Nightmare in Shining Armor (15 page)

If it is better to be safe than sorry, then it is better to be a fool than to risk being turned into a giant candle. So bolt is what I did. I fled through the torture room and down the long hallway. My adrenaline was pumping so hard I didn't even feel my foot. As for the steep metal stairs, I think I must have flown up them.

At last I stumbled, panting, into the warm autumn sunshine. A mockingbird singing in the crape myrtle and the distant drone of boats on the lake assured me that all was right with the world

“You silly fool,” I muttered to myself. Then, just as quickly as I could, I got in my car and drove off to tilt at another windmill.

T
he traffic gods were with me and it took me only a half hour to get to Myers Park. I'd driven by the Larkins' house a number of times, but had never had the occasion to stop in. It was time to invent one.

“Hey there,” I said, oozing mock cheer, when Regina opened the door. “You didn't, by any chance, happen to leave this behind last night?” I held up a small blue umbrella folded to the size of a large sausage. It was a near permanent resident under the front seat of my car.

Regina is about my age, but she has it together in a way I'll never have. In honor of the season she was dressed in a camel skirt, topped by a rust cashmere sweater. She was wearing pantyhose—something I try to avoid as much as possible—and her camel and rust shoes, by Gucci, I think, undoubtedly cost more than my monthly car payment. A simple gold wrist bangle and gold hoop earrings completed the look of casual elegance.

It wouldn't have been so bad if Regina had been a homely woman. But she was, as my son Charlie
would describe a woman his own age, “a real babe.” A few wisps of gray aside, the woman couldn't have aged much since high school. I look young for my age as well, but undeniably there are parts of me that have migrated southward. Regina, on the other hand, was disgustingly in place. I would have been intensely jealous were it not for the knowledge that often people who appear to have it all together on the outside are suffering deeply on the inside. I don't have any proof that this is so, and I can't even remember where I read that, but I choose to believe it is true.

She stared at the compact umbrella I waved before her, looking utterly confused. I wasn't sure she'd heard my question.

“Is this yours?” I asked again.

Regina shook her head. “Gracious no,” she drawled, without a trace of Yankee accent. “It didn't rain last night.”

I smiled pleasantly. She was going to be a hard nut to crack. Both Regina and her husband, Donald, are chameleons. If I hadn't heard from a reliable source—Wynnell knows her Yankees every bit as well as she knows her armor—I never would have guessed that the couple originally hailed from Poughkeepsie, New York. Over the twenty-odd years they've lived in Charlotte they've shed every trace of Northern beginnings and become virtual Southerners.

Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with trying to fit in, as long as one's motives are pure. After all, imitation is the highest form of flat
tery. The Larkins, however, had done an uncanny job of melding with the locals, so uncanny in fact, that in my book they were suspect. If you ask me, anyone capable of such total assimilation is capable of just about anything. Lying was a given. As for murder—well, I'd just have to see about that.

“But thanks for checking,” Regina said as she started to close the door.

I waved the umbrella again. “Well, I just wanted to make sure this wasn't yours.”

Like I said, Regina, when not yelling at me for having been evicted from my party, was practically the genuine thing. She paused and pretended to think things over.

“Well, silly me,” she said, as if she'd suddenly seen the light. “I don't know where I left my manners. Won't you come in, Mrs. Timberlake?”

“Well, uh—” I said just to be polite.

Regina stepped aside, a broad hostess grin on her face. “I've just made a fresh pitcher of sweet tea. The chocolate chip cookies I made this morning.”

“Don't mind if I do,” I said, with perhaps just a tad too much gusto. Even if Regina proved to be no more informative than the local five o'clock news, the tea and cookies would certainly hit the spot. After what might have happened at the Kefferts' house, a sugar fix was definitely in order.

I took two steps into the large foyer and stopped dead in my tracks. Ahead of me was a doorway that opened onto a wide hall, but on either side stood a full suit of armor. I must have gasped.

“Sort of takes one aback, doesn't?” Regina said with a laugh. “Personally, I think it's too much. I'm trying to get Donald to donate them to a museum somewhere. Maybe the Mint.”

I scrutinized the suit on my left. There were a number of small round holes on the breastplate, but no dents. The entire garniture was beautifully etched in an intricate design.

“Are they real?”

Regina laughed generously, her mouth opening to an astonishing size. “Oh yes. We picked them up on a trip to Heidelberg a couple of years ago. According to the dealer, the one you're looking at may have—or I should say, some of the pieces may have—belonged to Emperor Maximilian I. Well, when he was Archduke Maximilian of Austria, at any rate.”

“But I don't see a proof mark,” I wailed. Sometimes my mouth deserves a good shushing.

Regina laughed again. “That's because these pieces were made in the mid-fifteen hundreds. Firearms were not such an issue then.”

I cringed. Oh, the shame of knowing less about an antiquity than one of my regular clients.

“Do you have others besides these two?”

“No, just these two. Mrs. Timberlake, I didn't realize you were so interested in armor.” Her lips arranged themselves into a smile, but I know an accusation when I hear one. Regina Larkin was telling me loud and clear that she fully suspected my visit was in connection with Tweetie's death.

The best way to allay any suspicions was to
come clean—well, not squeaky clean, of course. “I've never had a keen interest in it,” I said. “At least not until last night. I guess you know by now that my ex-husband's wife was found dead in a suit of armor.”

“In your house, I believe.”

I must confess that I'd driven all the way to Myers Park with only loosely formulated questions in my mind. I needed a few more minutes to focus.

“That's correct,” I said calmly. “Say, didn't you say something about sweet tea and cookies?”

“That I did! Mercy me, where are my manners? Please, Mrs. Timberlake, follow me.”

I noted with satisfaction that Regina called me Mrs. Timberlake, and not Abby. That was very Southern of her. Until I gave her permission to use my first name, she could not presume a personal relationship. Her invitation to my party, mind you, had been purely a business consideration.

She led me into what was quite obviously the formal living room. That was fine with me. Some folks feel more welcome when invited into the den, but I had no desire to cozy up with Pinocchio. Not after her accusations the night before. I may be a lot smaller than an elephant, but my memory is just as long.

Regina excused herself to the kitchen, and I took advantage of her absence to study the room. It was far more traditional and understated than the pair of metal warriors in the hall might suggest. The color scheme was drawn from a large, predomi
nantly yellow and rose Aubusson rug of floral design, which was centered on the highly polished hardwood floor. The walls were papered in the same pale yellow, and the drapes were just a few shades darker. There were two couches flanking the fireplace at right angles, and their background was rose. Here and there were small touches of green, also drawn from the rug. Two cream and rose Chinese prints, in black lacquered frames, hung on either side of the mantel. They were the only exotic touches.

I sighed deeply. It was such a disappointment to find so little to criticize. I'd been selling to the Larkins for years, and recognized the rug as one of my former wares. Still, it would have given me great satisfaction to learn that they had been secretly buying kitsch, worthy of the Kefferts, from other dealers.

“Here you are,” Regina said, interrupting my reverie. She was carrying a sterling tray, upon which she'd arranged a plate of cookies, two cloth napkins, and a pair of very tall glasses filled almost to the brim with tea. Her movements were graceful and the tea was in no danger of slopping over the edges—not until a glass found its way into my hands.

I decided to postpone my fate by starting with a chocolate chip cookie. Just for the record, they were the soft variety, and so good I had my doubts they were homemade. Even good cooks like Mama tend to overbrown the edges.

“So,” I said, willing myself not to make smack
ing noises, “from what I can see, your armor is not in a climate-controlled environment. Isn't that important?”

Regina took a leisurely sip of her sweet tea. I regret to report she didn't spill a drop.

“The house is air-conditioned in the summer and heated in the winter. That's certainly what I would call climate-controlled.”

I reached for my tea with studied casualness. Before the glass cleared the tray I managed to spill a good tablespoon full. I mopped the silver tray with my napkin. At least the cookies were still dry.

“But you keep them in the foyer,” I said stupidly. “Isn't the humidity a problem?”

“Heavens no. In Europe you'll find armor in the dankest castles you can imagine. Of course you wouldn't want to get the pieces wet, if you can help it, but it's not like we wash them.”

“Do you ever take them outside?”

She took another sip of tea. “Oh, I get it now. You think there's a possibility one of us wore a suit of armor to your party. Is that it?”

“I said no such thing.” If I was that transparent, just like the Invisible Man, I was going to have to pay closer attention to what I ate.

“Because that wouldn't make any sense, would it? Donald came as Geppetto, and I came as Pinocchio. You spoke to us both, don't you remember? Or have you forgotten that terrible scene in which you threw us all out on our ears?”

I shook my head. No doubt I'd go to my grave with that mark against me. I could see the epitaph
carved on my tombstone now. “Here lies Abigail Louise Wiggins Timberlake, who threw a hissy fit, and in the process tossed Charlotte's crème de la crème out on their collective ears.”

Oh well, at least I'd be immortalized. “Don't do what Abigail Timberlake did,” generations of Carolina women would whisper to their daughters as they prepared for Cotillion. And if any of these young women heeded that sage advice, my death would not have been in vain.

Regina had the grace not to smile openly at my discomfort. Instead she smirked behind the rim of her tea glass, her chin protruding just below the bottom.

“Besides, Mrs. Timberlake, that wasn't a German suit we saw at your party last night.”

I nodded. “It was Italian. Mrs. Larkin, I don't think you or your husband dressed up in that suit, but—well, is it possible you loaned it to a friend?”

Even a Southern lady—and Regina was only a pseudo-Southern lady—can be pushed only so far. With a trembling hand she put down her glass and then stood.

“Mrs. Timberlake, you've said quite enough. As I've already told you, the German armatures in the foyer are the only two we own. But even if that were not the case, why would we, or any of our friends, wish to kill the second Mrs. Timberlake? If you ask me, you, more than anyone, had a motive.”

I'm a fairly good actress, and indignation has always been my forte. I jumped to my feet, let out a loud cry of pain, and sank back on the pale rose
couch. I think my guardian angels must have been on red alert, because not a single drop more of tea spilled from my glass.

Regina smiled in relief. “Look, Mrs. Timberlake, perhaps that was unfair of me. I can understand how desperate you must be to have the killer apprehended, but you're barking up the wrong tree. There were folks with motives there last night—besides you, I mean. However, my husband and I did not number among them.”

Boy, did that get my attention. “Who?” I cried.

She picked up a cookie and pretended to nibble, but she wasn't fooling me. It wouldn't have surprised me if
her
tea was unsweetened.

If I'd had longer arms, I might have been tempted to slap the cookie out of her hand. “
Who
had a motive to kill Tweetie? And please don't say Wynnell Crawford.”

Her eyes widened. “Why on earth would I say that?”

“No reason. Whom did you mean?”

“Well,” she finally said, “there's that Lynne Meredith.”

“The mermaid? But that wouldn't have been possible. Even if Lynne had brought the suit of armor with her and kept it in the car, hoping to stuff Tweetie's body in it, she couldn't have done it. She had a tail, for crying out loud. She couldn't even walk.”

“Ah, but Neptune could, right?”

“His name is Roderick. And I suppose he could,
but—say, you didn't see him leave the room for any length of time, did you?”

She shrugged and put the cookie down. “There were a lot of people. I suppose he could have set that Meredith woman on a chair, or couch, and excused himself for a few minutes.
Or
”—she leaned forward conspiratorially—“the mermaid could have hired a hit man.”

“But why? What would her motive be?”

“Mrs. Timberlake, haven't you heard?”

I smiled smugly. “Of course, but it's just a rumor. Roderick was Tweetie's tennis instructor—for a little while at least—but he never slept with her.”

“Oh, but he did.”

“Says who?”

Regina's eyes burned brightly with the joy that comes only by imparting a juicy morsel of gossip. “That Meredith woman told me herself.”

“Get out of town! Why, just today at lunch the two of them told me that was just a rumor.”

“She said that as well?”

I nodded. “But I guess I should have known better, because he was copping a feel that very moment.”

Regina frowned. She was either too highborn to know the expression, or was feigning ignorance.

“He was groping me,” I explained. “Right in front of Lynne—well, maybe not right in front, but behind the table.”

“That's disgusting.”

“Tell me about it. I stabbed him with my fork.”

“You didn't!”

I hung my head. “Yes, I did.”