The Case of the Angry Auctioneer (Auction House Mystery Series Book 1) (6 page)

“Well, ten-ta-ta-ten-ten, who’ll go ten? I have seven-and-a-half, now ten!” Jimmy called bids. He stood on top of one of the three long tables bunched together. Two of the tables were mostly clear of stuff behind him. He was like a giant Gulliver stomping his way through a Lilliputian village of junk. He left emptiness and unwanted bric-a-brac in his wake. “Ten-now 15,ta-teen-teen, 15, now 20!” he said into his microphone head-set.

A crowd of auction-goers pushed in as close as they could get. Everybody had to worship at Jimmy’s feet. Most were men. Sweat hung heavy in the air. The man in front of Jasper farted. She waved the air in front of her face.

“You bidding?” Ted asked. “Ready Teddy” Phillips was a barrel-chested man with black hair, crafty green eyes and a hale-and-hearty manner that pleased the men in the crowd. He used a winning smile on the women whom he called “girls” no matter what their ages.

Jasper yelled, “No!” People around her laughed.

People were jostling each other. Esteban who had helped her move into her apartment held the old-fashioned meat grinder up in the air. Sweat trickled down Jasper’s side. She fought to stay focused.

Esteban’s wife Kelly gave her a triumphant grin from where she stood across the table. She waved a bidder card. “You got ten!” she shouted. Covering for absentee bidders was her main job at the auction and she took it seriously. Her red hair was already sleek with sweat. While she had been a little bitchy toward Jasper ever since she joined the auction house, Jasper herself had come to admire Kelly’s strong work ethic.

“Now 20,20,20. Twenty back to you, Kelly. Want back in?”

Kelly drew the card across her throat in a slashing motion.

“Don’t cut me. I’ll take 20!” Jimmy said.

Kelly made a vinegar face. She nodded.

“Sold! Twenty dollars! Number 87. Bid left.”

Even though Kelly worked for Biggs Auction, when she stood-in for absentee bidders, she applied her innate ferocity to try to get them the best deal possible.

Ted grabbed the meat grinder from Esteban’s hand and shoved it at Jasper. “87,” he said in her ear. “Tag it in the back!” She clutched the meat grinder to her bosom. He gave her a small shove. She lost her footing, and stumbled in to the farting man who let out another big whoopee in her face.

“Ooh-ee! Carl’s trying to scare us off again,” a short man in overalls said.

A little space opened up around Carl the farter and Jasper escaped. She excused her way through the milling bidders. She got a strong whiff of cigarette smoke, maybe the same kind favored by her downstairs neighbors. She had no idea that auctions could be so odiferous.

Folks not interested in items on the first tables were either seated in the folding chairs or looking over things they would bid on later. She thought she spotted Mary Clippert and her father Ray in the audience but she was in too much of a hurry to double check. When it came down to it, all the auction goers were turning into one Big Blurry Bidder.

“How much?” Grace yelled her question from up on the auction block where she sat at a keyboard clerking the sale. A seasoned auction worker, Grace kept her straw-like hair cut the same way Jasper remembered her wearing it 25 years ago – bangs and a chin length pageboy. Grace was a heavy smoker and she had permanent pucker marks around her mouth. She was tough on the outside, but Jasper knew from experience that Grace was a soft-hearted women who would do anything for the people she loved.

Jimmy kept going. “Who’ll start me off on the old phone for fifty?”

Blond-haired Tony raised an oak wall phone for the crowd to see.

“I need the amount for the last item!” Grace yelled.

Jasper turned and yelled, “She needs to know how much!”

“How much, Jimmy?” another, familiar woman’s voice asked from the other side of the block.

“The girls are ganging up on you, Jimmy!” one of the auction-goers heckled.

“Twenty, Grace, twenty. The rest of you – butt out! Where was I?”

“I’ll give you ten bucks!” the heckler told Jimmy.

“Like hell you will!” Jimmy said. “I’ve got 20 bid right behind you. Now 30-ta-30, 30, 30, I have 30!” His tongue rolled over the numbers. “And now 40!” Jimmy was off and running again.

Jasper ducked behind the auction block. A handsome wheat-haired man checking out the art work gave her a quick smile and stepped out of her way. Jasper came face to face with her twin sister Cookie.

Jasper clenched her lips so she wouldn’t squeal out loud. She set the meat grinder down on the steps leading up to the block. The twins danced into each other’s arms. Jasper hadn’t been hugged with such familiar sweetness for a good long time. They broke out of the hug and giggled at each other.

Cookie, actually an inch shorter than Jasper, looked taller. She was 10 pounds heavier than Jasper who had always envied her sister’s curves. Cookie wore a blue ruffled jacket, jeans, and knee-high boots. Her chin-length hair had gotten shorter and blonder than Jasper remembered. “You look great!” Jasper said.

“You look – like my favorite sister!” Cookie said.

“The one and only!”

“Shhh,” Grace said.

Jasper grabbed Cookie by one hand and the meat grinder by the other, and pushed through the silver door behind the auction block. This former food storage area now housed auction house gear and items won by proxy. Jasper placed the meat grinder next to a yardstick collection and a cast iron doorstop already won by #87.

The sisters perched on the table.

“So tell me everything,” Cookie said.

“Where is that girl?” Jimmy’s voice said on microphone.

Jasper leaned her weary head against Cookie’s shoulder.

“Everything you can in ten seconds or less,” Cookie said. “I’ve seen you looking better, Sis.”

Ted burst through the door. “Well, well. Hey, Babe.”

“Ted,” Cookie said.

“This ain’t no time for a coffee clutch, girls.”

“Coming.” Jasper eased back onto her sore feet.

Cookie stepped in front of her. “Why don’t you get back to assisting the auctioneer or whatever it is you do, Ted, dear?”

“What’re you talking about, Miss Cookie? You may be a cute little mind reader but you ain’t tuned into your stepdad’s head. We’ve pretty much drawn up the partnership papers.”

“Oh, honey, you’ve got something on the back of your jeans,” Jasper said.

Cookie looked over her shoulder while Jasper brushed away the dirt.

“Can I help?” Ted asked.

The twins glowered at him with quite similar glowers.

Ted gave a mock bow. “See you back on the floor. Pronto.” The door swung in his backwash.

“Same old Ready Teddy,” Cookie said.

“He hits on married women too?”

“He hits on everybody. I don’t take it personally,” Cookie said. “So, do you have any time tomorrow?”

“Working. I think.”

Cookie’s hazel eyes widened. They had both inherited polka-dot eyes from their mother. Hazel. Cookie’s were mostly green, Jasper’s brown. Cookie said, “You can’t get fired, you know. You’re the boss’ daughter.”

“You heard Ted. If he and Jimmy are going to be full-fledged partners, where does that leave me? It’s bad enough having Jimmy as a boss. If Ted gets more power here, the two of them will turn into total Nazis.”

“Get your butt out here! Now!” Jimmy roared on mike.

“We’ll be the resistance movement then.” Cookie and Jasper exchanged one more hug.

Cookie said, “I’m staying to bid on furniture for my new office. See if you can come along on the delivery tomorrow.”

“They deliver to you?” Jasper asked. “I’m impressed.”

“We have more power than you realize,” Cookie said, giving Jasper an affectionate poke in the side.

The sisters re-entered the auction room with matching grins.

Working with renewed energy, Jasper returned to the auction floor. She called out a loud “Yep!” as bid spotter whenever Cookie raised her number. Cookie won her bid for a velvet settee and matching wingback chair. She waved good-bye to Jasper from the checkout area where she had stopped to pay the college student who came in to cashier during auctions. Then, Cookie was gone, and Jasper called out another enthusiastic “Yep!

Cookie’s new office was on the second floor of one of the old buildings in Forest Grove’s downtown. The stairs were steep and Jasper struggled a bit to drag the armchair up, while Esteban and Tony managed the settee without apparent effort. The frosted glass door announced Psychic Medium Rare – Confidential Clearings, Coaching & Classes. An In-Session sign hung from the doorknob.

Esteban and Tony had just settled in for a quick slouch on the settee with Jasper perched on the wingback chair when the door opened. Out came a familiar looking brunette dressed in a black and white geometric print suit, sensible buckled loafers, and a necklace of Bakelite cherries. Diamond studs shot sparks from her earlobes.

“Mrs. Clippert!” Jasper leapt to her feet. Would she ever get over her excessive politeness?

Esteban rose. Tony remained unmoved. “Hey, tall lady,” Tony said.

Esteban cut his eyes Tony’s way. The younger man got to his feet.

“It’s Ms. Clippert. But
you
can call me Mary,” she said to Jasper.

“Tony, haul ass,” Esteban said.

Cookie emerged from her office. Today she wore a smock of swirling paisley over gray linen slacks. Her blonde hair haloed her face. “Hi, everyone. What’s the fuss?”

Esteban said, “Excuse me, ladies.” He said good morning to Cookie and eased past her. He and Tony went to work with a screwdriver prying off the door hinges.

“Hey, Sis.” Jasper felt like a slouch next to the other women. She adjusted the elastic waistband of her denim-look pants over her red Bid and Buy at Biggs shirt. Jasper had long been in the habit of tucking in her tops, thanks to Rev. Rowe. Tim never liked to see her shirttails hanging out.

“Be right back,” Cookie said. She placed a gentle hand on Mary Clippert’s waist and guided her toward the stairs. The two exchanged a few quiet words. Cookie beckoned Jasper over.

Jasper patted a few dark tendrils that had come loose from her pony tail back into place. “At your service,” she said. She felt like a well-schooled Japanese lady set adrift in a foreign land without knowing the local customs. Cookie was her sister and an equal. Mary Clippert was an auction house bidder and potential client. She also seemed to be consulting Cookie. Jasper kept her eyes from rolling and her shoulders from shrugging.

“Did you notice anything unusual when you and Jimmy were at Mary’s father’s house yesterday?” Cookie whispered.

“There sure was a lot to look at,” Jasper said, trying for a diplomatic note.

Mary Clippert and Cookie huddled in close.

“Did you
feel
anything strange?” Cookie asked.

“Vibration wise,” Mary said.

Jasper glanced down the long stairway behind Mary. She pictured the bowling ball crashing down the basement steps.

“You’re remembering something, aren’t you?” Mary’s frosted nails fondled her cherry necklace.

“Well. I mean – “

Cookie stepped closer and draped an arm around Jasper’s tight shoulders. “With your permission, I’ll share your concerns with my sister.”

Mary glanced over at Esteban and Tony who were turning the settee this way and that trying to get it through the doorless doorway.

Cookie and Jasper held index fingers to their lips. Jasper admired Cookie’s manicure. Cookie had the hands of a saint with long tapered fingers, their mother Laura had always said. When her other little girl looked on enviously, Laura had reassured Jasper. “Yours are small but mighty. You have big dreams and the power to make them come true.”
Maybe I could get a manicure sometime
, Jasper thought.

Mary turned her wrist over to look at her watch. She wore the gold links facing out. “I’m due there now.”

“At your father’s house?” Jasper whispered.

“
Your
father is meeting me.” She started down the stairs. “He wants to do a little cherry-picking.” She fingered her necklace. “Whatever that means.” Her laugh echoed in the stairwell. The street door creaked open, then slammed shut behind her.

“Ewww,” Jasper and Cookie said with one voice.

“How’s your tea?” Cookie asked. “I can’t believe you like it with milk. I’ll have to keep some in stock now that you’re so close.”

“I can live without it,” Jasper said.

“You don’t have to live without anything anymore, Sis. I’m so glad you finally got out alive.”

“Alive?”

“I mean while you have plenty of your life left to live.”

Jasper and Cookie sat side by side on the velvet settee. It and the matching burgundy wingchair gave the office a semi-Victorian look. Combined with a roll-top desk, lace curtains at the windows, a ginger jar lamp and a Japanese shoji screen, the office looked just right for a professional psychic medium, Jasper thought. As far as she could tell. Her sister was the only professional psychic medium she knew. How had they ended up leading such different lives? Jasper wondered.

The month after Jasper started college at age 17, Cookie got married. She and her husband had their first child eight months later, a son, and two years later, a daughter. Cody and Kayla were now in their twenties, and Cookie and her husband Will Swanson were still happily married. The successful architect had stuck by Cookie all through her various careers – hairdresser, interior designer, and assistant high school guidance counselor. Sometimes Jasper wondered how her life would’ve turned out if she hadn’t run into Timothy Rowe back in college so long ago.

“So you like it?” Cookie was asking.

Jasper sipped her tea. “I love orange spice.”

“It’s pomegranate. I mean, how do you like your new apartment?”

“Pomegranate, huh?”

“Uh-huh. You’re stalling.”

“Well, it’s a little smoky.”

“Ah-ha! I bet the landlord got those downstairs people on their best behavior for the day I went through. If you want, we could feng shui your place to help protect you.”

“I’m sure I’m safe. They smoke a lot but I don’t think they’re Bonnie and Clyde.”

“Just the same.” Cookie’s mouth took on that firm, determined set that Jasper knew meant business. “I cleared it for you before you moved in, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know.”

“I went through with sage and incense and made sure there weren’t any spirits hanging around.”

“Well, I appreciate that.” Jasper had never been sure what she did and did not believe about the supernatural and life after death, even though Rev. Tim had always avowed the existence of the traditional heaven and hell. There probably was something that went on after people passed out of this life but Jasper had never wanted anyone from the other side to come back and explain it to her.

“By the way.” Cookie set her mug of tea down and scooted in closer to Jasper. “That Mary Clippert – she wants us to unhaunt her father’s house.”

“Us?”

“Well, me. But you can help.”

“Thanks for including me, Sis. But I’m learning the auction trade. No offense but you’re the psychic in the family.”

“Psychic medium. You’ve always had the same gifts. You’ve just decided not to hone your skills. Do you think there’s anything going on at the Clippert house?” Cookie asked.

“I didn’t notice anything but a whole lot of junk and some tensions between Mary and her father.”

“Maybe the house has a disturbing history.”

“I’ll tell you what’s disturbing – Mary Clippert flirting with Jimmy. I’ve always wondered, do you think he has, I don’t know, any special sexual proclivities?”

“I don’t know how special they are, but I bet he has lots of them,” Cookie said.

The sisters dissolved into a giggling fit there in the Victorian style office of Psychic Medium Rare.