The Cane Mutiny (21 page)

I
leaned forward on my chair. “Who?”

“I can't say.”

“You mean you won't.”

“Don't you be telling me what I mean, Miss Timberlake.”

“Ooh, but Colonel, Abby is one of the smartest people I know. And so wise. Even Granny Ledbetter said I should listen to Abby, on account she was ten times wiser than a barn full of owls.”

A fleeting smile caused his mustache to jiggle. “As wise as all that?”

“C.J.,” I said, somewhat annoyed, “I read somewhere that owls are actually pretty ordinary when it comes to matters of the intellect. Are you calling me a birdbrain?”

“Shhh, Abby, I'm trying to help.”

“Thanks, dear. So Colonel,” I said, “you did at least tell the police who this person is, right?”

His features hardened, his wrinkles turning to
stone. “Why should I? So he can have a trial by his so-called peers, then sponge off the state for the rest of his life? The answer is an emphatic no! This weasel is going to beg for mercy, and I'll show him the same mercy he showed Roberta.”

“But sir,” I said, “you're just one person. The police have an entire department at their disposal. They even have dogs. Wouldn't the job get done quicker with lots of people working on it?”

“Ooh, not necessarily.”

“C.J., please. This is no time for a Shelby story.”

“This isn't a Shelby story. It's about Russians.”

“I'd like to hear it,” the colonel said.C.J. tossed her mane victoriously. “The Russians got this idea to breed domestic dogs, huskies, with jackals to produce search dogs with exceptional smelling abilities. But they discovered that hybrids, with fifty percent wild blood, were not as trainable as their husky parents. So the Russians bred the hybrids back to huskies and then got exactly what they wanted: small dogs with exceptional smelling abilities that could creep into small spaces to search for drugs, and that were easily trained.”

“I get it,” I said excitedly. “What you mean is that the dogs represent the police, and the Colonel represents the jackals, which means the hybrids must be Greg. Right?”

C.J. clapped her hands with glee. “You got it, Abby!”

The poor man looked like he wanted to check himself into the nearest old age home just to escape the likes of us. “I think you're both nuts,” he said.

“Wait and hear me out,” I said. “What she means is that my husband, Greg, while not the expert tracker you undoubtedly are, was a private detective. You could tell him what it is you don't want to tell us. I'm sure he could help.”

No sooner did I close my mouth than I regretted what I'd said. One of the blessings of Greg's career change is that now I don't find myself worrying every day that he might not come home alive. Taking a boat out to sea does have its risks, but at least Mother Nature is impartial. It's the thought of my darling having to deal with human children, drug-crazed and armed with semi-automatic weapons, that makes my blood run cold. By offering my beloved's services to the honorary colonel from Kentucky, I was agreeing to put Greg right back in harm's way.

Colonel Humphrey stared intently at me. Whereas for the last couple of days folks had done a pretty darn good job of reading my mind through my exceptionally thick skull, the Colonel seemed bent on getting at my gray matter through
the portals that were my eyes. He was taking so darn long I considered offering him the reading glasses I always carry in my purse.

Finally he spoke. “Well, I must be nuts to even consider this, Miss Timberlake, but I'd just as soon we kept it between the three of us and not involve your husband.”

“Are you saying you're going to trust us with your secret?”

“It's not
my
secret, Miss Timberlake; it's merely the truth. So, do I have your word that you will keep this information to yourselves?”

C.J. nodded vigorously. “Cross my chest and hope to choke, tell a soul and I will croak.”

“She means yes,” I said.

The Colonel leaned forward conspiratorially. “In that case, ladies, hang onto your seats.”

I
shall begin by telling you how I met Roberta Stanley.” His voice cracked and he paused for a few seconds, blinking rapidly, but no tears appeared. “I was on safari in the Kivu—”

“That's in the Congo,” I interjected for C.J.'s benefit.

“Ooh, Abby, I know all about the Congo. One of my seventeen languages is Tshiluba, and of course I speak Swahili.”

The Colonel had the temerity to glare at me, not her. “Actually, it was the Belgian Congo then. The first Mrs. Beauregard Humphrey and I were relaxing after a day's shooting around a roaring fire in the common area of Kushefa Lodge. Lake Kivu lies at a considerable elevation, you know, and the nights can be quite cool. At any rate, in walks this couple, also from America, and they are arguing vociferously. I cannot remember what the topic was, but at one point she tells him to shut up, and
he hauls back and hits her. She immediately hits him right back, and with a closed fist. There were other guests in the room as well, and some of the them applauded. I might well have remained a bystander, but the bully hits her again, and this time she falls. Virtually into my lap.

“‘I'm awfully sorry,' she said, ‘but it seems that whenever I try to stand on my own two feet, life knocks me right down again.' I sized up the twerp who'd punched her. Even Miss Timberlake could have laid him out.

“‘I beg your pardon, ma'am,'” I said, ‘but that wasn't life who knocked you down. That was your pint-sized husband with the Napoleon complex.'

“Well, as you can imagine, that didn't sit well with the little cockerel. ‘You want to make something out of it?' he said.

“‘Don't mind if I do,' I said, and gave the twerp the thrashing of his life.

“That night, after my wife went to bed, I was standing out on the verandah, enjoying the cold night air while observing the ghostly shapes of the volcanoes in the moonlight, and the woman whose husband I'd beaten comes out of the shadows to thank me for what I'd done. By now I'm sure you've guessed who that mystery woman was.”

“Roberta Stanley,” C.J. and I said together.

“Close, but no cigar.” C.J. raised her arm like a schoolgirl with the correct answer. “Was it Audrey Hepburn?”

“C.J.,” I chided her, “the Colonel doesn't have time for this.”

“Let me decide that,” the coot in question growled. “As a matter of fact, Miss Cox, you aren't so far off the mark. Miss Hepburn was in the Congo at the time filming
The Nun's Story.
She wasn't, however, up in Kivu Province.”

I feigned a yawn. “Colonel, with all due respect, do you mind getting to the point? I need to do some Christmas shopping.”

His eyes flashed, then twinkled. “Perhaps I am getting a tad long-winded, but I like to think that it's a prerogative that comes with age. The correct answer, ladies, is Aida Murray.”

I gasped in surprise. “It is?”

“Ooh, I used to love her books,” C.J. cooed. “
Tonem Sklat
was brilliant. She really outdid herself on that one. Did you read it, Abby?”

“I tried to, dear,” I said, “but I could barely get past the weird title. That was years ago, and I haven't picked up any of her books since.”

“
Tonem Sklat
is the name of the protagonist. But Abby, you did know, didn't you, that in order to really understand the book you have to read it backward?”

“Say what?”

The Colonel nodded. “Aida Murray was always an intellectual snob. She picked up the backward trick after listening to
Abbey Road,
by the Beatles, played backward. Supposedly there are hidden messages in that album about Paul McCartney being dead—which, of course, he wasn't.”

“
Abbey Road!
Now that's a good title,” I said. “Colonel, are you serious about having to read the book backward?”

“Oh definitely. When read the conventional way, Aida's novels are merely witty, relying far too heavily on humor and wordplay. When read backward, one discovers layer upon layer of literary depth. The woman is a genius—but trust me, she's also a witch. Or perhaps I should say
was;
she's been dead now for almost twenty years.”

“Colonel,” I said, “I regret to inform you that you've been singing ‘Ding-dong the witch is dead' for naught lo these many years. The witch, as you called her, is alive and well, and living in an oak tree on Johns Island.”

“That is stuff and nonsense,” he said gruffly. “Aida died while on safari, about ten years after we met. In those days big game hunters were like a loose-knit society; our paths crisscrossed like a cat's cradle. By chance one night my hunting party and hers bivouacked adjacent to each other
on the shores of Lake Victoria. She was high as a kite, having just received the news that
Tonem Sklat
had hit the number one spot on the
New York Times
best-seller list. She had too much to drink that night, and at some point must have wandered away from camp. After an extensive search over the next several days, she was officially listed as having drowned. Of course drowning was a euphemism for getting eaten by crocodiles. The lake is teeming with them, unlike Lake Kivu. Mac, her husband, was supposedly so distraught he didn't leave his tent until a private plane came to fetch him back to America. Ha. Distraught, my ass.”

He stared at the spot just to the left of me, as if watching the tragic incident play out on a TV screen. “There were no witnesses to Aida's death, so of course there were rumors. I can't recall them all, but the worst is that Mac was seen taking a small boat out into the lake and pushing something—possibly a rolled-up carpet—over the edge and into the water. If that something was—”

I jumped up and grabbed one of C.J.'s hands in both of mine. “Come on, dear, we've got miles to go before we sleep.”

“Ooh, Abby, don't be so silly. It's not even suppertime yet.”

“Miss Timberlake,” the Colonel said, disap
pointment creeping into his voice, “don't you want to hear the rest of the story?”

“I've already heard it, sir.”

 

I tried to sneak through the back door of my storeroom at the Den of Antiquity without Mama noticing. With C.J. along, that was like leading a dozen dancing elephants in pink tutus undetected through the floor of the Democratic National Convention. Just when I thought we'd made it, Mama burst into the storeroom from the shop entrance wielding a brass lamp.

“Eeeee-yahhhhh!” she shrieked, and assumed a pseudojujitsu pose.

If my heart had been free to jump out of my chest, it might have won me a spot on the Olympic broad jump team.

“Hey, Mozella,” C.J. said placidly. Apparently in Shelby it was common for little old ladies to shriek in foreign tongues and threaten one's person with lighting fixtures.

“Abby,” Mama said, lowering the lamp base, “are you trying to give your poor mama a heart attack?”

“
Excuse
me? C.J., check and see if I have any gray hairs?”

“Ooh, Abby, don't be silly. You dye your hair.”

“I most certainly do not!” I turned my attention
back to the world's biggest attention grabber. “Mama, what on earth were you doing? What if I had been a real intruder?”

“Abby, I took judo, or did you forget? I can defend myself.”

So it wasn't jujitsu. It is so hard to keep track of the petite progenitress and her myriad interests. Thank heavens she'd finally come to the conclusion that coal-walking was hard on her pedicures.

“Nonetheless, next time call 911.”

“Speaking of phones, dear, why didn't
you
call
me
to let me know you were coming?”

“Well—because—well, you know.”

Mama turned to C.J. “What is my daughter not telling me this time?”

C.J. shrugged. “The little one is hard to figure out sometimes, Mozella. But she did say she wanted us to sneak in because you tend to make everything about you, and that if you knew we were back here, we'd never be able to leave.”

“No offense taken, dear,” Mama said to her best friend. “But you, Abby, you can think again. All about me, is it? Was it all about me that I endured thirty-six hours of excruciating labor? Was it all about me that I cashed in a saving's bond to pay for your wedding to that unspeakable man up in Charlotte—oh, speaking of Charlotte, you'll never
guess who I saw today. She walked right into this shop.”

“Queen Elizabeth?” For the record, my answer was only partially sarcastic. Somehow Mama does manage meet to some very important people.

“No, but you're close. Guess again.”

“Camilla?” C.J. said, getting into the spirit of the game. “What a beautiful woman.”

“It was Rob's mother.”

“Our Rob?”

“Now
there's
a beautiful woman. Slender, well-dressed—she was even wearing those roach-killer shoes. Abby, this woman buys her purses at Moo-Roo.”

“That's nice,” I said.

“Dear, you don't seem surprised.”

“Bob told me she was coming. I helped him come up with a game plan to make sure she doesn't overstay her welcome.”

“Why, Abby, how you talk! Does that mean you and Greg have a game plan to get rid of me?”

“What?”

“Am I just a nuisance? Just an old lady that gets in the way so much you have to sneak into your own shop?”

“Oh, Mama, you're much more than that! You cook, you clean, you drop fresh bleach tabs into the toilet tanks—but most of all, I love your company.”

“You do?”

The cow bells strapped to the door jangled. If there wasn't already a customer out front, there was now.

“I do. Now please make yourself even more indispensable and man the fort, will you?”

“Aye aye, sir,” Mama said happily, and skipped from the room, slowing to squish her crinolines through the door.

“Abby, you are so lucky,” C.J. said.

“I know.” I walked over to a Balinese armoire with delicately carved drawers. The scene depicted was that of Lord Rama's kidnapped fiancée being rescued by the Garuda, a winged creature that is half bird and half man. I'd been deliberating the wisdom of keeping this exceptional piece for my own use rather than selling it. This dilemma, I've learned, is one that many antiques dealers face on a regular basis. Until I made up my mind, this handsome piece of furniture was going to be enjoyed fully by no one. In the meantime, it was a good place to store the bundle of canes I had decided not to sell to the Colonel.

I withdrew the bundle, which was wrapped in brown butcher paper, and spread the canes across a Federal period sofa. Sadly, my opinion of the pieces hadn't changed since the last time I'd laid eyes on them.

“They're not very attractive, are they, C.J.?”

“If they were children, Abby, I'd say ‘bless their hearts.'”

“That bad, huh?” I picked up one at random. “I think the Colonel got the only good one; the cane with the jade handle. Look at this. It's hardly even an antique. This staff was machine-turned.”

“Why are we doing this, Abby?”

“Because of this.” I tapped the handle. “What does this look like to you, Miss Cox?”

“A very ugly carving of an herbivore of some kind. Thompson's gazelle, I think, but in that case, the side stripes—”

“I mean, what do you think this is made of?”

“Some kind of horn?”

“C.J., you're only guessing.”

“Forgive me, Abby, but I don't want to be wrong. It feels horrible to be wrong. I was wrong on June thirtieth, 1987; April tenth, 1993; September—”

“My point is that you, who knows just about everything, can't identify this material. That can only mean that you haven't seen it before. C.J., have you ever seen a rhino horn?”

“Rhinos don't really have horns, Abby. What people call—”

“Could this be it?”

“Ooh, Abby, how do I know if I've never seen it?”

“Touché. But I bet dollars to doughnuts—just not Krispy Kremes—that these canes are worth a whole lot more on the black market than they are here on King Street. And I'll wager my thirdborn that I know who wants these canes bad enough to kill for them.”

“But Abby, you don't have a thirdborn.”

“Then I've got nothing to lose.”

 

Going off half-cocked seems to be a specialty of mine. I suppose, though, it is somewhat fitting, given that most of my ideas are half-baked. In my defense, I try not to be half-assed in my execution of these schemes.

Preoccupied as I was, I was grateful that my car knew the way to Mac Murray's house. More precisely, my global-positioning device did. At any rate, on the way over C.J. asked a zillion questions, some of which I answered.

“Abby, you didn't even listen to the end of the Colonel's story. We didn't know for sure what was in that rolled-up rug.”

“I do.”

“Ooh, Abby, don't be silly. You've never been to Africa, except for Egypt, and even if you had, you're barely old enough to remember something that happened in the late 1960s.”

Being petite, I'm invariably pegged as younger than I am. “I'll take that as a compliment. But you see, C.J., I heard another version of this story from the horse's mouth; from Mac Murray himself. But in that version it was Miss Sugar Tit who took a small boat out into the middle of the Wadmalaw River and dumped a rolled-up carpet over the edge. If my hunch was right, he was using one of his own real life stories as a basis for his lie. Folks do that all the time, it's a natural thing.”

I could feel C.J.'s big gray eyes boring into me. “I don't get it. What does Tater Tot have to do with Mr. Murray?”

“Nothing. But when Mama and I came snooping around, a red flag must have gone up, and his immediate reaction was to deflect our interest in him by casting suspicion on a neighbor, by weaving a tantalizing, juicy story. C.J., do me a favor and call the Barnes & Noble in Mount Pleasant and ask Patti—she's the CRP—if Aida Murray has ever signed in their store.”