The Unraveling of Violeta Bell (12 page)

“Not that kind of professional help,” I growled. “Somebody who knows something about the antique business.”

He put his hand back on the wheel. Chuckled with relief. “I know Joseph Lambright, if that’ll do you any good.”

“It might if I knew who Joseph Lambright was.”

He squeaked with disbelief. “What? You’ve lived in Hannawa all these years and you don’t know who Joseph Lambright is?”

“No, I don’t know who Joseph Lambrigh is.”

“I can’t believe you don’t know who Joseph Lambright is.”

Now my brain was in a twist. “Jesus Christ, Ike! Who is Joseph Lambright?”

Ike’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “Somebody who doesn’t use language like that on a Sunday, far as I know.”

Ike had just come from church. Changed into walking shorts and that khaki shirt of his with the epaulets. Bought those chips and submarine sandwiches for us. I bit my tongue and started over. “This Mr. Lambright knows the antique business, does he?”

“I can’t believe you don’t know who Joseph Lambright is!”

We were sitting at a red light now—but I would have done the same thing even if we were speeding along at eighty miles an hour. I grabbed his chin and twisted his face toward me. I purred like a saber-tooth tiger. “Unless you want a 12-inch turkey sub sticking out your ear, you will kindly accept my ignorance and tell me who Joseph Lambright is.”

Ike pried my fingers off his chin. Kissed the back of my hand. “He owns that shop on German Hill.”

“You mean Joey Junk?”

“I guess some people call him that.”

“Even he calls himself that. Heaven’s to Besty, Ike, sometime you make me mad enough to scream.”

“Please don’t do that.”

“Then take me there—now!”

And so, we delayed our happy afternoon at the park and drove straight to Joey Junk’s Treasure Trove. It was located right there on West Apple, just three blocks east of Meriwether Square, on Herders’ Hill. The area was named after the Scotch-Irish farmers who grazed their sheep on the slope back in the 1800s. Those picturesque days are long gone, of course. Today it’s a sad strip of low-rent apartment buildings, empty storefronts, gas stations that sell more beer and lottery tickets than gas, and one ramshackle motel that rents rooms by the hour. Because of that motel, snooty suburbanites call it Herpes Hill.

Joey Junk’s Treasure Trove is one of Hannawa’s most familiar landmarks. You can’t help but twist your neck when you drive by. The worthless crap stuffed inside pours right out the front door. It fills the sidewalk and half of the parking lot on the side. Old claw-foot bathtubs and bathroom sinks, chairs missing a leg or two, yellowed wedding dresses on chipped plaster mannequins, rusty iron beds, and gaudy living room lamps that should never have been made. I’m sure you’ve got a place like that in your town.

Ike pulled into the parking lot. Parked alongside a twisted pile of old bicycles. We went inside. It was bric-a-brac heaven in there. The musty air immediately made my eyes itch. Joey spotted us. He stepped across a box of old magazines and waddled toward us. “Maddy Sprowls and Ike Breeze! Don’t tell me you two know each other!”

“For too long,” I said.

I’d known Joey for a long time, too. He was about my age. Overweight and sloppy. Happy as a clam. He’d had his shop there since the sixties. Every once in a while I drop in to see if there’s anything I don’t need but can’t live without.

Joey wanted to pursue my relationship with Ike. I cut that touchy subject off at the pass and got right to business. “Ike thought maybe you could help me learn something about the antique business.”

Joey froze. Like a bull walrus caught in the headlights. “You’re not thinking of opening a shop are you? It’s not as lucrative as it looks.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ve got Herders’ Hill all to yourself. I’m looking into Violeta Bell’s murder and thought maybe you could give me some idea how she did business.”

Joey dug his hands into the pockets of the shiny pair of suit pants he was wearing. “She was one tough woman to deal with.” He rubbed his neck again. “Like you without the compassion.”

Ike liked that—too much. I shushed him. “Deal with, Joey? You did business with her?”

“She came in all the time,” Joey said. “Twice a month maybe. And she bought a lot of stuff. I knew she’d probably turn right around and sell it for a lot more than what she paid.”

“That bother you?” I asked.

Joey smashed his lips together. Shook his head no. “She had a lot more knowledge about the value of things than I did. And a lot more connections. And I always got a buck or two more for the things I sold her than what I paid. That’s all the matters to me.”

Ike wandered off to look at Joey’s collection of political memorabilia. I charged ahead. “She had a pretty exclusive shop. Who exactly were her customers?”

“Hannawa’s la-de-das mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Junk dealers like yours truly sell anything we can get our hands on. But real antique dealers tend to specialize. They buy from other dealers.”

“Where’s the money in that?” Ike asked from across the shop. He had his nose in a box of old campaign buttons.

“There’s plenty of money in that,” Joey explained. “Say I’m a dealer in Ohio and I get my hands on some fancy old French chair that maybe Napoleon himself sat in. But I specialize in 18th century coo-coo clocks. Which means my customers aren’t going to pay top dollar for a chair, no matter whose ass once graced it. But I know so-and-so in Timbuktu who could sell that chair for a ton of money. So I give it to him for a pretty good price and he turns around and sells it for an even prettier price.”

“How about Violeta Bell?” I asked. “Did she specialize?”

Joey smashed his lips together again. This time he nodded. “Big pieces mostly. Furniture and the like. Some European but mostly American. Nineteenth century. Early twentieth. Art Nouveau. Biedermeier. Arts & Crafts. She absolutely went schizoid over Art Deco.”

I was impressed. I remembered some of those names from Detective Grant’s list. “For a mere junk dealer you know your stuff.”

Ike loudly reprimanded me. “His shop’s full of junk, not his brain.”

I smiled apologetically. Joey smiled back, somewhat grimly. “I gather she was big into old fireplaces and stoves.”

“They do bring a pretty penny,” he said.

“You ever sell her any?”

“I come by a few now and then—so I suppose I might have.”

Maybe it was imagination, but Joey seemed to be getting a little nervous. “Where do dealers get their antiques, other than junk shop owners and other dealers?” I asked.

“A good fisherman fishes many ponds,” he said. “Antique malls, auctions, estate sales, classified ads, garage sales, tree lawns on garbage day.”

I knew I was going to make him really nervous now. “And where would a dealer who isn’t exactly on the up and up get her stuff?”

Joey got less nervous instead of more. Downright steely in fact. “You’re saying Violeta Bell dealt in fakes?”

Ike appeared at my side wearing a big “I Like Ike” button on his khaki shirt. “She’s not saying that, Joseph. She’s just trying to figure out why somebody might have popped her.”

I asked my next question before the conversation shifted to the Eisenhower button. “You think it’s possible she could have been selling fakes?”

“There isn’t a dealer alive who hasn’t sold a fake or three,” Joey answered. “The antique business is lousy with reproductions being passed off as authentic pieces. Sometimes it’s almost impossible for dealers to tell. Even if they’re an expert in that particular area.”

“I guess I’m taking about knowingly selling fakes.”

“There are a few unscrupulous dealers who do that.”

I asked a final question. “Do you think that Violeta Bell could have been one of those few?”

“I never had any reason to suspect it.”

Ike paid Joey two dollars for the “I Like Ike” button. On the way to the car, Ike pinned it on my tee shirt. I immediately took it off. “You’re forgetting I’m a Democrat.”

He flashed me that damn don’t-you-love-me smile of his. “Lots of Democrats voted for Ike.”

“Not this one!”

We drove to Oswosso Swamp Park. We followed the trail around the rim of the marsh until we found an empty bench. We sat next to each other, our shoulders just barely touching. We didn’t say a word. We nibbled our sandwiches and chips. We slurped the sun tea I’d brewed that morning. We watched the long-legged heron do their impressions of lawn ornaments. We watched the ducks paddle by. We watched the turtles stick their snoots through the algae. We watched the human beings dumb enough to jog during what Margaret Newman in her story had called “the nation’s most blistering hot spell since rough-tough Teddy Roosevelt roasted in the Oval Office.” I didn’t know what Ike was thinking, but I was thinking about how much fun I was going to have telling Margaret that, while I enjoyed her alliteration, the Oval Office wasn’t built until the presidency of William Howard Taft.

It was Ike who finally broke the oath of silence he’d imposed before we got out of the car. “You can’t possibly think Joseph Lambright killed that old woman,” he said.

“When did I ever say that?”

“I know you were asking your questions carefully. But I also know how that wicked little brain of yours works.”

I snapped one of those tasteless baked chips between my teeth. The heron closest to us took off like the space shuttle. “I’m still at the early stages of my research. I have to suspect everybody.”

Ike shifted his attention to another heron. “What possible reason would Joseph have?”

“Maybe she snookered him.”

“Found out she sold some piece of junk from his shop for a ton of money?”

“That’s exactly right,” I said. “And when he confronted her, wanting his fair share, she refused.”

“And so he snuck into her building in the middle of the night? Took her to the basement and killed her?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s not the Joseph Lambright I know.”

“Nor is it the Joey Junk I know. But who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”

I dug another potato chip from the bag. Ike took it away before I could scare the bejeebers out of another big dumb bird. “Or women,” he said.

11

Friday, July 28

I waited until five-thirty, then I dialed Detective Grant’s direct line. I crossed my fingers that he wouldn’t be there. I hadn’t had one mug of tea all day and my head was pounding. The last thing I needed was to get laughed at, or lectured, or both, by Scotty Grant. The finger-crossing worked: “
This is Detective Grant. Please leave a message. If your call is urgent, press extension 119.
”

My call was important but not exactly urgent. I waited for the beep and left a message: “This is Maddy Sprowls. I suppose you’ve left for the day—I’m leaving myself in a couple of minutes—but I did want to pass along a tip. Well, I guess it’s not so much a tip as an unnecessary suggestion. Most likely. Anyway, if I were you I’d check the authenticity of those antiques you took from Eddie French’s apartment. And the ones still in Violeta Bell’s condo. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re fakes. I’m not saying they are. But they might be. Bye-bye.” I grabbed my purse and headed for the elevator.

***

I reached my bungalow on Brambriar Court, Ike’s car was already in the driveway. He’d had my house key for three months but this was the first time he’d used it. When I hit the button on my garage-door opener, James started barking up a storm inside. It’s good to be wanted.

Ike greeted me at the kitchen door. “Baked tilapia, wild rice, and asparagus with hollandaise sauce!”

I ducked under his arm. “I hope you used my fake eggs.”

He kissed my throbbing forehead way too hard. “Begrudgingly.”

I scratched James’ ears and headed for the bathroom. When I got back, dinner was on the table. So were a pair of candles, wine glasses, and a big bottle of Caffeine-Free Diet Coke. “How romantic!”

Ike knew enough to let me eat in silence. And then watch
Wheel of Fortune
and
Jeopardy
in silence. At eight o’clock I made him a deal: he could watch
The O’Reilly Factor
if he turned the volume down. I went into my bedroom to pack. At nine o’clock we loaded James into Ike’s car—it was a lot like Sisyphus trying to roll that rock up the mountain—and headed out into the night. Ike knew enough not to hum along with the songs on the radio.

That’s the problem with Ike, by the way. He’s known me long enough to know what not to do.

It took us twenty minutes to get there. The huge, double-story building was dark except for a few windows at the rear. We drove toward them across the empty parking lot. Ike pulled up to the curb. He already had his instructions, but he knew enough to show a smidgeon of empathy anyway. “You sure you don’t want me to come in with you?”

“James would just throw a fit.”

He leaned across my overnight bag and kissed my lips. “You behave in there, okay?”

I got out of the car. Bent down and gave him the evil eye. “Not a minute after six!”

“I’ll be here.”

I forced myself up the walk to the door. The gold letters on the glass looked three feet high: HANNAWA SLEEP CENTER.

Behind the candy bowl on the counter sat a big woman wearing a white smock covered with happy blue bunnies. She was lost in a romance novel. “I’m here for my sleep test,” I said. “Sprowls.”

Without looking up she handed me a questionnaire snapped to a clipboard. “After you fill it out I’ll take you to your room.” Her voice was soft and breathy, no doubt very much like the voice of the beautiful heiress in her book at that very moment surrendering to the passions broiling within her for so very long.

I answered the questions as truthfully as I could. When I went back to the counter, she dog-eared her page, stuck the book in the pocket of her smock and led me down the hallway to my room. It was not the sterile hospital room I expected. It was as homey as anything you’d find at a Best Western. Double bed with a real wooden headboard. Paintings bolted to the flowery wallpaper. Fuzzy rug. TV on the dresser. I put my overnight bag on the bed. “How many are being tested tonight?”