Treasure of Darkness: a romantic thriller (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 2)

by S. W. Hubbard

  Maura slides the dress over my head and zips it up, and she’s right. The dead cats and dusty record albums and fraudulent soup cans drop away. For the next few hours, I’m going to be a different Audrey.

  At 3:00 AM I push a snoring Ethel off my pillow and slide into bed. The room tilts precariously thanks to three apple-tinis. My calves ache from dancing a bastardized version of the cha-cha with a hilarious gay clarinetist in town for his cousin’s wedding. Some stock analyst from Summit now has my phone number as a condition of calling a taxi for Maura and me. I’m going to have a colossal headache in the morning, but I’m happier than I have been for months.

  Whenever I’m hung-over, I’m always tremendously hungry, so breakfast with Dad at the Athenian diner, which went so spectacularly awry on Sunday, is today looking pretty good.

  But when I call him up to find out when he wants to go, he’s got a different plan in mind.

  “Kyle’s basketball team made the quarterfinals at the Center. The game is at two this afternoon. They nearly lost their game on Thursday, but Kyle sank a three-pointer at the buzzer.”

  “’Sank a three-pointer at the buzzer’—who’s writing your material, Dad?”

  “I guess I’ve picked up some terminology from the other parents.”

  “How often do you go to the games?”

  “I try to go to all Kyle’s games. His mom can’t get off work to go, and his dad’s not in the picture. He doesn’t have anyone to cheer for him.”

  I feel a ridiculous stab of envy. My father never came to any of my childhood recitals. He came of one of my high school chess matches once and made me so nervous I blew the game.

  “So do you want to go today? Kyle would love to see you there.”

  I think of screaming fans and shrieking buzzers and thumping balls. My head throbs. Then I think of Kyle’s bright, dark eyes and big lop-sided grin. Then I think of possibly running into Sean at the Parks Center and casually mentioning my plan to lure Ramon in from the cold.

  “Yeah, sure—I’ll pick you up at 3:30.”

  I content myself with egg, Taylor ham, and cheese on an everything bagel from Sol’s and head over to Harold’s house. By the time I pull into Summit Oaks, all the kids have left for school, the parents have left for work, and the stay-at-home moms are off to yoga or pottery or Suzuki violin with their toddlers. But as I follow the winding streets to Acorn Lane, I realize I’m not alone. In front of one house, three women emerge from a bright blue minivan carrying mops, and buckets and a vacuum. On the next block, two men cling to a steep roof, fixing a hanging gutter. Around the corner, a crew of window-washers takes advantage of the forty-degree weather to ply their trade.

  They all have dark hair and brown skin. They all do the work most people won’t touch. I want to shout out my window, “Do you know Ramon? Have you seen a man with blood on his sweatshirt?”

  Would they tell me if they did?

  When I arrive at Harold’s house, the Another Man’s Treasure van is parked at the curb, and a tow-truck is in the driveway hooked to one of the junked cars. Jill, Harold, and the driver are locked in an intense discussion. Jill told me yesterday that Harold had agreed to donate the three non-working cars to Habitat for Humanity. I can’t hear the discussion, but I can guess at the problem. Harold is willing to part with the cars, but not the collections inside the cars.

  I briefly consider getting involved, but decide this is Jill’s show. My rationality is not particularly useful in dealing with Harold. As I get out of my car, I notice a man walking a small fluffy dog pause at the intersection of Acorn and Birch. He doesn’t bother to conceal his curiosity at the scene. When he spots me, he strides over, dragging the reluctant pooch with him.

  “Are they getting rid of the cars to make it easier to tear down the house?” he asks without introduction. He has a stocking cap pulled down over his ears and a scarf wrapped around his neck although it’s not all that cold.

  “There’s no plan to tear down the house,” I say. “We’re doing some clearing out to make it more livable.”

  His eyes widen. “You’re clearing the whole house? That will take months.”

  The thought of spending months here induces a wave of nausea. “Just selected rooms. We’ll be done in two weeks.”

  I turn and walk away. I pulled that number out of the air, but suddenly it becomes my goal. In two weeks we’ll be done and I’ll have those Civil War documents. A person can endure anything for two weeks.

  I’m proud to say I made it through fours years at UVA without ever going to a Cavaliers game. So that means I haven’t been in a gym since high school. The smell of sweat and floor wax and rubber mats takes me back to a miserable time in my life. Trying to negotiate the horrors of zits and PMS and braces and mean girls without a mother made me feel like the only girl on the planet who hated high school. Now that I’m safely on the other side I realize there’s hardly a person on the planet who didn’t hate high school.

  Dad and I take our places on the bleachers and he nods to some of the other fans. My father is a regular at the basketball court! Dad is craning his neck looking for someone. Across the room I see a familiar splash of color. It’s the scarf, the Moorish tile scarf from the Met Shop, wrapped around the neck of a slender woman with short, wavy silver hair.

  I elbow Dad. “Is that who you’re looking for?”

  He stands up and waves. Good lord, he’s blushing!

  Natalie’s face lights up when she sees us and she climbs up the bleachers, greeting people as she goes. Now she’s in our row. “Hello, Roger.” She pats his hand lightly, then turns to me. “And you must be Audrey. I’ve heard so much about you! Isn’t this lovely that you’ve come to the game.” She slides past Dad and sits down between us. “I want to hear all about your fascinating job.”

  This is promising. I guess Dad hasn’t succeeded in convincing her that I’ve thrown my life away as an estate sale organizer. Still, despite her friendliness, I find her a little intimidating. Earrings, bracelets, scarf—all those accessories make me nervous. Although she’s wearing khakis and flats, she projects a force field of elegance holding the stinky gym at bay. I suspect that if my mother were alive today, she’d look just like this.

  “I hear you found what may be a Tiffany lamp at this house you’re clearing out,” Natalie says.

  Now when did Dad have time to tell her that? Does he violate his self-imposed telephone ban to chat with her? “Possibly. I’ve sent photos off to the Tiffany expert at Christie's. We’ll see what he has to say.”

  Before we discuss this further, the buzzer sounds and the teams run out onto the floor. As each Palmer Panther is announced, his family and friends cheer wildly in the stands. Kyle’s best friend Jamal has a particularly large and boisterous crew. Then Kyle’s name is called. Natalie and Dad look like they’re clapping to welcome the concertmaster of the New Jersey Symphony to the stage. So although I have no experience in this, I feel compelled to stand up and scream. “Go Kyle!”

  He looks up, startled, and a shy smile spreads across his face. It’s not cool to wave, but I see his fingers flutter.

  Then the two coaches cross the court and shake hands in the middle. One is a lean, balding man in glasses; the other is a tall and broad hulk with close-cropped red hair.

  Coughlin.

  I turn on my father. “You didn’t tell me Sean Coughlin was Kyle’s coach.”

  His eyebrows arch innocently. “Didn’t I mention it? I thought I had.”

  At first I’m annoyed, but then I realize Dad is handing me the perfect opportunity. Now I can certainly “run into” Sean, do my best to be charming, and start to lay the groundwork for my plan to reel in Ramon. I settle in to watch the game.

  Natalie is amazingly knowledgeable about basketball. She leans forward with her hands on her knees murmuring about zone defense and motion offense while my father pulls out a notebook to record the team’s stats. When the ref calls a foul against Jamal, the man behind us loudly decries his eye
sight and mental stability, but Natalie just purses her lips. Down on the court, Coughlin waves Jamal off the court and sends another kid in. The loudmouth behind us groans. I see Coughlin crouch to speak to Jamal eye-to-eye. The little guy’s head droops.

  “What did Jamal do wrong?” I ask, immediately sure the poor kid has been unjustly accused.

  “Showboating again,” Natalie says. “That pass was intended for Number 22. Jamal was so intent on getting it himself he fouled the guy guarding him.”

  Dad nods. “Jamal is the highest scorer. Sean spends a lot of time coaching him to work with his other team members. Sean puts him on the bench when he’s a ball hog.”

  Huh. I would have pegged Coughlin as the “win at all costs” type.

  With Jamal out of the game, the Summit Seekers soon pull ahead. I study Coughlin’s reaction to the other team’s successful shots, expecting anger or at least frustration. But Coughlin appears as serene as a Buddhist monk, his hands loosely clasped behind his back, his head slightly tilted. The guy behinds us screams, “Put Jamal back in!” but Coughlin doesn’t react. The game continues with the Panthers slipping further behind. The quarter ends, and he gathers the team around him, speaking to them quietly but intently. On the far side of the court, the Summit coach is red-faced, jabbing his finger at his players. One kid is crying.

  When the game starts up again, Jamal is back in but playing less aggressively.

  “The kids really like Sean, don’t they?”

  “They respect him. They crave his approval.” Natalie lays her hand on my father’s knee. “Just as they seek Roger’s approval.”

  Don’t we all?

  “Audrey is a champion chess-player,” my father says, apropos of nothing.

  What? Is he reading my mind?

  “You should come to the center and help your father with chess club, Audrey,” Natalie says.

  Dad puts down his stat notebook and leans around Natalie. “Yes, you should. I’m getting more kids than I can handle.”

  How’s that for double-teaming? “Uhm…Okay. I guess.”

  “Tuesday at four. Don’t forget.”

  Before I can say more, Kyle steals the ball and flies down the court with it. The Panthers are back in the game. From that point on, the game is too exciting for conversation. When the buzzer sounds, the Panthers have won by two points. I find myself on my feet, screaming and cheering. As the kids swarm around him, Coughlin finally shows some emotion. A grin splits his face and he looks as young and carefree as the boys on the team. I notice him giving Kyle’s shoulder a squeeze. I arch my back, knowing how Sean’s warm hand feels. The two teams do their obligatory “good game” hand slap and Coughlin shepherds them off the court. Before he disappears into the locker room, he looks into the stands. His eyes meet mine and he nods.

  There’s an ice cream victory party upstairs in the lobby. I expect Dad will want to slip away—noisy mingling events are not his scene, nor mine–but he and Natalie are swarmed by kids and borne off to the sundae line. Coughlin is cornered by a crowd of fathers talking hoops strategy, and I’m stuck making some “Aren’t those kids amazing?” chat with moms I don’t know. Damn! I feel my plan for a casual Coughlin encounter slipping away.

  Gradually, the energy in the room winds down. Families begin leaving for home and I find myself alone. Sean is still talking to one very intense father, so I retreat to a bench by the door and pull the partially finished Sunday Times crossword puzzle out of my bag, making sure I’m in Sean’s sight-line. When I’m sure he’s seen me, I duck my head and apply myself to the lower right quadrant of the puzzle. Soon enough Sean’s huge feet appear before me.

  “Did you do all that during the game?” he asks.

  “I had most of it done before I got here. I promise I wasn’t working the puzzle during Kyle’s breakaway.” I slide over, inviting Sean to sit. “You’re terrific with the kids. They really enjoy playing for you.”

  He stretches out his long legs. “I try to keep ‘em out of trouble. Makes my real job easier.”

  “I think you’re more invested than that. It’s pretty clear those kids adore you.”

  I expect a smart-aleck comeback, but Sean has a wistful look in his eye. “I get more from them than they get from me. When you spend all day with low-lifes and scumbags, you get a little cynical. A lot cynical. Before I started coaching, the person I was becoming, well, you wouldn’t want to know that guy. I guess you still don’t want to know me, but really, I used to be much worse. Those kids—their joy, their honesty—they turned me around.”

  How does Sean manage to do this? At the very moment when I had convinced myself that it would be permissible to manipulate him to suit my needs, he hands me his heart on a platter. Taking advantage of Bambi would be easier than this.

  I take a deep breath. One of these days my fatal attraction to unvarnished honesty is going to get me killed, but right now, it’s all I’ve got. “Sean, I want to apologize about the incident with Ty, about thinking you’d shot him.” I start out looking into Sean’s blue, blue eyes, but the intensity of his stare makes me shift my focus to my folded hands as I continue. “The whole scene was so surreal, and seeing Ty crumpled on the ground and you with your gun drawn—well, I leaped to a conclusion that wasn’t irrational, but wasn’t…uh…well thought-out.” I glance at him from the corner of my eye. “I’m just trying to say, I’m…I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

  Geez that was hard!

  He watches me silently. Finally he speaks. “You’re sorry if your thinking that I’m a cold-blooded, rogue cop assassin hurt my feelings?”

  I try again, this time holding his gaze. “I know I hurt your feelings, Sean. I’m sorry. Please accept my apology.”

  Now it’s Sean who looks away, studying the mural of Rosa Parks as if he’s never seen it before. “Your good opinion matters to me, Audrey. I’m very impressed by your talents. Your knowledge of antiques, your business skills, all that math whiz stuff. I just wish you would give me a little credit for knowing how to do my job. I know I look like a big, dumb jock, but I do possess a brain.”

  “I’ve never questioned your intelligence, Sean. Only your conviction that you’re always right.”

  “Unlike you.” He plucks the crossword from my lap and scans it. “Thirty-eight across, common shape in cathedrals. You have ‘arch’. Should be ‘ogee’."

  I snatch the puzzle back. “Oh my God—that changes everything! No wonder I was stuck.”

  “So you do believe I have a brain?”

  “Of course I do.”

  He leans his forehead against mine and whispers, “Then try not to look so incredulous when I’m using it.”

  And that moment of weakness, when Sean has managed to make me feel guilty and flattered and bizarrely affectionate all at once, accounts for what happens next. Dad and Natalie appear and suggest we all go out to dinner at Fiorello’s.

  I say yes.

  Chapter 17

  Sean and I face Dad and Natalie over a flickering candle. Puccini overtures play softly in the background. Bad reproductions of Italian masterpieces beam down at us as the waiter fills our glasses with red wine. I hold the big menu up in front of my face and pretend I’m not on a double date with my father.

  Things get a little easier once the appetizers arrive and we’ve worked our way through half the wine. Natalie is an intrepid conversationalist, prying out details of all of our lives: Sean’s college athletic triumphs, Dad’s research on Diophantine equations, and my work at Harold’s house.

  “How tragic,” Natalie says as I describe the conditions at Harold’s house. “A brilliant mind run unraveled by all that junk.”

  “That’s the incredible part. When I first started, I thought the house was just a big pit filled with garbage, but now I see the method to Harold’s madness. He really does have a system in place for each section of the house although it’s not always apparent to the untrained eye. Each room is like an archeological exploration of Harold’s obsessi
ons.”

  Dad purses his lips. “Are you making any headway? This sounds like a lot of work for no certain return.”

  Of course this is exactly what I’ve been complaining about to Jill, but I don’t appreciate hearing it from my father. What’s more, he doesn’t know about the Better Business Bureau complaint and the loss of the Willowby job, and that’s the way I want it to stay.

  “We are making progress. So far we’ve drilled through to the foyer. Jill has recycled fifty thousand paper road maps. Turns out Harold is a huge fan of Google Maps, so he let them go pretty easily. The mildewed atlases and broken globes seem to be causing him more trouble. Jill can’t figure out how to recycle them, so we’ve just shoved them in a corner for now.”

  Dad opens his mouth to protest. I notice Natalie shoot him a warning look, and amazingly, he says nothing. Man, this woman really is a good influence.

  “So the discovery of the lamp makes you believe there really might be more valuable stuff in there?” Sean drains his water glass and sets it on the table.

  A busboy appears immediately to refill it as I continue my story. “According to Nora, there’s Civil War memorabilia in the master bath. She remembered the name of the dealer who sold it to Harold, and Jill followed up with him—according to his records, in 1982 Harold bought a set of letters between Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis. We have to work our way through the Bird Room to get to the Civil War Room. Bird houses, bird feeders, bird books—I can hardly wait.”

  “Are you sure the letters are still there?” my father asks. But I have to admit, his tone is reasonable, not accusatory.

  I shake my head. “The last time Nora saw them, they were in the master bath. She hasn’t been up there for over fifteen years.”

  Natalie sets her silverware down and offers me a reassuring smile. “On the bright side, no one else has been up there either, right?”

  The busboy clears the appetizers, the fettuccine and the veal saltimbocca arrive, and the conversation turns to anecdotes from Natalie’s parenting class. We laugh and eat and drink more wine, and before I know it, the restaurant has emptied to two or three parties.