A Killer Collection (18 page)

"Not exactly, " Molly
said. "Keane was acting like a guilty man who happens to be afflicted with
rheumatoid arthritis. He may have stolen pottery, but now I know he couldn't
have killed George-Bradley. It’s a wonder he could drive at all with those
hands."

Molly was finished viewing Keane
as a murder suspect. Clara was right. Keane was interested in pottery, not
violence. He was guilty of greed and a stringent case of envy, but Molly
believed Bunny or Susan had given George-Bradley the extra dose of insulin.
Poison was more of a woman’s method anyway and Molly considered an overdose
just another means of poisoning the body.

Her thoughts turned back to the
scene from the auction. She recalled Bunny's menacing whisper and Susan's
shocked face. What else had George-Bradley written in that letter?

And the calm rage Bunny had
exhibited was certainly a side of the widow that Molly hadn't guessed the older
woman possessed. Bunny must have committed the murder. She was alone in the
house with her husband and was the only other person who had access to his
medicine. Of course she had wanted revenge. Her husband had made fool of her
for years. But why now? Molly needed to get into Bunny's house and find out
more about George-Bradley's widow. It was time to arrange an interview with
Mrs. Staunton.

"Miss Molly," Clayton
interrupted her thoughts, "I do believe you haven't listened to a word I
was saying. Let's go get that cappuccino and a manicure. I can see that you
need a break."

"You're right. Let me just
check my messages first. I forgot to listen to them yesterday."

There was only one new voice mail
message. As Molly listened, a muffled voice began to speak in a near whisper. A
flat, cold tone filled with malice hissed through the receiver. "Stay out
of things that don't concern you," the voice threatened slowly. "Some
stones are better left unturned. If you don't butt out, you'll be sorry. I’ll
be watching you." The message ended.

"Molly? Honey?" She
heard Clayton's voice as if from a long way off.

She handed him the phone and
replayed the message.

"Mother Mary and all the
Saints!" Clayton cried, dropping the phone as if it were on fire. His
hands fluttered in the air like startled birds as he shrieked, "We've got
to call the police!"

Clayton dialed and released a loud
and frantic tirade to the unfortunate soul who answered the phone.

Wanting to avoid listening to the
message again, Molly walked numbly to the ladies' room where she splashed cold
water on her face and tried to digest the threatening message. It had not
sounded familiar; the voice was too muffled to be distinctive. She couldn't
even tell if it had been a man or a woman. It had been recorded last night, but
that meant nothing. She needed to sit down and think this through.

Who had she talked to about her
theories? Only to people she knew well. So who had called her? Bunny? She had
no idea Molly suspected her of murder. Susan? Could Susan have killed
George-Bradley and Bunny had discovered proof within the letter? Was that the
frightening secret Bunny had whispered in Susan's ear?

There were no clear answers and
none of Molly’s theories explained why she’d received the call last night.

Clayton suddenly interrupted her
thoughts in his full dramatic glory. He flung open the restroom door with a cry
and dragged her into the break room. Clucking like a mother hen, he plied Molly
with coffee and a stale cheese Danish and wrung his hands over her until a
policeman arrived.

Molly issued a brief statement,
and though Clayton did his best to elevate the seriousness of the matter, the
policeman didn't seem overwhelmingly concerned.

"Press people get anonymous
threats all the time," he said flatly, removing one of Clayton's hands
from his arm. "Usually not at newspapers writing articles on old stuff,
but it happens. Just let me know if it you get another call." He turned to
Molly, giving her his card. “Seems like it was from a throw-away cell phone, so
we have no way to trace it. Probably some kid getting his kicks by crank
calling people.”

"Thanks," Molly mumbled,
taking his card. She was relieved that she hadn’t shared that the threatening
call was undoubtedly related to George-Bradley’s murder. The policeman would
probably assume she was reading too many mysteries and was only looking for
attention.

Clayton followed him out, gushing
about the shock it had caused him. Molly heard a third voice enter the
conversation as she stacked her index cards and packed her bag to go home. It
was Matt's soft tenor coming from the lobby.

"Are you all right?" he
said, appearing at her side, his face creased in concern.

Thinking back to his leggy blonde
visitor, Molly replied without meeting his eyes. "Yes, I'm fine."

As she picked up her bag and moved
to leave, Matt blocked her path. Startled, she looked up at him.

"Clayton told me what
happened. He's a wreck, but I'm worried about you. Can't I do something?"
he asked.

"No." Her voice
softened. Matt really was a nice guy, even if he had a girlfriend. "Thank
you, though."

"I don't think you should be
alone tonight. Do you feel up to going out for dinner?"

"Can't. I already promised my
mother I'd come over. And to be honest," Molly began, eyeing Matt
shrewdly, "I'd like to go out to dinner with you, but I'm not sure that
blonde I saw you with the other day would approve."

Matt looked confused, and then
laughed aloud as if Molly had delivered the punch line to a great joke.
"Amy? Amy Byrd? That was a business meeting. Amy's a rep for Grant's
Auction House over in Wilson. They are going to start running full-page ads
with the paper every week. She's not my girlfriend."

"Oh." Molly was
embarrassed. "It's just that I heard her saying she'd see you later that
night and I assumed..."

"We were both invited to a
party for one of my med school friends. She's dating an old buddy of mine. I
wish she wasn't dating him, though, because she's an awful flirt. But I’m not
in the least but attracted to her." He smiled at Molly, "I don't go
in for stick figures."

"What a lovely thing to say,
Matt Harrison." Molly was pleased. She forgot all about the intimidating
message as she gazed into his twinkling blue eyes. "And just what is your
type?" She was astonished by her boldness.

Matt opened his mouth and spoke as
many words in one breath as she had heard him utter in the two years they’d
worked for the same paper. "I like a woman with smarts. Someone with a
good heart and a quick laugh. I like a woman to look like a woman. Someone who
will eat dinner with you instead of pushing two pieces of lettuce around on her
plate while she looks around to see who might be admiring her. I like a woman
who believes in family, friends, and the American flag. A woman who has framed
photos of her cats on her desk." Matt exhaled. He looked as surprised as
Molly by the length of his monologue. "I like a woman like you. You're my
type," he finished with a soft whisper and then leaned in to kiss her.

~~~~~~~~~~

Despite the falling rain and crackling of the flames,
everyone heard the detonations . . . Generally it is the larger, thicker-walled
wares that suffer the most; the smaller pots in the case showed no damage at
all.

—CHARLES G. ZUG III, from
Turners and Burners

Monday morning dawned at the Staunton Estate without its
usual birdsong and squirrel chatter. Instead, a row of pickups and workmen in
jeans broke the pastoral tranquility with the sharp staccato of hammering, the
whine of hand-held saws, and the crackling of snapping wood.

Two men in jeans and black
T-shirts carried the massive shelves that once held George-Bradley's pottery collection
outside. Handmade from solid walnut, they were both heavy and attractive, but
Bunny told the foreman he could keep the whole lot.

"What's Walt gonna do with
these?" one worker asked another.

"Use 'em," grunted the
second beneath the weight of the shelves, "for books."

"Books?" The first man
laughed as they slid the shelves onto the bed of one of the trucks.

"He's a Civil War buff,
remember?"

The two men headed back inside.
The oriental rugs in the main hall had been removed and sheets of plastic covered
the hardwood floors. A thin layer of dust had already settled upon the sheet,
and the buzz of power tools grew louder inside the wing where George-Bradley
had once spent most of his free time.

Inside the music room, two men
were ripping up the dark brown carpet and rolling it in wide strips to be
hauled outside. In the office, the last of the shelves was being removed while
two men stood over the massive mahogany desk and admired its waxy surface. The
drawers were still stuffed with stationary, rubber bands, staples, and sundry
supplies.

"Hey chief!" one of the
men called out.

A tall man wearing a
short-sleeved, plaid button-down stepped inside. He removed his John Deere
baseball cap, wiped the sweat from his brow, and surveyed the room.

"What've you boys got?"

"What's the plan for this
desk?"

The foreman, Walter Hogue, ran his
calloused fingers over the leather and wood desktop. He understood, without
being knowledgeable about antiques, that the piece had been made by hand. The
workmanship was so fine that he had trouble finding the joinery.

"Hidden dovetails." He
nodded in admiration. He stood and gestured outside. "Unfortunately, it
goes out to the garage for now. The lady doesn't want anything left in this
area."

"Just clear the whole place
out, is that the plan?" one of the men asked.

"Yep. Seems the lady's sister
is moving in and this is going to be her part of the house."

"Shoot, there's enough room
upstairs to house the whole choir of Shady Grove Baptist, why go through all
this renovation?"

Walt shrugged his wide, bony
shoulders. "Don't know. Everyone needs their own space, I guess. Anyway,
when the customers pay in cash, I don’t ask too many questions."

"Well, it's her money."
The two men strained under the weight of the desk and Walt jumped in to lend a
hand.

Passing the library, he noticed
the rest of his crew standing in a group before the wall facing the window.

"Y'all studying
something?" he called out. “We’re being paid to work, not to
sightsee."

One of the workers pointed at the
fine mahogany wall paneling with his sledgehammer. "Chief, are we really
supposed to tear all this out?"

Another man lifted his crowbar.
"It seems crazy to dig into this stuff. It must of cost a fortune. Are you
sure she wants it all smashed to bits?"

Walt gazed around the room again.
He had gone over every detail with Mrs. Staunton, making sure that he had a
crystal clear understanding of her instructions. Yet it wouldn't do to make a
mistake when it came to such fine paneling. He had asked her the same question.
Such excellent and costly workmanship—was she sure she wanted it removed? But
Mrs. Staunton replied that she was positive. She’d even handed him a can of
paint called perky periwinkle to use on the newly stripped walls.

"Look boys, the lady said all
this wood made the room too dark and too masculine for her sister, so she wants
it out. We're painting these walls purple."

"Chief." The man with
the sledgehammer shook his head solemnly. "It's a sheer crime, that’s what
it is."

"I know. Let me do the hard
part for you." Walt grabbed the hammer and swung it into the nearest wood
panel. A gaping hole of splintered wood appeared. He grabbed the edges around
the hole and pulled, tearing out slices of wood and throwing them in the center
of the room.

"Ouch," one of his men
murmured, then dug his crowbar around the seams, splitting wood and popping out
nails.

Walt returned the tool to its
owner and pointed at the gaping rent in the polished paneling. "Spell's
broken. Get going."

Shaking his head at the
destruction of such a fine room, Walt returned to the garage where other
members of his crew had carried the desk. They stood beside it, smoking
cigarettes and laughing. Walt was annoyed to find his workers idle.

"Waitin' on keys,
chief," one of them quickly volunteered. "Door's locked."

The gardener appeared like Houdini
from behind the garage, swinging a bundle of keys from a rope like a lifeguard.
Walt had seen him when he ‘d visited the mansion to give Mrs. Staunton an
estimate on the job. The gardener was a middle-aged Hispanic with his
coffee-colored skin, and wide, dark eyes, and nut-brown hair. His face,
although wrinkled prematurely by years of working in the sun, was handsome, and
his eyes sparkled with intelligence and confidence.

"Looking for these?" he
asked Walt in a deep, accented voice. Walt noticed that he was taller than he’d
seemed from a distance and his arms were sinewy and thick with strength. He had
the build of a much younger man. He smelled of rich soil and cut grass.

"Thank you ..." Walt
accepted the keys and struggled to remember the man’s name.

"Emmanuel." The gardener
smiled, displaying a row of well-shaped white teeth. Walt couldn't help but
notice a smudge of pink lipstick on the gardener's chin. Emmanuel was fooling
around with a lady in the house. As interesting as that fact may be, Walt knew
that it was none of his business. He was here for a job and he needed to get
back to it.

Opening the garage door, his crew
shuffled inside with the desk and placed it against the back wall. Walt then
rejoined his crew in the library, where the work on the paneling was going
smoothly. A large scrap pile was building in the center of the room. Electrical
lines wound like vines from ceiling to floor. He gestured to one of the men to
hand over his crowbar.