A Killing in Antiques (5 page)

I had my List in my purse. There were only twenty-five phone numbers on it. The paper was cracked where it had been folded, but I had folded it carefully, so I could read the numbers without trouble. I keep this List between my driver’s license and my ATM card. It gives me great comfort. Names are added slowly. This is the List that’s at the core of my business.

Matt Whitney is on my List because he wants me to call him anytime I have some fine American Chippendale furniture. Matt wants the good stuff. So do I, but I can’t get my hands on it as often as I’d like. Despite the way I feel about telephones, I call him whenever I can get what he wants. I go out of my way to find what he wants, and Matt goes out of his way to buy what I find for him.

Occasionally people ask to be called whenever you have a certain object they collect. I always agree, and sometimes, if it’s convenient for me, I follow through, but usually what people really want when they ask for a call is the right of first refusal. Meaning that when you call them, they want all the details, such as condition, price, measurement, style, and history if there is one, and then they tell you that they don’t need that particular thing. These are not List people. What they want is a picker, and I’m no one’s picker.

So, when I finally called Matt’s number, my mind was aswirl with all sorts of fact and foolishness. I expected to reach Ellie, his secretary, and when the phone was answered by Matt himself, I was so surprised that I didn’t know what to say.

“How come you’re there?” I asked without introduction.

“It’s nine a.m., Lucy. What’s on your mind?”

Matt’s not interested in any of the long, involved stories I end up telling. I’m not interested in them myself sometimes; it’s just that they issue forth, explaining things to me at the same time that I explain them to someone else.

“How did you know it was me so quickly?” I asked.

“Lucy, are you in trouble, or do you have some Chippendale?”

“I have a friend who didn’t murder someone,” I said, “but the police think he did, and he has no money, and . . .” I would have quavered on, but Matt stopped me. I wanted to be concise, but I was truly quite nervous.

That was when Matt changed. He began to behave in a way that I had never observed in him before. He asked me several questions in a most gentle tone of voice, and he talked to me for the first time ever as if he had all the time in the world. Gone was the interrogating attitude that I had come to expect.

He asked me about my friend, and when we both found out that I didn’t know Silent Billy’s last name, he didn’t make any of his caustic comments, nor did he question my “friendship” with Billy. The only time he seemed to stop cold was when I mentioned Monty’s name.

“Monty Rondo?” he repeated. “I knew Monty Rondo. I defended him years ago. I got him off a handling stolen antiques charge when we were both starting out in Worcester.”

That was news to me. I told Matt that in the fifteen years I had known him I had never heard anything about Monty being involved with stolen antiques. The antiques world is rife with gossip, and the grapevine is healthy indeed, but I had never heard rumors that would connect him with stolen anything.

“It was more than twenty years ago,” Matt said, “and maybe he wasn’t guilty, Lucy. Some of the folks I defend are actually innocent.” A hint of the more familiar Matt had come creeping back.

“I know, Matt, and I’m sure Silent Billy is one of the innocent. He’s a nice quiet guy who does most of the furniture repair and restoration work in Monty’s workshop. He does beautiful work.”

“A carpenter?” he asked.

“Better. He’s more like an ace cabinetmaker. Monty used him for repairing some of the junky used furniture he dug up, but his work is much finer than most of the furniture he gets to work on. As a matter of fact, I think you have a piece, a dining room chair, that he worked on.”

“Remind me.”

“A late Newport Chippendale with a restored arm. I showed you where he signed it.”

“A stylized W?”

“Yes.”

“Exquisite workmanship,” he said. As a collector, Matt’s had more experience with the other side of that problem, fine furniture that has been badly repaired by someone whose work actually cuts the value of the piece.

“Lucy, do you know who murdered Monty?” That came from left field. If I knew who killed Monty I would have gone directly to the police. But, since I didn’t want to blight my newfound pal-ship with Matt Whitney, I answered, sans wisecrack, that I had no idea who killed Monty.

Matt, to my great relief and surprise, said that he was interested in Billy’s case. That he would find out if Billy had been charged, and that he would talk to him. I could feel my tension drain away. I had done my duty. I could get back to the treasure hunt.

And that’s just what I intended to do, but first I’d go to the police station and let Billy know that a good lawyer was on the way. It wouldn’t hurt for me to see what was going on there, just in case....

I
couldn’t recall where the police station was so I asked for directions, and was surprised that it was in Town Hall, less than a mile down Route 20. I decided to walk. Before I set off, I went back to the van and rolled Supercart into it. It was beginning to be a tight squeeze, but it would be easier to move along without it.

I walked through the crowds clustered along Route 20 and sensed a different feeling. Sounds were muffled and people seemed subdued. The dynamics of the place had shifted somewhat, and people seemed to be adjusting. My own sober mood was pierced by qualms as I approached Town Hall.

It’s a modest wooden building painted an off shade of peach and trimmed with reddish brown slats. The building evokes a wistful desire to be a model of Victorian architecture, but a number of Tudor effects also decorate its façade. It’s neither Victorian nor Tudor. Like many other confused municipal buildings, it’s designed to accommodate the tastes of warring factions that crop up in towns.

I went up the stairs and read the sign fastened to the front door. It announced that the public would
not
be permitted to use the bathroom in this public building. I’d forgotten the attitude. I went in and entered a long, narrow hallway with a high ceiling. The lights were off, but daylight filtered in through dusty windows.

I rummaged around in the hall trying the doors. All locked. I scanned the hundreds of notices posted on the walls. No sign of a police station here. The stairway leading to the second floor ended in a locked door. The building was quiet. Had I misunderstood the directions?

A short stairway led down to an emergency exit at the side of the building, then turned and steeply descended into a basement. A circle of light showed at the foot of the basement stairs.

I went down the stairs and heard sounds of activity. The light came from a door that was ajar. I pulled the handle gently, and the door screamed a hideous creak that announced my arrival. Two heads, behind a high wooden counter, swiveled in my direction. One, swathed in a stiff black beehive, gasped. “How did you get in here?”

She gulped some air and clutched at her narrow breastbone. Her face, in sharp contrast to her inky suede hair, was a shade of white that may never have been exposed to daylight, a slice of ripe Brie.

“Through the front door,” I said, pointing toward the general vicinity of the front door. “Can you tell me where the police station is?”

“That door should be locked,” she said.

“It’s not,” I replied, and asked again about the police station. Now I could hear voices and movement coming from a hallway to my left. Maybe it was here after all.

“Normal hours for the police station are seven to nine on Monday evenings,” she said.

Huh? “Seven to nine on Monday evenings,” I repeated. Today was Tuesday. “The police just took a friend of mine in for questioning.” I hesitated, and both women sat up straighter, pursed their lips, and said nothing. “They’ll probably want to talk to him today.”

The women looked at each other. Then Snow White turned and said, “The police have special hours during Antique Week. If you’re going to see the police, you’ll have to use the police entrance, in the basement.”

“Is it in this building?” I asked.

“That’s what I said,” she told me. “But you have to go around outside and use the police entrance in the basement.” She turned back to her work, and I slipped out of her coven, back into the hallway.

We were in the basement, so the police were probably on the other side of that wall. It might be blocked from here for reasons of security. Or maybe not. I looked around a bit, and was just about to try my luck at another basement door when Snow White poked her head out of the creaking door and said, “This is a private area. Exit by the stairs.” She had tuned her voice to the door’s pitch, and she didn’t need a crack team of attack dwarfs to encourage me to move on.

So, back up and out and around I went. From the bottom of the driveway I saw the large parking lot in back. Except for a dozen or so police cars crammed up close to the back of the building, the lot was empty. The police cars bore an assortment of insignia. A tiny sign near the corner of the building murmured POLICE.

I entered and descended a few stairs into the basement. The room was about five feet wide by ten feet long; in a previous life it had probably been a hallway from the back door to the utility area. Now it was the police station.

The tiny space was filled with official-looking equipment and official-looking people. Maybe two people could work, seated, in the room if they didn’t mind tripping over each other to get to their workspace. A television set, tuned to a daytime talk show, played, but no one appeared to be watching it.

Within this space, several policemen and policewomen stood toe to toe. There was no room for any other arrangement. Silent Billy was not in the room.

The conversational rumble in the room made no allowance for eavesdropping. I couldn’t pick out anything specific as I worked my way into the mass of people in that small space. I asked a heavily decorated policeman if I could speak to Billy.

“Billy who?” he asked.

“He has white hair and a white beard and I only know him as Silent Billy.”

He smiled and said, “He’s silent, all right. What do you want him for?”

What should I say?

“I’d like to know if he’s been charged with a crime,” I said. I meant to be brazen, but my voice sounded timorous as I continued. “And I’d like to pass a message on to him.”

We stood maybe five inches apart. He looked straight down at me from his great height. My eyes were level with an elaborate arrangement of ornamentation over his chest, and I caught the ghost of a smirk playing at one side of his mouth. Icy suspicion crept along the back of my neck and slipped down into my spine. He wore his height like a man who believed it was an achievement.

I felt myself slipping into a familiar emotional quagmire. I try not to be overly sensitive about my lack of height. The older I get the easier it is, but sometimes I’m too watchful. I start looking for signals, maybe imaginary signals, that say I’m about to be discounted. Referred to in some diminutive form such as “little lady,” the blackboard scraper of my mind.

“So, how do you know Billy?” he said.

“Through Monty. I did business with Monty.”

At that moment the outer door opened and two more uniformed policemen entered the tiny room. There was a pause, during which everyone in the room avoided looking at everyone else in the room, which was now crammed. People shifted from one foot to the other, some squaring shoulders, others puffing, making themselves larger somehow, marking territory. My embellished blue knight gave it an instant’s thought, and then solved his part of the problem.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, without diminutive. “Why don’t we just step into the parking lot out there for a minute, and I’ll see what I can do for you?” He gestured toward the outer door with one arm and made a sweeping movement toward it with the other. This created the illusion of a pathway. I took my cue and turned toward the door. Everyone near us, realizing that we were leaving, squeezed together slightly, expanding the opening another three inches. He moved toward the door, leading with his shoulder, and I followed in his wake. In a few steps we were out in the brilliant daylight.

“What kind of business did you have with Monty?” he asked, settling his bulk onto the fender of a dark blue Crown Vic and still managing to look down at me.

“Antiques. I had an antiques shop in Worcester for eight years. Antiques is a tight community, and everyone knows everyone. We all know Monty.”

“Knew. You knew him,” he corrected me.

“He visited me after I moved to the Cape, too. He stopped at antiques shops all over New England.”

“When did you last see him?” The brass decorations on his chest sparkled in the sunlight.

“A week ago, maybe more.”

“What did you talk about?”

“God, who can remember? Probably—”

“Did you argue?”

“Of course not.”

“You don’t remember what you said, but you’re sure you didn’t argue?”

“Oh, Lord.” Surely this guy doesn’t think . . . No, he doesn’t think that at all. He’s just being a cop. “I never argued with Monty.”

He didn’t exactly roll his eyes, but his face managed to convey disbelief. “I heard Monty argued with everyone,” he said. “Was there some particular reason why you’re the only person in the universe that he never argued with?”

As I stood in the parking lot, the bright spring sunshine had, at first, warmed me, but now I felt my body slip into overheat. I hate this. A
flash
. My ears sizzle. A spot in the center of my chest spreads heat lightning outward until sweat spreads dampness as far as it can, and I’m covered with a warm clamminess.

He was serious. My face, neck, and ears were fried to a crisp, and I was irritated as well as hot. I stiffened my neck, aligning it with my already straight spine, and said, “I know I didn’t argue with Monty then, because I never argued with Monty, ever. And I know any number of people who never argued with Monty.” Why isn’t he out chasing bad guys?