by Suzi Weinert
Garage Sale Riddle
by Suzi Weinert
Published by BluewaterPress LLC
Copyright 2016 Suzi Weinert
The contents of this book regarding the accuracy of events, people and places depicted; permissions to use all previously published materials; all are the sole responsibility of the author, who assumes all liability for the contents of this book.
All rights reserved. Except for fair use, educational purposes, and short excerpts for editorial reviews in journals, magazines, or web sites, no part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the publisher.
International Standard Book Number 13: 978-1-60452-125-2
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To Denise Weinert
for opening the portal to
Katy Garretson, Jonathan Axelrod
and Hallmark’s Television
Garage Sale Mystery Series
LETTER TO MY READERS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
READING GROUP DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LETTER TO MY READERS
Historical fiction uses imaginative reconstruction of historical events and personages. Like my earlier mystery thrillers, this book and its characters are fictional.
Upon hearing two conflicting accounts of an auto accident, you may begin to wonder about history. Each person brings his own subjective prejudice to whatever he “sees.” Civil War eyewitness testimonials often hinged on observations of terrified men rather than dispassionate objective reports. Thus, history we accept as “true” may reflect combinations of verifiable facts and eyewitness “truths” plus the myths and legends growing around such information in generations of slanted retelling.
Confederate Captain John Singleton Mosby, Union General Edwin Stoughton and General Jubal Early were real people and the raid on the village of Fairfax Courthouse, a real event. However, Mosby’s “treasure” reflects legend and myth and my accounts of all these people and events are historical fiction.
While Birdsong’s a real, fine old name dating back to the 1600s in Virginia, my John and Raiford Birdsong characters are fictional, as are William Early, Ellwood, Hanby and all the others.
Because I’m personally drawn to the relevance and impact of current issues, I like to weave them into my mystery thrillers. As with child abuse in Garage Sale Stalker and terrorism, human trafficking and spousal abuse in Garage Sale Diamonds, this novel explores another compelling national topic: the challenges facing our country’s burgeoning senior population. This group, plus baby boomers (born 1946-1964), have created unprecedented economic, social and practical issues for older individuals, their families and their federal, state and local governments.
While more options exist for seniors than ever before in American history, not all have prepared for this stage of life, financially or otherwise. Nor do they realize criminals target them for exploitation, scams and other crimes that could wipe out their life savings.
To face this, states and counties scramble to create senior support systems, including prevention efforts to increase crime awareness for elders and their communities. I felt it was high time for my Garage Sale novel series to address this topic.
If you’d like to comment on my story, please e-mail me at: [email protected].
Thank you for choosing my novel.
Suzi Weinert
www.SuziWeinert.com
CHAPTER 1
Glinting fangs ringed the elongated, gaping jaws. Reptilian scales armored the sinewy body. The partially unfolded wings readied for flight as the talons flexed with anticipation. One claw clutched a sphere. The glittering eyes shimmered with intensity. Did this penetrating stare reflect deep knowledge of universal wisdom? Or did the stare reflect a predator’s focus riveted on prey?
Lightning-fast, the dragon fired a telepathic barb directly into Jennifer Shannon’s brain. The hook pulled tight as she gazed, hypnotized, at the creature in her hands.
A human voice intruded upon her concentration. “Do you want it…the item you’re holding?”
“What…?” Jennifer asked, startled.
“Do you want to buy it—the statue?”
“Do I want…yes, yes I do.”
“Thirty dollars, please.”
Jennifer jerked herself back to garage sale reality.
“I…how about fifteen?”
“Twenty.”
“Sold.” Jennifer clutched the statue in one hand and produced money with the other. Then she pointed to the statue. “What…what do you know about this piece?”
“It belonged to my parents,” the garage sale Seller said. “They told me they got it before I was born, back when they lived in the Philippines. Lots of Asian imports/exports pass through that country, so impossible to guess its origin. The statue means nothing to me except I remember my mother valued it and now I’ll never know why. Just another question I didn’t ask my folks back when I thought they’d live forever.”
>
Jennifer nodded as her own mother’s cherished face crossed her mind. “Point taken,” she said.
Back in her van, she studied the dragon from different angles. However she positioned it, the eyes watched her. Even with its face pointed away from her, the rear of each shiny, bulging eye held her in peripheral vision. Reluctant for it to leave her hand, she finally laid it carefully in the wide, shallow box she kept on the passenger seat to prevent items from tumbling around as she drove. The dragon watched her start the car.
This wasn’t the first time a garage sale object “called her name.” Skilled craftsmanship creating this compelling piece of art was reason enough to buy it, but she had a second motive. Maybe this would make a suitable gift for husband Jason’s birthday in a few months. Might it amuse him if she compared life’s challenges to fighting dragons, and he the family’s protective dragon slayer?
But two other messages came with this impulse purchase: the reminder to tell her five children the stories about some of her own belongings while she still could, and also to learn more about possessions her mother had collected over the years.
Though smug about this unexpected find, what she really shopped for today and had hunted for over a year was a picture frame for a painting she’d bought two years ago at another garage sale. And not just any frame of the right size, but something unusual with a primitive look. Besides estate and garage sales, she’d searched stores and the internet. Maybe what she coveted didn’t exist, but she’d know it if she saw it. She didn’t give up easily.
She pulled the car to the safety of a curb, shifted into park and studied her notebook. Garage and estate sale listings from her newspaper’s classified section were taped in a neat column down the page’s left side. At the bottom, she’d written additional addresses from Craigslist.
She’d started at 7:30 this Saturday morning, and would add a few more sales before heading home by noon to prepare lunch. Her fingers moved down her notebook list, hovered and entered the chosen address into her car’s GPS.
Fifteen minutes later, she pulled up in front of a property near the border of McLean and Great Falls. A phalanx of parked cars snaked along one side of the road outside a stone fence. She maneuvered skillfully into an empty space and walked up the driveway of the graceful plantation-style house. Huge old trees cast welcome shade across the lawn.
Merchandise filled the veranda and large front yard. Her pulse quickened as she did a quick “overview” for any stunning item inviting immediate claim. Spotting none, she wandered from table to table, past linens, luggage, floor lamps and furniture. Pausing at a table with antebellum era merchandise, she examined old quilts and embroidered linens, a worn but serviceable churn, wooden rolling pins, well-used cutting boards, crocks, tole-painted tin ware, enameled bowls and ladles.
Beside old kitchenware stood weathered leather boots, insignia, canteens and military buttons. Not likely valuable if still here. Antique dealers typically took early first-looks. She could buy them all in hopes of selling them later to a dealer, but realized she didn’t know enough about Civil War relics to distinguish rare from common.
Several teenagers wearing “Helper” T-shirts roamed the yard among shoppers. Signaling one, she asked, “This collection of old things, do you know where they came from?”
“From the attic. You might learn more from my aunt. She’s in charge.”
“Would you point her out so I can talk to her when she isn’t busy?”
“Over there at the checkout table.”
“Thanks. Say, some of these things look like they date way back,” she pointed at some insignia, “maybe to the Civil War. Is that possible?”
The teen smiled. “Gee, no idea. They remodeled the house a few times from that really old stone farmhouse. This seedy stuff lived in the attic. Now my aunt’s emptying everything to sell the place. Hauling all that stuff down the three flights of stairs to the yard nearly wasted my friends and me. It better sell so we don’t have to lug it back again.”
Jennifer flashed a commiserating smile. “I appreciate the info.”
“Let me know if you need help carrying something to your car.”
“Double thanks.”
Moving through the sale, she collected an armful of intriguing small items. About to pay for them, she arrived at the last table before checkout, where the sight of something unexpected stopped her short. Her eyebrows rose and her mouth formed an O.
CHAPTER 2
Jennifer stared at an odd frame with a weird picture mounted inside. The frame’s crafter had twisted thin branches and fastened them onto a rectangle of wood, leaving protruding errant twigs. Unlike conventional plain or baroque frames, this primitive folk art seemed alive, as if leaves might sprout any minute. The crafter’s clever use of simple materials created a one-of-a-kind original.
But if the frame wasn’t arresting enough, the haunting picture inside revealed a circle of trees through which one glimpsed a large flat-topped boulder with other big rocks atop it. Thrilled to find the frame she’d sought so long, she felt equally drawn by the amateur painting’s mystique—the way the light filtered through the trees and played upon the glen’s stones. Together, the frame and picture formed a stunning combination. Suddenly oblivious to all else, she stared at this item much as her dragon had stared at her. She edged her way through the elbow-to-elbow browsers pressed around this display table to reach for her quarry.
When a stranger’s hands closer to the frame lifted it up, Jennifer felt a pang of acute distress. To search this long, at last find a frame she wasn’t even sure existed and then have it plucked away so near her fingertips…
She swallowed hard, remembering the unwritten rules: at estate sales like this one, whoever picks up something has “walking rights” until he puts it down again, and whoever pays for something first owns it. She watched the other set of hands rotate the frame front and back before lifting it away from the table.
Panicking, Jennifer followed, willing this person to discard the painting. But it didn’t happen. She followed the buyer to the checkout line, desperately shaping a strategy. After the purchase, she’d make this new owner an offer. She’d double or triple the purchase price, anything to own it herself. But if the buyer refused to sell, then what? Karate?
Buyer stacked her purchases for Seller to total and fished money from her wallet, her purse and her pockets before discovering she hadn’t enough to pay for all she’d chosen. Seller might let Buyer take it all for the money produced. Jennifer held her breath.
“If you leave out this framed picture, you’ll have just enough,” Seller suggested instead.
“Or I could take the picture and leave the other things,” Buyer thought aloud. “Or would you hold the picture for me until I return with the rest of the money?”
How would Seller respond? Jennifer bit her lip.
Seller pondered Buyer’s request and appeared to make a decision. Jennifer feared the worst.
“I don’t think so,” Seller apologized. “But it’ll probably still be here when you come back with the money.”
Jennifer felt a wave of relief. Buyer fussed over what to buy or leave until Seller mentioned the long line of other customers. Buyer appeared to decide, picking up the frame. Jennifer blanched. Then in a sudden, last-minute move, Buyer put down the frame and took the other items.
Next in line, Jennifer grabbed the framed picture so fast the Seller looked surprised. “I’ll take it, thank you. I’ve looked for this for a very long time and was inches away from losing it.”
“That’s $30 for the picture and…” she totaled the other purchases, announcing the sum.
As Jennifer paid Seller, she realized this woman was the only link to this picture’s history. Once away from this sale, she’d sever that link forever.
She smiled at Seller. “You’re busy now, but when you have a moment, may I ask some questions about the painting?”
“Actually, I’m about to take a break.” She called to anoth
er woman. “Your turn, Sis.”
Folding Jennifer’s money into a pocket, Seller stood, untied her money apron and handed it to her sister. “Over here,” she motioned to Jennifer.
“Do you know anything about this frame or the picture?”
“We found it in my mother’s attic.”
“Could I ask your mother where she got it?”
Seller grimaced. “Not any more. She died last month. That’s what triggered this sale.”
“Any idea how she happened to have it?”
Seller glanced around, making sure the sale ran smoothly before turning back to Jennifer. “My family’s been in Virginia since the 1700s and my mother was proud of that heritage. She belonged to the DAR and the UDC.”
“DAR? UDC?”
“Daughters of the American Revolution and United Daughters of the Confederacy. To join, you must prove your ancestors participated in those wars. You’re accepted or rejected based on those credentials. My mother loved it and was a shoo-in, but it doesn’t interest me at all. Those old wars are long over. The South lost and for me, that closed the Civil War book. But not so for Mama.”
“So you found this in the attic with other items of similar age?”
“Everything in her attic looked and smelled old. This picture was with those old things. Because I’m forward-looking, I don’t dwell on the past, but I imagine the attic stuff was mostly antiques. Whether my mother inherited them or bought them or they’re from her family or my father’s, I don’t know. Still, I loved her and wish now we’d looked through the attic while she was still alive so I could learn more about that side of her—what she remembered and why she cherished these old things.”
Seller glanced away. Her eyes moistened. She blinked back tears. “After all, I’m named for her and her mother and her mother’s mother, so there’s a link after all.”
“Oh? What name?”
“Selby.”
“Unusual…”
Selby nodded. “Rare, in fact. It’s from the Old Norse branch of Old English in the Germanic language family. Selby means ‘from the willow farm’ or ‘from the willow manor farm.’”