Chapter 14 Verdigris and Venom in the Conservatory
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By one-thirty on Friday afternoon, Blackwood Manor had surrendered to the polite chaos of an Appalachian estate preview.
If there is one thing more relentless than a Blue Ridge kudzu vine, it is an antique picker who smells a thirty-percent discount.
The grand foyer hummed with the shuffle of loafers, the snap of folding pocket rules, and the covetous murmurs of people who wouldn’t cross the street to speak to their own cousins, but were ready to elbow an elderly deacon aside for Victorian cranberry glass.
Birdie was stationed at the registration trestle near the front doors, holding her aluminum clipboard like an empress defending a citadel.
Between checking dealer tax certificates and handing out numbered yellow bidding paddles, she deployed the sort of terrifying southern charm that kept the crowd moving toward the dining room.
Every few minutes, her melodious drawl drifted cleanly over the hubbub: “Welcome, y’all.
Handbags in the cubbies, please. Mind the runner, sir—that is hand-knotted Aubusson wool, and it has survived two world wars and a leaky radiator, neither of which excuse muddy duck boots. ”
Across the foyer, Buster lay sprawled across a patch of autumn sunlight on the parquet floor, serving as an eighty-pound speed bump.
A woman in a quilted vest paused to scratch him behind his ears, and Buster responded with a single, dignified thump of his tail before closing his eyes again, having concluded that crowd control was beneath his pay grade.
My own nerves were stretched tighter than a banjo string.
While the preview crowd debated the authenticity of Eleanor’s Chippendale chairs, my thoughts drifted fifty yards away to the yellow-taped carriage house where Julian Croft had died.
Sheriff Frank Lawson had permitted the public preview under strict conditions—no wandering onto the back grounds, no tampering with sealed outbuildings, and a deputy posted on the front verandah looking like a six-foot-two warning sign.
Still, the estate had to be liquidated, the catalog completed, and Callahan now it was just flat, hollow, and chillingly devoid of emotion.
“And the good Lord has a way of dealing with men who come into these hills looking to steal what isn't theirs.”
“Is that a threat, Martha?” Vanessa demanded, though her voice lacked its earlier bravado. “Did you take care of him like you took care of my aunt?”
Mrs. Gable didn't answer. She simply stared at Vanessa Vance with eyes like two chips of slate, turned on the heel of her heavy shoe, and marched out of the alcove toward the main aisle.
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.
There was nowhere for me to hide. The path between the citrus trees and the wicker settee was barely three feet wide. If I bolted, my clogs would clatter against the slate and give me away instantly.
I grabbed an antique brass watering can off a potting bench, pulled a yellow inventory sheet from my clipboard, and pretended to be intensely absorbed in inspecting the underside of a Boston fern frond for mealybugs.