Larceny and Old Lace (5 page)

“Well, dear, if you do decide to sleep with him—which I sincerely hope you don't—
please
use protection. Promise me?”

She nodded vigorously. “Oh, I will, Mama. If I ever do, I will. But I won't, so I won't need to.”

There was little else to say. I was not emotionally prepared to sit down on Jimmy's mattress and have a pleasant chat. First, I would have to sleep on what I had just seen and heard. Maybe hibernate for a winter or two. Susan should thank her lucky stars that her daddy was too busy, or selfish, to pay her a visit unless forced. I certainly would do nothing to force Buford out there until I had thought things through thoroughly.

I hugged her. She smelled like male sweat.

“Aunt Eulonia's funeral is the day after tomorrow. Two in the afternoon at the Church of Our Savior in Rock Hill.”

“Okay. I'll come if the car can make it.”

I refrained from asking her if that was the better car Jimmy had talked her into buying. That conversation could wait. It was worth biting a small piece of my tongue off just getting out of there without a major confrontation.

“I love you, Susan.”

The quick nod from her was a reciprocal declaration I'm sure.

I
am ashamed to say I hadn't been to Aunt Eulonia's house in over a year. Okay, so it was almost three years, but I had a lot of water rush under my bridge in those three years. Tweetie made a big splash in my life. In fact she almost drowned me. Of course, I can't put all the blame on her—Buford was twice her age and should have known twice as much. Factor in their relative IQs and Tweetie comes out almost innocent.

Don't give me that crap about the home fires being out and that's why Buford went looking. My furnace was roaring when Buford decided to trade it in for a newer model, whose pilot light has yet to be lit. Who knows, maybe Buford couldn't take all that heat. And don't even suggest that the furnace was rusted on the outside and in need of cosmetic repair. I weigh exactly the same as I did the day I was married, and my various parts are within an inch or two of their starting positions. How many other forty-six-year-old women can make the same claim?

So what does Tweetie have that I don't have? Blond hair? Bigger boobs? A firmer butt? I could have bought all those things if I had wanted to be someone other than who I am. The only thing she has, that I can't buy, is a pair of legs that stop at the armpits.

Well, I seem to have digressed, which, in a way, is exactly my point. If Buford's affair makes me this mad now, imagine what it did when I first found out. I didn't know one could hate that much. Or hurt that much. And speaking of pain, I
can't begin to describe the depth of the abyss I fell into when Buford won custody of our children. I am still climbing out.

And that's why I hadn't been to Eulonia's in almost three years. I had, however, seen her at Mama's house on holidays, and of course I'd see her professionally from time to time. Like before she dropped out of the Selwyn Avenue Antique Dealers Association.

September in Charlotte is not yet autumn, and the only leaves that have fallen have been whacked out of the trees by errant baseballs and clumsy birds. Aunt Eulonia's street is overgrown to begin with, and I may as well have been bivouacking in the jungles of Southeast Asia. As a woman living alone, I should carry a purse-size flashlight with me at all times—perhaps I do, and just might stumble across it sometime when I have a week to clean out my purse. At any rate, I had a devil of a time trying to find Aunt Eulonia's back faucet, much less a clay pot hidden in the weeds.

“Can I help you?” a man asked.

I jumped at least three feet, which is quite a feat considering the length of my legs. I had once attended a seminar on self-defense for women and had gone away, after a mere two hours, feeling like I could disable Goliath. Now, while I would encourage other women to take similar self-defense courses, I feel that I must warn them about something I didn't learn in my class. It is possible to get so frightened that you wet your pants.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you,” the man said.

It took several seconds for my brain to sort through a myriad of quavering stimuli and come to the conclusion that most muggers and rapists are seldom that polite. After a very brief period in which I lay collapsed in a bush (they were not azaleas, but hollies!), and several minutes of the heaviest breathing I had experienced since the advent of Tweetie, I was able to speak.

“Who the hell are you, and what are doing here?”

“Funny, I was about to ask you the same,” he said.

“I may be small, but I've been trained in the martial arts,” I puffed. “You want a demonstration?”

“That would be very interesting,” he said. “I haven't seen
a good demonstration of that since I was in the marines.”

“Move over there to the light, buster, where I can see your face.”

If a bird could bluff to defend her nest, then so could I. Only I didn't have a nest to defend, and unlike a bird I couldn't fly away if the bluff failed. What was I doing? I would have been much better staying in the holly bush. Make him at least get his arms prickled when he tried to get me.

To my astonishment he obediently moved away from the shadows and into the relative light cast by a distant security lamp. The good Lord was right: the light did set me free. The guy might have had a voice like a robust young mugger, but he wasn't a day under ninety. Willard Scott was going to be wishing him happy birthday on national TV before it was time for me to clean the lint out of Aunt Marilyn's dryer again.

“My name is Tony D'Angelo. I'm a neighbor. Who are you?”

“Kimberly McManus,” I said. For some strange reason it was the first name that popped into my mind. She's a gal who works at Franklin's printing shop down in Rock Hill. But it may as well be her this old codger stalked, rather than me.

“The hell you say. You're Abby Timberlake, aren't you?”

“Who?” Perhaps I'd found that clay pot after all—hit my head on the damned thing.

“Abby Timberlake. Eulonia's niece.”

“I am not.”

“You weren't looking for this, were you?” He reached into his pocket and held up something shiny.

“What?”

“Her back door key. The one hidden in the clay pot, back in those nasty hollies. Figured that's what you were looking for.”

“Give me that!” I charged at him. We were approximately the same height and weight, and except for our ages, evenly matched. I know, he was a male and might still be producing a little testosterone, but he didn't have Buford as an ex-husband. One clear image of Buford and Tweetie doing the unspeakable in my bed, and I had enough adrenaline to run a triathlon.

Fortunately the old coot derailed me by laughing. “Here, you can have it.”

“What?”

He gently tossed the key at my feet. “I suppose you have as much right to it as anybody.”

I scooped it up, along with a handful of clay. Aunt Eulonia and grass did not get along.

“You're damn right. What were you doing with it?”

“Keeping it safe, that's all. Folks been stopping by, you know. Wanting to get in, but I wouldn't tell them where the key was.”

“How did you know where it was?”

He laughed again. If I hadn't seen him, I would have thought he was twenty. “I was the one who suggested she hide it in the holly. Make that burglar work for his take.”

“And her, too, then, if she ever needed it,” I pointed out wisely.

“Ha. She wouldn't have ever needed that, unless something happened to me first.”

“Just what do you mean by that?”

“I have my own key,” he said smugly. “Eulonia gave it to me.”

“When?” The nerve of my aunt, passing out house keys to every old Tom, Dick, and Harry, and then asking for mine back.

“Hmm, let's see,” the old geezer pretended to think. “It was a while back, that's for sure. I think it was the day Nixon resigned from the Presidency.”

“Excuse me?”

He was still thinking. “Yeah, it had to be in seventy-three, because I was living in Atlanta in seventy-two. That's when my grandson Cody was born. Wouldn't forget a thing like that now, would I?”

“I'm sure you wouldn't.” Maybe I did let a little sarcasm show through, but Aunt Eulonia had no business having a man friend for twenty-three years and not even mentioning him to me.

He took a step forward, but I held my ground. “Look,” he said, “it's muggy out here, and there's too many damn mosquitoes. How about we go on inside and continue this con
versation there. The power is still on, and so is the air-conditioning.”

Well, slap me silly with a two-by-four and then call me grateful. Talk about nerve! Imagine being invited into your own aunt's home by an ancient neighborhood gigolo. I would have kept my mouth open longer if a mosquito hadn't flown in.

“There's tea in the fridge, already made up,” he coaxed.

“I beg your pardon!”

“No trouble at all,” he said. He trotted over to the back door, unlocked it, and then flipped on the porch light. You would have thought he lived there.

“Mr. D'Angelo—”

“Please, call me Tony.” He had the impudence to usher me inside.

I strode angrily into my aunt's kitchen. There was indeed a pitcher of tea in the fridge, and I made damn sure I was the one to hunt up the glasses and pour it. Then
I
invited the little man to sit at the breakfast room table.

He took the tea without saying thanks. “It's more comfortable in the den.”

I took off the silk boxing gloves. “Look, buster, this is my aunt's house, not yours. Stop acting like you own the damn place. I'm inviting you to sit here, in the breakfast room.”

He drained the overly sweet tea in three gulps. He did not sit down. “Charlie looks exactly like you, you know. Of course he's bigger.”

“Charlie?”

“Your son. Still, Euey and I were worried when he hadn't hit his growth spurt by the end of ninth grade. But he's sure the hell made up for it this year, hasn't he? How much has he grown, anyway? Five inches?”

“Six,” I said. “And his sneakers are size thirteen.”

We sat in the den while we polished off the rest of the tea. The man had made his point.

“I can't believe Aunt Eulonia never mentioned you,” I said. It was a careless thing to say, and I regretted it immediately. I apologized all over myself.

“No need,” he said, waving a wrinkled hand with enough
liver spots on it to make me dizzy. “Anyway, we've met before. Euey probably talked about me but didn't bother to mention me by name. Thought you knew who she meant.”

“We've met?”

He laughed and I closed my eyes. He did sound twenty.

“Remember that time your car wouldn't start, and you didn't belong to Triple A?”

“No.”

“Think back. It was a sixty-three Dodge Dart. White. With push-button controls.”

This time when my mouth fell open an ice cube fell out. “That was you? How can you remember that far back? I mean, about a car not starting?”

The liver spots danced. “Or how about the time, after Susan was born, when I came over and fixed up a swing seat in that willow oak out back.” He sighed. “Actually that one had to come down just this summer, thanks to Hurricane Hugo.”

“My God!”

“Yeah, a real shame. Hugo came through six years ago, and still some trees are dying because of it.”

“No, I mean, I can't believe how good your memory is. I wish mine were that good. I remember that one of my aunt's neighbors tied up the swing seat, but I didn't remember that it was you. I'm sorry. I don't mean to hurt your feelings.”

“Nah. Think nothing of it. My point was, you knew me, you just forgot. Things like that happen.”

I took his word for it. I also decided to take advantage of his formidable memory while I had a chance. Before I forgot who he was again.

“Say, Tony, you ever hear my aunt mention something valuable that she planned to auction off through Sotheby's?”

“What kind of thing?” For someone so old, there was a lot of fire in his eyes.

I decided to hold my cards close to my chest. That's far easier for me to do than it is for Tweetie.

“Oh, I don't know. Something very unusual, I guess.”

“Ah, that.”

“Ah, what?”

He studied me quietly for a moment, the fire in his eyes
dimming. Or perhaps he fell asleep. People his age have been known to do that.

“Euey was always talking about something she'd run across as being a rare find. A ‘one-of-a-kind' she called them. Euey had more ‘one-of-a-kinds' than a barn full of drunken poker players.”

“But I heard this was something really special. Something she wanted to auction off at Sotheby's.”

He gave me a pitying look. “I don't mean to speak ill of the dead, especially a dear friend, but look around you. Take a walk through the house. Do you think you'll find anything really valuable here? Or at her shop? Your aunt lived very modestly, you know.”

“Yes, but—”

“Who told you about this valuable item? Did she?”

“Who else?”

“She describe it for you?”

“Of course.” I'm sure my priest will disagree, but sometimes there is virtue in not telling the truth. “Not telling the truth,” as opposed to “lying.” There is a difference, you know. One is passive, the other active. One is intended solely to protect yourself or someone else you love. The other is for personal gain.

“Well? You going to tell me about this mysterious thing that's worth a fortune?”

“I can't.”

“Why not?”

“I promised Aunt Eulonia I wouldn't.”

He stared. There was something not quite right about those bright eyes. Perhaps gramps was overmedicated. I'd read that sometimes blood pressure medicine could produce the same effect.

“Yes, but she's dead,” he said in that youthful voice.

“Exactly! I couldn't possibly break my word to a dead woman.” I stood up. “If you'll excuse me, I think I'll go look for something nice to have her buried in. A favorite of hers.”

He stood up as well. “Mind if I tag along?”

I took a deep breath. “Frankly, I do.”

“Oh.”

I walked out of the breakfast room, fully expecting him to tag along behind me like a puppy dog, but he didn't. I did need to find something to bury my aunt in, but that could wait. I wanted to see for myself if there was something valuable—something lace-hidden in one of her drawers, or draped over something in her closet.

It is downright weird to walk around in someone's house after they have just died. I think this is especially true if the deceased is a relative. Aunt Eulonia had family photographs covering every available inch of wall space, and in at least half of them I could see my own face grinning out at me. In at least half of those I could see Aunt Eulonia as well. The two of us would always be together in those photographs, but we were never going to be together again in real life. Not close enough so that she would have her arm draped around my shoulder, a bow in my hair thrust up her nose. At least I hoped not.