Going Through the Notions (A Deadly Notions Mystery) (4 page)
Read Going Through the Notions (A Deadly Notions Mystery) Online
Authors: Cate Price
Not only had Angus helped with getting the store off the ground by giving me auction merchandise at cost, but he’d worked with Joe to fix the nineteenth-century storefront to accommodate present-day customers. Two big glass display windows jutted out onto the porch—a new addition to the original house.
The main shop was situated in what used to be the front parlor and living room, but the walls had been opened up between to make one space. I used the dining room as an office and prep area, and there was a kitchen and powder room in the back.
I walked in, turned on the stereo, and soon the sounds of 1940s jazz music wafted through the air.
An antique Mennonite star quilt hung on one wall with handwrought iron clamps, and on the facing wall were black and white photographs of Main Street from a hundred years ago, when the road was nothing but dirt. Actually, Millbury didn’t look a whole lot different today.
The huge ten-drawer seed counter, manufactured by the Walker Bin Company, was one of my most prized possessions. It had glass-fronted loading bins that pulled down and housed spools of unused French ribbons from the 1920s, a stack of Simplicity and McCall sewing patterns, piles of braided trim, and a collection of tortoiseshell hair combs.
I breathed in the faint familiar scent of lavender and furniture polish as I wandered through the store, gently arranging things.
A Welsh dresser stood with its drawers partially open, displaying vintage fabric remnants, unfinished quilt tops, and dresser scarves. In the center of the room, a collection of wooden crates stacked together were laden with other great finds, including a bolt of Irish linen dress fabric, still with the original label, a feed sack patchwork coverlet, and hand-embroidered place mats and napkins. I ran my fingers through a sea of glass beads in a lithographed tin doily keeper, and hoped these rescued treasures would go to a good home.
I’d barely set the coffeepot on to brew when Martha breezed through the front door, carrying a tray of her famous baked goodies.
“Good God, that doll gives me a funny turn every time I come in,” she said, as she always did, referring to my salvaged mannequin in the corner.
“It’s not a doll, it’s a mannequin,” I responded, as I always did.
I’d named her Alice, and she was decked out for the season in a Christian Dior pink brocade dress and jacket, looking a little like Jackie O, with white gloves and an antique parasol on her arm.
Martha set the tray down on top of the counter. “Crème Brûlée Cheesecake Squares. They’re quite delicious, if I do say so myself.”
Today, Martha’s buttercup yellow linen dress stretched tightly across her bosom, which was fine, because her décolletage still looked pretty good. The problem was it stretched across the rest of her, too.
With her bright red hair, orange lipstick, and crimson fingernails, she looked as though you could stand in front of her and warm your hands on a cold winter’s day. The sight of her never failed to cheer me up.
My store had somehow become the hub for news, gossip, a good cup of coffee, and tasty treats. Martha claimed not to gossip, but she was actually my chief source of information. She was also a talented baker, and brought her creations into the store so she wouldn’t be tempted to eat them at home. She’d become a widow a few years ago. Some said, rather unkindly, that poor Teddy Bristol had dug his grave with his knife and fork.
The doorbell chimed, and Eleanor Reid stepped lightly into the store. Eleanor was one of my fellow store owners along Main Street. She ran a business called A Stitch Back in Time, where she restored vintage wedding gowns.
“Did you hear the news that Angus was arrested?” she asked us.
“News? News?” Martha placed her hands on her ample hips. “Where have you
been
, woman? That’s ancient history by now!”
Eleanor had a wiry flat-chested body, and from a distance she could be mistaken for a little old man. She wore her white hair cropped short, had sharp features, and wore black pants and a black shirt, regardless of the weather or season. For a business that dealt in romance, she was the unlikeliest purveyor, but she was an expert seamstress, and often a customer for my antique buttons, ribbon, and lace.
I told them about my visit with the uncooperative detective.
Martha popped one of the cheesecake squares into her mouth. “Well, that doesn’t surprise me. Frank Ramsbottom and Angus Backstead don’t get along. They’re bitter enemies, in fact, so I’m sure he’ll be content to go with the easy solution of pinning the murder charge on our favorite auctioneer.”
“Really? Bitter enemies?” I poured three mugs of coffee. “I can’t believe someone as friendly and generous as Angus could have any enemies at all.”
“Oh, yes. I remember when Angus got in a nasty fight when he was younger. He nearly beat the other guy to a pulp before the fight was stopped. That’s probably how come the police already had his fingerprints on file. Right, Eleanor?”
Eleanor shook her head. “I didn’t hang around with your crowd. You were in the cheerleader and jock contingent. I was one of the geeks, remember?”
“Oh, this wasn’t in high school, although he got in plenty of fights back then, too. This was when Angus must have been in his forties.”
I had no idea about Angus’s violent side until now. I’d certainly never seen any evidence of it.
“Daisy, it doesn’t look good,” Martha said, lowering her voice. “Angus was the last person to see Jimmy alive, and his fingerprints are all over the murder weapon. According to Ramsbottom, his big footprints are everywhere in and around that barn. And other than Jimmy’s and Reenie’s, his are the only strange footprints there.”
I bit my lip. Angus did have unusually large feet, and he always wore the same scruffy work boots.
“Betty has to special order his shoes on-line,” Eleanor said. “Or rather, she asks me to do it for her, and she pays me when they come in.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “You know what they say. Big hands. Big feet. Big—”
The doorbell rang again. Saved by the bell.
Chris Paxson came in, carrying his own mug. He was the cute thirty-something-year-old guy who owned the bicycle shop.
I gave him coffee, he politely declined Martha’s offer of one of her treats, and he wandered over to the back of the store where I’d hung a former post office sign that said
MAIL
, except I’d crossed it out and written
MALE
. Underneath sat a rectangular wooden toolbox that Joe filled with small treasures. Everything cost five dollars. Keep it simple for the men, he’d advised me.
The odd thing was that little box did a roaring business all by itself. Men who were hanging around while their wives shopped often poked through it. It was also an excuse for the single men in town to visit. After all, this was where the women congregated.
Currently it held things like an old silver belt buckle, a bag of vintage marbles, a pocket watch, a Victorian glass paperweight that looked like an eyeball, and sharpening stones for a straight razor. Chris selected a neat camping knife and fork combo set, and pulled a five-dollar bill out of his tight biker’s shorts.
“Well, I’d better get going. Thanks for the coffee, ladies.”
“Anytime,” Martha said.
We all watched him leave, his lean athlete’s body a welcome sight on a gloomy morning.
“I want to take that boy home and give him a large bowl of pasta,” Martha declared. “He’s too damn skinny.”
“What are you talking about?” Eleanor shook her head in disgust. “Look at that ass. He’s perfect.”
“Eleanor!” I exclaimed. “You’re old enough to be his mother.”
“Thank you very much for pointing that out, Daisy, but I’m not dead yet. I can still window-shop, can’t I?”
I smiled as I went to put on another pot of coffee. Joe sometimes jokingly called the three of us “The Coven,” which might be a bit unfair, but it was true that women over fifty did possess a certain indisputable power.
I grabbed one of the cheesecake squares while the going was good. Creamy luscious cheesecake filling, a crunchy, buttery graham cracker crust, and toasted toffee crumble topping made me moan in delight. “Oh, Martha, these are evil!”
More of the local ladies drifted in, including Debby Millerton, the librarian from Sheepville. All the talk was of the murder. This was the most exciting thing to happen in Millbury since the pastor’s wife had run off with a
female
parishioner.
Some actual customers arrived next, so I put Martha in charge of hospitality. The two clients wanted a closer look at the sewing station in the shape of a miniature rocking chair displayed in the front window. I turned it around to show them how the spools of colored threads sat on the little armrests, and the front had a pullout drawer for notions, with top slots for several pairs of scissors.
They asked me more about the store, so I explained that the idea was to offer “new” old stock. Vintage, but untouched. I gestured to the unopened packages of Lucky needles, flawless wax flowers for ladies’ hats still in their paper wrappers, and snaps, hooks, and fasteners on their original cards.
As the granddaughter of a milliner, and as a former teacher, I loved educating clients who might have a mild interest in sewing or antiques, and watch it turn into a real passion. The more people knew, the more enthusiastic they became.
Dimly I heard Martha across the room repeating my words. “Vintage and untouched? Heck, that sounds like me. I haven’t had sex in so long, I’m practically a virgin again.”
Eleanor snickered, and I hurriedly kept talking to distract my customers. Sometimes it was a good thing that my store was such a haven for gossip and camaraderie, making the store appear busy and alive, and sometimes it was a bit of a liability.
The ladies decided to purchase the sewing station, so I moved it out of the front window and set it near the register. They said they would look around some more, so I busied myself with filling the space in the window with a 1930s Beech-Nut Gum display case, a silk sample swatch book, and some pristine tatted linen hankies.
All the while I kept half an ear open for the gossip behind me. When the discussion turned back to Angus, I was shocked to hear a note of resentment in the voices of the locals. To hear how jealous people were of the Backsteads, who still operated a thriving business in spite of the downturn in the economy.
The depressed economic conditions had also helped me obtain a rock-bottom rent for my store space when I first opened, I thought, with a soupçon of guilt.
I’d built a successful business myself by word of mouth, and now sold not only to crafters, but to collectors, interior designers, antiques dealers, and treasure hunters, some of whom came from hundreds of miles away. Like Eleanor’s, mine was a destination shop. Our little village of Millbury was too far off the beaten track for the casual tourist. Although unlike me, Eleanor only opened her store when she damn well felt like it.
Once the customers and the other women had departed, I mentioned to Martha, Debby, and Eleanor that I thought I might stop and visit Cyril Mackey at his junkyard. I had a feeling that if anyone could come up with some information about the night of the murder, it might be Cyril.
Martha choked on her third cheesecake square.
“Why do you want to see that disgusting old fart? The man needs a haircut, a shower, and some clean clothes, and that’s just for starters. Last time I saw him in town, I offered to pay for a trip to the barber.”
I winced. “And what did he say to that?”
She sniffed. “Nothing I can repeat in polite company.” Noting the almost empty plate, she addressed Eleanor. “How many of those have you eaten?”
Eleanor shrugged. “Not sure. Five, maybe six. More?”
“How the hell do you stay so skinny?”
“Not sure. I eat like a pig. That is, when I remember.”
“See, Daisy, this is the kind of comment from her that drives me
insane
. How can someone just
forget
to eat?”
The doorbell chimed again, and I ran a hand through my hair. It was turning out to be a busy day.
On the doorstep stood a gorgeous young woman, long blond hair trailing across her shoulders. She wore a filmy gauze top and a full-length silk skirt, with a colorful Indian scarf tied expertly around her neck.
She flung her arms wide. “Hi, Mom. Surprise!”
“S
arah! What on earth are you doing here?” I rushed over and hugged my daughter, and even managed to kiss her on the cheek before she strode into the store.
“Oh, you know. I’m sort of between films right now, so I thought I’d come home and chill for a while.”
Debby clasped her hands together. “Films! How exciting!” She was always going to the Ritz, an art house cinema in the Old City district of Philadelphia that featured independent and foreign films and documentaries.
“Wow, it’s always like a party in this place. Look at these.” Sarah took the last of the cheesecake squares and smiled at Martha. “Awesome.”
“Thank you, darling. Glad there was at least
one
left for you,” Martha said with an arch look at Eleanor.
Eleanor was a former costume designer, and had worked on some of the same movie sets as Sarah. After one of her visits home, Sarah had told her about Millbury, and intrigued, Eleanor came to check it out. She saw the empty storefront across the street from me and that was it.
“Sarah, do you remember that last shoot from hell we did together? With Robert Malone, the crazed director on the Western debacle? I still have nightmares about that one.”
“He was a complete maniac. Overcoked and overbudget.”
“The man decided he needed two hundred extras at the last minute, all of them in period costume. I wanted to strangle him with a length of rickrack trim.”
Sarah laughed. “So I take it you don’t miss the movie business, E?”
“Not one bit, thank you very much. There’s not enough gin in the world to make it bearable. Besides, I’ve finally found my true niche in life. Just like your mother.”
“Oh, yeah. How’s biz with the dusty old sewing things, Mom?”
“Pretty good,” I answered. “Although I clean every item before it’s displayed, Sarah. I honestly don’t think they’re
that
dusty . . .”
I was drowned out by my group of friends as they peppered her with questions about her exciting career. She had Joe’s easy charm and ability to get along with anyone. I saw their expressions of delight as she turned her attention from one to the next. Like a beautiful butterfly landing on a flower beside you. You held your breath because you didn’t want it to fly away.
I felt like I’d been holding my breath around Sarah for most of her life.
I saw her gaze flick over to me and she smiled, but I hoped it wouldn’t turn out to be a “Mom Improvement Weekend.” I’d intended to color my hair yesterday, but other events took precedence and I prayed my roots weren’t showing.
I was wearing my usual outfit of a faded denim jacket, white T-shirt, and what she would disparagingly call “mom jeans,” my old boot-cut Levi’s. Hey, they were comfortable, and while I lugged boxes around and was on my feet all day, comfort was my main concern. My only jewelry consisted of the simple gold hoops Joe had given me when we opened the store.
“I must admit I do miss the breakfast burritos on set,” Eleanor said. “They were the best! How was your latest shoot?”
“The only good part about that movie was that I got to practice my fight-scene techniques. The standin was sick one day, so I filled in. All the stuff they taught us in film school finally paid off.”
Debby groaned as she looked at her watch. “I’m running late for my shift at the library, but I
have
to hear more insider tales of the film industry. Can we go to lunch soon? Please?”
“Sure,” Sarah said. “I’ll be around for a few days.”
Debby reluctantly said good-bye, and rushed off.
“Well, we must be going, too,” Eleanor announced. “We have to attend the monthly meeting of the Historical Society.” Eleanor was the president, and Martha was the secretary, in charge of taking the minutes at the meetings.
“Don’t you mean the
Hysterical
Society?” asked Martha. She winked at us as she followed Eleanor out the front door.
Sarah laughed. “Those two never change, do they, Mom?”
“No.” I grinned at her. “And I hope they never do.”
She wandered over to the store’s computer. “How’s the website coming along?”
“Great, thanks to you.”
She’d set me up with a site, and I knew enough to be dangerous. At least to fill orders that came in over the Internet and answer questions on certain merchandise. I’d even toyed with the idea of starting a blog, but I wasn’t quite there yet.
“Come on now, Sarah. What’s the matter?” As much as I knew she loved us, my daughter thought Millbury was insufferably dull. There had to be some pressing reason why she was here.
I narrowed my eyes at her. Sarah changed boyfriends every six months whether she needed to or not. Actually it seemed to coincide with the conclusion of each new film.
“How’s—um . . .” I struggled to remember the latest one’s name.
“Oh
God.
Please don’t mention Peter to me. I never want to see, hear, or speak to him ever again.”
“Okay.”
“Jeez, Mom, he had the nerve to break up with me at the wrap party. At the
wrap party.
With
me
.”
“But why?”
“I
said
I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Okay.”
Apparently for once the tables had turned, and Sarah was the victim of the latest breakup. She’d come home to lick her wounds. I sighed inwardly. Sarah with a broken heart was a wealth of additional drama that I really didn’t need right now.
Sometimes I wished she had more of Joe’s sweetness and maybe more of my tact. It was typical of her lack of thoughtfulness that she would show up with no notice, but no matter. I adored her nonetheless.
A couple of hours later, she’d checked the website thoroughly, made some updates, and she sighed, too, obviously bored to death. The familiar anxiety rose up inside my chest as I worried about how to keep her happy and entertained.
“Do you want to sort some buttons for me?”
“Mom! I’m not a little kid anymore.”
But she followed me into the former dining room. The maple two-piece dovetailed workbench had a recessed portion in the middle for sorting and separating items. I poured out a bag of buttons I’d picked up at the last auction—a mix of wood, bone, Czech glass, jet, metal, silver, pewter, and mother-of-pearl. She slumped into a chair and began sorting them in a desultory fashion.
When I’d rearranged the front window display three times, and I hadn’t had a customer in over an hour, I decided my nerves couldn’t take it anymore.
“Sarah, I’m going to close early today, but I have to run a couple of errands before I go home. I’m sure you’re anxious to see Dad.”
“Oh, I already stopped to see Daddy on the way here.”
I squashed an irrational stab of jealousy. “Well, do you want to come with me, then?”
“Why not?” She sighed again. “There’s nothing else to do.”
I counted to ten, and then counted to ten again for good measure. I took the six-pack of beer and some other items out of the fridge and prepared my unorthodox care basket. Sarah raised a languid eyebrow, but didn’t comment. It was as if the energy had completely drained from her body.
A few minutes later, though, as we bumped over the potholes on the Kratzes’ driveway, she perked up. “Wow. Look at this place, Mom. It’s about as far from Manhattan as you could get, right?”
“Hey, you wanted a change of scene. Be careful what you wish for.”
We grinned at each other. Sarah slung her ever-present camera around her neck, and I hefted the basket out of the backseat.
I found Reenie in the kitchen, boiling milk on the stove. A collection of glass jugs stood on the counter next to her. The room was dark and cool because the window over the sink was almost completely covered by the creeping vine growing up the outside of the house.
Reenie unpacked the basket eagerly, grabbing the beer first, and stashing a pack of cigarettes in the pocket of her apron. Apples, bananas, yogurt, and granola bars didn’t seem to hold as much interest, and she held up a package of peanut butter crackers with a look of dismay.
“Peanut butter! Oh, Daisy, we can’t have these in the house. Jimmy’s allergic—or well—he was. I guess it don’t matter no more . . .” Her voice trailed off as her eyes filled with tears.
The two children crept in from the living room. The girl looked to be about six years old, and the little boy was a couple of years younger.
“You must be starting first grade soon, right?” I said to the girl, smiling at her. “Are you excited?” The child looked at me blankly. Reenie made no comment.
The younger one sniffed, his nose running. Reenie pinched the mucus from under his nose, and wiped it on her apron.
Sarah made a small choking sound. “Would you excuse me? I—um—need to get some air.”
“Want to go see our chickens?” asked the boy.
“Sure,” Sarah answered, in that same slightly jaded tone she used with me. She strode outside, and the kids followed, gazing up at her as if she were some kind of movie star.
Reenie turned the burner off on the stove and cracked open a cold beer.
“You want one, Daisy?”
I didn’t really, but maybe if we shared a drink together, she would talk. I’d gotten the feeling last time that there was something she wanted to tell me.
“Okay, thanks.”
Reenie handed me a bottle and then lit a cigarette with trembling fingers.
I took a tiny sip of my beer and waited.
She started speaking slowly, as if picking her words. “I think I know why Jimmy died. He had some kind of deal going on with this company that was hired to sell stuff from people’s estates.” She took a long drag on her cigarette. “I don’t really know much about it. To me, it was just another one of Jimmy’s crazy get-rich-quick schemes.” She laughed without humor and gestured to the kitchen around her. “You can see how well
they
worked.”
The Formica table with its fake gray marble surface was chipped, and the brown and white speckled linoleum floor was missing a few tiles. There were no cabinets, only makeshift open shelves. The fridge looked like something Jimmy had salvaged at one time because it was too small for the space it sat in, and the range had to be at least twenty years old.
The whole place needed gutting.
“But how was Jimmy involved?”
Reenie tipped the beer bottle up and took another swallow. It was already half empty.
“This company would send valuable things out from the city to a country auction like Sheepville, where they’d sell for a much lower price. They’d hire a local to go and bid on the items. He’d hand the merchandise back to them afterwards, and they’d sell the stuff for a much higher price somewhere else down the road.”
“Do you know the name of the company?”
She shook her head. “Nope. Don’t think Jimmy knew either. He was only ever contacted by this one guy, who said they’d be in touch after the auction.”
“So he planned to bid on a collection of very expensive fountain pens, with his own money, risking thousands of dollars for someone he never met and had no idea how to contact?” My voice rose as I finished the question. I didn’t know Jimmy that well, but he didn’t sound too bright to me.
“Oh no, they said they’d give him the money to bid with—the night before. He was supposed to get paid a flat fee for doing the job. Seemed like he was getting nervous about the whole thing, though. He’d be on the phone and then hang up whenever I came in the room.”
Reenie picked at the label on her beer bottle. “Maybe he got cold feet. Or he got greedy and decided to do a double cross. Maybe Jimmy realized how much they were really worth from talking with Angus, and somehow these people figured out he was going to screw them.”
“Did you tell the police any of this?”
“No. I got no faith in the cops to take care of things. I’m still not sure what Jimmy was up to. Or if it was even illegal.”
“But you could save Angus!”
“I don’t want to get in trouble. Who would look after the kids if I was locked up?” She started crying again. “I’m afraid of the police. What if they thought
I
had something to do with it? I can’t prove I didn’t. I’m Jimmy’s wife after all.”