Another Man's Treasure (a romantic thriller) (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 1) Read online

  Ethel waits impatiently at the door while I punch in the security code designed to keep residents in, not strangers out. Then she makes a beeline for the long corridor lined with wheelchairs. The old folks reach for her as she snuffles around. The sharpest ones lure her with treats; the most confused call her by the names of long lost pets. “Here, Trixie. Come, Sheba.” I follow in her wake, smiling and waving like Prince Charles trailing Diana.

  Finally satisfied that she’s scored every available crumb, Ethel heads for my father’s room. He’s never out in the hall with the others, or in the solarium. She knows she’ll find him in his wheelchair wedged in the space between his bed and the bathroom door.

  Ethel bounds in and places her paws on Dad’s knees. I stand on the threshold and watch. It still stuns me to see my father in a wheelchair. A lifelong runner, his wiry frame was built for movement. At sixty-three, his hair is still more dark than gray. All through my life he’s been a superhuman figure, smarter than mere mortals and removed from their petty concerns. And then one day a blood clot breaks loose, jamming an artery in his brain, and he becomes this wreck. Who would’ve guessed he even had arteries? Or blood, for that matter.

  As Dad pets Ethel’s silky brown ears, the left corner of his mouth twitches. He’s genuinely glad to see the dog. Me, not so much. Every time this touching scene plays out I remember the many childhood hours I spent futilely pleading for a dog. Dad always said he couldn’t take care of another living thing. At the time I took that to mean he didn’t feel a dog was worth all the effort. Seeing his devotion to Ethel, I realize that if my father had had a dog in the early days of his marriage, I might never have been born.

  “Hi, Dad.” I drag the hard little visitor chair from the other side of the room and sit down. I make no attempt to kiss him. He’s never been big on physical affection and since the stroke he seems to shudder at skin-to-skin contact. Skin to fur is apparently okay, because he continues to stroke Ethel’s head. Finally she tires of it and settles at his feet. He has no choice now but to look at me. Our eyes meet briefly, then Dad looks away, scanning his barren surroundings as if anything—the blank TV, the battered chest of drawers, the potted plant that outlived the room’s previous resident—holds more interest than his visitor.

  I begin my monologue, a filial Conan O’Brien trying to get a rise out of a tough audience. “So, today I’m organizing a sale over on Parkhurst Avenue. The house belonged to Agnes Szabo.” I watch him closely for any reaction. A widening of the eyes, an intake of breath—anything that indicates Mrs. Szabo holds some significance in his life.

  Nothing. His eyes stare blankly, focused on some point above my left shoulder.

  He’s letting me know he has no interest in my work, never has. To him, I’m a trash-picker who’s squandered her degree in math. He won’t respond to guess-what-happened-at- work- today small talk.

  “It’s a pretty nondescript house. That’s why I was so surprised to find this.” I pull the ring out of my pocket and extend it toward him on my palm; his gaze stays fixed on the middle distance.

  I slide my chair to the left and hold the ring directly before his eyes. “Recognize it?”

  He flattens himself against the back of the wheelchair. This is the most reaction I’ve gotten from him since the stroke. We’re getting somewhere.

  I lean forward with as much intensity as he used to draw away. “It’s Mom’s ring, isn’t it?”

  The right half of his face remains stony and blank. The left half trembles. His gaze stays locked on the ring. He nods.

  “Was she wearing it the night she disappeared?”

  He hesitates and I sense his mind reeling back thirty years. He has never been willing to talk to me about that night. Ill-timed questions about my mother’s last night could send him into weeks-long funks. My maternal grandparents, who helped Dad raise me, always cautioned me to stay away from the topic. What little I know about that night—the snowstorm, the last-minute shopping, my father dozing then awaking to discover my mother still gone—all came from Nana and Pop. They died within months of each other shortly after I graduated college, taking all knowledge of my mother with them. Now, it looks like Dad is actually going to tell me something.

  “Was she wearing it the night she disappeared?” I repeat.

  His eyes blink rapidly. He can’t stop staring at the ring.

  I’m encouraged. He may not be conveying any information, but I’ve got his full attention, that’s for sure. “Agnes Szabo would have been fifty-seven when mom disappeared.” I keep saying disappeared, not died. I’m not sure he’s noticed. “Did my mother have a middle aged friend named Agnes?”

  Dad lifts his left shoulder, which passes for a “who knows” shrug.

  “Did a woman name Agnes Szabo ever clean for us?”

  Again the half-shrug.

  Yes, no, maybe—that’s all I can get from him these days. Every question has to be posed so he can offer one of those three responses.

  “Did she know anyone in that neighborhood, Parkhurst, over near Evergreen Cemetery?” Nowhere near Heart Lake.

  He stares down at his lap. His sinewy left hand clutches the arm of the wheelchair; his right flops like a dead fish on his pajama-clad legs. But I catch him trying to glance over at the ring, which I’ve set on the end table beside him.

  Even though I know he doesn’t like to be touched, I reach out my hand and put my fingertips beneath his chin. The nurses only shave him every other day, so it’s covered with coarse gray stubble. I lift his chin up and force him to look at me head on. “Dad, is there any chance that Mom is still alive?”

  His eyes widen, the white visible all the way around the gray irises. He pulls back from my touch and for the first time since he’s been at Manor View a word croaks out of his throat.

  “No.”

  “Then how did her ring get in Mrs. Szabo’s attic?” I swore to myself before I came that I’d stay calm, but that promise is shot to hell. There’s a shrill edge in my voice that takes both Dad and me by surprise. He shrinks back in his wheelchair.

  I take a deep breath. There’s no point in asking open-ended questions. Here’s a yes-or-no I’ve been wanting to ask for years, but never had the courage. “Dad, Mom didn’t really go out Christmas shopping that night, did she?”

  He places his good hand on the wheel of his chair and tries to roll away from me. The chair backs up crookedly, catching the edge of Ethel’s tail. She yelps, scrambling away. Dad uses his left foot to push the chair harder and succeeds in crashing into the bedside table and knocking over the lamp. All the racket brings an aide running.

  “What’s going on in here? Mr. Nealon, are you all right?” She’s a middle-aged Haitian woman with a lilting accent and a nametag that reads, “Desiree.”

  Dad shakes his head vigorously.

  The aide glares at me. “Why do you visit if you’re going to upset him?” Her job sucks and I’m making it harder. Desiree pats my father’s hand. Her touch doesn’t make him cringe. “Do you need to go to the bathroom? Would you like to lie down and take a little nap?”

  He nods eagerly. Anything Desiree suggests is fine with him.

  Anything to get away from me.

  Chapter 5

  “Where have you been? Why haven’t you answered your cell? Did you forget it again?”

  Jill’s reproaches begin the moment I set foot in the office. I’m about to provide an explanation but I’m brought up short by her appearance, which is exceptionally bizarre even for Jill. Heavy black liner encircles her eyes, giving her that domestic violence survivor look. Her lips seem to have been painted with Wite-Out, and she’s wearing an old Catholic school girl cardigan with the sleeves hacked off, topped by a fringy scarf in baby-poop brown. I’m never sure what kind of response Jill is trying to elicit. She can’t possibly expect us to say, “You look lovely today,” but Tyshaun can bring her to tears with his, “Girl, that is one butt-ugly outfit,” or (my favorite) “You look totally fucked-up.”

/>   “I was at a memorial service,” I say. I don’t like to talk to Jill and Tyshaun about my father, so I report the second half of my morning but not the first. “I had to turn my phone off.”

  Jill looks chastened. “Who died?”

  “Martin Reicker, one of the old fellows at Manor View. He liked Ethel a lot. His daughter’s often there when I visit my dad and we’ve talked some.”

  Tyshaun, sprawled across a squishy easy chair that once graced a client’s living room, alternates texting and adjusting his iPod. He points at me with the toes of one huge basketball sneaker. “You got a job out of this, didn’t you?”

  The kid is catching on.

  Jill’s jaw drops enough that I can see her tongue stud. “You went to a funeral so you could give a sales pitch for Another Man’s Treasure. That’s awful!”

  Jill doesn’t care to think of me as a tool of the capitalist machine.

  “Mr. Reicker’s daughter was very touched that I came to the service.” I sidle between Tyshaun’s lanky frame and a teetering pile of old computers waiting to go to the electronics recycler, finally reaching my desk. “And yes, it so happens the family needs someone to clear out the house.”

  “May’s well be us,” Ty says.

  Before I can agree, the phone rings. Jill purrs, “Another Man’s Treasure,” in her flutiest receptionist voice. “One moment, I’ll see if he’s available.” She puts the call on hold as if she’s manning the switchboard at a multinational corporation and turns toward Tyshaun. “You wanna talk to Myesha?”

  He shakes his head ‘til his earbuds fly out. “No way. That girl thinks I’m her bitch. I had enough o’ her shit.”

  Jill returns to the call. “Tyshaun is out on an all-day job. May I take a message?” She moves the receiver away from her ear as a stream of high-pitched profanity comes through the line, then wraps up with a sweet, “I’ll let him know you called.”

  “Is this the accounting major from Montclair State?” I ask.

  “No,” Jill explains, “That’s Kimberly. Myesha is the x-ray technician. Ty blocked her calls on his cell.”

  “I had to. She drivin’ me crazy.”

  Ty’s love life is a source of never-ending fascination for Jill and me, I guess because neither of us has anything going on in that department ourselves. Much as I’d love to hear more gory details about Myesha, my staff has been idle long enough. “You two get started setting up the sale at Mrs. Szabo’s. I’ll swing by the Reicker place to see how big a project it’ll be.” I scan the pink message slips on my desk. “Did Mrs. Szabo’s nephew call?”

  Cal Tremaine’s mention of a rain check for dinner has been replaying in the back of my mind. I tell myself it’s the sort of thing guys like him say reflexively, unable to repress their own charm.

  Still, I’m hopeful. And that pisses me off.

  “No, nothing from him,” Jill says. “Did you ever talk to him about the trunk?”

  “Yeah—he wants me to hold off on getting an appraisal until after the election. He works for Spencer Finneran and he’s too busy to deal with the jewelry right now.”

  “Whatever.” Jill grabs the van keys and heads to the door. “Get some trash bags out of the store room, Ty.”

  I wait for the expected, “get ’em yourself,” but Ty does as he’s told. Once Jill is out the door he turns to me.

  “What about the pills? What’d the old lady’s nephew want to do about that?”

  “Cal was supposed to call the police this morning. I don’t know if he did.”

  Ty shakes his head. “I don’t like this. Word probably out on the street that we was there messin’ around yesterday. The boss sent someone to claim his stash by now.”

  “The boss? What boss?” I ask.

  “Whoever the stuff belongs to,” Ty explains patiently. “Then this Tremaine dude going to bring the cops on over with all their sirens and shit and when they get there, he be all, ‘never mind, it’s gone now.’ What you think they gonna say to that? ‘No problem, we’ll go get some donuts?’ They gonna question you. And question Jill. Then they gonna arrest me.”

  “Why would they arrest you?”

  “ ’Cause I’m the one with the record. I’m the one who’s black. They sure as hell not going to arrest you.”

  “Ty, relax. Why would they arrest any of us? All we did was find the stuff.”

  Ty lowers his chin and fixes me with a droopy-eyed, sullen stare that says you’re dumber than dirt. He cups his hands as if he’s gathering up piles to dump in front of me: “Drugs. Brother on probo. Arrest.”

  I tap my watch. “It’s past noon. No one’s showed up to arrest you yet. Go over to Mrs. Szabo’s house. If the place is crawling with cops, you have my permission to turn around and come back here.”

  All afternoon while I’m scoping out my new client’s house, I keep expecting a call about those pills—either Ty or Cal or the cops. But my phone stays silent. Hours later I pull up behind the Another Man’s Treasure van parked in front of Mrs. Szabo’s place. Tyshaun and Jill are sitting on the front porch, peaceably drinking cans of Coke and sharing a bag of chips. I expect them to leap up and scurry back to work when they see me, but Ty stretches out his long legs and Jill reaches for another handful of salt and grease.

  “We’re all done,” Jill shouts before stuffing her face.

  “Ready for the earlybirds,” Tyshaun concurs.

  “What about the signs?” I ask.

  Ty holds up a stack of estate sale signs with Mrs. Szabo’s address and tomorrow’s date printed in Jill’s perfect block lettering. “I’m‘a put ‘em up now. I was waitin’ to see if you need me to move anything inside.”

  I walk into the house and stop at the doorway to the living room. Every piece of furniture carries a price tag. The upholstery and rugs bear the marks of vigorous vacuuming. Tables contain artful arrangements of Mrs. Szabo’s knick-knacks, books and pictures. It never ceases to amaze me that a woman who goes to such lengths to make herself unattractive can be so talented at making inanimate objects look irresistible. I stare in amazement at a faded sewing basket that Jill has filled with tissue paper and sprinkled with thimbles, pinking shears and darning egg, priced at ten dollars. “I swear to God, Jill, you could sell a hacked up kitty hair ball as long as you had some lace doilies to arrange it on.”

  She beams. “Gee, thanks.”

  Not to be outdone, Tyshaun pushes me along. “Wait’ll you see the dining room.”

  Ty has removed the dusty Venetian blinds and hideous maroon draperies from the window and polished the old mahogany table to a high shine. Jill has arranged two place settings of china and some candlesticks, making it possible to imagine a gracious second act for the furniture and dishes.

  In the kitchen, everything is clean and shiny and the contents of the cabinets have been laid out on the counters and table. Cautiously I slide open the drawer next to the sink. Empty. Ty gives me a Cheshire cat smile, while Jill bustles around moving a vase from the kitchen into the living room.

  “It was gone when you got here?” I ask.

  Ty nods and raises the kitchen window. “Lock’s broken, screen’s gone. He could reach in and grab it without even comin’ all the way in the house.”

  “And the police never showed up here?”

  Ty shakes his head. “I bet your guy never called.”

  I’m puzzled, but in my heart, I’m relieved. I mean, I feel a little guilty for not doing my part to protect the youth of New Jersey from a life of drug-addicted depravity. But let’s face it—100 tabs of E isn’t exactly the French Connection. Plus, explaining the discovery of the drugs would require mentioning the trunkful of jewelry. And not mentioning the ring I took out of it. A challenge, that. I’m not a great liar.

  Invigorated, I clap my hands. “C’mon. Let’s put up the signs and I’ll take you both out for pasta at Tambellini’s.”

  Tyshaun glances at a text on his phone. “Ah, thanks Audge, but I gotta swerve after I hang the signs, know what’m
sayin’?”

  Jill shifts anxiously. “I’m only eating gluten-free rice noodles these days, Audrey. Some people from my meditation group are going to Vegan Dreams for dinner and we’re staying for the performance art.” She pauses. “You could come if you want.”

  “No worries. Some other time.” I wave them toward the door. “See you in the morning.”

  I shuffle around the first floor of the house doing a few things that really don’t need to be done. Did my dinner invitation to Jill and Ty sound pathetically needy? I shouldn’t be fraternizing with my staff anyway, but the truth is, my social life’s been in the crapper lately. I’ve never been the type to have a huge circle of casual friends. I prefer a tight circle of really close friends. In fact, my circle is really a triangle: Maura, a social butterfly who I rely on to get me out of the house, is off on a six-month work assignment in London; Lydia just gave birth and is caught up in new mommy nirvana; and Eric and Raul are going through one of their periodic break-ups, in which all they want to do is get me to side with one against the other. So my evenings and weekends have been extraordinarily uneventful. I know I need to do something to get out of my rut. I can practically hear Cosmo advising me: Go to a gym! Take a class! Volunteer! But the truth is, I’ve never been much of a joiner. I’m an introvert, more like my dad than I care to admit. I guess I’ll order a meatball sub from Tambellini’s and take it home to share with Ethel. Again.

  “Tambellinis! Hold!” a voice barks in my ear after I speed-dial five times to break through the constant busy signal. I’ve been ordering from this place since I was old enough to dial a phone and I swear I’ve never gotten through on the first try. That’s what passes for a five star rating in New Jersey. While I’m standing in the sale-ready living room with the phone pressed to my ear, I hear footsteps on the front porch. My empty stomach flip-flops. Did Ty or Jill forget something? Or maybe there are more drugs in here that we didn’t uncover. Maybe the boss is coming back again.