exclusive shop. Who exactly were her customers?”
“Hannawa’s la-de-das mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“Junk dealers like yours truly sell anything we can get our hands on. But real antique dealers tend to specialize. They buy from other dealers.”
“Where’s the money in that?” Ike asked from across the shop. He had his nose in a box of old campaign buttons.
“There’s plenty of money in that,” Joey explained. “Say I’m a dealer in Ohio and I get my hands on some fancy old French chair that maybe Napoleon himself sat in. But I specialize in 18th century coo-coo clocks. Which means my customers aren’t going to pay top dollar for a chair, no matter whose ass once graced it. But I know so- and-so in Timbuktu who could sell that chair for a ton of money. So I give it to him for a pretty good price and he turns around and sells it for an even prettier price.”
“How about Violeta Bell?” I asked. “Did she specialize?”
Joey smashed his lips together again. This time he nodded. “Big pieces mostly. Furniture and the like. Some European but mostly American. Nineteenth century. Early twentieth. Art Nouveau. Biedermeier. Arts amp; Crafts. She absolutely went schizoid over Art Deco.”
I was impressed. I remembered some of those names from Detective Grant’s list. “For a mere junk dealer you know your stuff.”
Ike loudly reprimanded me. “His shop’s full of junk, not his brain.”
I smiled apologetically. Joey smiled back, somewhat grimly. “I gather she was big into old fireplaces and stoves.”
“They do bring a pretty penny,” he said.
“You ever sell her any?”
“I come by a few now and then-so I suppose I might have.”
Maybe it was imagination, but Joey seemed to be getting a little nervous. “Where do dealers get their antiques, other than junk shop owners and other dealers?” I asked.
“A good fisherman fishes many ponds,” he said. “Antique malls, auctions, estate sales, classified ads, garage sales, tree lawns on garbage day.”
I knew I was going to make him really nervous now. “And where would a dealer who isn’t exactly on the up and up get her stuff?”
Joey got less nervous instead of more. Downright steely in fact. “You’re saying Violeta Bell dealt in fakes?”
Ike appeared at my side wearing a big “I Like Ike” button on his khaki shirt. “She’s not saying that, Joseph. She’s just trying to figure out why somebody might have popped her.”
I asked my next question before the conversation shifted to the Eisenhower button. “You think it’s possible she could have been selling fakes?”
“There isn’t a dealer alive who hasn’t sold a fake or three,” Joey answered. “The antique business is lousy with reproductions being passed off as authentic pieces. Sometimes it’s almost impossible for dealers to tell. Even if they’re an expert in that particular area.”
“I guess I’m taking about knowingly selling fakes.”
“There are a few unscrupulous dealers who do that.”
I asked a final question. “Do you think that Violeta Bell could have been one of those few?”
“I never had any reason to suspect it.”
Ike paid Joey two dollars for the “I Like Ike” button. On the way to the car, Ike pinned it on my tee shirt. I immediately took it off. “You’re forgetting I’m a Democrat.”
He flashed me that damn don’t-you-love-me smile of his. “Lots of Democrats voted for Ike.”
“Not this one!”
We drove to Oswosso Swamp Park. We followed the trail around the rim of the marsh until we found an empty bench. We sat next to each other, our shoulders just barely touching. We didn’t say a word. We nibbled our sandwiches and chips. We slurped the sun tea I’d brewed that morning. We watched the long-legged heron do their impressions of lawn ornaments. We watched the ducks paddle by. We watched the turtles stick their snoots through the algae. We watched the human beings dumb enough to jog during what Margaret Newman in her story had called “the nation’s most blistering hot spell since rough-tough Teddy Roosevelt roasted in the Oval Office.” I didn’t know what Ike was thinking, but I was thinking about how much fun I was going to have telling Margaret that, while I enjoyed her alliteration, the Oval Office wasn’t built until the presidency of William Howard Taft.
It was Ike who finally broke the oath of silence he’d imposed before we got out of the car. “You can’t possibly think Joseph Lambright killed that old woman,” he said.
“When did I ever say that?”
“I know you were asking your questions carefully. But I also know how that wicked little brain of yours works.”
I snapped one of those tasteless baked chips between my teeth. The heron closest to us took off like the space shuttle. “I’m still at the early stages of my research. I have to suspect everybody.”
Ike shifted his attention to another heron. “What possible reason would Joseph have?”
“Maybe she snookered him.”
“Found out she sold some piece of junk from his shop for a ton of money?”
“That’s exactly right,” I said. “And when he confronted her, wanting his fair share, she refused.”
“And so he snuck into her building in the middle of the night? Took her to the basement and killed her?”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s not the Joseph Lambright I know.”
“Nor is it the Joey Junk I know. But who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?”
I dug another potato chip from the bag. Ike took it away before I could scare the bejeebers out of another big dumb bird. “Or women,” he said.
11
Friday, July 28
I waited until five-thirty, then I dialed Detective Grant’s direct line. I crossed my fingers that he wouldn’t be there. I hadn’t had one mug of tea all day and my head was pounding. The last thing I needed was to get laughed at, or lectured, or both, by Scotty Grant. The finger-crossing worked: “ This is Detective Grant. Please leave a message. If your call is urgent, press extension 119. ”
My call was important but not exactly urgent. I waited for the beep and left a message: “This is Maddy Sprowls. I suppose you’ve left for the day-I’m leaving myself in a couple of minutes-but I did want to pass along a tip. Well, I guess it’s not so much a tip as an unnecessary suggestion. Most likely. Anyway, if I were you I’d check the authenticity of those antiques you took from Eddie French’s apartment. And the ones still in Violeta Bell’s condo. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’re fakes. I’m not saying they are. But they might be. Bye-bye.” I grabbed my purse and headed for the elevator.
I reached my bungalow on Brambriar Court, Ike’s car was already in the driveway. He’d had my house key for three months but this was the first time he’d used it. When I hit the button on my garage-door opener, James started barking up a storm inside. It’s good to be wanted.
Ike greeted me at the kitchen door. “Baked tilapia, wild rice, and asparagus with hollandaise sauce!”
I ducked under his arm. “I hope you used my fake eggs.”
He kissed my throbbing forehead way too hard. “Begrudgingly.”
I scratched James’ ears and headed for the bathroom. When I got back, dinner was on the table. So were a pair of candles, wine glasses, and a big bottle of Caffeine-Free Diet Coke. “How romantic!”
