Gilt by Association (3 page)

He clipped his pen to the top of the tablet. “I'm afraid your shop is going to have to be off-limits for a while. Just until we complete the investigation,” he said quickly.

“What? But you can't do that! It's only three weeks until Christmas!”

He stood up. At six feet even, he towers over me.

“It'll only be for a few days, Abby. And it's not like you sell Christmas merchandise.”

I was fit to be tied. What did he know about the market? I might not sell glove and scarf sets, or bottles of cheap cologne, but I do a healthy trade at Christmas. Outside of the summer tourist season, Christmas is
the
time in the antique business. What better gift can one give than something that has been appreciated enough to have been given before?

“You can't do that! There are laws,” I sputtered. In
my moment of temporary insanity I was even thinking about calling Buford. Fortunately that moment lasted only a minute. Buford had been my ally when we were dating in college, but early on in the marriage—after its consummation on our wedding night—he began his rapid metamorphism into adversary. When my insanity had safely passed, I realized that Buford would happily have me—as well as the furniture—impounded.

Greg put a huge hand on my shoulder in a clumsy attempt to calm me. I shrugged it off. If it hadn't been for my certainty that we were being watched, I would have slapped it away.

“I'm sorry, Abby,” he said. He sounded sorry, too.

It was too much to take. “This will hurt me more than it will you,” Mama used to say before she spanked us children. I didn't need to hear that from Greg as well.

“You
find
whoever killed Arnold Ramsey,” I said. I left the room.

No one made a move to stop me. Perhaps they would have, had they known that I had no intention on waiting for them to solve the case. I wish I could say that my motives were pure, that I had a burning desire to bring Arnold Ramsey's killer—or killers—to justice. But I didn't. With just three weeks left until Christmas, and the most expensive merchandise I'd ever owned just sitting there as if it were in storage, I had one thing on my mind. It was time to liberate my shop.

T
here was no practical reason for me to return to my shop that morning, but I had to nonetheless. When I'd left the Den of Antiquity in the care of a blue-suited officer an hour and a half earlier, I never dreamed that it would be off-limits to me for a while. I needed to say good-bye.

My timing couldn't have been worse. The folks from the
Charlotte Observer
—the city's largest newspaper—and the folks from Channel 9 and Channel 3 were out in force, and when they saw me, I may as well have been the rabbit at a greyhound race. I had already parked the car and was about a block from it when they spotted me. Unlike that bunny on a stick, I had no guarantee of outrunning my pursuers. Given my short legs it was doubtful I would have outrun any of them, except maybe for that one gal who was wearing a six-inch heel on one foot and a cast on the other. Frankly, if it wasn't for Wynnell Crawford, who owns Wooden Wonders, I would have been rabbit hash.

“Get in here!” Wynnell shouted.

I ducked into her shop and she slammed the door shut behind me, locking it with one expert stroke. The handful of customers browsing about were just going to have to be patient.

“How long have they been out there?” I huffed.

I'm pretty sure Wynnell scowled. She has eyebrows the size and shape of dwarf junipers, so sometimes it's hard to tell.

“They've been out there for at least an hour. We told them you weren't coming back for the rest of the day, but they wouldn't listen. Why are you back?”

“To say good-bye.”

“They are not hauling you off to the slammer,” Wynnell exclaimed.

Wynnell is my dearest friend. But outside of our mutual love of antiques, we have nothing in common. Even that's stretching things. I tend toward ornate pieces. Lots of detail. If heaven isn't furnished with gilt rococo, I'm going to be deeply disappointed. Wynnell, on the other hand, adores blocky Federal Period sofas and massive Victorian beds. I prefer to “display” my merchandise, whereas Wynnell stacks her stuff, leaving only narrow and somewhat dangerous passageways for her customers to navigate. Still, we are best buddies.

“They did, dear,” I said, “but they aren't locking
me
up. It's my shop I'm talking about. They're locking it up for the next couple of days.”

She gasped appropriately. “So close to Christmas?”

“What do they care? Oh Wynnell—”

There was a sharp rap at the door and much to my surprise—and dismay—Wynnell darted down one of the narrow passageways and opened it. The new arrival was not a reporter, but Jane Cox, the new owner of Feathers 'N Treasures, my aunt's old shop. In the process of letting in Jane, Wynnell expelled all her customers with the exception of one young couple who were doing unseemly things on a four-poster, rice plantation bed. Wynnell sells a lot of beds and no doubt it is at least partly due to her lenient policy of allowing her customers to try things out.

“Hey,” Jane said, “I heard the news. Is there anything I can do to help?”

I bided my time, thinking carefully before answering. Jane Cox is a mere child of twenty-three, and an orphan to boot. One can't help but feel motherly toward her. On Selwyn Avenue we have already taken to affectionately calling Jane “C. J.” We do it to her face, but she doesn't seem to mind at all. She thinks we are purposefully inverting her initials, like folks have to invert their names on some documents. Cox, Jane, that sort of thing. The truth is—and this is highly confidential—the C. J. in this case stands for Calamity Jane. That woman could take a freckle, turn it into a mole, turn that into melanoma, and wipe out the entire population of the United States with the world's first contagious cancer. Calamity Jane can do that in the time it takes me to put a new roll of toilet paper on my bathroom spool.

“Thank you for offering,” I said with a smile. “I'll be just fine.”

She paled. “They've arrested you, haven't they? First-degree murder, isn't it? I have a cousin whose brother-in-law was convicted of murder. Down in South Carolina. They gave him the death penalty. Lethal injection. Do you know what he had for his last meal? Fried okra and collard greens. Can you imagine that? Now Abby, when they ask you what you want for your last meal, order something really expensive. Lobster maybe. You won't have to pay for it. Ha! While you're at it, have something really fattening for dessert. You won't have to worry about gaining weight either. Ha!”

“I haven't been arrested,” I said patiently. “They just asked me to close down my shop while they investigate.”

She sucked in her breath sharply. “Ooh, I saw that in a movie once. The cops put a police tape around this woman's house—supposedly there had been a murder there—and the next thing you know a moving van pulled up and the cops robbed this woman of everything she owned. Even her grandbabies' pictures in those Kmart
frames. Only they weren't cops you see, but just some very clever burglars. Well, don't worry. If they clean you out, I've got some stuff in my storeroom that I just don't have floor room for. I could let you have it real cheap.” Calamity Jane was nothing if not generous.

I patted her arm gratefully. She usually goes on much longer than that.

“Thanks for your offer, dear, but would you mind awfully if I spoke to Wynnell alone? It's strictly business,” I added, so she wouldn't get hurt.

Calamity Jane slapped her hands to her cheeks. “Oh, I'm so sorry! My Uncle Maynard had to file for bankruptcy too. It was awful. The poor man—”

“Please,” I cried, clapping my hands over my ears.

Wynnell, bless her, grabbed one of C. J.'s elbows and steered her over to the door. By then the couple on the rice plantation bed were eager to exit as well.
Buying
a bed was the farthest thing from their minds.

“Lordy, she wasn't on to something, was she?”

“No, dear,” I assured her. “You wouldn't happen to have an aspirin, would you?”

She found two in her desk drawer. I took them without water, chewing them thoroughly instead. It's an acquired taste, but the drug enters your bloodstream a lot faster that way.

“You know, I've been thinking,” Wynnell said.

“Yes?”

“Your killer is a Yankee.”

I should have known. Wynnell smells a Yankee behind every nefarious deed ever committed. She once tried to talk me into believing—unsuccessfully, I might add—that Hitler's maternal grandmother was originally from Massachusetts.

“Okay, I bite,” I said tiredly. “Why do you think the person who killed Arnold Ramsey was a Yankee?”

Her mouth had opened wide enough for Sherman and
all his troops to enter—side by side. “Arnold Ramsey?” she finally asked.

“You know him?”

“Well, I know
an
Arnold Ramsey. It might not be the same one.”

“Tell me about the one you know,” I said. “I can't just sit on my hands. I'm going to talk to
anyone
who might have even the slightest connection to this horrible thing.”

Wynnell looked worried. “Be careful, Abby.”

“Tell me about Arnold Ramsey,” I said, perhaps a wee bit impatiently.

“Well, he's just a kid who was once married to my niece, Mary Beth. The day after their divorce he married a floozy named Norma. She's a waitress down at Bubba's China Gourmet.”-

I knew the place; it's on a back road between Pineville and Matthews. At one point the building used to be a Baptist church, so the architecture is anything but Chinese. The cuisine can best be described as Southern Chinese.
Not
food from southern China, but Chinese food with a Southern accent. It has an unusually expensive fixed menu, but it serves a very reasonably priced buffet. This is what attracts most of its business. I hear that some interesting things show up in the buffet from time to time, but I am loath to eat at a Chinese restaurant—even a Southern Chinese restaurant—that has a salad bar, replete with iceberg lettuce and Jell-O. There, I've praised something I hate so I've done my charitable deed for the day.

“I'm sure Norma Ramsey has too much on her plate to talk to me,” I said. “Got any other ideas?”

“There's always old Purvis. He's the one who shipped the stuff.” As she spoke, Wynnell tugged dangerously at a loose thread on her purple and pink plaid pants.

Having done my good deed for the day, and because I am genuinely fond of her, I feel the need to describe Wyn
nell in more detail. Unfortunately the hedgerow eyebrows are not the first thing one notices about her. It is her clothes that scream loudest for attention, and you can almost hear their anguished cries. While Wynnell fancies herself a seamstress, she couldn't sew a straight line if her life depended on it. She also refuses to use patterns for the garish materials she rescues from the bargain bins at area fabric stores. Her originals are often so makeshift that even she has trouble putting them on.

I prayed that the purple and pink plaid pants wouldn't pull apart, revealing more than I cared to see. I had only heard about the fiasco when her skirt got caught in a revolving door in downtown Charlotte, but I'm told it left not a few eyewitnesses traumatized. Wynnell, it seems, does not always wear panties.

“Purnell Purvis is on my list, too,” I said. “Can you think of anyone else?”

The hedges merged. “Those pieces you bought were from the Barras estate, weren't they? You might want to try talking to the family.”

“That's a brilliant idea!” I gave Wynnell a hug. “You don't happen to know them, do you?”

“Ha! Not hardly. They are strictly la-dee-da. I read about them on the society page, same as you do, but that's it. Maybe your mama knows them.”

I would ask Mama. My mother is not la-dee-da, but she is cultured and refined (alas, qualities she failed to pass on to me), and knows a good many influential people across the South. Pat Conroy once made her crabcakes for breakfast, or so she says.

I sneaked out the back door of Wynnell's storeroom and headed for Pineville to chat up old Purvis, but it was getting on to lunchtime and my car seemed to be driven by my stomach. That is to say, every turn I took somehow edged me closer to Bubba's China Gourmet. Clearly I was in need of an MSG fix, with a little grease thrown in.

The parking lot was full—thanks to that low-priced buffet—so I had to park across the road, in front of the carpet remnant store. I was nearly run over by a semi, two pickups, and a slew of cars—most of them bearing Ohio plates—before I made it across. The second I opened the door a melange of confusing aromas swirled about me. They were almost tangible.

“How many?” the hostess asked. She was a big Caucasian girl in a long, exotic dress. Something you might buy at Pier One Imports.

“Just one,” I said. “Nonsmoking.”

“We don't have a nonsmoking section,” she said, accenting each stressed syllable with a loud crack of her gum.

I foolishly followed her to a red Naugahyde booth. There was a red-and-white-check tablecloth on the table, and an old Chianti bottle stuffed with silk flowers. The seats were a patchwork of fried noodle crumbs and duct tape. I took my time sitting down.

“Would you like to order from the menu, or try our generous buffet?” She sounded bored.

“Well—”

“Today we have several special items in our buffet,” she said, and looked at me inquiringly.

“Do tell,” I said.

“Today, in addition to the usual selections, our chefs have prepared stir-fried collard greens, sweet and sour okra, and moo goo gai grits.” She said it with a straight face.

“You don't say!” I said kindly. “Perhaps I'll take a look at the menu.”

She handed me a bright red menu with a gold-embossed dragon on it. It was then that I noticed her name tag said Norma.

“I see your name is Norma,” I said pleasantly. “Two Normas in the same restaurant, isn't that something!”

She rolled her large, pale gray eyes. “So you're a Norma, too.”

“My name is Abigail. I'm talking about Norma Ramsey, the waitress.”

The gum popped loudly. “I'm Norma Ramsey.”

I put down the menu. “You?”

She took a step back. “Am I supposed to know you, lady?”

I picked up the menu casually. “Well, no, you're not. Clearly I've made a mistake. The Norma Ramsey I'm talking about just lost her husband.”

“So?”

“I mean, her husband just died. Like today—or maybe yesterday.”

“Yeah, someone finally did Arnie in,” she said. “Are you a cop or something? 'Cause I already talked to the cops.”

I was having trouble believing my ears. “
You're
Norma Ramsey, the widow of Arnold Ramsey?”

She was a talented girl and produced a staccato burst of pops from the gum before answering. “What about it? Look, lady, I gotta get back to the door. If Bubba sees me talking to you this long, I'm out of here.”

I fumbled in my purse for some money. It may not buy happiness, but now and then it can buy cooperation. All I could find, besides two twenties, were three ones. I put the singles in her hand.

“You're a comedian, right?”

I snatched back the singles and gave her one of the twenties.

“Oops, I can barely open my mouth,” she said. “I think I got lockjaw.”

I gave her the second twenty. “Speak, sister, or I shout for Bubba.”

“Hey, Sally,” she said to a pretty Oriental girl, “cover my post, will you?”

Sally mumbled something but headed for the door. Norma Ramsey slid into the booth opposite me.

“Like I said, I already talked to the cops. I don't have anything more to say.”

I smiled pleasantly. “I'm not a cop, Norma. I'm an antique dealer. Your husband's body was found in an antique clothes cupboard. The armoire in question belonged to me.”