Harley Rushes In (Book 2 of the Blue Suede Mysteries) (5 page)

“So where did you discover the items you think may be illegal?” she asked, and her aunt flashed an annoyed frown.

“I don’t
think
they’re illegal. I know they are. Real zebra skins, an endangered species of elk, and ivory
objets d’art
. Also, there’s powdered rhinoceros horn and Cuban cigars.”

Okay, the last she knew was definitely banned.

“Where did you find them?” she asked again, and Darcy led her back down the stairs.

“I found things packed in various crates,” she said, “tucked into armoire drawers, antique chests, and wrapped in carpets.”

Keys clinked as she unlocked a set of double doors that led into a cavernous storage area. Huge carved armoires, teak chests, rolls of carpet, oriental vases, statues, and greenery reminded her of the import warehouse where she’d nearly met her doom hiding from a jewelry thief. No fertility gods that she could see, however, a small disappointment.

Darcy crossed to another locked room, a small area more like a walk-in closet. Inside were several animal skins that looked like the real thing, a huge jar of some kind of powder, and a wooden case with
Havana
stamped on it. The cigars, no doubt. Yep. Looked like illegal goods.

“I hid these here so I could show them to you,” Darcy said. I don’t know what to do with them.”

“What’s in the jar?”

“I’m sure it’s powdered rhinoceros horn. I think people use it as a kind of aphrodisiac or something. I read that in
Cosmo
. Here. Take some and get it tested, will you?”

“Tested? And who do you suggest I get to do that? The neighborhood drug runner?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Harley. You have connections.”

“I don’t have connections. I just know people who know people who have connections.”

“Good. Now here.” She’d put some in a tan envelope. “See what you can find out about it.”

“Just for curiosity’s sake, how does Harry explain this powder? I mean, he’s got to call it something on manifests or invoices, or explain it somehow.”

“I haven’t seen invoices for these things, but he does order a lot of French bath powder.”

Harley carefully took a sniff of the envelope. “Well, it does smell nice.”

“Maybe to another rhinoceros. It’s atrocious. Honestly, it seems you’d have inherited
some
sense of style or good taste from the Eaton side of the family.”

Ignoring that, Harley asked, “So how do you figure Harry’s involved? I mean, why do you suspect him of the smuggling?”

Taking a deep breath, Darcy said with unusual venom, “He’s a bastard. I should have listened to Mama and Daddy, but it was just so tempting—he put a lot of money into the shop. That’s how I was able to expand and remodel. At first, he was a silent partner. Then he started going on buying trips, sending back furniture and accessories from places like England, France, and Italy that were quite suitable. Not long after that, we got in some shipments from Russia, China, and Colombia. Not expensive antiques, just things that I’d call junk. We argued about it, and Harry insisted that there’s a market here for it.”

A bitter smile twisted her lips. “I’m afraid he was right about that. I was amazed at how well and quickly some of the most awful pieces sold. So I kept quiet, thinking that this was just a new trend, or he just knew a lot of people with bad taste. Then we started getting shipments like this one, only I never thought to actually look inside the trunks and armoires when they were delivered. Harry took care of all that, said he had a certain clientele that preferred the more kitschy stuff. He’d brought in his own designer—a perfectly wretched woman—and she handles all those clients. When one of the clients called and said his furniture was late, I uncrated one of the carved chests from Colombia and found the Cuban cigars. I started looking around then, and found this other stuff. These skins are illegal, Harley. And there’s more. Look.”

Darcy opened a wooden chest. Straw chaff drifted to the floor as she lifted a beautiful figure of what looked like a dog holding a scepter.

“This is an Egyptian god, a jackal holding an ankh, probably carved five thousand years ago. It should be in a museum, Harley, and in that other crate are ancient Mayan statues. I’m afraid they’re stolen, and I’m convinced Harry is responsible for smuggling them into the country. I’ll lose everything. Everything!”

Her voice had risen slightly, and Harley put a hand on her arm. “If he has, you can prove you didn’t know anything about it. After all, you’re going to report it.”

“Report it?” Darcy blinked. “You mean—to the police? Oh no, I’m not! I’m not about to have my name in the paper like that. Why, I’d lose every one of my clients. No, no, you’re going to prove that Harry’s responsible, and then we’re going to confront him with the proof. I thought maybe you could get that Italian boy to come with us, just as leverage. Muscle, I think I’ve heard it called. You know who I mean. The Mafia guy.”

“Mafia—
Bobby?
He has the weight of the Memphis Police Department behind him, Aunt Darcy. Bobby won’t involve himself in anything underhanded. I know. It’s a shame, but that’s the way he is. He will, however, advise us on how to press charges and keep it as quiet as possible. Listen—if you wait and the police somehow get involved, then you’ll be under suspicion and it will be in all the papers anyway.”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed. She looked positively ferocious, kind of like a thwarted possum, with bared teeth and glittering eyes.

“There is no way this side of hell that I’ll risk everything I’ve worked for like that.
No
. You get the proof, and I’ll take care of Harry.”

That was Aunt Darcy. A velvet steamroller. Iron fist inside the lace glove. Oh yeah. It was a family trait. Even Diva had her inflexible core. It seemed to be a female characteristic inherited from Grandmother Eaton, and her mother before her. Nana McMullen was one hard lady, but with none of the velvet. Now in her mid-eighties, Nana was all steel and stubbornness, age stripping her of any need for pretense at courtesy or gentility. A scary old lady. Apparently, Aunt Darcy had inherited a wide streak of her grandmother’s stubbornness.

“Okay,” Harley said, “I’ll see what I can find out. But why haven’t you been able to find out anything? Don’t you keep records?”

“Of course we do. But Harry keeps separate records. You’ll have to find where he hides his books and get them for me. He’s got a desk here, but he keeps that kind of thing in his home office, I’ll bet.”

Oh boy. “Uh, that might be classified as breaking and entering.”

“I have no idea how to classify it. I just want his ledgers. Get them for me. I’ll pay you well.”

“How well?” Okay, so it was a little crass to shake down family, but Aunt Darcy had the bucks and spent freely when she wanted. Besides, she still owed Harley twenty dollars for their drinks at The Peabody.

“Five thousand dollars if you get me those ledgers.” Aunt Darcy said it without a blink, her blonde hair unturned. Her face relaxed back into the pre-possum mode, looking unlined and pleasant again.

“Five
thousand
 . . . okay. I’ll do what I can.”

“As quickly as possible, please. We’re expecting another shipment, and Harry’s supposed to be out of town until next week, so be at my shop Thursday afternoon at two. That will be the perfect time to see what’s coming into the shop. Just watch out for his helper. Sherry something. Brown hair. Annoying voice. Very bourgeois. She hovers like a vulture.”

“Won’t she think it’s strange that I’m visiting?”

“I’ve already thought of that. You’ll be here consulting with me as a designer to redo your apartment.” Darcy smiled. “Now see, sugar? You’ll do just fine.”

Not bad. Maybe Darcy wasn’t as scattered as she’d once thought. And that was a little scary, too.

“You sure you want
to get mixed up in that, baby?” Tootsie frowned, pushing away from the filing cabinet to roll his chair back across the floor to his desk. “Your aunt needs to go to the police.”

“Yeah, I tried to tell her that. I think once there’s proof either way, she can be convinced.” She heard the doubt in her own voice and sighed. “Or whatever. She’s willing to pay me five thousand to find out what’s going on and get her his books.”

Tootsie whistled softly. “Wish I had a generous relative.”

“She’s not generous. I think she’s desperate.” Harley frowned. “Could you get me a background check on Harry Gordon? I’m supposed to go back to the shop and pretend I’m remodeling my apartment so I can see what’s coming in, and maybe get my hands on his books. While I don’t really think he’s dumb enough to keep incriminating records anywhere close by, it will at least satisfy Aunt Darcy if I make the effort.”

“Sure, I’ll do what I can. But be careful. Your family has a way of getting into trouble without trying.”

“Don’t I know it.” She raked a hand through her hair, then remembered she’d put extra gel on it to hold it in place. It felt like porcupine quills. Spiny and sticky. That made her think of the rhinoceros powder. She pulled out the envelope Darcy had given her.

“Can you get Steve to test this, see if it’s some kind of bath powder or if it’s drugs or something?” Steve was a cop and Tootsie’s significant other, but despite their long, monogamous relationship, Harley had never met him. He always seemed to be working. Harley had once suggested that he was Tootsie’s imaginary playmate, much to his amusement.

She held out the tan envelope. “Aunt Darcy’s convinced it’s an illegal substance used in voodoo rituals. What do they do with powdered rhinoceros horn? Never mind. I’d rather not know.”

Tootsie’s smile was wicked. “Sure, I’ll have Steve test it. Preferably, on me.”

“Tootsie—”

“Oh, all right. You want this done on the quiet, I presume.”

“Of course. Will Steve keep it quiet even if it’s illegal?”

“No. But he will let you report it yourself. You know how cops are. Prone to be law-abiding.”

“An unfortunate side-effect at times.”

Tootsie lowered his voice. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one, Harley. Sure you want to do it?”

“No, but it’ll keep peace in the family if I at least try. Besides, what can happen in a design shop?”

By one-fifty-five Thursday,
she’d returned to Designer’s Den, located off Poplar almost in Germantown, the elite town that blended into the city limits of Memphis with hardly a blink. Poplar Avenue stayed the same, except that in Germantown, the roadside speed limit signs also listed speed limits for horses. Germantown was a Mecca for the horsey set.

It was one of those June days Shakespeare had written about and Memphis was famous for—blue sky, warm breeze, the sweet fragrance of flowering plants in the air. Along with loads of pollen to irritate the noses of the allergy prone.

Harley parked her car on the side, off the crushed seashell parking lot bordering the rear drive, and stared at the huge truck nosed against the back loading area. It had no logo, nothing to designate it as a shipping firm or delivery van, just a plain white-sided truck. That was rather odd. Didn’t most delivery firms like to advertise? Maybe she’d go in the back way and see what was up.

It was blacktop back there. The white van used by Designer’s Den to deliver furniture to clients was parked against a line of hedges. Behind it was a Mustang convertible, sporty and blue and definitely not Aunt Darcy’s. She had a sensible—and expensive—four-door white sedan, one of those with all the bells and whistles. It also defiantly bore a row of Obama-Biden 2008 stickers on the back bumper. When the presidential elections came around again, Aunt Darcy would replace them with whatever Democratic candidate ran against the Republicans. She could be counted on for party loyalty, no matter what the scandal or platform. Of course, there were plenty of rattling skeletons in both party closets that often sent Harley’s father, Yogi, into a rant against the government and Big Brother, so Harley avoided all family political discussions. It could turn ugly quickly.