“What! How can you clear out that place if you can’t throw anything away? It’s—”
“Audrey, I’m not finished.” She waits for my silence with pursed lips, just as Miss McGuiness used to.
“So, I have a plan—I’ll get to that later. The most important thing is, the Civil War stuff is in the master bathroom, but Harold hasn’t been able to get back there for years because the master bedroom is filled to the ceiling with birds.”
“Birds! Oh my god, that’s so gross.”
“Not real birds. Well, maybe some were real once. Bird-related items: bird cages, and bird houses, and bird pictures, and bird books. Birds are one of Harold’s obsessions. So, as I was saying, I have to clear a path through the birds so I can reach the Civil War.”
Jill does not even hear the absurdity of that statement. I need all the self-control I possess to let her talk until she runs out of steam.
“Nora has convinced Harold that a museum is the best place for the valuable memorabilia. So I’ll sell all that, and take a cut. Harold gets enough money to pay his back taxes, and the town doesn’t evict him.” Jill spreads her arms like some game show hostess displaying her prizes. “Everyone wins!”
“Everyone loses.” I duck my head and begin shifting file folders on my desk. I’m too angry to see straight, so I can’t do anything productive—just move them from left to right. “Even if there’s something valuable in that house—and you only have the word of a mentally ill person that there is—how are you going to clear a path through that solid wall of junk with Harold objecting every step of the way? It’ll be like digging the Panama Canal with a spoon.”
“That’s what I keep trying to explain, Audrey. Harold wants to work with me. He specifically requested me.” Jill stands taller, as if being sought out by a madman is some great honor. “I’ve promised him that I’m going to recycle or sell everything we get rid of. Did you know that paper and cardboard are selling for $20 a ton right now?”
“How much are recyclers offering for bird feathers? And cat turds—what are those going for?”
“I have a plan for this job, Audrey, just like you taught me, but you keep shooting me down at every turn.”
“You don’t have a plan for safety. Think of the mold you’re breathing in.”
“Okay, oka-a-a-y. I’ll wear a respirator next time I go in.”
“There won’t be a next time as long as you’re working for me.” I spin on my desk chair and turn my back to her.
“Why are you being so mean?”
All the shouting has made me feel a little lightheaded. I burrow into my chair. Why am I being so mean? Is it because Jill’s hell-bent on doing something that I disapprove of? I can hardly fault her for that—it’s the story of my own career. No, Harold’s house makes me feel like Jill is sinking into a pit of quicksand, her hand just inches from my reach.
“I’m worried about you,” I whisper.
“I said I’d be careful—wear the hazmat suit and everything.”
“It’s not just your physical safety. Harold and Nora—they’re so unstable, their problems are so big and unmanageable…. Nora is desperate to keep her uncle from being evicted. They’re both sinking and they’re looking for something—anything—to grab onto. You’re not strong enough to save them, honey. They’ll pull you under, and then—”
Jill squints at me. “And then you think you’ll have to jump in and rescue us all.”
I shut my eyes and massage my temples. “I can’t, Jill. Not after all I’ve been through since Halloween. I just want peace and quiet and nice, steady work. I don’t have the strength for anything else.”
Jill pats my hand. “I understand, Audrey. That’s why I promise you I’ll handle Harold’s job all by myself. I’m really good at getting him to listen—even Nora says so. There’s only one thing I might need your help with.” Jill stretches backward in a yoga move that puts her head below my desk. “When I break through to the Civil War stuff, you’ll help me find the best price for it, won’t you?”
The fight drains out of me. “Of course.”
Chapter 11
I expected to encounter a language barrier when I visited Mother of Sorrows Catholic Church later that afternoon to try to learn more about Ramon, but I didn’t expect the language to be Polish. For some reason, even though the congregation is largely Hispanic, the Vatican’s choice of pastor is Father Mikolaj, a meek man utterly baffled by New Jersey in general and the people who attend his church in particular. After ten minutes of fruitless miscommunication, I decide that even if Ramon did attend this church, he would never come to Father Mikolaj for help. I leave, knowing my next stop has to be the holy-roller church.
I was uneasy enough nosing around an unfamiliar Catholic church, but approaching the Church of Living Praise leaves me squirming. For one thing, I’m back in The Bottoms, the neighborhood of the murder. The building itself is totally nondescript: a squat rectangle of concrete blocks with no windows facing the street. It could be a small engine repair shop or a business that stuffs envelopes for mass mailings….or offers up small animal sacrifices. No! I can’t think that way. I tug on the flat steel front door and find it locked, so I’m forced to prowl around back. The small windows are too high for me to peek into, but I keep my ears tuned for people speaking in tongues, whatever that might sound like.
Around back I find a wooden door with a doorbell beside it. I press it, and after a second I hear a click that indicates the door has been unlocked from within. I push it as if I’m entering a tiger’s cage.
Once inside, I’m greeted by the reassuringly ordinary smell of coffee that’s been sitting on a warming plate too long. The hallway I find myself in is brightly lighted and decorated with children’s watercolor paintings of the three wise men bearing gifts. One appears to be bringing a PlayStation to baby Jesus. So much for being abducted into a cult.
Down the hallway, a man pops his head out of an office. “Hola! Welcome!”
I move forward, acutely aware that I’ve come blundering in here with no game plan. “Hi, uhm.. Do you work…er, are you the…?” Minister? Leader? Charlatan-in-Chief?
“Jorge Santiago.” He smiles and offers his hand. Given his deep laugh lines, I’d guess he’s in his forties, but his mop of dark hair and slightly overlapping front teeth give him a boyish appearance. “I’m the pastor here. How can I help you?” His English is entirely unaccented, and his eyes are so friendly that I blush at the negative thoughts I’ve had about this place, as if he can see straight into my soul.
“It’s kind of complicated,” I stammer. “I’m not sure where to begin.”
He extends a hand to invite me into his office, then sweeps a pile of papers off a chair. “Start at the beginning, no?”
The office walls are covered with framed color photos of church life: a baby being baptized, a young couple getting married, the kids’ Christmas pageant, the choir singing. All the faces look like Ramon’s—brown skin, dark eyes, black hair. I know this is irrational, but there’s something else about Jorge Santiago and the people in these pictures that reminds me of Ramon. Maybe it’s energy, or desire, or faith. I can picture Ramon here; he would fit right in. I made the right decision coming here, I’m sure of it. Then Grandma Betty’s advice comes back to me and now it makes a lot of sense. This is not all about me. If Jorge Santiago actually does know Ramon, why should he help me find him?
I begin slowly, telling Pastor Jorge—that’s what he tells me to call him—about my business and how I sometimes hire the men looking for work in front of the hardware store.
“You know they are undocumented,” he says. I can tell he’s trying to assess where I stand. There are people in Palmyrton who complain about the men, think they should be arrested or deported, and others who insist their businesses would collapse without them.
I nod. “My business is unpredictable. Sometimes I need an extra set of strong arms. That’s when I hire one of the men outside the hardware store. They’re hard
workers.” Half an hour later, I wind up my story of soup cans and cash and lawsuits and murder. Pastor Jorge sits in silence with his dark eyes searching my face.
“Do you know these men—Ramon, the boy who was killed, the guy with the knife?” I ask softly. There’s been no mention in the news that the victim has been identified, let alone the killer.
“People in my congregation have told me the boy had only been in this country a week or so. No one knows his name.”
“What about his family?”
“He came here by himself. His family is back in Honduras.”
My heart twists. The child died all alone on a floor in a house in New Jersey. Back in Honduras, his mother is probably going about her day full of hope, thinking about her son making a new start in America. And now the soup cans that I mishandled have changed the course of all their plans.
“He was just a kid,” I whisper. “How could they expect him to survive here on his own? What was he doing in that house?”
“He was from the same village as Ramon.”
“So you do know Ramon?”
His left eyebrow and left shoulder rise in tandem. “If I do…?”
Now I try to read his face as closely as he’s trying to read mine. He hasn’t denied all knowledge of these events; he’s too smart for that. But if Ramon has sought his pastor’s help, he’s put Jorge in a difficult spot. They both need a way out, and maybe I can provide it. I take a deep breath—an idea has come to me via Grandma Betty as I’ve been sitting here. I can’t make it work all by myself, but I think I know how to begin.
“Ramon is a good man, Pastor Jorge. He’s a hard worker and he wants a better life for his family. He didn’t steal the cash, but even so, it’s not his to keep. I understand that it’s a life-changing amount of money. But here’s the thing: he’ll never rest easy as long as he has it. He’ll always be looking over his shoulder for the police, or the INS, or the Wainwrights, or me, or that guy with the knife. So here’s what would make everyone happy: The Wainwrights get their money back, I get my business out from under a cloud, the police arrest the murderer, and Ramon….Ramon gets his green card.”
Pastor Jorge purses his lips. “Maybe you are right, Audrey. A man such as Ramon might trade all that cash for the opportunity to stay in this country legally. But there’s no way you can guarantee that for him.”
“Not right here, not today. But just consider this. If I can put together a good offer, with a guarantee from the police and the support of a great immigration lawyer, will you bring the offer to Ramon?”
“Ramon worships here sometimes, but his location right now….” He shrugs.
I sense that he is choosing his words to avoid an outright lie. Right now. But later…. Unlike Coughlin, I’m not interested in tripping him up to pry information out of him. I keep my eyes locked on his. “But if the offer was good enough, safe enough, Ramon would want to hear it, wouldn’t he?”
Pastor Jorge rises from his chair, never dropping his gaze. He places his hand on my shoulder, warm and soothing. “I imagine he would.”
I walk out of the building in a fog, my mind caught up in the next steps I’ll need to take to pull off this plan. How can I approach Sean to get his cooperation? I hear my grandfather’s voice in my ear, “You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, Audrey.” But honey has always been hard for me. And I’m sure Grandpa didn’t mean that I should use a man’s romantic interest in me to achieve my goals. What’s the line between being pleasantly persuasive and sexually manipulative?
My head hurts.
I get in my car and glance in the rearview mirror before backing out of my spot. There are no oncoming cars on the quiet street. But a short man in a knit hat stands in the alley beside the church, watching. When I twist to look over my shoulder, he slips away.
Chapter 12
On the way back to the office I keep glancing in my rearview mirror. I see the usual mix of Palmyrton traffic. What did I expect—a tinted-window black sedan or a creepy unmarked white van that screams surveillance? But I can’t shake the skeevy, pervey feeling of being watched. Was that man outside the church the killer who saw me in Ramon’s backyard? Or was he just some innocent passerby? I wrack my brain trying to remember exactly what the killer looked like. In books, trauma always causes memories to be “seared” in the heroine’s brain. “I’ll never forget that face as long as I live,” the victim always declares.
Bull.
All I can remember clearly is the bright red smear of blood across his sweatshirt. His face is generic. Eyes, nose, and mouth all in the right places, but more than that I can’t recall. I take a deep breath and grip the steering wheel to calm my nerves. I can’t go through my days suspicious of every Hispanic man I see. That’s going to get old pretty fast here in New Jersey.
Still, when I pull up in front of the office, I look up and down the busy street. Two men approach with their collars up and their heads down. Suspicious, or just cold? I let them pass before I get out of my car. The office windows are dark. I had given Jill permission to spend the end of the day at Harold’s house, but I expected Ty to be here when I returned.
My neck, already tight with anxiety, knots up a little more. I hope he hasn’t gone out looking for Ramon. Of course, that’s precisely what I’ve been doing, but I don’t want Ty to follow my example. I unlock the office door and hesitate on the threshold. What’s that murky tall shape to my left? I reach my hand inside and fumble along the wall until I find the light switch.
Ping! The cheery clutter of my desk and the kitschy knick-knacks that march across Jill’s appear before me. The tall shape is not an intruder, just a set of golf clubs in a travel case waiting to be picked up.
My heart slows back down as I lock the door behind me and sit down to sort through my email. A few minutes later, the door-knob rattles.
I snap into high alert until I hear some muttering and swearing. Ty comes in.
“Why you got the door locked?”
“Where have you been?”
We stare at each other for a moment then Ty speaks. “I just came back from the recycling center. Harold had every issue of National Geographic, Scientific American, and Petroleum News from 1982 to 2013 in his back hall. You got any idea of how many magazines that is?”
“One thousand, one hundred and sixteen.”
Ty narrows his eyes. “Chill with the Rainman shit, Audge. I can only take so much crazy talk in one day.
“Why were you helping Jill? I thought you wanted no part of the Harold job.”
“I don’t. But I got bored waitin’ for you. Ain’t enough to do around here.”
I sigh. “Tell me about it.”
Ty’s forehead creases. “But we be all right by next month, right?”
I don’t want him to take on my load of anxiety, so I smile brightly. “Of course we will. In fact, why don’t you start getting the signs ready for that small sale we have coming up?”
Ty jumps on this task with relief, and I return to scrolling through my email. A subject line jumps out at me: COMPLAINT RECEIVED. The sender is the Better Business Bureau.
My stomach twists as I read the message. Martha has filed a complaint against me. I have two days to respond. I read what she has written: “The owner of the company violated the terms of her contract with me by giving away unsold items to a personal friend instead of donating them to a registered charity. This caused me to lose valuables that could otherwise have been recovered.”
Well, I can’t really argue with that, can I? I need to make this right for her. Why hasn’t Mr. Swenson called me back about the liability insurance situation? But even as this thought pops into my mind, my eyes are scanning more email messages. There it is: Liability Insurance as a subject line. I open the email, which is many paragraphs long. Scanning through the legal rigmarole, I get to the bottom line: my violation of the terms of the contract has nullified my liability coverage.
With one exception. I perk up.
If I fil
e criminal theft charges against my employee, I’ll be covered.
I let my head sink into my hands.
My only hope is to find Ramon and the money. Fast.
At six, Jill reappears with an update on her work at Harold’s. “I’ve almost made it through the kitchen. The counters, sink, table, and dishwasher are filled with dirty dishes because the water’s been turned off for non-payment for several years now,” she explains, dropping into her desk chair. “And Harold would just buy more plates at yard sales when he needed them.
Ty puts his hands over his ears. “Stop! I can’t listen to this no more.”
“However,” Jill continues, “I’ve found a company in south Jersey that makes mosaic flowerpots and they’re interested in taking all the china. They break it up, so it doesn’t matter that it’s chipped.”
“They’re willing to take china with fried eggs and lasagna still stuck to it?”
“Actually, the soup kitchen has been so grateful for all the stuff I’ve sent their way that they’re willing to let me run the plates through their industrial dishwasher. After hours, of course.”
For about the two hundredth time, I have to suppress the urge to point out that all the time she’ll have to spend at Harold’s cannot possibly pay off. But my protests fall on deaf ears–Jill is relentless.
“Tell her about the fridge,” Ty says, making gagging faces at me over Jill’s head.
“Yes, that’s a problem.” Jill runs her hands through her crewcut. “The power has been turned off and back on several times over the years, but Harold has never thrown away any of the spoiled food. There have been some…explosions.”
“Eeeeewww!” Ty doubles over clutching his gut.
Treasure of Darkness: a romantic thriller (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 2) Page 8