Statue of Limitations (20 page)

“A
bby, at least wait until I get there.”

“I'll be fine, Toy. Harriet Spanky let me in, and I'd be willing to bet my shop—even the one up in Charlotte—that the so-called Zimmermans were watching me through their window.”

“Where's the creep now?”

“He's taking a call in the den. I'm in the living room, which, by the way, is absolutely stunning. You didn't tell me the walls were covered with silk damask. That shade of peach is just what I've been looking for. I wonder if Fisher remembers who did the work and where they got the material.”

“Sis, you're there to tie up a few loose ends, not to engage in a fashion powwow.”

“But that's my plan of attack. I'll ask a few casual questions and then—I've got to go. He's coming back.”

I barely had time to slip my oversize phone back
into my purse. In fact I was fumbling with the zipper when Fisher Junior strode into the room.

“Sorry about that, Mrs. Washburn. That was my rector who called. Apparently his secretary lost the list of hymns I'd requested for Marina's service. He needed them now, or it would be too late to include them in the service leaflet. I chose ‘Be Still My Soul' and ‘Amazing Grace.'”

“They're beautiful hymns,” I said. But I felt like a first-class heel. What if I was wrong about Fisher? What if Fisher wasn't guilty of his wife's murder? One thing for sure, I was going to skip the silly decorating questions.

“I'm glad you like the hymns. They were Marina's favorites.” He glanced at the French ormolu clock on the white painted mantel. “I don't have a lot of time, Mrs. Washburn. How can I help you?”

“By telling me the truth. Were you and the woman who calls herself Estelle Zimmerman childhood sweethearts?”

I'll give the man credit for having remarkable composure. Other then fixing his colorless eyes on mine, I could detect no reaction.

“Yes, it's true.”

“It is?”

He gestured to a Louis XV fauteuil. The chair was upholstered in a floral needlepoint, which contained small touches of peach that tied it to the walls beautifully. I was grateful for the chance to
sit. My knees were knocking like the pistons of my very first car, one that leaked oil so badly our neighbors complained to the city that I was ruining their street.

“Mrs. Washburn,” my host said calmly, “I was hoping you'd have that conversation with the Simonsons.”

“You
were
?”

“I thought it would save me time. Plus, I thought it might be useful to get your take on them. Have you spoken with the Keatings as well?”

“You were involved with Irena, too?”

“Involved? Certainly not romantically. But I did know her. Whenever the Three Musketeers met—and it was usually here—they brought their families. The Thomases, by the way, are legitimate guests and have nothing to do with the Three Musketeers. If they seem a little odd to you, it's because they're having an affair. He's from Chicago and she's from St. Louis. He was quite up front about it to me—wanted to know if I would be discreet. I told him it wasn't any of my business. Anyway, you do know about the Three Musketeers, don't you?”

“Yes.” With the wind taken out of my sails, I was with nothing but a bunch of sagging cloth. It seemed to have wrapped around my tongue.

“Do they think I'm guilty of my wife's murder?”

I yanked my lingua loose enough to form some simple words. “I haven't spoken to the Keatings about it, just the Simonsons. They didn't accuse you, but I don't think they've eliminated you from their list of suspects.”

“Is that what you have, Mrs. Washburn? A list of suspects?”

“Well, I know my friend, Wynnell Crawford, didn't do it. Therefore, it had to be someone else.”

“And I'm at the top of your list, am I? Allow me to try and guess why. Let's see”—he rested his chin on a closed fist and pretended to think—“ah, yes, my motive would have been the ultimate payback to a cheating wife. How's that? Do I pass detecting class?”

“I can do without your sarcasm, Mr. Fisher. And yes, I can see how a philandering wife could provoke someone into committing murder.”

“But don't you think murder is going too far? If I really wanted to punish her, I would have drugged her and had someone tattoo a scarlet A on her forehead. Think how that would go over in Charleston.”

I had to admit that a scarlet A would take the prize. Death is a onetime thing, then it's over, but even with the advent of lasers, some tattoos are almost impossible to obliterate. At the very least, the experience can be painful.

“And what about the statue?” he said, not giv
ing me time to answer. “It goes missing for sixteen years, and then suddenly shows up in our garden. Do you think I would have risked drawing attention to myself by committing murder? Not to mention the fact that it happened the very day I had guests coming into town.”

“Why
did
you call others? If the maquette just showed up, like you claim, why didn't you and Marina keep mum about it?”

He smiled, and I found myself both surprised and relieved. “You have a good head on your shoulders, Mrs. Washburn. I like that. But you see, the statue wasn't put in my wife's flower bed by fairies. Someone put it there, and we didn't know who. It seemed like the wise thing to do was to call for backup. More importantly, the maquette belongs to all of us—the descendants of the Three Musketeers.”

“But that's where you're wrong; it belongs to whomever your fathers stole it from. For your information, Mr. Webbfingers, there is no such thing as a statute of limitations on stolen property.”

The watery eyes seemed to freeze into glittering disks. “Says who?”

“Call your lawyer if you don't believe me. Better yet, call one of those legal hotlines that answer questions from anonymous callers.”

“Like I said, I have things to do. Please see yourself out, Mrs. Washburn.”

He turned and walked from the room. A moment later I heard the side door slam and then the engine of his car. The squeal of tires confirmed the fact that Fisher Webbfingers was in a hurry to go somewhere.

I settled back into the fauteuil. What if I'd been way off base and a man with something to hide wouldn't have left a proven snoop alone in the house? Unless it was a trap. But how obvious was that? At least as obvious as leaving a petite pair of shoes—

“Mrs. Washburn,” a voice said, breaking through my reverie.

I sat bolt straight. “Harriet?”

The elderly maid was standing in the pillared doorway of the living room. In her gnarled hand the ugly black barrel of a handgun bobbed menacingly.

 

Once, in my single days, I took a self-defense class. The instructor said that the single most important lesson we could learn was never,
ever
, get into a car with your assailant. If you do, he said, you surrender all control. He also stressed the fact that handguns are frequently inaccurate, and that a moving target is difficult even for an expert marksman to hit.

He made us chant the word “run” like a mantra.

That was all well and good from a theoretical
standpoint. But when faced with a real gun, I found that my legs had apparently not been paying attention during class. Try as I might, I couldn't get them to move until Harriet pressed the muzzle against my left temple and threatened to blow my copulating brains out.

My Judas legs betrayed me by obeying her command to walk beside her into the kitchen. There they gave out. I guess I can't blame them, because the rest of me almost fainted when I saw the enormous man wielding a crowbar just inside the back door.

The giant, who was dressed in faded bib overalls, was both barefoot and shirtless. Sweat streamed over rolls of blubber, disappearing into crevices and then appearing again, all while creating ribbons of white against a dirt gray background. He had no noticeable neck, but his head made up for this flaw by being twice as wide as it should have been. His bloated cheeks resembled a pair of volleyballs, and it took me a second to notice that he was smiling. From what I could see, he had exactly three teeth.

“This is my baby boy Nolan,” Harriet said, just as proud as if she was introducing the Prince of Wales.

“Pleased to meet you, ma'am,” Nolan said, and thumped the crowbar against the callused palm of his hand.

I had nothing to say,

“Mama, I don't think she likes me.”

“She likes you just fine, son.” The gun pressed harder against my skull. “Don't you, Mrs. Washburn?”

“Yes ma'am,” I heard my Benedict Arnold mouth say. “Pleased to meet you, Nolan.”

“That's better. You see, Mrs. Washburn, my Nolan here has taken quite a shine to you over the last couple of days.”

Nolan revealed a fourth tooth.

“I don't see how,” I said. “We've never met.”

“I seen you, ma'am. I says to myself, ‘Nolan, you gotta admire a woman who can drive fast like that and not get rattled.'”

“So that was you driving the blue pickup!”

His grin widened—there were no more teeth—as he balanced on the outer sides of his feet. A twelve-year-old schoolboy with a crush is what came to mind.

“She ain't a pretty sight, Mrs. Washburn, but she got her a whole lot of power. Just you wait and see.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“He means that you'll be taking a little ride,” Harriet said.

“If it's all the same, I'd rather not. I get motion sickness when I'm that high off the ground. That's one of the reasons why I don't own an SUV.”

Harriet cackled like a hen who'd just laid her first egg. “If you get motion sickness, then you ain't gonna like what we've got planned for you.”

“And what would that be?”

Nolan's massive face looked about to dissolve, like the head of a snowman in a winter rain. “Mama. Do we hafta?”

“Have to what?” I demanded.

“Kill you,” Harriet said. “And the answer is yes.”

T
here were two of them and a gun, versus me and my mouth. They won. While Nolan, who may have been crying as much as sweating, held me in his viselike grip, Harriet bound my wrists and ankles with duct tape. Mercifully, they didn't tape my mouth. Perhaps they decided that I was too entertaining to mute. Either that or Nolan was hopeful that he and I would exchange sweet nothings during my last minutes on earth.

When they were through trussing me like a turkey, Harriet slipped a cloth sack over my head. Then without as much as a grunt, Nolan swung me over his should like bag of laundry and carried me to his truck, where I was propped up in the middle of the seat. Mother and son took their places on either side.

“What happens if we get stopped by the police?” I asked as we sped along at what I guessed to be twice the speed limit.

“Ain't none of your concern,” Harriet snapped.

“You know that some of the guests must have seen me being carried out.”

“What they seen was a bag of laundry.”

“You'll never get with away with it.”

“Shut up, Mrs. Washburn.”

“I'm afraid I can't. It's not in my nature.”

“Mama,” Nolan wheezed, “ain't she just the spunkiest thing?”

Harriet snorted. “Baby Boy, I warned you not to get attached to her. You start thinking about all them things we're gonna buy with the statue money.”

Baby Boy?
Baby Huey was more like it. But one thing was becoming rapidly clear: there would be no use in trying to pit mother against son. Experts say that kidnapping victims stand a better chance if they can humanize themselves in the eyes of their captors. It appeared that I had a good start with Nolan.

I wiggled closer to the big guy, snuggling up against the wet rolls of fat. Although Nolan's body odor was so strong I thought I might retch, I made sure that the length of my thigh pressed into his.

“Do you like to travel, Nolan?”

“Don't know. Ain't never been nowhere—excepting for Florence.”

“Florence, Italy?”

“They got one of them over there, too?”

“So you mean Florence, South Carolina. That's a lovely city as well. You know, Nolan, I was thinking—”

Harriet yanked me in her direction. The woman was remarkably strong for her age, I'll give her that.

“I thought I told you to shut up.”

“I was just making polite conversation.”

“You ain't fooling me, Mrs. Washburn. I know what you're up to, and it ain't gonna work. Nolan don't even breathe without I say so.”

For a nanosecond I thought about pressing the flesh with Harriet. But it was my tongue that had gotten me into this jam, so it would be my tongue that got me out again.

“That isn't a real statue, Harriet. It's just a model.”

“I'm not stupid, Mrs. Washburn. I already know that.”

“You do?”

“It's what they call a maquette. Mrs. Webbfingers told me all about it.”

I gasped, sucking in a mouthful of filthy sack, which I promptly spit out. “Then you must know about the Three Musketeers.”

“Yes, ma'am, I sure do. I told you I been work
ing for this family a long time, didn't I? Knowed them guests, too, the ones who changed their names. Funny, but I don't think they recognized me.” She chortled. “But it ain't no surprise, me being just the maid. Rich folks can look at you all day, but they don't see you.”

“That's because they're snobs.”

“Don't you be agreeing with me none, Mrs. Timberlake. Baby Boy might fall for your games, but not me.”

The truck halted at a stoplight. It occurred to me to hop up and down as much as I could, or at least wiggle like a worm about to be impaled on a hook. There aren't too many laundry bags that can do that on their own. Surely someone would spot me and report the strange phenomenon to the police. In the end it was the pressure of the gun barrel, this time against my gut, that stopped me.

“I'm sorry, Harriet. I won't do that again. But since it's obvious that I'm not going to come out of this alive, you may as well tell me the whole story. I'm sure it's very interesting.”

“Mama,” Nolan bawled, “you didn't say nothing about killing her.”

“Hush, Baby Boy. Your mama knows best. Ain't I always done the right thing by you?”

“Yes, Mama.” He started to sniff, and I was
pretty sure it wasn't because sweat had gotten into his nose.

“So Harriet, how about filling me in? How long have you known about the maquette?”

She was silent for a while, but I was just a bag of laundry, not long for this world, and she had some powerful secrets to share. Triumph is far less fun when kept to oneself, and Nolan wasn't exactly the perfect listener.

“Since right after the war.”

“World War Two, right?”

“Yeah, back when the world was normal. Not like it is today, with all them preverts and the like trying to take over things. Anyways, one Sunday—and this was way before Hurricane Hugo—Baby Boy's daddy and I was out crabbing. Sunday is my day off, you see. Has been ever since I started working for them Webbfingers, when I weren't but fifteen years old. Anyways, I don't let nothing stop me from attending the house of the Lord. So we was out crabbing, like I said, and we seen this boat with three men in it poking about them marsh channels like they was up to something fishy. I seen it first, so I tell Baby Boy's daddy—his name was Bubba Boy—to get down—not like that would do much good—and then I get down, and we sort of spied on them.”

“Tell her who you seen in the boat, Mama.”

“I am about to, son.” At first I thought she was pausing for dramatic effect. Then I heard Nolan whimper. “Stop your whining, Baby Boy.”

“Yes, Mama.”

The barrel pushed against my abdomen. “Now where was I?”

“Three men in a tub,” I said quickly. “Rub-a-dub-dub.”

“You're plum local, Mrs. Washburn, so I'll ignore that. And yeah, it was three men, but you'd never guess who they was.”

“Fisher Webbfingers Senior, his friend Mr. Simonson, and Professor Keating.”

She swatted me, knocking me into Baby Boy's shoulder. I bounced back to my upright position as easily as if he'd been a trampoline.

“That ain't fair, Mrs. Washburn, knowing all them answers ahead of time. Where's the fun of it for me?” Mercifully, she didn't wait for an answer. “Anyways, what they was doing was trying to hide this statue on one of them bitty islands that ain't hardly an island. Took them awhile to find just the right one, but they did. Soon as they left for good, me and Bubba Boy goes and finds that statue and puts it in our boat.”

“Dang, but that thing is heavy,” Nolan said. “Even for me.”

“Now didn't I tell you to shush?”

“Sorry, Mama.”

“I told Mrs. Webbfingers Senior what we'd seen, only I don't tell her what we'd done—that we'd already taken the dang thing. She says the statue is just a piece of junk, and that if I had a mind to, I should hide it under this big old camellia that Mr. Webbfingers Senior hated, on account of she got it from one of her beaus as a wedding present. Kinda like a joke, she said. So I done just that, and then I plumb forgot about it. But you see, the whole time she must have knowed it was worth a lot, but she didn't care, on account of there was about as much loving going on between them old Webbfingers as there was between the young ones. Anyways, she had her own money.

“Well them years just go ticking by, and Baby Boy here is born, and Bubba Boy dies, and so does Mr. Webbfingers Senior and his missus, and then finally along comes Hurricane Hugo. Well, who woulda thought it possible, but that Hugo messes everything up, even that itty-bitty island. So Mr. Webbfingers Junior gets it in his head to see how his daddy's statue is faring—he has him a little map drawed and everything—but there ain't nothing there for him to admire.”

“Then what?” My excitement was genuine.

“Mr. Webbfingers Junior 'bout went crazy, that's what. Combed them marshes like he was looking for nits. Them other kids of the Musketeers come
back to help him look, but of course they don't find nothing. And all the time I'm laughing behind the back of my hand, on account of them society folks is so bent out of shape over nothing. Finally, the Musketeers give up—I mean, what else they gonna do? Then you come along, Mrs. Washburn—”

“Moi?”

“And that dang statue suddenly appears in the flower bed. Mr. Webbfingers was fit to be tied. Called his buddies right away. But when them kids of the Musketeers showed up and they all got to talking, I kept my ears open, that's what I did. Learned that that hunk of stone is worth a million dollars. Maybe more. And it lying there under that camellia the entire time!”

“It's probably worth even more than a million.”

She grunted. “You see, Baby Boy?”

“But I didn't mean to kill her, Mama.”

“I know you didn't, baby.” She jabbed me again with the gun barrel. “You see what you done? If you and that friend of yours hadn't showed up, this would never have happened.”

“But you knew about the statue all along!”

“Only I didn't know what it was worth. A million dollars might not mean much to you, Mrs. Timberlake, but me and my son can't even dream about that much money. Now where was I?”

“About to describe the dastardly deed itself?”

“T'weren't bastardly. Wasn't nothing like that supposed to happen—it just kinda did. I tell Baby Boy to get the statue in the middle of the night and switch it with this cheap one we find at one of them junk stores. You see, he was supposed to do it when everyone was asleep. But that afternoon he has himself a few beers, and reckons he'll get the job over with early. So he comes over to the house, gets him the statue, and puts it in the truck. Then he remembers he's supposed to put the cheap one in the flower bed, so he goes back to the house with it, but before he can even put the dang thing down, Mrs. Webbfingers sees him and starts hollering. That's when Baby Boy panicked and did what he done.”

“I didn't mean to hit her so hard, Mama.”

“I knowed you didn't.” I could feel her reaching around me, presumably to pat him on the arm.

“So let me get this straight,” I said, after I'd waited long enough, “Baby Boy—I mean, Nolan—panicked again and tossed the bloody replica into the harbor.”

“That's right. And now that you know the whole thing, just you hush, too, on account of all this talk is upsetting my son.”

At last I was happy to be quiet. And for the time to think.

 

We drove for at least half an hour. When we got to our destination, some obscure dirt put-in on a marsh channel, Harriet mumbled something as she slipped off the laundry bag. The sunlight blinded me to distraction, and I asked her to repeat what she'd said.

“I said, it ain't right that you go to Glory and don't see how you get there.”

“This is it? You're going to kill me now.”

She cackled again. “We ain't gonna kill you, Mrs. Timberlake; that would be against the Bible. We're gonna let the crabs do you in.”

“Excuse me?”

“Baby Boy here's been working hard on this extra big crab pot. When them critters get done with you, won't be nothing left but bones. Who knows, maybe they eat bones, too. Ain't never tried to feed them any.”

“That's still murder. And killing Mrs. Webbfingers was murder as well.”

“Mama, make her stop saying that.”

“You see what you done?” Harriet demanded. She didn't wait for an answer. Instead she whacked me on the left side of the head with the butt of her gun.

I didn't see stars, perhaps because it was broad daylight. I did, however, taste blood. It took a minute for the world to stop swirling.

“You'll never get away with this, Harriet. Someone's bound to see us.”

“Not here they ain't. Not until duck hunting season. Besides, it's high tide now.”

I watched in fascinated horror as mother and son unloaded a small boat and what looked like a giant lobster trap. The only thing left in the bed of the trunk was an aluminum anchor attached to about six feet of chain. Maybe it went with the boat, or maybe they were going to use it to tether the crab pot to one place. It didn't matter, though, because a better use popped into my head.

“Harriet, dear, do I at least get to pray first?”

“What?”

“You assumed I'm going to Glory, but the truth is, I'm just a lapsed Episcopalian. Don't you think I should make things right with the Lord first?”

She sighed heavily. “It's not like you didn't have plenty of time on the ride over.”

“Yes, but we Episcopalians kneel when we pray. Surely, you don't have anything against kneeling.”

“Hmm. Then kneel. It don't bother me none.”

“Thanks. But somehow it doesn't seem right to pray with my feet tied together. My hands, I understand, but my feet—I don't think that's respectful.”

“I don't see how it ain't.”

“Nolan, you understand, don't you? Have you ever prayed with your feet tied?”

“No ma'am.” He turned to his mother like an oversized cuckoo bird chick begging to be fed. “Mama, just her feet, okay?”

Harriet turned the gun and brought it up to eye level. “Okay, but if you try anything, I'll shoot. Then I'll most likely be really mad, on account you caused me to sin, so I'll shoot you again.”

“I understand.”

Nolan did the honors. His touch was tender, causing me to doubt that he would have used the crowbar back at the house, unless unusually provoked. Harriet was another matter. I was convinced that she would happily blow my head to smithereens, and repent of it later.

I had only a second in which to react. As the last bit of tape ripped loose, I brought one knee forward, where it connected solidly with Baby Boy's nose. He stumbled, and while he struggled in vain to regain his footing, I leaped as high as I could, throwing myself against the lowered tailgate of the truck. With hands still tied, but outstretched, I managed to grab a few inches of the anchor rope.