Statue of Limitations (16 page)

“A
bby, 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
P
ollywood?”

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.

I
would have showered at the Rob-Bobs', but I needed a change of clothes. After briefly considering wearing one of Rob's shirts as a dress, with a silk tie as a belt, I abandoned the idea in favor of a pit stop at home. First, however, I needed to get Mama out of the way. Greg, too, if he still happened to be home.

“Wigginses' residence,” she said when she picked up the phone.

“Shouldn't that be
Washburn
residence?”

“I live here, too—Abigail Louise, how dare you treat my darling son-in-law that way?”

“Mama, this is between Greg and me.”

“Well, I am fit to be tied. In my day a good wife—”

“Wore pearls to vacuum in and said ‘yes dear' whenever her husband asked her a question?”

“There is nothing wrong with wearing pearls when you clean, just as long as you're wearing a dress. Of course that goes without saying. Still,
only last week I saw a woman at the mall wearing pearls with blue jeans. Can you imagine that?”

“I am shocked, Mama.”

“You're making fun of me, aren't you?”

“Sorry, Mama. Is Greg there?”

“Gracious no. He's at work like a good husband should be.”

“How about Toy?”

“He is supposed to be at work, too—I mean with you, dear.”

“He's not. Maybe he spent the night at C.J.'s.”

Mama's pearls clacked against the phone, which meant she was fingering them in agitation. “He slept here last night.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. I fed him breakfast. And not just the bowl of cereal you would have fed him, either. Did you know that he still likes me to make a happy face in his grits and fill it in with melted butter?”

“Mama, you have too much time on your hands. How would you like to have a job?”

“Abby, you know I haven't worked since before you were born. While I may have managed to keep my looks, dear, my secretarial skills are undoubtedly a bit rusty. Besides, I don't know anything about computers, and every job these days seems to require one.”

“Not this job. C.J. will do all the computer work,
if that's how you want it. All you have to do is be charming to the customers.”

Mama gasped so hard, I swear I felt my ear being sucked into the receiver. “Are you offering me a job, darling? At the shop?”

“A temporary job, Mama. Just until we get this whole Wynnell mess straightened out. Or,” I added softly, “until you make it impossible for me not to fire you.”

“You'd fire your own mother?”

“It's within the realm of possibility. You and C.J. together are a bit like Laurel and Hardy. I can't promise that I won't. So think about it, but let me know as soon as possible what you decide. Otherwise I need to put an ad in the paper.”

“Would I get to dust?”

“Get to? Mama, it's a requirement. Everything in the Den of Antiquity needs to be dusted—at least once a day. And the rest room has to be cleaned twice. And while I wouldn't dream of imposing on you, I've been thinking about serving some kind of refreshments—maybe homemade cookies and fresh-squeezed lemonade.”

I could hear Mama count softly; she got as far as three. “When do you want me to start?”

“Right now. As soon as you can hustle your bustle over there.”

She hung up.

I called C.J., who, much to my relief, was de
lighted to take on an assistant. Especially one who would dust. The big gal and my minimadre are pals, but they're both as hard-headed as coconuts, and as predictable as hurricanes. Either they would make an awesome selling team or provide me with the wherewithal for making some world-class macaroons.

“Abby, when is Mozella going to start?”

“Now. In fact, expect her any minute.”

“And I get to tell her what to do?”

“You know better than that. Bossing Mama around would be like trying to play fetch with a cat.”

“So what are you saying, Abby?”

My young friend isn't owned by a feline. Perhaps she was really clueless.

“Cats don't take directions, C.J. They do whatever they want, whenever they want. That's why they're not the ideal pet for just anyone.”

“Oh, but you're wrong, Abby. Great-Uncle Mortimer Ledbetter had a cat that used to help him run his moonshine still, in hills west of Shelby. Great-Uncle Mortimer would make the corn mash, but it was his cat, Snerd, that kept the fire fed by adding wood one stick at a time. ‘Fetch me another stick,' Uncle Mortimer would say, ‘one about two feet long,' and Snerd would dash into the woods and bring a stick that was just the right size. Great-Uncle Mortimer was just as proud of
this cat as could be, and even named his hootch after him. ‘Catatonic,' is what he called it. Then one day he ran a bad batch and some of his customers were sort of paralyzed—not their bodies so much as their minds. Up until then—”

“C.J., mental illness is not a joking matter.”

“But I'm not joking, Abby. Look up the word ‘catatonic' in the dictionary. There was no such word until 1904, the year before Great-Uncle Mortimer's white lightning struck down some of his best customers.”

“Whatever, C.J.” There was no point in telling her that Mortimer Snerd was the name of one of Edgar Bergen's dummies. Sure as shooting she'd have an explanation for that, and our conversation would segue into one about wry wooden people and their ventriloquists. She might even tell me that Pinocchio was her brother, and worse yet, I might believe her.

“I know you're just saying that to humor me, Abby, but it's true. If you don't believe me, go to the College of Charleston and look in one of their old yearbooks. Try the twenties. You'll see a picture of Mortimer Junior who was my uncle. Uncle Morty, we called him. He looked just like his daddy, Great-Uncle Mortimer, but he looked like me, too. Anyway, Mortimer Junior was very popular on campus, on account of he always brought some of his daddy's recipe with him, even though
Catatonic was no longer being sold, just made for private consumption. They say that for years Uncle Morty's classmates made sure they attended every reunion, so as not to miss out on the booze. Fortunately there were no bad batches since that one, but with moonshine you can never tell.”

C.J. was right about one thing: homemade whiskey, sometimes known as rotgut, can be extremely dangerous and can, in fact, cause paralysis of the extremities. Even blindness. But I wasn't going to waste a minute of time looking up her bogus uncle in old yearbooks. If I was going to look up anyone it would be Fisher and Marina Webbfingers, if only to get a better understanding of what they saw in each other when they were young. Heck, I'd look up their guests, too, on the off chance one of them was a College of Charleston alumnus. Take Irena Papadopoulus, for instance…

“Abby, are you still there?”

“No I'm not, C.J.!” And I wasn't.

 

Founded in 1770, the College of Charleston is the thirteenth oldest college in America. Smack dab in the heart of the city, the historic campus embraces a variety of architectures, with the older buildings being by far the most interesting. To me the most intriguing one is the Martindale Bell house, now
home to the mathematics department. In 1844 it was acquired by Sally Johnson, a free woman of African descent who owned four slaves. This contradiction characterizes the campus and, indeed, the city itself.

Located as it is in the middle of the peninsula, the college is at times devoid of breezes, but offers generous shade in the form of massive oaks and lush, subtropical plantings. When I arrived at the library, I was damp with dew, but being a true Southern woman, I most certainly was not sweating. I took a moment to dab the moisture from my forehead before approaching the reference desk.

“Excuse me, miss, where would I find back issues of College of Charleston yearbooks?”

“They can't be accessed now.”

“What does that mean?”

She shrugged before turning back to her task of attaching orange slips of paper to small piles of books. Her insolence made me want to snap her with one of the rubber bands. They were, after all, very thin and capable of producing only a light sting.

“Ambrosia,” I said, grateful that I'd bothered to read her badge, “what a beautiful name.”

“I hate it,” she mumbled.

“I'm not too fond of my name, either.”

She cocked her head. “What's
your
name?”

“Abigail. My friends call me Abby, but when I was growing up the kids at school would call me Dear Abby.”

That got her full attention. “I'd never do that to a kid of mine. I'd name her something regular like Caitlin, or Ashley.”

I tried to keep a straight face. “Yes, but there are a million Caitlins and Ashleys out there. Having a name like Ambrosia makes you special. Do you know what it means?”

Her nose crinkled. “Some kind of gooey dessert. I hate it, too.”

“Yes, but originally ambrosia was the food that Greek and Roman gods ate. It became synonymous with any food that was extremely pleasing.”

“Yeah?”

I nodded. “And it suits you. You have the prettiest hair.”

Ambrosia smiled. “Thanks.” She started to turn away again, but stopped. “Hey, about the yearbooks. The reason I can't let you see them is because some of them were vandalized.”

“Excuse me?”

She leaned over the counter. “I'm probably not supposed to be telling you this, but some old lady tore out a bunch of pages and stuffed them in her purse.”

“You're kidding! When this did happen?”

“Monday—I think. Yeah, Monday. I was working the afternoon shift.”

“You saw it happen?”

“Nah, but I wish I did. It would have been fun to bust her. All I know is that she asked to see them and was looking at them at that table over there. One of my jobs is to put away reference books you're not allowed to check out, and when I collected those—man, you wouldn't think an old lady like that would trash something, would you?”

“What happened next? What did you do?”

“Well, I told Mr. Muffet—that's my supervisor—on account I didn't want to get blamed, but he said there was nothing he could do to the old lady, because I didn't actually see her do it. I'm just supposed to keep an eye out for her, that's all.”

I tried to imagine one of Mama's cronies ripping pages out of a library book. Perhaps if there were obscene pictures involved, ones in need of a better home. But why would anyone, young or old, tear pages out of a yearbook? Unless their photo was in the volume, and the picture had been taken on a particularly bad-hair day.
Or
, someone was trying to cover up the fact that they had once attended the College of Charleston.

“How old was this woman?”

“I don't know. Your age—maybe older.”

One of the few perks of being so small and perky is that I can generally pass myself off as being ten years younger than I am. Never, ever, has anyone referred to me as an “old lady”—except for my daughter, Susan. And that was when she was a teenager and, at times, very irritated with me.

“I'm forty-seven,” I said stiffly.

“Yeah? So's my mom. But this woman was even older. She had one of them dye jobs that don't look natural—just makes you look even older. My mom calls it the ‘shoe polish look.'”

“Her hair was jet black, almost blue?”

“You know her?”

“Were the bags under her eyes so big she could pack—” I slapped my own mouth. “Never mind, that was mean-spirited of me.”

Ambrosia giggled. “But it's true. Hey, I guess I could let you see them yearbooks, but you gotta do it fast. Mr. Muffet's in a meeting, and I don't know how long it will last.”

“That would be wonderful.”

While Ambrosia hightailed it to the storage room, I pretended to be engrossed in a world weather almanac lying on the counter in front of me. Who would have guessed that the highest temperature ever recorded in the shade was 136 degrees Fahrenheit in Aziza, Libya? I would have sworn that Columbia, South Carolina, which crit
ics claim was built over Hell, held that record. I had just learned that Johannesburg, South Africa, occasionally sees winter frost, when Ambrosia returned. She held out two books, her fingers marking the place in each.

“This one has two pages missing,” she said, handing me the one on my right first. “Only one from here.” She handed me the second volume.

Pushing the almanac aside, I laid the books side by side on the counter. The missing pages had not been ripped from the book, as I had been led to understand, but sliced out, possibly with a razor blade. The annual with two pages missing was dated 1960–61, the other 1967–68. Both books appeared to be minus one of their S pages, with at least part of T on the flip side. The first volume, however, was missing most of the K's as well.

I jotted this information down on the back of a Piggly Wiggly receipt I fished from the bottom of my purse. “Thank you, Ambrosia. I really appreciate this.”

“No problem.”

A door behind her, presumably one leading to a conference room, opened. Ambrosia had the reflexes of a cat, and before I could react at all, she had scooped the annuals down the front of her shirt and was leaning on them.

“Yes, ma'am, I sure will,” she said, far louder than was necessary.

I caught a glimpse of a man as I turned. If that was Mr. Muffet, I had best get my tuffet out of there pronto. I forced myself to walk to the door.