The Longest Yard Sale (5 page)

“How's that working out?”

“She's really kept the inventory moving. The sorting room isn't a death trap anymore. She's selling some of the better stuff on eBay.” Laura yawned and stretched. “She also got the idea that we should be open once a month on Sunday afternoon. Not everyone is crazy about the idea.”

“It looks like you had a lot of volunteers.” That wasn't always the case.

“We did today. I strong-armed them into it. I'm not sure about the Sunday thing.”

“Is she here? I'd like to meet her.”

“No. She had a church thing this afternoon.” Laura yawned. “Beverly's also an accountant, so the books are up to date. Anyway, what's going on? It sounded like you wanted to talk about something when you called.”

“Do you know Terry McQueen?” I asked.

Laura drew her knees up under her. “Yes.”

I waited, hoping she'd volunteer more. Something must be going on or she wouldn't be so reticent. “I saw he got a Civilian of the Quarter award, but I didn't recognize his name.”

“Do you usually know the award recipients?” Laura asked.

Rarely. How was I going to get out of this one without mentioning that he might be dead and having Pellner and CJ on my back for blabbing?

“Sometimes. I saw his picture in the base paper and thought he looked familiar.” Whew, I didn't have to lie.

“He hasn't been very popular on base lately,” Laura said.

“Why not?” Maybe the reason he was killed had something to do with the base, and I wouldn't have to worry about Carol being accused of murder. Oh, no. I tried not to have any physical reaction to that thought. I realized it had been lurking around the back of my brain since we'd found the body.

“Are you okay? You look a little pale.” Laura's big eyes looked concerned.

“I'm fine. Just a little tired after the yard sale yesterday.” I turned on the couch so I was facing Laura and tucked one leg under the other. “Are you going to tell me why Terry hasn't been popular?”

Laura sat for a minute staring at the front door of the shop. “Do you know Dave Jackson?”

That wasn't what I'd been expecting. “CJ and I've known Bubbles—Dave—for a long time. I didn't know he'd moved here until yesterday morning.”

“So you know about the missile scandal and that Dave was fired?” Laura asked.

I nodded, wondering what this had to do with Terry.

“Dave and Terry started a financial planning company, and some people on base are none too happy.”

I stared at Laura, surprised by this bit of news. “I just heard about the company yesterday. I didn't know Terry was involved, though.” If people were unhappy with him, it might be why he was murdered. It didn't explain why it happened in Carol's shop. I hoped Bubbles was okay. I'd check with Stella when I got home.

“Terry's a great guy with a mind for numbers. He was a shoo-in to win the civilian of the year award.”

“But he isn't now?”

Laura plucked at an errant thread on the seam of the couch.

“Have a lot of people on base invested with them?” I prodded.

“I don't know for sure. We did.”

It felt to me like Laura was holding something back. “Are people upset about the financial planning company? Isn't it doing well?” That was the complete opposite of what Gennie had said, but maybe someone on base was disgruntled.

“No. The people I know who've invested with them are happy. I know we are.” Laura shifted. “You know how the base can be. Some people are mad that Dave and Terry started the company. Says it takes away from their real jobs. That Dave is ROAD and Terry is the civilian equivalent of that.”

Uh-oh. ROAD stood for retired on active duty—a derogatory term used for people who, in their last year or two before retiring, slacked off or were lazy. “It's never good if the perception is that he isn't doing his job anymore,” I said.

“Some people have whined about Dave taking time to get all the licensing he needed. But he started before he left his last base, and he's on terminal leave now, so he can do what he wants.”

Terminal leave
always sounded scary to me, but it was just the period of time when you were finished with your official air force duties but could use your accumulated leave before your official retirement or separation. “Bubbles probably knew that, once the cheating scandal broke, he wouldn't get promoted again. It makes sense that he'd start preparing for what's next.” Most military people lined up or at least looked for jobs before they were officially retired. CJ had already been hired to replace Ellington's retiring chief of police before the scandal with his subordinate last spring. Even after the scandal broke, Nancy insisted he could still have the job. She deemed that one blemish on an otherwise stellar career wasn't enough for the town to go through the search process again.

“I wonder why he decided to set his business up here,” Laura said.

“CJ told me Bubbles grew up in Maine and his ex and kids are in Nashua.” Nashua was a thirty-minute drive up the 3 depending on the time of day. Lots of military people lived up there because New Hampshire didn't have any state sales or income tax. “Since he's been in the military, he knows what military members' investment needs are. It all makes sense.”

“Some people just don't like it when others are successful.” Laura studied me for a minute. “Why do I get the impression there's something else going on that you aren't telling me?”

This is why Laura knew so much about what was going on around the base. She was either an astute judge of character or she just asked everyone that question, and in a fit of guilt everyone coughed up whatever they knew. Either way, it didn't hurt that the wing commander's wife stayed on top of what happened on base.

I shook my head. Laura would find out soon enough and probably be mad when she figured out I'd known when we chatted. But at least I had an out—I didn't know for certain that the victim was Terry McQueen. I wondered when I would.

CHAPTER 7

When someone knocked on my door at six that night, I panicked. I'd already washed my face, and my hair was pulled back in a headband. I was braless and wearing a tank top and yoga pants. I didn't want anyone to see me now, unless it was CJ; he'd seen me look worse. Besides, I'd left multiple messages for him, so maybe he'd decided to drop by. Although because of the way we'd left things last night, I hadn't thought he'd be stopping by anytime soon. I whipped off the headband and gave my hair a shake.

I opened the door, and there stood Seth, in a beautifully tailored custom suit. His crisp white shirt was unbuttoned at the neck, and a red silk tie peeked out of his right suit-coat pocket. He held a bottle of wine in one hand and a pizza box from DiNapoli's in the other. I slammed the door in his face. I didn't want him to see me looking like this. Although I guess he already had.

Last spring, not long after I'd met him, a magazine had named Seth “Massachusetts's Most Eligible Bachelor.” He usually dated models, which made me wonder why he'd be interested in me. Two weeks ago, we'd argued when Seth asked me to go to some hoity-toity soirée at his family's compound on Nantucket. I'd refused. He'd called me stubborn. Which I was, but that wasn't the point.

The last I'd seen or heard of him was in an article in the
Boston Globe
. He'd been pictured at the event with a super-thin Victoria's Secret model. She glowed on his arm, dressed in a gown that probably cost more than I'd spent on clothes in the past five years. Seth looked a little stiff in the picture, or maybe it was my wishful thinking.

“Open up, Sarah,” Seth yelled through the door. “You won't even eat a pizza with me now?”

I didn't want him to cause a scene—not that he would—but that was my excuse for opening the door and letting him in.

“Where should I put this?” he asked, raising the pizza box. I pointed to the right, toward the kitchen. Seth paused, looking around the apartment. I looked around, too. The old oriental rug glowed against the painted, white-wooden floors, a claw-and-ball-foot table sat next to my grandmother's rocker. The down-stuffed couch was comfy. Paintings, one by Carol and the rest treasured finds, warmed the walls.

“I like it,” Seth said. “It looks like you. Full of personality.”

“Thanks.” I followed him into the kitchen. He put the pizza box and wine on the table. He turned, pulling me into his arms and giving me a kiss so incredible that I felt like a lone ice cube under the Saharan sun. He broke the kiss and stared into my eyes, the ones without any eye shadow or mascara. Personally, without makeup I thought my eyelids looked like fish eyelids, if fish had eyelids. It was not the way I wanted Massachusetts's most eligible, Victoria's-Secret-model-dating bachelor to see me.

Seth pulled out a chair for me. I hesitated.

“I can leave you the pizza and wine if that's what you want. But that kiss didn't seem to say that's what you wanted.”

What was that song? Something about lips don't lie? Stupid lips. I sat in the chair and realized the song was about hips, not lips—not that it really mattered. I gestured for Seth to sit. Instead of sitting across from me, he moved the other chair next to mine and took my hand as he sat down.

“No one can see us here,” he said. “We've spent the past six months meeting at hole-in-the-wall restaurants in towns that feel like they're farther away from Ellington than the northern tip of Maine. Are you ashamed to be seen with me?”

“No. That's ridiculous.” No one would be ashamed to be seen with Seth. He looked like he could be a model—high cheekbones, wavy, dark hair with some silver woven in, broad, thick shoulders. The only thing keeping him from actually being a model was his nose, which was a bit broad, not aquiline—and that made him all the more sexy because he looked like a real man, not some photo-shopped, starved version of a human male.

“You date models. Not regular women who look like this.” I air-circled around my face.

“I see a beautiful, vibrant woman who eats actual food instead of surviving on liquids and carrots. One who doesn't pretend to like pizza and the Red Sox because I do. One who isn't interested in me because of my last name.” He kissed me again. “You're still afraid that CJ will find out you're seeing me, that someone will spot me sneaking out of your apartment at dawn.” He grinned, but I could see his feelings were hurt.

“You'll be leaving after we're done eating. Not sneaking out at dawn.” I got up and grabbed a corkscrew. “I've told CJ we need to see other people. But I haven't told him who I am seeing. It's none of his business.” I didn't want to hurt CJ, and he would be hurt if he found out I was dating Seth. “It's awkward that you two have to work together.” Seth was the district attorney of Middlesex County, and since CJ was Ellington's chief of police, they worked cases together on the rare occasion when a crime of significance occurred in Ellington.

“I agree. I don't like it.”

I opened the bottle of Merlot and poured us both a glass.

“A woman with the strength to open a bottle of wine.” Seth sighed and batted his eyelashes at me. “You're amazing.”

“Oh, stop,” I said as I handed him his glass and sat back down.

“CJ's a good guy, but I'm better for you.”

I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.

Seth leaned forward in his chair. “I wouldn't have let you slip away in the first place.”

“Oh.” His statement bounced around in me like a ball in a pinball machine, touching this emotion and that until it settled in a spot so tender, so hurt that I'd kept it locked away for months so I didn't have to feel anything.

I leaped up. “We need plates.” The door on the cupboard stuck, as it tended to do. I yanked, and it opened with a screech. After setting the plates on the table, I sat back down.

Seth opened the pizza box and stared. “I ordered a meat lovers. There's no meat on this pizza.”

The pizza was a
bianca
(white) pizza with tomatoes and garlic. My favorite. CJ knew that. “Did you mention me while you were at DiNapoli's?” I asked.

“No, but while I waited to order I looked to see if your light was on and your car was home.”

“Angelo and Rosalie know this is my favorite pizza. So either they're psychic or you were really obvious.”

“I'm a skilled trial attorney. There's nothing obvious about me.” He grinned.

I grinned back at him. We both knew he stood out in any crowd. Seth put slices of pizza on our plates, muttering something about any decent pizza needing meat.

After my third piece, I pushed back from the table, glad for my yoga pants but embarrassed when I realized I still wasn't wearing a bra. “Excuse me.” I hurried into my bedroom and threw on a bra and a Red Sox T-shirt. While a pair of jeans would have looked better, the thought of fastening anything over my full belly dismayed me. Yoga pants it was.

“I liked the other outfit better,” Seth said when I returned.

“Why'd you come here tonight?” I asked.

“I saw that you made a statement about the murder this morning. I wanted to make sure you were okay. Are you?”

I gritted my teeth and tried to shut out the picture of the victim sprawled on the floor. “I'm fine.” I pushed my chair back and refilled our wineglasses. “Do they have any suspects?” Maybe since CJ had yet to return my calls, Seth would know something.

Now Seth was the one to look down. “They're looking at a lot of angles.” He grabbed another piece of pizza and bit into it—a sure sign he knew something he didn't want to tell me. I thought about what it could be as I sipped my wine. “Is it Carol?” I asked. A hint of color going up Mr. Trial Lawyer's not obvious face told me I was right. “How can she be a suspect? She didn't know the guy.”

“I can't talk about it.”

For once, I decided to let it go. Maybe if I kept up some casual chatter, something would slip out.

An hour later, we stood at my door after Seth had cleverly dodged all my attempts to talk about the murder. He'd never even mentioned the victim's name. Darn him and his skilled trial lawyer ways. Seth kissed me, garlic breath and all, at the door after trying to convince me he should stay. The jury was still out on that one. We'd slept together exactly once, the first night we'd met, and I'd put the brakes on that whole issue. It surprised me that he still came around.

“Out,” I said, pushing gently on his chest until he stood outside my apartment.

He snagged my wrist and kissed it, right where my pulse beat madly. I almost reconsidered but found some last bit of willpower and closed the door.

 

 

A couple of minutes later, I heard another knock on my door. I frowned. If it was Seth coming back for another try, the only piece of me he was going to get was my mind. If it was CJ, he would have seen Seth leaving. I eased open the door, debating which scenario was worse. Carol stood there. My first thought was, What has gone wrong now? We'd already covered burglary and homicide. Arson, vehicular manslaughter, mail fraud?

“Are you going to let me in?” Carol asked.

“Of course.” I felt more than a little guilty for having such thoughts and chalked it up to being tired. Carol had put up with me ending up on her doorstep a number of times when CJ and I were divorcing. I even called her store Paint and Whine because I'd been over there so much grousing about my life. She'd been my cheerleader and confidant. I needed to do whatever I could for her.

“Who was that guy I saw leaving your building?” Carol asked.

I hadn't told her anything about Seth. I shrugged. “Maybe someone Stella's seeing.” Another thing to feel guilty about. Carol was my “tell everything to” friend. As the words came out of my mouth, I realized the air still smelled of Seth's delicious aftershave. And—worse—in the kitchen, the two chairs were pulled close together, and two wineglasses were on the table next to the pizza box with only one piece of pizza left. Carol knew I loved pizza, but she also knew I couldn't eat a large DiNapoli's on my own.

Carol pursed her lips as she took in the scene in the kitchen. “Can I have a glass of wine? It looks like there's a little left in the bottle.”

If Carol wasn't going to question me about who had been here, something must be really wrong. I scooted into the kitchen, poured her a glass, and was back in a flash. Carol sat on the couch with her head leaned back and her eyes closed.

“What's going on?” I asked. I put the glass of wine on the vintage trunk I used as a coffee table. Carol didn't even reach for it, but she did finally open her eyes. This time I noticed they were red and puffy from crying. Maybe she'd found out she was a suspect in the murder. I picked up the wineglass and handed it to her.

She took a sip. “After I left you this morning, I told Brad about the body. And then the missing painting.”

“How'd he take all of that?”

“After he got done yelling?”

“It probably scared him.” I refrained from adding that it could have been her dead on the floor.

“Brad's furious with me.”

“Why?” I was stunned. Brad usually indulged Carol's every whim.

Tears rolled down Carol's cheeks. She sat up and grabbed the wine but didn't drink any. “Because I copied
Battled
.”

“He knows you've copied famous paintings before.”

“I've copied a few paintings for family and friends. But I usually sell originals only to people I don't know.” Her tears increased. “And I've never been paid this much for a painting, original or copy.”

“How much are you being paid?” I wondered if she'd answer since she'd been so evasive about it the first time we talked when the painting disappeared.

“If I get the fee and the bonus, nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety-nine dollars.”

I sucked in a breath. I'd worked part-time for a financial planning company a long time ago. I knew that amount was one dollar under what triggered alarm bells with banks and the government. And from the look on Carol's face, she knew it, too.

“Brad pointed out that was five times more than I'd ever made for a painting,” Carol said after a couple of minutes and a couple of sips of her wine.

“That's a lot of money. Not that I don't think you're worth it.”

“They raised my rent, and I thought I'd be further along by my third year than I am. The shop hasn't made as much money as fast as I thought it would when I wrote the business plan and convinced Brad it was a good idea.”

“So the infusion of cash seemed like a good idea.”

“It still is,” Carol said.

“Someone must have seen the painting and wanted it—maybe one of your customers or one of the tourists who were here over the weekend. Have you reviewed your security tapes?”

“The cops took them. It's not that sophisticated a system. I only have one camera, and it points into the front of the shop. My studio and the back door aren't covered. I didn't think a bunch of paints were that valuable. And no one goes back there but me, Olivia, and occasionally you or Brad.”

“The police will probably check any cameras near the store to see if they caught anything,” I said.

“That'll take time. And it's Ellington. It's not like the town is plastered with security cameras. On top of that the state police showed up and interviewed me too.”

I thought for a moment. What could I do to help her? Seeing Carol cry hurt my heart. “Maybe we can figure out who took the painting. And get it back.”