Silent Auction

by Jane K. Cleland

  Six rings later, her sleepy voice said, “Hello.”

  “Shelley, it’s Josie. Wake up—I need a favor.”

  “Jeez, Josie, what time is it?”

  “Almost nine.”

  “In the morning?”

  I smiled. “Yes. It’s Wednesday.”

  “You’re cruel…. It’s ten to nine, which means you’ve just robbed me of ten minutes’ sleep.”

  “I need you.”

  “Sigh, sigh, sigh. Hold on while I throw some water on my face.”

  I put the phone on speaker and spun around to face my window. The old maple was alive with color.

  Two minutes later, Shelley was back. “Okay. This better be good, my friend.”

  I crossed my fingers for luck. I knew for a fact that Shelley hobnobbed with all the players in the rarefied New York City arts and antiques world—including the magazine editors who followed the trends. “Do you know anyone at a top-drawer magazine who might be interested in an In Cold Blood sort of exposé?”

  “Is this about the Whitestones?”

  “The murder at their light house, yeah. I’m trying to help out a local reporter.”

  “That doesn’t sound like you—helping a reporter? Are you sure you aren’t calling me to come help tar and feather him? Has the frozen tundra finally turned your brain to ice?”

  “First of all, it’s over seventy today and absolutely gorgeous. Second of all, Bertie from New York Monthly is here, and after me again.”

  “Ah! Your Machiavellian plan becomes clear. You’re out to screw her by giving an exclusive to someone else.”

  Shelley was as quick as ever, even half-asleep. “Do you think it will work?” I asked.

  “It will if you give Ray Austin a call. He’s an editor at Metropolitan, and he’d love a story like this.” She chuckled. “What am I saying—anyone would love a story like this.”

  Metropolitan was a well-respected, Vanity Fair– like monthly magazine, filled with long, thoughtful features delving into the stories behind the news as it affected New York City’s Town and Country set. It was a perfect fit for what I had in mind.

  “Great. Thanks, Shelley.”

  “Have your reporter buddy call and use my name. Ray’s a hottie—and a good dancer.”

  “Shelley, you devil. Are you two an item?”

  “I wish. He’s happily married to Lucy Mattin, the shoe designer. Have you got a pen?”

  “I’m ready!” I said, exhilarated. I wrote down Ray Austin’s contact information.

  “This is exactly what I was hoping for. Shelley, you’re a peach!”

  “This is my favorite kind of networking—win-win all around. You’re thanking me, and Ray will, too. How can a girl lose? Plus, the next time you’re in town you can buy me a drink.”

  “You got it.”

  I asked her about life at Frisco’s, and she told me about the latest power play unfolding in the decorative arts department. I listened with plea sure, enjoying her dry observations about co-workers who were weasels and bosses with unfettered ambition. She asked me about Ty, line dancing, a hobby we shared, and my business.

  “Someday you’ve got to come up here, Shelley, and see what you’re missing. Seriously—you ever decide to move, you have a job. Don’t dismiss it out of hand just because it’s not New York. My company’s growing. In a smaller house, you’d have more opportunity to really shine.”

  “Send a relocation video and I promise I’ll watch it some night. I always love a good comedy.”

  I laughed. “You’re xenophobic, you know that, right?”

  “Xenophobic because I don’t want to leave the big city for a teeny tiny, but no doubt adorable, coastal town? Josie, honey, you’ve been gone too long. Take a couple of martinis and come to brunch.”

  I laughed again, as enamored as ever with Shelley. I missed her.

  We chatted awhile longer, and then she had to get ready for work. As I hung up, I had the incredibly comforting thought that while I missed her, I no longer missed my previous life at all. I loved visiting New York City, but I had found my home in Rocky Point. I fit in. I had friends. I loved my life. And I loved my plan to help Wes. I dialed his number and got him.

  “Whatcha got?” he asked, skipping the pleasantries, as usual.

  “An opportunity for you. A big-time major-league opportunity.” I described my story idea and told him about the Metropolitan editor who might be receptive to the project.

  “What’s the catch?”

  “No catch.”

  I could hear him breathing. After several seconds, he said, “This is bonzo, Josie. I mean, really, really bonzo. But I don’t get it. What do you want in return?”

  Bonzo, I translated silently, Wes-speak for awesome. “Nothing. Well, maybe some information, just like always, but nothing else.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  I thought for a moment about how much to reveal, watching as my maple’s burnished leaves fluttered in a passing breeze. I decided to tell him the truth. “You’re a good guy, Wes, not just a good reporter. Many journalists aren’t. I want to reward your integrity and send a signal to the others, the vultures, that if I have anything to say about it, the good guys will always come out on top.”

  “Jeez … Metropolitan … Josie, I’m telling you, you’re the bomb, the nuclear bomb,” he said, sounding stunned, then energized. “I won’t forget this.”

  I laughed, then gave him Ray Austin’s name and number and Shelley’s name. I added, “When you’re pitching the story, you can tell him I’ve promised you an exclusive.”

  I was sitting nearby as Sasha explained the Chinese dinner set’s valuation to its owner, Joan Scott, finding a mea sure of solace in the routine of work. Cara told me that Chief Hunter was on line two. It was nine thirty in the morning.

  “I just got the word from the techs,” he said. “They’re on schedule, so if you’re okay with it, I can pick you up at noon.”

  “Why don’t I just meet you at the light house?”

  “I have some more questions. I thought we could talk en route.”

  What else could he possibly have to ask me? I wondered. I’d already told him everything I knew. I looked around the office. Sasha and Joan sat within arm’s reach, both politely waiting for me to rejoin their conversation. I wanted to ask Chief Hunter for details but didn’t. Both women were listening in, and who could blame them? An open office was no place for a private conversation.

  “Sure,” I said, feeling as if I were volunteering for a root canal, “noon’s good.”

  I hung up, then told Joan and Sasha, “Sorry about that.”

  I’d met Joan for the first time this morning. She was tall and thin, with intelligent blue eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. She was a retired scientist, now interested in a different kind of research—genealogy. She’d traced her family’s ownership of the dinnerware to General Lingan.

  “You were saying that the serving pieces added value to the set, Sasha,” I said, to ease us back into the appraisal.

  “Exactly. Some of the larger and unusually shaped pieces are quite rare. Especially the octagonal platter and what you call the leaf plates.” She smiled. “You said you weren’t planning on selling, though, is that correct?”

  “That’s right. Part of why I want this appraisal is that I’m curious,” she said, laughing. “That’s the scientist in me—I’m curious about everything! But another part is that we use the dishes all the time, and since they date from the eighteenth century, I figured I ought to be certain that I’m not risking a fortune every time I wash a plate!”

  “One of the things I looked into was the association to General Lingan,” Sasha said. She turned to me. “The general bought the set from merchant ships when they docked in Baltimore, and the set has been passed down in Ms. Scott’s family from generation to generation ever since.” She took in a breath, and I could tell she was worried that Joan wouldn’t like what she heard. “General Lingan is, in fact, considered an imp
ortant Revolutionary War figure, but the association probably won’t boost the selling price unless we happen to find someone who wants the dishes who also happens to value the connection. That’s not likely. At auction, if properly marketed and with a little luck, I would expect the set to sell for around two thousand dollars … maybe twenty-five hundred.”

  Joan nodded. “Not a fortune, but not nothing.”

  “And who can put a price on the heritage?” I asked.

  “You’ve got that right.” She smiled again, stood up, and shook Sasha’s hand, then mine. “Thanks so much.”

  Sasha asked Cara to page Eric, and I watched as he wheeled the carefully boxed china to her car.

  “Good job, Sasha,” I said, and she smiled shyly and thanked me.

  Eric was almost through loading it into the trunk for her when Lenny Wilton, the scrimshander, drove into the lot.

  “Lenny’s here,” I announced.

  “He gives such great ser vice,” Gretchen said.

  Lenny pushed open the door, setting Gretchen’s wind chimes jingling. He was carrying a duffle bag, looking for all the world as if he’d stepped off the pages of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalogue. He was about twenty-five, tall, and blond, and he didn’t walk, he strutted. His features were symmetrical, his hair a little long. He was a hunk.

  When he’d first stopped by to introduce himself, about three years earlier, Gretchen had lasered in on him like a cat to cream. He’d been cordial but uninterested. I’d shaken my head over it. Gretchen, who could charm a statue to life, and who, until she’d met her boyfriend, Jack, had an internal radar system for spotting single, attractive men that would put NASA to shame, had got nowhere. All Lenny seemed to care about was business.

  She’d shrugged off his indifference with a good-natured “Story of my life.”

  I remembered thinking that a man had to be insane not to pursue Gretchen like a hound dog. She was beautiful, sweet, hardworking, and kind. It was still a mystery to me why she’d had so much trouble meeting good men, a moot question now that she and Jack were a couple.

  “Hi, Lenny,” I said. “I hear your barrettes are selling like hotcakes.”

  “Which means your customers have great taste!”

  “Obviously!” I said, smiling.

  “Here you go,” he said, extracting a box from his bag and hoisting it onto Gretchen’s desk. “There are two new designs—a winter scene and a Christmas one.”

  “Great!” Gretchen said. “Let’s take a look.”

  The barrettes were beautiful. There were four dozen each of three designs, one a Currier and Ives– style, skating-on-the-village-pond design; the second a gaily decorated Victorian home, complete with a doily-draped sofa, poinsettias, and boughs of holly; and the third a sailboat leaping over swells, each signed LEON, Lenny’s branding for his low-end scrims. The name Leon came from combining the first two letters of his first name with the last two letters of his last name, a clever way, I thought, of differentiating his machine-made scrims from his custom-made, high-end offerings.

  Gretchen, Cara, and I oohed and aahed; then Gretchen confirmed the count and handed him a check. He nodded, chatted for a minute about the beautiful weather, and left.

  “The workmanship is spectacular,” Cara said, examining a barrette close up.

  “Hard to believe it’s machine-made,” I said. “Those new designs are fab. I think we should put out three separate baskets so it’s obvious there are three different designs. I bet lots of people will buy more than one.”

  Gretchen loved the idea and went to show the new designs to Eric.

  I wandered upstairs, unmotivated and unfocused. I spent the next two hours moving papers around on my desk, unable to concentrate on work. Finally, I gave up trying. I couldn’t stop thinking about Frankie. I wanted to know how he’d lived the last year of his life, whom he had spent time with, and what he did when he wasn’t working. Then I realized that I had an untapped source of information at hand—Eric.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The tag sale venue looked barren and unwelcoming. Rows of folding tables stood uncovered and empty. Nothing hung on the walls. The incandescent track lighting was off, and the fluorescent lighting was harsh.

  I saw Eric near the front, stooped over. He was using a hose attachment on the Shop-Vac to clean the baseboards. The door and windows were open, and the breeze blowing through was refreshing.

  “Hey, Eric,” I said, shouting to be heard over the drone of the vacuum cleaner.

  He looked up, startled, then switched off the machine. “Hi, Josie.”

  “Sorry to interrupt, but I’m hoping you won’t mind if I ask you a couple of things about Frankie.”

  “Okay,” he said, his expression somber.

  “I’m trying to understand how this could have happened, to figure out who could possibly have wanted to kill him. Did he ever mention a man named Mel? Mel Erly?”

  Eric shook his head. “No, I don’t know that name.”

  I nodded. “How about girls? Was he dating anyone?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t mean to pry … but were you two close? I mean, would he have confided in you if he were seeing someone?”

  “I think so. We hung out pretty often.”

  “Really? I didn’t know.” I smiled. “Not that there’s any reason why I should! What kinds of things did you do?”

  “We went out for burgers a lot, you know, to a sports bar to watch a game or something. We went bowling a few times. He was pretty good. Once we went fishing. We caught some bluefish.”

  “Did he talk about any of his other friends?”

  “You mean like Curt? Sure. Curt usually came with us.”

  “Any other friends come to mind?”

  He shook his head. “Not that I know of.”

  “And nothing about girls?”

  “I know he was hoping to meet someone.”

  “What did he say about it?”

  Eric shrugged. “That it was hard to meet nice girls, especially since his work was solitary. I mean, when he worked at Jackson’s Landscaping, he was with a crew of guys taking care of houses where usually the people weren’t home. At the Whitestones’, he was all alone except for Ashley. So he had this idea to go where he thought nice girls would be.”

  “That’s smart, isn’t it? Where did he try?”

  Eric smiled. “The library.”

  “That’s great!”

  “Not really. You’re not allowed to talk in a library.”

  I laughed. “So then what did he do?”

  “He went to church events. I went with him a couple of times.” He stared at his boots. “I wanted to meet a nice girl, too.”

  “How did it work out?” I asked, thinking that I was learning about a whole new set of relationships Frankie might have had. Who knew how many friends—or enemies—he might have made at church?

  His cheeks reddened. “Good. For me, I mean. Last February we went to a potluck singles dinner at Rocky Point Congregational Church.” He raised his eyes to mine, maybe checking whether I was getting ready to tease him, saw that I wasn’t, and added, “I met a girl. We’re still seeing each other.”

  “That’s wonderful, Eric,” I said, delighted and surprised.

  He smiled. “Her name’s Grace.”

  “What a beautiful name! What does she do?”

  “She’s a teacher’s aide, and she goes to night school. She wants to be an elementary school teacher.”

  “I look forward to meeting her,” I said. “How about Frankie? Did he meet anyone?”

  Eric shook his head. “No—but just yesterday he told me he’d volunteered to work at the church’s booth at the Harvest Festival, so he was still trying, you know?”

  I nodded. “What else did he talk about? Did he mention any other plans?”

  “He was thinking about getting a dog. He said he was finally feeling ready to settle in. He wanted to know about breeds and what kind I thought he should get. I told him about Je
t—my black Lab—how smart he is and all.”

  I shut my eyes, and swallowed several times, determined to keep from crying. How sad is that? I thought. Frankie was ready to put down roots, and instead, someone killed him.

  “Have you told the police all this?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Last night. Officer Brownley came to see me at home.”

  The PA speaker crackled, followed by Cara’s voice. “Chief Hunter is here, Josie.”

  I patted Eric’s arm, thanked him, and headed to the front.

  I took my time crossing the dimly lit ware house. As I walked over the daddy-longleg shadows that striped the concrete floor, I passed shelves packed with inventory, crates stacked like bricks, work-tables, and wall-mounted rolls of bubble wrap. I paused at the door that led to the main office, wanting to finish assimilating everything I’d just learned.

  The staff and congregants at Rocky Point Congregational Church knew Frankie in a way I didn’t. I wondered whether he’d offended any young women—or, as I thought about it, their boyfriends, fathers, or brothers. Up until this moment, I’d thought Eric lived a mostly solitary life, sharing a big, old white elephant of a house with his mother and his dog, enduring a life I couldn’t have borne. I’d long since concluded that his mother, a whining complainer with the personality of an emery board, was the luckiest woman alive to have gentle, caring Eric as her son. Not many young men would excuse her bad temper as a by-product of her hard life, but Eric did. Now I knew that Eric had a life that stretched beyond her reach. Good for him.

  I pushed through the door and greeted Chief Hunter.

  Before we left, I called everyone together, including Eric.

  “Have any of you been approached by reporters?” I asked.

  They all nodded.

  “It’s not going to stop anytime soon,” I said, explaining that I anticipated that the story would garner increasing worldwide attention. “Talk to the reporters. Don’t talk to them. It’s totally up to you. I just want you to know that you’re under no obligation to do so. If you don’t want to talk to them, all you need to do is either keep quiet or keep repeating ‘no comment,’ over and over again. If they’re on private property, you can order them to leave, explaining that if they don’t, you’ll call the police. They can dig and claw and scratch trying to find dirt or scandal or secrets, but they can’t trespass. They’re not allowed on Prescott’s property.”