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After Adam dropped Beverly off at Agnes’s shop, Beverly was pleased to see no trace whatsoever of the damage from the vandals. The older woman joined Beverly in admiring the place. “Sorry Detective Dutton couldn’t be here. I wanted to thank him.”
“For what?”
Just then, a box on two legs walked in from the rear of the store, or so it appeared. Two arms gently laid the box next to the cash register, revealing the bearer to be none other than Blaine Morland. “I’ve got a few more of these to catalog, Miss Flamm. That should be the lot, I think.”
“Thank you, Blaine. It would have taken me two days to do all that.” She pointed to her face. “Aging eyes.”
The boy headed back to his task in the other room while Agnes beamed at Beverly. “That’s what I want to thank Adam for. He got Blaine released into his custody, although it’s more of a supervisory thing. Blaine lives with his aunt, but she has to work. It’s so hard on her.”
Yes, Beverly knew that quite well from her social-worker ruse. “Why not his father?”
“His father works two jobs. Doesn’t have extra time to spend with his son. Truth be told, I’m not sure he cared one way or the other about the whole arrest business. He’s a bit heavy with the bottle.”
“So, this is community service in lieu of jail time?”
“No jail time’s forthcoming. Lack of evidence, you see. For Blaine, that is. The other two were caught with stolen items on their person and at their homes. But don’t think this is slave labor, either. I’m paying him.”
Beverly lowered her voice. “How’s he doing so far?”
“He was a tad surly at first. To be expected. But he’s really quite handy. I think I won him over with my famous chocolate-pecan pie.”
Beverly looked at Agnes in mock indignation. “You have a famous chocolate-pecan pie? And why was I never told this?”
Agnes laughed. “You can have some any time. I’m thinking of adding it to the cafe menu when it gets going.”
“Are you still thinking you might open the store this week?”
“Saturday. If all goes according to plan. Took that idea you had about advertising in the Junction Jive with a coupon and ran with it. Twenty-five percent off any item.”
Agnes’s phone rang, and while she answered it, Beverly wandered back to the room where Blaine was working. She introduced herself, then took in his tousled hair, which was in desperate need of a comb. But his jeans were clean, sneakers neat, and he had on a gray mock turtleneck that matched his eyes.
She complimented him on the sweater, then added, “I appreciate you helping Agnes out. It’s tough starting a new business, but she’s excited about making it work. It’s like having a second chance for her.” Beverly doubted he would get the double entendre, but hoped it might sink in later.
He looked up from the notes he was making from the items of the box on the table. It was one of the same boxes Adam said were part of Harlan’s donation.
He said, “My aunt bought it for me. The sweater.”
“She has good taste.” Beverly pointed to an item from the box. “Know what that is?”
“Looks like a wooden shoe. With palm trees and huts carved in it.”
“It’s a wine bottle holder. See the hole in the middle?” She pointed to another item. “That one is a vintage French silver-plated wine champagne bottle combination holder and pourer.”
“People really use all this stuff?”
It hit Beverly hard, thinking about Blaine’s absentee father, whose idea of drinking was tipping back a bottle and guzzling it down whole. The boy had likely never seen a fancy table spread. Most of the items in this shop would be foreign to him, making him a rockfish out of water.
She replied, “Sometimes. People use them mostly for special occasions.”
He pulled out another item. “And this one?”
“A silver wine funnel. The curved spout directs wine down the side of a decanter to prevent it from dropping straight to the base. It also helps to remove impurities and sediments from the wine.”
“Are they worth a lot of money?”
Her heart skipped a beat, thinking he was trying to gauge how much money he’d get for them if they “went missing.” But when she said, “That might fetch a few hundred dollars,” he wrote it down in the notes section on his list with the reply, “I hope she sells that one, then.”
Warming up to his task, he started peppering her with questions about each item as he rescued it from the box, carefully jotting down the details in the ledger. “How did you learn all of this, Miss Laborde?”
“My grandmother ran an antiques store. I learned most everything I know from her.”
“Is she going to be here on Saturday for the big opening?”
Beverly swallowed hard. “She died a few years ago. But I have a feeling she’ll be here in spirit.”
“My aunt likes things like this. Maybe I’ll get her to come.”
Beverly felt increasingly simpatico with the young man, seeing the parallels between them. The sense of being cast away, the feeling of isolation, having to fend for yourself, choosing risky behavior. Stubborn, independent, yet yearning for something stable.
She hoped Agnes and Adam were doing the right thing by trusting this boy, giving him that second chance. So many throwaway people—Blaine, Braddon’s ex-girlfriend Jane, Vernon Atkinson’s treatment of his wife and all his conquests, Fern’s ex-husband running off with “some floozy.”
All the little battles and little wars in all the households around the world—too often, they boiled over into violence. Like Reggie Forsyth killing his father. Or a sword pinning a man’s body to a tree.
