“Abby, at least wait until I get there.”
“I’ll be fine, Toy. Harriet Spanky let me in, and I’d be willing to bet my shop—even the one up in Charlotte—that the so-called Zimmermans were watching me through their window.”
“Where’s the creep now?”
“He’s taking a call in the den. I’m in the living room, which, by the way, is absolutely stunning. You didn’t tell me the walls were covered with silk damask. That shade of peach is just what I’ve been looking for. I wonder if Fisher remembers who did the work and where they got the material.”
“Sis, you’re there to tie up a few loose ends, not to engage in a fashion powwow.”
“But that’s my plan of attack. I’ll ask a few casual questions and then—I’ve got to go. He’s coming back.”
I barely had time to slip my oversize phone back into my purse. In fact I was fumbling with the zipper when Fisher Junior strode into the room.
“Sorry about that, Mrs. Washburn. That was my rector who called. Apparently his secretary lost the list of hymns I’d requested for Marina’s service. He needed them now, or it would be too late to include them in the service leaflet. I chose ‘Be Still My Soul’ and ‘Amazing Grace.’”
“They’re beautiful hymns,” I said. But I felt like a first-class heel. What if I was wrong about Fisher? What if Fisher wasn’t guilty of his wife’s murder? One thing for sure, I was going to skip the silly decorating questions.
“I’m glad you like the hymns. They were Marina’s favorites.” He glanced at the French ormolu clock on the white painted mantel. “I don’t have a lot of time, Mrs. Washburn. How can I help you?”
“By telling me the truth. Were you and the woman who calls herself Estelle Zimmerman childhood sweethearts?”
I’ll give the man credit for having remarkable composure. Other then fixing his colorless eyes on mine, I could detect no reaction.
“Yes, it’s true.”
“It is?”
He gestured to a Louis XV fauteuil. The chair was upholstered in a floral needlepoint, which contained small touches of peach that tied it to the walls beautifully. I was grateful for the chance to sit. My knees were knocking like the pistons of my very first car, one that leaked oil so badly our neighbors complained to the city that I was ruining their street.
“Mrs. Washburn,” my host said calmly, “I was hoping you’d have that conversation with the Simonsons.”
“You were?”
“I thought it would save me time. Plus, I thought it might be useful to get your take on them. Have you spoken with the Keatings as well?”
“You were involved with Irena, too?”
“Involved? Certainly not romantically. But I did know her. Whenever the Three Musketeers met—and it was usually here—they brought their families. The Thomases, by the way, are legitimate guests and have nothing to do with the Three Musketeers. If they seem a little odd to you, it’s because they’re having an affair. He’s from Chicago and she’s from St. Louis. He was quite up front about it to me—wanted to know if I would be discreet. I told him it wasn’t any of my business. Anyway, you do know about the Three Musketeers, don’t you?”
“Yes.” With the wind taken out of my sails, I was with nothing but a bunch of sagging cloth. It seemed to have wrapped around my tongue.
“Do they think I’m guilty of my wife’s murder?”
I yanked my lingua loose enough to form some simple words. “I haven’t spoken to the Keatings about it, just the Simonsons. They didn’t accuse you, but I don’t think they’ve eliminated you from their list of suspects.”
“Is that what you have, Mrs. Washburn? A list of suspects?”
“Well, I know my friend, Wynnell Crawford, didn’t do it. Therefore, it had to be someone else.”
“And I’m at the top of your list, am I? Allow me to try and guess why. Let’s see”—he rested his chin on a closed fist and pretended to think—“ah, yes, my motive would have been the ultimate payback to a cheating wife. How’s that? Do I pass detecting class?”
“I can do without your sarcasm, Mr. Fisher. And yes, I can see how a philandering wife could provoke someone into committing murder.”
“But don’t you think murder is going too far? If I really wanted to punish her, I would have drugged her and had someone tattoo a scarlet A on her forehead. Think how that would go over in Charleston.”
I had to admit that a scarlet A would take the prize. Death is a onetime thing, then it’s over, but even with the advent of lasers, some tattoos are almost impossible to obliterate. At the very least, the experience can be painful.
“And what about the statue?” he said, not giving me time to answer. “It goes missing for sixteen years, and then suddenly shows up in our garden. Do you think I would have risked drawing attention to myself by committing murder? Not to mention the fact that it happened the very day I had guests coming into town.”
“Why did you call others? If the maquette just showed up, like you claim, why didn’t you and Marina keep mum about it?”
He smiled, and I found myself both surprised and relieved. “You have a good head on your shoulders, Mrs. Washburn. I like that. But you see, the statue wasn’t put in my wife’s flower bed by fairies. Someone put it there, and we didn’t know who. It seemed like the wise thing to do was to call for backup. More importantly, the maquette belongs to all of us—the descendants of the Three Musketeers.”
“But that’s where you’re wrong; it belongs to whomever your fathers stole it from. For your information, Mr. Webbfingers, there is no such thing as a statute of limitations on stolen property.”
The watery eyes seemed to freeze into glittering disks. “Says who?”
“Call your lawyer if you don’t believe me. Better yet, call one of those legal hotlines that answer questions from anonymous callers.”
“Like I said, I have things to do. Please see yourself out, Mrs. Washburn.”
He turned and walked from the room. A moment later I heard the side door slam and then the engine of his car. The squeal of tires confirmed the fact that Fisher Webbfingers was in a hurry to go somewhere.
I settled back into the fauteuil. What if I’d been way off base and a man with something to hide wouldn’t have left a proven snoop alone in the house? Unless it was a trap. But how obvious was that? At least as obvious as leaving a petite pair of shoes—
“Mrs. Washburn,” a voice said, breaking through my reverie.
I sat bolt straight. “Harriet?”
The elderly maid was standing in the pillared doorway of the living room. In her gnarled hand the ugly black barrel of a handgun bobbed menacingly.
Once, in my single days, I took a self-defense class. The instructor said that the single most important lesson we could learn was never, ever, get into a car with your assailant. If you do, he said, you surrender all control. He also stressed the fact that handguns are frequently inaccurate, and that a moving target is difficult even for an expert marksman to hit.
He made us chant the word “run” like a mantra.
That was all well and good from a theoretical standpoint. But when faced with a real gun, I found that my legs had apparently not been paying attention during class. Try as I might, I couldn’t get them to move until Harriet pressed the muzzle against my left temple and threatened to blow my copulating brains out.
My Judas legs betrayed me by obeying her command to walk beside her into the kitchen. There they gave out. I guess I can’t blame them, because the rest of me almost fainted when I saw the enormous man wielding a crowbar just inside the back door.
The giant, who was dressed in faded bib overalls, was both barefoot and shirtless. Sweat streamed over rolls of blubber, disappearing into crevices and then appearing again, all while creating ribbons of white against a dirt gray background. He had no noticeable neck, but his head made up for this flaw by being twice as wide as it should have been. His bloated cheeks resembled a pair of volleyballs, and it took me a second to notice that he was smiling. From what I could see, he had exactly three teeth.
“This is my baby boy Nolan,” Harriet said, just as proud as if she was introducing the Prince of Wales.
“Pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Nolan said, and thumped the crowbar against the callused palm of his hand.
I had nothing to say,
“Mama, I don’t think she likes me.”
“She likes you just fine, son.” The gun pressed harder against my skull. “Don’t you, Mrs. Washburn?”
“Yes ma’am,” I heard my Benedict Arnold mouth say. “Pleased to meet you, Nolan.”
“That’s better. You see, Mrs. Washburn, my Nolan here has taken quite a shine to you over the last couple of days.”
Nolan revealed a fourth tooth.
“I don’t see how,” I said. “We’ve never met.”
“I seen you, ma’am. I says to myself, ‘Nolan, you gotta admire a woman who can drive fast like that and not get rattled.’”
“So that was you driving the blue pickup!”
His grin widened—there were no more teeth—as he balanced on the outer sides of his feet. A twelve-year-old schoolboy with a crush is what came to mind.
“She ain’t a pretty sight, Mrs. Washburn, but she got her a whole lot of power. Just you wait and see.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“He means that you’ll be taking a little ride,” Harriet said.
“If it’s all the same, I’d rather not. I get motion sickness when I’m that high off the ground. That’s one of the reasons why I don’t own an SUV.”
Harriet cackled like a hen who’d just laid her first egg. “If you get motion sickness, then you ain’t gonna like what we’ve got planned for you.”
“And what would that be?”
Nolan’s massive face looked about to dissolve, like the head of a snowman in a winter rain. “Mama. Do we hafta?”
“Have to what?” I demanded.
“Kill you,” Harriet said. “And the answer is yes.”