The Ming and I (18 page)

One thing was certainly clear, however. Unless I stopped being reactive and started using the noggin the good Lord gave me, there were going to be
two
skeletons and nine pieces of ceramic for the next visitor to count.

T
here is nothing heroic about struggling to save one’s own life, therefore I shall spare you the litany of the agonies I endured over the next several hours, or at least what seemed to be that length of time. My advice to anyone so foolish as to ignore C.J.’s sage advice concerning haunted houses is to at least wear a watch with an illuminated dial.

At any rate I was eventually able to determine that I was in a man-made (surely God would have been more concerned with symmetry and quality of materials) pit or cellar. The space measured approximately eight by ten feet, although it could have been much larger. Frankly I am terrible at estimating the size of anything, and believed Buford’s ten-inch lie for years.

My pit, as I now thought of it, had apparently been dug into the hard clay subsoil. Two of the walls were unfaced clay, while the other two were covered with fieldstone. As far as I could tell, the stones were simply stacked, not mortared.

The floor was clay, and the grit I had been feeling was undoubtedly its dried, crystallized surface. It was nowhere near level. When I tipped a ceramic bowl on its side, it rolled away out of my reach, and I didn’t find it again until I almost sat on it.

I didn’t expect the ceiling to be so low. I could touch it everywhere I tried, without having to stand on tiptoes. I had expected to feel voluminous swags of cobwebs, but there was only the feel of roughhewn wooden beams and chinks of crystallized clay.

My most interesting discovery, however, was that my pit was a veritable treasure chest. In addition to the nine ceramic pieces, I found four metal pitchers, three large, heavy candelabras, two metal tea sets, a wooden chest brimming over with flatware, and a smaller wooden box containing sundries, several of which felt as if they might be pocket watches. I am not a kleptomaniac, but when Maynard failed to protest, I pocketed one of the small, round objects. It would be a small down payment on the damages I hoped to collect from the Upstate Preservation Foundation.

“Well,” I said aloud, “that’s not so bad now, is it? At least you’re not in Hell with a capital ‘H,’ and Maynard here isn’t about to try anything fresh. Are you, dear?”

Maynard was mum.

“Typical man,” I said. “Just lying around, while I, who have put in a hard day already, am expected to wait on you hand and foot. Oops—better make that hand
or
foot. I just stepped on something and it cracked. What’s that? Did you say something, dear?”

Maynard remained mute.

“Okay, so I’ll figure this one out on my own. Just don’t expect any help from me when I do. And believe me, dear, you’re going to need help. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men aren’t—” I clapped a gritty hand over my mouth. Just to be on the safe side, perhaps it was better not to remind Maynard of what I had done to him.

“Let’s see,” I said to divert his attention, “there has got to be an entrance to this joint somewhere. I
may be small, but I wasn’t shoved down between the beams.”

Or was I? Not between the cracks, of course, but what if there was an overhead opening of some kind? A trapdoor, maybe.

“Think, Abigail, think!”

If there was a trapdoor, it was likely located above the spot where I had regained consciousness. Much simpler to throw a body down a hole than to carry it down a ladder. Maynard, I bet, had not ventured far from where he was dumped, and I surely hadn’t moved much while I was out of it. It was a fine theory if one didn’t take into account the treasure trove. Clearly it had not just been dumped from the floor above.

I did my best to relocate my first position. It would have been a lot easier, I grant you, if poor Maynard had been allowed to rest in peace
in
one piece. Nonetheless my spider fingers did a thorough search of the ceiling, and just as I was about to succumb to the mother of all neck cramps, my nails found a crack that ran crosswise along several beams, a crack too straight to be coincidental.

“Eureka!” I screamed. “Maynard, old boy, I think we’ve found it!”

Although Maynard was not effusive with his enthusiasm, I’m sure he shared it. It would have been helpful if he’d gone a step further, gotten off the floor, and helped me push the damn thing open. The trapdoor—for that’s what it was—was stuck, and there was nothing I could do to force it open.

The flatware knives I inserted in the cracks and used as wedges all bent or snapped blade from handle. It was a wonder none of the flying blades hit me in the eye, not that I could have been made any blinder. I considered using one of Maynard’s larger bones as a battering tool, but discarded that idea in shame a moment later. Maynard and I had become
buddies. True, I had treated him shabbily, but he would no doubt have forgiven me had he been in the position to do so. After all he was in far greater need of bonding than I.

“Think, stupid!” I berated myself. “There has got to be something else you can use.”

Indeed there was, but until I had a chance to appraise them, I was loath to use one of the heavy candelabras, or even one of the metal pitchers. It was only an educated guess, and my fingers have been wrong before—just ask Buford—but the items in question felt like silver.

“Try one of the stones, silly,” Maynard muttered.

“What?” I spun around, dropping the mangled knife I was holding.

Either Maynard was the tight-lipped son of a bitch I’d been accusing him of being all along, or it had been my imagination. He said nothing more.

Still, it was a good idea. I willed my legs to function, and as soon as they started taking orders, I directed them over to the nearest stone wall. When I bent over to begin the arduous task of prying loose a stone, I first felt the fresh air. It was barely more than a suggestion at that point, like a fluffy bit of down brushed along a callus. It was so slight, in fact, that I all but ignored it at first. Like Maynard’s muttering it was probably just a figment of my imagination.

“Come to Mama,” I said, and tried to pry loose a stone about the size and shape of a homemade loaf of bread.

It wouldn’t budge. I tried another, which was as stubborn as the first, but that’s when I felt the whisper of air for the second time. I dug my nails in around the stone next to the one I’d been working on, and tugged. It was as loose as a six-year-old’s tooth, and I fell backward, clutching the rock to my chest.

I was surprised but unhurt, and was back on knees in less time than it takes my son, Charlie, to quaff a quart of cola. That it took so long was only because a stream of decidedly fresh air was pouring over my body, filling my nostrils with its heady scent and my lungs with its revitalizing power.

There were four loose stones in all, and the dimensions of the space left by them was approximately eighteen by twelve inches. I felt around inside with one of my exploratory spiders. The depth appeared to go on forever.

“It’s a tunnel,” I explained to Maynard. “A very narrow tunnel for a very small person. I don’t think it’s how I got here, but it’s how I’m leaving.”

“What if the tunnel leads to nowhere?” Maynard asked me—in my imagination, of course. I might have been missing a marble or two, but not the entire collection. “What if you get lost?”

“So what if I get lost? What’s the worst that could happen? If I stay here I’m guaranteed to go on your crash diet, and no offense, dear, but it’s a little extreme.”

“What if the tunnel collapses?” Maynard was a sensible guy.

I stuck my head and arms back into the tunnel and felt the sides, roof, and floor again. They were composed of the same heavy wooden beams that supported the roof of the pit.

“I’ll take my chances, dear.”

Poor Maynard. We had been so close, shared so much during our brief time together—indeed, there were parts of him with which I had made an acquaintance that I wasn’t even sure Buford had. Like a backbone, for instance. Now it was time to leave my good buddy behind.

“So long, Maynard,” I said solemnly.

With my arms out in front of me to function as feelers, I began wiggling my way to freedom.

Unless you are fond of spiders, roaches, and the biggest centipede north of the Amazon, you won’t want to hear about the next stage of my great escape. What you need to know is that it was extremely painful scooting along on my stomach. Not only did I have Dmitri’s scratches, and a myriad of bruises to contend with, but the tunnel floor was a minefield of splinters. Even Mr. Bowling, my seventh grade math teacher, should be spared an ordeal that painful.

It was also extremely tiring, and I stopped to rest several times. At least one of those times I drifted off to sleep. My guess is that I was asleep only a few minutes when the giant rat began sniffing at my fingers.

Under normal circumstances rodents and I do not cohabit peacefully. Suffice it to say I was the last mother in my neighborhood to take her kids to Walt Disney World. A kingdom presided over by a giant mouse does not meet my definition of magical.

To my knowledge, there had been no rats in the pit. Therefore, a rat this size in front of me could only mean one thing—the tunnel
did
lead somewhere.

“Go away, nice rat,” I groaned, and scrabbled my fingers at him.

The rat was every bit as friendly as Mickey, and didn’t budge. In fact, he began to lick my fingers.

“Shoo, you hairy son of a Dumpster!”

“Meow.”

“Dmitri?” I bumped my head on the tunnel roof in my excitement.

“Meow.”

“Dmitri!” I affectionately scratched my feline friend under the chin. All was forgiven.

Dmitri forgave me as well. As usual, he purred like a well-tuned engine. In that confined space,
however, he sounded like a lawn mower without a muffler.

A few minutes later, our bond reestablished, it was time to move on. Alas, poor Dmitri did not get the picture. He would have been content to have his chin scratched until one or both of us resembled the hapless Maynard. Animal lovers will have to forgive me if I confess that I had to pinch him in order to get him to budge, and even then he only reluctantly turned around and heroically led me to freedom.

The tunnel, I was soon to learn, exited under the wooden floor of the old kitchen. There was a crawl space there, approximately three feet high, and I was able to sit up for the first time in what must have been hours. I can’t describe what a relief that was. Now it was my turn to procrastinate, but Dmitri wouldn’t have it. If I wasn’t going to scratch his chin, I at least had to feed him. To convey his message, he nipped my ankles several times.

“Okay, boy, let’s go,” I said.

Frankly I didn’t have much hope that Dmitri knew where he was any more than I did. Any animal that chases his own tail has got to be spatially challenged.

Dmitri led me to a hole in the floor that was barely cat size. From its rough edges I surmised that Dmitri had done a little remodeling of his own. It still needed to be improved on, and while Dmitri nipped impatiently at my ankles, I worked at expanding the hole. Unfortunately at this end of the tunnel there were no loose rocks, candelabras, or human bones to aid me. I did manage to find a small stone about the size of my fist, and I used it as best I could.

Several fingernails later I was a free woman, except for the minor inconvenience of being trapped in the plantation’s old kitchen. The door was securely locked from the outside, the windows painted shut. Fortunately my assailant had no appreciation
for the tenacity of a Timberlake—even one by marriage. They would have to pay for the broken window, not me.

They were going to pay for something else as well. It is one thing to throw a middle-aged busybody into a pitch-black pit to let her die of starvation, if not fright. Perhaps, in some small way, I deserved it. But to starve a helpless cat was unconscionable. One thing I knew for sure—Dmitri had not come willingly. Hopefully his tormentor had experienced a little torment as well.

At any rate it was dark when we got outside, and I assumed that it was no longer the night of our arrival. It seemed probable that it was the next night, but it may have been several nights later, for all I knew.

My car was missing. I had expected that. My assailant had misjudged my will to survive, but he or she was no idiot.

The mansion was, as I expected, locked. There was however, an outdoor garden spigot by the back door, and Dmitri and I made that our first stop. I gulped, he lapped, and vice versa. It was the longest drink on record. You would have thought we were a pair of small, misshapen camels, fresh in from a six-month trek across the Sahara.

I was considering breaking and entering the mansion to use the phone—I had become something of an expert, after all—when I heard the distinct sound of rap. I don’t mean a knocking noise, either, but that sort of staccato entertainment in which today’s young people openly and unabashedly shout obscenities, denigrate women, and malign minorities. Oh, for the good old days when innuendo and allusion were an art.

It wasn’t difficult tracking down the source of the rap: a beat-up pickup on the front lawn of the plantation. The cab, as far I could tell, was empty, but
the vehicle was bucking up and down like a bronco with a burr under its saddle.

There was no need for Dmitri and me to sneak up on the ardent lovers. Lightning, an earthquake, and a volcanic eruption all happening simultaneously could not have gotten their attention. In fact, I drove almost a mile before they realized they were moving horizontally as well as vertically.

I
politely turned off the radio as soon as the young man began pounding on the rear window. I will spare you his exact words, but they were taken from the lyrics to which we had just been listening.

“I’m only borrowing it, dear,” I shouted.

He put together another string of invectives and pounded harder. I calmly responded by braking sharply, then gunning the engine. There was a great deal of horizontal movement in the bed of the truck, none of it happy. From then on the young couple clung to each other morosely. They didn’t even have the decency to be afraid, and shame was out of the question.

I hung a right on 901, and another right on Cherry Road, which is the main drag. The clock above Nations Bank read two
A.M.
, and there was not another car in sight. Contrary to the stereotype of a small southern town, folks in Rock Hill do not roll up the sidewalks at sundown. There are plenty of cultural events to enjoy in the evenings before the sidewalks are taken up, and they are never rolled but folded neatly and stored in giant drawers lined with sachets.

Any thinking, responsible person would have driven straight to the police station or Piedmont Medical Center, but not yours truly. I was battered
and bruised, and craved the bosom of my mama. It was as simple as that.

I pulled into Mama’s driveway, put the truck in park, but left the engine running. Dmitri graciously allowed me to pick him up, and I jumped down. Every fiber in my body screamed in agony; some screamed twice.

“Thanks for the ride,” I told the kids.

The boy stood up shakily. “You ain’t going to turn us in to the police?”

His question gave me a start. I hadn’t but for a second considered that they might be responsible for the condition I was in. I didn’t think the two of them together could change a lightbulb without a manual.

“Should I?”

“Dewayne said the truck was his.” The girl pouted. “I didn’t know it was stolen, I swear.”

“Shut up, Yolanda. It ain’t stolen.”

“Does your mother know where you are?” I asked her.

“Man, we don’t need this shit,” Dewayne said. He hustled Yolanda into the cab, and they were off in a squeal of tires that woke half the neighborhood, including Mama.

“Lord have mercy!” Mama said, opening the door just a crack. “Police Chief Larry is going to hear about this. There is supposed to be a curfew in this town.”

“Mama, it’s me!” I cried, wanting nothing more than to fling myself into her comforting arms.

“Abigail! What in heaven’s name are you doing here this time of night? Was that Greg who dropped you off?” She craned her neck to look down the street in the direction of the vanished truck.

“Mama! Look at me.”

She looked, and did a double-take. “Lord have mercy, Abby. You look like something the cat
dragged in.” She must have seen that I was holding Dmitri. “No offense,” she added.

Dewayne and his truck were now a faint buzz in the night. A mosquito receding into the distance. She turned, and I followed her inside.

“I’m sorry, Mama, that I worried you so. I guess I should have gone straight to the police so they could start their investigation. I’ll call them now. We don’t want my kidnappers to get away.”

Mama looked as confused as she did the first time she tried to open a bottle of childproof pills. I hastened to explain.

“I was supposed to meet Shirley at Roselawn but she didn’t show and I got conked on the head and tossed down a hole with a dead Yankee and a pile of treasures and only just now escaped through a tunnel the size of a heating duct where I met Dmitri who’d been locked in the old plantation kitchen but we had to steal a truck first.” I said it in one breath, a feat that would have been impossible in the thin air of the pit.

Mama instinctively felt my forehead. “Well, you’re not burning up, so I don’t think it’s fever talking. Have you been drinking, dear?”

“Mama!”

Both hands flew up to caress her pearls. “You’re serious, Abby?”

“Look at me, Mama. Would I do this to myself? And smell me! I—” What I did was burst into tears. I smelled like a Port-O-John in August.

“I’ve had a bad cold,” Mama said. “I haven’t been able to smell a thing since Sunday night.”

“Didn’t you care that I was missing?”

The pearls were a blur. “You were missing?”

“Since Monday night. What day is it now?”

Mama glanced at the clock above her TV. “Wednesday morning.
Early
Wednesday morning.” Eight-millimeter tears had formed in her eyes. “I
didn’t know you were missing, dear. I’ve had a real humdinger of a cold. I was in bed all day yesterday. I called your shop twice, and your house three times, but you didn’t return my calls. I didn’t think
you
cared.”

I threw myself into my mother’s arms, and we both sobbed like babies. Good mother that she is, she allowed us just enough time to dwell on our mutual failures before putting a pragmatic spin on things.

“You need to eat,” she said. Her nose began to twitch. “You go take a nice hot bath while I rustle up some pork chops, mashed potatoes, collard greens, fried okra, biscuits—and for dessert some piping hot peach cobbler with vanilla ice cream.”

Mama was fully capable of rustling it up, despite her cold. Besides, she needed to feel useful. Still, all that food on a long-empty stomach might not be such a good idea.

I shook my head. “Just some peach cobbler.”

“That does it,” Mama said sternly. “I’m taking you straight to the hospital. No ifs, ands, or buts.”

The doctor who examined me at Piedmont Medical Center was very kind, but he plugged me into a labyrinth of plastic tubes and forced me to stay overnight for observation. Every time I blinked, a staff of thousands shone flashlights in my eyes, and I got prodded and poked with thermometers more times than a Thanksgiving turkey. And of course I had to give my statement to the police. I was finally left alone just as the morning food trolleys began their rounds, and I fell asleep to the sound of clanking cutlery.

I woke up in mid-afternoon to find Mama sitting by my bed, her face grim. My first thought was that she had been the victim of an intense religious experience.

“Mama?”

Her face brightened upon hearing my voice, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. She would no doubt continue to sing in the Episcopal choir and sit on washing machines.

“Abby! I was so worried. We all were. Greg was just here, but he didn’t want to wake you up. He said you looked just like a—uh—”

“Sleeping Beauty?”

“An unraveled skein of yarn.”

“Thanks, Mama. Tell him I love him, too.”

Mama and I had sound-bite conversations, interspersed with periods of dozing. We both dozed, as much as she denies it. When the supper trolleys rolled around, Mama fed me as if I were a baby. She made me clean my plate, too, and then I fell into a deep sleep and didn’t wake again until the next morning. Upon awakening I felt like a million bucks. After a sponge bath and a little makeup, I looked like a thousand.

“Jeepers, creepers,” I said to Mama, who was back on duty again, “where did that giant bouquet come from?”

She surveyed the room, which contained more flowers than either of us had ever seen outside a funeral home. She pointed to an arrangement the size of a Volkswagen bug, and I nodded.

“That’s from the Upstate Preservation Foundation. They’re afraid of a lawsuit, if you ask me.”

“And so they should—well, one of them, at any rate.”

“Do you know which one?”

“I have a hunch, but I can’t prove anything at this point.”

“If I didn’t still have my cold, I could help you smell out the culprit,” she said loyally.

I asked her to bring me the card attached to the behemoth bouquet. It was signed by all the board members, except for one.

“Aha! Just as I thought. Shirley Hall’s name isn’t on the card. No doubt she’s down in Rio by now, with a suitcase of stolen loot—”

“Abby—”

“No, Rio is too hot. Shirley likes it cold. Where do cold-loving criminals go when they’re on the lam? The Yukon? Siberia?”

“Abigail!”

“But, Mama, she tried to poison me. I’ve got the brew at home to prove it.”

Mama hoisted herself up on the bed and gently patted a battle-scarred arm. “Abby, dear, Shirley Hall is dead.”

“What?”

“Her body was found in the Catawba River, not far from Roselawn. It was discovered by two boys who were hiking in Landsford Canal State Park.”

“Oh, Mama—”

I began to cry, for Shirley, of course, but for myself as well. It was time to let it all out, to cry myself dry. I could have cried for weeks had the nurses not been so inconsiderate and unhooked my IV the day before.

Poor Mama did her best to comfort me. I have always been sure of her love, but cuddling and coddling do not come naturally to her. Patting gingerly seemed to be her forte, and I graciously allowed her to do this. The pain would eventually ebb away.

“She called and left a message for you,” Mama said suddenly, just as I was catching my second wind and working up to another good blubber. “She couldn’t get you at home, so she decided to try me.”

“What? When?”

“Monday evening.”

I gripped Mama’s patting arm. “What did she say?”

“She said she was running late for your meeting, but would be there as soon as possible. Oh, Abigail,
I didn’t realize that the ‘there’ she was referring to was Roselawn Plantation!”

“Did she say anything else?”

“Some Bible verse, I think. I didn’t know Shirley was religious.”

“Mama, what was the verse?” I asked with remarkable patience.

“Something about the last being first, and the other way around,” Mama said. “It was hard to understand her; the static was terrible. That is a Bible verse, isn’t it? Or is it from the
Kama Sutra
?”

“It’s a Bible verse,” I said.

I chewed on its meaning while Mama dutifully dabbed at my blotched face with a napkin soaked in water. We were both so preoccupied that neither of us heard Greg knock and enter.

“Hey,” he said almost bashfully.

I looked up to see a sight for sore eyes, and everything else for that matter. He had never looked so handsome. The Wedgwood eyes, thick dark hair, classic nose, straight white teeth—Greg was perfect Hollywood leading man material. He had, in fact, once worked as an extra in the cult classic
Romancing the Kidney Stone
. Why Hollywood had not snatched him up could only be a testimony to its lack of good judgment. Well, its loss was my gain, and I meant to tell Greg so just as soon as I settled another small matter.

“I know who killed June Troyan, Frank McBride, and then tried to kill me,” I said.