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The Obituary Queen by Dorothy Francis
Rex Portus slipped on his auburn-colored wig. He'd smiled into the mirror as he adjusted the long bangs that hung at a rakish angle over his left eye. Now he brushed the bangs over his right eye, smiled at his reflection again and winked. Then he pushed the bangs back over his left eye. Yes. Over the left eye––that was his best look for today. He enjoyed looking rakish.
If only he had inherited his mother's brown eyes. It was much easier for brown-eyed men to look rakish than blue-eyed men like himself. But forget that! Today promised a change from the usual let's-get-down-to-business look he presented to clients in his law office during the week. No suit, white shirt, or tie for him today. In his wig, jeans, and jeans jacket, nobody would guess he was Key West's Rexiford T. Portus, Attorney at Law. He doubted his own mother would recognize him in this clever weekend disguise.
Stepping closer to the mirror, he practiced the "nice guy" smile that guaranteed his success in luring elderly ladies to inviting him into their homes. Why, they'd think it was their own idea, not his. He chose his women carefully and they seldom turned him away.
"Today's the day." He repeated old-time treasure salvor Mel Fisher's famous words. As a boy, he used to dive for Fisher. Little pay, but lots of excitement. Each morning as Fisher's diving crew set to sea searching for the sunken treasure galleon Atocha, Mel had used those 3 words. Today's the day! And of course they'd found the treasure—eventually. "Today's the day," he repeated the words again, hoping they held a magic that would rub off on him as he went on his modern-day treasure hunt.
KEYS ANTIQUE COLLECTORS OFFER $1,000 REWARD. The headlines in the Citizen held his attention only for a moment. Small print under the banner headlines told of area antique burglaries, described many of the purloined pieces, and revealed details about the reward being offered for information leading to the thief's arrest. Rex didn't have time for the small print today. After a long work week, weekends were strictly Big Time and he was eager to be on his way.
Rex smiled as he thought about the news article. Dumb burglar! So he'd made some local heists—maybe even state-wide heists. But every time the guy scored a hit, he made himself a target for arrest. That certainly wasn't his modus operandi. Although Rex was an avid collector of glass and china and had enjoyed his hobby for years, he prided himself on having paid for every piece in his grand collection. He offered sellers only a pittance of an item's true value, but that was a collector's right, wasn't it? Buy low, sell high. But he seldom sold any of his collection, and he kept his sleazy buying methods a secret from everyone.
Today his quarry, eighty-year-old Minerva Albury promised to be a pushover. He'd read her deceased husband's obituary in the newspaper several days ago. Lonely widows were easy marks. They wanted someone to talk to, someone to listen to them. They also welcomed a little extra cash. But most important, the women seldom realized some of the dishes they'd used for years were now either antiques or valuable collectibles. Charlie Albury. That was the husband's name. Strange that he didn't recall a Charlie Albury around Key West. But there were many Alburys. Not unusual that one of them might slip his memory.
Rex had memorized Minerva's address. Many Alburys lived in Key West—and had lived there for generations. He'd thought it strange that Minerva lived in an apartment. Most of her clan lived in the island's old Conch houses. Some of them had built their homes in the Bahamas, dismantled them, and shipped them to the Keys years ago. Maybe Minerva had rebelled at tin roofs and back yard cisterns. Or maybe her house had blown away in a hurricane. That happened now and then. Sometimes it was easier for people to move than to clean up their property and rebuild. A small, tidy apartment might have great appeal to an old lady who had worked hard all her life cleaning cobwebs from a Conch house.
Parking in front of her apartment, Rex forced himself to stroll to her porch. It never paid to appear to be eager or in a hurry. He knocked on her door, listening to the flub-flub of slippers against bare floor before she opened the screen and peered at him through her steel-rimmed bifocals.
Stooped and wrinkled, Minerva had hair like a silver Brillo pad. But her clothing looked immaculate. Blue-and-white gingham dress. Freshly pressed white apron.
"Hello, Mrs. Albury," Rex said. "I'm Jeremy Roth. I collect dishes, and one of your neighbors told me you might have some depression-era glass you'd be willing to sell."
"Can't imagine who told you that," Minerva said. "Only dishes I have are those Charlie and I used most every day. Nothing new in the bunch. Now that Charlie's passed on...."
Rex tossed Minerva his practiced smile and brushed at the bangs falling over his left eye. "Would you be willing to show me some of your dishes? I'm always interested in adding to my collection. When it comes to depression glass, I like either the pink or the green."
Minerva opened her door wider. Rex stepped inside before she could change her mind and leave him standing on her porch. The apartment smelled of deep-fried shrimp and pork and beans. Whew! Some combination. He tried to breathe in shallow gulps, imagining that even light breathing of those fatty fumes could make his cholesterol skyrocket.
"Well, I do have a few pieces that I might be persuaded to part with," Minerva said. "Nothing really super-special to me, I guess. Just some old goblets that my mother passed on to me before she died. Charlie and I hardly ever set our kitchen table with stemware. The kitchen's where we ate most of our meals. Stemware seemed too fragile to use with a butcher-block table. But that doesn't mean I'll sell cheap. If you're hunting a bargain, you're unlikely to find it here."
"Oh, I wouldn't expect a bargain," Rex said, "I'm willing to pay whatever fair price you ask." He managed to smile and exhale at the same time without choking.
"Sit down, Mr. Roth, and I'll see what I can find in my kitchen cupboard."
Rex sat on a sagging sofa. It's musty smell was worse that the greasy shrimp odor. Funny thing. After a while he sort of got used to the odors. Soon, Minerva returned from her kitchen carrying a tray that held two goblets, a lemonade pitcher, and a Willoware tureen. The goblets tilted and clinked together as she lowered them so he could see them.
"Would these pieces interest you, sir?" Minerva set the tray on a coffee table in front of them. Before he could speak, she picked up a goblet and began polishing it on her apron, holding it up to the light, then polishing it again.
Rex corked his enthusiasm. The lemonade pitcher itself could be worth over a hundred dollars, the soup tureen, even more. He wondered if the tureen had a lid that she'd forgotten to show him. He wouldn't ask right now. Later, he might be able to use the lack of a tureen lid as a bargaining point.
"What's your price on the goblets, Mrs. Albury?"
"Don't rightly know, sir. What's your best offer?"
Rex examined the goblets. "Well, your mother must have used them a great deal. Both of them are quite scratched from wear. That's to be expected, of course. But look. There's even a chip on the rim of this one." Rex ran a forefinger over the flaw as he pointed it out to her.
She felt the goblet rim. "Sure enough. It does have a chip. But just a small one."
"A chip's a chip," Rex said. "I seldom buy imperfect pieces, but how about a dollar each?"
"Fair enough," Minerva said, "considering the chip. What about the pitcher?"
Rex turned the pitcher over and studied the hallmark, tracing it with his thumbnail. "This's a mighty nice piece, Mrs. Albury. Would five dollars persuade you to part with it?"
"No," Minerva said. "Indeed not. I'd need more money than that."
"How about seven-fifty?"
"You go ten?" she asked.
"Afraid not," Rex said. "Seven-fifty's my top offer."
Minerva hesitated before she nodded. "Okay. I don't want to rob you. And now, how about the tureen? It used to have a lid, but it got broken a while back."
Rex examined the tureen for cracks and chips. His hands began to sweat when he read the famous Bavarian hallmark. "Would you accept ten dollars?"
"Make it twenty," Minerva said. "This piece belonged to my granny. It's a true family piece that we've used for years—even without the lid."
"Twenty dollars it is." Rex decided against bargaining. He'd obtained two excellent pieces for almost nothing. If he ever decided to sell, they'd bring top dollar at any auction house.
Minerva wrapped the dishes in newspaper and tucked them into a sturdy cardboard box.
"Thank you, Mr. Roth." She slipped his money into her apron pocket. "This's Friday night's bingo money."
"Good luck at the parlor." Rex took the carton and left the apartment.
"Thanks, Mr. Roth. I usually don't win much at bingo, but this may be my lucky Friday night."
Later, as Rex stood at his kitchen sink wrist-deep in suds, he washed his new finds, admiring each one until someone knocked at his front door. He looked up in surprise. He'd been expecting nobody. Wiping his hands on a towel, he forced himself to walk slowly to the door, but his throat tightened as he saw two police officers on the porch. What's this all about, he wondered. When he opened the door, the tall officer flashed his badge.
"Sgt. McGreavy, sir." The officer pushed his way inside the house, holding up a legal-looking paper. "I have a search warrant."
The shorter man kept in the background. Rex invited the officers to take chairs. What was going on? He'd paid for the dishes—if that was the problem.
"An informer tells us you have in your possession dishes from the Hampton burglary," Sgt. McGreavy said. "May we look around?"
"Why certainly, Sir." Rex fought to keep control. He held his breath as the officers entered his kitchen and saw the dishes poking through the sudsy water in his sink.
"Officers, I paid Mrs. Minerva Albury for those dishes. She'll vouch for that, I'm sure."
Sgt. McGreavy opened a manila folder and pulled out photos of the pitcher and the tureen.
"Mr. Portus, Minerva Albury is a collector. She says you came to her trying to sell these dishes. Of course she didn't buy. But she did write down the number on your car tags because she recognized the tureen from the newspaper description. You're under arrest."
"But...but, I can explain," Rex said.
"Good," Sgt. McGreavy said. "At headquarters you can explain why you're in possession of pieces from the Hampton burglary."
Rex felt the steel handcuffs on his wrists all the way to police headquarters.
***
Minerva Albury grinned when she left town with the antique collector's reward money in her purse. She always rented furnished quarters in a new town so she could leave quickly if necessary. She pinpointed her antique heists using the newspaper. The obits told when a family would be at a funeral, leaving their valuables unguarded. That's when she acted. She chuckled to herself as she thought of how Charlie always called her The Obituary Queen.
She also used the obit column in another way. Anyone could pay to have an obit printed. She'd used Charley's obit dozens of times. Sooner or later she'd known some scam artist who preyed on elderly widows would rap on her door expecting to bilk her out of something—dishes, books, furniture—or money.
She always welcomed garnering a few bucks on her stolen loot, but to collect a $1,000 reward from an antique club! Whopee! She hadn't expected that. She grinned again. Rex Roth was going to have a hard time explaining how he happened to have those stolen items. She smiled as she thought of the cartons of valuable dishes carefully packed in her car trunk. Rex would have an even harder time explaining where he'd hidden the rest of the Hampton loot.
THE END Dorothy Francis © 2008 |
