by Dana Mentink
She waved to a worker at the sprawling Apple of My Eye Orchard. He was on the top of a tall ladder, stripping fruit from a heavily laden tree and deftly tossing it into a basket strapped to his back.
She rolled down her window. “Is Edward Lupin’s house on this road?”
The man wiped his brow and nodded. “’Bout a mile down. Look for the mailbox.” She waved a thank-you.
Continuing on, she’d almost passed the vine-covered mailbox with the name Lupin stenciled in peeling paint. It was leaning slightly to the starboard side. She took the turn that led down a graveled slope, along a thickly wooded drive. A small one-story house appeared at the end with a sleek, red two-door car parked in front with personalized plates that read, ISELLIT. The house was freshly painted, the bushes trimmed back, but the old roof was clearly in need of some repair. The sidewalk sported a network of fissures, which had probably laid out a few visitors in its time. There was a row of newly planted rhododendrons flashing some welcome color near the front door.
Candy Simon opened at her knock, smile flickering when she took in the dog. She had a perfect coif of black hair and eyes to match. A good five inches taller than Trinidad, Candy wore a neat pantsuit that hugged her trim frame.
Trinidad tried to smooth a hand over the hair straggling out from her barrettes and stood up straighter. “Hello. I’m Trinidad Jones.”
Her eyes slid from Trinidad to Noodles. “I don’t think we should bring your dog inside, if you don’t mind.”
“I apologize, but he’s had a shock. I need to keep him close, but he’d be fine on a blanket in the backyard if that’s okay. It’s too hot in the car.”
“Oh…well, okay, as long as he doesn’t dig. The yard is enough of a mess as it is.”
“He’s not a digger.”
She quirked a brow. “You know what they say, you can’t take the dig out of the dog.”
Trinidad wondered who exactly had said such a thing, but Candy continued.
“I think there’s a latch on the gate. You can open it from the outside. Come on in through the sliding glass door when you’re done.”
Relieved, she led Noodles around the side yard and pulled on a half-rusted wire to open the gate. The fence was reasonably sound, having had several boards replaced that had not yet weathered to match the others. The yard was a newly mown patch of weedy grass crowded around a massive oak, which cast a wide shadow. Gloomy, she thought, though the shade was delicious. Trinidad stroked Noodles and filled a travel bowl of water for him. “Be right back, sweetie.”
The interior of the house smelled of fresh paint and new carpets. A small living room opened into a kitchen tiled in a dated golden shade. The dark wood cupboards cramped the space even further.
Candy clacked her way into the kitchen, her low heels loud on the linoleum, a clipboard in her hands. Trinidad caught a glimpse of the neatly printed list and the series of check marks by most of the items. “Festive food” was the last note on the list, just before “dispose of ice cream equipment.” She began to get an inkling of the type of arrangement Candy might be looking for.
“Thanks for coming. I’m desperate to start showing the house next week while we’ve got visitors in town for the holiday. I need to generate some excitement for the Monday open house. Selling this relic is going to be a challenge. People aren’t exactly moving in droves to Upper Sprocket, but there’s a buyer out there for everything. It would be a great house to purchase and rent out to college kids attending the university, wouldn’t it?”
Trinidad didn’t actually think a bunch of college students would want to live at the end of a lane, far away from the eateries and on the other side of town from the college, but she wasn’t going to rain on Candy’s parade.
She flipped to the second page on her clipboard. The backs of the repurposed papers were old listings. Candy was a frugal gal from all appearances. “It looks one hundred percent better than it did a week ago, let me tell you. Lupin was a collector, shall we say, by which I mean he was a yard-sale junkie. He always thought he was going to find that piece of priceless ‘junkola.’ There was such a mess of epic proportions to clean up, you wouldn’t believe it.”
“I’ve heard he liked to collect things.”
Candy rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t even begin to touch it. Everything from a busted-up candy machine to sixty-five coffee grinders. Sixty-five, mind you. When he told me he was going to sell, I strongly advised him to start culling his belongings, but he didn’t make much progress before he died. After that, I boxed whatever didn’t appear to be outright trash and had it shipped to his family in Michigan. That cost a chunk of change for them, I’d say.”
“He had a storage space, too, didn’t he? At Juliette’s place?”
She tapped her pencil on the clipboard. As she did so, Trinidad noticed that the hem of her sleeve had come unraveled and was held together by a small bit of silver tape. “He did. Defaulted on the payments, so those items were auctioned off, and the remainder went to the flea market. More junk, all of it.”
“Who purchased the contents at the auction?”
There was a pause. “Sonny Petrakis. He’s a painter here in town.”
The same Sonny Petrakis who had a fistfight with Kevin?
Candy checked her watch. “I’m sorry, I’d love to chat, but I really can’t stay here any longer, so we need to get down to business. There’s an antique ice cream machine in the garage. I figured who would be more interested than a person opening an ice cream shop?”
“That was very considerate of you.”
“No big deal. Take it if you want it. You can access the garage through the side door. I’ve had it appraised, and it’s worth close to $500.”
“Oh, I couldn’t just take it…” Trinidad began. “The family might want to sell it.”
“They said it wasn’t worth the cost of shipping. Besides,” she flashed a brilliant smile, “I was thinking along the lines of a barter. That’s the arrangement I mentioned. You take the ice cream machine, and in exchange, you provide ice cream for my open house on Monday…$500 worth of product ought to cover the event. You do the setup and cleanup, and you get to advertise your business. A win-win, right?”
“But…”
“Great. Well, it’s settled then. I’ll get back to you about the exact timing. I’ll lock up, and you can pull the side garage door closed when you leave.” And then, in a matter of moments, Trinidad found herself deposited on the front porch, listening as Candy’s heels clicked a lively staccato down the front walk.
But I have no time for this… I have a shop to open and a friend to get out of jail, her mind shouted. Was an antique ice cream machine worth the cost of providing free ice cream and the trouble it would take to bring it to the open house? How would she keep a great quantity of ice cream cold enough in the July heat? Coolers? And how exactly was she going to fit a bunch of coolers in her Pinto? The logistics were dizzying.
She realized that it had been no sacrifice at all for Candy Simon to fork over something that didn’t even belong to her in the first place. She’d gotten $500 worth of free ice cream. Then again, it was a chance for Trinidad to advertise the Shimmy and Shake Shop if Candy could rustle up a good number of attendees. Trying to decide if she had just stepped into a sweet business arrangement or a pile of work she had no time for, Trinidad wandered through the side gate and into the garage.
A bare bulb cast a sickly pool of light by which she found stacked boxes marked “donation” and a note for “ice cream lady” stuck atop an old machine. Trinidad’s breath caught at the relic. She’d made a study of the history of ice cream, and she knew this old beauty was a Gem from the early 1900s, featuring a sturdy cedar tub that appeared to be in great condition along with the heavy metal gears. She knelt and skimmed a finger along the appliance. The Gem featured something special. The can and the dasher both revolved in different
directions. It would be absolutely perfect to display in the shop. Maybe she hadn’t been handed such a raw deal after all.
“You’re not going to wind up in the garbage heap,” she said, pulling cobwebs from the machine. “Even if it is going to cost me a boatload of work.”
The garage was stifling, and she wished she had someone to share the find with. It would be presumptuous to call Quinn, wouldn’t it? He’d probably think her silly, anyway, and her only other friend, Juliette, was busy with far greater concerns.
She stared at the amazing appliance with a twinge of guilt. Was it really okay with the family to take it? Had Candy been clear with them about the value?
“Who in the entire world would care about an old ice cream machine except you, Trin?” she asked herself. Trinidad noticed a box nearby that had not been taped closed yet, nor was it marked for donation. Instead there was an S written on the side in red ink. Curious, she flipped open the cardboard top. It wouldn’t hurt to take one quick look.
Inside she found a stack of thin black bound books, a series entitled the Collector’s Treasure Trove. Each volume covered a different type of collection such as coins, antique glass, jewelry, art, fine porcelain, and stamps. She wondered if Lupin was interested in any particular collection or all of them. She thumbed through one about coin collecting, or numismatics, as she discovered it was termed. The pages were yellowed and brittle, but someone had dog-eared a scattering of them and circled various specimens of old coins, including the 1955 doubled-die penny and the 1913 Liberty Head nickel.
“Maybe I should have collected coins instead of cookie cutters,” she muttered. The other books were similarly dog-eared and marked up.
Another box nearby had not yet been taped. Trinidad couldn’t resist a peek inside. It was full of small ziplocked bags of coins, which appeared to be all of a modern minting. There was also a stack of old china saucers, a string of dull blue beads, three antique pairs of sewing scissors, and a couple of metal thimbles. The side of this box was labeled, “for donation.”
How sad, she thought. Lupin had accumulated these items and held onto them, and now they were considered unwanted junk. Had he felt unwanted, too? Tucked away in this overgrown, out-of-the-way house? She suddenly thought of Papa Luis, grateful that he was surrounded by friends and her mother and brother in the house they shared in Miami. They chatted on a regular basis, but she’d been so busy lately. She made a mental note to call and check in with him. He would love to hear about her antique ice cream churner.
Climbing to her feet, she had almost cleared the garage door threshold when she noticed a bulletin board leaning against the wall by an old lawn mower. There was a picture tacked there of a man with long bushy hair squinting into the sun, holding a fish he’d caught. It must be Lupin. The photo was damaged by age, curled at the edges. Below was a series of business cards shoved into the corkboard framing. One for Pizza Heaven, the delivery number circled, one for a local taxi service, and one more. She bent to pick it up for a closer look.
Sonny Petrakis, Petrakis Painting, the card read. There was a phone number printed on the front and a business license number. Sonny must have done the recent painting on the house when Candy began to prep it for sale.
She considered what she knew about Sonny Petrakis, one of a scant few names on her suspect list for Kevin’s murder. According to the twins’ mother, Sonny was interested in Tanya, or at least in her money, and fiercely competitive with Kevin. And now his name resurfaced, popping up at the home of Lupin, a consummate collector whose storage space he’d bought at auction. No other connection between the two, was there?
Her mind tumbling in untidy waves, Trinidad closed the garage and went to retrieve Noodles.
She woke him from a peaceful slumber, which seemed to have revived his spirits. Her garage snooping had taken longer than she’d realized. Afternoon shadows had begun to creep over the house, and it felt as if the fence had edged closer, or maybe the tangle of shrubbery was creeping nearer to entrap them. Spooky.
Stop being ridiculous, Trin.
Shaking free of the thoughts, she collected Noodles’s water dish. He leapt to his feet and began to bark. She froze. It was not his “how about some playtime outside” bark, but a full-on danger-alert warning. Perhaps it was just a squirrel that had darted along the fence line? But the barking increased in volume into an unceasing cacophony. The scruff along his neck stood stiff. She gripped the bowl.
A clang rose over the barking. Someone was in the garage now. She was certain. Maybe Candy had returned? But why would she let herself in through the garage? Gripping her phone, finger on the emergency button, she tried to ready the bowl in case it was all she had to defend herself. With a sudden lunge, Noodles took off.
“No, Noodles,” she whispered. “Stay here.”
But he was off and running, electric with tension, barking for all he was worth. She heard the side garage door open and the sound of a heavy tread, definitely not a woman’s.
Prickles erupted over her skin. She froze, listening as the intruder came closer, realizing that she had no place to run.
Chapter Eight
Trinidad opened her mouth to scream when a dark-haired man wearing painting overalls stepped around the corner, a box pinched under his arm. His tall, lanky frame was athletic, a tattoo peeking out from beneath the short sleeve of his T-shirt. His dark, close-set eyes were fixed on the dog.
“Easy, boy. Man, that dog scared me. You must be Trinidad. Candy said you might be stopping by here today.”
She heaved out a breath as Noodles stopped barking and settled into wary silence. “Yes,” she managed. “And this is Noodles.”
He offered a grin and jutted his square chin at the dog. “Sorry I scared you, Noodles. I’m Sonny Petrakis. I did some painting for Candy to get the place ready for sale. I left my best brush over here.” He pulled a paintbrush from his pocket with a flourish. “A man’s only as good as his tools. This is Old Bessie. Can’t do my job without her.”
Trinidad’s eyes traveled to the box under Sonny’s arm. The top was folded closed, so she could not see what was inside. She noted the S on the side. “Are those your tools, too?”
He looked at the box as if surprised to find it in his possession. “This? Oh, no. Candy put some of my leftover paint in here for me. Never know when you might need a pint of antique white.” He eyed the dog. “Sure he’s out of attack mode?”
Trinidad gave Noodles a pat. He sat down, panting.
Sonny gazed at the house. “Lupin was a pack rat. When I was here priming, he rambled on about the stuff he picked up from yard sales and his trips and whatever. Never was anything worth one thin dime, probably, but he was convinced he’d found something invaluable. Saw a picture in a magazine article that made him think of an item he’d supposedly acquired a couple decades ago. Didn’t tell me exactly what it was.” Sonny tapped his forehead. “And he couldn’t remember where he’d put it. Not surprising, since his house looked like a rummage sale.” Sonny sighed. “Kinda sad, really. I guess he tore the place apart looking for whatever it was. Too bad, huh? To realize you have something worth some dough but can’t remember where you put it?”
“Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “That would be painful.” Especially, she thought, if it wasn’t in Lupin’s home anymore. “Is that why you bought his storage unit at the auction? Hoping the valuable item might be in there?”
His eyes narrowed for a moment. “You make it sound like I was taking advantage of an old man or something. He was dead. What did he care? Sure, I was hoping to score, but it was all legal. I didn’t do anything wrong.” He paused. “I heard your friend Juliette was arrested for murdering Kevin.” His voice was edged with something she could not identify. “Is that why you’re giving me the third degree? Hoping to find someone else to pin the blame on?”
“No, I’m just a curious kind of person. But Juliette didn’t ki
ll Kevin.”
“Police think she’s good for it.”
“The truth will come out.”
He shrugged. “Whoever did it should pay. Kevin was a good guy.”
“You were friends?”
“Went to high school together. We competed in everything, but I was the better athlete. We used to play pickup basketball at the park uptown in the spring when our businesses were running slow.” He frowned. “I’ll miss Kev. I used to tease him that he got everything handed to him—the popcorn business, his old man’s house.” He grimaced. “Not me. I had to work for every penny I ever made. Still, though, he was a good guy. Did me some favors. Someone needs to be punished for his murder.”
“I agree.” She was struggling to think of how to tactfully slide the conversation around to Tanya when he shouldered the box. “I should go.”
No time for tact. “Were you and Kevin both dating Tanya Grant?”
He blinked, mouth open in surprise. “I didn’t figure you for the gossipy type.”
Though her cheeks burned, she kept her gaze on him.
His lip crimped. “No reason not to tell, I guess. I was really into Tanya a few months ago, but Kevin turned her head when they worked on a pirates and princess play together for the theater. She used me to make him jealous, only I didn’t see it at the time. She would have done anything to get him to pop the question. Stupid me. Yeah, I was sorry when she dumped me, but, hey, all’s fair in love and war. And Kevin won that round.”
But he’d certainly lost the war, she thought. And now Tanya was available again. She wondered if Sonny was going to try and win her back.
Sonny paused, his expression calculating. “If you’re playing sleuth trying to find another killer, I’m not your guy. I didn’t kill Kevin.”
“I didn’t accuse you of it.”
“Uh-huh,” he said, oil-black eyes gleaming. “I hope not, but it sure sounds like you’re throwing shade in my direction.”