Treasure in Exile
Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series, Volume 5
S.W. Hubbard
Published by S.W. Hubbard, 2018.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
TREASURE IN EXILE
First edition. January 23, 2018.
Copyright © 2018 S.W. Hubbard.
Written by S.W. Hubbard.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
About the Author
Chapter 1
SWEAT...SPICY BEANS...Pine-Sol...cupcakes...popcorn.
The scents of the Rosa Parks Community Center roll over me in one complex wave as soon as I step into the lobby. I’m sure my dog Ethel could pick out even more subtle distinctions, but my human nose does a pretty good job of telling me what’s going on at the Center this Friday afternoon. Four lanky middle school boys are horsing around near the stairs to the gym, indicating that my husband’s basketball practice must have already ended. That means he’ll be on the way home to start preparing for our dinner guests.
Mr. Vargas patiently pushes his mop across the dingy linoleum in his never-ending quest to maintain a modicum of order. A tribe of laughing little kids skids across the wet floor, leaving a crazy quilt of brown sneaker prints in their wake. Mr. Vargas reaches the wall and turns to go back over the swath he just washed. His pace never changes.
A muscular man strides toward the kitchen with a fifty-pound bag of rice on his shoulder, no doubt sent to the storeroom by the women preparing the weekly neighborhood dinner in the kitchen. In an hour, the fellowship hall will be jammed with parents, grandparents, and kids all seated at the long, plastic tablecloth-covered tables waiting for the chicken and rice and beans and greens to be passed.
Right inside the door, two elderly ladies sit behind a table laden with cakes, cookies and pies. A crooked, hand-lettered sign unnecessarily proclaims Bake Sale.
“Hi, Audrey. You wanna buy a nice pie for your man?” A sweet old gal whose name escapes me tilts a sweet potato pie for my inspection. “We’re raising money to fix the plumbing.”
“How about a coffee cake?” Her companion slides forward a huge confection dripping with frosting, cinnamon, and nuts. “The hot water heater is about to blow, and if we don’t get it fixed, the health department says they’ll shut us down.”
I hesitate over the coffee cake. Sean and I have pledged to reduce our sugar consumption, so he’ll clobber me for bringing a landmine like this into our home. But it sure looks good.
Five dollars for the pie. Four for that fabulous cake. They’ll never raise enough money for a plumber with pricing that low.
“I could let you have it for three-fifty,” the baker cajoles, fixing her mournful dark eyes on me.
“Oh, it’s not the money.” I reach for my wallet and hand her a twenty. “I’ll take that bag of Snickerdoodles, and you keep the change.”
Delighted with their transaction, the ladies release me and pounce on their next target. A tall, silver-haired man in a blue blazer and red tie has entered behind me. His jacket brushes against the bake sale table and picks up a dusting of powdered sugar. He frowns at the bake sale ladies and brushes it off. One lady opens her mouth to make a sales pitch, but is intimidated into silence by the man’s haughty glare.
“I’m looking for my wife, Loretta Bostwick.”
I know that name. Loretta Bostwick is a rich lady who just joined the Board of Directors here.
“She’s with Reverend Levi,” the sweet-potato pie lady tells him.
He purses his lips. “And where might that be?”
Man, this guy’s a pill. Reverend Levi Jefferson is the Chairman of the Board, but maybe Loretta’s husband doesn’t know that. “I’ll show you,” I offer, taking him off the ladies’ hands. “Levi Jefferson’s office is upstairs, first door on the left.”
Mr. Bostwick gives me a curt nod and heads upstairs without glancing left or right. He takes no interest in the mural of Rosa Parks smiling down over the lobby, nor of a large framed photo of the founder of the Center, Levi Jefferson Senior. Levi Senior was a lion of the civil rights movement, marching in Birmingham and Montgomery and Selma alongside Martin Luther King and John Lewis. He knew Rosa Parks personally, and when he founded the Rosa Parks Center, he named it for his friend. He died when I was a kid, and I still remember the massive traffic jam in Palmyrton caused by his funeral at the Mt. Zion African Methodist Episcopal church.
His son, Levi Jr., is the pastor of that church, but by all accounts, he’s not as fiery a preacher as his father. I’ve often met him here at the Parks Center, a distinguished, cordial man in his late fifties, but he’s not a big personality. My father knows Levi better than I do, and he says the man prefers teaching to preaching. But I guess his famous father pressured him into the family business.
I stopped by the Parks Center on my way home from work because my stepmother texted that she might need a ride to our house. When I asked why, she didn’t reply, so here I am. First, I head downstairs to look for my father, but the room where he runs the chess club is straightened up and empty. Perhaps he’s already with Natalie, helping her put away her knitting supplies. My dad and Natalie have been married only one year longer than Sean and I, but they already seem like they’ve been together a lifetime. They’re both so low-key, but they tend to each other with unwavering concern.
I turn the corner and see Natalie in her classroom, her elegant silver hair pinned into a loose chignon. She’s putting skeins of yarn into plastic bins when I enter. My father is nowhere to be seen.
“Where’s Dad?” I ask after our brief embrace.
She glances over her shoulder as if she expects him to spring from the closet. “I’m glad I have this moment alone with you, Audrey. I need to talk to you.”
An arrow of anxiety stabs me. Natalie is sixty-two and Dad is sixty-four. This is the decade of suspicious shadows on the mammogram and moles turned murderous. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”
She shakes her head and directs me into a plastic classroom chair. Dropping into the chair beside me, she grips my hand. “Our trip to the American Mathematical Society meeting didn’t go well.”
In an uncharacteristic show of impatience, Natalie cuts me off. It’s as if she possesses a river of information that must flow out of her before my father shows up. “Your father has decided to permanently retire from Rutgers. He’s giving up his professorship.”
Giving up his tenure? This is huge! After his stroke, Dad took a nine-month leave of absence, then returned to teaching part-time. “Before the trip, he was all excited about returning full-time. What happened?”
“He attended a lot of sessions on number theory at the Society meeting. Afterwards....” Natalie bites her lip. “I’ve never seen him so dejected, so full of despair.”
“Wait—you’re saying he didn’t understand what was going on? Number theory is his field.”
Natalie’s clear blue eyes get a little watery. “He wasn’t totally in the dark. But number theory is a young man’s game. The field is moving in new directions. Roger feels that after his stroke and more than a year out of the academic mainstream, he simply can’t catch up. If he can’t be on the leading edge....”
This is blowing me away. Math has been the center of my father’s life as long as I’ve been alive. Even right after his stroke when his speech was so impaired, I always felt his mathematical mind was still ticking. How can Roger Nealon not be a full professor of mathematics? What will he be instead? “This is a hasty decision,” I protest. “How can he take such a serious step after one bad meeting? He should talk to his colleagues.”
Natalie strokes my hand. “He did, yesterday. And this morning his mind was made up. Your father is a proud man. He wants to leave while his work is still valued. He wants to walk out with his head held high. His greatest fear is to be pushed aside by the younger generation. To be tolerated, not respected.”
I swallow hard. “He asked you to tell me?”
“Not directly. But I know he dreads telling you because he thinks you’ll argue with him. That’s why I wanted to talk to you before dinner. So when he does tell you, just accept it.”
I nod. “But what will he do with himself? Chess is his only hobby.”
Natalie brightens. “He already has a plan. In fact, he’s starting to put it into effect right now.” She stands up and peeks out the door into the hallway then turns back to me. “He wants to start a group for young people here to encourage a love for higher level mathematics...wants them to experience the creativity of math instead of the drudgery of doing the endless math worksheets they get in school. He’s very excited—he’ll tell you all about it at dinner. All he needs is approval from the Parks Center board of directors.”
This cheers me up. Running the chess club here has been a great activity for my father. In fact, it’s how he met Natalie. But teaching third graders which way they can move a rook is not enough to keep his mind challenged. I’m glad he’s conceived a bigger project that will help both him and the kids. Maybe his retirement will work out for the best after all.
“So, do you actually need a ride to our house?” I ask Natalie.
“No, I’ll wait for your father to finish his meeting with the board, and we’ll come over together.” She hugs me. “I hope you don’t mind I brought you here under false pretenses.”
I hold her for a moment longer than usual, inhaling the delicate scent of roses that clings to her. When I release her and turn to leave, I hesitate. “The Board will give him permission to do this, won’t they?”
She arches her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “Of course. Who could possibly object?”
Chapter 2
GARLIC....BASIL....fennel...something else I can’t pin down.
The aromas hover in the air, having drifted out the kitchen window and across the lawn to the driveway where I’ve parked my car. Our garage is still too crowded with unpacked boxes and construction debris to hold both my car and Sean’s.
The second sign that my husband is cooking is the lack of canine greeting when I enter the back hall. No doggy kisses, no fur-depositing embrace, no sweater- snagging leap of joy.
“Hello? I’m home!” I enter the kitchen and find Ethel sitting at the foot of the stove, her eyes fixed on mounds of crumbled sausage waiting to enter a big sauté pan. Her brown tail swishes, but her gaze never leaves her target.
Sean pivots from the chopping block on the center island and tosses a pile of chopped peppers into the pan. They land with a sizzle, and he holds his arms out in welcome.
Dodging the murderous knife in his right hand, I move in for a hug. There’s nothing better than resting my head against his broad chest at the end of a long day of pricing Hummel figurines and re-arranging furniture so the worn spots aren’t obvious. Fridays are always long days in the estate sale business. “You must’ve peeled right out of the Parks Center after practice.”
“Can’t dally when I’m hosting a dinner party. How was your day?”
“Tiring.” I pour myself a glass of wine from the bottle on the gleaming granite counter. Sean is a very clean-as-you go cook. First, I tell Sean all about what’s going on with my father. Then I tell him about my day at work. “Ty and I got the Farley sale set up, but it was a lot of work with only two of us. I really have to hire a new assistant.”
“Does that mean you’re going to be too exhausted to go to this fundraiser tomorrow night?”
“We’re definitely going.” I pluck cubes of feta cheese out of the tossed salad to stave off starvation. “The estate sale Ty and I are running tomorrow ends at three and the party starts at eight. Plenty of time for a nap in between.”
“I’ll take my nap at the party.” Sean smacks my hand away from the salad and produces a platter of appetizers. I fall on the bruschetta and grilled eggplant like a lion presented with both impalas and gazelles.
Ever since I fished the invitation out of the recycling bin, Sean has been complaining about having to go to this fundraiser for the Rosa Parks Community Center. Not that he doesn’t believe it’s for a good cause, but he hates the location at the tony 1780 Club, and he’s not too fond of the hostess, Loretta Bostwick.
“Maura says she’d kill to be invited to a party at the 1780 Club. She says it’ll be a networking bonanza.”
Sean’s fast-moving chef’s knife reduces branches of some herb into a little green mound. “Good. Go with your best friend.”
“For God’s sake, Sean—it’s not a UVA tailgate party, open to all crashers. The invitation was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Sean Coughlin. You’re the one they want to talk up the after school programs to the guests. I’m the plus one. But this party will be such a great opportunity for Another Man’s Treasure. This is o-o-old money. These are the people who put the estate in estate sale.”
“No job is worth sucking up to the Bostwicks and their friends.”
It’s true that what I’ve seen of Mr. Bostwick doesn’t lead me to believe he’s a fun guy, but I won’t admit that to Sean. “Socializing for two hours is not sucking up.” Sean and I have been around and around on this topic already. I could really use a big-ticket job—both our wedding and our kitchen remodeling project went way over budget, and Sean still has college loan debt. Not that I regret the seven-piece band for the reception or the green-accented Italian tile under my feet or Sean’s education. But I want the remaining bills paid off by the end of the summer. Sean is eager for us to start trying to get pregnant, but I can’t even think of bringing a child into the world while we’re in debt. Wringing more profit from Another Man’s Treasure Estate Sales is the only way to put our finances in the black. Normally, Sean’s all about backing me up in any and every way. But he has an unshakable aversion to Loretta Bostwick and her party.
“You’re carrying this grudge against Loretta Bostwick too far.”
Sean’s lips are pressed into a thin line. Concentration for placing his final sheet of pasta or annoyance at being challenged? I’m guessing the latter.
“I resent that Loretta was appointed to the Board of Directors at the Park
s Center when she doesn’t do any hands-on volunteer work there. She doesn’t even like the people we serve.”
“Loretta is a good person.” This smooth, low voice makes us both pivot toward the door.
“Hi, Natalie.” I extend my leg to block Ethel’s lunge, and give my stepmother a wave. “Where’s Dad?”
“His meeting at the Parks Center is running late. He sent me ahead and said he’d take an Uber.” Natalie accepts a kiss from Sean and wine from me. “Why are you complaining about poor Loretta?”
“Poor?” Sean snorts. “The woman’s got more money than the Pope.”
“Yes, but Loretta has such an air of....” Natalie pauses to choose precisely the right word. “Yearning. She’s searching for a purpose. A place to belong.”
I watch Sean’s face. He would roll his eyes if it were anyone else but Natalie defending Loretta. “There’s plenty of work to be done at the Parks Center if Loretta were willing to roll up her sleeves and pitch in. Instead she swans around looking like she’s afraid the kids will rub their grimy hands against her designer dresses.”
“Where you see aloofness, I see shyness.” Natalie speaks quietly, but with authority. “Loretta is insecure and uncertain how to reach out. She wants very much to do a good job as a member of the board of directors. The success of this fundraiser is very important to her.”
“I met her husband briefly today. He seems like kind of a stick. Maybe she just wants to get away from him.” I start setting the table. “How did Loretta end up on the Rosa Parks Center board?” I ask, hoping Natalie can shed some light on the matter that will bring Sean around. “Wouldn’t someone like her be more suited to the art museum board or the symphony board?”
“Jared Bellack recruited her,” Natalie explains.
Sean looks up from layering his lasagna. “Really? He’s not one of the founding families of Palmyrton like Loretta. He made all his money with an internet start-up company that he sold to Google for a gazillion dollars.”
Natalie offers a sly smile. “When he gave the Parks Center a big donation to start the Coding Club, he bought his way onto the Board. Doesn’t that bother you, Sean?”
Treasure in Exile (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series, #5) Page 1