The Glass Is Always Greener (10 page)

“Uh-oh, look at those shoes. Houston, I think we have a problem.”

I looked down at a perfectly good pair of dress sandals. “What’s wrong with them?”

“Well, look how your heel wants to turn in. You know what that means, don’t you?”

I did indeed. It meant he was going to try and sell me some unneeded shoe repair.

“Of course I know what it means,” I said. “It means that I have a very advanced case of naucinihilipilification.”

“Uh—”

“Believe me, you don’t want to even touch these sandals. But don’t worry; you can’t catch it just from being in the same room. So where were we? Oh yes, Mr. Ovumkoph, my name is Abigail Timberlake. I’m a friend of your cousin Rob Goldburg. I’m also—”

But before I could utter another word, Aaron began to sputter like a campfire when it rains. All that lip motion set his oversized head to bobbling in all directions on his spindly neck, and I had to look away lest I get vertigo and give seven Moon Pies another shot at daylight (yes, I may have fibbed earlier a wee bit).

There were a number of things that Aaron tried to say, and some that he eventually managed to say, none of which a Southern lady of good repute would dare repeat. In fact, I suppose that a woman of my generation should plead ignorance to even being familiar with a few of his choice words.

The gist of it could be boiled down to two sentences, composed of four words. They are: “Get out! Stay away!”

My response, stripped of its invectives, was even briefer: “Gladly.”

Honest-to-goodness Pete. Aunt Jerry was stabbed to death, then allowed to bleed out before being moved to the freezer. There was no telltale trail of blood, or someone would have noticed. Clearly both Aaron and Melissa Ovumkoph were too stupid to have accomplished something that tricky.

But there were two more suspects who, at least superficially, appeared to be somewhat normal. It was time to revisit the scene of the crime.

Chapter 11

U
ncle Ben had just returned from a golf outing with the Brotherhood of Temple Beth El when I showed up. However, he acted like he was expecting me, and ushered me right in.

“Strictly speaking, I shouldn’t have gone,” he said, pointing at the torn black square of cloth pinned to his shirt. “I’m in mourning for my sister, and I should be sitting shivah. The truth is, though, that I had to clear my head. Like everyone, I had a lot of conflicted feelings about Jerry before her murder; now I feel a lot of guilt and—heck”—he choked back a sob—“already I miss her like crazy.”

I nodded. “Mr. Ovumkoph—”

“Please, call me Ben.”

“Ben. We haven’t been properly introduced. My name is Abigail Timberlake, and I’m a friend of your nephew Rob Goldburg.”

“Yes, you’re the sprite to whom my sister tried to give away that very clever fake of hers. Brava, I say, for not letting her make a fool of you.”

I’ll admit to being a bit taken aback by these comments. The man was an older, heavier version of my best friend, Rob, but if Rob had referred to me as an elfish person, I might have punched him on the arm with one of my wee little fists. As for the emerald being a fake, how in tarnation did he know? What was he, a jeweler?

“I mean no disrespect, Ben,” I said, and tried to disguise my antagonistic tone with an insincere smile, “but I think we should leave the identification of that particular stone up to a certified gemologist—one who is certified in colored gemstones.”

Ben even produced Rob’s self-righteous little victory grin. “I’ve been a board-certified gemologist—colored stones and diamonds—for the past forty-five years. Would you like to see my diplomas? We can run down to the shop; it’s only a five-minute drive. Less if we hit the lights right.”

My knees felt weak. When I made it back to Charleston—not
if
—I was going to barricade myself in my home with my husband and cat and never, ever set foot outside again. I could be happy doing that. I was sure of it. We could order in, watch our big-screen TV, and make whoopee all we wanted (which thankfully was less as the years went by). We didn’t need the outside world. If I never set foot outside again, I could never risk being arrested, or have all the other frightening and life-threatening things happen to me, that have happened because of my insatiable curiosity and reputation as an outstanding sleuth. From here on, I could live joyously as a nobody, just as long as danger left me alone.

“Mrs. Timberlake,” Ben said, “are you all right? You have a distant look in your eyes.”

“I’m good; sometimes I just spaz out. As regards your certification—I believe you.”

“Thank you,” he said.

Since I had not had a chance to view the front rooms the day before, I took my time gazing at my very spacious surroundings. At one point a woman had had her say in choosing the decorating scheme. But that woman had been absent for a good ten years and it appeared as if nothing had changed. Although the decor was still very much this century, at the same time it was tired and outdated.

“My Judy had fabulous taste, didn’t she?” he said.

“That she did,” I said. “Amy, then, was your daughter? Yours together, I mean?”

Ben’s eyes twinkled. “Yes, ma’am. And that was unforgivable what my sister did; forgetting Amy’s name like that. At the same time it’s vintage Jerry; she had a two-hundred-watt personality and she was always on. But boy howdy, you let yourself get too close to her and you get burned. Say, I’ve been kinda rude here; would you like something to drink? Maybe some sweet tea or a beer?”

I may have emitted a soft gasp of pleasure. “A beer would be nice. Anything you happen to have.”

“Chips and salsa? Chips and ranch dressing? I’m going to have some of each.”

“You’ve twisted my arm.”

Ben disappeared for five minutes or so, during which time I did my best to case the great room without leaving my very green velvet armchair by the fireplace. Of course, these being the dog days of summer, the latter was not in operation.

At any rate, despite the fact that nothing appeared to have been changed since his wife’s absence, there wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen. Therefore I was able to deduce that either Ben was unusually fastidious for a widower, or he was solvent enough to hire a maid service. In either case, I was dealing with someone whose lifestyle approximated mine, more than it did either of his two nephews’.

“I’m divorced,” he said, causing me to jump half my body height.

“Jeepers,” I said, “you just took ten years off my life.”

“Sorry.” He handed me a Budweiser in a Panthers foam cozy. “She ran off to Australia with a twenty-one-year-old surfing instructor for whom she was booking a flight. Judy was a travel agent, you see. Now she’s a washed-up cougar outside of Brisbane trying to get permanent resident status in Australia. Sixty-two years old she was when she chased after that hunk of melanoma-in-the-making.”

“Wow, and can you spell
bitter
?”

He laughed. “I like you. I wouldn’t expect that of someone who found my aunt dead in my downstairs freezer. Although I must confess, Mrs. Timberlake—”

“Please, call me Abby. Just don’t call me Aggie, like your sister-in-law Melissa does.”

Ben laughed again. “She’s a mess, isn’t she? Aaron never was what you’d call an overachiever, but still, marrying Melissa—now that took the cake. She’s not Jewish, you know.”

“Are you prejudiced?”

“I’d like to think not. But we Reform Jews have an almost fifty percent intermarriage rate. Anyway, it broke his mother’s heart.”

“How about your Brisbane cougar?”

“Oh yes, she was of the faith; it just goes to show you that nuttiness knows no religious boundaries. But hey, I was about to ask you—and this is not to put you in that category—but why are you involving yourself in this family’s
meshugas
? That means—”

“I know what that means, and the answer is simple: I’ve been made a suspect in your aunt’s murder. Until I can clear my name, I’m stuck in Charlotte. Now mind you, this is not a bad place to be, but I miss home. I miss my husband. I miss my cat, Dmitri!”

“Well then I guess we’re in this together—you and me. Unfortunately, Abby, if I was at a roulette table and had to put money down on any one of those five: Aaron, Melissa, Sam, Tina, or Chanti, I’d have to do it with my eyes closed. I really couldn’t choose. They all had it in for Jerry.”

“And not Rob?”

He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds and then blinked as they opened. “Rob is as fine a young man as they come,” Ben said. Never mind that Rob was fifty. “If I had a son—well, I couldn’t ask for a better one than Rob. And even our rabbi, who is a terrific young gal—she’s also named Judy—is very inclusive toward gays and lesbians—and that’s the way the Reform movement has decided to go, but sometimes you just can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

I found myself unconsciously pushing back into the green lushness of my well-padded chair. “Does this mean that you have something against gays?”

“Well, not against them—not personally—just their lifestyle. It makes my skin crawl to think about
it
.”

“Believe me, dear, it made my skin crawl to think of your cougar wife and her babycakes surfer dude and I didn’t say anything. But let’s bring it back to Rob, you don’t think he could possibly be guilty—do you?”

“Not in a million years.”

“So that leaves only you.”

After a stunned silence, which was only appropriate, Ben roared. “Good one, Abby! But let’s not forget you!
Sospechoso número uno.
”

I took a long, much-needed swig of my good buddy Bud. “How well acquainted were you with your late sister’s ring? May she rest in peace.”

“Yes, may she rest in peace. Ah, the ring—after Jerry’s husband died, she waited a suitable length of time—several years, at least—and then had a series of lovers. One of them was a Colombian gentleman whom I always suspected of being a drug lord—then again, I have an active imagination. Someone told me once that I should be a novelist.”

“Oh, you don’t need an imagination for that anymore. I’ve thought about doing that myself. I read about a book called
101 Plot Ideas for the Uninspired
. The whole premise is that with the help of this book, and Internet publishing opportunities, anyone can be a published author.”

“That’s really cool. I’ll have to remember that. Anyway, this guy, Carlos, gave her this ring like on their second date. Now mind you, Colombian emeralds at their finest are the best in the world. Their color simply cannot be matched.”

“Because their color comes from chromium,” I said, “and not vanadium like Zambian emeralds.”

“Whoa,” Ben said. “You do know something about colored stones.”

“A tiny bit. I get them in my shop now and then.”

“And what shop would that be?”

“The Den of Antiquity. It’s an antiques store—obviously—on King Street, in Charleston. It’s right down the street from Rob’s.”

“Yeah, I know it! And darn if I don’t know you. I’m a Citadel grad and have good friends down in Charleston, and I come and stay with them. I wouldn’t want to impose myself on Rob—not since he has a—well, you know.”

“Partner?”

“I guess that’s what they call them.”

“They do. And Bob is a terrific guy—he’d be straight as an arrow if he wasn’t—you know.”

Ben winced. “Anyway, these friends have a house in Mount Pleasant and go into town every whipstitch to eat. I’ve wandered into your shop on numerous occasions. I thought you looked familiar.”

Unfortunately I couldn’t say the same for him; I get hundreds, if not thousands, of tourists through my shop every year. However, very few of the men are dead ringers for someone as handsome as Rob. This just proves how busy—or how unfocused—I am.

“I can only hope that your multiple visits were because you enjoyed my shop, and not out of some morbid desire to look at a train wreck in progress. We at the Den try our best.”

“And you succeed! I’ve bought a number of small pieces there as gifts for my hosts. I’ve especially enjoyed dealing with a rather tall—how shall I describe this gently—”

“Goofy gal who says preposterous things?”

“That’s the one! B.J., or something like that, am I right?”

“C.J. It stands for Calamity Jane. She’s a real hoot, isn’t she? She’s here, you know. By that I mean she’s consorting with your nephew Sam and his wife, Tina, at this very moment. She only met them this morning, but then instantly discovered that she and Tina were cousins through their Granny Ledbetter over in Shelby.”

Ben cleared his throat and grinned broadly. A somewhat vain man, he’d taken good care of his teeth and they gleamed, white, straight, and indigenous to his mouth.

“Shelby, eh? Did she talk like a poor country hick with a third-grade education? Kind of like Granny on
Beverly Hillbillies
?”

“Exactly!”

“Abby, there’s no way to break it to you gently; my nephew’s wife, Tina Ovumkoph, is a scam artist.”

Chapter 12

G
et out of town and back! And take the scenic way, will you?” I took a deep breath, grateful that I was already sitting down. “Details, please,” I said.

“Those good folks in Shelby ought to tar and feather her the next time she passes through town on her way up to the mountains,” Ben said. “That woman is a Southern Baptist, but she’s from Atlanta, and she has a master’s degree in clinical psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. I’ve met her parents; her mother is from Atlanta—old school—and her father from somewhere in southwestern Pennsylvania.”

“Uh-oh. Poor C.J.”

“When Tina first clamped on to Sammy—and I mean clamped, just like a vise—I thought she was English. You should have heard that accent—and all the references to crumpets and marmite, bubble and squeak, and toad in the hole.”

“Okay, now you’ve lost me.”

“English comestibles, all of them.”

“Oh, so that’s how you pronounce comestibles.”

He winked. “I daresay.”

“So when did she switch continents—so to speak?”

“About a week later—or never. That all depends. If Tina thinks someone from the family’s listening, then her accent is English again; if it will raise money for the ‘cause’—that would be her cause, not God’s—then she’s from some holler so far back in the mountains that you have to cross the Pacific Ocean first to get there.”

“That’s pretty far back.” I chuckled. “I must say, though, Ben, you are given to some hyperbole.”

“Ma’am?” He looked absolutely wounded.

“With your Pacific Ocean comment,” I said.

“Oh no, Abby, those are her words, not mine. But hyperbole is it in a nutshell. In fact, that’s what the others call her: Perbole. ‘Hi Perbole,’ they say. ‘Bye Perbole.’ Of course she doesn’t get it; she thinks they’re just being friendly—but weird. You can see why nobody can stand her.”

“Uh, I hate to disagree,” I said, “and may she rest in peace and whatever else I’m supposed to say at a time like this, but it seems that your Aunt Jerry could. She put Tina in charge of a lot of money—wait a minute! You mean to say that Aunt Jerry couldn’t see through Tina’s ruse?”

Ben slapped his thigh he laughed so hard, and then abruptly caught himself. “Sorry, that was totally inappropriate. And here I am supposed to be planning her funeral, which is the moment the police release her body. In Judaism we try to bury our dead as soon as possible. We don’t embalm, you know.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. Sadly, what I knew about other religions, or even my own for that matter, was next to nothing. But I can see two church steeples from my front porch!

“You’re right,” Ben said. “Jerry didn’t see through Tina, even though she thought of herself as very savvy in the ways of the world.”

“Or maybe,” I offered, “she didn’t see through her act until the end, and that million-dollar bequest was a test of some sort.”

“A posthumous test?” he asked. “What good would that do?”

“I didn’t mean it that literally; I meant that the test came at the good-bye party. Maybe it involved seeing how Tina would react to the bequest. Oh grrr, I’ve got to go rescue C.J. from that woman’s conniving claws.”

“Don’t forget Sammy’s slimy paws. He’s so slippery he could hold his own in a pond full of eels.”

I jumped to my feet. “Oh shoot a monkey,” I cried, “I plumb forgot!”

Ben’s face mirrored my alarm. “What’s that?”

“I was supposed to pick Rob up hours ago; I’ve left him stuck without a ride at the end of the greenbelt trail. My phone’s been off the entire time—dang it—yes, there are two new messages.”

Ben shook his head as he grinned. “No need to worry about Rob, sweetheart. This is his hometown; this is where he grew up. He’s got more connections here than a dump truck full of Tinktertoys. Plus a wallet full of gold and platinum credit cards. He’s not stuck anywhere that he doesn’t want to be.”

“Hmm, good point. Still, I need to be going.”

Ben walked me to the door, and by the time we’d finished saying good-bye we were “cheek-pecking acquaintances” which is only one step away from being friends—at least “outer-circle friends.” Even just that was saying a lot, given that I’d been the one to find his aunt stuffed in his upright freezer.

Don’t get me wrong; I didn’t for a second believe that Ben suspected me of murder. However, the phenomenon of wanting to kill the messenger is probably as old as mankind, so it would only be natural for Ben to bear a natural antipathy toward me, unless—wait just one hog-sloppin’ minute—unless he was trying to play
me
like a country fiddle.

Sure enough, the calls were from Rob. The first one was from the trail and he was calling to apologize because he wasn’t going to be able to meet me at the end. He’d met a friend along the way and the two of them would be brunching together. The second call involved another apology; brunch was over, but now they were headed up to Metrolina, which is a humongous antiques market just north of where I–85 crosses I–77. Thanks for helping to solve his aunt’s murder, he said; there was no better sleuth in all of Charlotte at the moment—even though I was untrained.

There was some other bit about my sleuthing skills stemming from the fact that I excelled at being nosy, but I chose to take those words in the spirit in which they were intended. Alas, choosing does not always mean achieving. Nonetheless, when my nose was sufficiently back into joint to hold up a pair of sunglasses, I set my GPS to the address that Ben had so thoughtfully supplied for his nephew Sam. Thank heavens he’d also supplied me with the entry code I needed to get past security.

In case anyone has ever thought otherwise, now would be a good time to dissuade them of the notion that I am above reproach. I am particularly vulnerable to house envy. Even though I currently own a beautiful house in the most desirable part of Charleston, South Carolina (without a doubt
the
most desirable city on the planet), I find myself lusting in my heart after some of the megamansions that I see from time to time. I am particularly charmed by the current Charlotte fad of Spanish–Tucson–medieval castle fusion, characterized by stucco walls, clay tile roofs, balustrade balconies, and towers galore. Clearly some poor architect has turrets syndrome, and to that I say, “Bless his heart.”

Sam and Tina lived in a gated community that was so ritzy, even the wind needed the entry code in order to blow through. As I drove slowly along the winding road, mouth open and drooling, I kept hoping that number 8369 would be the smallest house on the so-called block. I was overjoyed, therefore, to discover that was indeed the case. I was dumbfounded, thunderstruck, and downright gobsmacked when just a few seconds later I realized that the mini-megamansion that I thought was Sam’s was actually his own private guard shack. Complete with its own garage!

“Excuse me, ma’am,” said a woman about my age. “This is private property.” She’d stepped out from what at first glance had looked to be the front door of the house. It was only then that I noticed there was a wooden bar across the driveway, and it was much like the barriers one sees across a railroad track, but without the stripes painted on it.

“Is this Sam Ovumkoph’s house?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to be moving along.”

“I’m a friend of Sam’s Uncle Ben—like the rice, but, of course, this Ben is a real man—and I’m best friends with his cousin Rob. Actually, you might say that I’m friends with Sam and Tina too, since I just had lunch with them at the Viet Thai Noodle House, which isn’t fancy by any means, but they thought the food was really good. Oh, by the way, as it turns out, I was there with my third best friend in the whole world, C.J. from Shelby, and she and Tina figured out that they were first cousins. Can you imagine that?”

The guard’s response was to walk slowly around the car and, I presumed, record my license plate number. When she was done making her circuit, she rapped on my window.

“You look kind of familiar. Have you ever been here before?”

“No, ma’am. I have not.”

“Maybe selling cosmetics to the missus, or something like that? Lord knows I don’t mean to be ugly about it, but she sure can use a little help—you know what I mean?” She gestured with her thumb up the road.

“Indeed I do, missy!” I pushed my door open with my left hand as my right hand undid my seat belt. The badmouthing guard was caught by surprise and fell back on her butt. Quick as double-geared lightning I was out of the car and standing over her with my hands on my hips. When viewed from that angle, and if I exert enough attitude, I can give the appearance of a much larger woman. I know it may sound hard to believe, but it really is all in the “ ’tude,” as my son, Charlie, likes to say. Why, in that particular instance, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that I came across as being five-four!

“What the H,” she said. She actually said a whole lot worse, but since I don’t possess a potty mouth, it is hard to repeat it exactly.

“Put up that crossbar or I’m telling Tina what you just said. That poor girl can’t help what nature dealt her; just because her parents had to tie a pork chop around her neck to get the dog to play with her—well, that was no fault of hers, now was it?”

“No, ma’am.”

“So what will it be? Up goes the crossbar and we’re all happy, or—”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I stepped back and let her struggle to her feet, but sure enough, as soon as she was up, up went the bar.

“Tootles, darling,” I said as I hopped back in the car. Then off I sped up the yellow brick road.

Upscale neighborhoods have covenants, written rules that one must abide by that are specific to that area. South of Broad, in Charleston, we even abide by unwritten covenants that govern certain social customs. For instance, one simply does not hang a Christmas wreath on the door more than a fortnight before Christmas. To do so is to invite a gentle rebuke via a handwritten note on scented stationery, or perhaps a soft knock on the door and a few kind words of disapproval. Those are the short-term ramifications, of course. Long term—well, the occupants of said house are clearly from “off” and need not expect an invitation to any holiday party or oyster roast anytime soon (so what are a few generations in the grand scheme of things?).

But covenants, like many aspiring congressmen (and women), can be shaped by a sufficient influx of cash. “The bucks stop here” is really a much older phrase than the one made popular by Harry Truman, and the more money that is to be had, the further the rules can be bent. This might explain how it was that the yellow brick road that led up the hill to the Ovumkoph monstrosity was literally that: yellow and brick.

Although I was a child of the seventies, and had in my college years dabbled a
wee
bit in mind-altering substances, and had always prided myself on an active imagination, nothing I’d experienced could have prepared me for the Ovumkoph creation they called home. Once, on a trip to Portugal, I’d been privileged to travel to the mountainous city of Sintra, and from there up to the Pena Palace, which is a fantasy that combines Moorish, Gothic, and Manueline motifs. That multicolored, domed, gabled, and crenulated structure perhaps comes closest to resembling Sam and Tina’s act of stewardship gone awry.

Instead of ringing of a doorbell I had the pleasure of yanking on a rope. This set into motion a graduated series of bells, each with a different tone. I think that the tune they produced was the first measure of “America the Beautiful”; then again, it might have been the title song from
Beauty and the Beast
. After several long minutes, when the door went unanswered I pulled the rope again. Apparently the bells had not stopped vibrating from their first go-around, because the resultant sound was even more garbled. It struck me that this was a very clever way to discourage unwanted visitors—possibly including myself.

I was fixing to give the rope a third tug when the massive door inched open. Out poked an immense proboscis followed by curtains of hair. My first impression was that the Ovumkophs had a sheepdog trained as a butler.

“I’m here to speak to either the pastor or his wife,” I said.

“Come in,” the sheepdog said.