A Killing in Antiques (11 page)

I stifled a question about who else she’d seen on that early run this morning. I figured that if I irritated her further she’d shut me out, so I changed the subject.

“Did you find the chandelier you were looking for?” I asked.

“Yes, I did,” she said. “I knew exactly where to find it. I’d made arrangements days ago. It’s just as wonderful as I was led to believe, and I bought it. It’s a good one, small but elegant.”

“So you got off to a good start,” I said.

“It was a good start, but the rest of the day was hard work,” she said. “There’s plenty of glass here, but cut glass is scarce. Have you seen any today?” she asked.

“No, but I haven’t looked for it. I don’t collect glass except for Sandwich.”

“You like Sandwich glass?” she asked.

“I do, but there’s so much reproduction Sandwich around that I don’t spend a lot of time sifting through it,” I said.

“I ran into the real thing this morning, where I picked up the chandelier.”

“Oh, rats,” I said. “I imagine it’s all gone by now. They’ve had a whole day of selling. I can move all of the Sandwich glass that I can get my hands on at the Cape. Do you think any of it could be left?”

“They can’t have sold everything, because they’re not opening until Thursday. They’re here early because they want to get in some buying. I imagine they’re doing some selling, too. I’m probably not the only buyer they had lined up.”

It was surely an outside chance, but I had nothing to lose. And since I had nothing to lose, after getting directions and gathering my things, I asked the question that had been teasing me: “Who else did you see when you were out looking for that chandelier?”

Rather than having a hissy fit, she thought a moment and said, “I don’t recall seeing anyone else. There were people around, but it was dark. I may not have even noticed Monty if I hadn’t heard his voice.” She gazed around the room, her eyes stopped, and she pointed. “I think I saw that fellow.”

I turned toward where she pointed. It was Mr. Hogarth, who had approached someone at the counter. He was standing over the guy, speaking intensely. His expression was severe, and I wondered if he was still carrying on about Monty.

Mildred was having second thoughts. “I’m not really sure,” she said. “Maybe it was later in the day when I saw him. I can’t remember.”

I’m sure that Mr. Hogarth was at Brimfield as early as I, but I wasn’t about to get into another discussion with him about Monty. Mr. Hogarth shifted his weight, and I saw that he was speaking to John Wilson. Mr. Hogarth’s complaints about Monty likely fell on fertile ground, but Wilson appeared to be shrinking away from Mr. Hogarth.

Good. There was no way I was going to go over and smooth-talk Mr. Hogarth. Let Wilson sweat out the old man’s ire. He deserved it after spreading his “disgruntled employee” theory this morning. What on earth was Wilson doing here anyway? Had Captain Kirk’s started serving creamed foie gras on toast? Truffle burgers?

I said good-bye to Mildred and Muriel and left without any further visiting. I was off to see her hot prospect, and I didn’t want to miss another opportunity. I drove back toward Brimfield, following Mildred’s directions. After a while I sensed that I had missed a turn. The drive was beginning to feel too long for someone who had been riding a tricycle. When I ended up at the wildlife sanctuary, I turned around and headed back to Brimfield.

I was sure that Mildred told me to turn left at the east end of the marketplace. It turns out that she meant the
other
left, the one that curves toward the right if you are coming from the Captain’s. When I finally took a chance on the correct turn, I came almost immediately to a small cluster of campers parked in a flat spot on the hill. There I found the dealer without any trouble.

“Where have you been?” he called as I stepped out of the van.

He seemed to be waiting for me, and when I raised my eyebrows in question, he explained that he’d been waiting since Mildred called him from her cell phone.

“I’ve got some glass on the kitchen table for you to look at.” He waved for me to follow him into the camper.

Glass? I wondered if I had wasted yet more time. But it really was Sandwich, mostly small pieces. A very old doorknob, some lacy salts, a matched pair of curtain tiebacks, and two lacy pattern plates that were about eight inches across. It was all clear glass, none colored, and his prices were fair, so I took it all.

“I have a customer who would like an early blue salt,” I said when we finished our business.

“I have some colored glass, including blue salts, back at my shop,” he said. He gave me his card, told me I could call him or give the card to my customer. I nodded. There are customers that I can send directly to another dealer, and there are some for whom I prefer to remain a middleman.

I
drove back to Boston fending off thoughts of Monty’s murder. I looked forward to relaxing. We keep a phone, but no answering machine, so no messages, and therefore, no complications. A long soak in the huge old bathtub and a good night’s rest would bring me back to life.

Even as I pulled the van into what was surely the last parking space in Boston, I could remember nothing of the drive home. My body was heavy with fatigue. I hurt in several places where I long ago had muscles, and my left hip was stiff again. I let myself into the apartment.

The place looked cozy, furnished sparsely with castoffs I had picked up for a song. Future antiques, we’d called them. The building, converted to apartments, then converted later to even smaller apartments, and then finally sliced into itty-bitty condos, was once a single-family home. Our place was on the parlor level; the entire apartment had once been the front parlor.

Now it’s an oddly proportioned living-sleeping room, a tiny kitchen, and an even tinier bathroom, where a big old-fashioned bathtub takes up most of the space. When we first leased the place for Nancy, I had rearranged the furniture a dozen times, but I’ve since surrendered. It is what it is—a small apartment built within a large room.

Two notes, I saw, had been slipped under the door: “Lucy, call Matt when you get back, Sonny,” and, “Lucy, call Hamp when you get back, Sonny.” So much for no answering machines.

Sonny’s door is across the hall; his apartment occupies the back parlor, or sitting room. We see him rarely, and might never have met, except that he had once interrupted an argument between Hamp and me at the front door of the once elegant old brownstone.

We had arrived without warning because we—that is, I—wanted to surprise Nancy with an antique desk that she had greatly admired when she was last home at the Cape. Hamp wanted to call and tell her we were coming, but I knew she’d be here. She had the week off from school, and she was determined to spend it studying in Boston. Otherwise, of course, she would have come home to the Cape and spent time with us.

Sonny heard Nancy’s name mentioned and asked who we were. Except that he was wearing a gigantic cowboy hat, he looked like a pretty regular guy to me, and I began explaining who we were. When I said we were her parents delivering a desk that she wanted, he said, “No problem.” He’d be happy to let us in.

“You have a key to Nancy’s apartment?” we asked.

“Sure, I pick up her mail and bring it in for her.”

“Huh?”

“Sure, she has a key to my place, and I have a key to her place, no problem.”

And with that Sonny opened the heavy door, unlocked his mailbox and Nancy’s mailbox, and took the mail. Then he dashed into his place, found Nancy’s key, and ushered us in.

The apartment looked oddly neat. Sonny told us to knock on his door when we were through moving the desk. He’d lock up after us. No problem. Hamp and I were still gaping at each other after he closed the door.

No problem. No daughter. I noticed the absence of her high-tech sound system equipment, and the stack of unopened mail on the mantel in the little apartment. I sensed that I understood the rest of the story, but I said nothing to Hamp until later. I was just too tired for the scene that I thought would follow.

Sonny’s messages stared back at me now. I’d have to return both calls. I should call Natalie, too, and explain why I hadn’t met her this morning. I decided to put off calling Hamp until later, and jabbed Matt’s number into the phone to get it out of the way. He answered on the first ring.

“Billy will have to spend the night in jail,” Matt told me. “Under the right conditions I can get him released tomorrow. They’re holding him on a fairly unsubstantial warrant. My best, and quickest, shot will be to show that he’s being held without probable cause.”

“Can you do that?” I asked.

“Well, unless they can come up with something more tangible than the premise that Billy collected lace, I can. I intend to show that the charges are too flimsy to hold up. So, what can you tell me?”

I could tell him little, except that I knew Billy hadn’t done it.

“I’m looking for something a little more fundamental,” he said. “You were there all day. I imagine you’ve been snooping. What have you learned?”

“Nothing!” I protested, ready to argue the snooping, but another thought occurred to me. “Since when has Billy collected lace?” I asked.

“He says he doesn’t collect lace, but they found a box of old tablecloths in the truck. Most of which were lace, and that’s what they’re hanging the arrest on. Come on, Lucy, are you holding something back?”

“No!” I wished I knew something, so I could hold it back, at least for a little while, but I didn’t, so I couldn’t.

Wait a minute. Did I know something? Could that brief meeting between Monty and Mildred mean anything? It took less than a minute, seconds really, and nothing of substance was said. I decided to let it go.

“Are you going back there tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, while you’re there nosing around, let me know if anything about that lace comes up, or if there’s something that just doesn’t smell right to you.”

He lost interest in me immediately, as I had nothing more to offer. As soon as we’d hung up I realized that I had forgotten to ask Billy’s last name. My stomach begged for succor; I’d had enough chaos. Before I could make reparations, I called Natalie’s number. No answer. I didn’t bother leaving a message.

I gave up the idea of a soothing bath—I realized that I couldn’t be soothed tonight—and took a quick shower instead. I wasn’t really hungry, but I rifled through the tiny kitchen, looking for food to tranquilize me before I called Hamp.

Nothing in the fridge but a stick of margarine, a bag of Starbucks Kenya rolled so far down it’d barely make tomorrow morning’s allotment, and a jar with about a tablespoon of salsa clinging to its sides. I scanned the cabinet shelves, but I don’t know why I bothered. A large can of tomato juice, a jar of popping corn, and a half-full bottle of vodka. Hamp and I occasionally snack here, when he can get away from the Cape for a little rest and relaxation, but we rarely bother to cook. We love the wonderful restaurants in town.

I was too tired and it was too late to go out and get something. I opted for a pot of popcorn, and while it was popping I scraped the salsa jar clean, relishing every morsel the spoon could capture. I opened the tomato juice and nipped at it straight from the can. Mmmm, warm. I knew better than to look for an ice cube; the trays were cemented into the freezer, buried in frost. The small refrigerator that came with the apartment was so old it thought it was an icebox.

I took the pot of popcorn and the rest of the tomato juice over to the phone and called home. Maybe Hamp missed me; he’d seemed so troubled lately.

The phone rang eight times. I’d let it ring once more, then hang up. After that, the machine would answer, and I was too tired to understand whatever witty repartee it had in store for me tonight.

Only three of our five kids live at home just now; they come and they go, but mostly they keep coming back. We had been down to just two of them when Philip married Monica. But he gave up his little apartment in the shadow of the Bourne Bridge on the mainland side of the Canal so they could move in with us. That move would allow Monica to get her degree at Lyman, where Hamp teaches, almost without cost to any of us.

“Hello.” It was Monica, Philip’s bride. I didn’t know what to make of her. She was very quiet, and I couldn’t tell yet if she was reserved, or shy, or just a quiet person. I told her I was returning Hamp’s call.

“I think he’s asleep,” she said. “Would you like me to wake him?”

Before I could respond there was a stirring at the other end of the line.

“ ’Lo?” It was Hamp, his voice full of sleep.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” I said.

He cleared his throat. “There’s some good news. I didn’t want you to miss it.” I could hear the mangled words through his hand, which, I knew, was rubbing the sleep out of his face.

“I can handle some good news.”

“It’s about the apartment,” he said. “We may be able to get rid of it.”

“Huh?” A cold feeling moved into my stomach. I love this apartment.

“Someone wants to sublet it until our lease is up,” he said.

He went on about a foreign couple who would be in Boston for the summer, working at one of the universities. While he spoke, I thought about what objections I could legitimately offer to keep them out.

“If they do any damage to the place,” I asked, “will we be liable for it?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “but as middle-aged, serious scholars, they’re hardly apt to be destructive.”

I wished I had put some vodka in the tomato juice. A pause in our conversation let me know that he was waiting for a response.

“When are you coming back?” he repeated. Did he miss me?

“I’ll be here in Boston again tomorrow night, and then the next night, Thursday, I’ll come back to the Cape. I’m not sure yet about Friday or Saturday night,” I recited, repeating the schedule that I had announced again and again, and also posted on the refrigerator door at home.