Gilt by Association (5 page)

Allow me to explain that Kashmir sapphires are hands-down the finest in the world. They are not inky-blue like most Australian stones, they lack the telltale green tints of the many Thai stones, and their velvety color is even richer than that of their closest contenders in Sri Lanka. Carat for carat, a true Kashmiri sapphire of exceptional quality will cost far more than a diamond. Fifty thousand dollars per carat is not unheard of, and the stone Lottie Bell was so casually wearing had to be well over ten carats.

“Have you had that appraised, dear?”

Her thin penciled eyebrows arched innocently. “Whatever for? Daddy was always bringing home trinkets, but he hated spending his money. I'm sure it isn't worth much.”

I nodded vigorously. “But—”

She had a dry, raspy laugh. My son, Charlie, once owned an iguana that hissed like that.

“Anyway, I never take it off, you see. Sugar?”

I asked for four lumps. After the cream, it was in for the penny, in for the pound.

“It was very good of you to see me on such short notice,” I said.

She laughed again. “Goodness child, you wrote that letter at least a month ago. I hardly call that short notice.”

I took a sip of my sweet, white tea. It was ambrosia.

“What letter was that, ma'am?” I asked politely.

“Why, the one you sent along with your application from the agency. You suggested a time that suited you, and I agreed.”

“Ma'am?”

“Come, child, I'm the one who's supposed to be losing my memory.”

I took another quick sip of the tea, just in case it was my last. “I'm afraid there has been a mistake, Mrs. Bowman,” I said, tilting my chin up so she could read my lips clearly, if not loudly. “I never sent you a letter.”

She shook her head. “No mistake, dear. I have the letter somewhere here. Althea Terwiliger from Charleston, isn't that right? Recent graduate of Miss Emma Bromley's School of Lady Companions?”

“I beg your pardon?”

The old woman got up and sifted through a stack of letters on top of an ivory-inlay secretary.

“Here it is. It says you were to arrive—oh no, you're not due until
next
week!”

I shook my head. “I'm not a lady's companion, Mrs. Bowman. I'm Abigail Timberlake from Charlotte. Originally from Rock Hill. Proud owner and manager of the Den of Antiquity.”

I had to say it twice, and I could tell she heard me
when the hand wearing the enormous rock began to tremble. “You're
not
a lady's companion?”

“Not normally,” I said as casually as I could. “I'm an antique dealer.”

Her mouth tightened into a thin line. She was far too much of a lady to make a big stink—not without grave provocation—and I am just enough of a lady not to provoke her that far.

I smiled. “The tea was delicious.”

She smiled back. A couple more of those smiles and I would have to thaw out under a hot shower when I got home.

“Let me show you to the door.” It was an order, not an offer.

I trotted along obediently behind her. In the hallway the ancestors' smiles had turned into frowns. A few were glowering.

“I didn't come here to buy or sell anything,” I practically shouted.

She ignored me. At the front door she graciously read my lips one last time.

“I didn't come here on business,” I said. I moved my lips carefully. “I was hoping for some clue that might help the police solve the murder.”

She blinked. “What murder?”

“The murder of Arnold Ramsey. He was found dead in your sister-in-law's armoire.”

She gasped and then fainted. She did it all at once. Not like in the movies, where the heroine sags and then crumples like a stiff pair of dirty blue jeans. Lottie Bell Barras Bowman was fully conscious one second, and in the next instant headed for the floor like a ton of bricks. In all modesty I must report that I caught her, and prevented her from suffering any serious injury.

U
nfortunately my life seldom imitates the movies. I was quite unable to carry Lottie Bell Barras Bowman to one of her luxuriously upholstered couches. She was as unwieldy as a fifty-pound bag of potatoes and twice as heavy. It was all I could do to drag her away from the door and prop her up against the foyer wall. I had no idea where she kept her smelling salts (I wouldn't have known how to use them, anyway), but I did manage to find a cluster of ostrich plumes stuck in a vase on a marble-topped table halfway down the hall. A couple of light passes under her nose, and Lottie Bell came to with a sneeze.

“Bless you,” I said kindly.

She was either an Episcopalian or a Catholic, because she was up on her knees and then standing before she could say Jack Daniels—which, by the way, were the next words she said.

“Ma'am?”

“I said, Jack Daniels, child. It's in the decanter on my desk in the library. Be a dear and fetch it for me.”

Of course I hesitated. One doesn't normally abandon an octogenarian who has just passed out.

She struggled free of my supporting grip and leaned against the wall. “Are you deaf, child? I said, bring me my dear friend Jack.”

I was brought up to mind my elders so I obediently trotted off in search of Lottie Bell Barras Bowman's best buddy. I found the library easily enough. There had to be at least a thousand books in there—many of them leather-bound—and the stacks, which lined all four walls, towered to the ceiling. There was even a rolling stairs, and I was sorely tempted to climb it, just for the fun of it. But I stuck to business and retrieved the Jack Daniels.

Before I could ask her where to find a glass—there had been none in the library—Lottie Bell took a swig straight from the decanter. Then, being the proper lady that she was, she patted the corners of her mouth with an embroidered handkerchief that she fished out of the recesses of her ample bosom.

“Medicinal purposes,” she said.

She was studying my face, waiting for a response, so I laughed politely.

“No, I mean it. Doctor's orders. I have high blood pressure and the whiskey helps calm me down.”

I nodded. It is my policy never to argue with folks who are in the final quarter of their first century.

“Let's go back and finish our tea,” she said matter-of-factly.

The tea was a little too cool for my taste by then, but I drank a second cup dutifully. Between sips Lottie Bell and I chatted about innocuous subjects—the weather, where to buy the freshest shrimp, and the strange popularity of rayon. It was as if we were old, but not especially dear, friends.

“Tell me about the body,” she said suddenly.

I put my cup down carefully. It was a rare Limoges pattern, and replacements must be hard to find. I certainly had never seen one like it before.

“Ah yes, that. It was gruesome.”

“Cut up and all that, you mean?”

I shuddered. “Heavens no!”

She looked disappointed. “I am eighty-seven years old, child. I can take it, I assure you.”

“I'm sure you could, dear,” I said pointedly.

She stared at me with those faded eyes. “What? You don't possibly think—but you do, don't you?”

“Anything is possible, ma'am.”

I didn't really think Lottie Bell was capable of killing a strapping young man with anything less than a gun, but that didn't mean she wasn't capable of hiring someone who
was
.

She laughed, and it was the tone of her laughter that acquitted her. Mama laughed that way once when I was a little girl playing with my dolls, and had announced that my stomach hurt because I was going to have a real live baby any minute, just like Lorrie Anderson's mama. Still, one can't be too careful.

“I am not allowed to divulge the details,” I said.

She sighed. “Well, just the same, I'm sure it was horrible. And it is horrible for the Barras name, too, having a body discovered in one of our furniture pieces. I told Lula Mae not to will her things to
that
girl.”

I mouthed an “Oh?” Since she was reading my lips, I didn't actually have to say my words.

“Amy. Anyway, she was married to Squire less than a year. I hardly call that a marriage.”

“Squire?” I asked just by moving my lips. It was fun.

“Squire Cornelius Barras, my nephew. My brother Cyrus's only son. Lula Mae's, too, of course.”

“Of course.”

“When Squire killed himself—”

“Squire killed himself?”

She shrugged and took a quick nip at Jack. “Well, it's hardly news. It was in the papers, of course. And television.”

“When?”

She pursed her lips as she thought, and I was struck by
the symmetry of the wrinkles that circled her mouth. It was beautiful in its own way, like the furrowed cone of a volcano.

“Let's see,” she said, “it was '64 or '65. No, it had to be '65, because '64 was when Lula Mae and I took that trip together to Vegas, and Squire drove us to the airport.”

That explained it. I was a high-school junior in 1965. Society suicide was not high on my list of things to remember.

Lottie Bell had fallen silent. The volcano had disappeared and her face was serene, if not smooth. I wondered if she was back in Vegas with Lula Mae playing the one-armed bandits.

“Please go on.” I had to shout to get her attention.

She shook her herself and fixed her gaze on my mouth again. “Squire shot himself with a shotgun. He had made an error in judgment by acquiring another student's answers on a medical school exam. Unfortunately he was observed, and so the school was going to expel him.”

I nodded. The upper class can be quite creative when it comes to coining euphemisms for their crimes. Apparently cheating is a bourgeois term.

“Anyway,” she hastened to assure me, “he was always a neat boy—always so considerate—so of course he did it in the bathtub. With the shower curtain drawn. The suicide, I mean. That Amy girl found him.”

“How awful!”

The pale eyes narrowed slightly. “Yes, but that was no reason for Lula Mae to will family things to a virtual stranger. No one has seen hide nor hair of her for thirty years. That wasn't fair of Lula Mae, was it?”

I bobbled my head. Politicians take note. This is a trick I learned from my children. With enough practice it's possible to indicate “yes,” “no,” and “maybe” all at the same time.

Apparently I was still no expert at bobbling. “Well, she wasn't even blood,” Lottie Bell said indignantly. “And there were no children. It isn't right that family heirlooms should pass to a stranger. And then she sold them!”

I saw her point. That's exactly how I felt about Tweetie becoming stepmother to my children. Of course, Tweetie hasn't sold my children—yet!

“She wouldn't consider selling those pieces back to the family, before putting them up for auction?”

She shook her head vigorously. “And oh how we tried. Garland, that's my nephew—my sister Mimi's son, may she rest in peace—talked to her until he was blue in the face, but she wouldn't budge. She told Garland that since she was never treated like one of us, she didn't want to have anything to do with the family. Except to inherit our property.”

“Why didn't y'all just buy them at the auction?” I asked sensibly.

Lottie Bell recoiled in horror. “Gracious, child! How would that have looked? Buying our own things back in public!”

“
Trés declassé
,” I said with just a hint of sarcasm. “Did you talk to Amy yourself?”

“My blood pressure, remember? It would have gone through the roof. Pow—I might have exploded.”

She laughed, and I laughed with her. I could feel the beginning of a connection.

“Those four pieces,” she said, her eyes going from my mouth to my eyes, “were in the family at least five generations. I have a record of it somewhere”—she pointed in the general direction of the library—“but I can't remember exactly where. Just wait until you get to be eighty-seven.”

“One of the saddest things about being in the antique business is selling other folks' heirlooms,” I said.

“Those were
important
pieces,” she said.

“I know, dear. That's why I bought them. That armoire, in particular, was a lovely piece.”

She waved a bony hand. The skin stretched across it was as thin as an onion skin. Perhaps those lucky few who die from old age do so because their souls burst right through their skin.

“I'm not talking about the way they look, or their value. There is something about them that is truly special.”

I bobbled foolishly.

“Stop that, child. My granddaddy told me something about those pieces, but I can't for the life of me remember what.” She sighed, and her gaze left my face along with her thoughts.

I waited silently, as long as I dared, but when I saw that the papery skin on her cheeks was glistening with tears, I reached out and patted her hand ever so gently.

“There, there,” I said stupidly.

She made a single mewing sound, and then she was with me again, staring intently at my mouth. “What did you say, child?”

I scrambled for words. “Do you have Amy's address, ma'am?”

She had me retrieve her address book, which was on her desk in the library. I was gone only a minute, but when I got back it was plain to see that Lottie Bell and Jack Daniels had strengthened the ties of their friendship. I pretended not to notice.

Lottie Bell's gnarled fingers raked clumsily through the pages of the leather-bound book. “She lives down in Rock Hill,” she said. “On Grady Drive. You know where that is?”

I nodded. Mama lives in Rock Hill. I owed Mama a visit anyway.

 

I grew up in Rock Hill, which is in South Carolina, just across the border. The time was when Charlotte and Rock Hill were distinctly separated by twenty some miles of woods. Now that Rock is one of the fastest-growing urban-satellite cities in the nation, the distinction is becoming blurred. Still, Rock Hill has managed to hold on to much of its small-town charm, and I find my return visits there pleasant. And I must confess—although you may find it hard to believe—I actually enjoy time spent with my mother.

There was no point in calling Mama to tell her I was coming. Mama has unique psychic abilities that manifest themselves through her nose.

Mama was standing just inside her front door, waiting. “I could smell you coming,” she said.

I sniffed my armpits quickly. They were still fine.

“And there's trouble, isn't there?”

I told her about the body in the armoire. I also apologized for not having called her the second it was discovered.

“Lord have mercy,” she said several times over while she wiped her hands on the frilly white lap apron she wore.

Some time back in the late 1950s Mama entered a time warp and has yet to emerge. Her everyday uniform is a neatly tailored dress with a full circle skirt, a strand of pearls, and high heels. Of course the home version of the uniform includes an apron—Mama does her own housework. The away version has a pocketbook that matches both her shoes
and
the pillbox hat with its saucy little veil.

“Mama, everything's going to be all right,” I mumbled. I was a little miffed that
I
had to be the one to comfort
her
.

Mama smoothed the apron and folded her hands in her
lap. “Well, it's obvious that you haven't heard then, have you?”

“Heard what, Mama?”

Mama took a deep breath and half-closed her eyes. “Buford's been trying to reach you all day. He and Tweetie have decided to take the kids to Disney for Christmas.”

I gasped. “He can't do that! According to the settlement he gets Charlie during the school year, but I get him for vacations and holidays.”

I would have custody of Charlie
all
the time, if it weren't for the fact that Buford Timberlake is not only the best lawyer in both Carolinas, but—and maybe because of that—he's plugged into the good old boy system tighter than a three-inch cork in a two-inch bottleneck.

Mama still had her eyes halfway shut. “Honey, according to Buford there's a clause in the settlement that gives him the right to take the kids—well, Charlie at any rate, because Susan's on her own now—with him when he visits special places that will benefit them educationally.”

I headed for Mama's phone. “Well, we'll see about that. Disney World doesn't count. The children have both been there three times. Buford's going to have to think up something new.”

Mama closed her eyes all the way. “He has. They aren't taking them to Disney World, dear, they're taking them to EuroDisney.”

“France?”

Mama opened one eye. “They'll be leaving the day after school lets out for the holidays, and he promises to have them back in time for the new semester.”

I let loose with a string of invectives then that would make the Whore of Babylon blush. Words came out of my mouth that most retired sailors have yet to hear. Please believe me, I don't normally swear in the presence of my
mother. In fact. I normally eschew swearing altogether. But even a properly raised Southern lady has her limits. Besides, every one of those words I learned from Buford.

“You forgot to add asshole to the list,” Mama said calmly.

“Asshole!” I screamed.

Mama burst out laughing and after a few seconds so did I. We laughed like schoolgirls at a slumber party, alternating between giggles and gales, the one infecting the other. We laughed until our chests hurt. For a long time it was impossible to talk.

“I bet his ears are still burning,” she finally said.

“I hope there's nothing left of them but sizzling stumps,” I said. “Mama, you don't suppose I stand a chance of stopping him, do you?”