Poison Ivory (3 page)

T
he good news was that Buford is one of the best lawyers in the entire Southeast. The really good news was that he is extremely well-connected, and that the judge before whom I was to appear was the brother of Buford’s college roommate. Don’t ask me how the system works, but the key element in my retelling of that morning’s events is that I didn’t even have to make a courtroom appearance—although I did have to shower under the supervision of the matron, and dress in the clothes that Mama brought (they weren’t what I’d requested).

The bad news is that Buford immediately began pressing me for a date—even though Greg was right there—and the really bad news was that Mama did nothing to keep the two men apart. In fact, she seemed rather stimulated by the idea of two men simultaneously pursuing her daughter.

“Abby,” she said, right in front of them on the courthouse steps, “did you know that there are
actually cultures where the women have more then one husband? They’re called Pollyanna, I think.”

“Mozella,” Greg said softly, “I believe the word is polyandrous.”

“Well, I was close,” Mama said. She reached up with a gloved hand and felt the hat she was wearing. Satisfied that it was in place, she plumped the starched crinolines that kept her full-circle skirt inflated. “I heard about this custom from a missionary woman who spoke at our church. The poly-uh-whatever wife gets to do the choosing. Personally, I think that the prospect of being rejected would be just awful. I mean, not everyone is as lucky as you.”

“Mama! What is that supposed to mean?”

“You know perfectly well, dear. Here you are—little, itty-bitty you—and here is big, handsome, strong Greg, and here we also have the very wealthy, powerful, and dare we say, well-connected Buford Timberlake, and both of these gentlemen would gladly throw their cloaks over a puddle to keep your slippers from getting wet. You must admit—not every woman has this choice.”

“But I don’t have a choice! I’m happily married, Mama. And shame on you for even suggesting that I might be willing to entertain cheating on my husband. And even if I did—which I’m
not
—it wouldn’t be with the man who cheated on me.”

“There, you see, Buford,” Mama said, “my daughter has publicly rejected you yet again. At
this point any decent man should feel humiliated. Do you feel humiliated, Buford?”

Jowls jiggled as Buford attempted to grin. “Not at all.”

“Snakes don’t feel humiliated either,” Mama said. “That’s why we call you Timber Snake.”

The forced grin froze and Buford stared at Mama with his beady little eyes until she waved a glove in front of his face. Then he took forever to clear his throat.

“I wasn’t aware of that nickname,” he said at last. “Nevertheless, I choose to take it as a compliment.”

“It isn’t meant as one,” Mama said. “Come on, Abby—Greg—let’s go.”

“Why Mozella,” the snake in question said, “you’ve got even more spitfire than your daughter. How could I have been overlooking something this good all of these years? How old are you? Fifty? Fifty-five?”

“I’m forty-eight,” I shouted loud enough for all of Charleston County to hear.

Mama patted her ubiquitous pearls. “But dear, I got married very young.”

“But not when you were two! Or even seven years old.”

“Well, you don’t look a day over fifty-five,” Buford said, “and I ought to know. Between this wife and the one before, I spent enough time in the waiting rooms of plastic surgeons to write a book on the aging process and what one can possibly hope to achieve by surgery. I’m telling you,
Mozella, my hat is off to whomever did your face. That guy, or gal, is a genius.”

Mama twittered shamelessly. “You silly thing, Buford, now just hush. You know when I was born; you did my will.”

“I can’t remember dates, Mozella. Boy Scout’s honor.”

“Well, in that case I guess I should be kind and put you out of your misery. Next Tuesday is my birthday, and I will be turning sixty-four.”

I started to correct her, then decided to just let it go.

“In that case, happy birthday!” Buford exclaimed.

“Come to think of it, your children will be calling to wish me the same, so why don’t you stop by and—”

The right combination of brow lifts and eye rolls from me, and my sweet, strong husband got the message without me uttering a sound. He slipped behind Mama and picked her up by the elbows. Then walking bowlegged—so as to avoid her kicks—he carried her the rest of the way down the courthouse steps and halfway back to the car.

Thanks to the strangely detached world we live in these days, folks hardly noticed. A family of round tourists from one of the square states clapped, a couple of people driving by honked, and some old dude in a tie-dye T-shirt and a gray ponytail said “Right on, dude” before mumbling something about the end of the world, but to my knowledge no one called the police to report a
kidnapping, and certainly no one confronted us directly.

As for the Timber Snake, although he slithered away quietly, I knew him well enough to predict that he would strike again.

Cheng had not been charged with inciting a riot, so she was released before I was. Still, she’d been through a grueling day—and on my account, no less. Therefore I was quite happy to give her the week off that she requested to visit her family up in Shelby, North Carolina, and I insisted that it be with pay. And since I am not the best person at taking care of myself, my darling husband insisted that I also take a week off—which I did. We flew down to Vieques, Puerto Rico, where we did some fabulous snorkeling, lay about in the sun, and engaged in some horizontally challenged marital bonding.

As a result I returned to the Den of Antiquity glowing with sun-damaged skin cells and eager to get back to work. Wynnell Crawford, my dearest friend, not to mention my trusted employee, grabbed me the second I planted a size four boot over the threshold of the shop’s rear door.

“Abby, that man from the news was just here looking for you.”

“Matt Lauer?”

“You know Matt Lauer?” Wynnell’s voice had risen to a frightening pitch.

“No; it was wishing thinking. I did meet our
local weatherman once—we were both judging sandcastles for Piccolo—but I can tell by the look on your face that that is not who you mean.”

“You’re right about that, Abby. This is the guy who arrested you and hauled you off to jail. Mr. Curly, he said his name was. Who is he, Abby, one of the Three Stooges?” Ever supportive, my buddy draped her arm around my shoulder and squeezed me tightly. “I told him you were taking a cruise around the world and called me last night as you were sailing away from the Palagados Islands.”

“Hmm. Are those anywhere near the Galapagos Islands?”

“Well he seemed to get the drift. You don’t see him here now, do you?”

“I haven’t been inside the shop yet, Wynnell. Apart from Mr. Curly, how is everything? How are you? How is Cheng?”

“Cheng called to say that she won’t be in until tomorrow—if that’s all right.”

“I wonder why she didn’t call me.”

“Because you might have said no.”

“Good point. How have sales been?”

“Sales are always down in February, Abby, you know that. But I took advantage of some of the quiet times to work on our displays. Cheng simply doesn’t have the knack for it—I mean, either you have the gift for it, or you don’t—and you’ve never claimed to have an eye for staging.”

“Staging?”

“You know, like they do in model homes, when they set up tableaux. Come on, I’ll show you.”

My knees felt weak, but meanwhile my heart raced. Wynnell is a good person, and a loyal friend, but she was born without taste—bless her heart. Every time she’s taken it upon herself to set up a display, I’ve felt compelled to quietly dismantle it. It’s either that or run the risk that she’ll hear the rude comments of some tourist and have her heart broken.

“Don’t worry, Abby,” she said. “You’re going to like what I’ve done. And anyway, we better get out there on the floor, because the register is untended.”

The U word was motivation enough, and I trotted along behind her, willing myself to be calm. Whatever she’d done, I could gradually undo—I hoped.

Wynnell had indeed taken advantage of the February lull. Her husband, Ed, is an avid fisherman, but not a professional like Greg. He usually fishes with bait and tackle off the pier on Folly Beach. Occasionally he goes trout fishing in the mountains of North Carolina, and on even rarer occasions he forks out enough money to indulge in deep-sea fishing off our own coast.

Judging by Wynnell’s displays, either Ed had given up his hobby or purchased a great deal of new equipment. Hip boots, rods and reels, tackle boxes, lures of every description, these were
spread across every flat surface or stuck into any cranny that would hold them—whatever best applied to them. Frankly, it looked more like I was running a disorganized garage sale than a high-end antiques store.

“What do you think, Abby?”

I bit my lip, trying to buy some time. “It’s uh—very—uh—”

“Mrs. Washburn.”

The male voice coming from my right was familiar, but I couldn’t place it before I made the mistake of turning to see who it belonged to. I recognized the man instantly, and my hackles were hiked so high I nearly achieved liftoff. Only once before—the second time I discovered Tweetie’s lipstick on Buford’s collar—did I ever get so angry so quickly.

“S-you!” I sputtered.

“Take it easy, Mrs. Washburn, I’m not here to arrest you.”

“Then get out of my shop!”

“Yes, ma’am, but I need to talk to you.”

“Go!” I pointed to the door.

“Ma’am, I’m sorry for how it went down earlier; you see—”

“You heard my friend,” Wynnell said. “You go, or I’m calling the police.”

“Wynnell,” I whispered, “I think he is the police. Or the FBI. Something like that.”

“Well, I’m calling someone,” Wynnell said. “You mess with my friend, Abby, and you mess with me. I wasn’t such a picky eater when I was
little, so as you can see, I’ve grown a bit since I was six.”

“Wynnell,” I protested, “I’m not a picky eater anymore, and it has nothing to do with being short.”

“Oh yes, it does. You missed out on all those vitamins and minerals—and calcium. You need calcium to make bones, Abby, and you never drink milk.”

“That’s not true. I had milk with my raisin bran this morning—okay, so it was yesterday morning. And I love ice cream, and all sorts of cheeses.”

“Mrs. Washburn,” the horrible Mr. Curly interjected, “what I have to say to you is extremely important.”

“Then why don’t you take out an ad in the
Post and Courier
. Maybe a full page ad. That should do for an apology. Don’t you think so, Wynnell?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Curly said, “if that’s what you really want. But this is about something far more important than that. Might I talk to you alone?”

“Ha! I don’t think so. The next thing I know your goons will jump out of nowhere and I’ll be hauled off in a paddy wagon again. This time I’ll probably have fishing wire wrapped around my extremities.”

“Very well, Mrs. Washburn; if that’s what you like. But what I am about to tell you is classified information. That means that your friend here, Mrs. Crawford, can’t go blabbing it around to her friends.”

“Mrs.
Crawford
?” Wynnell and I chorused.

“How did you know my name?” Wynnell demanded.

“Because you, ma’am, have also been one of the subjects of our investigation.”

I
called Greg and told him about my unwanted visitor, and then I locked the door, so as not to involve anyone else in the drama that had once been my life. In the meantime Wynnell poured cups of her infamous coffee. With her as my witness, I ushered the hateful man back to the break room, which is barely more than a cubbyhole furnished with a Craftsman table and four matching chairs. On one of the three principal walls there is a poster of The Scream, which, at the moment, seemed to be fitting.

Motioning for Mr. Curly to take a seat, I plunged right in. “As you know, sir, the case has been dropped.”

“And therefore no double identify,” Wynnell said sternly, as she plunked a mug of coffee so close to him that droplets splashed on his sleeve.

“Ma’am?” he said.

“She means double indemnity.’”

Wynnell sniffed. “That’s what I said.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He turned to me. “Mrs. Wash
burn, again I apologize for my behavior on the dock. There was no excuse for it.”

“There certainly wasn’t.”

“I was completely out of line.”

“Just be glad she’s not suing you for false arrest,” Wynnell said. “Uh, you aren’t—are you, Abby?”

“The jury’s still out on that.” I laughed feebly. “Get it?”

“Very funny, Mrs. Washburn.”

“I don’t get it, Abby. Then again, I’m not a suck-up like he is.”

“Wynnell, dear,” I said, “with a friend like you, who needs more?”

“I don’t get that either, Abby.”

Mr. Curly took a sip of his coffee. His eyes bulged and his lips puckered. He tried mightily to swallow. After a few seconds he wisely spit the brew back into his cup.

“What’s the matter?” Wynnell said. “Don’t you like my coffee?”

“Ah—hem, hem.” He made several attempts to clear his throat and then whilst swallowing in rapid succession, pounded on his chest with a closed fist. “It has a lot of flavor, ma’am.”

“Doesn’t it, though?”

I felt the blood rush to my head. Once before Wynnell had taken an extreme dislike to a customer who had treated me rudely and “flavored” the woman’s complimentary coffee with a liberal dash of Tabasco sauce. That woman was a doyenne of Charleston society, and ever since that
fateful day, my faithful friend has been blacklisted (not that she stood much of a chance before that day).

“Wynnell,” I said, “is this your special blend?”

“It is.”

“Perhaps you will be so kind then as to remove the cup and bring him some water. Make that a
sealed
bottle of water.”

Wynnell’s eyebrows have never been plucked or trimmed, and she struggles with hormone issues. As a consequence, when she scowls, a bristling black caterpillar takes shape on her forehead, stretching from temple to temple in an unbroken line.

“If you insist,” she said, but she didn’t move.

“
Now
, please.”

“Oh, all right,” she huffed. “But you,” she said, pointing a finger practically in Mr. Curly’s face, “better not try any funny business with our Abby. There are cameras hidden everywhere, and if you beat up on her, I’m taking video evidence to one of the morning network shows. And maybe Dr. Phil. He’ll give you what for. He doesn’t cotton to men brutalizing women.”

The second she was out of earshot Mr. Curly got down to business. “Since the—uh—incident—on the dock, I’ve checked around, Mrs. Washburn. You’re thought of highly in this community, but what’s more important, you have an impeccable record. So again I apologize.” He paused, but not long enough for me to comment. “You see, I’ve been working on this case for going on almost
five years. It seems that large shipments of illegal ivory are coming through the Port of Charleston, but sporadically, and the person—or persons—on the receiving end—are never the same.”

“Whoa, run that by me again, please. How can you tell something like that is going on if the recipient keeps changing, etcetera?”

“Mrs. Washburn, the Port of Charleston handles thousands of tons of cargo every day, and it is impossible for the U.S. Customs Office to inspect but a tiny fraction of that cargo. Since 9/11 we concentrate on detecting anything that may be a threat to public safety—”

“Like a nuclear bomb?”

“Yes, that too. And besides issues of public safety, of course we screen for drugs, for they pose a threat to society as well. Looking for contraband imports, such as ivory, is low on the list. However, during these five years we’ve been lucky on four occasions and happened upon shipments of ivory, all of it originating in Hong Kong. And all of it headed to different addresses here in the Charleston area.”

Wynnell slipped back into the room with a bottle of Aquafina and a scowl.

“Anyway,” Mr. Curly said, “stated recipients, like you, all checked out to be innocent parties, but unlike you, none of them ever showed up at the dock; they were completely unaware that their names and address had been used. That’s what makes your case so different.”

“Yes, but like I told you, I showed up to collect a rosewood commode, not contraband ivory.”

Mr. Curly chuckled. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Of course she is!” Wynnell snapped.

“You’ll have to forgive her,” I said. “One of her grandparents was a Yankee; she just can’t help herself.”

“Why, I never!” Wynnell said. “Abby, you take that back.”

“Well, its true, Wynnell. And there’s nothing wrong with that; it’s not like it’s a disease.”

“I don’t know,” Mr. Curly said before Wynnell could react. “My wife started hanging out with a retiree from up North and was recently diagnosed with acute Connecticutitis. All of a sudden she wants to vacation in New England.”

I fought back a smile. “Mr. Curly, I don’t think charm is going to work. You were there; you know how you treated me.”

“Like garbage,” Wynnell said. “And you treated C.J. even worse than that.”

Mr. Curly frowned. “Who is C.J.?”

“The woman who was with me: Miss Cheng. C.J. was what we used to call her. It’s a long story.”

“Might it be pertinent?”

We shook our heads.

“Perhaps I should be the one to judge. These shipments
are
coming through Hong Kong, and Cheng is a Chinese name. Perhaps Mrs. Cheng has connections through her husband.”

“It’s
Miss
Cheng,” Wynnell hissed, “and she’s from Shelby, North Carolina.”

“What?” he said. “They don’t have criminals in Shelby? Although I must admit, one would never guess that she was Chinese simply by looking at her. I mean,
is
she?”

While I am all for not being ashamed of one’s ethnicity, I am still not convinced that in polite society one should not express undo pride in one’s origins. For either we are born into a tribe, having had no say in the selection process, or else we selected our own group before birth. In the latter case, whichever group we preselected—white middle class, British royal family, one of Brad and Angelina’s children—isn’t really special, because we could have
all
been that. In any event, for the most part one’s ethnicity is a private matter, but Mr. Curly was going to get the answer Cheng would have most likely given him.

“She’s part Chinese, part Russian, and part goat.”

“Ha ha. Stonewalling me, eh? Mrs. Washburn, I really am trying to be nice.”

“Mr. Curly, what exactly is it that you want from me?”

“Mrs. Washburn, may I speak to you alone?”

“You most certainly may not,” Wynnell said.

His reaction was to smile. “I admire loyalty like yours, Mrs. Crawford. Mrs. Washburn is a lucky woman.”

“Wynnell,” I said, summoning up some sugar, “I have no doubt that I’ll be just fine here. But I’d
be eternally grateful if you’d straighten up the jewelry case to the left of the register—the one with the amber pieces in it. I had a customer just before closing who couldn’t make up her mind, and as a consequence the display is a bit of a mess. It was worth it, though. She ended up buying that Latvian piece with three flies embedded in it.”

Wynnell whistled. “Way to go, Abby. I didn’t think anybody was stupid enough to pay three thousand dollars for a chunk of sap with insects stuck in it.”

“It was top-notch amber dredged up from the Baltic Sea, and two of the flies were mating. How sweet is that?”

“Please,” Mr. Curly said, “I have other cases to work on.”

Wynnell sighed loudly, but nonetheless complied with our wishes. Still, I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that she’d paused just outside with her ear pressed to the door.

“I’ll get right to it,” Mr. Curly said. “Are you familiar with The Singing Panda up the street? Forgive the stupid question, how could you
not
be?”

The Singing Panda! Now there was a store name chosen merely for its ability to tantalize. For one thing, Giant pandas don’t sing, but
if
they did, they’d most probably sing in Chinese, not Italian. Yet it is Italian opera that one hears playing on the sound system. The merchandise, however,
is
Chinese, and is several steps above your average gift shop. A few pieces are, in fact, of such high quality as to raise eyebrows amongst the other ven
dors on King Street. Where exactly was this stuff during the Cultural Revolution?

“Yes, I’ve been in there a few times,” I said. “He has some nice things. But frankly I think he would have been better off locating in a more cosmopolitan market. Charleston is still a Southern town. There is only so much Asian influence you can add without destroying the local flavor.”

Mr. Curly nodded. “Do you know the owner? Eric Bowfrey?”

“I’ve seen him a couple of times at business events, and once or twice at a party, but I wouldn’t say that I know him.”

“Still, do you have any impressions of him that you could share?”

“Nice kid.”

“Kid?”

“He can’t be more than thirty; that’s a kid to me.”

“He seem strange?”

“Yeah, but—if you already know about him, why are you asking me?”

“Please. Just answer my question.”

“Well, he’s extremely quiet. Mostly just keeps his hands in his pockets and smiles. And no matter what the occasion, he wears a forest green sweatshirt with the hood up. Then again, if I had eyes as green as his—Oh, and those dimples. I could eat custard with a spoon out of them.”

“Mrs. Washburn, the green-eyed boy with the bottomless dimples came down to the dock yesterday afternoon and signed for a large shipment
from Hong Kong. I had a feeling about that lot so I had him open it. It was all run-of-the-mill stuff—some of it not too bad, and all of it on the bill of sale—except for a rosewood commode. When the kid saw it, the first words out of his mouth were, and I quote: ‘What the heck? I didn’t buy that!’”

“Too bad for the kid,” I said, “but I fail to see how this relates to me.”

“I doubt if that’s so,” Mr. Curly said. “On the day when—uh, you unfortunately landed in jail—you said that you were expecting a commode. Instead you got ivory. Perhaps this is
your
commode.”

“Mr. Curly,” I said politely, “for the sake of argument, let’s say that you are correct. Thank you for notifying me, but to be honest, my illegal incarceration has taken the bloom off of that rose. I no longer wish to have anything to do with a Chinese commode. In fact I’m going to stay away from any foreign imports for a while.”

“I understand, Mrs. Washburn, but believe me, your experience was atypical. I’m sure that as a successful business woman, you know that.”

I shrugged. “Am I to believe that you took time from your busy schedule terrorizing minuscule middle-aged women just to inform me that someone else got a set of dresser drawers that were intended for me?”

“And to ask your help in setting up a sting.”

“What?”

“It’s a kind of trap, Mrs. Washburn. There was even a movie by that name—”

“I know what a sting is! I just can’t believe you want me to be part of one.”

“Oh.” A light seemed to have gone off behind Mr. Curly’s eyes. He stood slowly. “In that case, I apologize for your time, as well.”

“No, you don’t get it! I’d
love
to be a part of a sting! When do we start?”

“We already have,” he said with a smile.