| |
Harriet Harris was not exactly an unattractive woman. She had short wash-and-wear gray hair and a ready smile that could almost pass for friendly. I couldn’t always tell whether her smile was sincere, though, and for some reason, I kept Harriet at a distance. I didn’t dislike Harriet, but I didn’t exactly like her either.
Harriet’s antiques business, the Making Memories Antique Mall, was located in one of the town’s former big-box stores. It had plenty of parking and happened to be located next door to Craft World, a popular crafts supply store, so I was over there at least once or twice every week. The mall’s location made it convenient for me to shop for old and new jewelry-making supplies in one stop.
The cowbell on the door made its customary clanging sound as I entered, and I got a nice whiff of Eau De Musty Antique Mall as I stepped inside. Harriet looked up from reading a country-decorating magazine. She peered at me over her funky reading glasses, which were black with lime-green polka dots. Harriet owned some nice jewelry—I’d seen her wear it plenty of times—yet she rarely wore any jewelry at the mall. I got the impression she aimed to dress down when working there.
“Well, if it’s not the bling girl,” Harriet said. “Good timing too. That booth you like at the back is moving out in a few days. She’s offering at least twenty-five percent off everything, including her good costume jewelry.”
“I’ll be sure to take a look.” I glanced at the latest jewels beneath the checkout counter. “Now that I’ve started getting more custom jewelry orders online, I’m on the lookout for inexpensive bags of broken jewelry too, not just the good stuff. In fact, those junk bags have resulted in some of my best one-of-a-kind creations. The customers love those.”
“The junk ought to be pretty easy to spot,” Harriet said. “I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that it’s getting increasingly difficult to put my hands on the good stuff. For some reason, all the high-end pieces seem to land at the Silver Squirrel instead of here. And I still don’t know what you scooped me out of at that yard sale yesterday, you know.”
I bristled at her comment but tried to hide my annoyance. “Oh, Harriet, like I told you, it was just some of that old junk jewelry I like. A few nice pieces but a lot of odds and ends, really.”
It was no mystery to me why people preferred to sell their best pieces to the Silver Squirrel rather than Making Memories. Carleen paid solid, fair prices for the items she bought for her shop. Harriet, according to the local sellers I’d talked with, always wanted to buy low and sell outrageously high. Serious collectors and sellers in town knew to visit Carleen first.
“Funny you’d mention the Silver Squirrel,” I said. “I just came from there.”
One eyebrow shot up over the top of Harriet’s readers, as if she suspected I was up to something.
“I wanted to”—I looked down and gave a sad shrug—“offer a little support to Carleen after Tina’s tragic death yesterday.”
Harriet nodded sympathetically. “Tina was a nice girl. It’s ironic that she died right before her house was listed for sale in the paper, which I’m sure you know about with all of your friends in the newspaper business. It’s a shame she ended up having to sell that house. She must have really wanted to keep her mother in that pricey assisted-living place.”
Aha. Now we’re getting somewhere. I leaned in. “I didn’t know much about Tina’s personal life, but Carleen told me she was devoted to her mother. So Tina was paying for her mother’s assisted-living care?”
Harriet propped a hand on her hip. “She sure was, and there was some flap about it with her siblings too.” She tossed the decorating magazine aside and let her reading glasses drop to the beaded chain around her neck. “She gave Hubert and me all the details the night we met with her about listing her house with us.” She jutted her chin as if to emphasize that she and Hubert had the inside scoop.
“So you’re in real estate too? Not just Hubert?” I couldn’t help being curious. Now that I was a businesswoman, I was learning that the women of Roseland had their fingers in quite a few entrepreneurial pies, even if they weren’t always very vocal about it.
“We own a number of those little houses up and down Tina’s street. Rental property used to be a good investment back before the economy tanked and the riffraff started tearing up the places they live in. So we went back to buying houses to flip. Plus, once I retired, we needed to find something to get Hubert out of the house more often.”
I nearly choked because rumor had it that Hubert had no problem wandering away from home. Quite the opposite, in fact. But I wasn’t about to stop her since she was on a roll.
The cowbell clanged again, and Harriet’s eyes darted to the front door. “Hi, Janet. Come on in. There’s some new Roseville and McCoy pottery in that booth you like on aisle two. Be sure to check it out.”
Harriet paused, appearing to wait only long enough to make sure the new customer couldn’t hear us. “As I was about to say, when Tina’s father died a few years ago, the family sold the house to pay for her mother’s new apartment at Magnolia Manor. Tina wanted to keep the house for herself, but she couldn’t afford it, so she sold it to us. Then during the recession a few years back, we couldn’t move anything on that street. We let her rent it for a few years, and she must have done a good job of saving her money because eventually she offered to buy it back.”
After standing there for so long, I shifted my heavy purse to the other shoulder to relieve my aching arm. “So if Tina worked so hard to buy the house back, and her mother had been in the assisted-living place for years by that point, why would she have the house for sale again?”
Harriet smiled. “You haven’t ever had to deal with aging parents, have you, dear?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t, and I was grateful for that. My parents were still in their early sixties, and so far, both of them were enjoying excellent health. When Dad retired the previous year, he and Mom bought an RV and hit the road. I had a hard time keeping up with them and their travels.
Harriet steepled her fingers in a pose that I imagined she’d once used with schoolchildren. Then she pointed at me and continued. “Tina didn’t want Carleen to know, but Magnolia Manor had increased their fees significantly since her mother moved in, and there was some trouble among Tina and her siblings about paying for their mother’s care. Tina said most of the financial responsibility fell on her, and she simply couldn’t afford that on a salesclerk’s salary. She didn’t want to uproot her mother again, but she was too proud to ask Carleen for a raise. Said she’d been thinking that one of the local townhomes was more her style, anyway.”
It was a lot to take in. “I can’t believe Tina didn’t at least talk to Carleen about the situation.”
“Sad, isn’t it? But that Tina was a trouper. I’ll tell you that.” Harriet looked around the store and lowered her voice even though no customers were in sight. “Some folks get mad when they have to leave a place, but Tina had that house in tip-top shape by the time she asked us to list it. In fact, she was boxing things up and preparing to move into her new townhome at the time of her death. She wasn’t bitter about it, just resolved, I guess. We hated to see her sell the house again, but once she told us about her mother, we understood why she needed to.”
“Any idea why she chose to list with you and Hubert?” I asked with as much innocence as I could muster. I knew better than to add, “since she didn’t even like you very much.”
Harriet narrowed her eyes at me. “Obviously, it was the same reason anyone chooses a real estate agent to list their home—our reputation.” Her tone was a tad too defensive. “Or...”
“Yes?” I tried to seem interested but not overly curious.
“Maybe she felt she owed us since we bought the house from her the first time. I guess she trusted us to handle it again. Either that or we just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
I nodded. “I see.” It was probably the former reason and not the latter.
“It’s really a shame,” Harriet said. “Now we need to find out if anybody in Tina’s family will come and claim all those things she’d been boxing up to get ready for the move. Clothes and books, mostly, but she did have a few nice antiques, like some old family china and a set of sterling silver. I offered to help her when we were there one day, but she only let me help pack a few boxes. Seemed bent on doing it all herself.”
So nosy Harriet hadn’t been able to resist stealing a peek at Tina’s things. Although, now that I thought about it, I had to admit I was a bit of a nosy Rosy too.
Not wanting to let on that I’d really stopped by merely to snoop, I changed the subject. “Listen, later today, I’ve got to work on designing some new necklaces for the Gallery Stroll this Thursday. If you know of anyone with junk jewelry pieces for sale, holler, but otherwise, I’m going to buzz through here and see if I can find any big bags of broken jewelry.”
“Honey, I don’t pretend to know everything that’s in all the nooks and crannies of this antique mall, so have at it is all I can tell you.” After waving me off, Harriet perched her polka-dotted reading glasses back on her nose and turned to the laptop on the counter. She was probably checking eBay. Harriet either didn’t know or didn’t care, but many of my fellow antiques lovers in town were well aware that she often listed her best inventory online first. I’d heard the gripes. Frankly, I was too busy managing my own growing business to give much thought to how Harriet managed hers.
Whether the antiques lovers and sellers in Roseland personally cared for Harriet or not, she had done a terrific job of getting the new antique mall up and running. With so many vendors in one location, the mall had become a hot spot for antiques lovers and junkers. The Harrises even advertised the store on a flashy digital billboard out on the interstate, and that brought in some tourist traffic too, especially when the leaves started to turn in the fall.
As usual, I started on the right-hand side of the antique mall and sprinted up and down the aisles. At the end of aisle three was the sale booth Harriet had mentioned. Strips of paper bearing the booth number and the words “Twenty-five percent off” were hanging there, available for the taking. I liked the new trend of having discount coupons right there at the booth. In a large antique mall like Harriet’s, it kept the cashier from having to flip through a notebook in search of each seller’s discount.
A small handwritten sign caught my eye. All Christmas Tree Pins, Half Off. That was a good deal. I shopped for vintage rhinestone Christmas tree pins all year long. When the holidays approached, all the last-minute lookers suddenly decided they simply had to have a new Christmas tree pin. I could almost name my price, especially for the hard-to-find signed pieces.
The glass jewelry case was locked, so I walked up front and asked Harriet to send someone to open it for me. A college student who occasionally helped out brought the key ring and waited as I made my selections. I chose two Trifari pins, one Cristobal, one Hollycraft, and a particularly stunning all-red-rhinestone Christmas tree pin that was unsigned but probably Austrian. I would have about fifty dollars invested in the pins. At those prices, I could easily triple or even quadruple my investment come Christmas.
The college girl placed the pins on a black velvet display board and said she would follow me to the checkout counter. As we were about to head that way, she stumbled on an electrical cord duct-taped across the tile floor. She tipped the board and dropped the Hollycraft pin. I cringed as I heard the sound of metal pinging against the floor.
“Oh no!” She scrambled to retrieve the pin from beneath the table where the jewelry cases were displayed. “I’m such a klutz. I’m so sorry.”
“Happens to the best of us.” I smiled, secretly hoping she hadn’t caused any damage. “Do you mind if I check it to be sure all the stones are still intact?”
She handed over the pin. “Sure. No problem.”
I wasn’t trying to make her feel bad, but a bargain piece of jewelry wasn’t a bargain if stones were missing. All the stones appeared to be securely in place, and we made our way to the checkout without any further mishaps.
Harriet quickly turned her laptop from view as we approached the counter. “I had a feeling you’d leave with a few treasures. Good for you. You know, I was thinking about all of that pretty vintage costume jewelry you like so much, and I’ve decided to finally go get that Eisenberg bracelet your friend Carleen’s had in her jewelry case forever.”
“Do you mean the Eisenberg Ice bracelet with the pretty horseshoe-shaped accents near the clasp?” I asked.
She furrowed her brow. “Yes, that’s the one. Why?”
“I hate to tell you this, Harriet, but Carleen sold that to a woman from Atlanta when I was in there earlier today.”
Harriet looked crestfallen. “You win some, you lose some,” she said with a sigh.
For once, I almost felt sorry for her.
***
DESPITE MY UNPLANNED day off from treasure hunting, I had a busy and productive Saturday. After leaving Harriet’s shop, I spent a good hour and a half at Craft World, where I stocked up on beading wire, some pretty new toggle clasps, and a few strands of beads that were on sale. Once I returned home, I checked email and found I’d sold some of the vintage jewelry I’d listed online earlier in the week. Those pieces needed to go in the mail first thing Monday morning, so I got busy packaging the jewelry into sturdy cardboard boxes and padded mailers. I also photographed a couple of the unsigned brooches I’d purchased on Friday, as well as that Coro bracelet, then quickly listed them on eBay. I started the bracelet at thirty-nine dollars, and it quickly got a bid. It was nice to know my ten-dollar investment was paying off so handsomely.
Almost the moment the jewelry listings were taken care of, my stomach let out a hearty growl. I was famished but not in the mood to cook. Since the rain had finally stopped, I decided to call in an order of my favorite fast food, moo goo gai pan from Little China, a takeout restaurant only a few miles from my home. After picking up the order, I came home and ate it straight out of the container while snuggled under a lightweight quilt on the living room sofa. A happy Miriam Haskell sat contentedly at my side, languidly flicking her tail.
It had been a good day on some fronts, but I was also disappointed to realize I had made zero progress on the investigation into Tina’s murder. So I did what I always did when I felt overwhelmed by a problem—I whipped out a yellow legal pad and made some notes.
At the top of the first page, I wrote What we know. My bullet points covered only the undisputed facts. Tina was killed before Carleen arrived at work. Investigators said Tina died of blunt force trauma. And finally, Tina was in the process of selling her home.
At the top of the next page, I wrote the word Suspects. Tapping my pen on the legal pad, I had to admit I didn’t have any. That was a real problem.
I flipped to a third sheet of paper and made another list, titled Questions. I had no shortage of those. Who were Tina’s enemies? Why was she the child most responsible for her mother’s care? Why didn’t her siblings feel obligated to help? And why hadn’t she told Carleen about selling her house? Could there have been some friction there? Some embarrassment, maybe?
Thanks to Harriet, at least I knew why Hubert Harris was selling Tina’s home, the home that had meant so much to her family and to her. What a sacrifice it must have been for her, yet I could understand why Tina had wanted to help with her mother’s assisted-living expenses. Since she’d rented the house from the Harrises then later bought it back from them, perhaps Tina had felt she owed it to them to let them list the house.
In between my list making, I ate about half of the Chinese food and realized I was mindlessly stabbing at the rest. I closed the takeout container and put it in the refrigerator before turning on the stovetop teakettle. I loved the ritual of preparing my nightly mug of herbal tea. Soon, the water had boiled, and I was inhaling the cozy, comforting scent of chamomile tea as I sipped my favorite nighttime beverage.
I was about to call it a night and head to bed with a new novel when I remembered that I hadn’t updated my records with the jewelry I’d purchased at Making Memories earlier that day. Record keeping was such an important part of my business that I never let it slide, and that day was no exception. The antique mall’s no-frills brown paper bag was on a counter in the kitchen. I carried the bag to the table and sat down to record the purchases in my expense ledger.
Unwrapping the Trifari Christmas tree pins, I thought of how lucky I was to have invested in Christmas jewelry that would pay off handsomely in a few months. The pins were such a good buy, but the Hollycraft pin was the one I was most excited about. I unfolded the tissue surrounding the pin. Squinting, I tried to make sure my eyes weren’t going wonky on me. But no, one of the clear baguette rhinestones was missing from the base of the tree.
How odd. It was the same Christmas tree pin that the college girl at the antique mall had dropped, but all the stones had been there. I’d examined it carefully.
I checked the back of the pin to be sure a loose stone hadn’t lodged itself in the pin back or clasp. No luck there. I checked the tissue. I even checked the plastic bags containing the other Christmas tree pins, but no loose stone turned up.
I had been in a whirl that afternoon when I bought the pins, and I’d certainly been distracted by the events of the past twenty-four hours. Maybe I hadn’t been that attentive when inspecting the pin after all.
Some rhinestones could be hard to match, and I hated to think I was stuck with a bum pin. But there certainly wasn’t anything I could do about it late on a Saturday night.
It was a long shot, but the stone might still be on the floor at that seller’s booth. After church the next morning, I would run by the mall to see if I could find it. I had nothing to lose. If I found the missing rhinestone, I could easily replace it.
With my mind still reeling from my busy day, I sighed and stroked Miriam. “I say we call it a night, little friend. Do you agree?”
Miriam quietly meowed, and I knew I had my answer. We would both feel more refreshed in the morning.