DEAD MAN'S CHEST
By
Jeffrey Marks

After the fuss the old woman made about finding a body in the cedar-lined chest, I decided it's price would remain firm. I'd sat in the rolling Ohio hills of an unused fairgrounds since five in the morning, trying to sell my merchandise. The furniture had endured pre-dawn dew to searing noon sun and my mood couldn't grow worse -- I thought. That's when a blue-haired matron opened an ornate and extremely heavy hope chest containing a body. Not any corpse would do. He'd been Marcus Redmon in life, a ship that had passed through my night. We'd broken up -- not for any of those blase reasons. I'd found trinkets from my antiques store appearing at his house and on his sales tables. Stolen kisses were one thing, but Limoge figurines came dear. No one had ever accused Brett Addison of being ugly enough to warrant bribery. A single gay man with his own business can attract a few offers, even in a backwater like Cincinnati.

His figure lay scrunched into the chest, arms folded across his chest. A clear plastic bag covered his attractive features, conscientiously tied at the neck. His mouth was open in a silent scream and I backed away from the sight. Sitting on the tailgate of my truck, my mind replayed the scene and I shuddered. I couldn't be sure how long he had tenanted my latest find. No earlier than my arrival here. Shoving a dead body into the chest with hundreds of cash-flashing witnesses seemed unnecessarily risky. The fairgrounds that hosted the antique sales monthly swarmed with people who had nothing better to do than rise at four in the morning. I shot a nasty glance to the woman who continued to belt out a scream that would shame a diva. An off-duty policeman taxed with nothing worse than illegal parking sauntered this way.

I did a quick inventory of my tables. Most of my goods, pottery and antique glass that could be easily moved or stolen, remained intact -- unsold. My sales looked to be taking a plunge for the rest of the day even though the screams had attracted a large audience. Allen Stacker, the king of the antique shows, had bothered to look in my direction. Normally, he couldn't inconvenience himself to notice the plebeians exiled to the far reaches of the fairgrounds, but apparently screaming customers attracted his attention. His sale place, one of the showcased spots under the shelter of an open building, befit royalty. I'd heard he and Marcus had become horizontally acquainted lately. If I hadn't been upset, I might have gloated over his trollish features and diminutive stature. Had Marcus pulled a five-fingered inventory reduction trick on him as well? Goodness knows, Stacker had a collection that made mine look like grandma's junk pile. His face looked whiter than unglazed pottery as he caught a glimpse of Marcus.

Another figure garnered my notice. From her spot three down from mine, Margaret Wakefield had moved closer to see what the Lord hath wrought. No one in Cincinnati rivaled her collection of Bible-related antiques. She made a fortune from antique rosaries and eighteenth century painting of Bible scenes. Unfortunately, her moral standards seemed to be stuck about two hundred years ago as well. She routinely castigated gay customers as well as any dealers in range. She was easy to spot in her floral print dress and galoshes. I'd noticed her talking to Marcus last month and my curiosity began to bud.

"What seems to be the problem here?" The uniformed officer's shirt dripped with sweat; his hair hugged his temples. He looked like he wanted nothing more than an air-conditioned interrogation room.

The screams stopped and the old woman flipped up the cover of the hope chest again. I caught a whiff of cedar in the nascent breeze.

"There's a dead man in here. I found him." The desire to be the center of attention hung off her every word. And they call us drama queens.

The cop looked to me again. "Know him?" I scanned the crowd. No sense in lying, too many people to refute any lies I could muster. "His name was Marcus Redmon. He sets up here sometimes." The cop squinted at the contents of the chest. "Yeah, I think I've seen him here before. Sets up over by the pond. What's he doing here?"

Allen Stacker stepped forward and pointed a trembling finger at me. "Marcus and Brett used to date. I imagine it was one of those tawdry sex crimes." Thank you, Allen. The cop recognized Stacker immediately and practically genuflected. The cop sneered in my direction. I tried to ignore it, saving my energies for an explanation to the murder that would save my skin. "Didn't you used to go out with Marcus too?" I asked of Stacker.

The cop lost the awestruck manner and pulled a notebook from a shirt pocket. He scribbled something on the page with a stubby pencil. "Is that true?" Stacker cleared his throat. "Technically, I guess so, but it didn't last long."

The cop didn't bother to look up. "None of your people's relationships do."

"Amen. No good comes from sin." Margaret Wakefield had pushed herself to the front of the crowd. No commandments about hogging a better view.

"What happened?" I didn't know if this tidbit would help my case or if I was just indulging in my own nosy nature. If I went to jail, at least I'd have good gossip to dish.

Stacker had the courtesy to blush, a sure sign of top-grade hearsay. The pasty white color had dissipated. "He dumped me for a younger man. He said I was too set in my ways. Stuffy, I believe was the word he used." At least dishonesty had not been amongst Marcus' failings.

From the bored expression, the cop was only biding time until the homicide team arrived, the technicians and photographers who would take charge, solve the case, and throw me in jail. He studied my tables as though he'd rather be shopping.

"What about you?" he asked.

"Me what?"

"Why did you and the deceased stop seeing each other?" My brain spun, trying to come up with a polite way of saying that the recently departed had robbed me blind. "Well, Mr. Redmon had a way of making presents of my possessions."

"Huh?"

Stacker guffawed. "I believe he means that dear Marcus was a thief of more than hearts. Well, I've been missing some things from my table lately, but Marcus never stole from me. I must have had other attractions."

I growled under my breath as the cop took more notes. I couldn't imagine who would kill Marcus. He was definitely five and dime material and so were his crimes. The only lifetime sentence I could see with him was if someone fell in love with him.

"Have you moved the body?" He turned to look at the open chest and the figure within. I didn't have the stomach to look at Marcus' body again. I hadn't cared much for him, but I certainly had no desire to see Marcus dead. He'd been too much fun alive.

The cop walked to the hope chest and began a brief search of the contents. Since the body filled every inch of the interior, the procedure didn't take long. He stood back up with something in his hand.

He walked over to where Stacker and I stood. "Have either of you seen this before?"

He held up a pocketwatch, Civil War era, replete with a small bullet mark where the owner had been saved from death by its existence. I didn't know all this from a glance as a phenomenal appraiser; the watch was a family heirloom.

I'd thought the watch safely tucked inside my truck. Such possessions didn't get put out at setup of an outdoor show. I only brought family items on the off chance that I sold everything on the table. Since the watch had remained in the family over one hundred years, people could guess my business wasn't that good.

I swallowed hard and owned up, putting the final nail in my own hope chest. The policeman took more notes while I tried to explain my marketing strategy. His eyes held a gleam that said the case was solved from his viewpoint. Stacker tried to examine the watch, but the officer brushed him away from potential evidence. Stacker stepped back and disappeared into the crowd. Faces of strangers nearly ringed me. Any one of them could be responsible for this crime.

Desperate to find another suspect, I asked, "Excuse me, but where is the woman who found the body?" The cop looked up from his notes and pulled his sunglasses down his nose. I could see the gray eyes behind them as he squinted trying to locate the woman with the healthy lungs. Based on her screams, she could run a marathon without breaking a sweat.

He shrugged. "We'll get by without her. Now do you recognize this plastic bag?"

"You could be letting the murderer off the hook while you decide paper or plastic? We have to find her." He pushed the glasses back up with his thumb. "We don't need to do anything. I need to get all this down. Now have you seen this bag before?"

The back of my truck abutted my selling space. I pointed to the boxes stacked against the back wall of the mini-mover. "One of those is filled with bags." He stepped inside the truck and on the first try, opened a box full of similar bags. Newspaper and little plastic grocery bags remain the staples of packaging antiques at a show. My hands come home from a show black with news ink.

Margaret strode towards us. "Satan takes his own. I saw that one this morning." She pointed an accusing finger down at the chest.

The officer sighed. "What was he doing?"

"Coveting the property of another. He came out of a neighbor's truck, carrying something."

"So he was alive this morning?" My mind reeled. I had wondered when Marcus had been killed. I knew that the heavy chest had been empty when I had loaded the truck. The lid had fallen open and nicked my garage wall. That meant he'd been killed since I'd arrived. "Was he set up here today?"

Stacker leaned against the truck wall. "His spot was empty when I came in, but that doesn't mean anything. He could have been in anyone else's booth, trying to hawk their goods while they were -- occupied." My mind clicked. "Margaret, the only time I left my truck this morning was when I asked you to watch my goods while I went to the restroom. Someone must have killed Marcus then."

The woman had the decency to redden. "I had a customer interested in two of my oil paintings. High dollar items." The cop looked through another of my boxes. "So you didn't see anyone around his truck?"

She shook her head. "As I said, that Redmon was sniffing around the trucks, but he was the only one." I surveyed my truck again and then searched the crowd. "Weren't the security guards around? Aren't they supposed to be watching our merchandise?"

The cop looked up at me, eyes blinking rapidly. "What are you trying to say?"

"If you'd have caught Marcus going through my truck, you would have arrested him. But what if he found you rifling my boxes?"

"That's absurd."

"You had a good eye for what box held the plastic bags just now. Almost like you already knew what was in the boxes. Lucky guess? What if Marcus had seen you pulling something out of my back-up stock and confronted you?" Stacker stepped forward again like a Greek chorus. "Several pieces of mine have turned up missing lately." The cop shot him an angry glance and Stacker's mouth snapped shut.

"I thought that robbery was too weak a motive for murder, but it wouldn't have been just robbery with you. You'd have lost your job, your pension, maybe even have gone to jail. So you hit him on the head, wrapped the bag over his head, and dumped him in the chest along with the goods you'd been trying to take. No one pays attention to the security guards looking in the merchandise."

The stubby pencil stopped as the wail of sirens began as a whisper over the rolling hills. The cop turned and began to run towards the rear exit of the show. Stacker smiled softly. "Men just can't wait to get away from you, can they, Brett?"

***

Jeffrey Marks, Cincinnati, OH, JeffrMarks@aol.com