Another Man's Treasure (a romantic thriller) (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 1) (19 page)

I’m going to have a hard time explaining to Jill how it is that I’m getting absolutely nothing accomplished while she and Ty are doing the preliminaries for the sale at the Siverson house.  Instead of working, I’m obsessively checking Facebook, wondering how I can pry my way into Brian Bascomb’s full profile.  Can I set up a new email account and send a friend request under a fake name?  Tell him I went to Rutgers with him?  Would he respond then?  

Geez, this is how stalkers and pedophiles must think.  I’m scaring myself.  I close out of Facebook and open up my accounting software.

I have plenty of bookkeeping work to attend to, but without Jill here to handle the basic hustle and flow of the office, I find I’m not making much headway.  Pick-ups, deliveries, phone calls, more pick-ups—how did I ever manage all this by myself?  When the phone rings for the fourth time in five minutes, I snatch it up and bark, “Another Man’s Treasure,” with all the warmth of an IRS agent.

“May I speak to Audrey Nealon, please.”  The woman’s voice, low and soothing, is vaguely familiar.

“This is she.”

“Audrey, this is Anne Finneran.  I’m sorry to bother you at work.  You must be terribly busy.”

Shit!  Anne Finneran?  Why is she calling me?  “Oh, hi Anne.  No, I’m not busy.  I mean, I am a little busy because my assistant isn’t here.  I didn’t mean to sound so crabby when I answered the phone, I just—” Oh, crap—I’m babbling like a moron.  I take a deep breath and start again. “I’m sorry. How are you? Can I help you with something?”

“I’m calling to apologize to
you
.  I feel terrible that Spencer has been commandeering all of Cal’s time so that he doesn’t have a spare minute to take you out on a proper date.  I said to Spencer last night, ‘Cal’s finally met a wonderful woman and you’re going to ruin this romance for him. We’ve got to do something to make it up to Audrey.’ ” 

I’m flabbergasted.  Anne and Spencer spend their time talking about me? Has Cal been telling them that I complain about his schedule?  That’s a little irritating—I’ve never uttered a peep about his work hours.  “Not a problem, Anne,” I say with more ice than I’m normally capable of.  “Cal is free to work as hard as he wants to on this campaign.”

“Oh, I know there’s no slowing him down.”  If Anne noticed my tone, she doesn’t let on.  She continues full of cheer.  “I thought if we had dinner here at the house we could let those two talk shop for an hour, then grab the reins and make them behave like civilized creatures for the rest of the evening.  What do you think?  Are you willing to collaborate with me?”

Dinner?  At their house?  Collaborate?  Where is this concern for my love life coming from?  “Uh…What day?…I haven’t talked to Cal recently. I don’t know his plans.”

“That’s my point, dear.  We have to ambush them so they can’t make excuses.  Let’s say Friday, seven-ish here at the house.  You come a little early.  I’ll take care of rounding up the boys.” 

Friday at seven?  I can’t imagine anything more inconvenient with the Siverson sale coming up on Saturday.  “Gee, Anne, I really think I’m going to have to take a rain check.  I’ll be setting up a sale all day and who knows when we’ll—”

“Nonsense. That’s what staff is for, Audrey.”  Anne’s voice has lost its flutey tone and she’s scolding me like a nun.  I can practically feel the crack of her ruler on my knuckles.  “ As I always say to Spencer, what’s the point of having people work for you if you can’t trust them to execute anything without your constant supervision?”

Gee, tell me what you really think.  “True, but after a long day…and I have to be up early on Satur—.”

“Oh, Audrey! Forgive me, dear.” In a quick one-eighty, Anne now sounds plaintive and yearning.   “It’s just that over the years I’ve learned that if I want to have any time at all with my family and friends I simply have to stand my ground and demand that they show up for dinner.  Life is so short, and there really never is a convenient time for anything, don’t you agree? I won’t keep you out late. Please come.”

When’s the last time anyone’s begged me to do anything?  I’m powerless to resist. “Okay, Friday at seven. I’ll see you then.”

I hang up the phone.  What just happened to me? Talk about ambushed! 

Outside I hear the familiar cough and sputter of the AMT van, followed by Jill’s, “Get it yourself. I’m not your bitch.”

The temperature in the office seems to drop fifty degrees as Ty and Jill blow in, engulfed in their own personal snowstorm.  Frosty doesn’t begin to describe the atmosphere between them.  Jill flings herself into her desk chair and begins hammering her computer keys like a blacksmith forging a horseshoe.  If she keeps this up I’ll be upgrading our office systems a little sooner than anticipated.  Meanwhile, Ty does his best to impersonate a raccoon in a Dumpster, crashing through stacked boxes, tossing paper, kicking chairs. 

“What’s wrong with you two?” I ask.  More pounding.  More crashing. No words.

Ty lives by the “no snitching” credo of the streets.  Dick Cheney himself couldn’t get him to rat out Jill to me.  Jill, on the other hand, will crumple into a weeping mound the minute I get her alone.

“Jill, I need to go over to my Dad’s house to turn off that light.  Why don’t you come with me and tell me what you think I need to buy to do a good job with the staging.”

Jill brightens, clearly pleased to be the chosen one.

“I’ll come and help you move stuff,” Ty immediately volunteers.

“Not yet, Ty.  Once I figure out what I’m getting rid of, I’ll definitely need all the help you can give.”

Ty gives his funny reverse nod, an upward jerk of the head that means
I’m just as important as you
.  “You got it, Audge.”  Then he fixes Jill with a piercing glare.

Jill stalks out to the van without looking at him.  I smile sweetly.  “Hold down the fort, Ty.  We’ll be back in an hour.”

We ride in silence to the stop sign at the end of the block.  Then the dam breaks.

“I did all the work at the Siversons’.  We got there and Ty helped me move the sofa and take down the drapes and then he said he had to go out for a minute and did I want anything so I said yeah a Diet Snapple and he said okay be right back and then I NEVER SAW HIM AGAIN until three o’clock and by that time I had all the stuff sorted and priced and there was nothing left to do and when I said where the hell have you been he told me shut up you fat skank and that is just not right when all I wanted was—“

“Jill—”

“to know why he went off and left me with all the—”

“Jill—”

“work and then to come back and not even say sorry and call me a bad—”

“Jill!  Take a breath!”

“Sorry, Audrey.”  Her lower lip juts out in a trembling pout and the tears begin to flow.  “It’s just not fair, is all.  And he knows I’m sensitive about my weight.  And I am not a skank.”

“Of course you’re not.  I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”

Shit!  This is exactly the kind of sketchy behavior Coughlin warned me to look out for.  I’ve got to get to the bottom of this.  But first I have to calm Jill down.  “Probably he was feeling guilty and lashed out to cover up for that,” I tell her.  “I’ll talk to him about it.” 

“No!”  Jill twists in the passenger seat to face me.  “You can’t do that.  Then he’ll know I told you.”

“Ummm—I’m pretty sure he’s already figured that out.”

“No, you saw how he looked at me when we were leaving.  He’ll kill me for telling you.”

“Jill, we’re not in middle school.  I’m trying to run a business here.  Ty needs to work when I send him on a job.  And it’s not appropriate for him to insult his colleagues.”  Wow, that sounds like I got it out of some kind of human resources textbook.  I feel very authoritative.

Jill launches herself across the front seat and wraps her arms around me. “No-o-o-o!”

  Her jangly earrings catch in the loose weave of my sweater, linking us like Siamese twins. Luckily, we’re stuck in traffic.

“You can’t say anything to him!  Please, please promise me you won’t.  He’s still mad at me about the whole thing with the police when you were mugged.  He blames me that they arrested him.”

I disentangle myself as horns begin blowing behind me.  “If Ty blames you, then it’s time for him to let it go.  You did nothing wrong.  Now, I will handle this as I see fit.”

Jill shrinks down in her seat, as unaccustomed to sternness from me as Ethel is.  I reach over and crank up the radio to drown out the oppressive silence of her sulking.  A couple of Green Day tunes later, we’re at the house and Jill has perked up. She jumps out of the car and starts looking around the exterior of the house.  “Cool!  This is where you grew up?  This is such a cute house.  And look at that great view, and all those trees.  Did you have a tree fort out here?”

I gaze up at the wide bare braches of the oaks and maples in the back yard.  How I used to daydream about climbing up into their leafy branches and watching the world from a secret aerie.  To see everyone without being seen. “I always wanted one.  I had my grandpa convinced to build it, but my grandmother thought I’d fall and kill myself.  She was a little overprotective after my mother…died.”

Jill rams her hands in the pockets of her shapeless Chairman Mao jacket. “Oh.”

Her innocent question brings back the strain between us. I’ve never told Jill the story of my childhood, other than to say my mom died when I was little and my grandparents helped raise me. Jill and her mom are as close as sisters, calling and texting each other all day long.  The story of my mother’s demise would overload Jill’s compassion circuits. With her penchant for melodrama, I know I’d never hear the end of her consolation and mourning for my tragic loss. I don’t need her sympathy. I don’t want her pity. 

I want to return us to our comfort zone. “C’mon, let me show you the inside and you can tell me what we can do to make it look like a house a young family would want to buy.”

We enter through the back door.  After the crisp, cold air of the back yard, the kitchen seems oppressively hot and musty.  “The place really needs to be aired out.  It’s been shut up for months.” I go to open the window over the kitchen sink, then think better of it.  I don’t want to walk out and remember later that I’ve left a window open. 

Jill prowls around, inquisitive as a cat.  “It’s not bad.  Just a little…bare.  We could get some of those really realistic looking fake apples and pears and put a fruit bowl on the table, then burn some scented candles.  My new favorite is this one called Cinnamon Cookie.  It makes the house smell like you’ve been baking all day.”  She pivots and takes in the blank expanse of the wall in the breakfast nook, scene of so many silent meals.  “Remember those Portuguese pottery plates that didn’t sell at the Reicker sale?  Wouldn’t those look really cute hanging there?”

Jill’s enthusiasm is contagious.  I start to see the house as it might be if “regular” people lived here. Cheery.  Cozy. “Come in the living room,” I say.  “Isabelle insists this chair has to go.  What can I get to replace it?”

Jill studies the room; moves a lamp, angles a table.  “I saw the most awesome chairs at Ikea the other day. Sort of a mushroom color with a hint of plum.  We could get two of them and put them right under that window.  Then, when the house sells, you could put them in your living room.  You know, you really don’t have enough furniture at your place.” 

No sooner are the words out of her mouth than Jill turns beet red.  “I’m sorry Audrey.  I didn’t mean your condo isn’t nice the way it is.  I like it.  I do.”

I put my arm around her shoulders and pull her in for a hug.  “It sucks, Jill.  I know it.  You know it.  When we get my dad’s house sold, you can work on redecorating my place.  Make it look less like a Holiday Inn suite occupied by a traveling salesman, and more like the bachelorette pad of my dreams.”

Jill giggles. “Really?  You’d let me do that?  Because I’d love to and I wouldn’t do anything crazy just warm it up a little, you know, and maybe introduce some color…sage?....or plum and gold? I love that combo..and then--”

“You can have free reign, but let’s tackle this first, okay?”

“Oh, right!”  Jill spins around.  “Candles.  Let’s get one of those big candelabra things and put it in the hearth, just to suggest the possibility of a fire, know what I mean?”

“Candles are your solution to everything,” I mutter as I follow her upstairs.  There, Jill diagnoses new bedspreads, area rugs and lampshades. 

“You think you can bring this in for under a thousands bucks?” I ask.

“Absolutely.  They do it on those decorating shows all the time.”

I pull out the AMT company credit card and hand it over.  “Get what you need tomorrow and come over here and work your magic.  Move everything we’re getting rid of into the front hall, okay?”

Jill gets her saucer-eyed, Little Orphan Annie look. “You mean you trust me to do it all by myself?”

“Of course I do.”  I head for the kitchen.  “Now, let’s get out of here.  Don’t let me forget to turn off that back porch light.”

By the back door we double-check everything.  With my hand on the doorknob, I’m swept by a sensation of déjà vu.  I went through these exact motions yesterday when I was here alone.  Except then I was scared shitless and today I’m perfectly calm.  And there’s one other difference.  Yesterday I had something in my hand as I was locking the door.  What was it?  Oh, Dad’s yearbook and that folder with my little art project and Dad’s grade roster in it.  I put them right on the counter while I got my keys out.  And then I must’ve left them there when I went out the door, because they’re not in my car or my house. I look around.  So where are they?