The Cane Mutiny (23 page)

I
t was obvious that C.J., oblivious to wickedness, didn't see the gun. “Well, you see,” she said, “Cousin Ignacious had a bad habit of letting his mouth hang open, and it bothered Granny something fierce. She warned him that if he kept it up, a swallow might fly in. And sure enough, he was out watching the sunset one evening when a swallow swooped down from the sky—”

“How much does a good size rhino horn go for these days?”

“Silly, Abby.” C.J. noticed the gun and wisely closed her mouth, just like Cousin Ignacious ought to have done.

“That depends, Miss Timberlake, are you in the market for one?”

“Let's say that I was.”

“Twenty grand. Guaranteed to be the real thing.”

“That's ridiculous. My source said he charged a thousand.”

“When was that?”

“Back in the 1970s.”

Mac and Aida took turns laughing. “That's ancient history. Cost is related to supply and demand, and while supply has shrunk to practically nothing, demand is as high as ever.”

“Don't you care that these animals are already so close to extinction that they probably won't survive past our lifetime?”

“Then what's the problem? Since they're doomed anyway, somebody may as well benefit from their demise.”

“You're despicable.”

“I take it then that you're not interested in making a purchase?”

“Until now I've been against the death penalty. But now I might consider purchasing a ticket to your execution.”

“You're very harsh, Miss Timberlake. I like that in a woman. Under other circumstances we might have been friends.”

“Somehow I don't think so.”

“Although I'm still trying to figure out why you got involved in my business affairs.”

“You tell me! I was minding my own business,
trying to make a living while dealing with all the crap life throws at one on a daily basis, when all of a sudden—boom, everything starts to unravel.”

“You should not have been the one to win the bid.”

“Excuse me?”

“I bid as high as I could without drawing attention to myself. I didn't expect some idiot to keep bidding on some storage room junk.”

Mine is not the brightest mind, therefore when the proverbial lightbulb clicks on, I am generally quite startled. “Uh—ah—”

“Ooh, ooh!” C.J. waved her arm aloft. “I know what you're thinking.”

“Not now, dear. Aida, that shed had been rented by your alter ego, and erstwhile husband, Mac, am I correct?”

She grunted.

“But you hadn't been able to gain access to the contents for decades; ever since you killed your husband. Am I right?”

“Wrong. Mac didn't trust me with everything. I didn't even know he had a rental over there until last month when I was going over some old files. One had Safe-Keepers Storage handwritten across the top, and several columns of payments, but there was no unit number listed. Then the ad
appears in the paper for the auction, and lists three sheds that were in arrears. How the heck was I supposed to know which, if any of them, was Mac's?”

“Oh the woes of being a con woman.”

“You're a smartmouth, Miss Timberlake. I don't like smartmouths. I'm surprised you have any friends, including her.” She flicked the gun at C.J., and then back at me.

“At least I have friends. Now that I know you're really Aida, you don't make a very convincing Mac. I'm surprised your friends and family haven't blown your cover. Or are they all hardened killers like you?”

Her laugh sliced the air like a butcher knife. “I have plenty of friends, Miss Timberlake. Mac and I had just moved to Charleston when we took that—uh—fatal trip to Kenya. As for family, who needs them when you've a passion, such as I have.”

“She loves rare books,” I said for C.J.'s edification.

“Ooh, I just love rare books!”

“Would you like to see my collection?” C.J. nodded vigorously. “Have you seen the Dead Sea scrolls? They came to Charlotte last year. At the Discovery Center.”

“Seen them? I own a fragment.”

“Cool beaners! Abby didn't let me have time off to go, because she really isn't into old books.”

“Nuh-unh,” I said.

Aida had the audacity to glower at me. “Well, in that case, Miss Cox, would you like to see the fragment I own?”

“Yes, ma'am. Very much.”

She swung her gun arm around and pointed the darn thing right at C.J.'s chest. “Miss Timberlake, before we proceed, I'd like you to place both hands above your head.”

“What about my feet? I used to take yoga.” C.J. giggled.

“Shut up! Both of you.” She turned, forcing C.J. to turn with her. “Now come this way. Miss Timberlake, if you even think of causing any trouble, I'll blow this woman's brains out. Not that the world would notice, ha ha.”

“Why you conceited witch,” I said. “Just because you write books doesn't mean you're smart. Miss Cox might not have mayonnaise on her sandwich, but she can think circles around you. Did you know she belongs to Mensa?”

“Then you must belong to Densa, Miss Timberlake. I wasn't kidding when I said shut up. The next word you say will be your last.”

I followed helplessly, just not wordlessly. I do believe I am genetically incapable of long-term
silence. Greg says my mouth is like a dripping faucet; it can't be stopped short of drastic measures. That's because my darling is mechanically challenged and has never had to fix a dripping faucet. If he'd been a single mom, like me, he'd know that a washer isn't only a big machine that swishes clothes and belongs in the laundry room. A washer is also a flat ring of metal, or rubber, that is placed between two larger components to make them fit snugly. At any rate, my tongue will only stop wagging when I die. Or when I decide to pierce it—which will be the fifth of Never.

“So tell me, Mrs. Murray—or do you prefer Aida?—why was it that poor, lovestruck Roberta Stanley had to give her life in the pursuit of your happiness? What did she ever do to you?”

“Because she recognized me at the auction, you twit. That's why. After all these years!”

“Let me guess. You were afraid she'd ID you. And it wasn't that you were afraid of being arrested for your husband's murder; there were no witnesses to that. You were afraid that the unexpected appearance of some of your husband's business inventory—a business you took over—might rear its ugly head and bite you in the behind.”

“So aptly, but vulgarly, said. I'm the one who put it in the Colonel's mind to retire to Charleston someday. Of course that was years ago. But
still, stupid me. Kentucky colonels should remain in Kentucky, if you ask me. You could have knocked me over with a feather when I learned he'd moved to Charleston. As for Roberta, well, she had no business aspiring to a position she was not born to.”

“Don't speak ill of the dead,” I growled. Unfortunately an Abby growl is not all that intimidating—or so I've been told. “But just out of curiosity, which position would that be?”

“She was my maid, for crying out loud. After Mac's death—”

“Mac's murder!”

“Anyway, she quit, and before long I'd heard that she'd been hired by the Humphreys. I supposed she returned with them to Kentucky, where she became the bane of all his future wives. Well, enough of this silly chitchat. Let's go show Miss Cox the Dead Sea scroll fragment I own. I have a translation with it, but I must warn you—you might not like what it says. It's rather controversial.”

“I love controversy,” I said. “Lead the way!”

She led us through a multilevel maze of rooms and to the now familiar manuscript room. After ushering us in with the gun, she motioned us to a far corner, one that I hadn't inspected when I was there the first time.

“Just so you know,” she said. “I'm not turning soft on y'all. As soon as we're through with time travel, the two of you will be dinner buffet for the fishes. Sort of like Mac”—she cackled wickedly—“except that in his case the fishes didn't even have time for hors d'oeuvres.”

“Heh-heh,” I said under my breath.

“What was that?” she snapped.

“I said ‘Hear, hear.' I always toast my own death.”

S
he clicked off the safety. “Shut up. I don't like you.” She pointed with her chin to a nearby glass case. “Miss Cox, it's in there, if you wish to take a look.”

“Ooh, ooh, can Abby see it too? Please? Pretty please with vinegar on top? She didn't have time to see the exhibit in Charlotte, either.”

Because it was probably the last minute of the last day of my life, I felt my heart flooding with love for C.J. Were I, by some miracle, given a second chance at life, I would try to live mine like she did hers; honestly, and without guile. I doubt if a mean thought ever crossed her prodigious mind. When God was through making her, he threw his extra-large mold away. I now think some of C.J.'s generosity must have become airborne and the particles were breathed in by Aida Murray.

“Okay,” she grunted at me, “you can see it too.” She backed away as I moved closer to C.J., the better to fix us both in her sights.

Frankly, I was disappointed by what I saw; the case was about the size of a card table, whereas the manuscript fragment was only the size of a playing card. C.J., however, was so excited she was practically jumping in place.

“Abby, just imagine, this was written two thousand years ago.”

I stared at the fragment, trying mightily to be somehow affected by its presence, but to no avail. The squiggly lines written on a tiny scrap of animal skin were not in the least inspiring. I felt absolutely no connection to the past.

“Can you read it?” I asked.

“This particular scroll was written in Hebrew, so I can read most of it. But the words are run together, so it's hard to understand without the general context.”

Beneath the fragment was a printed page in English with the translation.
…thou has forsaken me. The light from thy face has ebbed, like the sun setting behind the purple hills of Judea…

“Does it match with that?” I asked.

Bent over the case as she was, J.C. swatted me in the face with her hair. “No,” she whispered,
“this says ‘stupid uneducated foreigners, we have tricked you again with our forgery…' Abby, does that make any sense to you?”

“Plenty.”

Aida cleared her throat. “What are you two mumbling about?”

“We were talking about how stupid and uneducated you are.”

Her face turned white with rage. “
What
did you say?”

“I said, how much did you pay for this Dead Sea scroll fragment?”

“That's not what you said, and how much I paid for it is none of your business.” But she hesitated only a few seconds, as I knew she would. Ostentatious consumers, by their very nature, must have their purchases validated by the envious looks of others. “Fifty grand. It is two thousand years old, after all.”

“Wow, you did good. I would have guessed at least seventy-five thousand. Unfortunately, the glass in this case has some glare. May we open the case so that Miss Cox can take a closer look? Without touching, of course.”

Again, her hesitation was brief. “I guess. But no touching. And try not to breathe on it.”

“Deal. C.J., you open it. Little ol' me might drop
the lid, but you, bless your heart, are as strong as an ox.”

As my good-natured and unsuspecting pal opened the lid, I whipped the can of wasp spray out of my waistband.

Aida turned an impossible shade of pale. “What was that? What do you have in your hands?”

“My secret weapon. I'm afraid,
Mrs.
Murray, that the ball is now in our court. Please be so kind as to toss your weapon on the floor. Try to get it as close to our feet as possible.”

She hesitated once more. “That's only a can of wasp spray! What do you expect to do with that?”

While still facing her, I pointed the aerosol can in the general direction of the exposed document. “I expect to obliterate your Dead Sea scroll fragment if you don't comply. If I'm going to die, I may as well extract my revenge. Right?”

“Miss Cox,” our hostess-with-the-leastest shouted, “you're not going to let her do that, are you? You're an educated woman. You can appreciate how important this fragment is.”

C.J. said nothing.

“Miss Timberlake, I beseech you. No, I'm begging you. Please don't harm that antique scroll. You, of all people, should understand that its value is not strictly monetary.”

“What about the value of majestic animals, such as the rhinoceros, or the tiger, still roaming this world in the wild? How many rhino horns, or tiger penises, did you broker to pay for this scrap of the past?”

“But they're only animals. God put us in charge of them to do with them what we like. It says so right in the Bible.”

“Buzz! You're wrong. We're to be stewards of these creatures, not their decimators. Now do something right for a change and toss me your gun.”

“No.”

“Then say sayonara to your scroll fragment.”

“You wouldn't dare!”

“Try me.”

“Okay, I'll call your bluff.”

Never dare a four-feet-nine-inch woman. We've had to fight just to be noticed. Not physically, of course—well, maybe sometimes. But at recess no one ever called, “Red rover, red rover, we dare Abby over.” I wasn't even chosen during gym class, but assigned at the start to the team unlucky enough to choose last. I was, in fact, the booby prize. One can be sure, therefore, that given the opportunity to strike terror in Aida's murderous bosom, without actually doing any real harm, I needed no further urging.

The wasp spray not only stank, but hissed like a dragon when released. For Aida, there was no mistaking that the deed had been done. Shocked to the core, she dropped the pistol. C.J., who can move fast for a woman of substance, threw herself on the floor and snatched up the weapon before Aida quite knew what was happening.

I almost pitied Aida. Her howl of anguish almost struck a chord in my heart. Almost. While C.J. held the contraband smuggler at bay, I called 911 on my cell phone and then called Greg.

“Abby,” he said, before I had a chance to say anything, “are you watching a nature show?”

“No—well, sort of.”

“It's about rhinos, isn't it? I saw this episode recently on
Animal Planet
. Some poachers had just killed a female rhino, and her calf was bawling in terror. Isn't that the one you're watching?”

“Not even close, dear.”

 

Aida Murray stood trial in Charleston for the murder of Roberta Stanley. Animal rights activists, conservationists of all stripes, Miss Sugar Tit fans, and the entire state of Kentucky flooded the city for the duration. C.J. and I both had to testify, as did Darren Cotter and Hermione Wouki. The guilty verdict came as no surprise. What did surprise me—in fact it shocked and disgusted
me—was the fact that Aida Murray's career took off like never before.
Tonem Sklat
jumped to the number one position on the
New York Times
best seller list and stayed there for seven sickening weeks.

In the course of the trial it was revealed that Aida Murray was the brains behind an international ring of poachers and contraband animal product distributors. She also smuggled stolen antiquities into the country, specializing in rare manuscripts. Aida eventually admitted to these charges in hopes of lightening her sentence. She even admitted to having created the cane mutiny in my shop in the course of two separate, hasty searches for the rhino-topped canes she believed had been stored in shed 53. She said she hadn't bothered making off with the jade-topped stick because, like me, she didn't recognize its value. The whack job performed her mutinous mayhem at night disguised as a ghostly pirate. I am pleased to say that the judge showed no lenience with her sentence.

Much to the media's delight, it was revealed that Aida did not read Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic. Purchasing the faux Dead Sea scroll was not the only time she'd been duped. While helping the authorities take inventory of her possessions, C.J. identified six full-length manuscripts that were forgeries. Aida's receipts indicated that
she'd paid over a million dollars for the privilege of owning these worthless piles of paper.

I had the distinct privilege of writing the wicked woman a letter, informing her of just how duped she'd been. When the story broke, Aida became the laughingstock of America. In Charleston, to this day, she is referred to as “that stupid author.”