by Susan Calder
Paula hung up the phone in tandem with Sam.
He spun his chair toward her. “Got that patched up for now.”
“What would you think of building a studio like this above our garage for my mother?”
“Your mother move in with us?” He gulped.
“Not right now, but when she reaches the stage of semiautonomous.”
Sam rocked the chair. “In the meanwhile, I could use it as a studio.”
“The plan was to put your den in the basement.”
“I’ve loved working up here in the light.” His looked around his room. “We’d improve on this design—windows on three sides, screens for summer. It would be good for me, mentally, to get away from our main house to work.”
“Knowing your hours, you’d spend more time in the studio than with me.”
“I wouldn’t sleep there, although I agree that it would be make sense to create a full living quarters for your mother eventually or for resale to a buyer who wants a granny flat or, like Henry, a rental to help pay the mortgage.”
“You’ve thought about this already.”
Sam flushed. “I was afraid you’d think I wanted to keep my independence.”
“Don’t you?”
“We’ve both been on our own a long time. We’re used to it.”
She tucked in her shirt and pictured Sam in his ideal studio, working into the evening and falling asleep on his futon rather than crossing the lawn to their bed, especially on cold, snowy or rainy nights. “What did Henry decide about his tenant’s violin?”
“I passed along your opinion.” Sam looked down at his hands rapping the desk. “I can’t tell him how to live.”
So Henry was claiming the violin as his own property, and the tenant would collect the insurance. In the large scheme, did that matter?
Sam bent to retrieve her bandana. “Let’s toss this Stampede artifact in the trash.”
Now she was picturing a crotchety Sam stooped, with his father’s pencil mustache above his lips, which were looking too much like David’s right now.
“Sam, I’ve got to grab lunch and see a claimant in half an hour.”
His computer chimed a new e-mail message.
“How about we pick up where we left off Saturday night in Edmonton?” he said.
She hoped.
* * *
Nils’ friend, a retired construction worker, chiselled the window out of the door. He and Paula stared at the lettering on the opaque glass: Nils van der Vliet Insurance Adjusters Inc.
“The end of an era,” the friend observed, even though he had never been to the office before.
When she left later today, the hole in the door would be boarded up to protect their office equipment from theft until the movers arrived on Monday. Already the desks in the reception area were gone. Isabelle hadn’t found a buyer for the chairs. She was currently occupied shredding the old file folders. Paula had a few hours to go through the ones that remained on the storage room table and store the pertinent details digitally.
“Garner called to say he’d be by this afternoon for your furniture,” Isabelle reported. “Alice is in Nils’ office, helping him sort through his desk drawers.”
Paula joined Nils’ and Alice’s argument about whether or not he should keep his fountain pens, for which it would be impossible to buy ink cartridges. Paula agreed the pen given to him by his father when he started his first job had sentimental value. Alice added the rest to the ‘maybe’ pile Nils would look through later.
The storage room felt vast and hollow without its walls of shelves, which a buyer had carted off. Paula picked up the top folder from the pile on the table. An hour later, the stack was cut by one third. Voices drew her to the reception area. Garner, with a man and woman around age forty. He introduced his son and daughter-in-law, who had come to carry the furniture to his pickup.
“They insist I’m too old,” he said.
“Those stairs look tricky, Dad,” his son said. He had inherited his parents’ stockiness and ruddy complexion. His wife had a similar build.
“She’s strong enough to hoist anything,” Garner said. “She’s a champion swimmer.”
His daughter-in-law laughed. “Don’t exaggerate, Dad. I swim laps a few times a week.”
Paula led the three of them into her office. Together they turned her desk on its side to unscrew the legs.
“I’ll throw in my side table for free,” she said. “No one’s claimed it.”
Garner surveyed the items remaining in the room. “All this for twenty-five bucks.”
“Dad loves a bargain.” His son smiled at Paula.
“Isabelle’s making me pay for it by having me scout out a barbecue,” Garner said. “None she saw at Caspar’s worked.”
“You’ll love doing that for her.” The daughter-in-law yanked off a desk leg.
“How’s their clearing-out coming along?” Garner asked.
“Brendan’s doing well,” Paula said. “His yard sale starts today.”
“What’s he selling?”
“Fishing gear, bikes, hockey equipment. Paintings, too, although none good enough to replace the juggler in your living room.”
Garner wrestled with the fourth leg. “I might go over for a look.”
“Habib needs a bike.” Isabelle joined them around the disassembled desk.
“You know, Florence has a lot of dishware,” Paula said. “Glasses, teacups, plates. You might buy some for our new office lunchroom. They’d be odd pieces but more interesting than a cheap set.”
Garner pulled the last desk leg so hard he recoiled into the wall.
His daughter-in-law dashed over to him. “Dad, are you all right?”
He stretched his back, his face scarlet. “I’ll survive. There’s mileage in me left.”
They carried the desktop and legs out the door to the reception area, where they could hear Alice and Nils muttering in his office.
Garner dropped to a chair. “Before I forget, I found a minister for Caspar’s service. Would Monday at eleven be fine with you? She’s not a real minister, some kind of lay preacher, but I don’t think Caspar would mind.”
Paula was almost sure eleven o’clock would conflict with one of her hail claimant meetings, but she could reschedule.
Nils growled from his office. “We aren’t throwing this out.”
Should she rescue Alice or enjoy this break before tackling the last of the old files? Paula settled in a chair and asked Isabelle to shred the folders she’d tossed to the storage room floor.
“Shredders are cool,” Isabelle said. “I want to buy one for home.”
“You’d save money by bringing your shredding to the office,” Paula said.
“I’ll keep my eye out for one at the sales,” Garner said. “It’s amazing how often serendipity happens. You want a thing, and there it is next weekend. There were probably scads of them at the sales all along, but you weren’t noticing.”
“Nils, be reasonable,” Alice said.
“I’ve sanded your bench,” Garner told Paula. “I hope to stain it on Sunday. With luck, I’ll be able to bring it to your house from the service.”
“Delivery included?” she said. “I’ll pay you extra for that.”
“No charge. I’ll call Cynthia and Florence about the service. They can tell the boys. I hope they’ll come.”
Paula shifted on the chair, which was worn but Nils said was too comfortable for the wrecking ball. He was taking it home.
“I don’t suppose you’ve heard from Johnny Becker in the last day or so?” she asked Garner.
“He’s not in the habit of contacting me.”
“No one’s seen him since yesterday.”
Isabelle came out of the storage room. “They haven’t?”
Garner adjusted his glasses. “Is that surprising? My impression is he’s the sort who does what he likes without bothering to tell anyone.” He took out his wallet. “Before I forget, young lady, here’s your twenty-fiv
e dollars. Don’t shred it by mistake.”
Isabelle deposited the money in the piggy bank full of coins and bills.
An hour later Paula was exhausted but satisfied. All of the old claims folders were gone to the shredder. They would start out their new premises fresh.
She drifted to her empty office, which had been her anchor for twenty years, more stable than her home, and felt a lump clot in her throat. Silly, sentimental. She swallowed hard and went out to the reception area, where Alice, Isabelle and Nils stood in the half not cluttered with boxes and other items for the movers.
“This is it,” Nils said.
“You’ll be in tomorrow,” Paula said.
Nils had hired a van to take his treasures home. Monday he’d be here to meet the moving truck.
“This is it, in this office, for the four of us,” he said. “We’ve had splendid times here and many challenges. The building has served us well, but her time is past.”
Would he suggest they hold hands for a moment of silence?
“Now we journey forward to, we hope, greater challenges and successes,” Nils said.
Alice looked around the circle, her eyes damp. “Nils, Paula and, more recently, Isabelle. You’ve all been the very best people to work with. I know I’m not leaving you until Christmas, but this feels more like the end than retirement.” She sniffed and hugged Isabelle and Paula.
“Damn foolishness.” Nils retreated to his office.
“He’s afraid we’ll grab him and he’ll break down.” Paula laughed through her tears. “Since we’ve done such good work, I’ve got time to see the Beckers this afternoon.”
Isabelle said she would follow her to the house to comb the early garage sale pickings for dishes and a bike. Paula phoned her mother first to make sure Gary had got her home. Her mother said that Gary had detoured to the market for vegetables and fruit. She had bought him a saskatoon berry pie as thanks for the breakfast and also got ones for Walter, David, Erin and tonight’s dessert, as well as couscous for dinner.
Her mother eating couscous? A pie for David? Paula said she’d be home at seven. “Start the couscous without me, if you get hungry.”
On the way downstairs with Isabelle, Paula noticed the jeweller’s door ajar. This would be her last chance to say goodbye to Robin. The sight of the little man bent over his worktable reminded her of the jewellery Johnny and Florence had taken for evaluation. Paula had given them Robin’s card.
He looked up from loading lenses into a case. “I was planning to come up to see you before you left.”
“I want to thank you, again, for all your help with my claims. I won’t find a better jeweller. You’re a gem.”
He twinkled at her weak joke. Robin’s hands shook more than ever as he closed the case. His Parkinson’s disease had progressed rapidly in the past year.
“By any chance,” she said. “Did a man and older woman come here yesterday with an assortment of jewellery: necklaces, brooches, bracelets, cuff links?”
Robin’s face lit up. “A young man with a woman I assumed was his mother or aunt.”
Paula supposed Johnny would be young to someone in his seventies.
“They were in this morning,” Robin said. “I’ve forgotten their name.”
“Becker? Today? What time?”
“Not long after I opened shop. A little after ten.”
So Johnny was already back when Cynthia asked Paula about him. Had Florence neglected to inform Cynthia? Or had Cynthia not spoken to her mother as recently as she had implied? Either way, Paula would blast them for making her send Mike off on a wild accident report chase.
“Did you examine the jewellery?” she asked.
“They seemed eager for an answer right away. The cuff links were fourteen karat gold. Fine pieces. If I were in the market, I’d have offered them four hundred for the pair. The resale would be limited due to the insignia. Becker. You’re right; ‘B’ was the letter on them. The man remarked that his brother wanted them.”
His brother? Johnny was forty-three; Brendan much younger. “Was the young man wearing a cowboy hat?”
“Not that I remember.”
“Was he close to six feet tall, with dark curly hair?”
“That’s him.”
“Brendan?” He must have come here this morning with Florence because Florence and Johnny hadn’t, as planned, taken the jewellery yesterday for evaluation. After bringing Leah home from Jarrett’s, had Johnny gone off to somewhere that caused Florence’s concern?
“What about the value of their other jewellery?” Paula asked.
“I shouldn’t be telling you this,” Robin said. “Don’t know why I slipped before. Are these people your insurance claimants?”
“Yes.” Technically true, although the jewellery wasn’t part of their claim.
“What the fudge,” Robin said. “I’m ten minutes away from retirement. We’ll close our eyes to professional ethics this once. The other jewellery was mostly costume, with a few genuine stone chips or poorly cut gems here and there.”
“I saw one that looked like a large diamond.”
“Zircon.”
“A necklace with diamond-looking chips that spelled Love.”
He chuckled. “I offered them fifteen dollars. My granddaughter would like it as a gift. The mother refused to sell. She wants a second opinion. Fair enough. She was clearly suspicious of me.”
Definitely Florence. “There was also a brooch shaped like a horse,” Paula said.
“Ah, that.” He raised a shaky index finger. “Excellent, but sadly, fake diamonds and sapphire. I say sadly because the design was intriguing and well crafted. I asked them to leave it with me for a few days so I could do research on it.”
“Is it worth anything?” Isabelle piped in. She’d been so uncharacteristically quiet Paula had forgotten her presence.
“At best I’d give it a hundred dollars,” Robin said. “My research is more for my professional interest.”
“Did they leave the brooch with you?” Paula asked.
“I was more than willing to drive it back to their house. The young man agreed, but the woman was against it. I’d told them it was my last day on the job, which made her think I’d abscond with her precious bronco pin. The two of them argued. She got her way, but he slipped me his card in case I came up with anything. And I might.” Robin’s trembling fingers tapped his forehead. “After fifty years in the business, I’ve got a memory for jewellery that stands out.”
“What makes you think the brooch is special?” Paula asked.
He fumbled with the lid of the case. Paula was about to help when Robin opened it and scooped out a business card. He squinted at the lettering. “There we go, Paula, my dear, you got the right man: Brendan Becker. As for your question, research first. I’m still a professional.”
Chapter Twenty-six
Paula edged sideways to avoid being clobbered by the lamp that a man was lugging to the sidewalk. Brendan shrugged an apology at the near miss. Sweat dotted his forehead and dampened his curls.
“Hot day for a yard sale,” Paula said.
“I’ll take dry western heat over Ontario’s humidity,” Brendan said.
“No plans to try your fortune again in the east?”
“Calgary’s home.”
She surveyed the yard. “Any sign of Johnny yet?”
“Typical of him to split to avoid working.” Brendan wiped his forehead. “I asked Cynthia to pitch in. You don’t see her around. And they expect an equal share of money from the sale.”
Isabelle walked a bike toward them. “This looks like Habib’s size.”
“Give it a spin,” Brendan said.
Isabelle hopped onto the seat. She veered around a young couple studying a baby carriage.
“I understand Florence is worried something’s happened to Johnny,” Paula said.
“You know how mothers are,” Brendan said. “Not mine. I mean normal ones. When I was a teenager, I went camping with friend
s for three days without telling anyone. My dad was on some kind of business trip. When I got back, all my mother did was ask me if I’d had a good time.”
Paula smiled. “My daughters might envy your freedom.”
“I guess you’re here to see Leah,” he said. “She left about an hour ago.”
“I hear you and Florence visited the jeweller in my building.”
“It pisses me off that she and Johnny are so keen on dealing with the small stuff that doesn’t take up space like, for instance, my old bedroom set.” His gaze lit on a bedframe, bookcase headboard and white dresser decorated with hockey player decals.
Was he evading her comment about the trip to the jeweller? “What did you think of Robin?” she asked.
“Since Florence dragged me to antique stores for her dishes, I figured it made sense to stop at the jeweller who was on the way. No luck with him. When you think of it, people don’t put valuable jewellery in garage sales without getting it appraised.” He nodded at the house. “Florence is inside if you want to talk to her about insurance.”
“You’ve accepted that she inherits the property?”
“What else can I do?” His smile was more a grimace.
A man came over to them and held out a slow cooker. “Will you take a dollar for this?”
“Are you joking?” Brendan said. “The sticker says eight dollars.”
Paula left them to their negotiation. Finding the screen door unlocked, she let herself in. The hall looked the same as before, but the living room…. What a difference since yesterday. The sofa, chair and coffee table had been cleared off. The washers and dryers stood behind them in a semblance of order. Caspar’s papers lay neatly stacked on the machines, the gnome cookie jar balanced on one pile.
Florence sat on the alcove floor surrounded by furs and clothes. She wrote a number on a sticker. “I learned to recognize the value of fancy dresses when Willie and I used to sell the castoffs we got. All I do now is add an amount for inflation.”
“I’m sorry Johnny hasn’t returned,” Paula said.