April at the Antique Alley

by Bill McGrath

  At one of the tire stores I did find one friendly tire jockey and between flat fixes he was bored enough to offer his help. He did not recognize the tread pattern, but he did clue me in on one thing. So far I had only been investigating tires for cars. In his opinion the tread looked a little like what he would expect a tire for an ATV to look. They are usually considerably smaller in diameter but wider than auto tires and not manufactured by the same companies. He pointed out that the tread would be specifically good for driving through mud. That is why he suggested I look at vehicles made for off-road use. Another idea he had was that it was possible that it was a motorcycle tire. I dismissed both of his ideas though because the person who broke into those places and committed the crimes would want a fast get away vehicle so the ATV was out, and who would bring a motorcycle when you were hoping to steal a desk?

  I made a note to myself though to look into the possibility that our tire was from a sports vehicle.

  Only one thing lucky happened that entire afternoon. I got back to my parked car well after my metered time had been used up but before a meter maid came by. I shoved one more dime in the slot just to give me some time to sit and make notes before driving off.

  When I finished the notes I went to stick the note book in the little door pocket meant to hold maps and found in the pocket the four prescription bottles I had taken from Lola’s house. I had a little spare time so I called 411 and found the doctor’s phone number and address. He was in Dallas not too far from the Antique Alley, and I had business there next so I figured I would give it a shot.

  It turned out to be one of those older doctor’s offices. The block it was on had several big old houses that had been converted to commercial buildings long ago. Some of them had, by now, been torn down and replaced with cheaply constructed square buildings made from aluminum and glass that were specifically designed and built for store fronts. The new store fronts mixed in with the old Victorian houses gave the neighborhood a strange flavor that was amplified by the large blacktop parking areas instead of lawns.

  The doctor still had one of the old houses and, although I did not confirm this, it was a pretty good bet that the doctor did business here on the first floor and lived upstairs on the second. The floor plan, or at least what I saw of it, was quite similar to my own house/office. A wall had been removed to convert the old living room and old dining room into a large waiting room. The nurse/receptionist was a cute little blond girl about my age. She went through the motions of checking the doctor’s schedule but by the completely empty waiting room I was sure I would be able to get a few minutes of the Doctor’s time.

  The doctor himself was a little hard to place age wise. He appeared fit as a fiddle but his shock of fine hair so white that it gave him an ancient quality. I expect he was somewhere between fifty and retired, but probably nearing seventy.

  For some reason I noticed what I assumed was a family type resemblance between the nurse and the doctor so wondered if they might be father and daughter.

  I really did not have much extra time here so I just let it go and got onto business.

  I showed the good doctor the four pill bottles and explained what I was there for. He appeared genuinely upset to hear that Lola had been murdered. He knew her and had been treating her for about the last fifteen years. He used a little intercom device to instruct the nurse to pull Lola’s file and bring it in to us. While we were awaiting the records he looked at the prescription bottles and we found nothing at all remarkable about them for a woman of Lola’s age.

  One of the pills was a blood thinner to keep blood clots from forming. One was to lower bad cholesterol. One was to help her sleep if she had trouble dosing off. The fourth was an antibiotic he had probably given her for a flu and was a full two years past its expiration date.

  The thick file the nurse delivered proved that Lola had indeed been seeing the doctor for the last decade and a half. She had visited at least twice a year but almost always just for a check-up. During that time she had never been hospitalized or suffered any injuries. She had no medical insurance that he knew about and she paid for each visit with a check from her business checking account.

  The emergency contact listed on her original information sheet listed her father’s name and had the phone number and the address of Lola’s Attic.

  I thanked the doctor for his time and retreated to my Taurus.

  By now it was getting late on Thursday afternoon and I had scheduled the funeral for Monday morning so I figured it was time to see the Antique Alley store owners again and let them know the information I had so far about the final arrangements. They had all asked me to give them the details of the funeral arrangements so that they could pay their last respects, and it gave me another opportunity to interview each of them. I wondered if Jill might want to accompany me so I dialed my office number but got the answering machine, and I got the same response out of Jill’s cell phone number so I drove the four miles all by my lonesome self.

  Just to change my luck, instead of working the block east to west I started at the other end to spread the news about the funeral. I found Steven Crowley at Texas Treasuretrove but Wanda was not there. Steven was kind enough to write down the funeral details but suggested that they might not be able to attend. I got no new information from him and he offered no explanation about where his wife might be at the time. Remembering that I had not checked the tires on his car I

  checked them out as I was leaving. His tires were not the diamond pattern I was looking for, so his car was in the clear but he caught me looking at his tires. When he asked what I was doing I tried to make up a lie but before I could think of anything he asked me flat out if he was a suspect. I had to tell him that everyone was a suspect and what I was doing by checking his tires was eliminating him from the list of potential suspects. I am pretty sure he bought it, but he would be very careful around me now, and he hadn’t exactly been the easiest person to work with so far.

  Jana was with a customer at her store and it was sort of fun watching her in her profession. I mean I had seen her with her hair down as it were but I had never really observed her in her business environment. She acknowledged my presence but kept on with the customer and soon sold a bed and dresser set. I waited as Jana wrote up the order and helped the customer load the furniture into a van. It fit but it was tight.

  When we were alone Jana offered to lock the door and do lots of fun and nasty things with me but I took a rain-check explaining that I had business to do.

  She giggled and thanked me then wrote down the funeral details and promised to be there. She also asked if I was doing anything Friday night. It was my birthday but I was sure she did not know that and it was way to early in the relationship to dump milestone baggage on her so I told her I wasn’t sure what plans Jill might have and promised to call her later that evening.

  I was sort of surprised when I walked into Buy It Bare. I had, of course, expected to find Shelly up in front and Rubert working with dangerous chemicals in the rear room. Instead I found Rubert cleaned up pretty well and stationed in the front of the store. He was alone and he quickly told me that Shelly was away doing some household errands. When I passed along the information about the funeral he took out a note book and wrote it all down. He promised they would be there but somehow I sort of figured the notebook would never find its way into Shelly’s hands until it was too late. I had to resist questioning him about his past drug convictions but silently reminded myself that Detective Samuels would be handling that. Once again though I left Rubert feeling my boobs had endured a close inspection.

  There is a nice old wooden picnic table in front of Antiques of Dallas and there sharing Cokes and burgers I found the gorgeous Donald Smith and my hard to find partner Jill. What could I say, she did ask for the day off. Donald was again in his riding leathers and I noticed that Jill was covered from shoulders to toes in shiny black cow skin as well. The temperature was near ninety and they must have been dripping in perspirat
ion but for some reason there was a very musky smell in the air. Go figure.

  Inside the store I gave the time and location of the funeral services to Fredrick Smith and he once again asked if I knew anything about when Lola’s space and inventory might become available. We did talk business for a moment or two about that and he ended up giving me a card of an auctioneer he would like to have conduct the sale. Reluctantly I accepted the auctioneer’s card. I wanted to tell him that if I did not find a next of kin soon the sale of Lola’s stuff would be run by the sheriff’s department and I would have no control of it. As it were he was mistaken about my power in deciding things about Lola’s estate, but, as long as he thought I could help him he would continue to treat me with respect. Once he realized that I could not do little favors like picking out his auctioneer, he would no longer be interested in helping me.

  Back at Parnell’s Prize Antiques I found myself waiting once again while the shop owner haggled with a customer. It was one of those fun little moments one gets in life from time to time. I immediately recognized the customer as a well known and well loved but just recently retired morning radio host from the Dallas market. For sure I would have interrupted to ask for his autograph but Parnell was just about to wrap up an eighty-thousand dollar sale of several nice antique pieces and I am pretty sure he would be mad if I blew the sale for him, so like a good little citizen I just minded my own business until the DJ had signed the papers and the delivery was scheduled.

  As soon as the celebrity left the store Parnell Erickson thanked me for not interfering and then went into celebration mode. It was the biggest sale he had made in a month and he really was quite happy about it. He had no new information for me but dutifully wrote down the time and location of Lola’s final act.

  I found Jill waiting at my car. As soon as I had left his store Fredrick Smith had called Donald in to watch the store while Fredrick went off to do some unnamed chore that had come up an emergency. Donald had picked her up earlier so she was now stranded while he worked and wanted to catch a ride back with me.

  She was quite irritated about it but on the car ride home we shared a little girl talk about our new love interests. Her new boy seemed just as interested in her flesh as my new girl seemed in mine. We took turns warning each other not to go to far to fast and we each lied promising that we would not.

  I was hungry so I suggested we stop for a bite to eat. Jill agreed and we started that thing where we each suggest a restaurant or two and then try to decide what sounds good to both of us. When I mentioned her father’s restaurant Jill immediately became a little too argumentative saying that she wanted to go there Friday night which was tomorrow. I asked her why tomorrow and she wouldn’t tell me but rather just played it off. That was the first hint that there might be a surprise

  party for my birthday but I had to play it very carefully. I had only met Jill three months ago, and although we had become good friends and even business partners this was the first special occasion that had come along and I really did not want to complicate our relationship. On the same token though, I wasn’t even sure if she was aware that tomorrow was my birthday. I mean I wasn’t wearing a sign or anything. So I let it go. We ended up pulling off of highway 183 just long enough to buy a bucket of chicken to take home.

  I know, I know. I am a fast food junkie! I just can’t help it. Living alone for so long I just hardly ever cook, and we all know how pathetic an unescorted lady looks eating by herself in a restaurant. Regardless of the massive calorie and cholesterol counts I just love those little drive through windows.

  Jill got all domestic in the kitchen and proceeded to turn our bucket of chicken into a Kentucky fried feast, but before I had my first finger licking taste I checked my answering machine and found a message from Detective Samuels, which simply told me he had a favor to ask and then directed me to read my e-mail.

  His e-mail told me that he had been busy with a couple of other cases and had not gotten to a task he had originally assigned to himself. We had found a card from Salvation Army in one of the pieces of furniture that had been delivered to Jana’s store and not stolen. Samuels wanted to follow up with the store and see if they could pinpoint the person that had purchased the truck load of furniture and then sold it to Jana. He had not yet done that and asked if I could run with it. He also, in his e-mail, had attached digital pictures of some of the pieces of furniture.

  I downloaded the pictures and printed them off and took notes about the store. I sent Detective Samuels a short e-mail response saying I would take care of it and then dove into my dinner.

  CHAPTER-11.

  Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday dear Xara.

  Happy birthday to me.

  Thursday night had ended with a big jug of wine and a platonic hour with Jill in my hot tub. Friday morning started with a big cup of coffee and a mild headache. It is sort of funny, but I remember from my childhood being able to sleep late and having my mother working hard to get me out of bed early enough each day to get to school on time, and sleeping till noon on Saturdays, but then I joined the navy. I was actually a sailor for a total of six years and the one habit I had picked up in all my training was to wake up at five o’clock every morning.

  Didn’t matter what day of the week it was, didn’t matter how late I went to bed the night before. My internal clock just woke me up at five A.M. It was rather

  annoying, especially on days like this. Sometimes, if I tried, I could get back to sleep, but today I didn’t even try.

  I was getting nowhere on my case. My only charge was to find the next of kin for a recently deceased business owner. It should have been quite simple. Now the funeral was all planned and I had spent several days with absolutely no luck at all. In addition I kept getting bogged down. I mean I had agreed to check out the thrift store for Eric Samuels, and they didn’t open until ten, so I had five hours to wait with nothing to do and my lover was not here and my partner was deep asleep like I should have been, and to top it all off I was no longer a youth in my twenties.

  I have a full length mirror in my bed room so I climbed the stairs and shut the door. I took off my bathrobe which left me bare and stood in front of the mirror for a long time with the lights on and took a good look.

  I was no taller and no shorter. My long blond hair was the exact same color, and it too was no longer or shorter than I remembered it from the day before. My shoulders seemed big and square, but they had been all my life. I was happy to see that my boobs were not sagging any more now that I was an old hag in her thirties, but to be honest they had never been very big so I really had not expected them to sag. Embarrassingly I noticed for the millionth time that my nipples drew unwanted attention to themselves by being the darkest of all the skin on my body.

  My arms, as always, seemed longer than they should have been. My belly not as flat as I wanted but not bad for a girl no longer in her twenties. My hips still flared and my blond pubic hair still hid nothing. My thighs were thick but long enough to hide it giving me my height. My belly button was still an innie.

  I turned and looked over my shoulder to look at my back side. All of my life I had garnered compliments, some wanted and most unnecessary and even inappropriate, about what a fine ass I had, but I could never tell by looking over my shoulder in a mirror and this time was no different. Briefly I thought of taking a picture so I could study it but then thought just how pathetic that sounded.

  The piteous self examination done I stepped into a hot shower and stayed there almost an hour unsuccessfully trying to wash away the years. I was never one to keep calendars but the way I was feeling I fully expected mother nature to ruin this day so I checked my supply of maxi pads.

  Three aspirin, two cups of coffee, and an hour later I felt much better. I looked through the supplies in my kitchen and found them woefully short of anything I might wish to eat for breakfast so I hopped into the Taurus and headed down the road to my favorite donut store.

 
Jill was just getting up when I arrived home with my goodies and we had a pleasant breakfast and, of course, more girl talk about Donald and Jana.

  There were exactly two items on the day’s agenda. One was to check out the Salvation Army store and the other was dinner at Feldman’s on Fifth at seven. That would leave a lot of day left over so Jill and I started talking about how else we might be able to get a line on Lola’s family. At this point the best lead I could think of was the tax records check I had asked Eric Samuels to do. Jill suggested that we also look through the other boxes in Lola’s dining room because there might be a box of important business records buried amongst the stack of junk, but we had not yet been cleared to look through that stuff yet.

  I called my detective and caught him at his desk. He did not yet have the IRS

  records sorted out but did tell me that Lola’s house had been cleared so we could look through her boxes but told me to be careful. We, of course, would go packing heat just in case. Just as we were about to hang up Samuels suggested we come by his office the next morning and he promised he would have the tax info by then.

  Before the Fort Worth and Dallas area had pooled some money and built their shiny new airport the best way into or out of Dallas by air was Love Field. It still operated as an airport and is, in fact, the home base of Southwest Airlines, which was the first American air carrier to show a profitable year after the tragic attack on New York city back on that famous September eleventh.

  On Lemon avenue not far from Love Field you will find the biggest Salvation Army resale store in the area. For all I know it may well be the biggest in the country but I have never asked them about that. It is a store that I am not unfamiliar with. Inside they have acres of floor space crowded with row after row of racks stuffed with used clothing. They make an honest effort to keep the clothing in some sort of order but every single day the crowds of people shopping there mess it all up. In addition to clothing they have a section that has old records and tapes with a few new CDs sprinkled in, and right next to that they have a room for used books that is actually larger than any used book store in town.