Another Man's Treasure (a romantic thriller) (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series Book 1) (13 page)

“Absolutely—I can call it right up on my computer.  You’re probably looking for a small, boutique firm, right?”

“Uh…actually, I’m doing a little research for a friend.  I think she wants a firm with a lot of experience.  Can you tell how long each one’s been in business?”

“No, but I can see how long they’ve been members of the Chamber.  Let’s see…Burke and Fein, thirty-five years; Media Solutions, thirty years…” Louise keeps going until I cut her off at twenty-five years and say my good-byes.  Now I have a place to start my search.

“I’m not driving old books to Oscar’s,” Tyshaun warns Jill as I tune back in to what’s going on around me.  “Last time I was in his shop I seen a rat as big as my arm.”

“I thought you weren’t afraid of anything,” Jill says.

“I’m afraid of rats.  Rats and snakes, man.  That shit freaks me out.” Tyshaun’s broad shoulders tremble in disgust.

“How about bears?” I ask.  It feels good to be teasing Ty again, instead of tip-toeing around on eggshells. 

“Aw, Audge, don’t get me started on bears.  D’jou see that story in the paper last week?  Big ass bear comes right into this guy’s kitchen.  Opens up the fridge.  Guy comes down for breakfast and there’s this bear sitting on the kitchen floor eating baloney and yogurt.  Knew how to open the packages and everything.  That’s messed up.”

“Yeah, there was a bear over by Lawnwood Elementary school the other day,” Jill says.  “They had to call all the kids in from recess.”

“See—that’s what I’m sayin’.  This is New Jersey, man, not Alaska.  Shouldn’t have to worry about that.  They oughta shoot them mothers.  I see any bears around here, I’m’a get me a gun.”

“Don’t you dare,” I say, suddenly serious.  “If you see a bear, you call the police and they’ll come shoot it with a tranquilizer dart.”

Ty scowls.  “I don’t call the cops for nuthin’.  I take my chances with the damn bear.”  His phone rings and as he holds it to his ear, his face grows even fiercer.  “A’right, a’right.” Ty puts his phone in his pocket and snatches up the van keys.  “I’m going to Home Depot before it gets too busy.  Gimme the list.”

Jill hands it over silently.  Our giddy mood has evaporated. How did we manage to go from rare books to Oscar to rats to bears to the unhappy topic of the police?  Ty stomps off, leaving an awkward silence in his wake. 

“Those are cute earrings,” I tell Jill, just to say something.

Normally she wears ten or twelve silver studs and hoops in each ear, but today she’s sporting bulbous orange and green clip-ons that look like rhinestone encrusted gum drops.  Jill brightens. 

“Aren’t they amazing?  They remind me of something Bette Davis wore in
Now, Voyager.”

“Before my time.” There’s no doubt the earrings Jill’s wearing now are costume jewelry, but their campy, retro style reminds me of the jewelry in Mrs. Szabo’s trunk.  “Where’d you get those?” I ask lightly.

“I dunno.”  Jill fingers the earrings.  “The flea market, maybe…No wait, I remember.  It was a sidewalk vendor in the city. Oh my God, Audrey, you should have seen this guy--he had
so
much sick stuff!”  Jill’s hands are waving and she’s bouncing in her seat like the old people at Manor View doing their chair aerobics.  “There was this awesome snake bracelet with rubies for eyes and these metal fringe-y things on the tail end that rattled. I wanted it
so
bad but he was asking fifty bucks and he wouldn’t come down.”  Jill sighs.  “I wish I wasn’t always so broke.”

“Sorry I can’t pay you better.” I say it with a smile but there’s an unsettling thought in the back of my mind.  What if Jill feels she deserves a little bonus?  What if that trunk full of jewelry has been tempting her?  I’m casting about for a way to ask if she’s ever looked through it, when she turns her big, super-mascara-ed eyes on me.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it
that
way, Audge.”  Her face is as sweet and yearning as the faces in those adopt-a South-American-orphan photos you get at Christmastime.  “This is the best job I ever had.”  Then her gaze shifts from my face to my hands.  “Say, that’s a cool new ring you’ve got on, too.  Where’d you get yours?”

Stole it back from someone who stole it from who….my mom or my dad?

“It’s old.”  I shove my hands in my sweatshirt pockets.  “I had misplaced it and then I found it again.”

Jill spins around on her desk chair and goes back to her typing.  “I love when that happens, don’t you?  It’s like getting something brand new without spending any money.”

Six-thirty on Tuesday has rolled around a lot faster than I would have thought possible.  I’m in my bedroom confronting the reality that it’s too late to go shopping for a whole new wardrobe before Cal arrives.  Somehow I have to find something to wear right here in my closet. Why don’t I own anything else that makes me look as amazing as the dress I wore to Spencer’s party? I’ve gotten as far as putting on my best bra and panties.  Hey, good undergarments are the secret to well-fitting clothes, right?  Except that doesn’t explain why I’ve also shaved my legs right up to the bikini line.

The black pants are my only option; the remaining variable is the cream silk blouse or the rose cashmere sweater.  I reach for the blouse, and as I’m buttoning it notice a tiny splash of red wine on the cuff.  Ethel leaps off my bed and charges to the foyer, barking like a maniac.

Shit!  So it’s got to be the cashmere sweater.  I liked this a lot when I bought it—classy yet bold.  Now, with Cal coming up the walk, it seems prim yet loud. 

I pull the sweater on with no time to study my reflection before the doorbell chimes.  Better not to know, I figure as I go to let Cal in.

I open the door and Cal takes a step forward, but Ethel, in her frenzy to greet our guest, lunges forward and slams the door in Cal’s face.  Restraining Ethel with one hand and yanking the doorknob with the other, I manage to create a footwide opening, and Cal sidles in.  Ethel breaks free and runs frenetic circles around the foyer.  Her paw snags the lamp cord, sending the light pitching into Cal, who catches it neatly.  Ethel sits down, throws back her head, and howls.

“Ethel stop!  This isn’t an audition for
Call of the Wild
.”

My hair is disheveled, my sweater twisted.  A clump of Ethel’s white fur sticks to my pants and a clump of her brown fur drifts through the air and lands on Cal’s crisp white shirt.  Gingerly, I pluck it off.  “Sorry for all the commotion.”

Cal sets the lamp back on the table, puts his hands on my shoulders, and turns me to face him.  “I get a kick out of you, Audrey.  You’re so…unaffected. That’s refreshing.”

Unaffected?  I feel the way I used to when I won the coach’s “best team spirit” award every year at the field hockey banquet.  “Yeah, I pull this social grace off with no forethought whatsoever.”

Cal pulls me closer, tips my chin up, and kisses me. It takes a while. The room tilts as if I’ve been chugging vodka and Sunny D at a frat party.

“We better go,” Cal whispers in my ear, “or I won’t feel like eating at all.”

At Hennessy’s Cal is greeted like rock star.  The maître d’ calls him by name, the bartender waves, the chef pokes his head out of the kitchen and recommends the best specials.  They’ve probably seen Cal come through here with scores of different women.  I sense they’re sizing me up. 
Where did he find this one?  Not his usual type.

When he’s here with his political cronies they probably sit in the more boisterous Grill Room, but tonight we’re shown to a cozy booth in the back of the formal dining room.  This must be his “date” table.  As I sink into the plush banquette, the flickering candles and muted hunting prints suck every possible conversational gambit out of my brain.  Staring across the table at Cal, mute as my poor stroked-out father, I long for a carry-out tin of Thai basil chicken and the weight of Ethel’s head on my knee.

If Cal senses my frantic desire to cut and run, he doesn’t let it show.  His moving lips and smiling eyes indicate he’s talking to me, but I’m too gripped with anxiety to understand what he’s saying.  All I can think about is that we’re on a date, a real date, a date that’s going to end…and then what?  Freshly shaven legs notwithstanding, I’m not ready for this.

“So did you?”  Cal’s apparently repeating a question that I totally missed.

I lean forward.  “I’m sorry—did I what?”

“Grow up in Palmyrton.”

“Yes, my dad and I lived on Skytop Drive.  Then I went away to UVA for college, but I came back.”

“To take over the family business?”

I choke back a snort. “My father was a math professor at Rutgers.  Believe me, he wanted me to go into his line of work, but instead, as he puts it, I ‘set up garage sales of other people’s crap’.”

Cal lightly strokes the inside of my wrist.  “You own your own successful business.  He’s not proud of you for that?”

This is
not
what I want to be talking about, but I’m powerless to steer the conversation elsewhere.  I shake my head.  “He thinks I’m squandering my abilities. I had a summer job in college working for an estate sale firm.  I liked it, but I saw how my boss sold things for less than they were worth because he couldn’t be bothered to learn about art and antiques and collectibles.  So I started selling things for people…this was pre- eBay…and the rest is, well, history.”  I shrug.  “It’s a weird business, but I like it.  I like poking around in other people’s lives.  Nosy, I guess.”

Before Cal can ask me another question, I shift the spotlight to him.  “What about you?  You couldn’t have gone to Palmyrton High or I would remember you.”

“I grew up in Summit, in the smallest house of the nicest neighborhood.  My family was all about keeping up with the Joneses.”  He smiles, but he doesn’t look particularly amused.  “Running was the perfect sport for me.  I was always eating the dust of someone who was just a little bit taller, stronger, faster.  Until I finally worked out my own strategy for getting to the head of the pack.”

“Which is?”

“Focus on the three feet of road ahead of you, and the finish line will take care of itself.”

He says this with great conviction.  Maybe that pragmatic philosophy is what accounts for his supreme self-confidence.  It wouldn’t hurt me to borrow a page from Cal’s playbook.

“Me, I’m always looking ahead, seeing all the possible twists and turns and pitfalls that lie down the road.  Guess that’s what comes of being captain of the chess team, not the track team.”

Cal chokes on his drink.  “You were captain of the chess team?”

“Until senior year, when it finally dawned on me how uber-geeky it was.  Boy, was my dad pissed when I quit.”

“He taught you to play?”

“Yeah, that was his great gift to me.  Chess, and an ability to multiply large numbers in my head.  Forms quite an emotional bond.”

“You know what my mother gave to me?” Cal rips a dinner roll in half. “Impeccable table manners and good fashion sense.  And my father taught me how to slip a maître d’ a twenty to get a good table without a reservation. Quite a legacy, huh?” 

I recognize the disappointment in his voice.  I’ve heard it often enough in my own. Guess Cal and I share some common ground after all. “I take it you’re not close to your parents?” 

“They divorced when I was a sophomore. Got bored and decided they could each do better. They could’ve waited ‘til my sister and I were in college, but they weren’t ones for delaying gratification. Still aren’t.”

Cal’s hand rests on the table—no doubt his mother wouldn’t approve. I’m tempted to touch it, but I’m not quite bold enough.  “Still, you turned out okay.”

“I guess.  For a long time I was pretty committed to using their divorce as an excuse to do whatever I damn pleased. Or do nothing at all.”

Cal props his chin on his hand and gazes at me for a long moment.  “I admire you, Audrey, I really do. It takes guts to start your own business without any family support. I graduated from college with an English degree and no earthly idea what I wanted to do.  My mother was nagging me, my friends all seemed to have a plan.  So I took the coward’s way out and went to law school.”  He rolls his eyes.  “Just what the world needs—another paper-pushing, nit-picking asshole billing five hundred bucks an hour to add layers of complexity to every business transaction.”

I smile as some of my tension dissolves.  I’ve never heard Cal express the slightest self-doubt before.  “I thought you loved being a lawyer.  You’re certainly successful at it.”

He pushes aside the bread basket, clearing the space between us. “What I love is politics, Audrey.  That’s my passion, but I didn’t realize it when I was twenty-two.  I should have gone to Capitol Hill and worked as a gofer for some Congressman, shared a ratty house with five other guys doing the same thing.  It’s too late for me to live that life now, but I can run Spencer’s campaign in Palmer County.  And if he wins the election—
when
he wins—I’m going to be his chief of staff in Trenton.”

Cal’s eyes reflect the flickering candlelight.  The worldly self-confidence he always projects—that thing about him that both attracts me and terrifies me—has slipped away.  Suddenly he’s a little boy on Christmas morning, thrilled to have received the race car set of his dreams.  “That’s great, Cal.  You’re going to quit the law firm?”

“Taking a leave of absence,” he explains.  “In the long run, I’m worth more to them in Trenton than Palmyrton.  And I can take a break from contract law.”  He shivers and leans closer to me.  “I hate preparing cases, hate filing briefs.  I’m a horse-trader, Audrey.  Spencer likes to keep himself above the fray, but I tell you, I love rolling around in the dirt, hashing out the deals.”  

The waiter chooses this moment to materialize, demanding our order.  Cal selects steak; I foolishly order the entrée that sounds most appealing: grilled sesame tuna.  The moment the waiter retreats I’m filled with diner’s remorse.  Garlic/soy/ginger marinade—my mouth will reek for days. What was I thinking?

I give up on flagging the waiter down so I can switch to baked filet of sole, and turn my attention back to Cal.  “How did you first meet Spencer?”

“It was five years ago.   I wanted to score points with this girl who was working at Spencer’s Senate campaign headquarters, so I volunteered to stuff envelopes.  Spencer was in the office that day and he started talking about what he hoped to accomplish in Washington. He talked about how the chasm between rich and poor in New Jersey was bad for everyone.  He said he wanted to be the first senator who’d represent Paterson
and
Peapack; Camden
and
Upper Saddle River; Newark
and
Princeton. He was ahead of the curve, talking about public-private initiatives, getting corporations to understand it was in their best interest to improve inner city schools.” Cal pauses, breathless. “The next thing you know, I was offering to make phone calls and give speeches. Meeting Spencer—and Anne—changed my life.”

I’ve never been the slightest bit interested in politics, but I find myself experiencing a pang of envy.  It must be nice to feel committed to a higher purpose than getting the very best price for a vintage Jetsons lunchbox. Plus, Cal has managed to do what I’ve always longed to: trade in the defective family he was born into for a fully functioning, deluxe model. But I can’t tell him all that.  So I say, “Anne seems very fond of you.”

“She is.  None of their kids has been bitten by the politics bug.  So I’ve become the son who wants to follow dad into the family business.”  Cal leans forward and drops his voice.  “By the way, Anne really likes
you
.  She was very pleased when I told her I was seeing you tonight.  She thinks I have awful taste in women, so she warned me not to mess this up.” 

Cal mess up?  I’m the one who needs advice on how not to blow this.  Luckily, the waiter arrives bearing our appetizers, sparing me the need to come up with a coolly witty response.  Before leaving our table, he refills our wineglasses.  Mine was far emptier than Cal’s.  Nevertheless, I take another big gulp. 

Gradually, the conversation comes a little easier.  I find myself telling funny stories about Ty and Jill and my regular customers, like Howard the Hoarder.  At least, I guess they’re funny because Cal is laughing.   He tells me about life on the campaign trail with Spencer—the reporters, the gadflies who come to every event to ask annoying questions, the crooks who try to slip him wads of cash.

“Is he ever tempted?”  Of course I know what Cal will say, but it’s kind of sweet to see the intense sincerity in his eyes when he says it.

“Spencer wouldn’t take a stick of gum from a constituent.”  Then Cal laughs.  “Of course, he always leaves it to me to get rid of these people.  Once I had to tell some Mafioso from Atlantic City no thanks for the foot high stack of chips, the suite, and the call girl.”

The waiter shows up on “call girl” and we both giggle like middle-schoolers.

“This cake is delicious,” Cal says.  “Try it.”  Aiming a loaded fork at my mouth like a mother robin with a worm, he steadies my chin with his other hand, an oddly tender gesture that makes my spine dissolve. 

Even after he’s fed me, Cal continues to lean across the table, stroking my right hand with his fingertips.  “Pretty ring—unique.”

I feel a hot flush rising. This is it.  Tell him now, or never.

“It was my mother’s.  My father had it specially made for her.”

“Sweet.”

“I found it in the trunk in your aunt’s attic.”

Cal aspirates the coffee he’s sipping and starts to cough.

Nice one, Audrey—I have all the tact of a chainsaw.  “Sorry.  Look, Cal, I kinda figured out what the deal was with your aunt and the jewelry.  Her neighbor told me that Agnes was a housekeeper and a nanny…the jewelry is all different sizes and styles...”