This Bitter Treasure: a romantic thriller (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 3)

by S. W. Hubbard

  “The sale?” I stammer. “What about your mom’s funeral?”

  “It’s a private affair. Just the family. She’ll be cremated on Wednesday. So we can have the sale this weekend, right?”

  I struggle mightily to keep the dismay at her brutal coldness off my face.

  Kara pats her pockets. “You’ll need the house key, now that Darlene isn’t there to let you in.”

  “Must be a shock that the cops arrested Darlene,” Ty interjects from across the room.

  Kara shoots him a sharp look. “These people…I don’t know where the home health care agency finds them. Clearly unstable.”

  There are a few adjectives I could use to describe Darlene, but unstable isn’t one of them. However, I’m not about to debate it with Kara. “Don’t you think it would be best to postpone the sale a bit until the news dies down? People have such morbid curiosity. They might come just to…”

  “Gawk? Let them. I won’t be there to see it.” Kara plops down on a wobbly leather chair we salvaged from a sale. The top button of her blouse has come undone, and I notice a thick white scar on her clavicle. “I have buyers lined up for the house. They want to close and take possession as soon as the lawyers organize the paperwork. Then I’m going to leave New Jersey and never come back.”

  “I’m just not sure I can work under those circumstances. I—” I cast an uneasy glance at Ty.

  “We got another small sale comin’ up this week,” he lies to back me up.

  “I’ll find someone else to run the sale at Mother’s house. Just give me the cataloguing you’ve done so far.” Kara holds her hand out.

  “Give it to you?” my voice raises in outrage. “That’s proprietary research. I spent over a week of work on that!”

  “I’ll pay you for your time.” She begins clawing through her purse looking for a checkbook. “What’s your hourly rate?”

  Hourly rate? I’m not a clerk! Kara could never pay me a flat fee that would equal the commission this huge sale will bring. I feel September slipping from the black into the red.

  Ty has moved to his desk and silently watches this debate unfold. He emits a force field of tension. He needs this job as much as I do. More, now that Charmaine and Lo are in the picture.

  I put a calming hand on Kara’s arm. “Let’s both take a deep breath. I was just surprised that you’d expect me to get back to work so soon. Of course, I want to keep this job. Of course I want Another Man’s Treasure to run the sale.”

  Kara lets out an exasperated huff the way people do when they get called out for standing in the express line with twenty items. “Fine. But don’t drag your feet. I want this wrapped up ASAP.”

  “Ty and I will be at the house tomorrow,” I say.

  Once Kara is out the door, Ty comes to stand beside me. “Don’t worry, Audge. I got your back on this.”

  Chapter 24

  I’ve never been to the county jail, so I nearly overshoot the small sign pointing the way between a lumberyard and the Palmer County recycling center. The road takes a sudden twist and the building looms up before me—a newish concrete block structure more like my idea of a postal service processing center than a hellish Shawshank Redemption prison. No razor wire or guard towers, just a parking lot with a sign pointing the way to the visitors’ entrance.

  Visiting Darlene is a crazy idea, but once it popped into my head I couldn’t get it to leave. So I sent Ty home early, went to the jail website, clicked on “Inmate Visitation”—God, how awful!—and learned that I could stay no longer than an hour and bring nothing with me but my driver’s license. I’m not even sure what I’ll say to Darlene, except I’m certain I’ll be able to tell if she murdered Mrs. Eskew once I see her face-to-face.

  I join a line of people—ninety percent women, one hundred percent sad and exhausted—waiting to get in to see a loved one. Inside the barren lobby, a guard checks each ID closely. Apart from a small commotion when a very large woman sets off the metal detector, no one talks although I see a few of the ladies nod to each other in recognition. I get in an elevator and ride to the third floor with the small group here to see a female inmate. We queue up, and I soon realize why the other more experienced visitors elbowed ahead of me. There are only two visitation rooms, and five of us. If everyone takes her full hour, I could be here for quite a while. I immediately pat my pocket for my cellphone so I can pass the time with email or Facebook, but then I remember I had to leave it in the car. I’m stuck with nothing but the bare beige wall to stare at.

  Ty said the boredom of prison drove him crazy, and I can see why. Through the metal-screened window that separates us from the cell block, I can see about ten women sitting at cafeteria-style tables talking or staring at a small TV mounted on a column. They’re all wearing beige jumpsuits and orange slip-on sneakers. A couple have gray sweatshirts. I search for Darlene but she is not among the women in my field of vision. Then the guard opens a visiting room door and lets a weeping older woman out. Through the window, I see the inmate leave on her side. She’s hugely pregnant, and lumbers away from the group, going to stand beside what must be her cell. A guard lets her in. That visit lasted hardly ten minutes. I don’t even want to imagine what was said.

  Now that I’ve moved up, I can see a different angle of the cellblock, but still no Darlene. Finally, I’m next in line. Through the window, I can see but not hear a guard knock on a cell door. Darlene emerges, and when the guard speaks to her, her face lights up. Clearly she’s thrilled to hear she has a visitor. I feel a pang of anxiety—she must be expecting her sons. I step into my side of the visitor’s room. There are three hard plastic chairs on my side of the Plexiglas, and a telephone receiver on the wall.

  I watch the guard escorting Darlene toward the visitor’s room. She seems to have shrunk in the days since the murder. Her broad shoulders are slumped and her hair hangs limply. The guard lets her in and shuts the door behind her. Darlene’s eyes widen when she sees me, then her whole face collapses in disappointment.

  I pick up my receiver and gesture for her to do the same. She slowly places it against her ear as if she expects it to blow up.

  “Hi, Darlene. How are you holding up?”

  She stares at me for a moment letting the hard mask of indifference reform. Then she speaks. “I’m fine. This place ain’t half bad. Watch TV and play cards all day. Food sucks but at least I don’t have to cook it.”

  Her bravado doesn’t fool me. She looks scared and lonely. Does she look innocent?

  I lean toward the glass. “I came to ask you something.”

  “What? If I stole something else? Are you worried you left something off the list?”

  That hurts, but I guess I deserve it. “Look, Darlene—I had to tell Kara that things were disappearing from the house. I never said I suspected you. In fact, when the cops jumped to that conclusion, I said I didn’t think you knew the value of the books and the silverware.”

  “Because I’m too dumb.”

  Now she’s trying to be ornery, but I’m not playing. “I think it was Tom or Rachel, or maybe both of them who took the stuff. But it was easier for Kara to blame you. Then the cops took her accusations one step further. I feel terrible about that. I want to help you.”

  “Ha! Please, don’t do me any favors!” She studies her bitten fingernails with great interest.

  If only I could touch her hand, get her to meet my eye. I long to ask her why she confessed, but there’s a big sign saying all inmate conversations are recorded. Obviously, this is no place to frankly discuss her guilt or innocence. I have to infer the truth from our circuitous conversation. “I don’t believe you had any reason to kill Mrs. Eskew. But someone did have a reason.”

  Darlene gazes up at the ceiling. “Doesn’t really matter what you believe. What the cops believe is what counts.”

  Hmmm. That implies she’s trying to convince the cops. “Someone was afraid. That’s why they killed her.”

  “Afraid of that old woman? She weighed about ei
ghty pounds.”

  “Afraid of what she knew, of what she was saying on her deathbed.”

  Darlene returns to picking at her cuticles.

  Obviously, I can’t ask her if Rob was in the house on the day of the murder. I decide to explore the Clothilde track. “You know how she was always talking to Leonie and Jean-Claude? Well, Leonie’s mother—Jean-Claude’s other grandmother—is still alive, and she has a theory.”

  Darlene had been steadfastly maintaining her sullen boredom, but now she can’t resist showing interest.

  “Leonie’s mother thinks that Parker intentionally killed himself and Leonie because of some scandal that was about to break,” I say. “She could never prove anything. Now she says the reason Mrs. Eskew was murdered was because she said something about Parker that her killer didn’t want heard. Does that make sense to you? Did she ever talk about Parker?”

  “Are you kidding? That’s all she talked about.”

  “But did she say anything about the plane crash? About why he died?”

  Darlene squirms. “I don’t know. I wasn’t listening to her. She’d talk and talk and I’d just say, ’uh-huh’.”

  I feel like a teacher calling out a student for not knowing the capital of Idaho. “Darlene, please—this is important. Try to remember!”

  She takes the kind of deep breath kids take when they’re humoring their parents. “Sometimes she’d think she was at some kind of game or race that he was in, and she’d be cheering him on. She’d be telling him to go faster, and then she’d ask me if he won.”

  “And then what?”

  “I’d tell her ‘sure, he came in first place’, and she’d relax and go back to sleep.”

  This is not what I’m looking for. But I don’t want to plant ideas in her head about the financial misdeeds that Clothilde suspects. That will just come back to kick us in the butt. “Anything else? Anything that she said that seemed to upset her?”

  “Nothing.” Darlene sits back in her chair and crosses her arms across her chest.

  I put my palm against the glass separating us. “I know you didn’t kill Marjorie Eskew.”

  Her face hardens. “I agreed to take the plea bargain for manslaughter. They told me if it went to trial, I’d get life with no parole. This way, I’ll be out in eight years.”

  “You can’t let them intimidate you into saying you did something you didn’t do. Did you talk to a lawyer?”

  “Oh, sure. They called in some kid who looks like he’s running for student council president and I’m one of his two hundred cases. Like he was going to get me off.”

  “Darlene, once you accept the plea bargain in court, they’ll move you to Rahway. This place is like a resort compared to that prison.”

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  She stands up and gestures to the guard that she’s ready to leave.

  I rise too and try one last time to get her to respond to me. “Why aren’t you defending yourself? Don’t you want to get back home to your kids?”

  I expect her eyes to well with tears, but they’re flat and hard. “You just leave it alone. My kids are better off without me.”

  Chapter 25

  My visit to Darlene was hardly conclusive, but I’m pretty sure Mrs. Eskew’s killer is not safely behind bars. Nevertheless, I promised Kara I’d be at work today. I console myself with the thought that Darlene’s final words, that her kids are better off without her, must mean that she’s protecting Rob. And if there are no drugs left in the house, there should be no reason that I would encounter Rob there.

  I hope.

  I text Adrienne and tell her to not bother going to the office, but instead to meet me at the house even though I know Ty won’t be able to work there this morning to be our bodyguard. I warn her to dress for dirt, but I’m sure my advice will fall on deaf ears. Adrienne’s idea of work clothes is wearing last year’s three-hundred-dollar designer jeans.

  On my way out of my condo, I grab a heavy hammer. If Adrienne and I are together and I’m armed, we should be okay.

  Kara has given me the key to the back door, and I told Adrienne to meet me here, but there’s no sign of her. Just then a text arrives.

  Running late. Be there in 20.

  Twenty minutes means thirty in Adrienne time. Even though I don’t want to be in the house alone, I’m not standing around outside waiting for half an hour. My heart pounds as I unlock the door and enter the hall that leads to the kitchen. The house no longer smells of sickness. I inhale reluctantly. Does it smell of death?

  I tell myself I’m being fanciful. The scene of the crime has been cleaned, I’m sure. As I enter the foyer, I make as much noise as possible. If anyone is here, I don’t want to be surprised. “Hell-o-o-o,” I call.

  My voice echoes in the vast, empty space.

  Screwing up my courage, I climb the wide curved staircase to the second floor, then make my way up the narrow attic steps, hammer in hand. A new smell greets me as I climb: mildew, moth balls, dry rot. Not a bad smell to me—attics are exciting. They’re the purgatory of a house, the last stop before the hell of the Dumpster. And just as the souls in Purgatory can be redeemed with some high-octane prayer, the junk in attics sometimes proves to be surprisingly valuable. The vase banished from the living room by a decorator too young to appreciate English Prattware. The long-forgotten baseball cards and Barbie dolls. The Oriental rug rejected in favor of Berber wall-to-wall. The finds are all the more thrilling for being totally unexpected.

  But to find the gold nuggets, I have to dig through memories. The clothes people wore to the biggest events in their lives: graduation gowns, wedding dresses, Army uniforms, Eagle Scout sashes. The souvenirs of vacations dimly remembered, parties long-forgotten. Gifts and heirlooms given with love, but received with reluctance. In short, all the stuff no one has the heart to discard or the closet space to keep.

  When I get to the top of the stairs, I see the Eskew attic is just what I expected—a tangle of boxes, furniture and sheet-shrouded objects that might be treasure or might be trash. A large, undivided space, the attic has a solid floor but the walls are unfinished and insulation drips down from the ceiling. No signs of squirrels or raccoons, so I begin my exploration.

  As is often the case, the area around the entrance is the most crowded. People shove boxes up into the attic intending to deal with them later, then the next box gets shoved up, pushing the earlier arrivals back. The far corners stay empty.

  I’m in the midst of this clutter assessing the contents—so far only mildew-y children’s books, Christmas ornaments, and some lamps—when I hear a noise behind a box ahead of me.

  I scream.

  The box tips over. I raise my hammer.

  The elfin face of Rachel appears. She stares at me wordlessly as she did the other day in the dining room.

  I lower the hammer, feeling foolish. Why would she be here now, after all that’s happened? On the other hand, I suppose she doesn’t have a job—who would hire her?—so what else does she have to do with her time?

  “Hi, there. You’re here early.” I can’t ask her what she’s doing here. After all, it is still her house. But I feel the need to break the silence with some words, however inane.

  “Where’s the other lady, the pretty one?”

  Ouch. Way to tell it like it is, Rachel. “I’m expecting her any minute. We’re going to see if there’s anything up here that can go into the sale.”

  “The sale. Right.” Rachel studies her tiny, sneaker-clad feet.

  “Are you sad about selling the house?”

  She slips through the pile of boxes and emerges behind me. “Happy, happy. Happy all the time, that’s me. Except when I’m not.”

  I turn again to face her. “Do you live nearby?” I’d like to get a sense of whether to expect her visits every day this week.

  Rachel gives a wide, vague wave, which might mean she lives two houses away or two towns away. “I have a condo. Mother bought it.”

  Before I ca
n respond, a leaf blower kicks on outside and its high-pitched whine fills the air.

  “A-a-i-i-eeee!” Rachel tucks her chin into her chest and wraps her arms around her head. She drops to the ground and rocks.

  Flabbergasted, I stand before her not knowing what to do. Should I comfort her? Run outside and ask the landscapers to stop?

  Gradually, the blower moves further from the house and the noise lessens. Rachel peeks out between her arms. “That’s too loud. It hurts my head.” Then she stands up and wanders around the attic prattling away, saying absolutely nothing that makes sense to me. Indeed, I’m not sure if she’s addressing me at all or just having a chat with herself.

  Suddenly, she stops murmuring and in a very distinct voice announces, “This is my throne.”

  I’ve lost track of her amid the boxes and support beams.

  “Queen of all I survey,” she says, and tracking her voice I see her sitting in a large easy chair by the dormer window. The chair is so deep that her tiny legs don’t reach the floor and stick straight out. The light coming through the dusty window is dim, but she has donned an oversized pair of dark sunglasses.

  Against my better judgment, I walk over to her. “Did you like to play up here when you were a kid?”

  “Not to play. To hide. To get away from them, all of them, always telling me what to do.” She smiles, but I can’t tell if she’s looking at me from behind the shades, or if she’s traveling back in time. “Up here I could do what I wanted. Anything I wanted.”

  Rachel slides off the chair and continues to prowl around the attic. I return to the stacks by the door, wishing ever more fervently that Adrienne would get herself over here. I haven’t turned up anything exciting yet, but there are many more boxes and piles to check.