The Case of the Angry Auctioneer (Auction House Mystery Series Book 1) (18 page)

Cookie put in the call on her cell phone.

“You can’t tell me what to do!” Mary pushed Jasper aside and rushed down the stairs. She began yelling, “Oh my God!” Over and over and over again.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” Mary Clippert staggered around the basement. Ray Clippert’s body lay in a half circle near the stairs, reminding Jasper - of all the things that exist in this weird world - of a crescent roll. Not a croissant. For Ray, even in death, looked every inch the American. Red blood splatters decorated his blue jean overalls and white t-shirt. His face was that strange shade of the newly dead that Jasper had seen not too long ago on her own stepfather’s visage. Dead Caucasians took on the hue of granite, not the deathly pale cliché color, Jasper thought, or at least dead Caucasian men of a certain age did.

Cookie and Jasper went down the stairs to Mary’s side. “There, there, there, there,” said Cookie. She and Jasper eased Mary to the floor. “No-o-o-,” moaned Mary as she touched down on the cold concrete not far from her father’s body. Mary paddled away with her feet, Cookie’s and Jasper’s hands hooked under her arms, until she had crab-walked herself backwards and resettled on a lower step.

“Why, why, why?” Mary held her head and continued moaning. Then she ceased her noise-making as abruptly as she had started. “Are you definitely, definitely, definitely certain that he’s - ” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Dead? I have a feeling he’s still here with us.”

“You got that right,” Cookie muttered.

Feeling somehow stronger by the moment, Jasper told her sister, “Stay with her.” Then she re-approached the body. There was no movement. Jasper crouched near him to double check for a neck pulse just the same. Tragic death was an oft-used cliché, but it would really be tragic if Mr. Clippert was merely near death and might yet be saved. In spite of her outward calmness, Jasper’s hands had gone icy. She took a deep breath and forced herself to touch the man lying so still. His skin was colder than her own, and unmoving under her touch, almost like a rubber chicken. Things under the skin were at a standstill. No pulse.

Jasper got to her feet and made a conscious effort to avoid wiping her hands down the side of her slacks. She turned back to the steps where Cookie sat near but not touching Mary Clippert.

“Is he really gone?” Mary asked.

Cookie gave her a look, then stared up at her sister. Jasper shrugged. Mary Clippert must have a hard time accepting the death of fathers. She’d said something like that the night Jimmy died.

Jasper spoke in consoling tones. “Yes, he’s gone,” she told Mary.

There was a pause in which it seemed as if all three women and the basement itself held their breaths. One big silent moment of shock. The house had killed again.

Mary lumbered to her feet. “I’d be obliged if you’d leave me alone with him for a minute,” she said.

“I think we should wait together for the police,” Jasper said.

“Not gonna happen, Miss Biggs Mouth,” Mary said. “Know-it-all auctioneers,” she mumbled.

Cookie waved Jasper to back up a couple feet. Further away, Jasper felt a little safer from the angry and confused Mary Clipper.

“I agree with my sister. I don’t think you should be left alone,” Cookie said.

“I won’t be alone. He’s here with me,” Mary said. She held her hand to her heart.

Off on the other side of the basement, a pipe banged. Mary shrieked.

“You were saying?” Cookie asked.

“Maybe you are right. Shall we go wait for the police?” Mary led the way up the steep steps post-haste. Jasper waited with Cookie for just a moment longer while Cookie said a short prayer for the peace of Ray Clippert’s soul. Then they walked more sedately upstairs.

Voices came from the living room. Jasper thought the police were getting better all the time at finding their way to the Clippert house. If this dead man theme continued, they could include the place in some kind of training video. Jasper was surprised to see the Austrings standing with Mary. No police yet.

Jasper glanced at Cookie. Her sister’s face held its habitual look of amused acceptance which Jasper envied. Her own face tended to give away whatever she was feeling, and right now, that was a whole lot of confusion and fear. She hoped she could learn to grow calmer without having to follow in Cookie’s footsteps and learn to commune with the dead. Not that there was anything wrong with dead people. Jasper just wanted to learn how to really live in the now before she started spending time in the later. “What are you doing here?” she blurted out.

Kiefer Austring said, “If this is going to be our house, we need to know what’s going on.”

His wife Emily put a restraining hand on his arm. She moved in front of him. “What my husband means is, ‘What the hell is going on here?’ We understand there’s another dead man. Two bodies in two weeks. Our bank is going to cancel our pre-approval if this keeps up.”

Cookie said, “These bodies belong to our fathers.”

“Well, what are they doing dying here?” Emily asked.

“Couldn’t this have been prevented?” Kiefer Austring demanded.

Jasper turned to Cookie. “Would you speak to them? I don’t think I can.”

Cookie said quietly, “I don’t think rational or empathetic are in their makeup.”

“Yes, couldn’t this have been prevented?” Mary Clippert said. Her eyes were inflamed with a look that Jasper thought she had seen in a silent movie by that old Danish director. What was his name? Dwyer? Dyer? Dreiser!

Jasper was having a hard time keeping her mind on the moment. She stared silently at Mary Clippert and the Austrings.

“It’s ridiculous that you are blaming my sister,” Cookie said.

“Of course you would stand up for her,” Mary said.

“Maybe it’s the house. Maybe the house has something wrong with it,” Emily Austring said.

“There is nothing wrong with my house, my father’s house,” Mary said.

“Nothing other than him falling down the basement stairs,” Kiefer Austring said. “We might have to lower our offering price.”

“How do you know he fell down the steps?” Jasper asked.

“You can’t get away with that!” Mary told the Austrings.

“It’s not as if you
ladies
were keeping your voices down,” Kiefer said. “Wait and see what we’re able to do. This house is losing value every day. It’s blighted property.”

Mary took a step toward him. Cookie blocked her - the way Jasper had seen her once jump in front of her children when they were little at a busy intersection.

Jasper forced herself to concentrate on the here and now. “So when did you get here?” she asked the Austrings.

“And who you let in?” Mary wanted to know.

“Jasper? Are you in here?” a man’s voice asked. The front door pushed wide open and in walked Esteban and Tony. “Hey, the door was unlocked,” Esteban said. “Grace sent us. She was worried about you.”

Ted Phillips barged in, all big and sweaty. “What the hell is going on now?” he demanded.

Tony shrugged. Esteban said, “He brought us.”

Glenn Relerford came in next. The room had gotten quite crowded. He looked right at Jasper and asked, “Who called 911?”

“I don’t remember. One of them,” Jasper said. Her sloppy mind must be due to delayed shock, she supposed.

“I did,” Cookie said. “There’s a body in the basement.”

“Show me.” Glenn‘s tone was sharp.

Jasper followed them.

Mary dogged her footsteps. “He’s my father,” she said.

The Austrings fell into step behind Mary. “It’s our house,” Kiefer Austring said.

The men from the auction house stayed put in the living room. They did not look eager to join the death parade.

Glenn stopped. Mary Clippert jammed into Jasper’s backside. The Austrings nearly tripped over Mary. “Who found him?” Glenn asked.

Jasper raised her hand. “That would be me.”

“Miss Biggs. Come.”

“Officer, I refuse to be left out in the cold,” Mary said.

“What about us?” the Austrings said in one voice.

Glenn raised his hands as if he were directing traffic at an accident scene. Jasper supposed that, in a way, he was. “You, you, you, you and you,” he said, pointing at Mary, the Austrings, Esteban and Tony. “Stay here.”

“Hey!” Ted Phillips shouted.

“And you,” Glenn said. “Wait here.” He ushered Cookie and Jasper ahead of him.

In the dank cellar, Ray Clippert was right where they had last seen him.

“He’s definitely dead,” Jasper mumbled. Dizziness hit her hard. She sank to the floor alongside the body.

When she woke up a short while later, attended to by her sister who held a wet cloth on her forehead, Jasper realized that she had been in what has been called a dead faint. “Am I dead?” she murmured.

“Not even close.” Cookie planted a tender little kiss on her sister’s forehead.

“Just tell us exactly what happened,” Glenn Relerford said to Jasper.

Jasper sat across from him at a simple metal table in an interview room downtown at the Forest Grove Police Department. When they’d arrived, Jasper, Cookie and Mary Clippert had been escorted to separate rooms to give their versions of what transpired before and after the discovery of Ray Clippert’s body. Both Glenn and the uniformed officer appeared solemn.

“I know this is very serious,” Jasper said. “So I want to be accurate.”

Glenn nodded.

Jasper smiled weakly at his patience. “And I know maybe you think that because I’m an auctioneer and all that possibly I have a good memory for details under stress…” Jasper spoke using a lot of hand gestures, a sure sign of her nervousness. She caught herself and clasped her hands together atop the table. It felt sticky. She brought her hands back down to her lap. She wished for hand sanitizer but didn’t see any in the room. “The thing is that I’m not sure I have it all straight in my head. And I don’t want to do anything to steer you wrong.” She paused. Took a deep breath. And started coughing.

“You want some water, Jasper?” Glenn asked. Everybody knew that Glenn was her neighbor and it was such a small town, no biggie to go by first names. “Sheila, would you?” he asked the officer. She left the room.

Glenn leaned closer to Jasper. “Listen, there’s no way I think you had any kind of involvement in the old guy’s death. This is just following protocol. You understand?”

Jasper nodded through her cough.

“It’s not like I have anything but fond regards for you. You know what I’m saying?”

“I –
cough
–
think so,” Jasper said. There was something about the intensity of his gaze that was doing nothing to calm her cough. She shook her head. “You’re confusing me.”

Sheila returned. “Leave the woman alone,” she told Glenn. “Here, honey. You’ve been through enough today without having to worry about this guy’s intentions.”

Jasper sipped some water. That and Sheila’s presence seemed to do the trick. Jasper dribbled some of the water onto her hands, wiped them together, then down her slacks. Did Glenn have
intentions
toward her? Intentions was such an old-fashioned word.

“So you and your sister and Ms. Clippert were all inside the house conducting this séance, you were saying.” Glenn crossed his arms over his solid toned abs. He was all business now.

What was going on here that she would notice his abs? At a time like this. Was she harboring intentions toward him? She took another sip. “Well not a séance exactly. More like a clearing, I think that’s the right technical term when you’re checking to see what if any or which of any ghost or disembodied spirits, I guess you could say, are still hanging around, so you can ask them, or in some cases, order them to leave. You could check with my sister.”

Officer Sheila patted Jasper’s shoulder.

“Whatever,” Glenn said. “Go on. Where were you in the house?”

“Upstairs.”

“On the ground floor?”

“Yes.”

“All together. All three of you there together?”

“That’s right.” Jasper thought about it. “Mary met us there when Cookie and I arrived.”

“On the first floor?”

“The front door’s on the first floor,” Jasper said. “Excuse me. I didn’t mean to sound sarcastic.”

“You’re just overwrought,” Sheila said.

“Yes, yes I am,” Jasper said. “You’re being very kind to me.”

Glenn said, “You’re fine. Just go on with your story.”

But Jasper was having a hard time concentrating. That remark from Sheila about not worrying about Glenn’s intentions had set her to worrying about his intentions. Why was he sitting so close to her with his knee nearly touching hers, for instance, while Sheila the other cop stood several feet away? Jasper adjusted her chair a few inches away from Glenn.

“Are you nervous, Miss Biggs?”

And why this “Miss Biggs” stuff all of a sudden? “You were crowding me a little bit, that’s all,” Jasper said.

“It’s not a very large room,” he said.

“I’ve been in tighter spots,” Jasper said.

“Oh, yeah?” Glenn, it turned out, was one of those people who could raise a single eyebrow at a time.

“Oh, brother,” Sheila said. “Jasper, Miss Biggs, I think the others are done. Why don’t you and your sister get out of here and get some rest.”

“What about Mary? She’s my, our client, I guess,” Jasper said.

“We’ll look after Miss Clippert,” Sheila said.

Jasper got wearily to her feet.

“Sorry to put you on overtime,” Glenn said.

“Couldn’t be helped,” Jasper said. She turned to go. Cookie stood waiting in the now open doorway.

“Hey, Jasper,” Glenn said in a softer tone. “You stay out of trouble now, okay? I don’t want nothin’ happening to my one and only lady auctioneer.”

Jasper felt a quiver in her stomach. Was this flirting what he was doing?

“Enough is enough,” Sheila said, giving Glenn a stern look. “You get out of here, hon,” she told Jasper. “Take her home,” she said to Cookie. “You’ve both had a long day.”

Cookie and Jasper trailed out of the police station arm in arm. “You know, I’m pretty sure he likes you,” Cookie said.

“I’m pretty sure he’s not allowed to,” Jasper responded.

“I thought he was separated.”

“Separated is as separated does, I guess.” Jasper yawned.

“What does that expression mean anyway? I’ve never understood that ‘is as does’ thing.”

“I just like the way it sounds. Kind of cynical, you know. Worldly maybe?”

“Cute. That’s what I have to say for you, Sis. You are cute.”

“Thank you.”

“Want me to drive?” Cookie asked. “I can drop you off and get you back your car tomorrow.”

Jasper was tempted, but something inside her rallied. She slapped her cheeks to wake herself up. “Nope. You be the passenger. I’m tired of just going along for the ride.”

“You made a little joke there.” They climbed into the car. “Just as I said, you are a cutie, Jasper.”

“You too, Sister Mine.”