I can’t blame Greg for pressing the pedal to the metal and making like a ghost; he simply disappeared. And while I gaped open-mouthed at the space left by my husband’s car, the menacing pickup behind me did a vanishing act of its own. Perhaps the bridge really was haunted.
By the time I dropped off the Zimmermans and the Papadopouluses, Greg had showered and was sitting on the front steps with a salted margarita in each hand. If I hadn’t been so furious, and thus capable of seeing only red, I might have noticed how much the white shorts and crisp blue shirt he’d changed into set off his tan. If I hadn’t been so self-absorbed, I might have appreciated the fact that he was wearing cologne—something other than Eau du Poisson.
Greg extend the drink meant for me. “Here you go, hon. On a hot day like this, I think a little extra sodium is called for, don’t you?”
“I don’t want alcohol. I want answers.”
“Okay, but you’re not forgetting that I have to solve crossword puzzles in pencil first.”
“Greg, I’m in no mood for jokes. What are you doing home this early?”
“The truth?”
“Of course.”
“You’re going to be pissed.”
“It’s too late now.”
He sighed, and set my untouched drink next to the wrought-iron banister. “The truth is I love you too much. I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you.”
It was the truth, all right. I could see the love in his eyes. But I could feel his need to control me. And yes, I was pissed. I was an adult, for crying out loud. In a sense, Greg risked his life every day that he took the shrimp boat out. We both risked our lives whenever we drove anywhere—or, for that matter, walked. Especially during tourist season.
“Greg, you and Mama sicced Toy on me. Wasn’t that enough?”
“No offense, hon, but your brother isn’t the most responsible person in the world.”
“That’s not fair. For all you know, he’s changed.” Two days ago I would have bet a million dollars that those words would never pass my lips.
My darling husband was suddenly interested in studying one of his brown kneecaps. “If he was responsible, he wouldn’t have helped you climb a wall. That was a damn foolish thing to do, Abby. You could have broken your neck.”
“But I didn’t—Greg, you were there?”
“Someone had to keep an eye on you.”
My legs felt weak, so I joined Greg on the steps—on the far side of the steps. “Did you follow me to Sullivan’s Island?”
“Guilty.”
“What did you do while we were eating lunch on the Isle of Palms?”
“I hung out on the beach behind an umbrella. I could see you the entire time.”
“How did you end up in front of me on the bridge?”
“It was that sudden stop you made at the sweetgrass basket stand. I couldn’t turn around fast enough. I thought I’d lost you—I thought sure you were on to me—so I decided to mosey on home. Wait for you here. I guess I moseyed too much.”
One has to admire a man who can spend hours outside in our near tropical heat and not break a sweat. After admiring him briefly, one is then free to react in a more reasonable way.
“Gregory,” I growled, “what you did is just plain unacceptable. I’m not going to take it sitting down.” To emphasize my point, I jumped to my feet.
He lost interest in his kneecap. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that until you can respect me as an equal, someone capable of making her own decisions—well, I’m just not going to put up with it.”
His sapphire blue eyes locked on mine, but after a second or two seemed to fade in intensity. “Ah, I know what you mean. You’re moving out, aren’t you? More accurately, you’re moving in with them.”
“Them?”
“The Rob-Bobs. Every time we have a dispute, you either run back to your mama’s or you move in with Rob Goldburg and Bob Steuben. Now that Mozella lives with us, it’s narrowed your options, but you’re just as eager to go. I’m telling you, Abby, just because they’re gay—well, I still don’t like to see you move in with two guys.”
“You think I’d rather move in with them than stay here and work this thing out?”
“Don’t you three have more in common?”
“Our work, yes. But you’re my best friend.”
He was quiet for a moment. “Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way.”
The trouble with having a handsome and charming husband is that it’s hard to stay angry at him. There are times when I have to work to keep my hackles hiked. On the other hand, while a homely mate might make it easier to hold a grudge, the makeup sex might not be as good. Not that I’m speaking from personal experience, mind you, even though I was married to Buford “the timber snake” Timberlake. Back then it took at least half a bottle of wine—but I digress.
“Greg, I just need time to cool off. To sort things out.” Already I was softening. But if, after two years of marriage, I couldn’t get Greg to see how much I valued my independence, the road ahead was bound to be even rockier. It was my duty as a good wife to drive the point home now, while the potholes were still navigable.
The love of my life picked up my discarded drink. “Abby, you just need to calm down a bit.”
“Calm down?”
“Just a notch, hon.”
“That does it. I’m outta here for now. You see that Dmitri gets fed—and sift his litter for a change. Oh, and tell Mama where I am.”
He looked at the margarita, which was sweating far more than he ever did, and then looked at me. “Let me know when you’re done pouting, Abby.”
“Damn you,” I said.
He didn’t even have the decency to wait until I’d turned away before downing the drink.
The Finer Things is arguably Charleston’s finest antique store. While I carry a broad inventory, catering to a variety of tastes and pocketbooks, the Rob-Bobs deal only in museum-quality, one-of-a-kind pieces. Collectors come from as far away as New Orleans and San Francisco to do business with them.
I have sleigh bells on the back of my door to announce customers, but at The Finer Things, one has to be buzzed in. While my friends do not engage in racial, or economical, profiling, they do have a decided prejudice against fully expanded women in spandex. Shoppers deemed inappropriately dressed will be ignored.
Once inside, however, expect to be treated like a queen. A gold-plated samovar once owned by Nicholas and Alexandria is kept full of Russian tea. A solid silver salver, made by the revered Paul himself, spills over with petits fours and crustless sandwiches that somehow manage never to go stale. Should you open your mouth to speak, either Rob or Bob will pop up beside you, as if anticipating your comment or question. Guests—and that’s what my friends prefer to call their clientele—leave with the impression that they were all that mattered during their visits.
Perhaps the Rob-Bobs had been tipped off to my impending arrival, because even though I leaned on the bell, neither even bothered to glance at the door. Finally, when by rights they should have been calling the police, Bob tripped over and pretended to do a double take.
“Oh my goodness,” he said, pushing the door open with long slim fingers, like those of a pianist, “the buzzer must be broken.”
“Bull.”
“Abby,” Bob did his best to whisper, “Greg called and he doesn’t want us to enable you.”
“What?”
He lowered his voice even further. Since Bob’s normal register is bass, his deep rumbles echoed off the nearest pieces of furniture. It would have been easier to understand an elephant.
“I heard you better the first time, Bob. I want to know what he means by ‘enable.’”
“I’m sorry, Abby, but he thinks you’re being childish.”
“Does this mean I can’t stay with you?”
Bob’s Adam’s apple jerked violently, and I imagined a large fish—perhaps a bass—had just been snagged. “If it was up to me, Abby—oh the heck with it, it’s my place, too. Of course you can stay.”
“What about him?” I pointed with my chin to Rob’s turned back.
“Forget about him. He’s doing his alpha male thing, bonding with Greg. But he’ll come around.”
“You sure?”
“Positive. And who cares if he doesn’t? You’ll stay in my room—well, it’s really the guest room, but you know what I mean. That’s where I keep my vinyl collection. We’ll have a great time, just the two of us. I have Judy Garland originals, Peggy Lee—hey, you like camel?”
“Cigarettes?”
“The meat.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Because if you do, you’ll love alpaca. They say it’s sweeter than camel. I’m serving a standing rib roast tonight, with yogurt and cumin sauce. I found the recipe in Caravan Cuisine. I had to adapt it, of course, seeing how alpacas come from South America, not Africa or Asia, but it smells good just marinating.”
I must confess that for the next few minutes I found myself in a culinary quandary. I could refuse Bob’s offer and have Greg think he’d won, or I could acquiesce and gag on alpaca. Because gourmets generally serve small, albeit attractively presented portions, I decided to risk gagging. And anyway, if I backed down now, I’d more than likely have to choke on my words, which didn’t have the advantage of being served with yogurt and cumin sauce.
“Great,” Bob said, when I agreed to his plan.
“Not so fast!” Maybe it’s because Rob took two years of ballet when he was boy, but that man can move as silently as a puma in slippers.
Bob crossed his rather spindly arms. “I’m not backing down. Abby’s my guest.”
“Correction—she’s our guest.” Rob stooped to kiss my cheek. “You okay with that, Abby?”
“Sure, but I thought—”
“That was just to throw him off track. Serve him right to worry even more.”
Supper wasn’t for a number of hours—alpaca roasts, even when well-marinated, are best cooked slowly to ensure tenderness—so there wasn’t any point in my hanging around the shop. I tried calling Wooden Wonders several times to see if by chance Wynnell’s husband, Ed, was there, but kept getting a busy number. Instead of adding to my frustration level, I decided to tool out there in person.
Compared to the old Cooper bridges, the Ashley River Memorial Bridge is sedate and dignified, almost European in appearance. Because the latter does not have to accommodate container ships, very few people who use it come down with high-altitude sickness. On a trip across the Ashley one invariably sees sailboats, and if headed into town, the Ashley Marina presents one of the prettiest sights on the Eastern seaboard.
When headed out of town, the first right turn puts you on St. Andrew’s Boulevard. By bearing left and staying on Route 61, the traveler finds him- or herself on Ashley River Road, downriver from some of America’s finest antebellum-era plantations. Magnolia Gardens, Drayton Hall—this is the Old South about which Margaret Mitchell rhapsodized. It is still there—sans slaves, of course, and with ice cold beverages at one’s fingertips, if one has the fortitude to make it past the strip malls and other dubious achievements of urban development.
Wynnell’s shop is in one of these microshopping centers, sandwiched between a Subway and a coin-operated laundry. Her customer base tends to be drop-ins from the Laundromat, lower-income women who, unable to purchase washers and dryers of their own, are unlikely to buy “used furniture” at such fancy prices. An occasional well-heeled woman with a hankering for a low-fat sub will wander in out of curiosity. If it weren’t for the munching matrons, Wooden Wonders would never have floated at all.
The front door was locked, but I could see Ed on the phone, his back to me. I rapped on the smudged glass with my knuckles until he turned around. He held a finger up as if to signal I should wait a minute, but then he hung up almost immediately.
“Abby,” he said, struggling with the lock, “what a nice surprise.”
“Ed, how was the arraignment? Were you there?”
“No. It happened too fast—but that was Wynnell on the phone just now. The arraignment was moved up. There was an opening on the docket, and so they were able to convene a grand jury this morning.”
“And?”
“She”—his voice broke—“my Wynnell’s been indicted for murder. In the first degree.”
“Just like that? On what evidence?”
“Apparently there were several eyewitnesses who heard her threaten the deceased. And the so-called murder weapon was found.”
“Yes, a statue. What about bail?”
“Denied. Too great a flight risk.”
“Why? Because she once ran off to Japan with a group of tourists?” I immediately regretted my words. That episode occurred during a particularly low dip in their marriage—I wasn’t aware of any equivalent high points—and undoubtedly brought back sad memories. Ed had to travel to Tokyo, where he made a public appeal to reclaim his bride of over thirty years. The Crawfords have all the luck of Saharan surfers, so it came as no surprise to me when Ed found himself on a Japanese television game show, encased to his neck in green tea-flavored gelatin, while a pair of trained seals vied to balance balls on his nose. Still, it had made sushi converts out of both Crawfords, and Ed now prefers sumo over baseball.
“Have you spoken with her lawyer?” I asked gently.
“Just got off the phone with him. He seems like a nice enough man. Said you brought in another helper.”
“My brother, Toy. Ed, you mind if I have a seat?” Without waiting to be asked to sit, I wrestled a Victorian side chair out of a tangle of its littermates. The furniture hadn’t been dusted in weeks.
“If Wynnell is going to make it in this business, she’s going to need my help. From now on we’re in this together. And Abby, thanks for offering to take us under your wing.”
“My pleasure. Ed, the afternoon that Marina Webbfingers was killed—did Wynnell seem particularly upset?”
He jerked to attention. “Upset? What are you implying?”
“Nothing, dear. It’s just that several witnesses claim to have overheard Wynnell and Mrs. Webbfingers fighting—well, at least arguing vociferously. They could be lying, of course.”
Ed studied his knuckles. His lifestyle was such that he would never get all the grease from the creases.
“I suppose,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “that you already know that the two of them didn’t get along, on account of the bathrooms in the main house being off limits.”
“When a gal’s gotta go, a gal’s gotta go. I don’t blame Wynnell for finding it demeaning.”
“You didn’t.”
“That’s because I was remodeling the guest rooms, not working in the garden. There were facilities at my disposal all day long.”
“But you’re right, Abby, the day Mrs. Webbfingers was murdered—well, let’s just say my Wynnell was fit to be tied.”
“Tell me more about it.”
“Well, you know she’d already done her job—been paid and everything—and then suddenly she gets this call saying a lot of the flowers were dying. So Wynnell closes up the shop early, goes over, and sure enough the flowers are wilted, but it’s not her fault. Someone had turned off the drip hose.”
“Drip hose?” What I know about gardening can be contained on the back of a seed packet.
“Like a garden hose, but with pinprick-size holes in it spaced at even intervals. It’s left on all the time, but just enough water seeps out—and to just the right spots—so that nothing gets wasted. Farmers use them a lot.”
“Hmm. Why would someone mess around with a hose that wasn’t theirs?”
“Unless it was Mrs. Webbfingers. This may surprise you, Abby, but some folks get their kicks from being nasty.”
That saddened me, but in no way was I surprised. Marriage to Buford had prepared me for anything—well, maybe not alpaca in yogurt and cumin sauce.
“What did Wynnell do, besides turn the hose back on?”
“Nothing—not to Mrs. Webbfingers. Yeah, they exchanged words, but I’m the one that caught the real heat when she got home. What’s that old saying, you only love the ones you hurt?”
Again I thought of Buford. He must have loved me very much. He obviously still adores our children, since he never calls them—not even on birthdays or holidays.
“I know what you mean,” I said. “But we both know Wynnell’s bark is worse than her bite.”
He settled on a chair opposite me. At least our backsides were good for dusting.
“Abby, what do you know about real estate law in South Carolina?”
“Virtually nothing—except that everyone needs a will. Daddy and Mama had good up-to-date wills, and when Daddy died, that made everything fairly easy for Mama. It’s funny how intelligent, organized people freeze up when it comes to wills. Like talking about them is bad luck.”
“Yeah, wills. Always a good thing. But what about property rights when there isn’t a death but one of the parties is—uh, well, you know.”
“Incarcerated?”
He looked away. “I mean, that could happen, right?”
“What could?”
“She could be found guilty, right? And if that happens, who gets the shop?”
“Whose name is it in now?”
“Hers, but I cosigned. Wynnell wasn’t working then and…”
I tuned him out. Could it possibly be that this uninteresting man, who had only slightly more personality than a rutabaga, and was frankly less handsome, had framed his wife for murder? But why? The shop was failing, not making a dime—unless—no, there was no way he could count on a death sentence, so life insurance was out of the question.
This was nonsense thinking on my part, but just further proof that living with Buford is enough to make an incurable cynic out of the most trusting of maidens. Besides, there was another possible motive; perhaps Ed had been one of Marina’s lovers. They were not from the same social set, to be certain, but maybe one day when he’d stopped by to pick Wynnell up from her gardening project—which he’d done upon occasion—the two locked eyes and in the words of Magdalena Yoder, engaged in the horizontal hootchy-kootchy. Absurd? Yes, but not out of the realm of possibility. Sex, especially when meant to punish a third party, often makes no sense.
So Wynnell found out about her husband’s upscale lover, and confronted the woman. She then confronted Ed, who decided to capitalize on his wife’s temper and have her locked away for good. Thereafter he would be free to lead the life of his dreams, the life he’d missed out on as a rug-weaving mill worker: fishing in the morning and shagging on shag carpets by night.
I tuned Ed back in. He was regarding me through hooded eyes, his lips slack, like he was in the process of dozing off in front of the TV. Thanksgiving afternoon football games came to mind. If indeed he was a killer, he wasn’t a threat to me just then. Besides, unlike just about everyone else that day, he couldn’t read my mind.
“Ed, darling,” I said, as I stood and pushed my chair back, “I’ll stay in touch. We’ve got to concentrate on clearing Wynnell, but then—and I promise—we’ll do something about this shop.”
He wasn’t paying attention. Hadn’t even bobbed his head when I stood up. How rude was that? Any Southern gentleman worthy of his sweet tea will automatically rise when a woman rises or enters a room. Even murderers (or so I suppose). This shocking turn of events could only mean one thing: the carpet maker had just exposed himself as a carpetbagger. Edward Eugene Crawford had Yankee blood coursing through his veins!
Suddenly I didn’t know my best friend’s husband at all. His strong Piedmont accent, his passion for the Panthers, his preference for vinegar-based barbecue sauce over tomato, were these just all affectations? A man capable of concealing Northern roots was capable of anything. How ironic that just a few weeks before, Wynnell had prattled on and on about the presence of Yankee spies among us. Was she trying tell me something then? Had I, in my enlightened arrogance, ignored a buddy’s desperate cry for help?
Maybe Wynnell hadn’t known then, maybe our conversation that day was merely coincidence. But there was no escaping the facts now. My friend was going to be heartbroken when she learned that the man to whom she’d pledged her troth, the man with whom she’d shared a bed all these years, was actually from “up the road a piece.” Talk about the ultimate betrayal. At least there were no offspring from this unholy union.
Not being the least bit prejudiced myself, I didn’t for a second think that a Yankee killer was any more diabolical than a Southern one. Good manners mean little when one is being murdered. I gripped the Victorian side chair and pushed it between me and Ed. Let the S.O.B. from W.O.T.A. try and get me. I’d show him that we belles had balls—in a manner of speaking, that is. I mean, there wasn’t a Yankee alive that could drink a Miss Kudzu contestant under the table.
One of the chair legs hit a knot in the pine floor, and when I jerked it past the rough spot, it hit the floor again with a thunk. It wasn’t much of a jolt, but apparently it was enough to send the slack-jawed Ed sliding to the floor.
It took me a few seconds to scream.