Chapter 7
Outside the leaves on the trees constricted slightly; they were the deep done green of the beginning of autumn. It was a Sunday in September.
—Ali Smith
Nora was first in line when the doors to the big red barn were unlocked that Sunday morning. It was Labor Day weekend, which meant the flea market would be even more crowded than usual. Nora would have to move fast if she wanted to find the best items for the best prices.
Once inside, she zipped by the vendors near the front door. Most of these booths catered to visitors, and though Nora loved the quilts, stoneware, and wood items created by local artists, they were too expensive for her to purchase for resale.
The candlemaker in the fourth row was a different story.
Scented candles were a big hit at Miracle Books, especially since Nora had asked the candlemaker to start making custom scents with names like Rainy Day Reads or Tea & Books.
This week, the candlemaker had four new products earmarked for the bookstore.
Nora uncapped the first candle, which was called Miracle Books in Autumn and inhaled the scents of fall leaves and apples.
“Wow. This makes me believe that it’s October, not the last weekend in August.”
The Children’s Corner was the color of cornflowers and smelled like a snickerdoodle, while Cozy Reading Chair was a peachy pink, with notes of Earl Grey, wood, and honey. Finally there was Book Therapy. This ivory candle had a clean, bright fragrance. The aroma of sun-dried linens, combined with a hint of jasmine, gave Nora an instant energy boost.
After handing the vendor a check, Nora promised to pick up the boxes of candles on her way out and walked deeper into the barn.
Several items caught her eye as she made her way to Bea’s booth. A vendor specializing in vintage ceramics had a fabulous display of Franciscan Apple cups, plates, and bowls for sale. Nora really wanted the teapot, but the vendor wouldn’t reduce the price by more than ten percent, so she had to settle for a set of cups and saucers, a sugar dish, and a pair of water tumblers.
At another booth, she picked up an assortment of Fiestaware creamers. She knew the bold colors of these little pitchers—daffodil, juniper, paprika, and scarlet—would brighten the dark spines lining the shelves in the mystery and thriller section.
When she arrived at Bea’s Bounty, a U-shaped booth in the back of the building, Bea was holding a magnifying glass over the bottom of a silver candlestick for the benefit of a man on a mobility scooter.
“That mark don’t look right to me, so I’ll give you sixty for it,” the man said with an air of practiced disinterest.
There was nothing Bea liked better than a good haggling session, but she had little patience for customers who tried to convince her that her wares weren’t what she claimed them to be.
“This is a bona fide Sheffield silverplate biscuit warmer from the early 1900s. The William Hutton and Sons stamp proves it. And here’s the Sheffield, England, stamp too. Not a thing wrong with the mark or dish, and it’s in great condition. I can sell this today without taking a dime off the asking price, so I’m gonna pass on your offer.”
The man glared at Bea over the rim of his half-moon glasses. “I know my silver makers.”
Bea’s translucent blue eyes flashed. “So do I, which is why the price I quoted is firm.”
The man reddened, muttered something about the “expert opinion from a piece of trailer trash,” and put his scooter in reverse.
Bea was still holding the dish when the scooter slammed into her table. Silver pieces and glassware toppled in every direction. Something crashed onto the concrete floor, very close to where Bea stood, and the crack of shattered porcelain silenced everyone in the vicinity.
The man sped off in his scooter, driving down the middle of the aisle without much regard for the people pushing strollers or wheelchairs. Nora heard a collection of indignant shouts as she rushed to Bea’s side.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” Bea scowled. “But my vase is a goner. I’m down fifty bucks and the day’s just started.”
She squatted down and began collecting triangular pieces of white porcelain. They looked like teeth scattered across the gray concrete.
While Bea cleaned up the broken vase, Nora began straightening the items on the table. Most of the candlesticks, glasses, and tall vases had toppled over, but it looked like nothing else had been damaged.
“I don’t think this was an accident,” Nora told Bea. “He didn’t get what he wanted, so he lashed out. I heard what he said to you.”
Bea tossed the plastic bag of broken porcelain into a cardboard box under the table. “That jackass can’t offend me. I’m proud to be ‘trailer trash.’ My double-wide is my castle, and I’ve got ten acres with a big garden and an above-ground swimming pool. Plenty of room for my dogs to run. Nobody gets in my business. It’s my Eden.”
The vendor from across the aisle came over to see if Bea needed any help, but she waved her off with a smile. “Thanks, but I’m good. You know folks get fractious this time of year. People have a lot going on with school starting and whatnot. But for others, it’s just the end of another season. They’ve got nothing on the horizon and that makes them want to dim everyone else’s lamps.”
“I feel like the world would be a better place if we all had an excuse to go back-to-school shopping,” said Nora.
Bea laughed. “You got that right! You can’t be unhappy with a new box of crayons and some scented markers in your cart. Add a pack of stickers or a cute notebook and you’ve got everything you need.”
“I feel the shopping dopamine hit every Sunday, thanks to you,” Nora told Bea.
“Don’t butter me up until you see what I put aside for you. ”
Bea gathered her stringy hair into a ponytail and secured it with a hot pink scrunchie. From a distance, the blonde looked like a teenager, with her tan skin, tiny frame, and cutoffs, but up close, every one of her fifty-plus years showed on her face. Smoking and sun damage had given her a weathered appearance, but Bea didn’t seem to care. She was a no-nonsense country girl whose life was centered around three things: her family, vintage housewares, and trips to the beach.
“You’ll like some of the stuff. The prices? Not so much. It’s getting harder and harder to find a good deal. I was on the road all last week, but pickings were mighty slim.”
A group of high-school girls floated over to Bea’s booth, drawn to her display of vintage dresser boxes. The girls’ voices seemed unusually loud and their hands seemed to be everywhere. It was hard to keep track of the boxes because the moment one girl put one down, another girl picked it up.
Without moving from her spot, Bea said, “Hello, ladies. Those boxes are perfect for jewelry storage. Just be careful because someone already broke one of my treasures today, and it’s put me in a foul mood.”
The girls didn’t bother to reply. They simply drifted off to another booth to resume their grabbing and giggling.
“They’re looking for pocket-sized goodies,” Bea said. “All the vendors know their game. Four of the girls distract the seller, while the fifth does the swiping. The thief rotates every week. I don’t think they give a damn about what they’re stealing either. It’s probably some stupid dare or social media challenge—something to post on TikTok.”
Nora thought about the missing YA books. None of the flea market girls looked familiar, but she kept watching them until Bea tapped her on the arm.
“Here’s your box. Take a look and see what strikes your fancy.”
Nora immediately passed on the first item—a collection of souvenir spoons. After much consideration, she also put aside an old pair of binoculars and a John Deere toy tractor. She kept a bronze hand sculpture, since it could double as a bookend, two pieces of embroidery hoop art, and a set of vintage ice-cream bowls.
“I knew you’d like those. That blue glass will look nice on a bookshelf,” Bea said. “I thought you’d want the binoculars for sure.”
“I’m just not feeling them. Sorry. But I love these.” Nora held up three magnifying glasses. Two were made of heavy brass and the third had a bone handle.
Bea gazed around her booth. “See what I mean? Slim pickin’s.”
Seizing the moment, Nora told Bea about Lucille and Wynter House. She was in the middle of describing her conversation with Beck Wynter when a customer pointed at the binoculars and asked if they were for sale. Five minutes later, they’d been wrapped in white paper and placed in a bag. The customer thanked Bea, turned away, and then swiveled around again.
“Do you sell any miniatures?”
“Like, for a dollhouse?”
The woman nodded. “Yes, but also child-sized items, like miniature tea sets, doll furniture—anything in a smaller scale. My friend is a collector and her birthday’s coming up.”
Unwilling to lose a potential sale, Bea said, “I have a doll’s picnic basket, but it’s in my truck. If you give me a few minutes, and my friend is willing to watch my booth, I can run out and get it.”
“Does it come with plates?”
“Yep. Little utensils too. It’s real cute.”
The woman said that she’d look at a few other booths and circle back to Bea’s when she was done. By the time she returned, Bea had fetched the basket from her truck and Nora had finished explaining why Wynter House was currently a crime scene.
“This is darling! My friend will be so tickled,” said the woman. After paying top dollar for the picnic basket, she gave Bea her contact info. “In case you find other tiny treasures in the next two weeks. If you do, call me and I’ll put you in touch with my friend’s husband. He has no idea what to get her for her birthday, and my bestie is turning forty, so it’s kind of a big deal.”
She walked away, leaving Nora and Bea to haggle over the price of the ice-cream bowls and magnifying glasses.
“I want the job,” Bea said after they came to an agreement.
Nora’s heart jumped. She hadn’t realized until this moment how badly she wanted to return to Wynter House.
“I want you to know exactly what you’re in for,” she told Bea. “The house smells disgusting. You’ll have to wear a mask and gloves. There’s mold, animal droppings, and God knows what else. And Lucille’s collection might be pure junk—a total waste of your time.”
Bea shook her head. “If nothing’s changed inside for fifty years, then at least some of the items are antiques. I want to be the first one to see what’s there. Being the first person in an untouched estate is a seller’s dream.”
A man paused to admire a group of tobacco tins. Bea threw a smile his way before turning back to Nora. “This could be my chance to earn some real money. I can charge the family an hourly rate and make it clear that I’ll only take the job if they agree to sell the good stuff through my cousin’s auction place in Radford. He’s a full partner now, which means he can pay me a fat finder’s fee. I need that money because my aunt has a hospital bill longer than my arm and no health insurance. Our whole family’s gonna have to work together to pay it off.”
“I know you have relatives in the business, but will they want to tackle this job? It’s a huge house, and most of the work will be carrying rotten books and other trash to the dumpster.”
Bea grinned. “My niece runs a cleaning-and-hauling company called Junk Hunks. Between her, my auctioneer cousin, and the younger kids looking to pay off student loans, I’ll have it covered. Gimme Beck’s number. I want to call him before he has the chance to hire someone else.”
“What about the books?” Nora asked.
“After we toss the ones we can’t sell, you can look over the rest. Shoot, you can come over whenever you want. I owe you big time for this one, girl. If that means giving you a set of keys to the castle, I’m happy to do it.”
This was exactly what Nora wanted to hear.
“Is there any wiggle room on this price?” asked the man examining the tobacco tins.
“For you, honey, you bet there is!” Bea exclaimed.
Turning away, Nora said, “Let me know if you get the job.”
“I’ll get it. Don’t you worry about that. We’re gonna make some money and help three grown children say goodbye to their mama. We might even find the clues your man needs to solve the mystery of the old lady’s death. There’s no telling what we’ll find once we start digging.”
* * *
After loading up her flea market finds, Nora ate a sandwich in her truck and drove to a tag sale starting at one.
She liked shopping tag sales because the items were usually inside someone’s home, and the prices were clearly labeled. During a two-day sale like this one, the items that were full price on Saturday would be a fraction of the price today.
The house was in a neighborhood undergoing gentrification. Small cottages inhabited by the same residents for decades were being either scooped up by upper-middle-class families and renovated or demolished to make way for new builds.
As Nora waited to enter the house, she saw real estate agents and young couples circle the exterior like vultures vying for position around the corpse of a dead animal.
The front door opened and a man carrying a side table shimmied through the doorway.
“Not much furniture left,” he told Nora on his way out.
Entering the house,, Nora saw that this was true. Her footsteps echoed as she moved through the living room, passing by a pair of floor lamps and a threadbare rug. The knickknacks lined up on the mantel were of no interest either, so she headed into a small dining room.
The remaining pieces of dinnerware were either too big to fit on a bookshelf or too damaged to resell, but a glass basket caught Nora’s eye. It was the color of amethysts and large enough to hold a bouquet of flowers. She could picture it gracing the shelf where the Mary Stewart books lived.
An old woman shuffled into the room and pointed at the basket. “I used to keep mints in there.”
Nora covered the awkwardness she felt by smiling at the woman. “Is this your house?”
“For the past forty-seven years. My Jimmy carried me over the threshold when I was a bride. We raised our boys here. Had our grandkids over every Christmas. But Jimmy passed two years ago—just slipped away watching baseball in his favorite chair.” Her gaze traveled to the living room and Nora imagined she didn’t see it as a sad, empty space, but as a repository for memories. “My son built a little cottage for me on his property. It’s real nice.”
After introducing herself, Nora asked if there were any books for sale.
The woman, whose name was Ida Fleming, shook her head. “Jimmy was the reader of the family. My boys cleaned out his books after he passed. But come on through to the bedroom. You might find something for your shop in there.”
Ida prattled on about how much the neighborhood had changed as she led Nora through the kitchen, a narrow hall, and, finally, into a bedroom.
“I thought someone would snap up my old Singer table right away, but maybe folks don’t sew anymore.” Her stooped shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “Jimmy worked at the paper mill. After they closed, he became a mechanic. I made his first pair of coveralls. Even stitched his name over the front pocket.”
Nora ran her hand over the table’s smooth, worn surface. “Did you know Lucille Wynter?”
Shadows pooled in Ida’s rheumy blue eyes, and she pinched her lips into a tight line. Nora could sense an avalanche of words gathering on the old woman’s tongue.
After a long moment of silence, she said, “I knew her from my schoolgirl days. From the time I was knee high, Lucille and I were the best of friends. I went on my first double date to the soda fountain with Lucille. I went to her wedding. A year later, she was my maid of honor. I saw her obituary in the paper this morning.” She put a wrinkled hand to her chest. “It hit me hard.”
“Were you two still close?” Nora asked, suspecting she already knew the answer.
Pain deepened the lines around Ida’s mouth. “I haven’t seen her for a very long time. Not since the scandal. Right after Lucille got married, her daddy stole money from the mill—money that was meant for his employees. He denied it, of course, and he wasn’t arrested because there wasn’t enough evidence. But everybody knew it was him. He was the only one with the combination to the safe.”
“Did he pay his employees in cash?”
“It was their Christmas bonus, plus a bunch of money set aside to pay local vendors. It was a terrible shock, and Hugo stepped down, retiring early. After that, the Wynters barely left the house. I tried to visit after her son was born, but she sent me away. Years ago when our children were in school together, I went to see her. She wouldn’t invite me in.” Ida lowered her gaze. “She said she wasn’t interested in being friends. And that was that. So many years have gone by since then—too many to count—but I still remember how much it hurt when she closed that door in my face.”
Nora nodded in sympathy. “I brought books to Wynter House a few times a month. Lucille always talked about her father like he walked on water.”
Ida’s smile was wistful. “Hugo doted on his two girls, there’s no doubt about that. They had the prettiest dresses and all sorts of luxuries. Dolls from England and boxes of chocolate. When the girls got older, he bought them French perfume and jewelry. All those airs and graces, and you’d think they’d have married some cosmopolitan fellows. Lucille’s sister, Lynette, moved away a year or so after Lucille and Frederick were married, but Lucille never left Miracle Springs.”
A man in khakis and a red polo shirt knocked on the open door. “There you are, Ms. Fleming. Do you have a sec? A lady’s interested in buying the lawn mower and some tools.”
“I’ll be right there.” Ida turned back to Nora. “It’s funny that you mentioned Lucille. I started collecting perfume bottles because of her. Just this morning, I decided I wanted less clutter in my new house, so I decided to sell them. You’re welcome to take a look.”
Ida pointed at a box on the floor. Nora thanked her and unwrapped the first bottle she touched. It was a lovely Art Deco atomizer in malachite with gold trim. The next bottle featured hand-painted roses. The one after that had sky-blue glass. Nora decided to make an offer on the entire box and, after negotiating with the man in the red shirt, carried her purchases to the truck.
She drove to Miracle Books, unloaded her finds from the day in the stockroom, and went home to start a load of laundry. After that, she went on a grocery store run followed by a late-afternoon hike. By five o’clock, she was wiped out.
Flopping on the sofa with her current read and a glass of sparkling water, she tried to lose herself in the story, but the words weren’t soaking in. When her phone buzzed, she let the book rest on her chest while she read a text from McCabe.
She wasn’t surprised to learn that he’d be working late and planned to spend the night at his place. This didn’t bother Nora a bit. Not only did she enjoy her own company, but there were times when she just wanted eggs or cereal for dinner and didn’t want to cook something else for McCabe. Unlike Nora, who’d happily eat breakfast food at any meal, McCabe believed omelets and pancakes should be consumed only before noon.
I wonder what he’s doing right now. Interviewing Lucille’s ’s kids? Meeting with her attorney to review her will? Searching the house for clues?
Nora sent a reply saying that she’d miss him and to call if he wanted to talk, but she had a feeling she wouldn’t hear from him until tomorrow.
She picked up her book again, but it was no use. Her thoughts had turned to Lucille and Wynter House, and no work of fiction could compare to the real-life mystery of a dead book hoarder and her dilapidated Southern Gothic mansion.
Retrieving The Little Lost Library from its hidey-hole—a space behind one of the floating bookshelves on the wall dividing the living room from the kitchen—Nora re-read the first two pages.
She wished she could participate in this scavenger hunt in verse. Because every page directed the reader to a different location inside Wynter House, Nora didn’t think she could puzzle out the rhyming riddles from outside the home. Most were too vague to be solved from afar.
“If only I could get back in there,” she said as she studied an illustration of a skeleton key tied to a length of ribbon.
The sound of her phone’s ringtone startled her. She was equally surprised to see Bea’s name on the screen.
“Guess where I am,” Bea said before Nora could even utter a word.
Nora didn’t need to guess. “Wynter House.”
“Yep. Started working an hour ago. Me and the Junk Hunks team are already kickin’ ass. Even with folks from the sheriff’s department telling us where we can and can’t go and what we can and can’t touch, and making sure we’re only tossing old food, broken plates, and mouse turds, we’ve cleared most of the trash from the kitchen. It was real bad, but we’ve got the windows open and some fans blowing, so you can actually spend thirty seconds inside without gagging. Wanna come over?”
Nora sprang off the sofa and grabbed her car keys. “Yes, I do. I’ll be there in ten minutes.”
“Okay, then. I’ll tell the skeletons to stay in the closets until you get here.”