Second Chance at Love

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  “Yep.”

  “But we don't know what he's been selling.”

  “Nope.”

  “Can we find out? Come on, Ollie. You're only halfway there.”

  “I'm on it. Takes time.” Ollie grabbed a donut with pink icing from his ever-present box of pastries. “The upside is that we’re lucky Mrs. Humberger gave us access to everything in her husband’s office. We didn’t even have to get a warrant. The downside is that there’s a dump truck full of papers to go through. Mr. Humberger wasn’t exactly a tidy guy.”

  Lou wanted the investigation to move faster. Even though they were working nearly around the clock, time was running out. The longer it took to make an arrest, the less likely it would be to happen.

  Their boss, Police Chief Reiss, had called the two homicide detectives into his office to see how things were going. Reiss warned them that he'd had visits and letters from “concerned” citizens. The city council was putting pressure on him.

  “Someone,” said Police Chief Reiss, “is out there beating the drums and making the natives restless.”

  Then came the ugly proof, the vandalism at The Treasure Chest.

  The scene at the store had made him sick. Skye had looked bewildered and hurt, as had MJ, to a lesser degree. Ms. Delgatto had been shaken to her core. No wonder. He'd heard firsthand from Police Chief Robbie Holmes how her ex-husband, Dom, had harassed her and her family. He had taken his story to the media. Once he started giving interviews, the Delgattos' restaurant had been the target of vandalism on a daily basis. Graffiti, broken windows, prank calls, and you name it.

  Witch hunts and mob justice had no place in civilized society. Lou valued the rule of law. It might move slowly, and on occasion, mistakes were made, but it was far better at achieving justice than sly innuendo and unfounded accusations.

  “I did find something interesting.” Ollie said to Lou.

  “What's that?”

  “I've got a few friends who work at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino down in Hollywood. They tell me Mr. Humberger was playing high stakes poker. Apparently, he is a terrible poker player and had a bad losing streak going. Funny thing is he's all paid up. My friends think someone may have been bankrolling him.”

  This didn't make any sense. Why would someone bankroll a man who wasn't very good at gambling?

  “You're saying that he was playing at the big boy tables?” asked Lou. “Where'd he get the money?”

  “Not sure. Looks like he had a very active account on eBay.” Ollie sloshed another plastic container of creamer into his coffee.

  “Did you go on eBay to see what he's selling?”

  “Yeah, I looked. There were some odd auctions that I'm still trying to identify. They seem to have been edited. Some of the comments were not deleted, and they seemed to involve gold.”

  “Gold?”

  Lou chewed that over in his mind. There wouldn't be any reason to sell gold over the Internet. It could be sold locally. Unless…

  As much to himself as to Ollie, Lou said, “You don't think Hal Humberger was trying to sell gold from the Armada, do you?”

  Every couple of years, remnants from the sunken Spanish Armada washed up on the shores of the Treasure Coast. From Vero Beach to West Palm Beach, sharp eyes stayed alert to the very real possibility that bounty from the Treasure Fleet of 1715 might be churned up by the surf and deposited on the beaches. By some estimates as much as $500 million was yet to be recovered.

  “If he'd found some of that gold, he'd have had to sell it,” reasoned Lou. “Could he do that on eBay?”

  Ollie shrugged and brushed a crumb of pink icing off his chest. Lou caught a whiff of the sugar and fat, and his mouth started watering. Usually he was immune to his partner's sweets, but when he didn't get enough sleep, fighting temptation was futile. He reached into the open box and took the lone sour cream donut.

  “Doubtful. Possible, but doubtful,” said Ollie. “If he did, he broke state and federal law. Any treasure that's found is supposed to be turned over to the district court. The State of Florida would want to take its twenty percent. Besides, he's been an eBay seller for nearly ten years now. How many gold coins could he have turned up? For it to be real money, it would need to be a major find—and those are rare enough that someone would have gotten chatty about that haul, don't you think?”

  “You're wasting time, chasing shadows,” Showalter muttered.

  “Does Philomena Humberger have any idea what her husband was selling on eBay?” Lou took one bite of the sour cream donut.

  “Nope. She didn't even know he had an account.”

  “Find out for sure what Humberger was selling on eBay.” Lou stood up, grabbed his jacket, and tossed the half-eaten donut into the trash.

  “Hey! I would have eaten that!” Ollie complained.

  “I know,” said Lou.

  CHAPTER 63

  I wiped my forehead with a cold rag as I took in all the progress we’d made while remodeling The Treasure Chest. It had been a long day for all of us. Jimmy and his tiling crew left at seven p.m. Bobby took off shortly thereafter. A period of blissful quiet followed. I had most of my variable costs figured. Next I needed to plug in the property taxes. My spreadsheet was coming right along. From there, I could begin work on a business plan.

  Skye wouldn't be back from Pumpernickel's until after eleven, so it was just MJ and me, working together companionably. Around eight, she made a soft “Oh!” of delight when she discovered a box of old statements. After thumbing through them, she worked the phone, stopping only to paw through our piles of “trashy treasures,” as we laughingly called them.

  It was slow work, but she'd managed to unearth several more saleable items from a dark corner. Because the tile guys were busy moving stuff around, we still had areas that hadn't properly explored.

  At nine, I noticed how tired she looked. I insisted that she go home and get a good night's rest.

  “You're of no use to us if you get sick,” I said.

  “Your new mattresses are on order,” she said in reply. “I got them for you at half off.”

  “Let me guess. You used to date the manager?”

  “No. He's another ex-husband.”

  Jack's tail thumped happily when she patted him good-bye. While locking up behind her, I thanked her for all her hard work. I scooped up Jack on my way back to the desk. With him on my lap, I continued plowing through paper-work.

  Dad had insisted that keeping a tight rein on expenses was the key to profitability. The more I learned about our fixed and variable costs, the better I could forecast our “nut,” the amount of gross profit we'd need each month to stay in business. My little dog fell asleep while I was stroking his head and ears, but he jumped to attention when I shifted my weight.

  When I looked into his soft brown eyes, I thought I saw gratitude and loyalty. I snapped a photo of Jack and sent it to Tommy, who responded right away with a text-message that said, “Neat! A purse pooch. Kinda small, but okay.”

  I turned my attention to a big yellow envelope that MJ had unearthed. Inside were dozens of old cash receipts for purchases made from vendors at a local flea market always held on Sunday. I had marked my calendar for that, because Skye and MJ suggested we go and see what we could find, too. It wasn't exactly like I had a lot of other activities on my dance card, and it felt good to have a sol-id engagement.

  Into yet another spreadsheet, I loaded the names of all the vendors we'd unearthed, using the receipts to categorize them by the sort of items Essie had purchased. I also coded them with colors to represent how much business they'd done with Essie. That showed me what had sold and what had languished on the shelves.

  I created yet a third spreadsheet showing sales per month by category. It quickly became clear that she prospered by selling a piece of furniture here and there. Would I cover my expenses by selling fewer antiques and more touristy items? A quick calculation told me that would depend on my profit margin. Closing my eyes and stroking Jack's fur
, I could imagine a conversation between Essie and me.

  “Snowbirds come down from their homes up north right before Thanksgiving. They stay until Easter. While they’re visiting, some of them decide they want to retire here in sunny Florida. Their lives have changed and their lifestyle has to change to match it. They no longer want the dark furniture they had up North.”

  What had MJ suggested? A cross between HGTV and Coastal Living Magazine. Snowbirds would want furniture with a beachy vibe.

  Unfortunately, that's not what we had. The scarred pieces huddled on the old flooring were dark and dreary. I set Jack in his box so I could take another look at what we’d turned up. We had six dark pieces with dings, and another six or eight that needed gluing as well as surface repairs. To sell them, I'd have to hire that expensive cabinet guy. Of course, I'd also have to pay him in advance. My money would be tied up until the furniture sold.

  How to get around this?

  Skye would have an answer, a thought both reassuring and mildly annoying. What would my contribution be to this venture? Was I a desk jockey, a sideline-sitter, who'd simply manage the money? That left me cold, even though I do enjoy that part of business, this store seemed waiting for me to be more than just a glorified accountant.

  But what?

  Alone in The Treasure Chest, the place seemed to whisper, “Keep following your heart.”

  “Where is my heart taking me?” I said.

  Irked by my lack of creative direction, I put Jack in his cardboard playpen and dragged the new display units to the dirty front windows. We needed a way to light up the display windows at night, to attract purchasers who might stroll by during the coming months when the days were short.

  I was so lost in thought that I nearly knocked over a gallon of blue-gray paint. The lid hadn't been closed properly. A clean paint brush rested on a nearby newspaper, as did the two end tables with chipped finishes. Bobby had filled the nicks and dings to give them a smooth surface. He'd done the same to the other dark pieces. On a lark, I popped open the lid and dipped the brush inside. Before I realized what I was doing, I'd covered both end tables in paint.

  The result was pleasing. The paint was more appealing than the dark wood, although the finished pieces still lacked something. A detail that would make them even more interesting. The sort of touch that Skye might provide, but I couldn't.

  I sighed. Maybe Skye believed in my creative mojo, but I sure didn't. After putting the lid back on the paint can, I walked over to Essie's old computer to turn it off. But before I did, I went to Google to look up leaking gas storage tanks.

  What I found surprised me. I sent the file to the email address listed for Cooper's business.

  “Hot dog,” I said. Jack heard me and responded by thumping his tail against the side of his box.

  “This calls for a treat, little buddy.” I reached into the package of dog yummies and fed him one.

  CHAPTER 64

  “Lou? Come over and take a gander at this,” said Ollie, right before he smashed half of a Braunschweiger and onion sandwich into his mouth. “I figured instead of looking at income only. I might compare the income and outgo. When I looked on his credit card statements, it looked to me like Mr. Humberger paid out a fortune to FedEx.”

  Lou leaned in and squinted so he could see the computer monitor. “I wonder how much a typical real estate agency pays out in FedEx fees?”

  “Heck if I know, but here's the kicker. See the size of the packages? We aren't talking documents. We're talking big stuff. Packages. Insured for hundreds. With signatures required.”

  “Right.” Lou sighed. “I guess I need to talk to Mrs. Humberger. Maybe she can tell us what went out in those packages.”

  “Go ahead, but I wouldn’t expect you to get much” said Ollie, as he crunched an onion and chives potato chip. “This isn't the real estate account. See? Look at that. It's just Hal's name. Not the business name. This account was passcode protected on his hard drive. I unlocked it. I don't think Philomena Humberger knows anything about it.”

  “There's got to be more to this,” growled Lou. “Where'd you put all the papers from his office?”

  Ollie's feet rested on a big box containing all the papers they'd collected from Hal Humberger's desk after Philomena Humberger gave them permission. On the exterior of the box were neatly attached tags, official records of the chain of custody. Because a lot of time could be wasted by going through every piece separately, Lou and Ollie had decided to load all the loose papers into plastic baggies. Now Lou carried the box over to a long worktable and withdrew the baggies one by one.

  “What are you looking for?” Ollie watched, but he kept one hand in his bag of potato chips.

  “I don't know, but I'll recognize it when I see it.” Lou frowned at the piles. “I've got this itch that tells me we need to look at anything related to the FedEx shipments. After all, why hide FedEx bills from his wife? You'd think a real estate firm would send out stuff all the time. What was so important that Hal Humberger had to have his own account and keep it secret?”

  “I'm telling you, these were big items. See? Even if you sent packages overnight, you wouldn't rack up charges like these,” said Ollie, stifling a burp.

  Rummaging through the papers didn't yield a clue, but Lou wasn't ready to give up yet. “Which FedEx drop-off is closest to the real estate office?” Lou asked his partner, who stunk of liver and onions.

  “Buy me a Coke and I'll find out.”

  Lou traded the can of cola for a slip of paper. “It's one of those fast copy operations. They've got a franchise. Here's the address.”

  The copy shop was two doors down from Dick's Gas E Bait. Unfortunately, a glance at the clock on the wall told Lou the place would be closed. He wouldn't be able to talk to Dick either because visiting hours were over at the hospital.

  Lou’s stomach grumbled and he thought of Skye. What else was new? He thought about Skye almost all the time. It embarrassed him that she occupied so much of his brain. But he hadn't eaten, and Pumpernickel's would be nearly empty at this hour. If she was working, he could enjoy his meal and see what he might learn from her. At least that would be his story. He might also walk her back to The Treasure Chest, since he wanted to make sure that she and Ms. Delgatto were doing okay.

  Chances were good that this murderer had his or her own specific reasons to strike Hal down. If that was true, the suspect wasn't a danger to society in general. However, Lou didn't like making an assumption like that. Especially when Skye was involved.

  CHAPTER 65

  Skye set a bowl of matzo ball soup in front of Irving Feldman. “Your sandwich will be ready in a tick,” she said. “Soup's hot. Be careful. What brings you to town?”

  “S-s-signing paperwork for my mother's estate. How's it going at the store? Lot of w-w-work, huh?”

  “Yes,” she said with a smile. “A lot of work and a lot of fun. The goal is to be open in time for the Art Fair.”

  Irving dropped his spoon. It hit the table and clattered to the floor. “Geez, what a klutz I am!”

  “No bother.” Skye grabbed fresh cutlery from another table. “Here you are.”

  “That's awfully f-f-fast. Seems like you might be overly optimistic.”

  “I guess. But MJ, Cara, and I make a good team. We sort of clicked as a trio. You wouldn't believe all we've gotten done.”

  “H-h-how are you planning to stock the place? I remember when M-m-mother first opened. Took her months to get enough merchandise from vendors. The boxes trickled in for a long time after that.”

  “We've fixed up a lot of what was there, but you're right. We don't have the time to wait on vendors. We're going on a buying trip Sunday morning, early.”

  Biting her lip, she stopped. Skye didn't want word get-ting out that she, MJ, and Cara would be poking around at the flea market. Or that tomorrow the trio would visit thrift shops. Where the goods came from didn't matter. What mattered was their ability to see diamonds in the coal mine, and
just as importantly, the talents they employed to transform those rough stones into must-have pieces.

  Bobby Gander motioned to Skye from his spot at the counter. He tapped his empty coffee mug with his fork. “Tastes good with this key lime pie.”

  Skye had just poured him a second cup when a patron in a booth at the far back of Pumpernickel's signaled to her. She excused herself, telling Bobby, “I'll try to keep a better eye on your cup, in case you want more.”

  By the time Lou arrived, Irving had finished and left. So had Bobby. The big cop moved awkwardly to fold himself into the last booth along the wall.

  “Hmmm.” Skye's smile invited his to come out of hiding. “Looks to me like a meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, and garden salad type of night. Am I right?”

  “You know me too well. Put in the order, won't you? Then come on back and keep me company.”

  As she walked away, he noticed the bounce in her walk. Whatever she was doing over at The Treasure Chest agreed with her. There was a lightness to her step that fairly shouted with joy.

  What a long road it had been since that night when Lou had found her huddled on Bucky's floor, covered in blood, with her front teeth knocked out. He'd tried to help her then, but she wasn't ready. Bucky had convinced her that she was worthless. That no man would ever care about her—and that she couldn't make her way in the world without him.

  Two months after Lou escorted Bucky to the Martin County Jail, where he was booked on charges of domestic violence, Bucky was back in the interview room again. This time the charge was kiting checks. Bucky claimed that he hadn't written that bad paper. No, not poor Bucky! It was that conniving wife of his, Sarah, who'd done the deed behind his back.

  When Ollie Anderson picked up Sarah, she refused to roll over on her husband. Yes, she'd taken the checks to the bank and had them cashed. Ollie pressed the point. Had she written them? Had she known they were fraudulent?

  Sarah refused to answer.

  She clammed up. Wouldn't say a word. Even after Ollie pointed out that she was facing a stiff sentence, she refused to say anything that would incriminate Bucky.