-like, you understand?”

  “Indeed I do,” I said.

  “Maybe under different circumstances, Aggie, you and I might have been good friends—best girlfriends even, on account of we’re so much alike. But this suspect stuff—Aaron and I can’t handle none of that. The old lady got bumped off because somebody had it in for her. So be it. We say leave it at that. We ain’t even going ta her funeral.”

  I slipped three pies in my purse; no telling when and where supper would be. “If you hear anything else about my ring,” I said, “please let me know.”

  “Bye now, Aggie,” she said, and practically pushed me out the door.

  Aaron Ovumkoph owns and operates his own business in a strip mall on Sardis Road. If I have a hard time describing his business, it is because Aaron had a hard time deciding what exactly his business should be. The end result was one quarter watch repair business, one quarter shoe repair business, and half gift card and sundries shop. This mishmash might have succeeded in less throwaway times, but it was my guess that the repair jobs barely paid for his overhead. As for the cards and sundries; the former turned yellow and curled in the sunlight and the latter turned thick or watery in their tubes or jars. To be succinct, nothing sold.

  This would explain why Aaron alighted on me like a mosquito after a rain the second I walked in the door. “Yes, ma’am, how can I help you? Everything you see here is fifty percent off—today only.”

  “Very nice,” I said, lying through my small, but fairly even, teeth. “However, I’m really here just to—”

  “Uh-oh, look at those shoes. Houston, I think we have a problem.”

  I looked down at a perfectly good pair of dress sandals. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “Well, look how your heel wants to turn in. You know what that means, don’t you?”

  I did indeed. It meant he was going to try and sell me some unneeded shoe repair.

  “Of course I know what it means,” I said. “It means that I have a very advanced case of naucinihilipilification.”

  “Uh—”

  “Believe me, you don’t want to even touch these sandals. But don’t worry; you can’t catch it just from being in the same room. So where were we? Oh yes, Mr. Ovumkoph, my name is Abigail Timberlake. I’m a friend of your cousin Rob Goldburg. I’m also—”

  But before I could utter another word, Aaron began to sputter like a campfire when it rains. All that lip motion set his oversized head to bobbling in all directions on his spindly neck, and I had to look away lest I get vertigo and give seven Moon Pies another shot at daylight (yes, I may have fibbed earlier a wee bit).

  There were a number of things that Aaron tried to say, and some that he eventually managed to say, none of which a Southern lady of good repute would dare repeat. In fact, I suppose that a woman of my generation should plead ignorance to even being familiar with a few of his choice words.

  The gist of it could be boiled down to two sentences, composed of four words. They are: “Get out! Stay away!”

  My response, stripped of its invectives, was even briefer: “Gladly.”

  Honest-to-goodness Pete. Aunt Jerry was stabbed to death, then allowed to bleed out before being moved to the freezer. There was no telltale trail of blood, or someone would have noticed. Clearly both Aaron and Melissa Ovumkoph were too stupid to have accomplished something that tricky.

  But there were two more suspects who, at least superficially, appeared to be somewhat normal. It was time to revisit the scene of the crime.

  Chapter 11

  Uncle Ben had just returned from a golf outing with the Brotherhood of Temple Beth El when I showed up. However, he acted like he was expecting me, and ushered me right in.

  “Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t have gone,” he said, pointing at the torn black square of cloth pinned to his shirt. “I’m in mourning for my sister, and I should be sitting shivah. The truth is, though, that I had to clear my head. Like everyone, I had a lot of conflicted feelings about Jerry before her murder; now I feel a lot of guilt and—heck”—he choked back a sob—“already I miss her like crazy.”

  I nodded. “Mr. Ovumkoph—”

  “Please, call me Ben.”

  “Ben. We haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Abigail Timberlake, and I’m a friend of your nephew Rob Goldburg.”

  “Yes, you’re the sprite to whom my sister tried to give away that very clever fake of hers. Brava, I say, for not letting her make a fool of you.”

  I’ll admit to being a bit taken aback by these comments. The man was an older, heavier version of my best friend, Rob, but if Rob had referred to me as an elfish person, I might have punched him on the arm with one of my wee little fists. As for the emerald being a fake, how in tarnation did he know? What was he, a jeweler?

  “I mean
no disrespect, Ben,” I said, and tried to disguise my antagonistic tone with an insincere smile, “but I think we should leave the identification of that particular stone up to a certified gemologist—one who is certified in colored gemstones.”

  Ben even produced Rob’s self-righteous little victory grin. “I’ve been a board-certified gemologist—colored stones and diamonds—for the past forty-five years. Would you like to see my diplomas? We can run down to the shop; it’s only a five-minute drive. Less if we hit the lights right.”

  My knees felt weak. When I made it back to Charleston—not if—I was going to barricade myself in my home with my husband and cat and never, ever set foot outside again. I could be happy doing that. I was sure of it. We could order in, watch our big-screen TV, and make whoopee all we wanted (which thankfully was less as the years went by). We didn’t need the outside world. If I never set foot outside again, I could never risk being arrested, or have all the other frightening and life-threatening things happen to me, that have happened because of my insatiable curiosity and reputation as an outstanding sleuth. From here on, I could live joyously as a nobody, just as long as danger left me alone.

  “Mrs. Timberlake,” Ben said, “are you all right? You have a distant look in your eyes.”

  “I’m good; sometimes I just spaz out. As regards your certification—I believe you.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  Since I had not had a chance to view the front rooms the day before, I took my time gazing at my very spacious surroundings. At one point a woman had had her say in choosing the decorating scheme. But that woman had been absent for a good ten years and it appeared as if nothing had changed. Although the decor was still very much this century, at the same time it was tired and outdated.

  “My Judy had fabulous taste, didn’t she?” he said.

  “That she did,” I said. “Amy, then, was your daughter? Yours together, I mean?”

  Ben’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, ma’am. And that was unforgivable what my sister did; forgetting Amy’s name like that. At the same time it’s vintage Jerry; she had a two-hundred-watt personality and she was always on. But boy howdy, you let yourself get too close to her and you get burned. Say, I’ve been kinda rude here; would you like something to drink? Maybe some sweet tea or a beer?”

  I may have emitted a soft gasp of pleasure. “A beer would be nice. Anything you happen to have.”

  “Chips and salsa? Chips and ranch dressing? I’m going to have some of each.”

  “You’ve twisted my arm.”

  Ben disappeared for five minutes or so, during which time I did my best to case the great room without leaving my very green velvet armchair by the fireplace. Of course, these being the dog days of summer, the latter was not in operation.

  At any rate, despite the fact that nothing appeared to have been changed since his wife’s absence, there wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen. Therefore I was able to deduce that either Ben was unusually fastidious for a widower, or he was solvent enough to hire a maid service. In either case, I was dealing with someone whose lifestyle approximated mine, more than it did either of his two nephews’.

  “I’m divorced,” he said, causing me to jump half my body height.

  “Jeepers,” I said, “you just took ten years off my life.”

  “Sorry.” He handed me a Budweiser in a Panthers foam cozy. “She ran off to Australia with a twenty-one-year-old surfing instructor for whom she was booking a flight. Judy was a travel agent, you see. Now she’s a washed-up cougar outside of Brisbane trying to get permanent resident status in Australia. Sixty-two years old she was when she chased after that hunk of melanoma-in-the-making.”

  “Wow, and can you spell bitter?”

  He laughed. “I like you. I wouldn’t expect that of someone who found my aunt dead in my downstairs freezer. Although I must confess, Mrs. Timberlake—”

  “Please, call me Abby. Just don’t call me Aggie, like your sister-in-law Melissa does.”

  Ben laughed again. “She’s a mess, isn’t she? Aaron never was what you’d call an overachiever, but still, marrying Melissa—now that took the cake. She’s not Jewish, you know.”

  “Are you prejudiced?”

  “I’d like to think not. But we Reform Jews have an almost fifty percent intermarriage rate. Anyway, it broke his mother’s heart.”

  “How about your Brisbane cougar?”

  “Oh yes, she was of the faith; it just goes to show you that nuttiness knows no religious boundaries. But hey, I was about to ask you—and this is not to put you in that category—but why are you involving yourself in this family’s meshugas? That means—”

  “I know what that means, and the answer is simple: I’ve been made a suspect in your aunt’s murder. Until I can clear my name, I’m stuck in Charlotte. Now mind you, this is not a bad place to be, but I miss home. I miss my husband. I miss my cat, Dmitri!”

  “Well then I guess we’re in this together—you and me. Unfortunately, Abby, if I was at a roulette table and had to put money down on any one of those five: Aaron, Melissa, Sam, Tina, or Chanti, I’d have to do it with my eyes closed. I really couldn’t choose. They all had it in for Jerry.”

  “And not Rob?”

  He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds and then blinked as they opened. “Rob is as fine a young man as they come,” Ben said. Never mind that Rob was fifty. “If I had a son—well, I couldn’t ask for a better one than Rob. And even our rabbi, who is a terrific young gal—she’s also named Judy—is very inclusive toward gays and lesbians—and that’s the way the Reform movement has decided to go, but sometimes you just can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

  I found myself unconsciously pushing back into the green lushness of my well-padded chair. “Does this mean that you have something against gays?”

  “Well, not against them—not personally—just their lifestyle. It makes my skin crawl to think about it.”

  “Believe me, dear, it made my skin crawl to think of your cougar wife and her babycakes surfer dude and I didn’t say anything. But let’s bring it back to Rob, you don’t think he could possibly be guilty—do you?”

  “Not in a million years.”

  “So that leaves only you.”

  After a stunned silence, which was only appropriate, Ben roared. “Good one, Abby! But let’s not forget you! Sospechoso número uno.”

  I took a long, much-needed swig of my good buddy Bud. “How well acquainted were you with your late sister’s ring? May she rest in peace.”

  “Yes, may she rest in peace. Ah, the ring—after Jerry’s husband died, she waited a suitable length of time—several years, at least—and then had a series of lovers. One of them was a Colombian gentleman whom I always suspected of being a drug lord—then again, I have an active imagination. Someone told me once that I should be a novelist.”

  “Oh, you don’t need an imagination for that anymore. I’ve thought about doing that myself. I read about a book called 101 Plot Ideas for the Uninspired. The whole premise is that with the help of this book, and Internet publishing opportunities, anyone can be a published author.”

  “That’s really cool. I’ll have to remember that. Anyway, this guy, Carlos, gave her this ring like on their second date. Now mind you, Colombian emeralds at their finest are the best in the world. Their color simply cannot be matched.”

  “Because their color comes from chromium,” I said, “and not vanadium like Zambian emeralds.”

  “Whoa,” Ben said. “You do know something about colored stones.”

  “A tiny bit. I get them in my shop now and then.”

  “And what shop would that be?”

  “The Den of Antiquity. It’s an antiques store—obviously—on King Street, in Charleston. It’s right down the street from Rob’s.”

  “Yeah, I know it! And darn if I don’t know you. I’m a Citadel grad and have good friends down in Charleston, and I come and stay with them. I wouldn’t want to impose myself on Rob—not since he has a�
��well, you know.”

  “Partner?”

  “I guess that’s what they call them.”

  “They do. And Bob is a terrific guy—he’d be straight as an arrow if he wasn’t—you know.”

  Ben winced. “Anyway, these friends have a house in Mount Pleasant and go into town every whipstitch to eat. I’ve wandered into your shop on numerous occasions. I thought you looked familiar.”

  Unfortunately I couldn’t say the same for him; I get hundreds, if not thousands, of tourists through my shop every year. However, very few of the men are dead ringers for someone as handsome as Rob. This just proves how busy—or how unfocused—I am.

  “I can only hope that your multiple visits were because you enjoyed my shop, and not out of some morbid desire to look at a train wreck in progress. We at the Den try our best.”

  “And you succeed! I’ve bought a number of small pieces there as gifts for my hosts. I’ve especially enjoyed dealing with a rather tall—how shall I describe this gently—”

  “Goofy gal who says preposterous things?”

  “That’s the one! B.J., or something like that, am I right?”

  “C.J. It stands for Calamity Jane. She’s a real hoot, isn’t she? She’s here, you know. By that I mean she’s consorting with your nephew Sam and his wife, Tina, at this very moment. She only met them this morning, but then instantly discovered that she and Tina were cousins through their Granny Ledbetter over in Shelby.”

  Ben cleared his throat and grinned broadly. A somewhat vain man, he’d taken good care of his teeth and they gleamed, white, straight, and indigenous to his mouth.

  “Shelby, eh? Did she talk like a poor country hick with a third-grade education? Kind of like Granny on Beverly Hillbillies?”

  “Exactly!”

  “Abby, there’s no way to break it to you gently; my nephew’s wife, Tina Ovumkoph, is a scam artist.”

  Chapter 12

  Get out of town and back! And take the scenic way, will you?” I took a deep breath, grateful that I was already sitting down. “Details, please,” I said.