Tamar Myers - Tiles and Tribulations: A Den of Antiquity Mystery

The Riffles lived in a magnificent Greek Revival mansion right

12 And then what? Rob asked. The men had been waiting

137 13 Who was it? I demanded. 151 14 Buford folded his hands and looked at me under lids 161 15 She must have blinked behind the bizarre lenses, because the 175 16 Id love to hear your version. 187 17 Who is that? I demanded. 201 18 To tell you the truth, I wasnt quit sure what 215 19 You may be right, he said. Assuming one believes in 227 20 Fortunately, the first thing my sweetheart does when he comes

Thank heavens Mama was still in C.J.s garden, sitting in

Curiously, Ella Nolte didnt seem surprised to see me. Its

You can usually find a spot to park along the 285

What? I was just making pleasant conversation. 295

I lay still as a mummy in a collapsed pyramid. 303

It was less than eight hours, Greg said. He had 315

y best friend., C.J., is deathly afraid of Ap parition Americans. Unfortunately, her not-so-new house on Rutledge Avenue has at least one very vocal semitransparent resident. I told C.J. to expect spirit lingerers when buying a two-hundred-year-old Charleston mansion, but no, the big gal wouldnt listen.

Since I had warned her, I didnt feel it was my responsibility to attend the silly sance she had planned. Its not that I dont believe in Apparition AmericansI do. My own house is haunted, in fact. But mine is a benign presence who contents himself with jangling a bunch of keys and pacing up and down my long, narrow upstairs hallway. C.J.s unwelcome tenant, on the other hand, wails like the banshee she might well be, and once she even touched

C.J. with hands as cold as Popsicles.

So intimidating is C.J.s spirit, that my friend has had a devil of a time getting a contractor to do some necessary remodeling. Three burly men have quit in

the time it takes to change a light bulb, much less revamp a nineteen forties style kitchen. But the really strange thing is that, since the last workman ran off the jobleaving his tool belt behindthe ghost has taken on the remodeling job herself. I know this sounds bizarre, but C.J. swears its true. She claims she comes home from work and finds wallboard replaced, paint scraped, tiles caulked, you name it. So far the repairs are remarkably like the ones C.J. wanted the contractor to do, although this has done nothing to ameliorate C.J.s terror.

At any rate, my objection to the sance had to do with the fact that it was to be conducted, not by some proven expert in the field of the paranormal, but by Madame Woo-Woo. She was a self-styled psychic whose name C.J. had gotten from my mother, who found it advertised in the Yellow Pages. Madame Woo-Woos ad claimed she was the expert in convincing confused Apparition Americans that their jobs on the earth were over, and it was time for them to return to the spirit realm. Madame Woo-Woo claimed a ninety-nine point nine percent success rate, and even offered a money back guarantee. At the prices she charged, she should have given her customers gold plaques certifying that their houses were hant-free, as politically incorrect locals might say.

I wouldnt even have been a part of the Madame Woo-Woo brouhaha, were it not for the fact that the medium had demanded that there be nine warm bodies at the sance, besides her own. She claimed it had something to do with numerology, but frankly, I suspected the woman was after more clients. Besides, it was the last night of Survivor IV, and I just had to see who won the million dollars. Yes, I know, I could have taped it, but it just isnt the same thing. Ask any sports enthusiast.

You can imagine my irritation then, when my mother called me at work to put the screws to me.

Mama, I said, trying to keep in mind the thirty-six hours of agonizing labor she endured to produce me, I am not going to the sance, and thats final.

Are you afraid, Abby? Is that the problem, dear?

Of course Im not afraid!

Abby, darling, Mama said, pouring on the sugar, C.J. is your best friend. She needs you.

Mama, the Woo-Woo woman says there has to be nine of us, besides her. Whether or not I show up is a moot point.

What was that, dear? Did you say something about mooing?

Moot, I said as mutely as I could. I own The Den of Antiquity, a thriving antique business on King Street, in Charleston, South Carolina. The aforementioned C.J., besides being my best friend, is my employee. At the moment she was standing just a few yards away, closing a sale on an eighteenth-century highboy.

Well, it might not be such a moot point after all, Abby, because Ive found six others, besides you and

I and C.J. Were good to go.

What six others?

Well for one, there is the real estate agent who sold C.J. the house. Since he didnt warn her about the ghost, he has a responsibility to be there, dont you think?

Ill buy that. Who are the remaining five?

The Heavenly Hustlers.

What the hell is the Heavenly Hustlers? I braced myself for Mamas answer. Last year she ran off to be a nunthey wouldnt accept herand dated a gigolo named Stan. With her track record, I wouldnt be at all surprised if the Heavenly Hustlers turned out to be proselytizing prostitutes.

Oh, Abby, dont you ever listen to a word I say?

Occasionally. But I dont remember anything about Heavenly Hustlers. Mama, you havent gotten yourself tangled up with some kind of cult, have you?

The Hustlers, Mama huffed, are a group of retired folk, like myself, who arent content to sit on their duffs all day and twiddle their thumbs. Or do nothing but watch TV. We go to lectures, art exhibits, you name it. Last month we took a basket-weaving class from one of the Gullah women who sells those sweetgrass baskets at The Market. Next week were driving up together to Brookgreen Gardens, near Myrtle Beach, to see the sculpture collection. In the meantime, wed be glad to help C.J. out with her sance. Of course we cant all make it on such short noticethere are twelve in our group altogether but the six of us can.