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

by S. W. Hubbard

  “It feels like someone’s exerting pressure.” He rolls his powerful shoulders. “It’s moving so quickly. Everyone’s kinda shaking their heads. See, in a high-profile case, the DA usually talks with the victim or the victim’s family to make sure they’re okay with a plea. The DA doesn’t want a lot of bad press.”

  “If your loved one was murdered, why would you ever be willing to go along with a plea? I’d want the killer to get the book thrown at him. Or her.”

  “Sometimes the family goes along to be spared the agony of a trial. Like if a kid or a rape victim would have to give painful testimony. But that’s not the case here. I don’t see why they’re moving so quickly. And I don’t see why the Eskews would go along.”

  I turn on the water in the shower to let it warm up. “Kara is incredibly anxious to wrap up her mother’s estate and leave New Jersey. She says she never wants to come back. It’s like she doesn’t even care who really killed her mom.”

  Sean grabs my arm as I pull back the shower curtain. “I don’t want you working in that house until we’re sure what’s going on.”

  “I have to finish the job, Sean. We need this money if we’re ever going to buy a house.”

  His hand tightens on my arm. “What good is a house if you’re dead?”

  “Don’t be melodramatic,” I say, summoning courage I don’t feel. “I promise I’ll only work there if I’m with Ty.” I shake myself free. “Go make me some breakfast.”

  As I eat my buckwheat pancakes, a text pings in from Adrienne.

  Jimmy woke up with a fever. I can’t come in today.

  We have a lot of work to do, but I can’t deny I’m relieved. Postponing the Adrienne problem doesn’t solve it, but it gives me some wiggle room.

  I guess her text must’ve prompted a sour expression on my face because Sean asks me what’s wrong. I can’t tell him the worst thing that happened yesterday. But I can tell him the second worst. “I found something awful in the Eskews’ attic yesterday.”

  I sense his body tense from across the table.

  “Don’t worry—nothing dead. Just sad…and creepy. There was a stack of gift boxes wrapped for a baby shower. They were for Jean-Claude, Parker’s unborn baby that died in the plane crash. Rachel pointed them out to me. But later, after she left, I opened one of the boxes, and the clothes inside had been cut up. I opened all the boxes, and they were all the same. Even a little stuffed duck slashed open so his stuffing fell out. I’m sure Rachel must have done it.”

  “Why? And when?”

  “She led me over there to show me the gifts. Like she was worried I might miss them.”

  “What did Rachel say when you opened them?”

  “We didn’t open them right then because Adrienne showed up and I went back to working, showing Adrienne what she needed to do. But later, after Rachel left, I opened the boxes.” I shudder. “That whole family is just so weird.”

  “So you don’t know for sure that Rachel did it?”

  I get up to pour us both more coffee. “No, but who else could it be? She told me she liked to hang out in the attic when she was a kid, to get away from her family who were always telling her what to do.”

  “But she wouldn’t have been a child when Parker’s baby died, right?”

  “True. I think there’s about eight years between them. So she would’ve been sixteen or seventeen. But she seems like a child even now. It’s easy to imagine her doing something spiteful and immature.”

  “Spiteful against whom? Parker? His wife? Their mother?”

  I shrug. “Maybe all three.”

  “Ah, Audrey—you don’t understand sibling rivalry. Every evil deed is planned to cause maximum pain to a specific target. Did Rachel and Parker not get along?”

  I consider this question. ”Actually, when Rachel talked to me in the dining room before her mother was killed, she gave me the impression that Parker was her protector. That she thought he could do anything.”

  Sean stabs at his pancakes. “That’s how I felt about Brendan. Of course, that didn’t always stop me from doing spiteful things to him.”

  “Like what?”

  “Once I put his brand new leather baseball mitt out in the backyard right before a rainstorm.”

  “You must’ve had a reason.”

  “I told myself I wanted him to get in trouble with Dad because I got detention in school for talking back to one of the teachers, and everyone kept saying ‘why can’t you be more like Brendan.’” Sean sets his fork down. His eyes are looking at something a million miles away. “I wanted to bring Brendan down a notch. I was sick of him always being held up to the rest of us as a model. The best student…the best athlete…the best altar boy. The best son.”

  I take his hand. I can see better now why buying a house and starting a family is so important to Sean. And maybe I can see why he pushed me to hire Adrienne. My wife is the boss of your wife. The playground battles never end. Why do I have to be part of that?

  “Did your scheme work?” I ask.

  “Of course not. My dad was a cop. He questioned everyone in the family about when and where they had last seen the mitt, then put together a timeline that proved Brendan wasn’t at home during the window of time when the mitt moved to the backyard. Brendan was off the hook, but Dad was never able to prove whether it was me, Terry, or Deirdre who was the real culprit. We all denied doing it.”

  “So you never got punished?”

  Sean howls with laughter. “You don’t know my dad very well. He punished all three of us for a month. No TV and we had to take Brendan’s turn doing dishes. But I never confessed. Still haven’t to this day, so don’t breathe a word of it next time you see my family. Deirdre thinks Terry did it. She still holds a grudge against him for making her miss the season finale of The X Files that year.”

  “Sean! Don’t you feel guilty for not owning up to what you did? Why not admit it and clean the slate?”

  He looks at me as if I’m suggesting returning Manhattan to the tribe from which it was stolen. “Ha! That was one of my most brilliant coups. And don’t feel sorry for my brothers and sisters. They each made me suffer plenty back in the day.”

  “Okay, Mr. Family Dynamics—why do you think Rachel chopped up the baby gifts?”

  “Timing is key. If she did it before the plane crash, then obviously she was pissed about all the attention being paid to Leonie and the baby. Rachel would’ve enjoyed the drama when Leonie opened the gifts in front of everyone. Obviously, they all would’ve known it was she who’d done it, but she would’ve succeeded in shifting the spotlight back onto herself.”

  “Even if it was for bad behavior. That makes sense.” I clear our plates thinking about what Sean has said. When I come back to the table I ask, “What’s the other timing scenario you imagine?”

  “She did it after the baby’s death. To express her hurt. Or her anger.”

  “That Parker crashed the plane and brought so much sadness onto the family?”

  “Exactly.”

  Sean’s right. I really don’t understand sibling rivalry.

  Chapter 28

  “Audge, is this somethin’?”

  Ty and I have resumed working in the Eskew attic, now Adrienne-free. He walks toward me holding a medium-sized watercolor, handsomely framed.

  “It’s got some water damage,” I point to a ripple in the painting where it has pulled away from the matting. I take it away from him and study the shapes. It’s an abstract expressionist rendering of a sailboat on choppy seas. “Geez, could it be…” I study the signature in the corner. “Yeah, I think it’s an Arthur Dove!”

  “A real one? And they just stashed it up here in the attic?”

  “Mr. Eskew doesn’t seem to have ever bought reproductions.”

  “Maybe with this one he got taken for a fool, so he tossed it up here.”

  “Possibly. Take it downstairs. We’ll have to get it appraised.”

  To save time, Ty and I stopped to buy sandwiches on
the way over. Now we’re taking our lunch break at the kitchen table when Tom walks in. He greets us both with a great show of cheerfulness, but then proceeds to pace around the kitchen. When he’s directly behind Ty, Tom makes eye contact with me and jerks his head toward the dining room. “Audrey, I wanted to ask you what you think of those Staffordshire figurines. Do you have a moment?”

  I nod and rise. Ty never looks up from his turkey and cheese.

  Once we’re in the dining room, Tom gives me a soulful smile and starts talking. “Audrey,” he extends his hands imploringly, “what you walked in on yesterday was just an impulsive encounter. Adrienne’s a very attractive woman, and I…” he shakes his head, “I’m just a man who can’t resist a woman’s charms.”

  Un-freakin’-believable! He’s like some bad community theater actor reciting a hackneyed script.

  Tom lowers his chin and stares at me through long, dark lashes. “Please don’t hold this against Adrienne. I promise I’ll leave your staff alone and let you finish this job in peace.”

  My arms are crossed and my face is as suspicious as when someone at a sale offers me twenty bucks for an unblemished Stickley bookcase. What kind of fool does Tom Eskew take me for?

  “You and Adrienne are both adults. I wouldn’t care what she does if it weren’t for the fact that her husband is soon to become my brother-in-law, and her kids will be my niece and nephew. So yes, if you could try not to destroy my family, that would be most helpful.”

  For a split second the cheesy charm vacates his face and I see a tired, sad older man. Then he snaps back into character. “Right-o,” he gives me a jaunty salute.

  As I turn to go back to my lunch, Tom speaks again.

  “Good Lord, where did you find that?” He picks up the Arthur Dove painting, which Ty has propped in a corner of the dining room next to some other items that need my attention. Tom holds it at arm’s length. I notice his hands are trembling.

  “Ty found it in the attic. We wanted to check to see if it was a real Arthur Dove.”

  “Oh, it’s real, all right. This is the painting that killed my father.”

  Tom sets the painting down and regards it as if it were a poisonous snake. “It used to hang in his study. Shortly after Parker’s accident, when Kara and I had gone back to college, Rachel was taking a bath in the bathroom right above the study. She let the water overflow the tub. It seeped through the floor and damaged the painting.”

  Tom glances up as Ty enters the room, but he doesn’t stop talking. “People use the term ‘apoplectic with rage’ figuratively, but in my father’s case it was quite literal. He died of a stroke later that night.”

  He taps the frame with the edge of his expensive loafer. “Honestly, the damage doesn’t seem that bad. It must still be worth something, don’t you think?”

  Ty and I exchange a glance. Damn, these people are cold!

  Tom’s face brightens. “Hey, you know who could tell you?” He points to the stack of school yearbooks in the corner. “I’ve been looking through those. There’s a bunch of pictures of Parker with his friend Wes Tavisson. Wes used to hang out here all the time when he and Parker were at Bumford-Stanley. I hadn’t seen him since those days, and then last year I bumped into him on the street. Turns out he’s an art restorer. He has a studio in Jersey City. You should look him up. Helluva nice guy.”

  After Tom leaves, I do look up Wesley Tavisson. His website, RestorationArtistry.com, pops right up. His photo there shows a man with a jowly face and thinning hair, but he’s still recognizable as the boy in the yearbook. I figure he can not only help with the painting, but maybe I can also pump him about Parker Eskew. When I call and tell him about the painting and explain the connection to the Eskews, he sounds as excited to meet me as I am to meet him.

  Leaving Ty to finish up at the house, I set off for Jersey City.

  Within fifteen minutes of meeting Wes Tavisson, I feel like I’ve known him all my life.

  His business is housed in a gritty industrial building with a camera I must look into before a buzzer unlocks the door and admits me to his workspace. I walk into an art wonderland. Paintings are everywhere—hanging from the ceiling, propped against the walls, set up on easels.

  I wander through the jungle of art amazed by the changes appearing on the canvases. I get so absorbed at looking at a Chagall that I forget I’m there to meet a person. When a man materializes from behind a ten-foot high mural, I let out a little cry.

  A guy with longish, dirty blond hair and a paint-stained shirt and jeans holds his hand out. “You must be Audrey Nealon. I’m Wes Tavisson. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I laugh. “Not at all. I was just caught up in looking at this Chagall. And is that a Tintorello? You’re stripping off the old varnish?”

  “Yes, one coat at a time. The process can’t be rushed. Come look at this one.”

  And we’re off. Wes tells me about the restoring process, but more important, he asks me questions about my business and my life and listens to the answers. Really listens. That’s a very uncommon quality these days when everyone is so caught up in telling you about their own fame, past, present or future. I like him.

  Before long we discover we have a lot in common over and above the restoring and selling of art.

  “So, you’re a math major who became an estate sale organizer and I’m an economics major who became an art restorer. Does advanced mathematics come in handy in your line of work?”

  “I haven’t found a use for differential equations yet, but it’s useful to be able to add long columns of numbers in my head when I’ve got a line at check-out and an old lady with seventeen items priced between twenty-five cents and a buck fifty. How about you—did your parents freak when you gave up Econ for Art?”

  “Oh, honey—did they ever! But it was all their fault. I’d just graduated from Georgetown and aced my LSATs. To celebrate my admission to Harvard Law, they sent me on a trip to Italy. Well, in two weeks I called and said, ‘I’m not coming back.’ I talked my way into a job fetching rags and turpentine for the restorer at the Uffizi and the rest is history.”

  “Did they get over it?”

  “Eventually they realized I knew what I was doing, but it got worse before it got better.” Wes grins. “Next, I had to tell them about Antonio. But when we got married two years ago, they danced until three in the morning. What was shocking in 1982 is totally fine today.”

  “So true.” That remark hits home. Parker and Wes were such good friends. Could Parker’s sexual orientation be the scandalous secret that caused him to crash his plane? It seems ludicrous today, but thirty years ago?

  “Let’s have a cup of tea,” Wes says, and fills an electric kettle on his workbench. “So you found a painting at the Eskew house you need my help with?” he asks, bringing our conversation back to business.

  I pull the painting out of the bag I’ve brought to protect it. “It appears to be an Arthur Dove watercolor. It’s got some water damage.”

  Wes bends over to study it like a doctor examining a sick patient. He clucks and shakes his head.

  “Is it bad? Can it be restored?”

  “Watercolors are trickier than oils. This damage is old. Why didn’t they get it repaired as soon as it happened?”

  I relate the story Tom told me. “Apparently, the damage upset Mr. Eskew so much he had a stroke later that night. Then someone stuck the painting in the attic, and it’s been forgotten until now.”

  Wes arches his eyebrows. “Hardly worth dying over. The painting is still beautiful although the restoration will affect the resale value. It should still fetch thirty grand easily.”

  “Did Mr. Eskew have an explosive temper?” I ask, trying to sound innocent.

  “Not that I ever saw. He was quite gracious to me, always encouraging me to use their tennis court even if they weren’t home. But I got the sense that everyone in the family walked on eggshells around him.” Wes sloshes hot water out of a Picasso mug as he hands me my tea. “House
is gorgeous though, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, but not a very happy home.”

  Wes shakes his head. “Mrs. Eskew…murdered. Well—” He stops and it’s obvious to me he’s thought better of whatever he was going to say.

  “You went to high school with Parker, right? I saw your pictures together in the Bumford-Stanley Academy yearbook. Then Tom told me you were an art restorer. Mrs. Eskew maintains Parker’s bedroom like a shrine.

  Wes has a sad but tender expression on his face. “Hmm. In the pictures you saw, was I gazing at Parker with slavish devotion?”

  “I take it he was the superstar of your grade?”

  “Yes, and I was the faithful sidekick. Parker and I did everything together.” He laughs. “Well, almost everything. When it came time to say goodbye at the end of our senior summer, I burst into tears. I was in love with him, but I couldn’t admit it, not to him, not even to myself.”

  “He wasn’t…”

  Wes throws his hands in the air. “Oh, no, no, no—the straightest of straight arrows. Parker was horrified by my display of emotion although I don’t think he quite knew what to make of it. I was quite athletic, you see, so I didn’t fit the fairy stereotype.”

  He says this with wry good humor, but I can tell those days of having to hide who he was were painful. “I hated high school,” I confide. “At Palmyrton High, you couldn’t be a cool girl if you were smart. I couldn’t wait to get away.”

  Wes squeezes my arm. “You would’ve hated me in high school, Audrey. Being friends with Parker put me at the top of the social heap.” He winks. “It’s been downhill ever since.”

  “Was Parker really that special? There’s something about hero-worship that brings out the contrarian in me.”

  “I know what you mean—he seems like the kind of guy you’d love to hate. But the truth is, he was smart and funny and tremendously charming. People loved being around him. He was the one who got the party started.”

  But was he the kind of kid who rescued birds with broken wings…or the kind who kicked them out of his path?