“Ty! You’re back already?”
“You’ll never believe what happened,” Jill begins.
“Tell me in the van. I’m ahead of schedule and I want to stay that way.”
I glance at the clock on the stove. Ty has delivered the armoire, dropped off the cans, and gone to the dump in an impossibly brief time. An uneasy feeling rises. “How did you make such good time? Traffic was light?”
“Hell, no. Traffic was all messed up downtown. Big accident in the Green. You know how all the streets around the soup kitchen are one-way? I coulda been stuck there for an hour tryin’ to drive up to the soup kitchen. So I gave Ramon an extra ten bucks and dropped him on the corner of Pine so he could walk them over to Patriot.”
“No!” Jill’s eyes widen and her hand comes up to her mouth.
“What’s the big deal? It’s only two blocks. Ramon’s strong.”
“Ty, did he understand that he had to take them to the soup kitchen?” Ramon’s English is pretty sketchy and he frequently smiles and nods even when he has no idea what we’ve just said.
Ty shrugs. “He eats there all the time, so I know he knows where it is. I asked him would he drop them off and he said, ‘I take them’.”
This is not the reassurance I’m seeking. “ ‘I take them’? Did he mean ‘I take them there’ or ‘I take them myself’?” My normal alto is ascending into soprano range.
Ty scowls at Jill and me in turn. “What difference does it make? You wanted to give the food to poor people. Shit, ain’t nobody poorer than Ramon. Dude don’t even have his own bed.”
Jill has her shoulders hunched up around her ears. I’m taking deep breaths.
Ty’s eyebrows draw down. He knows Jill’s “braced for trouble” expression. He knows my “I’m counting to ten” expression. What he can’t figure out is what he did to provoke them. “What’s the big deal? We talkin’ about a few cans of soup goin’ to Ramon and his friends.”
My sweaty palms slip against the kitchen counter. “No, Ty. We’re talking about $150,000 donation to the Honduran immigrant community.”
I have tuned out the high-pitched hum of Jill explaining our predicament to Ty. All I register is Ty’s occasional, “Well, how the hell was I supposed to know?”
Remain calm. It’s important to remain calm. Maybe Ramon actually delivered the boxes and they’re at the soup kitchen right now. If that’s the case, we don’t have a problem. When Martha Wainwright signed her contract with Another Man’s Treasure, she chose the option that all unsold usable items should be donated to a registered charity from which she would receive a receipt for her tax purposes. Even if the soup kitchen immediately gave the cans to their hungry guests, AMT is in the clear.
On the other hand, maybe Ramon and ten of his undocumented friends are ready to pop open a Progresso feast in the apartment they all share. And when they see what’s in the cans, hop a plane for Managua, never to be seen again. In that case, not only is Martha’s money gone, but I’m on the hook for violating the terms of our contract. I feel a tremor emanating from my gut to my fingertips. It’s my fault for never explaining to Ty that giving usable unsold items to any random poor person is not the same as giving them to a registered charity.
Suddenly I’m aware of silence. Clearly, Ty and Jill think I should do something to stop this nervous breakdown in progress. I think I should do something. But what?
“Um…should we call the police?” Jill suggests.
“No way!” Ty springs up from his slouch against the wall. “I’m not snitchin’ on Ramon.”
“It wouldn’t be snitching. He didn’t commit a crime. We just need help getting the cans back,” I explain.
“The man is il-le-gal. He hates the cops worse than I do. They’re just looking for an excuse to ship his ass back to South America.”
“Central,” Jill corrects.
Ty turns on Jill, looming over her. “Why you always got to do that? Why you always have to find some little way to show you’re smarter than me? You think you’re smarter.”
“I was just saying. You don’t always have to be so touchy.”
“I’m not—”
“Guys, please! Not now. We need to figure this out.” I close my eyes to impose calm logic on my seething brain. “Ty, where does Ramon live?”
“I don’t know his address. When I need him, I look for him by the hardware store.”
“The men aren’t there at night. Where does he eat? Where does he sleep? You said he didn’t have his own bed. What did you mean by that?”
“All I know is a bunch of the Spanish guys live together in one house. I only understand half of what he tells me. There’s diez hombres and only seis camas. Camas are beds. So they gotta share. When one’s awake, the other sleeps. But I don’t know where the house is.”
“Does he have a phone?”
“Sometimes. Verizon always shuttin’ it down when he can’t pay his bill. Right now, he’s got no service.”
“Maybe Detective Coughlin could help,” Jill offers.
Ty freezes. So do I. Tension radiates between us like static electricity.
“I’m outta here.” Ty pivots and heads for the door.
I don’t try to stop him. He doesn’t like Sean Coughlin. Doesn’t want to encounter him. Doesn’t want to be on the other end of Coughlin’s penetrating stare. Doesn’t want to fall under suspicion again. Can’t say I blame him. I’m not sure I want to see Sean Coughlin either. Not quite two months have passed since I told him I wasn’t ready yet. Ready for what, I’m not sure. There have been times when I’ve thought of him, I admit that. Christmas Day…New Year’s Eve…every long and lonely Sunday. But I haven’t called. Haven’t even come close.
“Get back here, Ty,” Jill says. “You can’t abandon Audrey now. It’s time to get over all that.”
All that: murder, attempted murder, drug dealing. Yes, “all that” has resulted in my having one of Palmyrton’s finest on my speed dial. But “all that” is over now. I’ve been given my fifteen minutes of grieving. Time to move on. Slowly I pull out my phone, scroll through my contacts, and stare at the name Sean Coughlin.
A slammed front door is the last we hear of Ty. Jill is watching me. “Call him.”
I lift my finger and drop it on the screen. The deed is done.
“Coughlin,” the phone barks in my ear. Before I can answer, the voice continues, suddenly softer. “Oh! Audrey! Hey…just hang on a minute, okay?” There’s noise and voices in the background, dimming from loud to negligible. Then Sean speaks again. “Hi. How are you?”
Oh, I don’t like this. I don’t like the two-syllable way he says hi. I don’t like the emphasis on “are”. I fight the urge to press END.
“Hi…Sean.” His first name trips me up. I’m still more used to calling him Coughlin. “I’m fine. Uh, so the reason I’m calling is…I’m finishing up a sale, and we have a kind of an odd problem here…”
“Where are you?” The voice is now law enforcement high alert. “I’ll be right there.”
“Relax, Sean. It’s nothing dangerous.” I explain the situation and trail off with, “We’re not sure if he took them to the soup kitchen or not. Any idea what we can do to get the cans back?”
“Sit tight. I have some contacts. I’ll handle this.” He hangs up.
I’ll handle this. How is it that I find Sean’s remark simultaneously reassuring and irritating? Always in charge, that’s Sean Coughlin.
Twenty minutes later, Sean arrives at the Wainwrights’ house. As soon as he walks in, the kitchen shrinks. I haven’t seen him since right before Thanksgiving, and I’ve forgotten how big he is.
He smiles at me without quite meeting my eyes. “How’ve you been?”
“Fine, up until an hour ago.” I know I should make some polite chit-chat, but I’m too tense. “Were you able to find out anything from the soup kitchen?”
“I talked to the maintenance man. He was there until six cleaning, then locked up. No donations came in.”
Jill and I moan in unison. “That means we have to find Ramon,” I say.
“I know where to look,” Sean says. “You two come with me to ID him.”
I toss Jill my keys. “Drive my car to your house, Jill. I’ll walk over and get it in the morning. There’s no need for your night to be ruined too.”
“Oh, Audrey—”
Even though I really don’t want to be alone with Sean, I insist that Jill leave. After all, if Ty isn’t coming, what’s the point of having Jill along? She doesn’t know Ramon any better than I do. I follow Sean out to an unmarked police car parked in the Wainwrights’ driveway. He opens the passenger door for me as if he’s taking me to a country club dance, not a tour of Palmyrton’s sketchiest neighborhood. The driver’s seat is pushed back as far as it will go to accommodate Sean’s large frame, and he drives sprawled back against the headrest, only one hand on the wheel. I have to twist in my seat to see his face slightly behind me.
“The immigrant community is centered in The Bottoms, the neighborhood along the Whippany River. You know it?”
“Of course I’ve driven through. But there’s not much call for estate sales there.”
Sean snorts. “Yeah, someone dies in The Bottoms, the neighbors come and steal all his stuff.”
It’s cracks like that that bother me about Sean. I think he’s too cynical. He thinks I’m naïve and painfully politically correct. How can we ever get past that?
Sean notices that I didn’t laugh at his joke. “Relax, Audrey. Most of the folks who live in the neighborhood are hard workers. They came here looking for a better life for their families. I know that. Hell, that’s why my grandfather came here from Ireland. But a lot of the guys come without their wives and kids. They’re lonely at night and they drink too much and they’re crammed into apartments too small to hold them all. So they hang out on the corners and trouble follows. That’s why I didn’t want you coming over here by yourself.”
See, just when I’m ready to dismiss him as a jerk he says something that comes within spitting distance of sensitivity, and I’m forced to reconsider. “Ramon is a nice guy, but yeah—I wouldn’t want to roam around looking for him by myself.”
We’ve left the stylish restaurants and stores of downtown Palmyrton and passed through the Brighton Park neighborhood of quaint older homes surrounding the duck pond and playground. Now Findlay Avenue descends a long hill and the stores have signs in English and Spanish. Comidas Salvadorenos. Pollo Pucalor. Sonia’s House of Beauty. We leave the main commercial strip and turn onto a more residential street. Some of the houses are painted in brighter colors than you’d find on the street where I grew up. Some haven’t been painted in years. Despite the freezing temperature, a dark-haired woman pushes a dozing baby in a stroller. His little head bobs every time she hits a rut in the uneven sidewalk. How would I even begin to find Ramon here?
Sean glances at me from the corner of his eye. “You’re tough, but there’s no need to take chances. I know some guys. They’ll talk to me.”
“Okay. But please—don’t threaten anyone. Poor Ramon didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not mad that he kept the soup.”
There’s a movement in Sean’s face that might be a smile or might be a grimace. “You may find this hard to believe, Audrey, but I don’t conduct all investigations by knocking heads together.”
So now I’ve succeeded in insulting someone who’s doing me a favor. A really big favor. “I didn’t mean—”
But before I can finish, Sean has abruptly pulled the car over to the curb. Two Hispanic men are walking down the street. They smile when he gets out of the car and exchange high fives. They’re wearing thick hooded sweatshirts and work gloves, just like the guys who hang with Ramon in front of the hardware store. After some chit-chat, I can tell Sean is asking them something, and I roll down my window a bit to listen. The two men talk to each other in rapid-fire Spanish then the older of the two faces Sean and continues nattering along. Sean nods and asks another question in Spanish that’s slower and less musical, but obviously effective since the men start pointing and gesturing as they give directions. I allow myself a glimmer of optimism.
“You speak Spanish? I’m impressed,” I say when Sean gets back in the car.
“I understand Spanish. I speak Spanglish. And I can’t discuss anything that’s going to happen tomorrow because I can’t conjugate verbs in the future tense.”
“You seem to make yourself understood. They told you where Ramon lives?”
“Two family house with a yellow door on Cherry Street.”
This news ignites both excitement and anxiety. If we really find Ramon, will Sean be able to get the cans back with no conflict? Then I remember what Ty said. Ramon is here illegally. He lives in fear of being deported. Even if he’s opened the cans, he’s in no position to argue with Sean and me.
Sean drives the few short blocks to Cherry Street and finds the house with the yellow door. It’s not a cheerful yellow. More like a “this is the only paint we’ve got, so yellow it is” sort of color. The steps leading to the door slope strongly to the right, and a broken bottle glistens in the light leaking from behind a sheet pinned to the front window. Despite the cold, three guys sit on overturned milk crates on the small front porch watching our arrival.
I can tell from the look on Sean’s face that he’s not sure what to do with me. Is it more dangerous to leave me alone in the car or worse to bring me inside a house full of single men who might be really pissed about losing that money? I make the decision for him by jumping out of the car. Hopefully my presence will keep poor Ramon from panicking. When we get to the porch, Sean says, “Buscaramos Ramon.”
The three young men stare at us for several long moments. Then the oldest of them shrugs and nods toward the door. It’s unlocked, and Sean pushes it open. He holds my elbow as we enter.
The front hall is narrow and dark with no carpet on the battered wood floor. The air smells of fried food and sweat and mildew. Straight ahead I can barely see into a kitchen with a sink overflowing with dishes. To our right is what should be the living room, but it’s filled with four beds, all occupied by sleeping men. One snores loudly.
“Let’s go in the kitchen,” I whisper. “Maybe the soup is in there.”
My heart swells with anticipation. I imagine what I want to happen. The boxes will be right there. We can take them and be on our way. I’ll send Ty over tomorrow with a load of real groceries and Ramon will never know what he missed.
But that’s not what unfolds. The kitchen is tiny with just a sink, fridge and stove. There aren’t even any cabinets, just a rickety set of metal shelves, which hold some grimy pots and dishes and a bag of rice. There’s no place to store—or hide—anything in here.
We can see into the dining room—a card table, four folding chairs and two more occupied beds.
Sean strides into the dining room, and I trail behind. This feels so invasive. Even though the guy on the porch told us we could go in, I feel like we’re burglars.
“You see your man?”
A light fixture dangles from the ceiling as if someone pulled on the chain once too often. The dim light illuminates two mops of dark hair, two brown-skinned faces, two bodies covered by ratty blankets. How can I tell?
Sean pulls out a small flashlight and shines its bright beam on each face. Amazingly, they don’t wake. They must be too exhausted from a day of cleaning gutters or hauling shingles up a ladder. I shake my head, and we continue into the living room.
The snoring man’s mouth is wide open, revealing several missing teeth. Definitely not Ramon. I approach a man who’s sleeping on his side, curled into a ball with a faded blue and yellow quilt pulled up to his eyes. This might be Ramon, if only I could see his face better. I lean over him as Sean shines the light on his face. Our heads are about a foot apart when his eyes open. I’m startled, but he’s terrified. The man pulls back, struggling out of the quilt to escape. He lets out a strangled cry in Spanish, maybe a curse, maybe a pr
ayer. Has he been awakened like this before, back in his homeland, by a soldier or a drug lord?
“I’m sorry,” I cry. “It’s okay.”
Now all the men are awake, and Sean is showing his badge and speaking in Spanish that’s slower than theirs, but which they all seem to understand. Buscaramos Ramon are the only words I can pick out of the stream. Sean is shaking his head and making calming gestures with his hands, so I assume he’s assuring them that no one is in trouble and no one is getting deported. I notice the guys keep glancing toward the snoring guy with the missing teeth. He’s older than the others, with a lined face and hair that’s streaked with gray.
“Se llama Ramon?” Sean asks him.
“Si.”
I feel the anticipation fizzle out of me as I meet Sean’s eye.
I shake my head. “Let’s go, Sean. We found a Ramon. We didn’t find the Ramon.”
Chapter 3
Back in the car, I let my head slump against the window. What a freakin’ mess! How can I explain what happened to Martha Wainwright? If the damn cans had contained soup, she would never have known or cared that Ty gave them to some poor illegal immigrant. Now his act—part laziness, part generosity—looks like grand larceny. I can’t have my customers suspecting me of thievery—my entire business rests on my reputation for honesty.
Sean slides into the driver’s seat. “Don’t worry. Like I said, we’ll keep looking tomorrow.” He makes a motion to pat my hand, which is resting on my thigh, but pulls back and instead delivers an awkward brush to my shoulder.
He coughs. “Wanna grab some dinner?”
This is the moment I’ve been dreading. How can I say no when Sean has dropped everything to help me find Ramon? He has already mapped out a plan to be outside the hardware store—the one place we know Ramon hangs out–at 7:00 AM tomorrow morning to continue the search. But I know this dinner won’t just be a friendly snack. It’ll be the beginning of a thing. And a thing leads to expectations. And expectations lead to misunderstandings and disappointments and, and…. And I’m just not ready. Not after I laid my heart out for Cal and had it chopped to pieces. His deception and his affection and his sacrifice, all tangled together and never unknotted. So I have my excuse all ready.
Treasure of Darkness: a romantic thriller (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 2) Page 2