A Killing in Antiques (10 page)

“Can I get anything nice for a couple of hundred dollars each?”

“Plenty. Do you want rockers that are ready to go, or will you take them if they need work?”

“Ready to go would be best, but I know where I can have minor repairs done,” she said. “Spare me from anything needing reupholstering, though. I haven’t met the upholsterer yet who understands what I’m requesting.”

I nodded my understanding, gathered my purse, and readied myself to leave. The rocking chairs wouldn’t be a problem, and I’d enjoy looking for them.

B
ack in Brimfield, I pulled up behind Coylie’s truck. He was gone. Probably chasing the fellow who owed him a moving fee. Activity in most of the fields had quieted down. People were taking their time, looking things over, buying, selling, and moving. But the frenzy of opening, and even the second run-throughs, was over. At this time of day a few amateurs straggle in.

“Amateur” is a derogatory term used by a small and somewhat cliquish circle here. Brimfield is open to anyone: dealer, collector, or amateur. Who belongs in which category is a subject of debate, but anyone can buy, and anyone who’s paid the town for a permit and rented a spot from a promoter can sell.

The amateurs buying at Brimfield drift in after finishing their real jobs. On weekdays their numbers are small, so they don’t make too much difference. But from Friday afternoon through the rest of the weekend they are an annoyance. They pour in and get in everyone’s way. Well, they get in my way. They take precious time making their decisions. Then they want to
talk
.

Some dealers are amateurs, too, but they get educated fast, or they drop out of the game. Occasionally I help in their education, but I was in no mood for that today.

My van was organized for the trip back to Boston, but I hesitated. Maybe I’d take one last look around. Check out the rocking chair situation.

I got out and stretched my legs. I’d walked more today than I had in ages, but I couldn’t sit still. I was full of nervous energy and needed to move. I strolled out to the roadside and turned toward the sun. Then I did exactly what I knew I shouldn’t.

I walked to the field where Monty was murdered. I needed to look at the spot. I still believed I wouldn’t get involved. I just wanted to stand there quietly and get a feeling for what had happened. The murder site was at the rear of the field, which had a very small, and rough, parking lot.

This one was newer and smaller than most, but it had attracted a full array of dealers. The tents were lined up tight. The field was squeezed in among the older fields, and the rough parking lot appeared to be an afterthought.

Behind the parking area, the land fell off steeply, then more gently toward the woods. It appeared that someone had intended to clear the area, probably to extend the field for more selling or parking. Trees had been cut, gravel had been dumped, and then the job had been abandoned.

Monty’s body had been found on the open slope a short distance in front of the trees. There had been no attempt to hide him. I stood at the edge of the field and looked at the setting below. I had no need to root around at the exact spot, still festooned with the yellow plastic streamers left by the police. It was dark when he was killed. The dealers in this field would have been setting up their booths.

Both Monty and his killer must have walked down the rough ground toward the trees. They couldn’t have driven into that terrain in the dark. It was an obstacle course of tree stumps, undergrowth, and mounds of gravel. Any attempt to drive in there would have drawn attention.

So why would he have walked down the dark hillside, where nothing was going on, with a stranger? Couldn’t be to show an antique, or to look at one, because it was too dark. Someone up here would notice flashlights. He might go there with someone he knew, but why? That didn’t add up.

He could have gone there alone and met someone he didn’t know. But why didn’t he yell when the situation got nasty? You could hear him a mile away when he was just talking. People up here would have heard him yelling.

It made no sense, none at all. Maybe he just went there to pee in the woods. He might have done that. Then some nut got him and strangled him for his money, and Monty didn’t make a sound.

I couldn’t buy that, either. I just couldn’t buy it.

While I stood there imagining scenarios, I’d been hardly aware that other people were coming and going nearby. Rubberneckers? Just as likely to be folks trying to make sense of a senseless act. It wasn’t until I heard my name spoken that I came back into time.

Mr. Hogarth spoke again. We’d met several times today. I smiled, noting the garish outfit he’d assembled through the day. Some people don unconventional clothing while attending Brimfield. Often, young women look particularly fetching in vintage clothing. But sometimes the getups are just a peculiar reflection of the wearer’s idiosyncrasies.

“Hey, Mr. Hogarth, you look like my favorite Doctor Who with that scarf draped around you.”

He smiled and his face crinkled. “I think it may have done time as a sari,” he said, patting the silky fabric. “You were looking pretty serious there, Lucy. Have you figured it out yet?”

“Not even close, Mr. H. But don’t get the idea that I’m working on it. I’m just trying to understand. I can’t get it through my head that Monty’s gone.”

“Get used to it, Lucy. No more hurricane roaring in to pester us with his pitch. He’s gone. It’s sad, but there were times, many times, that I cringed when I saw him coming.”

“He could be insensitive. I think he came from a hardscrabble life,” I said. “But he always had fun stories to share, and he almost always brought me things that were perfect for my shop.”

“Insensitive? He was obnoxious,” Mr. Hogarth sputtered. “And yes, he sometimes brought me the right thing, too, but remember, he was just as insistent that you buy it when he’d picked the wrong thing.”

I decided to ignore the truth in that statement.

“Well, I’ll miss him, rough edges and all,” I said.

“I’m not sure I will,” he said, nodding. “I had to tell him to stay away. More than once I told him, ‘Stay the hell away from my shop.’ ”

“Why?” I asked, then wished I hadn’t. Mr. Hogarth was upset and my question was sure to irritate him further.

Mr. Hogarth looked down at me. “That boy was offensive. Didn’t he ever offend you?”

“No.” Well, maybe. Closies don’t count for dead people.

Mr. Hogarth shook his head, slipped a thumb under his suspender and snapped it. Uh-oh. Monty mimicked this gesture when he told stories about Mr. Hogarth. His stories perfectly captured the old fellow, and they were often funny.

“He went over the line with a customer, too,” Mr. Hogarth said.

“Oh?” This was news. Monty’s irritating streak was familiar to me, but he had always been circumspect around customers. He had even, of late, picked up Billy’s habit of tipping his hat and inquiring if he should come back later when I appeared to be in the middle of something with a customer. “What happened?”

Mr. Hogarth snapped his suspenders a few times and told me about a deal with a woman who’d brought a vase in to be converted into a lamp. She wanted him to drill a hole in it to pull the wire through. “We’d already discussed the risk in drilling the vase, when Monty broke in, uninvited, to tell her that she was a fool to ruin a beautiful vase like that.”

“He didn’t!” I said, incredulous.

“He did. I apologized for him, and she left, ostensibly to think it over. I called him down for his audacity, and he had the gall to tell me that he had done me a favor.”

“What was the vase, anyway? Anything interesting?”

“It was an early Rookwood.”

“Wow.” Monty had certainly done the woman a favor. Early Rookwood is wonderful. It would be a tragedy if it broke while being drilled. But I tsked as best I could. “I know he annoyed people. I guess he just had to blurt whatever was on his mind. I think he meant well, even though he left nothing unsaid.”

“He left some things unsaid, but that kid was troublesome, just plain troublesome.”

Monty was a few years younger than I. No one but Mr. Hogarth could refer to him as a kid. I didn’t mention how much I enjoyed the gossip Monty carried down to the Cape after we moved.

Mr. Hogarth knows how much I love American art pottery, and I know how much he loves beautiful lamps, so we avoided further mention of the Rookwood vase. But our conversation was unsettling. There was no love lost between Monty and Mr. Hogarth. They both seemed willing to imagine the worst in each other. The whole thing was too much for me. I wanted to step back and let the proper authorities take care of it, but I didn’t feel that the authorities were properly interested.

Mr. Hogarth quieted down as we walked away. I asked if he was ready for Captain Kirk’s. Not hungry myself after the gingerbread at Al’s, I knew that a nice visit, filled with the antiques gossip of the day, would lift me out of this mood. Maybe it would jog Mr. Hogarth, too.

“Captain Kirk’s is just what I need. I hope they still have some creamed chipped beef on toast left. What could be more comforting?”

I looked at him. Was he speaking ironically? It appeared not. That was a quicker lift than I expected. So, Captain Kirk’s it was. They start dinner at two in the afternoon there, and call it supper. The signature cuisine is comfort food. But better than the food, it’s always filled with people I hadn’t seen in a while. Buyers and sellers gather at Captain Kirk’s.

We drove there in our own vehicles. Easier to continue in our separate directions after visiting. The buzz of chattering people could be heard from the parking lot. The place was warm and steamy, full of good smells. It’s tiny, and most of the tables were full. We stood in the doorway a moment, and people from several tables called hello and waved us over. We headed in opposite directions. Mr. Hogarth works the room like a politician, and will visit every table in the place before he leaves.

I stopped for a few quick hellos myself as I meandered over to a table occupied by two women. The one I knew, Mildred, sold and collected cut glass of the brilliant period. Exquisite stuff. A dish heaped with hash and home fries steamed on the plate in front of her. Both the hash and the home fries are served crispy on the outside and creamy on the inside at the Captain’s. It smelled wonderful.

Mildred’s hair, currently maroon with pinkish roots, was exactly the same shade as the woman’s sitting across from her. Maybe it was the lighting in there. She introduced her companion as Muriel, her sister. Well, of course. I didn’t know Muriel, but as I took her in, I realized that I could have picked her out of a lineup. It was not just the matching hair and eyeglasses. The tilt of the head, the scarlet complexion, and the configuration of body mass also proclaimed their sisterhood.

They could be twins, though no one said so. Muriel had a grilled cheese sandwich in front of her. She smiled, mumbled a quiet hello, and cast her eyes back down to the plate in front of her when Mildred introduced us. That made them different.

Mildred, a retired schoolteacher, could have been the activities director on a cruise ship. She could have been a Realtor, or a radio talk show host. Muriel, in contrast, seemed somewhat inward. Before she retired, Mildred sold her glass from various antiques co-ops. After retirement she opened her wondrous jewel of a shop. It’s full of brilliant cut glass, which she accessorizes with a few unusual pieces of silver, and lights with sparkling crystal chandeliers. It’s a tiny but exquisite place. She calls it the Ice Palace.

I said I’d had a poor day of buying, not up to my opening day standards, and that got us into a discussion of the day’s happenings.

“The murder has us all off our feed,” Mildred said.

She appeared to be having no trouble navigating heaping forkfuls of hash to her mouth as she spoke. I looked at her, puzzled. She looked back, rolled her eyes, and tilted her head toward Muriel. Muriel’s head was down, still concentrating on her plate. She was using her knife to scrape the toasty crust from the top of her sandwich. I had no idea what Mildred meant.

“She’s feeling snarky,” Mildred said. “She’s upset because she thinks that I was the last person to see Monty alive.”

Wow. “How do you figure that?”

Muriel, still with her head down, was now cutting her sandwich into finger-sized strips. When she finished that, she turned her plate halfway around and began cutting the strips into cubes. She said nothing. So far she hadn’t taken a bite.

“This morning at four o’clock, I had an appointment to look at a chandelier before anyone else,” Mildred said.

“A hot prospect,” I said.

She grinned. “I was on my tricycle wobbling my way toward Route 20, still half asleep in the dark, when I brushed by someone who said, ‘Watch it, Toots.’ The voice was unmistakable—it was Monty. We spoke briefly, and we both went our separate ways, and that was that.”

“Did he say anything about where he was going, what he was doing?” I asked.

“No, we only spoke for seconds.” She slapped her palms against the tabletop. “Nothing of substance. I wanted to be on time for that appointment. We said a quick hello, good-bye, and that’s what Muriel is so moody about. She thinks I should report that meaningless meeting to the police.”

Mildred picked up her fork again, and Muriel sniffed. I turned her way; her eyes looked dry, her nose, too—maybe it was an editorial sniff.

“That’s not much to report,” I said.

“It’s nothing,” Mildred replied. “But if I went over to tell the police about it, I’m sure they’d want to make something of it.”

Maybe Mildred was right. “Was Monty with anyone?” I asked.

“No, and I’m sick to death of this discussion. We keep covering the same ground, but there’s nothing new to add. My sister doesn’t have enough to keep herself busy since she retired.”