Going Through the Notions (A Deadly Notions Mystery) (8 page)
Read Going Through the Notions (A Deadly Notions Mystery) Online
Authors: Cate Price
I smiled. “At first I couldn’t understand what they were saying at auctions either. But Angus told me that it’s really about the numbers. The rest is just filler. The main thing is to create a sense of excitement and urgency to drive the price up and keep the pace moving.”
“But how do I learn how to do it?”
“Well, you can practice counting pairs of numbers like one, one, two, two, three, three, and so on. Then try it backwards. Or count up in increments of fives or tens. Or practice tongue twisters. I’ll see Angus tomorrow. I’ll ask him for some pointers for you.”
“Five, ten, fifteen, twenty. Twenty, fifteen, ten, five.” Claire smiled at me. “One, one, two, two, three, three—”
“Jesus. Thanks a lot, Daisy.” Patsy groaned. “See what I’ll have to listen to for the rest of the week?”
For all that I thought I’d had it rough in New York sometimes, it was nothing compared to the life Patsy had led, but she’d survived, flourished even. It had made her somewhat hard, though, and to say that she practiced tough love with her daughter was an understatement. No candy except on special occasions, no TV during the week, and a long list of chores to complete for her pocket money.
Although perhaps I should have taken a page out of Patsy’s book. As a teenager, Sarah was constantly losing things like her cell phone, but instead of making her save up her pocket money for a new one, Joe bought her a replacement. We’d paid the full ticket to put her through college so she wouldn’t be encumbered by loans, but I wondered if Sarah appreciated how much Joe and I had sacrificed to give her that gift.
The door bell rang, and an elderly woman stepped into the store. She wore a black wool coat in spite of the heat, and clutched a white paper shopping bag. Thanks to gossip queen Martha, I knew Mary Willis was recently widowed, and her husband had died with no life insurance. They’d spent everything they had on his medical bills.
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to interrupt,” Mary murmured, hovering at the entrance.
“Please, come in.” I waved to welcome her in. “How can I help you?”
She held out the bag. “I hope I’m not wasting your time . . . but I was wondering . . . would you be interested in buying some of these?”
It looked as though there was a pile of neatly folded linens inside. I smiled at her. “Why don’t we go into the prep area, where we can take a better look?”
I switched the light on in the former dining room, and we spread them out on the maple workbench.
There was a set of white Irish linen damask dinner napkins, some place mats with beautiful embroidery and cutwork featuring flowers and butterflies with a scalloped edging, and an exquisite Madeira organdy and cotton tablecloth with twelve matching napkins.
“These are beautiful, Mary.” They were all in very good condition with no tears or stains. The lacework was finely done, and I did a mental calculation of the total value.
In the background I could hear Claire still softly practicing her chant, and Patsy chatting with Sarah, occasionally barking with laughter.
“What were you thinking?” I asked.
First lesson in negotiation. See what the other party has in mind.
“How much do you want for them?”
“Fifty dollars?” she whispered as she clutched the empty bag, worry rumpling her thin features.
“For everything?” I exclaimed in shock. “Oh, no, Mary. They’re worth far more than that.”
The fact that the organdy tablecloth still had its matching napkins greatly enhanced the value, and I would ask about four hundred dollars retail for the set. The Irish linens alone would fetch well over a hundred dollars.
Patsy gave me an arch look from across the room, but I ignored it. Even though I was two decades older than her, I often felt as though she was the wise woman and I was the naïve one.
But one of the first lessons I’d learned from Angus was to cultivate good karma. You never wanted to hurt someone, because it could come back to bite you one day. And the people that you played fair with, well, they could suddenly remember an old treasure in the attic that they were now inclined to sell, and you just hit picker pay dirt.
“How about five hundred dollars for the lot?”
“Really?” Mary touched the edge of the tablecloth with fingers that shook. Fingers that were mottled with age spots, the knuckles swollen with arthritis.
“Yes, really. That’s a fair price, Mary.”
“Oh my Lord, yes, it certainly is, but I never expected . . . you know, I’ve never even used them. My mother-in-law gave them to me years ago. I was saving them for a special occasion.”
As I counted out money from the register, I thought about how after Teddy Bristol died, Martha took her diamond earrings out of the safe and announced she planned on wearing them every day. She used her crystal and best china for every meal now, too. An image also popped into my head of Cyril Mackey eating breakfast off his Limoges plate.
Poor Mary Willis had saved her linens for so long, waiting for the special occasion that never came.
“I have more things at home. Would you like to see them?” Mary ventured, with a little more color in her face now as she carefully placed the bills in her wallet.
“Yes, sure, and anything else you think might sell. Sewing notions, children’s toys, any small antiques—bring it over!”
“You know, I don’t know how many times I’ve thought about coming in here, but I never had the nerve to. I’m glad I finally did.”
I smiled. “Me, too. See you again soon.”
I watched her leave, hoping that now she might be able to afford some prescriptions, or her electric bill, or some such thing.
The door had barely closed behind her before Patsy said, “Well, folks, there’s a lesson in how
not
to make money.”
Sarah smiled and shook her head. “Yeah, you’re too soft, Mom.”
“No,” I murmured, “you’re wrong. It’s not always about the money.” They chuckled, but I ignored them as I laid the linens out on display. I felt Claire’s small hand slip into mine and I squeezed it tight in gratitude.
Patsy slowly unfolded her long body out of the chair. “Hey, Sarah, if you ever want to hit the town one night, let me know, and I’ll ask my sister to babysit.”
“By town, you mean . . .”
Patsy stared at her. “Sheepville. There’s a great band at the pub on Friday nights.”
I held my breath.
Sarah smiled as if it was the most exciting offer she’d ever had. “Awesome. I’d love to.” Her smile encompassed me, and I thanked her with my answering grin. I knew Sheepville was not Sarah’s idea of civilization, but it was all we had. Of course, there was Philadelphia, but I’d run into many people who had lived around here all their lives and never ventured into the city. It was like asking them if they’d ever traveled to Mars.
“Patsy, do you know the Perkins family?” I asked. “Sounds like they don’t get along with Angus. I thought I might pay them a visit.”
Patsy shook her head. “Be careful, Daisy. You don’t want to mess around with that crowd. They’re a bad lot.”
“I heard they run a farm supply and feed store outside of Sheepville?”
“Yeah, the Perkins boys own it. Well, they’re not really boys anymore—they’re in their late twenties—but we’ve always called them that. They were a couple years behind me at school. I could tell you some stories that would curl your hair.”
Patsy glanced over at Claire and arched her back.
“Ow. Come on kid, let’s go practice. Five, five, ten, ten, twenty, twenty. Daisy, see you later. Sarah, I’ll call you about going out.”
T
hat night when we got home, Joe was putting the finishing touches to a bouillabaisse, a traditional French seafood stew full of cooked fish and vegetables. A wonderful feast, but not a cheap dish to make, by any means.
As I dropped my bag on the kitchen table and kicked off my shoes, I tried to stop adding up the cost of the ingredients in the giant cooking pot. One whole lobster, a pound of shrimp, sea bass, and some fresh mussels and littleneck clams. That must have cost a pretty penny.
Stop it, Daisy.
The yellow-haired dog sat in an ungainly stance behind Joe, one back leg straight, one sprawled out the way some puppies sit, in rapt attention at the saffron-and-fish-scented mist swirling through the kitchen.
Joe disappeared down the basement steps and came back with a bottle of 2009 Montrachet, a very nice white burgundy. We’d bought it a couple of years ago on a trip to our favorite wine shop, in Lambertville, New Jersey, just across the bridge from New Hope, Pennsylvania, and it had been gathering dust ever since.
“I thought we were saving it for a special occasion,” I said beneath my breath. Sarah was engrossed in her cell phone as usual.
“It is. Our daughter came home.” He set it down on the butcher block table that was well over six inches thick and pulled a corkscrew out of his pocket with a flourish.
I looked at him, in his blue-striped apron, a faint flush on his high cheekbones from the heat of the stove, and the excitement in his dark eyes, and wondered why I couldn’t be as uncomplicated.
Dear Joe.
“You know what? You’re right. Let’s open it!”
Sarah and I watched as he set three goblets on the table and poured an inch or so of the golden liquid into each one.
“Buddy chewed up Daddy’s slippers today,” Sarah said, sliding a glance at me.
Joe chuckled and handed us both a glass. “That’s okay. I needed a new pair anyway.” He reached down and ruffled the puppy’s ears.
I stifled a pang of guilt for working so much and not paying the dog enough attention, but hey, it wasn’t even my dog. And for all his laissez-faire treatment, he seemed content enough.
Joe touched his glass to mine. “You worry too much,” he said, smiling.
Third person today.
I took a slug of the gorgeous wine because I didn’t feel up to dying from a stroke right now.
“So. How did you come up with the name Buddy for him, Sarah?”
“Hmm, I don’t know. Had to call him something, and I haven’t had time to think of anything else.”
I looked down at the happy-go-lucky dog, whose tail immediately starting waving when he sensed my appraisal. “He reminds me of a history professor I once knew called Jasper Weckert. He was so exuberant, so full of life, and yes, a little annoying sometimes, but you couldn’t help but like him.”
“Hey, Jasper!” Joe slapped his knee.
The dog wagged his tail even harder.
Sarah nodded. “He likes it. It’s cool. And a more stylin’ name than Buddy anyway.”
After dinner was cleared away, we played a game of Monopoly, just like the good old days, and as usual, Joe spent his money first. I bought railroads, and Sarah ended up with Park Place. She built a row of hotels on it and bankrupted her parents.
I sipped my wine and watched the candlelight dance up the exposed brick wall in the kitchen and tried to let it all go. Maybe everyone was right. Maybe I did worry too much.
I’d color my hair tomorrow night.
*
“T
he next morning was Wednesday, visiting day again for Angus’s section of the prison. I woke up without the alarm, got dressed in a hurry, and arrived in the parking lot of the correctional facility at a few minutes before 8 a.m.
Angus came into the room, his hands bandaged and his hair neatly combed, but his expression somber. I rushed up and hugged him. Angus gave the best hugs. Kind of like hugging a friendly bear, or a live boulder.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
“Okay, I guess. I still have a damn headache that won’t quit.”
“Will they give you some aspirin?”
“Took some, but it’s not helping.” He frowned as he looked beyond me. “Where’s Betty?”
I sighed. “She had hip surgery, don’t you remember? It’s still hard for her to get around. And hey, what am I—chopped liver?”
His face relaxed a little. “No, and I still can’t believe you eat that stuff. It’s disgusting.”
I grinned. Ah, the good old New York delis. They were the best—with their smoked salmon, corned beef, pastrami, and pickled herring in sour cream. I loved it all. “I can’t believe
you
eat scrapple,” I countered.
Scrapple is a Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy, and I use the word lightly, that’s made of a mush of pork scraps formed into a semisolid congealed loaf. It’s not for the faint of heart.
“What’s the status, Angus?” I asked as we sat down. “When’s your preliminary hearing? Have you talked to Warren?”
Angus shrugged. “I think it’s scheduled for early next week. I dunno. I’m beginning to feel like I’ll never get out of here. Seems like everyone’s made up their minds about me already anyway.”
I made a mental note to visit Warren and see if I could get some sense out of him, if not from Angus or Betty. If I wasn’t satisfied, I’d try to get another lawyer in place before the hearing.
“Angus. Look, I’m doing my best to help you, but I have to ask you a few questions.”
He sighed. “We’ve been through this before. I told you I don’t remember much about that night.”
I waved a hand impatiently. “Not about the night of Jimmy’s murder. Now, this might sound a little off base, but I was wondering if someone might have killed Jimmy simply to get
you
in trouble?”
He snorted, but I persevered.
“Someone with a grudge against you. Like the Perkins boys, for instance.”
His cheeks reddened. “I gave that family a good deal, fair and square. They were in such an all-fired rush to get their paws on the cash, they didn’t want to wait for an auction. I gave it my best guess in the time they gave me, but yes, it’s true, I didn’t go over everything as carefully as if I’d brought it back to the auction building and gone through it one item at a time.”
He shifted his chair closer to the table, the legs scraping against the floor. “Those boys act as if they made no money that day, Daisy, but they got a good price for everything, and the old lady’s house, too. They used the money to open their feed store. It’s not my fault they pissed a lot of it away at the bar.”
He pointed at me. “In fact, remember the stuff I gave you when you opened your shop?”
I nodded, a sinking feeling in my chest.
“A lot of it came from that buyout.”
Great.
“And what about the fight that got you in trouble when you were younger? The one that got you arrested the first time?”
Angus rubbed a large hand across his face. “What is this, Daisy? The Spanish Inquisition?”
“Yeah, well, you know me when I’m on a roll. Take no prisoners. Oops, pardon the pun.”
We grinned at each other, in a ghost of the old camaraderie.
His face grew serious again as he stared past me as if seeing the long-ago scene in his mind.
“It was a Saturday night. Betty and I had gone to the movies in Sheepville. We were coming out afterwards, and this guy backhanded his wife right in front of us. Smacked her straight across the face. Guess he didn’t like something she said.”
I sucked in a breath, memories like dark shadows hovering over my shoulder.
“I couldn’t stand by and let him treat a woman like that, Daisy. I saw red. Bright, fricking fire engine red. I could hardly see, I was so mad.”
“So you beat him up?”
“Hell, yeah. I beat the living crap out of him.” Angus pounded one fist into the palm of the other hand, making a loud smacking noise in spite of the bandages.
I gripped the edges of my plastic seat.
“I kept hitting and hitting and hitting him, and his face was just mush at that point, but I couldn’t stop. They had to pull me off of him. What was left of him.”
His eyes were full of remembered fury. As I stared into those blazing eyes, I wondered how well I really knew Angus Backstead. This man, capable of uncontrolled violence, was a complete stranger.
Whether it was a hot flash or an anxiety attack, I wasn’t sure, but a surge of panic swept over me, and sweat prickled across my face and down my back.
I fought the urge to jump up and get the hell out of the room.
Angus suddenly started the loud chanting thing, like he did last time.
I wiped a hand across my forehead. “Damn it, Angus, stop it!” My voice cracked, but I managed to get the words out.
The guard at the door took a step closer.
“Don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Angus mumbled. “It’s your fault. You’re getting me upset.”
“It’s okay,” I said, both to Angus and the guard, holding up a shaking hand. “Look, we’ll talk about something else, all right? Just relax. Relax.”
My heart was still pounding, but I plastered a bright smile on my face.
“Hey, you’ll be glad to hear Betty’s going ahead with the auction this weekend. But don’t worry, we’ve got it covered. We’re all helping out.”
He was still muttering, staring at his hands, lost in his own despondent world. The dear friend I knew was gone, to a place where I couldn’t touch him.
Come back to me, Angus.
“Patsy has agreed to step in for you with the bid calling. Can you picture that?”
A faint smile appeared.
“I told her about the filler words and to practice counting numbers backwards and forwards, but do you have any other tips for her?”
At that, his eyes seemed to regain their focus. He took a deep breath. “The thing is, you have to move an awful lot of stuff in a short period of time, and the chant is how you keep people’s attention. It’s almost like singing. It’s faster than normal speech. You sort of hypnotize the bidders with the rhythm, the cadence of it.”
“Okay. And how do you keep track of what the bid is?”
“Every auctioneer has his own way. Palms up can mean odd numbers, palms down for an even hundred-dollar bid. Tell Patsy not to worry about trying to go too fast when she’s starting out. At the end of the day, the main job of an auctioneer is to communicate. If the audience can’t understand him, he’s not doing a good job.”
Talking about auctioneering was calming him down.
I was still uncomfortably warm, my shirt clinging to my back with perspiration, but I could feel my heartbeat slowly returning to normal.
What a mess we were. Angus and me.
Staring across the table at my friend, I realized how much I had always depended on Angus—on his enormous strength, on his boisterous devil-may-care attitude that made me feel as though we could bulldoze our way through anything.
Now he needed me, whether he knew it or not, and I would be there for him.
“Angus, what about the time we went picking in Lancaster? Remember that? When you sent me up into the rafters of that decrepit barn?”
He laughed. “Yeah. You were smaller so you could climb better than me. I gave you some good advice, right? Don’t fall through!”
“Thanks a lot. I was glad I was wearing jeans and sneakers that day.”
I’d clambered like a monkey up a rickety ladder into the hayloft to retrieve a box of Buddy L toy vehicles that the owner told us were up there. I still remembered the joy on Angus’s face upon seeing the old toys made of pressed steel. Like a kid on Christmas morning. He also had a passion for automotive and gasoline signs, and he’d found a couple of Esso Motor Oil signs outside the barn.
I’d done well, too. I’d picked up an antique dress form that was now proudly displayed in Eleanor’s shop and a box of Standard sewing machine accessories and buttons. Plus a rare Singer leather sewing machine that Joe had later painstakingly oiled and restored, and that I’d sold for a big profit to a collector.
People in the country are savers, even hoarders. In New York, with space at a premium, you had to be ruthless about what you kept, but here, where farmhouses were passed down through generations, if no one had the energy to clean out the recesses of the attic each time it changed hands, the stuff built up.