THE MOMENT I ENTER Elspeth Leonard’s house, I can tell I would have liked her.
Yes, the kitchen is cluttered, but it’s cluttered with a jolly Pillsbury Dough Boy cookie jar, baking pans of every shape and size, cookie cutters for every season, and two hundred cookbooks.
Yes, the dining room is packed, but the table expands to seat twelve and there are tureens and platters and tablecloths for every holiday, including both Christmas and Hanukkah.
Yes, the living room contains way too much furniture, but it’s all soft and comfy with plenty of afghans and throws to keep a person toasty while reading. The bookshelves are full of feel-good novels like Fried Green Tomatoes and A Man Called Ove. Not a gory thriller or post-apocalyptic horror book in sight. One whole shelf is devoted to bird identification books, and a pair of binoculars rests beside them, ready to observe an uncommon scarlet tanager or indigo bunting flying by.
Donna is right on my heels. “This place is packed, but at least it’s clean. The old gal seems sweet. What a shame she had to leave in such a hurry. I hope she survives her medical treatment.”
“Me too,” I say. “But you know, there’s an upside to her medical emergency—no agonizing over every item in the house. She had no choice but to take only the bare essentials. It’s like removing a bandage with one rip instead of a slow, painful pull.”
As we continue through the first floor rooms, my phone rings.
Isabelle.
“Audrey, darling. One more favor.” Her dramatic voice makes a demand, not a request. “I got a call from Elspeth and Carrie. They’re at the airport and Elspeth is panicking because she couldn’t find something at the house before they had to leave to catch their flight.”
Please don’t let it be missing jewelry. I’ve accidentally stumbled across forgotten diamond rings jammed in the crack of a dresser drawer or at the bottom of a worn out change purse filled with Mexican pesos. But I hate when clients expect me to find a long-lost piece of jewelry. Because when I’m not successful, there’s always the suspicion I found it and didn’t report it.
“Elspeth didn’t remember to take a box full of her late husband’s military memorabilia from his service in Vietnam,” Isabelle continues. “His army uniform, his medals, and a photo album in a box. She thinks it’s in an upstairs closet.”
Whew! “No worries. I’m sure we’ll come across it. We can ship it to her.”
“You’re a lifesaver, darling,” Isabelle gushes. “I’m texting you her contact info right now. Gotta run.”
I tell Donna to keep an eye peeled for the box in question when she’s working upstairs. “Before you go up there, help me take down these drapes. It’s as dark as a cave in this living room.”
“That’s a whole lotta maroon brocade,” Donna says as we remove the heavy drapes from the curtain rod over the bay window. “But maybe one of our crafters will want it.”
Beneath the drapes are sheer lace panels that let in the light but still keep people from seeing right into the house. Through the lace pattern I can clearly see Cordelia Dean’s house. At 8:30 in the morning, the only sign of life comes from two stray cats—one gray, one black—lounging on the front steps. Their fur provides some neutral contrast to the vivid, multicolored porch.
Elspeth’s front porch is painted a sedate taupe. It contains two rocking chairs and a well-watered chrysanthemum. Did Elspeth sit out there and look over at Cordy’s place? Did it drive her crazy? Or did she generously bring Cordy baked goods from her kitchen and sit for a chat?
If Elspeth’s husband served in Vietnam, the two women must be fairly close in age.
But not everyone was a hippie in the Seventies.
I change my position at the window, trying to spot Ty working in the detached garage in Cordy’s back yard. I know he’s out there, but he’s hidden from my view.
I give myself a shake. I can’t spend my morning spying on Cordy’s house. Elspeth Leonard’s sale is a real job, so I get busy. I make quick work of pricing in the living room and dining room. Elspeth has no antiques or collectibles, so I don’t need to research. Unfortunately, that means nothing will sell for big dollars. And unless we get really lucky, that massive china cabinet will be making a trip to the dump. You can’t give these things away—old people already have them, young people don’t want them, and poor people don’t need them. Even Goodwill has placed a moratorium on accepting any more.
The prospect of pricing all those one and two dollar baking pans in the kitchen fills me with despair, so I decide to take a peek into the basement, which I hope will contain a collection of valuable tools from the late Mr. Leonard.
Sure enough, the orderly basement contains a well-stocked tool chest, a bench with many hanging tools, and several pieces of power equipment. Pricing this will take all afternoon, so I decide to tackle it after lunch. But I feel a lot better knowing about this profit center.
Climbing up the basement stairs, I enter the back hall where I look through the door leading out to a yard similar in size to Cordy’s, but neatly tended. On the wall next to the door is a hand-painted “Welcome” sign in the shape of a fish with tiny hooks to hold keys. Mr. Leonard probably made it in his shop.
The only key hanging there has a yellow plastic tab labeled “Cordy.”
So, the two women are friends—good enough friends to keep each other’s house keys.
I pocket the key and put a $2 price tag on the sign. Returning the key to Cordy will give me a good excuse to pay a call.
But not today.
“Anything good up there?” I shout to Donna as the clock approaches noon.
“Some costume jewelry and linens,” she calls back. “The computer looks like it could be the original PC Bill Gates built in his garage.”
I sigh. That’s an item that will have to be hauled to electronics recycling. Let’s hope there are no Betamax or eight-track players for the graveyard of outdated technology. I order lunch to be delivered from our favorite deli, and text Ty to join us in half an hour. “Don’t walk directly across the street,” I warn. “Come all the way around through the alley and into the back door.”
Ty texts back two eye-roll emojis.
By 12:30 we’re all settled around Elspeth’s kitchen table.
“Ain’t nuthin’ but junk in Cordy’s garage,” Ty grumbles. “I found old Halloween costumes, moldy sheets and towels, broken TV sets. There’s one box full of old papers. I’ll take that in after lunch and watch her go through it. That’s when I’ll bring up other people being interested in her crap—see what she says.”
“Have you seen anyone go into the house through the back door while you’ve been there?” I ask.
“No, and I’ve had the garage door open the whole time.”
I clear away our sandwich wrappers and place a Tupperware container on the table. “I found a whole freezer full of Mrs. Leonard’s cookies this morning. I think they’re thawed now.”
Ty pops a cookie in his mouth and nods his approval. “Imma take some of these to Cordy. That’ll get her talkin.’”
I pull the Tupperware out of his hands. “No! I don’t want her knowing you were over here. I don’t want anyone to realize we’re here until Saturday, the day of the sale.”
Ty grabs a baggie and tosses in some cookies. “They’re chocolate chip. You think Cordy can tell these from my grams’ cookies?” He taps his temple. “You goin’ buggy with this undercover stuff, Audge.”
Ty lopes out the back door. “Call me if you find out something about Charmaine,” I shout to his retreating back. He raises his right hand, which either means, “Got it,” or “Stop nagging.”
Throughout the afternoon, as I price tools and garden equipment, my mind wanders back to Ty and Cordy. I wish I could be a fly on the wall when he talks to her. I hope he can get her to talk about who might be after whatever she’s got without alienating her.
At four-thirty, Ty texts me.
I’m leaving here. Gotta pick up Lo. Meet you at the office in an hou
r. Lots to tell.
Augh! What agony! I leave the basement and go upstairs intending to check on Donna’s progress in the bedrooms. On my way through the living room, I pause to look out the front window again. A dark green pick-up truck is now parked in front of Cordy’s house, engine idling, driver’s side window rolled down. I stand to the side of the window, watching through the crack in the lace panels.
A man’s hand extends through the window, tapping ashes off a cigarette. I try to see his face, but I can’t distinguish much. If only I had...
Binoculars! I twirl around to the shelf and grab the pair I recently priced at twenty dollars. I hold them to my eyes and adjust the focus. A face in profile comes into view: lined skin and a nose with a bump in the bridge.
It’s the man who visited Ariel’s booth at the craft fair, I’m sure of it.
I sweep my binoculars to the rear of the truck. A New York license plate spattered with mud. Even with the binoculars, I can’t make out the number.
Just then, Donna pops into the living room. “Hey, I found Mr. Leonard’s box of army stuff,” she announces.
I turn toward her with the binoculars hanging from my neck as she drops the box on the sofa. “What are you looking at with binoculars?” she asks.
“There’s someone in front of Cordy’s house.” I turn back to the window just in time to see the car’s passenger side door slam shut. “Damn! I missed whoever just got into the car. The driver is the guy I saw with Ariel at the craft fair.”
Donna joins me at the window and we both watch the car drive away. “Well, it couldn’t be Cordy. She doesn’t move that fast.”
Chapter 22
I TEXT ELSPETH LEONARD to tell her we found the box and will ship it tomorrow but receive no reply. I hope the poor woman isn’t already in the hospital.
Then Donna and I hustle over to the office to hear what Ty has to report.
“Cordy’s face lit up when I handed over the box of papers I found in the garage,” Ty says once we’re each settled into our favorite chairs. “I think she expected me to drop it and leave, but I pulled out the cookies and sat down with her for a snack and a visit.”
Donna grins. “And she couldn’t resist.”
Ty spreads his hands. “Who can?”
I’m too eager for information to have patience with this joking. “Did you find a way to ask her about who else might be interested in her stuff?”
Ty raises his hand for patience. “First, I let her dig through the box. I already knew it was full of typed manuscripts of her Bass Line articles, so I started asking her about writing for the magazine while she was searching. I said I had a friend who wanted to be a writer, and I asked how she got started.”
That seems like a good approach. I wait eagerly for more developments.
“So she told me how after college she moved to New York without knowing a soul and started going to hear bands play in these little underground clubs, and she’d write articles about them and send them to different publications that didn’t even ask for them, and they’d tell her to get lost. But finally one day, Bass Line accepted one of her stories.”
Donna shakes her head in admiration. “That’s so brave! I’d quit after the first rejection.”
Ty nudges Donna’s leg with the toe of his sneaker. “Cordy’s got a tougher hide than you, girl.”
“Sounds like the old gal is starting to grow on you, Ty,” I point out.
He rolls his shoulders. “Everybody’s got their pros and cons,” he admits. “So then I started asking her if writing these stories was all about being lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. And Cordy laughed and laughed. She said a writer needs connections to break a big story. The reason she was able to do it was because she knew e-e-everybody, at every level of the music business. Little minnows and big fish.”
“Ty! You’re so good at playing to her ego. I’m impressed,” I say.
“Don’t need a degree in psychology to know people l-o-o-ve talkin’ about how smart they are.” Ty links his hands behind his neck and stretches out in the old office easy chair. “Cordy starts tellin’ me how she never waits for information to come to her. She’s always out there one step ahead of the story, makin’ calls, askin’ questions. And all the while she’s tellin’ me this, she’s emptying out that box. And she pulls out one of her old manuscripts—all bent up and yellow around the edges—and she shakes it at me.” Ty demonstrates with a stack of invoices from my desk. “She says that was a story she wrote about a band that went broke because they put all their trust in their manager, and he screwed them. She said she broke the story by talking to secretaries and go-fers, and roadies and all the little people who hear this and that. But she was the one smart enough to put it all together.” Ty raises his eyebrows. “So I go, ‘Sounds like you coulda made an enemy there. Is that manager still around?”
Ty leans across the desk to look me in the eye.
I’m on the edge of my seat. “How did she respond to that?”
“She made this big wave.” Ty demonstrates with his hands over his head. “Said you couldn’t be fearful if you were going to be a successful journalist. You hafta trust that the truth will protect you.”
Donna makes the kind of face she usually reserves for close encounters with cobwebs. “That sounds like a recipe for disaster.”
“Yeah, Cordy was talkin’ out her ass, just waitin’ to see how I’d react. I asked her again, straight up, if she made enemies as a journalist.”
Again, Donna and I wait, breathless, for the next part of the story.
Ty narrows his eyes. “She said these exact words: ‘I’ve outlived my old enemies. The last one standing wins.” But then, as soon as those words came outta her mouth, she pressed her lips together”—Ty purses his mouth—“just like Lo tryin’ to keep a secret.”
He chuckles. “And then Cordy stuck her head way into that box, and it was obvious to me she expected to find something in there and was disappointed. She shoved all the papers back in kinda mad and told me I could get rid of the box.”
“Did you?” I ask in alarm.
“Got rid of it in the trunk of my car,” Ty assures me. “Then Cordy starts asking me if there are any more boxes like this one in the garage, filled with papers and other office-type stuff. I kept a list of everything I found out there and took pictures of it on my phone. So she looked through it all, shakin’ her head.”
“Did you ask her if there’s something specific she’s looking for?” Donna interrupts.
“Of course I did,” Ty replies with a huff. “But she keeps saying there’s nothing in particular, but she’ll recognize good stuff when she sees it. So she wants me to come back tomorrow and start on the basement.”
“Will you go back?” I ask.
“Sure,” Ty says. “But if you ask me, Cordy’s getting nervous. We’re running out of places to look.”
Chapter 23
AT HOME THAT EVENING, I look through the box of Cordy’s old article manuscripts. There are about twenty—only a fraction of her total output—but I don’t have the patience to read them all. I skim, looking at the editor’s red ink: typos corrected, excessive adjectives deleted, and occasional marginal notes asking for fact-checks. But when I get to the article she waved at Ty, I read with more attention. The article is titled, “Creativity Lost,” and details the sad story of a band who lost the publishing rights to all their songs because their manager made a deal for short-term gain, and the buyer of the rights went on to make a fortune collecting residuals every time one of the songs was played. But the real killing came when one of the band’s songs was used in a commercial for a fast-food restaurant. Cordy laments the injustice, but her editor has written in the margin, “nothing illegal here.”
In the final paragraph, Cordy warns young musicians to watch their backs. She reminds them that even Paul McCartney lost his stake in Northern Songs, the publishing company he set up with John Lennon.
The header of every article
contains Cordy’s name and the issue of Bass Line the article was written for. This batch of articles all date from the mid-eighties, when Cordy was in her prime. But even then, her editor was calling for fact-checking. I wonder what article was Cordy’s downfall? What did she write that finally caused her to be fired?
I’ve been assuming that her general carelessness with details finally caught up with her, and that as Cordy got older and her editors got younger, she became irrelevant to the publication, and they used an unverified quote as a reason to show her the door. But what if there was more meat to the story?
I glance at the clock. I have forty-five minutes until the Palmyrton library closes at nine. There’s no sign of Sean coming home soon, so let’s see what the catalog of past issues of Bass Line reveals.
Tossing Ethel a consoling biscuit, I drive over to the library and park myself in the periodicals room. Cordelia Dean’s byline appears in almost every issue of Bass Line from 1975 to 1993. In the late seventies, she’s listed as “staff writer,” but in the eighties she’s “senior reporter” and “associate editor”. But after October 1993, her name disappears from the masthead.
I begin reading the October story. The headline says, “Post Punk Panoply”, and the story chronicles the first European tour of the band, Plan for Extinction. I’ve never heard of them, but I’m not a fan of punk rock. Maybe Sean will know more about them. A quick Google search on my phone turns up their hit song, “Fish Out of Water.” I plug in my headphones and listen to the hard-driving beat and the catchy lyrics sung in a distinctive nasal tone. It sounds familiar. I guess I’ve heard it on the radio. The band must be a one hit wonder.
The photo at the beginning of the story shows a rock band on stage, the musicians—all men—indistinguishable from any other rock musicians of the era: long hair, tight jeans, mournful expressions, lots of tattoos. The caption reads: Bonobo, Vaquita, Loggerhead, Narwhal.
Huh?
Oh, I get it! Each member of Plan for Extinction went by the stage name of an endangered species. Clever.
Rock Bottom Treasure (Palmyrton Estate Sale Mystery Series) Page 15
