A Killing in Antiques (14 page)

Not interested. Should I show him my acquisitions? Jade would show well with the Oriental pieces from that booth. But something was off here. I just offered Wilson a lead, and he showed no interest in even hearing about it. He was here on a treasure hunt just like the rest of us. But he wasn’t listening to any leads from me.

He was probably hot on the trail of a certain treasure, and he didn’t want to say for fear that someone would grab it first. If he thought that someone was me, he was right. But I wished him luck anyway.

“There’s only one more opening today. Then you can go home and relax.”

“I can’t stand the chaos here,” he said. “It leaves me exhausted.”

“I know what you mean,” I said. “But the chaos seems to energize me.”

Mr. Hogarth nodded his agreement.

But Wilson had had a poor day’s hunting, and he told us that he’d gone home empty-handed yesterday, too. I sympathized, thinking about my own poor day’s pickings yesterday, and kept quiet about my great day today.

Wilson shook hands with Mr. Hogarth, and turned to me. “I’m sorry I upset you yesterday,” he said and walked away.

“Upset you?” Mr. Hogarth said.

“Not really, but he was so certain of Billy’s guilt yesterday, I guess I did get a little touchy.”

“He’s got a lot on his mind,” Mr. Hogarth said.

“Yes,” I agreed. “So what’s the big secret? What were you and Wilson really talking about when I arrived?”

Mr. Hogarth laughed. “There’s no secret, Lucy. I just had a feeling that he wasn’t in a mood to discuss it. He’s thinking of quitting the Jade Museum.”

“That’s the secret? Wilson leaves all of his museums as soon as he finds one with a better offer,” I said. No big deal there.

“It’s hard to find anything wrong with improving one’s situation,” Mr. Hogarth reminded me, looking nettled. “And in this case he’s not looking at another museum—he’s considering opening a consulting business, fund-raising.”

“That is news. I understand he’s good at it,” I said.

“He’s been enormously successful,” Mr. Hogarth said. “He’s thinking that he might be better off making a career of it.”

I agreed. There are plenty of organizations that need that kind of help, and that’s probably a more suitable milieu for Wilson than tramping around the fields here looking for a needle in a haystack.

 

I walked along Route 20 to the other end of the marketplace, checking for a good spot to catch TJ before he passed the entrance to our parking lot. It would be easier for me to spot him driving along in the big rental truck than it would be for him to see me in the crowd. I pulled Supercart as far off the road as I could and leaned back against a low split-rail fence. I turned my face into the sun and felt it wash over my skin. It felt good. I let it flow through me. Sunblock be damned.

My bones, still rigid with winter’s compression, gratefully absorbed the spring warmth and became flexible. My mind couldn’t be too far behind. I could hear the traffic inching by me, moving slowly along Route 20.

 

Sherpas come and Sherpas go. They’re almost always short-term helpers. It’s the nature of the job, which features irregular hours, low pay, and plenty of heavy lifting and moving. I used to feel that dependability was a necessary qualification for a Sherpa, but brute strength is what’s really needed most of the time, so I’ve adjusted my sights to that, and anything over that is gravy. Some of them turn out fine.

This year I have TJ, a young rock musician. He uses the job for sustenance while he develops his band, the Ravings. I pay him slightly more than minimum wage and I use him twenty-five to fifty hours a week. I have no regular schedule for him, and I keep him busy moving and delivering antiques, and doing other odd jobs. He and I are both surprised that he loves it! He’s a great Sherpa.

 

My skin cooled, and I opened my eyes. A big yellow truck had pulled up to the split-rail fence, inches from my outstretched legs, blocking my delicious sun. I hadn’t heard it. Was it possible that I had fallen asleep while resting my buns on the fence? Naaah!

I looked up and was surprised to see TJ, grinning his huge, silly smile. He was already midsentence before I tuned in to what he was saying. He was explaining that it wasn’t really my snoring that had led him to me. It was Supercart’s blobs of red paint that he had noticed.

“I
was just resting my eyes,” I said, and TJ agreed, but his silly grin belied his words. His hair, tied in a ponytail at the nape of his neck, was combed straight back and looked wet. A new style for him.

Tall and slim, his outfit du jour made him look more gangling than usual. Narrow, ragged jeans flared into a pool of black denim over his enormous sneakers. He sported a black T-shirt featuring a skeleton wearing a shroud, and over that he wore a black leather vest trimmed with chrome objects.

The huge hands and feet attached to his long narrow limbs are usually balanced by a massive head full of flying chestnut curls. Puppy-like. Today the slickedback ponytail gave him a different look, older maybe, and those huge hands and feet looked false, like something he picked up at a joke store.

“Man, oh man,” he said. “The traffic is backed up all the way to Sturbridge.”

“Did that surprise you?” I asked. My Brimfield stories, recounted at great length over the past months, usually included some variant of the traffic jam theme.

He rolled his eyes and grinned; my attempts at sarcasm never faze him. “I just couldn’t believe that an antiques event could rival summer traffic back at the Cape.”

He had pulled the rental truck as far off the road as pedestrian traffic would allow, but its back end projected a little way out into the street. At first the cars on Route 20 drove around him and moved on, but before long a few timid drivers pulled up to his left bumper rather than steer around the truck, and traffic stopped behind them. The first driver, apparently unable to use his steering wheel, had been able to master the art of horn honking, so it was time to move along before one of the traffic cops made trouble for us.

TJ offered to put Supercart in the truck and drive me to the van, but I pointed out our lot, diagonally across Route 20, and told him that it would be simpler for me to walk across and meet him there. He moved the truck carefully through the people ambling around on foot, and had it backed up, nice and cozy to the back of the van, just as I arrived pushing Supercart.

He burst from the truck, his face alive with excitement. As it turned out, Brimfield was not the foremost cause of his excitement.

“We’re on, Lucy. We did it,” he said. “We’re at the Rat’s Patootie, this weekend, for money. This is majorly huge.” His face glowed with joy, and his outsized hands fluttered above an air keyboard visible to his eye only.

Coylie drifted our way, arriving in time to hear about TJ’s gig. Fascinated, he asked about the band, and they were off. TJ was effusive when the subject was music. They fell into a discussion that continued as Coylie, unasked, joined him in unloading the van and packing the rental truck. I tuned their chatter out, and concerned myself with packing individual items for the trip.

TJ had brought cardboard boxes, lots of newspaper, and stacks of blankets with him. I always carried a few blankets in the van, but didn’t fill the van’s space with boxes and packing stuff.

We worked smoothly, until startled, I realized that the conversation between the boys had lurched into trouble.

“Sorry, dude,” Coylie was saying. “I didn’t mean to rattle you. Was he a good friend of yours?”

Coylie had blurted the news of Monty’s murder to a stunned TJ. Damn. I’d avoided the issue when TJ was floating in the good news of his upcoming gig. I’d resolved to tell him when we could spend a quiet moment together.

“No,” TJ responded. “I didn’t like him. In fact, I couldn’t stand him, really.”

“Why?” Coylie asked. “Was he a bad dude?”

“Not really,” TJ said, and he thought for a moment. “He was just such a pain in the ass. The guy could never come into the shop and just say hello. He always called me Rich Kid, as if I, personally, had two coins to rub together. And he always asked who I’d taken advantage of today. He went on and on about my advantages, wouldn’t quit, and at the top of his lungs, too. He just couldn’t leave it alone.”

“He teased everyone, TJ,” I said. I didn’t feel the need to remind him that Monty had frequently referred to me as Double Wide.

“Maybe so, Lucy,” he said.

He winced at the news that Monty had been strangled, and seemed startled by the fact that the murder weapon was a piece of lace.

“Lace? The killer used lace?”

“Yeah,” Coylie said. “Watch out for those dangerous tablecloths, man.”

I shot Coylie a warning look, and TJ shook his head and settled into the realization that someone in his life had been murdered. He quieted down, brooding as we packed the stuff I’d gathered, engrossed in his own thoughts.

TJ turned to me, his eyes wide, his mouth serious.

“What if they think I did it, Lucy?”

I looked at him, and squashed the automatic response that springs to mind, the response my kids can’t stand. I’ve really tried to quit saying, “Don’t be silly.” When they hear those words, my kids say it’s a sure thing that I’m about to point out how silly they are.

“What would make anyone think such a thing, TJ?”

“Well,” he said and hesitated, “I had it out with Monty recently.”

“Had it out?”

“Those stupid names he always called me. I told him to quit it.” He hesitated again. “In no uncertain terms.”

“When was that?”

“That day at the auction, when he—”

“Oh, TJ, I was there—no one in their right mind would think you were threatening him.” But I snickered, recalling the scene. “I think I remember you calling him an asshole that day.”

“I said, ‘perfect asshole,’ ” he said.

Coylie and I laughed. But TJ, who was quite pallid, looked wounded. His face crumpled, his lips turned inward, and a burst of sound came from deep inside him. Oh, God, the kid was going to cry.

“TJ, no one could possibly think of you as a killer,” I said.

“That’s right, dude,” Coylie affirmed, having known him for at least twenty minutes.

I reached up to throw my arm around his shoulder, but could only reach far enough to pat it awkwardly. He grimaced, trying to smother the coming sob. I felt helpless to head off his pain. And then it erupted, an explosion of laughter. He shook with it. Gales of convulsive laughter burst from him.

Coylie and I caught each other’s eye, and shrugged.

“I know it’s not fun-fun-funny,” TJ said, trying to speak as more laughter burst from him. He lurched forward, bent at the waist, and sputtered out another surge of laughter.

Coylie rubbed his other shoulder. “It’s okay, man,” he said, and he giggled a bit. I looked at him, and he returned my look, straight-faced and guilty. Then he snorted, hummed a bit, and touched off a torrent of laughter that he, too, tried to suppress.

This was not good. Coylie’s strangled laughter morphed into a broken series of high-pitched barks. TJ looked at him, started to speak, and burst into maniacal laughter. They were behaving like overwrought six-year-olds.

“Okay, boys, put a lid on it,” I said. People were beginning to stop and look. “Come on, the party’s over.” I don’t know why I said that; such a cliché never stopped my kids when they were in the midst of hysteria. I felt silly and laughed, though I didn’t mean to. Both boys looked at me and disgorged further rushes of laughter.

Then it was all over for me. I was in it now, too. I became consumed by the laughter. I tried for a while to control it. When I could keep my eyes open, I saw people looking our way. Some were laughing, and this elicited yet more laughter. Some looked on with disapproval clearly showing on their faces, and this, too, incited me to wild laughter. It was going to have to wear itself out. And after a while it did, with irregular outbursts, at longer and longer intervals.

Our audience broke up and strolled off toward the last opening of the day. We straightened up, avoiding eye contact, and calmed down. TJ still wanted to explain that he didn’t find Monty’s murder a bit funny, but I shushed him. “Later,” I said. I didn’t want to provoke another wild breakout, and I didn’t think it was too far beneath the surface.

With our packing done we walked, all three of us, toward the final field opening for the day. Our conversation was stilted and extremely polite. When we got to the gate, the line was forming rapidly, as people came from every direction and joined it.

We hurried into the pack without ruffling any feathers. The boys stood awkwardly for a minute while I poked at Supercart, making unneeded adjustments and dusting its corners with my fingertip.

But the line was lively with anticipation. Our topsyturvy introspection about Monty and thoughts of our laughing jag fell away as we involved ourselves in the present. Everyone nearby expected to acquire treasure shortly, and the conversation and visiting was spirited. Both boys were naturally affable, and before long we all relaxed and joined in the buzz of chatter ricocheting around us.

I had exactly nothing on my mind, and I stood in the warm sun, catching bits of conversation around me. A good-natured argument about the year of the eclipse was in progress.

“That was a total eclipse.”

“No, it was an annular eclipse. A ring of sunlight showed around the edges. It was my best year ever.”

I almost broke into that conversation to announce that it was my best year, too. I think it was my first year here as a dealer. I had been here before, but that year was different. It was wonderful and terrible at the same time. The eclipse surpassed all of the superstitions I had ever entertained about opening a business. I was convinced that it had brought me good luck. But before I could add my two cents’ worth, that conversation had swerved from good luck symbols to bad.