Gilt by Association (16 page)

“Well, maybe so. Better late than never, I guess.”

“Your office is beautiful,” I said honestly. “Just like your house.”

She began to thaw.

“I even signed up for one of your Mrs. Santa specials.”

She melted into what was surely meant to be a smile. “Who did you speak to? Carleen or Doris?”

“The lady who brought me back here. The one who doesn't like red.”

“Ah, Doris. She's great with the younger generation, though. People who aren't too sure of their own taste.”

I nodded agreeably. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about, Mrs. Barras?”

“Squire's aunt was murdered yesterday,” she said abruptly.

“Yes, I know. I was supposed to have tea with her.”

“I know who did it.”

“Excuse me?”

“I know who murdered Squire's aunt.”

She was waiting for me to ask who, so I obliged her.

“Hattie Ballard, that's who.”

“You can't be serious. Lottie Bell was her mother.”

“I'm dead serious—no pun intended. People kill their mothers all the time.”

She made it sound like a natural, everyday occurrence. When I was a teenager I got really angry at Mama a couple of times, and there are times when she can still get under my skin, but I have never considered putting tranquilizers in her whiskey. Not that Mama drinks whiskey, mind you.

“Have you told the police?”

“No, because I don't have proof. I was thinking maybe you could help.”

“What do you base your theory on?”

“It isn't a theory, Mrs. Timberlake. I know it for a fact.”

“
How
do you know it?” I asked patiently.

“She had a motive, didn't she? I mean, Lottie Bell was the only Barras left who still had money, and Hattie, as you can clearly see, clearly doesn't. She works at a perfume counter, for chrissakes.”

“Working at a perfume counter doesn't make you Lizzie Borden,” I said.

She sniffed. “Hattie has a checkered past, Mrs. Timberlake. She's not as squeaky clean as she looks.”

“That's what people say about you,” I said gently.

“I was eighteen when I stole that car.” She waved a manicured hand. “I have worked damn hard to redeem myself.”

I had hit a nerve. A wise woman might have stopped there, but a wise woman wouldn't have married Buford.

“Well, you still haven't told me what's so terrible about your cousin-in-law, why she's capable of committing murder.”

The plastic face contorted into a real smile. “Hattie has killed before.”

“E
xcuse me? What do you mean Hattie's a murderer?”

I'm sure it's hard to gloat when one's face is frozen, but Amy did a pretty good imitation.

“You heard me, Mrs. Timberlake. The woman is a cold-blooded killer.”

“Explain, dear.”

“She killed Squire.”

“Your husband?”

“She killed him just as sure as you're sitting there.”

“Mrs. Barras, how can you say that?” I asked wearily. It was going to be another long day.

“Because she did. You think Hattie is on the outs with the family because she married a machinist and works at Belk's, don't you?”

“That's what I was led to believe.”

“Ha! That's exactly what they wanted you to believe. You fell right into their trap.”

Back in college, in sophomore psychology, we called that paranoia. I wasn't going to be surprised if she told me Hattie belonged to the CIA and the FBI.

“Who are
they
, Mrs. Barras?”

The manicured hand waved impatiently. “Why, the rest of the family.”

Her phone rang and she amazed me by picking it up.
She looked nervous, as if she expected the call might be bad news for her.

“It's for you,” she said, thrusting the receiver at me without even speaking to the caller.

“Hello?”

“Abby, Greg. Say, I've got some good news for you.”

“You've arrested Arnold Ramsey's killer!”

He laughed. “No, hold your horses. We're going to solve this case, that's a promise. In the meantime I wanted you to know that you can have your shop back.”

“The furniture, too?”

“Every bit of it.”

That was good news. Great news, even. Although I still didn't know what to do about the stain in the armoire.

“Greg, have you had a chance to ask your lab people about removing blood from wood?”

There was an unsettling pause. “Abby, the reason this has all taken so long is—well, someone unauthorized has already removed the stain.”

I mashed the receiver into my ear. “What do you mean, ‘unauthorized'?”

“Well, it wasn't you, was it?”

“Greg, you know I haven't been back to the shop.”

“It wasn't us, either.”

“How can that be?” I shrieked.

I could hear him tapping a pencil against his desk. “My guess is that whoever it was did it when they broke into your shop and stole the mirror. I figure stealing the mirror was just a cover, an attempt to focus our attention away from the armoire while they, uh—”

“Made their getaway?”

“No, I was going to say, while they established an alibi. Abby, this isn't a TV show with car chases, you know.”

“No, it's my life,” I moaned.

“We're working hard on it, Abby.”

“I just might be making better progress on my own,” I said curtly.

“Abby!”

I hung up. “Sorry about that,” I said.

Amy shrugged. “Is everything all right?”

“Oh, fine, fine. Just boyfriend problems. I'm sure you know how that goes. Now what were we talking about?”

“Actually, I don't. As I was saying—before your phone call—Hattie Bowman Ballard killed my husband.”

“How did she kill your husband? You said before that he—”

“I know what I said. And that's
how
he did it, but not why. He did it because of Hattie.”

“Forgive me, Mrs. Barras, if I fail to understand. Unless it was Hattie's finger that pulled the trigger, she didn't kill him.”

“Yes she did!” she shouted.

She closed her eyes and sat very still for a long time. I sat still as well. What I wanted to do was leave, but I was afraid that if I did so without permission, it would set her off again.

“You see,” she said at last, her voice trembling, “Hattie was pregnant with Squire's baby.”

“Oh.”

“She just couldn't keep her hands off my Squire. She had to have him, and they were cousins. First cousins!”

It was not the time to tell her my redneck joke about family reunions and dating clubs. I wisely remained silent.

“Squire and I were happily married, and we would have made a go of it, despite some slight pressure from the outside.”

“If it hadn't been for Hattie.”

“Exactly. Well, she got pregnant, and of course she couldn't marry him, even if we had divorced—which he was
not
in favor of. One would think she would have used birth control,” she said bitterly.

Again I exercised tremendous self-control and didn't remind her that men are equally responsible for such measures.

“I suppose abortion was not an option,” I said, trying to move the story along.

“Not then. Not ever, for the Barrases. They're staunch Catholics, you see.”

I had a hard time seeing Dr. Robert “Sex” Bowman and Toxie being staunch anything. Even we Episcopalians are generally better behaved.

“What about adoption?” I asked.

She shook her heard, amazed at my stupidity. “The Barrases don't give their children away. Besides, Hattie thought she had a solution. Ed.”

“Her husband?”

“Yes. Ed was someone she knew from high school. A simple but steady kind of guy. He had always admired Hattie—God only knows why—but of course he knew she was out of his reach.

“So, you see, it was really very simple. Hattie would marry Ed and pass the baby off as his. Except that, in order for Hattie to marry Ed, she had to tell her family why she was marrying so far beneath her. Of course, society was never supposed to find out.”

My tongue got the best of me. “I see. It is better to marry someone you don't love—to use him, really—than to admit you made a mistake?”

She shrugged. “I'm just telling you what happened. Do you want to hear the rest?”

“By all means.”

“Well, in the beginning Squire didn't know anything about this. And it could have stayed that way, too, except that poor little Hattie just had to tell him that it was his baby she was carrying, and not Ed's. She told me, too, in front of the family.”

“The little witch,” I said, trying to be helpful.

She gave me odd look. “You got that right. Anyway, Squire was a very sensitive man. He knew how much this all hurt me, and he knew he couldn't stand by and see Ed Ballard raising his son. So he did what he did. Sure, he took a few liberties on the exam, and they were going to expel him, but hey, there are other professions besides being a doctor, you know. No, he wouldn't have killed himself if it hadn't been for that trouble with Hattie. So you see, it was really Hattie who did it. Her and her selfishness.”

I was tempted to tell her that Squire was a wuss, a Caspar Milquetoast. That she was better off without the jerk. That just because Hattie had the hots, that was no reason for him to unzip and share the family jewels.

“And the baby?”

“Ha! Wouldn't you know but when Hattie heard about Squire she had a miscarriage. Served her right. It would have galled me something terrible to see her with Squire's baby.”

At least she was honest about that. “Well, dear, this has been a very illuminating conversation, but I still don't see how it connects to Lottie Bell's death. Granted, what she did was despicable, but that doesn't mean she would kill her mother.”

Amy Barras's face turned as white as the trim on her walls. “You still don't get it, do you?” she screamed. “The woman is a killer!”

I excused myself hurriedly. On my way out of the store I canceled my appointment with Doris.

“But beige is so blah,” she called after me. “I was thinking we might add some cream and ecru.”

I waved at her, pretending I didn't hear.

 

When I saw that black Jaguar parked directly in front of the Den of Antiquity, I should have just kept on driving. But—and this may surprise you—there is a bit of a
confrontationist in me. When we were very little, my brother, Toy, and I shared the same room. One night, when our parents were out, and our baby-sitter, Mrs. Farewell, had fallen into one of her comalike sleeps, we distinctly heard a noise coming from our closet. Toy immediately burrowed under his covers, but I grabbed his baseball bat and flung open the closet door. Fortunately there wasn't another Arnold Ramsey, but a little white mouse, whose origins remain a mystery to this day. My point is, however, I generally prefer to meet trouble head on rather than have it tweak at my toes from under the covers.

The closest parking space I could find was on a side street, and I fairly sprinted from there to the Jaguar. Just that morning I'd noticed that my weight had crept up over the hundred-pound mark again, so I was a little out of breath when I got there. Just as I was reaching to rap on the tinted window the door opened and Dr. Robert Barras Bowman stepped out.

He was wearing his toupee this time, and while I hate to say so, looked a lot more attractive than he had the other night. He smiled, in what appeared to be a friendly gesture.

“Good morning, Mrs. Timberlake.”

“Hey,” I said. Then I remembered my manners. “You have my condolences on your mother's death.”

“Thank you.”

I was still feeling on the defensive. “Have you perchance come to see me?”

“Indeed I have. Do you mind if we talk in your shop?”

Actually I did. Not only did I not trust him, but I wanted time alone in there before I threw open my doors to the public. On the other hand, I wanted even less to be seen in public talking to that sleazoid.

“Come in.” I unlocked the door as quickly as I could.

Once inside I locked the door behind us. I did not turn
on the lights, and I left the “Closed” sign hanging on the door. This might sound like tempting fate, but after all, I had several sharp objects in my shop, should the need arise to defend myself. The Edo period samurai sword, for instance.

“Yes, what's this about?” I asked.

“I want to let you know that my mother's funeral is this afternoon at three.”

“So soon?”

“Yes, well, those were her wishes. She didn't believe in viewings. She thought they were macabre.”

I had liked the lady for good reason. Displaying the empty shell of a person—all dolled up by the funeral home makeup artist—has always struck me as bizarre. I think the Jews have it right. When they die, bury them. The Russian imperial family, on the other hand, used to keep dead czars on display for as much as two weeks. Even worse, the members of the czar's immediate family were compelled, by custom, to kiss him on the lips daily. Daddy was an Episcopalian when he died, and not a czar. He was on display for a total of four hours, two hours at a stretch. Not once during that time, even though I was in the room with him, did I sneak a peek. My daddy was far away in a much happier place, not lying in a box with his jaws wired together to keep his mouth closed.

“About her funeral,” I mumbled, “I really didn't—”

“Of course you didn't know her very well, but she did give you this.” He handed me a small manila envelope, the kind with bubbles inside.

“She did?”

I opened the envelope and nearly dropped it. Inside was that fabulous Kashmiri sapphire ring.

“Th-there must be some mistake,” I stuttered. “I only met her once.”

“No mistake. She kept a copy of her will in her safe. She'd handwritten a codicil. Of course it wasn't notarized
or anything, but then again, it doesn't much matter in this case, does it? Hattie's not going to want a piece of junk jewelry like that anyway.”

“B-b-but this ring—”

“—is yours,” he said. “Oh, St. Anne's Catholic Church on Park Road, interment immediately after.”

He left, just like that. No passes, no snide remarks, no innuendo even.

I stared at the ring. I ran to the door, switched on the lights, and stared at it again. It was every bit as beautiful as I had remembered, and every bit as valuable. I couldn't possibly accept it. It would be criminal for me to take advantage of the Barras clan, Hattie in particular, just because they were ignorant of gems.

A sudden sharp rap on the door almost made me drop the darn thing. I slipped it quickly on my ring finger. It was far too big. I put it on my middle finger and turned the stone inward. It was so big I couldn't bend my fingers all the way over to conceal it. I hid my left hand behind my back. In the meantime the rapping was incessant.

“Just a minute! Who is it?” I demanded crossly. “Can't you see that the sign says closed?”

“Abby, Abby, open up! It's me, Jane.”

“This isn't a good time, dear,” I called patiently.

“Abby! Open up! This is important!”

“Not so important that it can't wait, is it?”

“It's very important. Besides which, I saw Dr. Sex come out of there. If he can—”

I flung the door open. The cowbells jangled mercilessly.

“What is it?” I hissed, pulling her inside by one arm.

“Well, Abby, it isn't fair, you know, you talking to him and not me. You and I are friends, and I own the shop next door. That makes us almost shopmates.”

“Jane!”

“Oh, all right, Abby, but just what
were
you talking to
that man about? He gives me the creeps, you know. Did he lay a hand on you?”

“He didn't touch me.”

She gave an obvious sigh of relief. “Still, you never know what might have happened. Back home we had a sex maniac. Mortimer Graves, a mortician. That was his honest-to-God name, I kid you not. Well, old Mortimer didn't lay a hand on anyone, either. He didn't have any girlfriends that anybody knew about, or any boyfriends, either. Then one day the coroner had to exhume—”

“That's sick,” I said, knowing full well where the story was going. “Now tell me what's so all-fired important.”

She blinked. “Oh, that. Well, Abby, you simply have to stop using me as your messenger service. I haven't got time. I have a shop to run, too, remember?”