by Dave Daren
Even as she said it, I could tell she didn’t quite believe her own words.
Evelyn was the best paralegal I’d ever worked with, and I trusted her gut intrinsically, but I could also tell when she was trying to deflect from something.
I pursed my lips and glanced over at her as I merged onto 35 West.
“What are you so concerned about?” I asked.
She gave another annoyed little huff and shifted her terrifyingly massive purse around in her lap. I could have sworn I heard that damn gun clinking around in there.
“You were shot at, and Sheriff Thompson did nothing but sit there with his thumb up his ass,” she reminded me as if I could have possibly forgotten the smug look on Thompson’s face when he suggested that anyone and their grandmother could have tried to shoot me in the middle of the desert, if I’d even been shot at at all.
I grunted because there really didn’t seem to be anything else to say about my encounter with Thompson.
“What makes you think that he’s going to be any more cooperative now?” she continued. “Especially when we’re looking at him for corruption now and not just the man bankrolling him?”
I knew she had a point, but I also knew that it didn’t mean we were supposed to roll over and show our bellies.
“So we’re supposed to be alright with corruption so long as it saves our own skins?” I asked and gave her a quick look before I turned my attention back to the morning traffic ahead of us.
Evelyn gave an agitated sound, and I saw her tap impatiently on the passenger door.
“You know that’s not what I meant,” she pointed out with a flat edge to her voice. “I mean that you can’t keep running in guns blazing if you want to keep your head attached to your shoulders.”
I heard myself chuckle and quickly smothered it when I saw her shift around in her seat. I risked a glance in her direction, and I saw a little scowl make its way onto her face.
“You’re too damn noble for your own good, and it’s going to bite you in the ass if you aren’t careful,” Evelyn warned me, but all I did was smile.
I knew I had her on my side then. She only ever gave me begrudging compliments when she agreed with me. And really, how was she supposed to disagree with me in this case?
For all her harrumphing and occasionally affectionate bullying of Brody and I, Evelyn was a good person, just like Brody was a good person, and just like I was a good person. There was a reason we all worked together so well. Of course, she was going to come around to my side, if she’d ever even been on another side at all.
“Things will be fine,” I assured her. “I’ll be careful this time, and I promise no stakeouts in the middle of nowhere, at least not without backup. Scout’s honor.”
I even did the Boy Scout salute for good measure.
“I don’t believe you were ever a Boy Scout,” she muttered as she eyed me warily.
I let out a loud, surprised peal of laughter then and leaned forward to turn the radio up again, just a little.
I’d already briefed her on the details of the auction in the office the day before, and so we didn’t have much left to go over before we arrived. We both knew that we needed to be on the lookout for anything suspicious, and to make sure everything listed on the docket was actually put up for auction.
I also thought it would be smart to see who bit on what, in case there was any sort of scam working through the buyers themselves.
I honestly wasn’t too sure what we would need to look out for, or if the auction would even be useful at all, but it was one of the few leads that we had that didn’t involve having to talk to Thompson directly. So I was more than willing to fly by the seat of my pants and take in a little local culture at the same time.
The rest of our ride went by without much conversation, and it only took another fifteen or so minutes before I pulled into the parking lot the GPS indicated was correct.
I had been surprised to find out that the auction didn’t actually take place at the sheriff’s department itself, but I suppose it made sense. According to the website I’d checked the day before, they’d auctioned off things like cars, motorcycles, lawn mowers, and even a boat once, and there just wasn’t room for that in the center of town where the actual sheriff’s department was located.
Instead, the auction was held at what looked like the sheriff’s department’s personal impound lot a few miles away.
I gave a cursory glance around as I nosed my car into an open parking space and killed the engine. The lot was mostly full and there were still fifteen minutes before the actual auction was supposed to start.
Evelyn gave a disdainful scrunch of her nose as she looked around as well.
It looked like many of the attendants were off-duty deputies joined by their families, as well as what looked like farmers, or at the very least, men who dressed like farmers. I even saw a woman I recognized as the owner of a local grocery store milling about talking to a uniformed deputy.
I can’t believe I hadn’t realized an auction like this was happening once a month just minutes from my apartment. It might have been useful to know when I was trying to furnish my apartment and the first Landon Legal office.
I’d had the forethought to try and not dress like a lawyer that morning because I was none too well-liked by the entire sheriff’s department. So I had settled for a pair of comfortable jeans and a t-shirt I’d gotten from one of the 5Ks I had run a month or so ago to raise money for cancer research.
Evelyn, of course, had dressed in her usual work outfit.
I don’t think I could recall a singular time I’d seen her in anything less than formal. Well, I’d seen her in her gardening clothes once or twice, but even then, those outfits had an air of formality about them, too.
She was the only woman I’d ever known to wear starched white blouses to yank up weeds.
I carefully opened the door to my car and stepped out into the sun. The temperature was cooler than I’d expected, but I was still glad I’d decided on a t-shirt, because as soon as the sun moved just a little higher in the sky, I was certain I’d melt onto the asphalt.
It was only when I straightened up that I realized a few sets of eyes were already on Evelyn and I. The looks seemed more curious than condemning, but it was still strange that people had managed to zero in on us so easily.
I had the sudden realization that these auctions probably had usual crowds and weren’t often frequented by newcomers.
Ever polite, I gave a small wave to the onlookers, who once they seemed to realize they’d been spotted, all resumed their original conversations.
I made my way around the side of the car to walk alongside Evelyn toward the roped-off section of the parking lot.
“Think anyone noticed us?” I joked and deftly dodged her sharp elbow as she tried to jab me in the side.
Inside the taped-off area of the parking lot, a few rows of metal folding chairs sat at attention with a few of the seats already filled. All the chairs faced a small wooden podium on a raised platform where I assumed the actual auctioning off would take place.
A microphone rested on the podium, and a set of speakers flanked the edges of the platform. The thick, dark cords from the sound equipment snaked across the parking lot and disappeared into the small building that sat at its perimeter.
The building itself was the same ugly shade of brown as the sheriff’s department, and I assumed that’s where they stored much of the things they’d be auctioning off. Behind the building was what looked more like what I’d have expected an impound lot to look like.
A large chain-link fence stood in an oblong rectangular shape with a large padlock on the outside gate. Atop the chain-link fence was curling barbed wire that I assumed was there to stop people from trying to break in to free their vehicles.
Inside the expanse of the fence, I saw cars of all different makes and models as well as a couple of bikes, some motorcycles, a push lawn mower, and even a badly damaged golf cart. I was almost disappointed that I didn�
��t see a boat this time, as if I’d have any use for a boat.
I looked back to Evelyn and gave a small gesture for her to go ahead and take a seat at the edge of the row of chairs. I thought it was best for us to sit at the back. I wasn’t sure what could possibly go wrong, and hopefully nothing would happen, but I wanted to be prepared for a worst case scenario.
She gave a nod and clutched her purse to his chest as she shimmied past the first chair to lower herself down into the second. The metal gave a squeak as the legs of the chair scraped against the asphalt.
I sat down next to Evelyn and folded my hands in my lap. I glanced down at the watch on my wrist to see that there were only ten minutes left until the auction was supposed to start.
I then cast a look over my shoulder and saw that the small crowds of people that had gathered for conversation in the parking lot had started to trickle toward the roped-off seating area.
Chapter 7
I looked around to see if I could find anyone I recognized in the crowd of people congregating around us.
Aside from the few deputies I’d clocked when Evelyn and I arrived, no one looked all that familiar to me. And even then, I didn’t recall any of the deputies’ names, but I knew that I’d crossed paths with them at one time or another because of the nature of my job.
I leaned back in the metal chair and listened to the legs skitter on the asphalt again as I waited for something to happen.
The seats all around us quickly filled, and I couldn’t help but be surprised by the number of people that had actually shown up for this auction. When everyone had been scattered, the number looked much smaller.
A low hum of chatter carried through the air along with the faint mechanical buzzing that I realized was feedback from the microphone on the podium. Someone had already turned the microphone on, which I took as a sign that the auctioneer would be on the stage soon.
I drummed my fingers against my thigh and bounced my leg up and down as I tried to calm the nervous energy clambering up my body. I was on the lookout for anything and everything that could be some sort of sign of corruption, though in the middle of an auction, I wasn’t really sure what that would be. After all, if it was too obvious, someone would have called the sheriff on it already. At least, I hoped someone would have. But given how much power Thompson seemed to have in this town, maybe that was too much to hope for.
From her seat next to mine, Evelyn smacked my leg the next time it bounced up, so I yelped and turned to look at her in surprise.
“Calm the hell down, Archer,” she scolded. “It’s just an auction.”
I gave her a small smile and held my hands up in surrender, but before I could give her my most sincere apologies for being high-strung, Sheriff Thompson emerged from the small building at the edge of the chainlink fence and crossed the parking lot to the area sectioned off for the auction.
He wore the same regulation uniform I’d seen him in every other time we’d had an interaction, and it suited him no better now than it had then. It was possible that brown on brown might have just been an unflattering color palette on anyone, but it looked especially bad on our local leader.
Today, he also had on a cowboy hat in the same shade of brown as everything else he wore, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the cowboy hat was regulation somehow, as if whatever system of Texas legislating that decided on law enforcement uniforms had decided to include a cowboy hat because they knew their target audience well.
His dour face was flushed red from the heat, or maybe it was just a sunburn, but it didn’t do him any sort of favors. He wore a thin pair of sunglasses that looked like they’d have been more at home on Magnum P.I., and he didn’t take them off before he planted his hands on either side of the podium.
The low roar of the crowd tapered off into silence as he loomed over us on the raised platform. He cleared his throat and the sound echoed over the speakers, and everyone in the crowd seemed to sit up in unison as Thompson tapped the mic with one burly finger.
“Good morning, everyone,” his voice crackled over the speakers. “Glad to see so many familiar faces out this morning. We’ve got a good haul for you today. You all know how this works.”
I could have sworn that when he said the last bit, his eyes landed on Evelyn and I, and he smirked. Or maybe it was just a trick of the light, and I was imagining it, but whatever it was, it didn’t exactly put me at ease.
I exchanged a brief, concerned look with Evelyn who just rolled her eyes in return. Maybe she’d been to an auction before, but I hadn’t, and I wasn’t sure what to expect save for what I’d seen on television, and nothing on television had accounted for the fact that the man running the auction might hate my guts.
“We’ve got a few big ticket items today as well as some smaller things, and we’ll go ahead and start off with a bang,” Thompson continued his spiel.
The smile on his face reminded me more of a shark baring its teeth than the warm and friendly gesture it was supposed to be. But a few people in the crowd responded by clapping while a few laughed as if he’d told a joke. Maybe my paranoia was making me see everything he did as evil.
I shifted in my seat and the metal creaked and broke the near-silence that suddenly enveloped the crowd as they waited for the first item to be brought onto the stage. I grimaced as a few people looked at me, but then one of Thomspon’s deputies started to push out the lawn mower I’d noticed when I walked to my seat. It was a newer-looking model, or so I assumed, and the paint was a bright, vibrant orange that reminded me of neon hunting vests.
I leaned forward in my seat, and the chair gave another agitated-sounding groan as I pulled my phone from my back pocket. I’d saved the list I’d made the night before about what was supposed to be up for auction into my Notepad app, and I pulled it up so I could begin crossing things off.
That earned Evelyn and I a few more stares, but a sniff and glare from my paralegal had the regulars focusing back on the lawn mower soon enough. I gave Evelyn a quick smile of thanks, which earned me a huff, but at least she didn’t berate me again.
I scrolled through the list of items that were allegedly going to be up for sale before I found a bullet point that read “lawn mower” and deleted it from the list.
Before I could even look up, the rapid fire bidding process had started. Around me, people were lifting their hands and calling out numbers so quickly I could barely follow what was happening.
Had I actually wanted to bid on anything, I could tell I would have struggled to keep up with the pace of things.
Sheriff Thompson shouted out numbers just as quickly as the people in the crowd, and the price on the lawn mower continued to rise and rise until finally, everyone went quiet.
“Four-hundred-and-twenty-five, four-hundred-and-twenty-five,” he called out over the low murmur of the crowd. “Going once… going twice… sold then to Fred!”
He didn’t seem to have any sort of gavel to indicate a sale, and so I watched as Thompson hit his hand against the podium.
A man in a red baseball cap tipped his hat toward Thompson as the man to his left clapped him on the shoulder, and I could only assume that the man being congratulated was Fred. I couldn’t help but be a little surprised that the man was apparently at the auctions so often Thompson knew him by name, and I filed that information away for later in case it came in handy.
After the sale of the orange lawn mower, I had a better hang on how things would work, and the next chunk of sales flashed by in quick, uneventful succession.
Thompson auctioned a large set of barbells and weights, the golf cart I’d seen earlier in the day, a set of patio furniture, and what certainly looked like a gurney.
I had no problems finding any of the items on my list and crossed each of them off as they were sold.
But the next item that Thompson gestured for a deputy to bring up gave me a bit of pause, and I shifted forward in my seat.
The deputy was a thin, spindly young man that I recognized as Jenk
ins. A few months prior, he’d been the deputy who had originally tried to take my statement about the chemical drop before Thompson had chased him off. He seemed like a good kid, if a bit awkward. Even from the back of the crowd, I could see that his acne hadn’t quite gone away.
He slowly made his way up the stairs to the raised platform and over toward Thompson as he carried a frame so large it nearly obscured his entire torso.
Inside the frame was what looked like a painting done by a child. The image depicted an oddly bulbous stick figure in a triangular dress in vibrant, primary colors with thick black strokes. It stood out in sharp contrast to the ornate, gilded bronze frame it had been mounted in.
Jenkins stood alongside Thompson as he held up the painting toward the crowd. I thought I saw his arms straining under the weight.
Thompson cleared his throat loud enough that the mic picked up the unpleasant sound and amplified it. A few people frowned, and Evelyn shot a look of disapproval toward the podium.
“Now, this might not look like much,” Thompson began. “And that art isn’t anything to write home about, but the frame itself is where the real money can be made.”
A small furrow formed between my eyebrows, and I gave the painting one last, considering look before I turned my attention back to the list on my phone. I scrolled all the way down to the bottom of the list as my eyes skimmed the bullet points and then all the way back up again, just to be certain.
No paintings had been listed online as being for sale, much less any paintings that looked like they’d been done for children. I wasn’t sure why the sight of it set the alarm bells off in my head, but when I looked at Evelyn, she seemed to be thinking the same thing.
I raised my phone up just high enough to have a clear view over the shoulder of the man in front of me and snapped a photo of Jenkins holding up the painting. This time, I made sure my flash wasn’t on before trying to take pictures of what could be incriminating evidence someday.
I couldn’t fathom a circumstance in which a painting like that would have been seized in a raid, and that thought turned around in my mind, over and over again as I leaned back in my chair while the auction flew off again.