All the knickknacks were heaped near the fireplace, including the oil lamp I’d nearly toppled over while Marjorie and Ray were arguing in the den and the vase filled with those old-fashioned hat pins that I had knocked over.
It was obvious Nick had been through everything with a fine-tooth comb, sorting and inventorying and stashing away. It was not so obvious why.
Thinking about it, I turned—and nearly jumped out of my skin when I realized Marjorie’s neighbor, Gloria Henninger, was right behind me. So was Sunshine.
She (that’s Gloria, not Sunshine) didn’t bother to apologize for nearly giving me a heart attack. “Oh, it’s you,” she said, the words leaving her mouth along with a stream of smoke from her cigarette. She had the dog in her arms and she gave it a little squeeze. “Sunshine told me somebody was sneaking around over here. Figured I’d better come have a look. It’s what neighbors do for each other, you know.” She dropped the stub of her cigarette on the porch and ground it with her sneakers. They were yellow and they matched the T-shirt she was wearing, the one that said, I KISS MY DOG ON THE LIPS. Her shirt, in turn, matched Sunshine’s, except that the dog’s said, I KISS MY OWNER ON THE MOUTH.
Since I didn’t want to think about either of these possibilities, I was glad when she said, “At least that’s how neighbors should treat each other. Not that the Klinker woman ever did. Didn’t care about anybody. Anybody but herself.”
I could have said something about how it wasn’t exactly appropriate to criticize seeing as how Marjorie had just recently been murdered, but let’s face it, I couldn’t think of anything nice to say about her, either. And anyway, Gloria beat me to it. “Don’t even give me that hogwash about speaking kindly of the dead,” she growled. So did Sunshine. “I had nothing good to say about her when she was alive, and I’m not going to be a hypocrite now that she’s gone. The woman was the curse of the neighborhood.”
I remembered the glimpse I’d had of Marjorie’s backyard. “Maybe now her nephew will get rid of the statue of President Garfield.”
My suggestion wasn’t met with as much enthusiasm as I’d expected. Gloria scraped a finger back and forth across the top of Sunshine’s head. “Well, that’s what I was thinking, too. And I got all excited about it. You know, when Nick started to move it. But it didn’t last.”
There didn’t seem to be much point in asking her to explain, so I walked to the railing on the far side of the porch and leaned over. The statue of President Garfield was still there, but just like Gloria said, and like everything else I’d seen in the house, it, too, had been moved.
Instead of standing directly in the path of the beam of that spotlight, the president was now six feet over to the left. The pots of flowers from around the statue had been shifted in front of the garage, and the bushes that ringed the statue? They’d been dug up. They sat on the driveway, their roots withering in the sun.
“See what I mean?” Gloria poked me with one bony elbow. “Saw that Nick Klinker messing with the statue, and I thought, Glory be! He’s going to get rid of it. No such luck. Now that he’s messed with it, it just looks worse than ever. I’ve called the city. Told them I pay my taxes and I have the right to a neighborhood free of eyesores. Nobody’s listening. Nobody cares.”
I did. But not for the reasons she thought.
I decided it was best not to mention this so instead I asked, “What’s Nick up to?”
“Hell if I know.” Gloria made a face. “All I can tell you is that he’s been here all hours, and had people in and out, in and out. It’s upsetting to Sunshine. She keeps a regular schedule. She doesn’t appreciate the interruptions.”
“People in and out. Like who? What people?”
“Well, I don’t know all of them.” Obviously, I should have realized this. At least that’s what the look Gloria gave me said. “But I did recognize that one fellow. You know . . .” Trying to think, she snapped her fingers. “You know, the big guy. Bushy head of silver hair. He’s on that show on PBS where they look at the antiques people bring in. Not the famous show that goes all over the country. The other one. The one they film right here in Cleveland.”
“
“Ted Studebaker. That’s him.” Gloria’s face lit like a Christmas tree. “I know I’m right. It was him. I know it for a fact. And it’s not just because I’m a sort of magnet for superstars. Met Jimmy Durante once. Live and in person. And Telly Savalas.” She looked at me expectantly.
I stared at her blankly.
Maybe she was more perceptive than I’d given her credit for. Rather than belabor the point, she started down the steps. “Come on, honey,” she said. “And I’ll prove it to you.”
I followed her next door to a house much like Marjorie’s except for the lack of Garfield memorabilia and the addition of a gag-in-the-mouth doggy smell that mingled with the unrelenting stench of cigarettes.
Once inside, I stayed as close to the front door as politely possible, in hopes of catching the occasional whiff of fresh air. Sunshine still in her arms, Gloria rattled around in the kitchen.
“I know I’ve got it here somewhere.” Her voice floated to me from the back of the house. “I’ll find it. You’ll see. You’ll see that I met him.”
Since I wasn’t sure if she was talking about Ted the antiques appraiser or about those guys I didn’t know, the ones named Jimmy and Telly (wasn’t he a character from
Gloria’s furniture was cheap and not worth mentioning. The wall-to-wall carpet had seen better days. She had a big-screen TV next to an aquarium where a dead fish floated on top of the water. There were a couple magazines on her coffee table, and a couple pieces of mail. Curious, I took a deep breath, held it, and hurried over there. I shuffled through the mail, checking it out.
An electric bill. An ad from a local dentist. What looked like a birthday card.
Nothing interesting, and certainly nothing that would help with my case.
“Ah, here it is!” I heard Gloria say, and I dropped the mail back on the table before she got back to the room. It slid under a three-month-old
For a second, I simply stared. But I knew another second would be too long. I scooped up the paper, folded it, and stuffed it into the pocket of my khakis.
Just in time, too.
“Here it is.” Gloria shuffled back into the room holding a business card. She handed it over. Sunshine grumbled when I got too close.
Gloria pointed at the name printed on the card in raised lettering. “See? See, right there. It was Ted Studebaker himself, all right. Just like I said. I saw a car pull up. Something slick and shiny. I knew it wasn’t anybody who’d been here before so I went over to see what was going on. You know, the way a good neighbor would. Nick was just coming out of the house and he introduced me. That’s when Ted Studebaker gave me that card.”
I gave the card a careful look. It was printed on quality paper and embossed with an eagle in the background. Ted Studebaker Antiques, it said, was located in Chagrin Falls, a charming and highfalutin suburb to the east, and it said that Ted was a specialist in presidential “autographs, memorabilia, and ephemera.”
“So Nick was talking to a presidential collector.” I said this to no one in particular, but of course, Gloria assumed I was talking to her.
“That’s right.” She grabbed a plastic cigarette lighter from a nearby table and fired up another smoke. “I heard them. You know, when I was on my way over there. Nick was telling Ted Studebaker to come on inside, telling him he had lots to show him. Ted, he wasn’t even through the front door and Nick was asking about what stuff was worth and if anybody would want it.”
“Did Studebaker say anybody would?”
“Well, it never got that far. Not as far as I heard, anyway. Because that’s when me and Sunshine, we showed up to see who the stranger was and we introduced ourselves. Didn’t we, Sunshine?” She kissed the dog on the top
