Nightmare in Shining Armor

211 Pages·2001·0.86 MB·English

by  Myers Tamar

Synopsis:
The Corpse Is In The Mail
Den of Antiquity proprietress Abigail Timberlake’s Halloween costume
party is a roaring success — until an unexpected fire sends the panicked
guests fleeing from Abby’s emporium. One exiting reveler she is only too
happy to see the back of is Tweetie “Little Bo Peep” Timberlake —
unfaithful wife of Abby’s faithless ex, Buford. But not long after the
conflagration is brought under control, the former Mrs. T. discovers an
unfamiliar suit of armor in her house. And stuffed inside is the heavily
siliconed, no-longer-living body of the current Mrs. T.
Certainly some enraged collector of medieval chain mail has sent Abby
this deadly delivery. But diving into their eccentric ranks could prove a
lethal proposition for the plucky antiques dealer/amateur sleuth. And
even a metal suit may not be enough to protect Abby from the vicious
and vindictive attentions of a crazed killer.
NIGHTMARE IN SHINING ARMOR
BY
TAMAR MYERS

The eighth book in the Den of Antiquity series
Copyright © 2001 by Tamar Myers
In memory of my father, whose imagination was boundless.

1

It isn’t every day that a headless woman rings my doorbell. You can be
sure, therefore, that I examined this one closely. She was about five feet,
six inches tall, sans head, which she held in her right hand. Her severed
neck was abnormally large, especially considering the fact that there was
a bit of it still attached to her noggin. I peered harder. Yup, there were
two eyeholes about five inches down.
“Wynnell!” I cried delightedly. “I’m so glad you’re early. I can use all the
help I can get. The caterer got sick at the last minute, and although I
have all the food, it needs assembling.”
The bloody stump blinked. “How did you know it was me?”
“Because you’re my best friend. I’d recognize you no matter what you
wore.” It would not have been kind of me to mention that it was Wynnell’s
bushy eyebrows poking through the vision slits that had tipped me off.
My buddy sighed and stepped over the threshold. Then, really seeing me
for the first time, she gasped.
“Abby! How did you do it?”
“Do what?” I said with a coy smile.
“You’re a foot taller. At least!”
“Am I?” I smoothed a portion of my antebellum skirt, which, suspended
as it was by hoops and crinolines, puffed in all directions like an organza
igloo. Incidentally, I wasn’t alone under all that material. My yellow
tomcat, Dmitri, had been tickling my ankles with his tail ever since I’d
gotten dressed.
“Abby, tell me, or I’m going to peek.”
“No need,” I said and hoisted my hemline.
Dmitri took one look at my headless visitor, hissed, and shot out of the
room like there was a pack of dogs in pursuit.
Wynnell laughed and peered more closely. “Stilts?”
“Greg made them. I’ve been practicing all week.”
Perhaps I should explain that I am normally only four feet, nine inches
tall. My fiancé, Greg, is just over six feet. We would have made an odd
Scarlett and Rhett without my wooden appendages. This not to say we
make an odd couple in real life, but you know what I mean. Besides, if
the hooped skirt gave me the opportunity to experience the rarefied strata
to which the rest of you folks are accustomed, why not go for it?
“How do you manage to keep your balance?” Wynnell asked, as she
bumped against the hall console.
“I don’t always,” I said, remembering my bruised right knee. “I can
balance about as well as you can see. But I can’t walk at all in this dress
without the stilts, so I’m stuck until the party’s over. You, however, are
another story. Why don’t set your head down on that console, take off
your mask, and help me in the kitchen?”
“Be glad to.” Wynnell whipped off her rubber neck. “You’d be surprised
how hot it is under here.”
I patted my voluminous skirt. “Fifteen yards of fabric is no cool breeze.”
Wynnell nodded. Her hair was damp with dew — we Southern women do
not sweat — and her face the color of a radish.
“So what do you want me to do first?”
“Stir the punch. And taste the bowl on the left to see if it needs more
pizzazz.”
“Champagne?”
“Vodka. I want this party to rock.”
“Abby, you’re so bad. What will your mama say?”
“She gave me the recipe.”
“Speaking of her, did you find out what she plans to wear tonight?”
I shook my head. “Her lips are sealed tighter than a clam at low tide. All
she would say is that I was in for a big surprise.”
Wynnell frowned, her damp brows fusing like giant spiders. “Doesn’t that
make you nervous?”
“You bet it does. Last year she came as Mother Teresa — but that was
during her nun craze.”
Wynnell, having tasted the bowl of spiked punch, decided it need an
extra wallop. She added enough imported spirits to keep Kiev humming
for a month. And this from a Baptist!
“What does she want to be now?”
“A jockey.”
“A disc jockey?”
“The kind that ride horses. Her goal is to win the Kentucky Derby before
her eightieth birthday.”
“Which is how far away?” Wynnell asked cagily. We Southern women
would rather sweat than reveal our ages.
“She’s seventy-eight.”
“Then she could make it. I wouldn’t put anything past your mama.”
“Me, either!” I wailed. “That’s just what I’m afraid of. She’s liable to show
up tonight at my Halloween party dressed as a jockey. A woman her age
shouldn’t wear those tight pants if you ask me.”
“Your mama’s in good shape, Abby.”
“I know.” I clomped over to my new oven to take a peek at the lasagna. It
was ready to come out. “But she’s so embarrassing. If I know her, she’ll
bring a real jockey with her as her date. Then who knows what the two of
them will do. At least last year, when she was a nun, that wasn’t a
problem.”
“That’s only because the priest she brought with her was gay. At any
rate, you’re lucky to have her, Abby. Both my parents are dead.”
“I know,” I mumbled, “I’m a very lucky woman. I’ve been telling myself
that all day.”
And I was a very lucky woman. I, Abigail Louise Timberlake, had not only
survived my divorce from Buford the Timber Snake, but I was now
engaged to Greg Washburn, the sexiest detective on the Charlotte police
force, if not the sexiest man in the entire city. My business, the Den of
Antiquity, was doing gangbusters, allowing me to buy a brand-new home
in the exclusive neighborhood of Piper Glen. What’s more, my
relationship with my two adult children had recently progressed from one
of foe to one of friend.
“What was that, Abby? I couldn’t hear you.”
“Maybe that’s because your ears are in the other room.”
“Good one, Abby, but seriously, what did you say?”
“I’ve got this bad feeling,” I said.
“About?” Wynnell took a long draft from her punch cup. At that rate, there
would be none left for the other guests.
“About tonight.”
“You’re not talking about your mama now, are you?”
A cold chill ran up my corseted spine. “What makes you say that?”
“I didn’t want to say anything, Abby, but I feel it, too.”

2
2

“You do?”
My friend nodded. “I’m not claiming to be psychic — we Baptists don’t go
in for that — but I’ve been feeling really spooky about tonight.”
“Spooky?” That wasn’t a Wynnell sort of word.
She nodded again, this time dribbling punch down her chin. “I have this
scared feeling I haven’t felt since I was a kid. I almost didn’t wear my
costume; it was starting to really freak me out. Even at the last minute I
was trying to think of something a little less gruesome. But I’d already
rented this, and then when Ed said I should just stay home and watch TV
with him — well, of course that left me no choice.”
“Of course,” I said through clenched teeth. Ed Crawford, Wynnell’s
husband of over thirty years, is the original stick-in-the mud. His idea of a
party is a remote control for each hand. As usual, I’d invited Ed, and as
usual, he’d turned me down.
“But,” Wynnell said, holding what was left of her punch aloft, as if to make
a toast, “I’m here. Let the good times begin.”
My new doorbell has a lovely chime, but when it rang just then, I jumped.
“Abby, you all right?”
“Yeah, just startled. Quick! Grab your head.”
I clomped, and Wynnell bumped, to the front door. I peered through the
peephole first, and then flung it wide open, laughing. My dear friends,
Rob Goldburg and Bob Steuben, had dressed as James Brolin and
Barbra Streisand, respectively. Rob is tall and handsome and looks a bit
like James anyway, but Bob’s basso profundo was nothing like
Streisand’s voice. Still, Bob is a slight man with a prominent proboscis.
Somehow he had managed to find just the right wig, and his resemblance
to the megastar was uncanny.
The men seemed just as delighted by my appearance. “Oh Abby,” Bob
said, “now that you’ve finally grown, can I have your hand-me-downs?”
“If you promise to sing for us tonight.”
“He fully intends to,” Rob said, and looked adoringly at his life-partner.
“Sing ‘Evergreen,’” Wynnell said.
James and Babs noticed the headless woman for the first time and
gasped. Their reaction seemed to fluster, rather than please, Wynnell.
She quickly complimented them on their costumes, then staggered off to
the kitchen to fine-tune the punch.
“Is she okay?” Rob asked. His concern was genuine. The four of us
worked closely in the business together. The Rob-Bobs, as I like to call
them, own the Finer Things, which is right next to my shop. Wynnell’s
store, Wooden Wonders, is directly across the street.
“She’s fine. For some reason we’re both feeling spooked today. You
know that saying about a goose walking over your grave? I feel as if
there’s an entire flock up there, just gabbling away.”
“Well, cut that out,” Bob said jovially. “This is your big night. This party is
your chance to—”
“Speak of the goose,” Rob hissed softly. “Mother Goose, I mean.”
Thanks to my new height, I could look past my friends. Little Bo Peep
was flouncing merrily up the walk, a live sheep in tow.
“Oh Lordy,” I moaned. “It’s the Tweetie Bird. I know I invited her, but I
really didn’t expect her to show up. Not with Buford out of town.”
Rob put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “It’s a brave woman who
invites her ex and his wife, even if she doesn’t mean it. You can handle
this.”
I didn’t have a choice, did I? I couldn’t very well renege on my invitation
at this point. And yes, I know I shouldn’t have invited my ex-husband
Buford and his wife, Tweetie, but at the time — and I truly believe this —
my motives were pure. I wanted to extend an olive branch, if not for my
own personal growth, then for the sake of our children. Besides, I felt a
certain kinship with Tweetie. Sure, she had wronged me by sleeping with
my husband, but now that she’d been his wife for several years, we were
both victims. The door to Buford’s barn, as Tweetie so crudely put it, was
never closed.
Relying on tips garnered from a college drama class, I arranged my
features in a smile. “Howdy-ho, Bo. You too, Mr. Sheep.”
“Abby! Is that you?”
“As big as life — well, in this case, even bigger.”
Tweetie tossed her fake blond ringlets. “You look really great. How did
you do it? Was it that stretching machine they’ve been advertising on TV
lately? If it was, you might want to try their breast-inflator pump, too. I
hear it really works.”
“Is that so?” I said, and bit my tongue. Tweetie’s breasts had been
enlarged several times, but not by a pump. I know this because Buford
had paid for at least one of the increments in size. The bill, you see, had
first come to me by mistake.
“Of course there’s no crime in being flat-chested.” Tweetie thrust her
manmade mammae forward like twin battering rams and prepared to
enter my house.
I stepped aside. “Come on in, but the sheep stays out there.”
That stopped Little Bo Peep dead in her tracks. “I can’t leave her outside,
Abby.”
“Sure, you can. Just tie her to that tree in the backyard. There’s plenty
grass, and it isn’t at all cold tonight.”
“Yes, but what if somebody steals her? She’s not mine, you know. I had
to pay a hundred dollars just to rent the thing.”
I tried not to laugh. “Nobody’s going to steal your sheep, dear. This is
Piper Glen, not Montana.”
Tweetie pursed her lips. “Well, maybe you’re right. But the man said if
anything happened to her I’d have to pay him another hundred dollars.”