“Okay. I’ll see what I can find out. Your information is a good start.”
* * *
I pulled up to the dump at seven-thirty on Saturday morning. I wanted to get rid of the table in the back of my Suburban before I headed over to Kelly’s house. A man waved me through the gap in the chain-link gate, and I pulled around to where they were unloading things. I looked at the tall pile of trash. A few years ago, before I’d moved to the area, a young woman’s body had been dumped here like it was a bit of trash. They’d eventually identified her as a woman from Cambridge, but the case remained unsolved. It was probably the reason I really didn’t like coming here.
I hopped out. The odor of rot hit me in the face and slapped me around. I tried mouth breathing as I opened the back of the Suburban. It didn’t help. Another man came over, and we unloaded the table.
“This looks salvageable,” he said.
The dump had recently opened a store where they recycled things people brought to the dump. Some people thought it was gross, but I thought it was a great way to literally turn trash into treasure.
“It does look fine, but see these holes? It’s woodworms.” I explained what woodworms were, and the man thanked me.
I looped my car around and gave the trash heap another glance. Were those spots of blue? I braked, shoved the car into park, and slid back out. I made my way over to the trash heap, trying again to ignore the smell of rot. It seemed alive, like it was going to wrap me in its stinky arms. Intermingled with the trash were blue helmets. I tugged on the metal brim of one. Someone shouted at me to stop. But I worked it free. It was just like the one Brody owned.
“Do you want to bring the whole pile down?” The man who’d helped me get the table out stood with hands on hips.
I looked at the heap towering over me with a leery eye. “No. Sorry. Is there any way to find out who left these helmets here?”
The man snatched the helmet from me. “Bunch of teenage boys. Pulled up with about thirty of these in the back of an SUV a couple of days ago.” He squinted at my Suburban. “Looked a lot like yours.”
So my Suburban hadn’t been stolen just to send me a message, but they’d actually used it to haul the helmets.
“Why didn’t you put the helmets in the store?”
“Boys said they weren’t no good. Kinda like you did with your table.”
“Do you know any of the boys?”
“Naw.”
“Would you take a look at a picture for me? See if you recognize this kid as one of them?”
“If you hurry. Ain’t got all day. Other people got stuff to dump, too.”
Technically, he did have all day, since it was so early, but I didn’t think pointing that out would help my case any. I retrieved my phone and flipped through pictures until I found the one I’d taken of the teen who’d brought the stuff to Ryne’s uncle’s store. I held my phone out to him. He squinted at it.
“Could be,” he said. My heart thumped a little harder. “Might not be.”
“You must have security cameras. Could I look through the tapes?”
“If you come back with a warrant.”
That wasn’t going to happen. I got back in the Suburban and sent Seth a quick text before I left. I might not be able to come up with a search warrant, but he should be able to.
Chapter 33
I arrived at the Longs’ house at eight. I’d never been more on edge before a garage sale. I had talked to Seth and Pellner on the phone multiple times last night. They had tried to convince me to cancel the garage sale. But there were still some missing links that I hoped would be resolved today. Mike Titone had finally told Seth that he’d have someone watch out for me. It wasn’t much comfort since Two-Toes had been watching Seth when he had been attacked.
I tried to put all of that out of my mind as I bustled about, trying to make Lance’s sports equipment look as nice as possible. I’d ended up bringing several battered card tables with me and started setting them up. Kelly gasped with displeasure when she saw them.
“Wait,” I said before she had a hissy fit. “I brought some vintage tablecloths to cover them.” I flicked one open, and the breeze caught it before it fluttered gently onto one of the tables. It was decorated with slightly faded American flags. I’d pinned a NOT FOR SALE note to it in two different places. The tablecloth was unusual enough that I didn’t want to part with it. I hoped that breaking one of my garage sale rules—everything at the sale should be for sale—wouldn’t come back to haunt me. Kelly was having fits and was rearranging behind me almost as fast as I was arranging.
I set the baseball bats in an old apple basket and balls in a square wooden box from the early nineteen hundreds. Gloves comingled with helmets—lovely sturdy helmets—on one of the card tables. It ended up looking very nice, and even Kelly managed to agree. Time was ticking away, so I hastily set up the other items, like golf clubs and skates, on two other tables. Fortunately, Lance called Kelly in so I could finish up in peace. By nine-thirty everything was all set. I went back into the tent for one last look.
Kelly bustled in with a grocery bag. “I almost forgot all of this.”
I worked up a smile and repressed a groan. She set the bag on the bed.
“Where should we put this?” she asked.
It was a bunch of toiletries, some opened, some not. Who would buy this stuff? Then I reminded myself that every time I’d thought that in the past, someone would purchase whatever it was I’d written off. I’d sold a bunch of half-empty bottles of nail polish for fifty cents a pop at one sale. A mother with three tween daughters had snatched them up.
I looked around the tent. Every space was crammed with artfully arranged items. Adding to it now could ruin the effect. Kelly watched me expectantly.
“I have an old champagne box in the Suburban. I’ll go grab it, and we can put everything in it.” I ran down the driveway and down the block to my car. It was going to be hot today, and the air hung heavy with humidity. I hoped it didn’t make the pretzels on the pretzel bar soggy. They looked so cute in an assortment of old glass jars. I had found cute pink- and green-striped bags for people to use for the pretzels. At least the Italian sodas, already sweating in the ice-filled washtubs, would be popular. A couple of teenagers were in charge of all of that.
After I grabbed the champagne box, I hustled back. A small crowd was starting to gather at the end of the driveway. Kelly had two of her boys blocking the way and offering bottles of water to those waiting.
I set the box on a nightstand and filled it with an assortment of lotions, fingernail polishes, perfumes, and aftershaves. I grabbed a piece of linen stationery and wrote a sign that said ALL ITEMS 50 CENTS.
“We’ll set up the vintage TV tray that’s folded against the wall between the bureau and nightstand,” I told Kelly. It wouldn’t show off the wooden TV tray, which was painted with flowers, as much, but there really wasn’t any other spot for the champagne box. I set up the tray and angled the champagne box so that part of the top of the TV tray still showed. After smoothing the bedspread where Kelly had set the bag of toiletries, I looked at her.
“Is Lance going to help today?” I asked.
“I told him to go golfing so he’d be out of our hair.”
Usually, the more the merrier, but it seemed like a lot of her boys’ friends were around to help.
“Ready?” I asked.
She nodded. We went to the front of the tent. We each grabbed a bottom corner of the canvas and slowly unveiled the contents. I actually thought I heard someone gasp, but then the crowd surged forward, and there was no time to even think for the next several hours.
* * *
Things were going amazingly well. Kelly drove a hard bargain, and so I followed suit. When someone offered half, I’d counter with a couple of dollars under the asking price. One woman wanted the chandelier that I’d thrown together using the sifters as lampshades. I’d priced it at fifty. She offered me ten. I countered at forty-eight. She offere
d me ten dollars and one cent. I countered at forty-seven dollars and ninety-nine cents. Under different circumstances, I would have never, ever acted like this, but something about this woman got my dander up.
Someone else came along and watched us. “I’ll take it for fifty,” she said.
“Butt out,” the other woman said.
The second lady folded her arms across her chest. “Fifty-five.”
The first woman gasped. “She can’t do that.”
I shrugged. “I don’t see why not. We couldn’t settle on a price.”
“I wasn’t done. You know as well as I do that haggling is part of the fun.”
I did indeed know that, and it was fun most of the time. I nodded. “She’s offered fifty-five. Do you want to bow out?”
The woman put her hands on her hips. “Sixty.”
The two went back and forth. People quit shopping to watch. I’d rarely seen anything like it at a garage sale.
“Ninety-five,” the first woman said.
The other woman threw up her hands. “Fine. It’s yours.”
The first lady looked smug and turned toward me to pay. Behind her back the other woman winked at me and slipped away in the crowd. I suppressed a laugh as the lady counted out her ninety-five dollars.
I noticed another woman filling her arms with the lotions, aftershaves, and perfumes that were in the champagne box. I grabbed a plastic bag, hustled over, and said, “Here. Let me help you.”
Someone jostled her from behind, and several of the items slipped from her arms. A dark green glass bottle just missed hitting an Oriental rug. It broke open like an egg on the cement. Others rolled harmlessly to one side or the other.
“I’m so sorry,” the woman said as she bent to pick things up.
“No worries,” I said. “I’ll clean it up. Don’t cut yourself.” The musky smell of the aftershave hit me before I took another step. It shot my memory back to the Ellington High School gymnasium. The person who’d attacked me had been wearing this scent. The whole incident played itself out in my head.
“Sarah, are you all right?” It was Kelly asking, but she wasn’t the only one looking at me with concern. “You’re very pale.”
“I’m fine.” Was I? “I’ll get something to pick up the glass.”
Kelly nodded. “Go through the garage door into the house. There’s a broom and dustpan right inside the door.”
The scent seemed to follow me. Maybe some had splattered on my shoes or clothes. I tried to take a deep breath in the garage, but it didn’t help. As I went in the house, I gave myself a talking-to. I had to get through the rest of the sale. I couldn’t crack up now. This was another link in my chain of evidence pointing to Lance.
As I hurried back outside with the broom and dustpan, I glanced around to see if I could spot whoever was supposed to be watching me. No luck. They were either very good or gone. In the far distance, a rumble of thunder sounded. I ignored it, concentrating on cleaning up the mess. I noted the brand of aftershave. Nothing I’d ever heard of, but then again CJ had never been one to wear the stuff. What brand it was didn’t seem as important as the fact that it was here. I took the mess out and dumped it in the trash, but the scent lingered like an unwanted friend for the rest of the afternoon.
Toward the end of the sale, I heard car doors slam. Two groups of people piled out of two separate cars. I went over to Kelly.
“We need to keep an eye on them.” I jerked my head toward them as they swarmed up the driveway.
“Why?” she asked.
Before I answered, I made sure the zipper was closed on the fanny pack I wore around my waist. It bulged with money. “I’ve seen groups like them before. They try to distract and overwhelm. Then they steal. I’ll stay by the jewelry. See if you can get a couple of the boys to stand over by the sports equipment. And someone to help you in the tent.”
Kelly put two fingers to her lips and let out a whistle that raised the hairs on my arms. Teens came running over to her from various locations. The hairs on my arms almost stood straight up as I watched her tell them what to do. Not one protested, like most teens would. It was like Kelly had some kind of control over them. She looked over at me.
“What? Did my whistle startle you?” she asked.
I snapped out of it. “It’s certainly ear piercing.”
I stood over the jewelry as the two groups roamed the tent. Five of the newcomers came over to where I stood, but I managed them and kept them from taking anything. The whole time I kept wondering if I was wrong about Lance. If Kelly was actually the mastermind, the Fagin-like leader.
If it was her in the gym, she could have worn the aftershave to literally throw me off the scent. Then decided to get rid of it here at the sale. But why would she do it? I looked around at the tent, the house, the kids, at Kelly herself, who always looked impeccable. In fact, she’d changed outfits midway through the sale, after the other one became sweat stained. Appearances were important to her. So much so that she was willing to kill someone to keep them up?
The two groups seemed to have grown weary of the number of us watching them. They trudged back down to their cars, slammed doors, and took off. If they made off with anything, it wasn’t something of great value.
Kelly came and stood beside me. It took everything I had in me not to leap away.
“Thank you for that. For knowing those people were up to something,” she said.
I almost choked. “It’s part of my job. It’s why people hire me.”
“It’s something I didn’t realize when I hired you. You are very different than you appear.” She gave me a long look and then smiled.
So are you. Or maybe I was wrong about everything and was overthinking. Thankfully, a woman came up and wanted to buy the Jenny Lind bed, one of the last big pieces we had left.
By three o’clock, the official end of the garage sale, a wind whipped up, causing the tent to slap itself. The noise was unnerving. The rumbles of thunder were closer now, and a streak of lightning brightened the sky. Not much was left. The sports equipment was mostly gone; the inside of the tent had only a few scattered pieces. Kelly had gathered the teens to help get everything put away. I hadn’t seen Lance all day and wondered if he was still golfing.
I snapped a few pictures.
“What are you doing?” Kelly asked.
“I want a record of how well the sale went.” I knew that would play to Kelly’s ego.
“Oh, great idea. There’s hardly anything left.”
What I really wanted was to get pictures of the teens to send to Seth so he could find out if there was any connection between these kids and the others who’d been selling stolen merchandise. After I finished taking pictures, I counted out the money with Kelly in the garage.
She’d made well over fifteen hundred dollars. But once I took my 40 percent and the hourly fee she owed me, and she paid for the tent and the electrician, her cut wasn’t that much.
Kelly looked around with satisfaction. “You’ll put the before-and-after pictures up on your Web site?”
“Yes. On social media, too, if that’s okay with you.”
“Of course it is. Is this your most successful sale ever?” she asked.
It wasn’t, so I tried to dodge the question. “I’ve never had one like this. It was extraordinary.” When Kelly’s smile broadened, I realized this sale was never about the money, but it was about appearances. Very interesting.
“The local newspaper promised to cover it,” she said. “I saw someone taking pictures with a professional-looking camera.”
I was not sure a garage sale was newsworthy, but it would be a boon to my business if they did. “That’s great.” Another flash of lightning streaked across the sky. A house-shaking boom of thunder followed closely. “I’d better run,” I said. I tucked my tablecloths under my arm and grabbed a card table in each hand.
Kelly grabbed another one. “Let me help you.”
We scuttled toward the end of the driveway. A
couple of the boys helping with the tent deserted their posts and took the card tables without being asked. As we got to the Suburban, huge raindrops splattered down around us.
“Go,” I said. “I can get these in on my own.” But Kelly and the boys stayed to help. One even slammed the rear doors back together before he dashed off. The rain pelted down.
“Thanks again,” Kelly yelled. She took off running, arms pumping.
I stared at her, mouth agape as goose bumps broke out on my arms. She ran just like the person who’d been at Melba’s house the night Stella and I went over there. Thoughts flashed through my mind faster than the raindrops hit me. Kelly turned at the top of the driveway and saw me standing there in the rain, staring.
Chapter 34
It was almost ten when I made the phone call. My fingers shook, and I hesitated over each number. But I finally punched in the last number and held my breath as I listened to the rings. Kelly picked up on the fifth one.
“I know what you bid last summer,” I said. “A low bid on defective helmets.” My voice was more even and calm than I could imagine. “But that’s not the only thing you did. You killed Melba to keep her from talking. I’ll give you until noon tomorrow to turn yourself in so you and your family can have some dignity. Not that you deserve it, but your kids do.” Then I ended the call before Kelly could say anything.
The storm that had started that afternoon still pounded against my windows. I took a shaky breath and looked up. Pellner, Awesome, and Ramirez, the state trooper, stood around me in a semicircle.
“Well, that’s done,” I said.
Besides the three of them, there was a cop parked down the block and another lurking in the alley behind the house. He was the one I felt sorry for, as he was hunkered down outside in the storm. It had taken almost from the time I’d left the garage sale to now to reach Seth, suggest the plan, and get everyone to agree to it.
I Know What You Bid Last Summer Page 21