Gilt by Association (8 page)

“Well, about the furniture. You don't remember any family legends attached to it?”

“Nothing.”

I thanked her for her time and turned to walk away.

“But I wouldn't have sold it like Amy did,” she whispered to my back.

I twirled. My kids claim I can hear a mouse fart on the other side of the house.

“I beg your pardon?”

She smiled, her brown eyes apparently unafraid to meet mine. “I just meant that Aunt Lula Mae's furniture had sentimental value to me. Squire and I used to play in that armoire when we were kids.”

When I said good-bye to her a second time I was thoroughly confused. If that was the case, then why hadn't she expressed dismay when I first told her about the body in the armoire? Why the silly story about her husband hiding in a closet? Although she was one of the most innocuous people I'd spoken to that day—Mama included—Hattie Bowman Ballard was also the most suspicious.

I
t had been one of the longest days of my life. My dogs were barking—Mama's expression for sore feet—and I had a migraine that reduced my vision to about forty percent. All I wanted to do was to pop back a couple of pain relievers, soak my tired tootsies, and crawl into bed. I certainly was in no mood to entertain.

“Come right on in and take a load off your feet,” Rob Goldburg bellowed. “Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes.”

For a second there I thought I had the wrong house. Then I saw my familiar beige furniture and cream-colored walls. The Rob-Bobs wouldn't be caught dead living in such drab surroundings. And plus which, my key had turned the lock, and that was my cat Dmitri, fast asleep on top of the home entertainment center.

“Uh—” It hurt even to smile.

“We knew you had a hard day and wanted to surprise you,” Rob shouted. To be honest, he may have been speaking in a conversational tone, but with the state my head was in, even a whisper was too loud.

“That's very kind of you,” I mouthed.

“Here.” Rob thrust a foamy concoction at me that looked like milk. “Drink this, it will cure what ails you.”

I had nothing to lose and gulped it down. It was warm and slightly bitter, but it did the trick. In a few minutes
my vision began to return, and even my tootsies felt better.

“What was that?” I whispered.

“Goat's milk with a couple of aspirin dissolved in it. Bob said he learned that trick from some shepherds in Morocco.”

“Did I hear my name taken in vain?” Bob appeared at the kitchen door wearing one of my bib aprons. Even though he is a slight man, the apron was far too small.

Rob smiled at his partner. “You were right. She came dragging in with one of those goddamn headaches.” He turned to me. “When we came by to feed Dmitri, we had just been to the store. Rob said it was a shame to waste tonight's goodies on just the two of us. So here we are.”

“You tell her the big surprise yet?” Bob asked.

“What surprise?” I demanded.

They grinned like a pair of Cheshire cats.

“Tell me now, or you can't stay for supper.” Never mind that they made it. It was
my
kitchen, after all.

Rob took a deep breath. “Okay, here goes. We fixed you up with a date.”

“What?”

“More goat's milk?” Bob asked kindly.

“Forget the damn goat's milk,” I snapped. “What date? With whom? When?”

“With Bob's podiatrist,” Rob said. He looked ready to duck. “Tomorrow evening. Dinner at the restaurant of your choice.”

“I can't believe it!” I screamed. “Are you two trying to take over my life?”

“We could cancel the date,” Bob said. He sounded hurt. “Arvin is a super nice guy, though. I promise. I just know you two would get along.”

“And I hear he's handsome,” Rob said and rolled his eyes.

“That's just what I need,” I said, “a date with a hand
some podiatrist. Instead of holding hands, he can rub feet.” I paused. “You know, it does have some appeal at that.”

“It would make Craig jealous as hell,” Rob said.

“That's Greg, dear. I'll think about it.”

“That's a yes,” Rob said triumphantly.

My kitchen timer went off.

“Ah, my cue,” Bob said. He turned to go back into the kitchen. “Supper will only be another minute, I promise. Can you wait?”

I nodded, amazed that my head no longer hurt. The truth was, I could wait all night if it meant not having to eat one of Bob's dinners. The man is supposed to be an excellent chef—or so I hear—but his cooking, like his medicinal remedies, tends to be on the exotic side.

“It's Cajun tonight,” Rob said proudly.

“Oh.”

“He's trying to learn how to cook Southern. You have to give him credit for that.”

“Cajun is Louisiana,” I said. “This is the Carolinas.”

Rob shrugged. “In Toledo where he comes from, it's all the same. We'll straighten him out eventually.”

Bob called us into the dining room with that deep bass voice of his, the one that could calm the Bosporus Strait. On the table was a huge pot of gumbo, bowls of rice, and a platter of boiled crawfish.

“The crawfish come first,” Bob directed. “And no fair just eating the tails. We have to suck the heads.”

Despite the goat's milk with aspirin, my headache was returning. “Eating shellfish is against my religion,” I said.

Bob blinked in surprise. “Really?”

Rob laughed. “She's Episcopalian. I'm the Jew. But I don't think either of us are up to sucking the heads. How about we just watch?”

Bob was disappointed, but he attacked the platter of
crawfish with enough gusto for the three of us. While he ate, Rob and I talked. When I mentioned Jimbo and Skeet, Rob banged his fist down on the table hard enough to make our forks jump.

“Those snot-nosed, lazy-assed sons of bitches? What the hell were they doing delivering your merchandise?”

“They work for Purnell Purvis,” I reminded him.

“They're a couple of assholes,” Rob said.

Clearly there was a story there and I asked him to share it. He snorted a couple of times like a bull about to charge a matador.

“I bought a pair of life-size blackamoors from Purvis last year. Eighteenth-century, black marble and gilt. Both holding torches. Beautiful, but I paid far too much for them. Somebody kept bidding me up.”

“That was me,” I said. “I couldn't afford them then, but I'd never seen anything quite like them. I wanted them so bad I could taste them.”

“They cost me twelve grand,” Rob said. “You have expensive tastes.”

“Now you're starting to sound like Buford, dear,” I said gently. “Get back to Jimbo and Skeet.”

“Oh, them. Well, they treated my blackamoors like they were hunks of concrete. They didn't have them wrapped. Not a single blanket around them. Nothing. As a consequence one of the pair got scratched. A good-size nick, really.”

I sucked in my breath. “Ooh.”

“Those lazy-assed bastards tried to claim the statue was already like that. The hell it was! I inspected both statues at the preview. They were in exceptional condition.”

“I remember. Did Purvis make good on the damage?”

Rob snorted. “Hell, he gave me a goddamn rebate, but what good did that do? I wanted the pair for myself—in mint condition like I found them. I ended up selling them for a tidy profit, but that wasn't what I was after.”

“Of course not. I'm surprised Purvis didn't fire those two.”

“He can't,” Bob said, licking his fingers. The platter of crawfish had been properly decimated.

“Oh?” I asked.

“They're his sons,” Bob said. “Jimbo and Skeet Purvis.”

Rob and I exchanged glances. Even though he was a newcomer, Bob knew a lot more about some of the people around us than we did. Perhaps, as a Yankee, he didn't know it was bad form to ask personal questions.

“Funny,” I said, “but they don't look at all like Purvis. Or each other, for that matter.”

Bob ladled gumbo over the rice in my bowl. “Different mothers, that's why. And Jimbo does sort of look like Purvis—if you put another eighty pounds on him. And a red nose.”

“You're mean,” I said. “But since you know so much about them, tell me this. Do you think either of them is capable of murder?”

The ladle hung, dripping, in mid-air. “We are all capable of murder, Abigail, under the
right
conditions. But if you're asking me if these two are more capable than some, I'd have to say yes.”

A goose ran over my grave, as Mama is fond of saying. “Why? I mean, why especially these two?”

The ladle came down, smothering my rice with spicy gumbo. “The odds, Abigail, that's why. Pure statistics. Neither man is educated, married, or gainfully employed.”

“They work for Purvis,” Rob said.

The ladle came down with more goodies for my rice. “Purvis pays them shit—pardon my language, Abigail. Bob is right, they're both lazy. If they worked for anyone else but their father, they would have been fired a long time ago.”

“I see,” I said. I took a bite of the gumbo. It was delicious.

“Well, I don't,” Rob said. “If you ask me, those two are too damn lazy to step on their own shadows, much less kill someone.”

Bob shrugged. “I was just telling her my opinion.”

“Well, you're scaring her,” Rob said.

It was awfully sweet of Rob to be concerned on my behalf, but I wasn't afraid of Jimbo and Skeet. They didn't look like they had the energy to kill anyone. They certainly didn't have the energy to kill someone
and
drag the corpse all the way to my place.

“I was wondering if they knew the victim,” I said.

“Could be,” Rob said. He patted my arm needlessly. “You haven't told us the corpse's name yet. He does have one, doesn't he?”

“Arnold Ramsey.”

“Holy shit!” Rob said.

“You know him?”

Rob stood up, knocking his chair backward, but he managed to catch it before it hit the floor. “No, I don't know him. But I think I heard someone cough outside. Over there by the window.”

“Here? Now?” The goose that had run over my grave returned and did a quick dance.

“Shhh. Stay put,” Rob said.

He tiptoed to the door, opened it as soundlessly as any cat burglar, and slipped out. The door closed behind him with only a soft hiss.

I waited, my heart thumping. I didn't notice Bob's absence until he returned from the kitchen wielding a rolling pin.

“You never know,” he said sheepishly.

When Rob returned the door closed with a thud. “It's too damn dark out there,” he growled, “but there was
somebody there all right. He held up a cigarette butt. The tip was still glowing.

“I'm calling the police,” Bob said, and was dialing before I could stop him. Not that I would have, of course, unless I'd known that it would be Greg Washburn, Investigator, who showed up.

The Rob-Bobs discreetly, and unnecessarily, took their bowls of gumbo and disappeared into the kitchen. Then even more unnecessarily, Bob sneaked back in and handed Greg a clean bowl and spoon.

“Don't mind if I do,” Greg said. He sat down and tucked a napkin into his shirt, just as casually as if he were dining at home.

I thought it presumptuous of the man, and couldn't resist telling him so. He smiled.

“I've decided to break it off,” he said.

“What?”

“With Deena. Seeing you again this morning made me realize I might have made a mistake.”

“
Might
have?”

“All right. I screwed up. But damn it, Abby, I missed you.”

Just like a man, I thought. Misses me, so he goes out with someone else. Someone with more plastic in her body than Barbie.

“You have a fine way of showing it,” I snapped. “Does this Deena person know you're breaking it off with her?”

He shook his head. “I was on my way over there when Bob's call was patched through. But I plan to tell her tonight, I swear.”

“Go easy on her,” I said generously. Unless Deena had less heart than Barbie, she was going to be hurt.

“Does this mean things are, uh, okay between us?”

“What?” I asked incredulously.

He reached for my hand. His long dark lashes fluttered
involuntarily. Half of me wanted to jump into his arms; the other half wanted to slap him.

“Hold it right there, buster,” I said in my gruffest voice. “Two and two do not make five.”

“Hey, I admitted I screwed up. And I promised I'd talk to her tonight.”

I pounded the table with my fist, but nothing even rattled. “You don't get it, do you? You can't turn Deena off like a faucet, and then when you turn it back on, there I am.”

“You're right. I don't get it, Abby. What do you want me to do? Fall down on my hands and knees and beg?”

I sighed. “Time, Greg. That's what I want.”

Those uncannily blue eyes registered confusion. “How much time? A week? A month?”

“At least until the day after tomorrow,” I said. “I have a date tomorrow night.”

He had the temerity to chuckle. “Yeah, right.”

“A podiatrist named Arvin.”

“You're a hoot, Abby.”

“I'm deadly serious.” I stood up. “Now about this Peeping Tom. Can you tell if it was Jimbo or Skeet?”

Greg stood up as well. Even though he was still wearing the napkin, he looked as adorable as ever. It was going to take all the willpower I could muster to keep him at arm's length just for the evening—never mind a week.

“It wasn't either of them,” he said authoritatively.

“No? How can you be so sure?”

He held up the cigarette butt Rob had brought inside. “There's lipstick on this. Pink lipstick. Does that sound like your Jimbo and Skeet?”

I studied the butt without touching it. I could see a faint smudge of pink, but I wouldn't have noticed it without having it pointed out to me.

“A woman then,” I said stupidly.

Greg cracked a smile and I got a fleeting glimpse of
his incredibly white teeth. “That's my guess. Any friends or neighbors who smoke?”

“None who like to do so in the bushes.”

“Touché.” He handed the butt to me.

“Wait,” I said, afraid to touch it with more than my fingernail tips. “Don't you need this for evidence?”

I got treated to the pearly whites in all their glory. “Evidence of what? This isn't a TV show, Abby. Smoking in your bushes was certainly bad manners, and whoever did it could be found guilty of trespassing
if
we caught her in the act, and
if
she had been properly warned. My guess is it was some local teenage girl, sneaking in a quick puff.”