“Abby, it’s me—Rob!”
I tore at my artichoke head.
“Hey, hey, take it easy, Abby. No one’s going to hurt you; I’m only trying to help. You’re all tangled in that sheet.”
Dream and consciousness duked it out until the latter won. I was indeed wrapped in a sheet—that delicious four-hundred-thread-count creation—but I was also, thank heavens, swaddled in one of Rob’s T-shirts. I may as well have been wearing a floor-length nightgown.
“Uh—sorry. I was having a nightmare.”
“Bob’s cooking will do that.”
I sat and wedged two large fluffy pillows behind me. “Thanks for letting me stay over.”
“Any time. Look, Abby, it’s almost nine. I’ve got to run. Bob’s already left to open up our shop. I just wanted to touch base before I split.”
“Nine? In the morning?”
“I certainly hope so, or else I really overslept. And speaking of sleep, you got a full twelve hours sleep. You should be raring to go.”
I groaned. “I feel like something Dmitri dragged in through his pet door.”
“Stress will do that.” He picked up a tumbler from the bedside table. “Here, I brought you a magic potion.”
I made no move to take it from him. “What is it?”
Rob laughed. “It’s an elixir Bob made. It’s supposed to get you from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye.”
“Zero to sixty what?”
“Who cares? I wouldn’t drink it if I were you.”
“I don’t plan to. But what’s in it?”
“Let’s see—it’s got vodka, soybean milk, castor oil, carrot juice, balsamic vinegar, and a dash of cayenne pepper. Oh, and a raw egg. Bob calls it his Wake the Devil Morning Special.”
“Yuck!”
“How about if I dump this crap out and start with a fresh glass. I just squeezed a pitcher of orange juice. I’d be happy to add a splash of vodka to make it qualify as medicinal.”
“OJ straight up is fine. Thanks—and I mean for everything.”
“My pleasure.” But instead of fetching the liquid gold, Rob sat on the bed.
“I thought you were in a hurry.”
“I am. But I’ve been thinking. If the statue in that Polaroid really is the maquette for Michelangelo’s David, and therefore worth a fortune, why the heck did he throw it in the harbor?”
“How do you know it was a he?”
“Don’t give me a hard time, Abby. The question has been bugging me all night.”
It was time for me to at least pretend to think. Some detective I was; this simple, but valid, question hadn’t denied me a moment of beauty rest.
“I’ll take that orange juice now—and some coffee if you have it.”
“Coming right up.” He was back in the shake of an alpaca’s tail, but it was clear that he wasn’t in a big hurry after all. Besides the juice, the tray he brought bore a sterling silver coffee service, a plate stacked high with buttered toast, and a carnival glass compote dish filled with English marmalade.
He sat beside me on the bed. For the umpteenth time I was aware of how lucky I was to have gay friends. There was no sexual tension between Rob and me to get in the way of being buddies, and certainly no competition.
“So did you give it some thought, Abby?”
“You were only gone a few seconds. But you’re absolutely right. If the maquette was worth killing for, then why didn’t Marina’s killer take it with him?”
“Don’t you mean ‘her’?”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “Whatever.”
Rob poured his coffee first, into a bone china cup, and set it aside. He then dribbled some coffee into a standard mug, dumped in five heaping teaspoons of brown sugar and enough heavy cream to clog a gorilla’s arteries, stirred vigorously, and handed the customized concoction to me. Sweet coffee-scented cream is my brew of choice. It always has been, but Greg would never have gotten the proportions right.
“Maybe the murder was not premeditated. The theft, either. Maybe the killer wasn’t prepared to lug around a three-foot statue, and the harbor was the best place to hide it. Temporarily, of course. Until he or she could return for it.”
“That would mean the killer was on foot, right? I mean if not, why not just stick it in their car and be done with it?”
Rob took a sip of his coffee, which he drinks black and bitter. “Or maybe the killer was unaware of the statue’s value.”
“Like I was?”
He grinned. “My point is that the theft may have been totally inadvertent. The murderer—let’s say it’s a guy—whacks Mrs. Webbfingers over the head with the maquette. Why, doesn’t matter just yet. So now he’s got a bloody statue to dispose of. The question now is, where? If he stashes it in his car and gets stopped by the police for whatever reason—and things somehow get out of hand—he’s got a lot of explaining to do.
“On the other hand, the harbor is just a block away. If tourists spot him carrying a statue, it’s really no big deal. They’re likely to assume that authentic Charlestonians lug statues around all the time. He only has to be careful that he is not observed throwing the dang thing out to sea, because visitors from the square states would jump in after it like lemmings. And not only does the harbor make a good hiding place, it’s also full of fish and other slimy things that, given enough time, will eat the evidence. What the killer doesn’t anticipate is that the statue will be discovered so soon.”
I licked a glob of marmalade off my index finger. “I’ll buy that. Now if only I can talk Detective Scrubb into letting us have a peek at the thing.”
“Abby, you could talk a clam out of its shell,” Rob said, and thrust the bedside phone into my hand.
I called the hospital first for an update on Ed. The good news was that he was feeling fit as a fiddle. The bad news was that he was raring to get back to work on the new and improved Wooden Wonders.
I told Ed that if he didn’t listen to his doctors, I’d get Sergeant Scrubb to issue him a speeding ticket whenever he as much as took his car out of the driveway. I was only half-kidding. Then I called the sergeant and asked if Rob and I could peek at the statue.
“Sorry, Abby, no can do.”
“But my friend is an expert, and he has a gut feeling that this is an extremely valuable piece of art. It’s called a maquette. You see, sculptors sometimes make scale models—”
“I know what a maquette is, Abby, and this isn’t one.”
It’s a good thing I’d set my mug down. “You do? I mean, it’s not? I mean, how do you know?”
“What did he say?” Rob demanded in my left ear.
“Shhh! That’s wasn’t meant for you, Sergeant,” I added quickly.
“I take it your expert friend is eavesdropping.”
I pushed Rob’s head away with my free hand. “Not anymore. Detective Scrubb, if you would please, tell me what makes you think this statue is not a maquette—with all due respect, sir.”
“Because this one is made from poured concrete.”
“Get out of town!”
Rob’s head bounced back like a punching bag clown. “What did he say?”
“It also has a logo stamped on the bottom,” Detective Scrubb said.
I pushed harder at Rob. “A logo? What does it say?”
“‘Made in Pollywood.’”
“Did you say Pollywood?”
I gave Rob my best effort. He staggered backward, but fortunately, through an irreproducible sequence of acrobatics, managed to not spill a single drop of coffee. Then I had to sheepishly ask the detective to repeat what he’d said.
“We ran a fix on that,” he said, sounding more tired than annoyed. “It’s a garden ornament manufacturer just outside Dollywood, Tennessee. They sell to the entire eastern half of the country. Anyway, the David statues come in all sizes. It’s $49.95 for the three-footers. Add ten bucks if you want it fitted for a lamp—indoor use only. Twenty extra if you want the concrete bowl that goes on top to turn it into a birdbath. That’s how come it has an extra large head.”
“It does?” I tried to sound surprised.
“Abby, you were right. It wasn’t worth stealing.”
I squelched my impulse to say “I told you so.” “Thank you, Detective.”
“Anytime. Say Abby, I thought you might like to know that—well—you were right about something else.”
“I was?” I didn’t have to fake my emotions that time.
“None of the guests at La Parterre are who they say they are.”
“Do tell!”
“I’ve already said too much. I just didn’t want you to think that—uh, that I think that you’re—uh—”
“A total idiot?”
“I’ve got to go, Abby.”
“Not yet! Give me something—a crumb! Anything!”
“It’s been nice talking to you, Abby.” He hung up without further ado.
I set the phone back in its cradle and looked up at Rob. I fully expected him to be as mad as a rooster in an empty henhouse. Instead he cocked his head while holding one hand under his chin and regarded me with eyes that were both amused and accusing.
“Why Abigail Louise Wiggins Timberlake Washburn, I do declare. You’ve got the hots for that man.”
“I most certainly do not!”
“You can’t con a carny, darling.”
“When did you ever work for a carnival?”
“You know what I mean. I’ve been there—where you are now. The tax accountant we used last year was to die for. I thought of every excuse in the book to visit his office. Just seeing him made my heart race—made me feel guilty as heck, too. It wasn’t that I was unhappy with Bob, you understand; it was the thrill—the high—you get when you start a new romance. Not that I got that far. Thank God I came to my senses in time and realized I was playing with fire. Then I had to come up with an excuse to change accountants before anyone got hurt. But it could have been an all-around disaster.”
“Bob never found out?”
“And he won’t, either. Just like Greg won’t find out about your crush on Inspector Clouseau.”
“Ben Affleck!”
“Whatever. Are we on the same page now?”
My face burned with shame. “I love Greg with all my heart, Rob. You believe me, don’t you?”
He sat on the bed again and I let him put his arm around me. “Of course I believe you. And I have every confidence that we’re never going to have this conversation again. Right?”
“Right.”
“Good. Want some more of what you call coffee before I go?”
“Yes, please. But put an extra sugar in it.”
“You’re going to rot your teeth,” he said, before adding an additional three packets. “But before they fall out and you lose your ability to enunciate, fill me in on the statue.”
“It’s a fake—poured concrete. Can you imagine that?”
Rob recoiled in genuine horror. “Whoa, Abby. You’re slipping, girl. You said you thought it was composite.”
“I could swear it was. I must be losing my mind. Mama’s daddy had dementia—”
“You’re too young to lose your mind, Abby. It doesn’t happen until you start to lose your waistline—nature planned it that way so that you won’t care quite as much. But neither of us are anywhere near that point, so it must be the stress. You’re probably just remembering wrong.”
“Thanks.” But I didn’t feel comforted. It was like going to bed in a brick house and waking in a stucco house. At a cursory glance one might confuse marble with one of its imitators, but marble and concrete aren’t anywhere close in texture.
Rob stood and stretched. “Well, I really do have to go, so promise me you won’t.”
“Won’t what?”
“Whatever it is that will bring the wrath of Greg down upon my head because I didn’t stop you.”
I slid out of bed. “I’m not staying here all day, I can tell you that.”
“Abby, please.”
“I’m a big girl—well, you know what I mean. I can take care of myself.”
“Abby, please get back in bed.”
“I most certainly will not. I’ve got things to do, and time and tide wait for no man—or woman, either.
“Get back in bed just for a second.”
“What?”
“Humor me.”
I sighed. “Okay, but you’ve got to give me a boost. Rob, you really should keep a step stool beside the bed. I know, it won’t have been stepped on by Her Majesty’s royal tootsies, but a gal could break her neck getting in and out of this thing.”
Rob boosted me. He also insisted that I crawl back under the covers and that he tuck them around my neck. He even made me close my eyes. But the second I did, he bolted from the room like a coon with a pack of beagles on its trail.
I must be only demi-dimwitted, because the reason for his quick exit eventually dawned on me. The last time Rob Goldburg had seen the little troublemaker, she was tucked safe and sound in his Queen Anne guest bed, and apparently sound asleep. How could he possibly get in trouble for that?
Let me count the ways.