A Fatal Appraisal (18 page)

"Ma'am?" he called after her. "You need a
flashlight?"

"No, thank you," she called back over her
shoulder. "I've got my own torch."

As the woman's figure melted into the blackness, Bruce
looked inquiringly at Chuck.

"What's a torch?" he asked his partner.

Chuck returned to the office and took a healthy bite from
his sandwich. "Means flashlight," he chewed. "She's English.
They have different names for things over there." After crunching on a
handful of chips, he reexamined his cards. "Come on now. Let's get this
game going."

"What mistake do you think she's fixing?" asked
Bruce as he fanned out his cards. After a moment's thought, he placed an ace of
spades in the discard pile.

"Who knows?" Chuck replied, studying the ace with
carefully concealed interest. "Whatever it is, she can't get into too much
trouble back there."

Bruce nodded. “Yeah, that’s true. We’re in for another long,
quiet night. And if you’re lucky enough win this hand, I’ll give you half of my
Banana MoonPie.”

That being said, Chuck examined his cards, forgetting all
about the English woman.

~~~~~~~~~~

The basis of any cabinet, sideboard, wardrobe, cupboard
or bookcase is a carcass. . . .

—Kenneth Davis and Thom Henvey,
Restoring Furniture

Chuck and Bruce were relieved at seven by the next shift.
Their replacements, a stocky Italian from New Jersey by the name of Paolo and
an African-American woman in her mid-forties named Crystal, arrived with
steaming cups of coffee and a dozen donuts from the local grocery store. Paolo
grumbled about Krispy Kreme’s unavailability but helped himself to a chocolate
donut and bit into it with gusto.

Bruce helped himself to a glazed donut as he related the
details of their late-night visitor.

"When did she finally leave?" Paolo asked as he
slicked a strand of slippery, black hair back into place behind his ear.

Chuck shrugged as he collected his belongings. "Dunno.
We did rounds about an hour after we'd let her in and she was gone, far as we
could tell. 'Course we had the alarms turned off just in case she decided to
let herself out. Good thing we did, too."

"Strange time of night to come to work," Crystal
said after taking a deep gulp of coffee. "I heard these antique people
were kinda crazy, now I know it's the truth."

 Paolo, who was a closet collector of Marvel comic books,
looked at the floor sheepishly and confessed, "I watch that show,
Hidden
Treasures
." As he met the raised eyebrows of his three coworkers, he
squared his shoulders and added in a whispered bravado, "Ever seen the
host? She's a hottie. Me, I'm hoping to get a glimpse of those long legs in
person today."

"Yeah, too bad she's been in jail for your other two
shifts, Romeo," Crystal teased.

"Ah, I heard all that on the TV, but I never thought
she did it. Now, I wouldn't put it past that French guy, what's his name?"

"Got me," Crystal said and gave him a playful
nudge in the shoulder. "
You're
the one who watches the old ladies'
antiques show, not us. Plus, why you always gotta go dissing the French guy?
You remember last year when you swore off French dressing and French wine on
account of that
French
girl who dumped you? That what got you so hung up
on the poor French? Huh?"

Paolo stroked his stubbly chin. "Jacqueline. Now
she
was a beauty, mama mia."

Chuck and Bruce clapped Paolo on the back on their way out
and smiled warmly at Crystal.

"You two enjoy your shift, ya hear?" Chuck said,
opening the front door for Bruce. "Bachelors before old married men."
He bowed to his partner.

"You're just angling for your own salami and cheese
tonight," Bruce said as he exited.

"Got
that
right," Chuck replied as he
released the door.

Crystal waited in the hall so that she could listen to the
front doors automatically click shut, indicating that they were still locked.
Paolo began whistling as he moved down the hallway, switching on the seemingly
endless rows of overheard lights as he strolled along.

Assuming that she couldn't hear the lock click into place
over Paolo's frenzied whistling rendition of "Stayin' Alive," Crystal
settled down in the break room to enjoy her breakfast before she took her post
at the front door. From her uncomfortable plastic chair, she would check the ID
badges of everyone who tried to enter the building. No badge, no entry until
the museum was officially open at nine. Crystal had six children and she had
heard every fib known to man. She was impervious to tears and unrelenting when
it came to abiding by and enforcing the rules, whether she was at home or at
work.

So when Molly arrived at the front door just after eight,
Crystal stood up from her stiff, gray chair and opened the door just wide
enough to ask, "ID, please."

"Oh! Sure." Molly immediately began shuffling
through her bag as Crystal looked on with the same patient, bemused expression
she wore while waiting for one of her four daughters to finish getting dressed
for church.

"I think I left it in the car," Molly said, unsure
if this was indeed the case.

"Can't let you in without it, ma'am," Crystal
explained using her pleasant, but official tone.

Molly took one look at Crystal and knew that trying to get
in without a proper badge would prove impossible. When the badge wasn't
anywhere in her car, Molly suddenly had a vision of it sitting on top of her
nightstand back at the Traveller.

"This is what happens when I only have one cup of
coffee," Molly grumbled crossly, and then headed back to the
bed-and-breakfast to retrieve her badge.

On the way upstairs, she heard Jessica and Borris speaking
in hushed tones in the hallway outside of their rooms. There was no sign of
Garrett Clara was already at the Strawberry Street house supervising the
loading crew who would be packing up all of Mrs. Sterling's possessions over
the next few hours.

Unable to control her nosiness, Molly slowed her ascent and
listened to her two friends.

"You know we could make it work," Borris was
insisting.

Jessica sighed heavily in exasperation. "How? Are we
going to sign a contract, exchange drops of blood, what? There's no
guarantee!"

"Look, I'm just telling you that I want out of this
whole greedy business."

"Oh, Borris," Jessica said gendy. "Money
does
matter. You've got to be more realistic about that."

At that moment, Molly shifted her weight and one of the
wooden stairs groaned loudly. She quickly ran to the bottom, open and shut the
front door, and then began her ascent once more, this time making the
appropriate amount of casual noise.

"Hi there," Jessica said as they passed on the
stairs.

"Forgot my badge." Molly smiled. Jessica's face
looked drawn. Behind Jessica's tiny figure, Borris looked slightly defeated,
but still held his body with the rigidity of a determined general.

"See you down there," he mumbled.

Molly watched them leave, grabbed her badge from her room,
and then returned to her car. She was perplexed by the odd conversation she had
just overheard. Were Jessica and Borris discussing a personal relationship or a
business matter? Molly couldn't tell.

When she arrived back at the museum, the line that had begun
to form outside the front door instantly distracted her. It looked like several
hundred of the thousand ticket holders had already staked their places. Eager
faces with hands or arms grasping treasures waited to discover whether or not
their valuables belonged in a museum or in their next yard sale.

"Have fun." Molly smiled at the first few men and
women in line and raised her ID badge for Crystal's examination.

"Come on in," Crystal said cheerfully. "I
don't think you missed anything excitin'."

~~~~~

Having finished switching all the lights on, Paolo should
have returned to his station guarding the Civil War exhibit, but he could not
resist the urge to speak with Tony the Toy Man about his comics, so he lingered
on the fringes of Tony's booth, peering around the comer of the white screen in
order to see what Tony was up to.

"Are you spying on me?" Tony asked kindly, without
looking up from the tin toy price guide he was reading.

"Um, no." Paolo edged closer to the booth.
"Expecting a big crowd today?"

"Yep. There's a guy outside right now with a suitcase
full of Popeye tin toys. Thought I'd better check my references before I see
him." Tony raised his merry eyes to Paolo's. "You collect
anything?" he asked.

Paolo nodded enthusiastically. "Marvel comics."

"Oh yeah? Which ones?"

Paolo stood up as straight and tall as his stocky body would
allow. "I've got the number one X-Men. From 1963. Never read. I've got it
in a plastic cover. Thing's beautiful, man. Not a crease or a wrinkle in
sight."

"That's a keeper," Tony agreed. "I saw one go
on eBay for just under a grand last week."

Paolo's face radiated pride and he squared his shoulders as
he shouted happily at Tony. "So I've got something good!"

"You certainly do, my friend," Tony said, clapping
Paolo on his broad back. "Now, if you'll excuse me ..."

"Oh, sure, sure." Paolo retreated out of the booth
and began whistling once again. By the time he had made his way back toward the
Civil War exhibit, members of the public were already streaming inside and
arranging themselves around the velvet stanchions.

Paolo was just about to turn the corner and head for his
appointed gray chair when he spotted Victoria Sterling greeting several members
of the crew. She wore a form-fitting pantsuit in sage green with a white
blouse, her triple strand of pearls, and a black and white striped
handkerchief. Her hair was puffed and sprayed in place and her makeup was far
too heavy and dramatic for daytime wear, but Paolo thought Victoria looked
absolutely stunning.

 He smiled at her widely as she passed by him in a fog of
cloying floral perfume. Dumbstruck, he watched her pass, fantasizing that she
would suddenly stop, turn, and see him as the man of her dreams. But the sound
that pierced his stupor was not a sexual invitation from Victoria Sterling's
sensuous painted lips. The sharp sound was out of place among the echoed
murmurs of the museum patrons.

Someone was shouting. A man. No, not shouting. He was
screaming, "HELP! HELP!" at the top of his voice.

Paolo's body finally jolted into action. He broke into a run
as several other people ran past him in the opposite direction, clutching
valuables and screaming.

Was there a fire? Paolo's mind raced. Where were the alarms?

"HELP!" the man bellowed again, a plea then taken
up by a woman who began screaming it over and over in a hysterical tirade.

When Paolo finally got to the source of the screams, he
immediately reached out toward the man and woman in order to try to calm them
down. He briefly noticed shards of some kind of pottery scattered across the
floor. The man shoved him roughly aside and pointed at something above and
behind Paolo's back. The women stooped, sobbing, and began to mindlessly
retrieve the yellow-brown shards of pottery.

Paolo swiveled his broad shoulders, utterly confused.

"My god," he whispered as his eyes registered the
terrible sight before them.

A larger than life statue of Robert E. Lee stood against a
wall painted with the state flag of Virginia. Lee held a sword in one hand and
his army cap in the other. Above his meticulously detailed beard, his mouth
looked grim, his jaw locked in earnest determination. Only the eyes, nestled
beneath shaggy brows, betrayed a look of proud gentility mixed with a trace of
deep sorrow. His uniform was obscured. Not by a piece of marble sash or by the
mane of his horse, but by the long, thin body of a dead woman.

Hanging from Lee's neck, to which she was tied with her own
Hermes scarf, the dead woman's head drooped at a severe downward angle and her
expensive leather pumps had been kicked off and lay useless at the base of the
statue. Black tracks from where the heels had scraped across the marble
crisscrossed Lee's thighs like fresh wounds, but he didn't seem to notice.

Alexandra looked like a statue herself. She was white and
cold and utterly still.

~~~~~~~~~~

Most broken legs can be repaired, the simpler ones even
replaced. But if you come across an elaborately curved leg with a compound
fracture, involving splits down the grain and loss of timber, remember that you
will not be able to mend or replace it yourself unless your skills resemble
those of the original maker.

—The Illustrated Guide to Furniture Repair and
Restoration

Molly watched people whisk by as they raced for the exit
in a complete panic, clutching their valuables to their chests as they shoved
one another aside. Murmurs that there was a dead body in the Civil War exhibit
flooded through the front hall like a swift wind.

Shooting a nervous glance at Crystal, who was listening to
Paolo's frantic garbling over the walkie-talkie as she edged toward the phone
in the break room, Molly pointed toward the front doors.

"Should I lock them?" she mouthed to Crystal as
she twisted her hand in a pantomimed locking motion. The female security guard
rapidly nodded while reaching for the phone.

"No one is allowed in!" Molly opened the door and
shouted at the curious group of people pushing forward, their intent on
entering the building obvious. "There has been an incident inside! Please
back away from the doors!" She turned the deadbolt and took her stand by
the door, shooing away determined members of the public who banged on the door
or shouted to be let in, waving their tickets indignantly.