Another Man's Treasure (a romantic thriller) (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 1)

by S. W. Hubbard

  “And what do you tell people in the flatlands?”

  “That they’ll never have to worry about not being able to get up their driveway in a snowstorm.”

  Right.

  Isabelle keeps yakking, completely unaware that she’s touched a nerve. “The décor is a little dated, darling. Very common with the old gentlemen living alone. This house would be a perfect starter home for a young family, but they need to be able to picture themselves in it.” Isabelle points one perfectly manicured finger like a magician casting a spell. “So get rid of that sagging brocade easy chair, and replace it with something contemporary in a nice neutral color.”

  The chair in question has the impression of my dad’s butt in it. He’s sat there every day for the past thirty-three years, when he first moved his young family into this starter home. I wonder if he’ll want to take it with him to the apartment in Palmer Towers—his end-er home--or whether he’ll be willing to let it go.

  I trail Isabelle upstairs, taking notes as she fires off her commentary. “Bathroom needs a facelift, but no need to remodel--get a new light fixture and lose that sea-shell shower curtain.” We pass my childhood bedroom, which has all the charm of a nun’s cell, then head into the master bedroom. “Nice size.” Isabelle yanks open a closet door. My father’s meager wardrobe hangs forlornly. “Impressively uncluttered,” Isabelle says. “Your father’s not a hoarder, is he?”

  “Just the opposite,” I say. “He tosses everything.” Including every construction paper father’s day card I ever made for him.

  “Our goal is to sell this right after the holidays,” Isabelle says. “So take a few days to freshen the place up, then let’s get it listed.” Isabelle gives me her trademark double air kiss and flies off to her next appointment, leaving a lingering whiff of Diorisimo in her wake.

  A second later the front door pops back open. “And darling, do something about these monstrous holly bushes. Zero curb appeal.”

  All alone in the house, I wander from room to room trying to imagine a time when my parents and I were happy here. I end up in the small third bedroom, the room that might have been a nursery if my mother had been willing to have a second child with Dad. Instead, it’s always been used as a home office. There’s a computer, a filing cabinet and a bookcase, all neatly arranged. When Dad had his stroke I had no trouble paying his bills because everything was filed meticulously. I took the folders I needed and never looked any further. Now, my hand slides across the dusty surface of the desk. Could there be some information about my mother in here? Maybe he’s always known where she is.

  Dusk is settling over Skytop Drive. Even though Isabelle has snapped open the window shade, there’s not enough natural light for me to see clearly. I turn on the desk lamp and begin my search.

  Each drawer in the file cabinet contains folders labeled in my father’s precise mathematician’s printing: insurance policies, appliance manuals, warranties, tax records. What did I expect-- folders labeled “Letters from Charlotte” or “True Whereabouts of Missing Wife”? Of course, if he’s got something about my mother hidden in here, wouldn’t it make sense to slip it in with the banal warranties and policies? So, I search through the contents of every folder. All contain just what they say they do and nothing more. The desk drawers are equally unrevealing, but still I can’t give up.

  I turn to the bookcase. A few mathematics textbooks. Some nonfiction books on the history of science. And a larger book with a faded orange cover. I pull it out: the Princeton yearbook, 1969. I’m surprised that Dad kept it. I’ve never known him to be sentimental about his alma mater. It might be fun to look through, but not now. I’ve got more important things to do. I bring the yearbook over to the desk and sit down.

  One thing remains: the computer. As a mathematician Dad has always had the latest, most powerful computer available. While it boots up, I search the room’s small closet. Five empty shelves march up one side. Above my head, on the top shelf, a tattered edge of paper peeps out. I reach up and pull it off the shelf. MY FAMILY BY AUDREY N. GRADE 2 is crayoned across the top. Even then I had neat handwriting. The picture below shows a fairly accurate representation of our house. Next to the house stand a large stick figure with white hair wearing a dress and a large stick figure with no hair wearing pants holding the hands of a small stick figure with long dark hair and a big red smile. NANA. ME. POP. read the captions. On the other side of the house stands a much smaller solitary stick figure with spiky black hair and a straight line mouth wearing pants. DAD. Jesus, a shrink would have a field day with this! I wonder what Miss Davidson, my second grade teacher thought? I slide the picture into an empty file folder and put it on top of the yearbook.

  Back in front of the computer, I scan the list of folders in My Documents. Most are labeled with mathematical formulae. I call up the Search function and type in Charlotte Perry. Nothing. Then I try Brian Bascomb. Impatiently I watch as the computer sifts through its own memory. I’m about to give up when a file pops up on the screen. It’s a spreadsheet labeled Spring 07 Advanced Number Theory. My father’s grade roster for that class. I click and it opens. The second entry on the roster is Bascomb, Brian: A.

  Brian Bascomb was my father’s student, and apparently a very smart one. I lean back in the desk chair to think. Did Dad intentionally try to mislead me about Brian’s identity or did I simply misunderstand my father’s grunts and nods? Why would a student he taught years ago come to visit him now in a nursing home? Would my father inspire that kind of devotion? I don’t recall my father ever talking about his students. Is this another facet of him I know nothing about? Is he some revered Mr. Chips-like figure at Rutgers? I hit PRINT so I have tangible evidence that Brian is Dad’s student.

  A noise knocks me out of my reverie. Was that downstairs or outside? I listen, every nerve alert. Mostly what I hear is my blood pounding through my veins. I glance at the window. Although it’s only six, night has completely fallen. I’ll have to turn out all the lights and walk through a dark house, out to a dark driveway to get into my car, which I’m sure I left unlocked. Shit! I wish Ethel were with me.

  Suddenly, this two story colonial that I grew up in, as familiar to me as my own body, feels like an amusement park haunted house. Grabbing the yearbook and the file folder with the picture and grade roster, I power down the computer, then go out in the hall to turn on the overhead light before I turn off the desk lamp. Looking both ways as if I expect a skeleton to jump out of the linen closet or a tiger to chase me from the other end of the hall, I scamper down the stairs. As my feet pound on the treads, I think I hear another noise. Is it the old house creaking in the wind, or has someone come in through the back door? Did I lock it after Isabelle left?

  Heart racing, I reach the foyer and pause to listen again. All quiet. Once in the foyer, I’m able to turn off the upstairs hall light from below, while turning on the downstairs light. Now, I’ll turn on the kitchen light, come back and turn off the foyer light, and exit the back door right next to my car. In the kitchen, I peer out the window at the pitch black driveway. Skytop Drive seems as foreboding as the moors in a Bronte novel. Unraked leaves spin in whirlwinds. The two untrimmed holly bushes loom. Naked tree branches sway and dip. The house next door broods, silent and dark, behind the tall hedge dividing the properties. If I had to scream for help, would anyone hear me? I decide to turn on the light over the back door. I’ll have to leave it on all night, but I can come back tomorrow in the daylight to turn it off. Wasting energy seems preferable to venturing out into the void.

  I set the book, file folder and my purse on the counter while I put on my coat and get my car keys ready in my hand. Then I switch on the outside light and bolt for the car. Once inside I switch on the dome light and check the back seat. Empty. Of course. How ridiculous am I?

  As I drive east on Skytop Drive toward home, I hear the squeal of tires as a car pulls out behind me. What driveway did it come from? In my rearview mirror I see the tail lights of a car disappear in th
e opposite direction.

  Chapter 32

  I’m going to have a hard time explaining to Jill how it is that I’m getting absolutely nothing accomplished while she and Ty are doing the preliminaries for the sale at the Siverson house. Instead of working, I’m obsessively checking Facebook, wondering how I can pry my way into Brian Bascomb’s full profile. Can I set up a new email account and send a friend request under a fake name? Tell him I went to Rutgers with him? Would he respond then?

  Geez, this is how stalkers and pedophiles must think. I’m scaring myself. I close out of Facebook and open up my accounting software.

  I have plenty of bookkeeping work to attend to, but without Jill here to handle the basic hustle and flow of the office, I find I’m not making much headway. Pick-ups, deliveries, phone calls, more pick-ups—how did I ever manage all this by myself? When the phone rings for the fourth time in five minutes, I snatch it up and bark, “Another Man’s Treasure,” with all the warmth of an IRS agent.

  “May I speak to Audrey Nealon, please.” The woman’s voice, low and soothing, is vaguely familiar.

  “This is she.”

  “Audrey, this is Anne Finneran. I’m sorry to bother you at work. You must be terribly busy.”

  Shit! Anne Finneran? Why is she calling me? “Oh, hi Anne. No, I’m not busy. I mean, I am a little busy because my assistant isn’t here. I didn’t mean to sound so crabby when I answered the phone, I just—” Oh, crap—I’m babbling like a moron. I take a deep breath and start again. “I’m sorry. How are you? Can I help you with something?”

  “I’m calling to apologize to you. I feel terrible that Spencer has been commandeering all of Cal’s time so that he doesn’t have a spare minute to take you out on a proper date. I said to Spencer last night, ‘Cal’s finally met a wonderful woman and you’re going to ruin this romance for him. We’ve got to do something to make it up to Audrey.’ ”

  I’m flabbergasted. Anne and Spencer spend their time talking about me? Has Cal been telling them that I complain about his schedule? That’s a little irritating—I’ve never uttered a peep about his work hours. “Not a problem, Anne,” I say with more ice than I’m normally capable of. “Cal is free to work as hard as he wants to on this campaign.”

  “Oh, I know there’s no slowing him down.” If Anne noticed my tone, she doesn’t let on. She continues full of cheer. “I thought if we had dinner here at the house we could let those two talk shop for an hour, then grab the reins and make them behave like civilized creatures for the rest of the evening. What do you think? Are you willing to collaborate with me?”

  Dinner? At their house? Collaborate? Where is this concern for my love life coming from? “Uh…What day?…I haven’t talked to Cal recently. I don’t know his plans.”

  “That’s my point, dear. We have to ambush them so they can’t make excuses. Let’s say Friday, seven-ish here at the house. You come a little early. I’ll take care of rounding up the boys.”

  Friday at seven? I can’t imagine anything more inconvenient with the Siverson sale coming up on Saturday. “Gee, Anne, I really think I’m going to have to take a rain check. I’ll be setting up a sale all day and who knows when we’ll—”

  “Nonsense. That’s what staff is for, Audrey.” Anne’s voice has lost its flutey tone and she’s scolding me like a nun. I can practically feel the crack of her ruler on my knuckles. “ As I always say to Spencer, what’s the point of having people work for you if you can’t trust them to execute anything without your constant supervision?”

  Gee, tell me what you really think. “True, but after a long day…and I have to be up early on Satur—.”

  “Oh, Audrey! Forgive me, dear.” In a quick one-eighty, Anne now sounds plaintive and yearning. “It’s just that over the years I’ve learned that if I want to have any time at all with my family and friends I simply have to stand my ground and demand that they show up for dinner. Life is so short, and there really never is a convenient time for anything, don’t you agree? I won’t keep you out late. Please come.”

  When’s the last time anyone’s begged me to do anything? I’m powerless to resist. “Okay, Friday at seven. I’ll see you then.”

  I hang up the phone. What just happened to me? Talk about ambushed!

  Outside I hear the familiar cough and sputter of the AMT van, followed by Jill’s, “Get it yourself. I’m not your bitch.”

  The temperature in the office seems to drop fifty degrees as Ty and Jill blow in, engulfed in their own personal snowstorm. Frosty doesn’t begin to describe the atmosphere between them. Jill flings herself into her desk chair and begins hammering her computer keys like a blacksmith forging a horseshoe. If she keeps this up I’ll be upgrading our office systems a little sooner than anticipated. Meanwhile, Ty does his best to impersonate a raccoon in a Dumpster, crashing through stacked boxes, tossing paper, kicking chairs.

  “What’s wrong with you two?” I ask. More pounding. More crashing. No words.

  Ty lives by the “no snitching” credo of the streets. Dick Cheney himself couldn’t get him to rat out Jill to me. Jill, on the other hand, will crumple into a weeping mound the minute I get her alone.

  “Jill, I need to go over to my Dad’s house to turn off that light. Why don’t you come with me and tell me what you think I need to buy to do a good job with the staging.”

  Jill brightens, clearly pleased to be the chosen one.

  “I’ll come and help you move stuff,” Ty immediately volunteers.

  “Not yet, Ty. Once I figure out what I’m getting rid of, I’ll definitely need all the help you can give.”

  Ty gives his funny reverse nod, an upward jerk of the head that means I’m just as important as you. “You got it, Audge.” Then he fixes Jill with a piercing glare.

  Jill stalks out to the van without looking at him. I smile sweetly. “Hold down the fort, Ty. We’ll be back in an hour.”

  We ride in silence to the stop sign at the end of the block. Then the dam breaks.

  “I did all the work at the Siversons’. We got there and Ty helped me move the sofa and take down the drapes and then he said he had to go out for a minute and did I want anything so I said yeah a Diet Snapple and he said okay be right back and then I NEVER SAW HIM AGAIN until three o’clock and by that time I had all the stuff sorted and priced and there was nothing left to do and when I said where the hell have you been he told me shut up you fat skank and that is just not right when all I wanted was—“

  “Jill—”

  “to know why he went off and left me with all the—”

  “Jill—”

  “work and then to come back and not even say sorry and call me a bad—”

  “Jill! Take a breath!”

  “Sorry, Audrey.” Her lower lip juts out in a trembling pout and the tears begin to flow. “It’s just not fair, is all. And he knows I’m sensitive about my weight. And I am not a skank.”

  “Of course you’re not. I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”

  Shit! This is exactly the kind of sketchy behavior Coughlin warned me to look out for. I’ve got to get to the bottom of this. But first I have to calm Jill down. “Probably he was feeling guilty and lashed out to cover up for that,” I tell her. “I’ll talk to him about it.”

  “No!” Jill twists in the passenger seat to face me. “You can’t do that. Then he’ll know I told you.”

  “Ummm—I’m pretty sure he’s already figured that out.”

  “No, you saw how he looked at me when we were leaving. He’ll kill me for telling you.”

  “Jill, we’re not in middle school. I’m trying to run a business here. Ty needs to work when I send him on a job. And it’s not appropriate for him to insult his colleagues.” Wow, that sounds like I got it out of some kind of human resources textbook. I feel very authoritative.

  Jill launches herself across the front seat and wraps her arms around me. “No-o-o-o!”

  Her jangly earrings catch in the loose weave of my sweater, linking us l
ike Siamese twins. Luckily, we’re stuck in traffic.

  “You can’t say anything to him! Please, please promise me you won’t. He’s still mad at me about the whole thing with the police when you were mugged. He blames me that they arrested him.”

  I disentangle myself as horns begin blowing behind me. “If Ty blames you, then it’s time for him to let it go. You did nothing wrong. Now, I will handle this as I see fit.”

  Jill shrinks down in her seat, as unaccustomed to sternness from me as Ethel is. I reach over and crank up the radio to drown out the oppressive silence of her sulking. A couple of Green Day tunes later, we’re at the house and Jill has perked up. She jumps out of the car and starts looking around the exterior of the house. “Cool! This is where you grew up? This is such a cute house. And look at that great view, and all those trees. Did you have a tree fort out here?”

  I gaze up at the wide bare braches of the oaks and maples in the back yard. How I used to daydream about climbing up into their leafy branches and watching the world from a secret aerie. To see everyone without being seen. “I always wanted one. I had my grandpa convinced to build it, but my grandmother thought I’d fall and kill myself. She was a little overprotective after my mother…died.”

  Jill rams her hands in the pockets of her shapeless Chairman Mao jacket. “Oh.”

  Her innocent question brings back the strain between us. I’ve never told Jill the story of my childhood, other than to say my mom died when I was little and my grandparents helped raise me. Jill and her mom are as close as sisters, calling and texting each other all day long. The story of my mother’s demise would overload Jill’s compassion circuits. With her penchant for melodrama, I know I’d never hear the end of her consolation and mourning for my tragic loss. I don’t need her sympathy. I don’t want her pity.

  I want to return us to our comfort zone. “C’mon, let me show you the inside and you can tell me what we can do to make it look like a house a young family would want to buy.”