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

by S. W. Hubbard

  He brushes my hand with his. Forgiven.

  But I can’t let go of the arrogance of Spencer’s crime. “Spencer took such a risk. How could he have believed he wouldn't get caught?"

  "I guess these guys reach a certain level of power and they think they’re untouchable. How else can you explain Elliott Spitzer meeting hookers in midtown hotels? Jim McGreevey chasing guys when he was married to a woman? John Edwards denying paternity of his girlfriend's baby when a simple DNA test would expose him?”

  “Maybe I’m not so shocked he was willing to risk killing me. But I still can’t believe he would turn on—” Ethel bounds up. My mind flashes to Cal carrying her home to me. A lump rises in my throat. I can’t go on.

  The tendons in Coughlin’s neck tighten. “Why are you wasting your tears on him, Audrey? He used you. He set you up to be killed.”

  “No! You weren’t there. He didn’t realize what Spencer was planning. Cal saved my life. He died for me. He threw his life away on Spencer Finneran. How can I not cry over that?”

  “He made his choices. He chose wrong. He doesn’t deserve your tears.”

  “Shut up!” I punch his arm. It’s like punching one of the oaks lining the trail.

  He grabs my clenched fist. “I won’t apologize, Audrey. It would be a lie. Tremaine hurt you. That’s the bottom line for me.”

  His protectiveness is endearing. Still, I resent the way he tries to dictate my emotions. “Give up, Sean. You’ll never get me to deny the good in Cal.”

  “Better off without—” he mutters, looking away into the woods.

  “Stop! You’re like my father. You think you know everything.”

  “And you’re like my mother—stubborn and starry-eyed.”

  We stand there glaring at each other. Then at the same moment, crack up.

  “Why do we always argue like this?” I ask.

  He reaches out and tugs my hair gently. “Why do boys pull girls’ pigtails?”

  Coughlin’s body hulks there beside me, vulnerable as a fawn. My smile fades. “I’m not ready for this, Sean, not ready to move on.”

  The sentence lands like a shotput between us. Coughlin steps away. “Understood. You don’t have to tell me twice.” His long stride pushes him ahead of me on the path.

  “Sean, wait!”

  He stops but doesn’t turn. I touch his arm. The hairs on his wrist are downy and golden. “In a while…maybe….”

  He hunches his shoulders against the breeze and keeps his eyes on the horizon. “I can live with maybe.”

  Chapter 55

  The sound of pleading reaches me before I open the door. “What do you mean? Not even to wash pots?” Jill’s voice escalates toward desperation. “C’mon, you have to let us come! Okay. Yeah, I understand. So maybe next year…” The receiver slips from her fingers as her head plops down on the desk. Her shoulders shake. I realize she’s crying so hard she can’t even catch her breath to wail.

  “Jill, honey, what’s the matter?”

  “The Soup Kitchen wo-wo-n’t let my mom and me work,” she pauses to smear tears across her face with the back of her hand, “there on Thanksgiving.”

  “So?”

  “Now we have to go to Uncle Ph-i-i-il’s.”

  “Wait, you wanted to volunteer at the soup kitchen to get out of going to your Uncle Phil’s house?”

  “In Staten Island. It’s awful. They make fun of mom and me. Try to trick us into eating meat. Snicker at my mom’s Brussels sprouts. Ask stupid football questions they know we can’t answer. It’s ghastly. I can’t go there again.”

  “So why don’t you just stay home and have Thanksgiving at your house?” I ask.

  “All alone? Just the two-o-o of us?” Jill keens like a coyote. “That’s not what Thanksgiving is about.”

  Tell me about it. But if Jill and her mother are also lost souls on T-giving, maybe we can join forces. Trouble is, I can’t cook and Jill and her mom live in a funky bungalow that’s long on cats and short on conventional furniture. I wouldn’t mind going there, but I don’t really see Dad curling up on a Peruvian hammock as he tucks into his Tofurky, edamame and Brussels sprouts. And whither I go, Dad goest.

  Ty comes in. He looks from Jill’s tear-stained face to my grim one and back again. “I only been gone a half hour. Who’s dead now?”

  “No one. Jill’s feeling down in the dumps about Thanksgiving.”

  “Really? This the first year in a long time I’m lookin’ forward to it.”

  “How come this year is different?” Jill asks.

  “’Cause last year I was in jail eatin’ turkey slop off a foam tray with a spork. An’ most years before that, my grandma didn’t have enough money to buy all the food for a nice meal.”

  Ty drops into his favorite chair. “These white church ladies always comin’ to our house to give us stuff. Dusty old cans from their kitchens that they didn’t want no more. Pickled beets. Saurkraut. Chick peas. One year we got something called hearts of palm. My grandma opened it up just to see what was inside. Looked like soggy white sticks in water. Nasty.”

  One big basketball shoe swings as he warms to his story. “Worst thing about it, my grandma always hadda say, ‘Oh, thank you very much.’ Act all grateful an’ shit. This year I told her, those ladies come knockin’, you tell’em we don’ need their damn hand-outs. I took my grandma to Shoprite yesterday. Told her to buy everything she needs. I paid for it all. She’s startin’ on the pies today—pumpkin and apple.”

  At the mention of pies, Jill’s head drops on to her desk and she starts sobbing again.

  Ty springs up. “What? What’d I say?”

  “It’s not you, Ty,” I explain. “Jill’s feeling like she and her mom don’t have anyone they actually like to spend Thanksgiving with.”

  “Hell, ain’t no use to cry over that. Come have Thanksgiving with us.”

  The switch controlling Jill’s tears clicks off. “Really? We could come to Grandma Betty’s house?”

  “Sure. You know she likes you.”

  Jill immediately starts dialing. “Wait’ll I tell my mom! No Uncle Phil for us.”

  Great. I’ve succeeded in finding a date for my date.

  “How about you, Audge? What you doin’ on Thursday?” Ty asks.

  “Me? Oh, I think I’ll just take my dad to a restaurant for dinner.”

  Ty looks like a freshman calculating a differential equation. “Restaurant? On Thanksgiving? Why don’t you come to my Grandma’s house too? You know she l-o-o-ves you.”

  “Oh, no…I couldn’t. It would be too many people for your grandma to feed…with my dad and all…an imposition.”

  “You an your old man don’t eat that much, Audge. This is one big-ass turkey.” Ty picks up the sports section of the Times and points to me with it. “You comin’.”

  The turkey in question does, in fact, have a really big ass. So big that Grandma Betty can’t get it into her apartment oven. Which is why, at six AM Thanksgiving morning, the party is moved to my place. Now my condo is stuffed fuller than the fowl who’s given his life for our eating pleasure. Folding tables normally used for estate sales stretch all the way across my living room. Borrowing a variety of mismatched china and silverware from the Sister Alice cache, Jill has set the table for eighteen. As the smell of roasting turkey fills the air, Jill and Ty’s Aunt Vonda discuss the pros and cons of African braiding, while Jill’s mom and Marcus debate sustainable agriculture. Vonda’s husband, Wesley, works the room dispensing beverages. Ty and his cousins watch the football game. The youngest and oldest persons in the room are together: Dad is teaching six year old Kyle to play chess. Their heads, one grey, one dark, nearly touch over the board.

  “Audrey,” Grandma Betty yells, “you stirrin’ that gravy like I said?”

  I dash back into the kitchen. As a private in Betty’s culinary army, I’ve learned it’s not wise to leave my post. “How much longer ‘til showtime?” I ask.

  “Five minutes. You start bringing
out those vegetables. Vonda, get the potatoes workin’.”

  In a final surge of energy from the cook, the food emerges from the kitchen. Bowls and platters cover the table from end to end and everyone gathers around. There’s a moment of quiet as we admire the feast.

  “Let’s eat!” Kyle shouts.

  I’m about to agree, when Betty takes Kyle’s hand, then Ty’s. “Not so fast, young man. First, we got to give thanks to the Lord for this fine day and all He has provided.”

  Uh-oh, I forgot about the whole saying grace aspect of Thanksgiving. I watch Dad closely as hands begin to link around the table. Will he go along?

  Kyle snatches Dad’s left hand. I exhale in relief as he doesn’t pull away, and I pick up his right. When the circle is fully linked, Betty begins.

  “Dear Lord, we just want to thank you for the glory and power of your amazing works in bringing us such a magnificent dinner this year…..

  “Uh-huh.” Vonda and Wesley murmur an affirmation.

  I should have known this wouldn’t be the quick and tidy Episcopal grace of my grandmother’s table. I cast a furtive glance from under my bangs. How’s Dad holding up? Everyone else is looking down, but Dad is studying Betty intently.

  “…and Lord, we want to offer up praise for gathering in so many of your lambs that we thought might be lost, but they ain’t lost no more…”

  “Praise Jesus!” Vonda shouts.

  Ty and Marcus manage to look both embarrassed and grateful. Dad’s gaze hasn’t left Betty’s face.

  I’m hoping Betty might be winding down, but she seems to be gathering more steam.

  “…and Lord we want to shout our praise for sending us the gift of a woman who opened up her home to us today and who gave our Ty a second chance and that would be your sweet child, Audrey…”

  “Shout it out!’ Vonda calls.

  “Uh-huh,” the rest of the guests murmur. Dad is silent. I feel his fingers twitch in my hand.

  Poor little Kyle is ready to face-plant into the mashed potatoes as Betty takes yet another breath.

  “Lord, ain’t none of us know what tomorrow will bring. Might be joy, might be pain. We try to walk on a righteous path, Lord, but let’s face it, we all sinners and we probably gonna stray. But we know you gonna forgive us. That’s what keeps us goin’. Brothers and sisters, believe the good news—we are forgiven!”

  Silence shimmers and twists before us. I can’t look up.

  “Amen.” A piping little whisper. Kyle.

  “Amen,” a ragged chorus as we break our chain. Kyle is watching Dad, noticing his lips aren’t moving. He elbows my father sharply.

  Dad turns to face me.

  “Amen.”

  What’s next for Audrey? Find out in Treasure of Darkness.

  Read Chapter 1 here.

  Chapter 1

  Mr. Wainwright seems deader now than he did eight hours ago.

  This morning, 79 Sycamore Avenue was brimming with every comfort of home: two Oriental carpets, a deep red leather Chesterfield sofa, a fifteen-piece set of Calphalon pots and pans, an antique armoire, twenty-seven Madame Alexander dolls, a baseball signed by Cal Ripken, and service for twelve of Royal Doulton “Harlow”, one salad plate missing.

  Now, as the winter sunlight fades, only hints of the lives lived here remain. Four worn spots on the hardwood floor mark where a favorite armchair stood next to a southern window—a nice place to read. A ghostly outline of the china cabinet on the flowered wallpaper is all that’s left of countless Christmas dinners and Sunday brunches and baby showers hosted in the dining room. Little pencil marks mar the trim around the pantry door—measurement of a grandchild’s growth.

  There’s no point getting morose about what I’ve done. This is why the Wainwright children hired me: to get rid of the things they grew up with but didn’t love enough to keep. Another Man’s Treasure Estate Sales—we do the dirty work families don’t have the energy or the courage to do themselves.

  I stand contemplating the empty living room. The only stick of furniture left in the house is a massive armoire. Ty staggers down the steps carrying an overloaded box.

  “This is everything from upstairs, Audrey. We only got two boxes for the dump.”

  Not surprising. At a sale with so much good stuff, even the bad stuff sells. Somehow the unfashionably wide ties and scratched LP records here are more desirable than those at a trailer park tag sale.

  I rush to open the front door for my assistant and he drops the box on the porch next to another with DUMP scrawled on the side. “That’s it. Sweep up. Load the van. I got Ramon coming to help me with that armoire. We’re ready to rock. Where’s Jill?”

  “Working on the pantry.”

  “Damn. I forgot the pantry. C’mon—let’s get that shit hauled out.”

  We head back to the kitchen and find Jill on a step-ladder clearing the pantry from the top down.

  “Want some oatmeal, Ty?” She sticks an open Quaker container under his nose.

  “Aiyee!” Ty leaps back. “Worms! I hate them mothers.”

  Old people’s houses are full of entomological wonders: pantry moths, hornets’ nests, occupied spider webs, centipedes. Jill peers into the container. “Cool—the whole package is just pulsating with larva. Imagine living in your favorite food. I’d live in a Red Mango fro-yo. How about you, Audrey?”

  Before I can answer, Ty tosses a garbage bag at her. He doesn’t share Jill’s passion for the insect world. “Throw that shit away or I ain’t helping with the pantry. What about roaches? You know how I feel about them.”

  “Haven’t seen any,” Jill says. “The kitchen’s pretty clean. It’s just this top shelf that’s full of old dusty stuff.” She squints at the top of a can. “This pumpkin expired in 2005.”

  “Mrs. Wainwright must’ve died before she got a chance to bake the Thanksgiving pies,” I say. “Their daughter told me the mother died a few years ago, and the father’s been living here alone ever since.”

  “I guess he never purged any of his wife’s baking supplies.” Jill finishes tossing packages of hardened baking soda and desiccated raisins in the garbage bag and hops off the ladder to start checking cans from a lower shelf. “The expiration dates on these are all next year. All this soup and tuna and canned peaches must’ve been what the old guy was living on. These two shelves of cans can all be donated to the soup kitchen.”

  Ty whips out another garbage bag. “Aw, c’mon. Can’t we just toss all this crap? I don’t feel like goin’ clear to the other side a town just to drop off some old cans.”

  “No! This is good food.” Jill starts stacking cans neatly in boxes. “I just got an email from the soup kitchen yesterday saying support always drops off after the holidays, but they need food all year round. They’re feeding two hundred people a day.”

  Jill has been volunteering there lately and is always on the lookout for donations.

  Ty turns pleading eyes on me. “Can’t we toss it, Audge? It’d save so much time.”

  “No-o-o—” Jill starts howling.

  “I didn’t ask you.” Ty snaps open a trash bag. “After the dump, me and Ramon still have to go deliver that armoire. I’ll never get outta here. I got plans.”

  “You volunteered to do the delivery. And you’re getting paid extra for it. Do you know that the average person who eats at the soup kitchen experiences food insecurity—”

  Ty turns on her. “Don’t you lecture me on what it means to be poor. You think I never seen an empty refrigerator? You think I never went to bed hungry?”

  We’re all silent. Ty leans over and picks up the two stacked boxes. “I’ll take the cans.”

  Although Ty has worked for me for over a year, these awkward moments still crop up. Jill and I sometimes gloss over the details of Ty’s childhood: the mom who died young, the dad in prison, the grandmother struggling to keep the family clothed and fed. Ty’s cheerful strength in the present allows us to forget about his past. But Ty never forgets.

  Ah
ead of me, I hear Ty’s raised voice. “Hey! Whatchu doin’ out here? Don’t be makin’ a mess for me to clean up.”

  I arrive on the front porch to find Ty looming over a much smaller man. Junk from one of the boxes destined for the dump is strewn all over the porch steps.

  Stepping around Ty, I see the culprit: a skinny man with a stringy gray ponytail and a frayed backpack that crushes his bony shoulders. Harold.

  Harold is a regular, a customer who’s been at every single one of my sales since I started the business ten years ago. Well, every single sale within cycling distance of Palmyrton. Harold is usually first or second in line when we open a sale, arriving and departing on a rickety bicycle. He was here this morning, and after several hours of browsing, purchased a Big Ben alarm clock, an illustrated guide to the castles of the Loire Valley, and a lemon zester. He paid with seven worn and creased one-dollar bills pulled from a bulging wallet held together with duct tape and rubber bands. Jill has noticed this about Harold: he always pays with exact change. It’s as if the man has never possessed crisp twenties from the bank that need to be broken, only an endless supply of frayed and creased ones, fives, and tens.

  “What do you think you’re doing, Harold? Now I gotta repack this box.” Ty kicks the box labeled DUMP out of Harold’s reach. “I don’t have time for this foolishness. I got plans tonight, man.”

  Although Ty is twice his size and a third his age, Harold is undeterred. He scuttles after the box, diving into its depths.

  “What are you after? There’s nothing in there but broken up junk.” Ty turns pleading eyes on me. “Make him stop, Audge.”

  “Harold, the sale is over. We’re cleaning up here.” I step toward him and try to tug the box away. For someone so frail looking, his grip is surprisingly tenacious.

  “I need this.” Harold’s reply is muffled as his entire upper body is now inside the box. He finally emerges holding a long metal object about three feet long and six inches in diameter. We’d found it on Mr. Wainwright’s basement tool bench. Although I’m pretty good at tool ID, I had no idea what this might be. Or if it was anything at all. But I’ve sold unidentified objects before, so I figured there was no harm in slapping a five-dollar price tag on it and seeing what would happen. No one bit, so now it’s going to the dump.