by Dale Mayer
She pointed out two end tables and said, “I think those belong, if you look at the bases of the feet.”
He nodded, grabbed both of them, handed them to her, and said, “You can take those. And a big coffee table is there. I’ll grab that.” And he carried it up, putting it in front of the couch and the two pot chairs.
She just smiled. “Did Nan really buy all this stuff thinking about me down the road? It just boggles the mind.”
“It also means she had an inkling you would need it,” he said with a sideways look at her.
“She never really met my ex, but I think she understood from our conversations that I wasn’t happy.”
“Did she know he was very wealthy?”
“Yes, she did, but she also knew I was on a budget and couldn’t spend money on what I wanted.”
“And yet, you still had five thousand dollar outfits.”
“Yes, but he would instruct me to buy them so as not to feel embarrassed by me at certain events,” she said. “But when I gave fifty dollars to an animal charity, he chastised me pretty heavily.”
“Wow, what a nice guy,” Mack said.
“I know,” she admitted. “I argued a couple times, and I did have some spending money I gave them, but it was still nothing compared to the amount he was spending on luxury items.”
Finally Mack went back in, checked the spaghetti, returned to the garage, and said, “The water is back up to boil. It’s almost done.”
She nodded and looked around the garage. “There’s a little room here but not a whole lot,” she said. Motioning him into the basement again, she noted, “But a fair bit of room is here now.” She lifted a couple chairs off another dining room table and set them up so they looked like they were seated at the table and pulled the table toward her so she could set up the remaining chairs on the other side.
“We still have to get the dresser out,” Mack said. “That’s really not a piece you want to leave down here.”
“No,” she said. She pointed out a couple big hutches too. “I wonder if they’re of any value.”
“I don’t know,” he said, “but I can’t even begin to lift those alone. You should also be checking the drawers. Knowing Nan, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they were full. Come on. Let’s go eat. We can take another look afterward.”
They headed back up, and Doreen was grateful to see him drain the pasta. She cleared off the kitchen table and set two place settings, and very soon he walked over with two plates heaped with pasta and sauce. She looked at it with a happy sigh. “I was dreaming about this pasta ever since you made it the first time,” she said.
“You could have used up the sauce anytime,” he said.
She shook her head. “Not only did I not know how to warm it up,” she said, “I also didn’t know how to cook the pasta properly.”
He nodded. “Well, then that’s my gain tonight.” He complained good-naturedly, “I could certainly use a good meal. I feel like you’ve put my muscles to heavy use today.”
She nodded. “So what’s with this person on that ID card?” she asked, and he frowned at her.
“I don’t know for sure,” he said, “but it’s a cold case.”
Lowering her fork, she said, “Seriously?”
He nodded, his face grim. “But you can’t say anything on that until I get a chance to tap into the database and see.”
She nodded. “That wouldn’t bode well for George if it was cut up and buried in his garden.”
“Cut up, burnt, and buried in the garden,” he corrected. “But again we don’t know anything yet.”
She willingly put it out of her mind, for now, and tackled her spaghetti.
Chapter 29
Friday Evening …
Doreen stood at the garage door and waved as Mack reversed out of her driveway and headed home. It was past nine. Daylight was well over. He was exhausted, and so was she. But they had the garage full, but not overly so, and most of the furniture still in the basement was set up so they could at least see each piece. She’d taken as many photos as she could, and, in fact, it was probably way too many and would be more of a headache to sort through.
She locked up the external garage doors, happy to see someone had allowed for them to be locked from the inside as well as the outside of the garage. She headed into her house through her kitchen access door. She grinned at the accessibility. As she stepped inside, she locked the side door to her kitchen area and set the alarms in the front and back. She was way too tired to do anything else.
Even her animals were dragging. Goliath had been too worn out by his day to run up the stairs past her, like he usually did to claim his preferred sleeping spot.
Upstairs, she took a look at her bedroom and groaned. “Now if only I had all those willing hands I had today to give me a hand with this stuff.” She couldn’t believe the stunning amount of work that had gone into accomplishing so much today. It was an incredible feeling to have her garage completely cleared of junk and now stocked the way it needed to be. Granted, it was full of furniture, but that was just temporarily. She didn’t know what she would do with all that furniture yet, but she hoped Scott would take a big portion of it off her hands, but he only would if it was high-end stuff. Another antiques dealer locally may be able to help out with what Scott didn’t take, and she should probably give Fen another phone call at that point. But, for the moment, she was absolutely thrilled and exhausted.
She looked at her closet and thought, Why the hell is this project taking so long? Because she did some, and then she stopped, and then she did some, and then she stopped. It was too late tonight to tackle any of it, but she knew that would be her next big project. She would take everything out of that closet, lay it all on her bed, still a pallet on the floor, and not be able to go to bed until she had it sorted. Especially since she knew more money was to be found there. Somehow, as her pockets had been filled in other ways, and as the antique furniture issue arose, she’d let the treasure hunt in the clothing slide. But she couldn’t let that happen forever. Her bedroom was a nightmare. She’d feel so much better when she finally got it organized.
As much as she’d been living here for the last month plus, she hadn’t fully moved in. Her clothes were still half lying inside her suitcases, for crying out loud. They needed to be put away. But into what? She had seen some shelves and dressers in the basement that she might use. If they were in decent shape, not antiques, then she’d be more than happy to have a piece or two up here to work with.
She needed something, that was for sure. Most of her clothes weren’t hanging pieces, and she needed something for all the leggings and T-shirts and her underwear too. Most of that sat in boxes at the moment. With a shake of her head, she had a shower, lay down in bed, and crashed. But it was a disruptive sleep. She tossed and turned, woke up, groaned because it was just midnight, and then rolled over again.
When she heard something drop downstairs, she bolted upright. Mugs, who’d been sound asleep, jumped to his feet, growled, and raced from the room. Thaddeus, who’d taken to sleeping on the corner of the window ledge—and she couldn’t imagine it was terribly comfortable, but she hadn’t given him any new roost after taking away the big bed—flapped to the floor and cried, “Intruder, intruder.”
She hated to even think of it. Not again. She pulled on a pair of leggings over her panties and a sweater over her camisole and quickly slipped on her tennis shoes, then crept downstairs with her phone in her hand. Mugs raced around the living room and headed for the garage door. She stared at the garage door and groaned. Because, of course, the alarm wasn’t wired on that side of the house. The kitchen door to the garage had not been accessible before, and the outside door to the garage had been wedged shut too.
With that thought in mind, she worried somebody was after the antiques but had no clue who it could be. And who would even know what she and Mack had done today, except for the two mechanic brothers, and they hadn’t been here when she and Mack had hauled
a bunch of the antiques up from the basement, unloading them in the garage or her living room.
As she stood in the kitchen, wondering what to do, she thought she saw a shadow at the back door. She frowned and waited. But she saw or heard nothing else. Making a quick decision, she disarmed the security system, and, with Mugs on a leash beside her and Goliath now weaving between her legs, she stepped out on the deck. As soon as the door opened, she saw a shadow run through the backyard to the creek. She unhooked Mugs and cried out, “Go get him.”
Mugs ran, and so did Doreen. She had no clue who her intruder was, but she’d be damned if she would let him get away with this. She ran to the pathway heading north and saw the dark figure fighting off Mugs. She called out, “Mugs, let loose.” He turned toward her, and the intruder bolted over a fence into somebody’s yard. It wasn’t high but the bushes around it were dense. Mugs barked at the base of the fence, and Doreen knew, by the time she made it over the fence, if that was even possible, the intruder would be gone.
She swore under her breath and then grinned. She was actually swearing. Not that that was a good thing, but it was definitely a sign of her loosening some from her husband’s strict rules. She didn’t really want to be somebody who swore all the time, but it was nice to know she could and not be terrified of doing it. She knew that sounded foolish too. But she was working on those issues.
She checked her phone and saw it was only one-thirty in the morning. Back at her house, she walked around to the garage to figure out what was going on. The outside garage door, the little one, looked like it had been opened. Weird. She opened it and stepped inside, turned on the light and could see that a couple of the chairs they had so carefully laid out had been disturbed. Somebody had come in here and either had looked at the pieces or had moved them to get to another piece. Frowning, she checked out several of the items, wondering what was going on.
And then she got an inkling of an idea as to who her intruder was. She matched the smaller shape she’d seen first off to the people she knew. … She stood for a long moment, wondering about the past few minutes, and then carefully closed up everything and headed back to bed. She was pretty sure her intruder wouldn’t break in again.
Chapter 30
Saturday Morning …
The next morning, she woke after a surprising amount of sleep, had a quick shower, and thought about what she would do next. Mack contacted her at eight a.m. and said, “Garage sales are generally early, so when do you want to go?”
“The sooner, the better. I’d like to be back relatively quickly.”
“Okay,” he said in surprise. “Do you still want to go?”
She nodded. “Yes, I still want to go. Besides, there aren’t very many, are there?”
“I’ve picked five from the list I found this morning,” he said. “Chances are two or three of them will have absolutely nothing, but the others might have something of interest.”
“Perfect,” she said.
“You sound distracted. Are you okay?” he asked sharply.
She frowned. “Yes. We’ll talk about it when you get here. Oh, and, by the way, did you look up that woman’s name?”
“I did,” he said, his voice suddenly quiet. “We’ll talk about it when I get there.” And he hung up.
She could hardly be pissed off at him when that was exactly what she had said to him, but, at the same time, it was irritating.
Downstairs, she grabbed a piece of toast, made herself a cup of coffee, wondering if Mack would need one too. At the thought of leaving, she worried that she didn’t have a lock on the exterior side door into the garage, nor was there a working lock on the rear kitchen door. It looked to be damaged. She tried to lock it, but it didn’t take too much jiggling to make it pop open again. Not liking that at all but having little choice, she propped a kitchen chair under it and then went into the garage and did the same thing. She didn’t know if it would keep anyone out, but it gave her some peace of mind.
Mack arrived within a few minutes, but he remained on the porch. She offered him a coffee. He shook his head and said, “Why don’t you just bring yours in a travel mug. I’ll drive.”
And that was what she did, hopping up into his truck. They headed out to the first garage sale. As they parked outside the house, she was amazed to see a good half-dozen people wandering through tables set up outside. She’d never been to a garage sale before, so she was curious to see how this worked.
Mack headed for the tools, and she wandered up and down the tables but didn’t see anything of interest. She found everything from Tupperware to odd plates to baby clothes to toys. She smiled when she got to the pet toys, but they’d been thoroughly chewed, and who knew what kinds of diseases they might have. She walked back over to Mack, who was waiting for her. He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. She just shrugged, and he nodded.
He said, “Okay, on to number two.”
They hopped back into the truck, and Doreen said, “Are they all like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like people’s stuff that they don’t want and they’re just trying to get rid of?”
He chuckled. “Absolutely they’re all like that, but sometimes there are estate sales, where somebody’s passed away, and it’s left to somebody in the family to empty out the house.”
“Oh,” she said. “That might be a little rougher. Or better,” she added.
“Exactly,” he said. “Come on. You’ll have a better idea by the time we get through all five.”
The second one was very much the same as the first; the third one was different in that it had a lot of high-end dishes and plates and cutlery and pots and pans and stuff. She was itching to buy a bunch, but she really had no idea what she could use or when. Mack, on the other hand, was looking at a huge cast-iron frying pan with a lid.
She studied it and said, “I’m not even sure I could lift that sucker.”
He chuckled. “But it’s really good for cooking on a fire, and it’s good in the oven too.” He finally bought it for five bucks. He appeared to be very pleased. He was still crowing about the price when he got into the truck, saying, “That’s a steal.” He looked over at her. “You didn’t see anything you wanted?”
“I did,” she said, “but I don’t want to fill the house I’m still trying to empty.”
“Actually that’s very insightful,” he said, “because one of the best things you can probably do, once you get the furniture sorted out, is go through all of Nan’s cupboards and get rid of stuff. Not just pick and choose but do every corner. That’ll help you to make it yours. It’ll also let you see any damage on the property that needs to be fixed and help you to move in fully. I’m not trying to move Nan out but just have you acknowledge there’ll be a lot of her stuff that you don’t want.”
Privately she thought that was a wonderful idea.
At the fourth place, Doreen stopped in front of several beautiful blankets. She looked at the price. Mack was at her shoulder, and he asked, “Do you like them?”
“I’m not sure what the winter will be like here, but I like to sit outside in the evening, and I want something to wrap around my shoulders.” He helped her shake out a couple of them, and the woman who owned the residence said, “I’m looking for twenty dollars for each of those.”
Mack nodded and said, “We don’t have that much. How about thirty for two?”
Doreen gasped, wondering if that would fly.
The woman frowned and then said with a shrug, “Sure, why not.”
He paid her the thirty and carried the blankets, while Doreen kept wandering around. She was absolutely over the moon. The blankets were cuddly and soft; one was large, one was smaller, and they were gentle colors of a baby blue and a baby green. As far as she was concerned, this made garage sales completely worthwhile. She wandered up and down the rest of it but didn’t see anything else she wanted. When they got back into the truck, she grabbed the blankets and pulled them onto her lap. “These are beautiful,”
she said, “and I do have the money to pay for them.”
“I know you do,” he said, “because I haven’t paid you for the gardening yet.”
At that, she burst out laughing.
He grinned. “One more and then we’ll head home.”
“Good,” she said, “because, even though we got a lot done yesterday, so we’re well ahead out of the game, there’s still more to do.”
“I wanted to take a look in that basement again,” Mack said. “I’m pretty sure a couple more pieces matched up. The more we can get to match, the better chance you’ll have of selling the pieces.”
She nodded. The last garage sale didn’t offer anything she was interested in. As they pulled up into her driveway, she hopped out happily with her beautiful blankets in her arms and said, “Coffee?”
“Absolutely,” Mack said. They went inside, and he stopped in front of the chairs gathered in the living room. “Two of these chairs belong with the dining room tables we’ve put out in the garage. I’ll just move them.”
She heard him and smiled. “Thank you.”
He came back a moment later, a frown on his face as he looked to the kitchen door to the garage. “Explain.”
She winced. “I had an intruder last night.”
“What?” His eyebrows shot up to his hairline. “And you didn’t let me know immediately?” he roared.
“Well, I chased him down to the creek and up about ten houses,” she confessed. “But, when he went over the fence and disappeared into one of the backyards, I didn’t think I could catch him.”
He just clawed his hands into his hair, looking like he wanted to pull his hair out in frustration.
She explained. “I think I know who it was, and maybe I know why, but I don’t have all the answers. So I’ll do a little more digging before I tell you my theory.”
His glare deepened.
She tried to glare back. Only his was better. “Besides, do you have some information for me on that nurse’s ID?”