by Gayle Roper
I had been milling around the tables out in the yard when I stepped into the cool of the emptied barn to escape the heat and brilliance of the sun. I leaned against a support and took a drink from the water bottle I carried in my fanny pack. As my eyes adjusted to the dim interior, I saw the corner of a box jutting out of a manger, a white angle rising unnaturally from a light cover of hay, a straight line where none should be. I went to investigate and discovered a shoebox, women’s size eight.
Curious, I pulled the box out and lifted the lid. A cache of vintage jewelry winked up at me.
Yowzah!
I slammed the lid back in place, looking around to see if anyone was watching. I wondered briefly how it had gotten into the manger instead of on the tables either in the yard or in the house, but only for a minute. In the chaos of getting things placed for sale, someone had obviously set this box down and forgotten it.
Hugging the box, I hurried back to the checkout lady and paid the princely sum of twenty-five dollars, the price she decided would be right for an untagged box.
“Your lucky day, ducks.” She waved me on to get to the next person eager to pay for their treasure, never taking time to check the contents.
I could feel the return on this investment feeding us for the next month.
“I got some wonderful jewelry,” I told Madge, cell pressed to my ear as I sat in the parking lot at a Dunkin’ Donuts, drinking a Coke and eating a chocolate glazed doughnut. I had my seat pushed back, the bag with the second and third doughnuts on the passenger seat, the Coke in the cup holder, and the shoebox in my lap. As I pawed through the contents, I told her about discovering it in the barn. I hadn’t taken the time for any serious study at the sale, just grabbed the box and run, knowing vintage jewelry was always a good risk.
“Here’s a wonderful iridescent rhinestone pin with matching clip earrings. Very fifties. All the stones are intact. And a pretty gold circle pin, same era, with a ribbon of faux pearls tied on it. Oh, what a lovely little cameo on a gold chain. I’d say it was considerably older than the other two. Maybe the twenties or thirties. Might have some real value. Oh, and there’s a lovely opal brooch with one large opal in the center and”—I counted quickly—“two circles totaling twenty smaller opals circling it, all set in gold.”
I flipped the brooch and found a stamp for fourteen-karat gold. “Madge, I don’t think this is some cheap piece. We’ll need Sam Pierce to give us an appraisal before we market it.” Sam appraised all our jewelry at his store in the mall at Haydn because he was always honest with us. “Oh my! You should see this funny little dog pin with big blue glass eyes and a long slender tail set with glass chips. Very fifties.”
I laughed as I put it back and pulled out another brooch similar in design to the opal, only instead of opals encircling a central gem, the seventeen stones were cubic zirconium. I held the pin toward the window and watched the sun touch the stones and paint rainbows in them.
I sat up straight. “Madge.” My voice was barely a whisper.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I think it’s a matter of what’s right.” I could barely talk. I looked around the parking lot, but no other folks were foolish enough to be sitting in the sun with their cars running so they had some air conditioning while they ate their food. They were munching as they drove off the lot to wherever. Still, I lowered the pin lest any unseen lurkers see it. “I think I’ve got a diamond pin here. Real diamonds, seventeen of them.” I flipped it and found the stamp. “Fourteen-karat gold.”
I heard a little choking sound in my ear. “Oh, Libby, you can’t be serious.”
I nodded, as if she could see me. “I know the eye can’t tell the difference between diamonds and CZ, but my gut tells me we may have something way more valuable than vintage here. I’m probably wrong and will be terribly disappointed, but I’m coming home and taking them to Sam.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“I’ll call him and tell him you’re coming. And I’ll meet you there.” Madge hung up.
I put the pin carefully in the box and put the car in drive. An hour later I met Madge outside Sam Pierce’s jewelry store.
“Did you forget that today is the Fourth?” Madge asked. “The store was closed.”
“What?” I’d driven all this way for nothing?
“But I got Sam’s curiosity piqued, and he agreed to come in for a brief consultation.”
Sam, jeweler’s loupe at the ready, was waiting for us at the back door.
“You just got me. Marly and I leave this afternoon for a month down the shore.” He took the shoebox and disappeared into the back of his store. Madge and I waited in agony while he gave the pieces a quick once-over. To help pass the time, I told her about Aunt Stella’s house and the rare books and the Hepplewhite.
“Interesting, but we can talk about them later. I want to hear about the body on the doorstep.”
I told her what little I knew and described the puzzles, reciting all the words with potential criminal meanings. She had just started to lecture me again about going to Detective Holloran when Sam Pierce came out of his back room and gestured to us.
We followed him into his office, where he offered us seats across from his desk. “Where did you get these pieces?” He gestured to the jewelry sitting on a piece of black velvet he’d laid across the desk. The stones winked at us in the overhead light.
“An estate sale near Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.”
“Well.” He stared at the pieces, frowning, and I knew I’d gotten us excited over nothing and pulled him needlessly away from his family. The pieces were the usual collection of good costume jewelry and would bring us a nice profit, but nothing like I’d started to dream.
Then he smiled broadly. “You have lucked out, ladies. There are some very, very fine pieces in this mix as well as some dime-store stuff.”
“Like the little dog.” I reached out and picked up the little pin. “But you gotta love the big blue eyes.”
“That you do,” Sam said. “They’re marquise-cut sapphires.”
I stared at the little pin.
“And the chips are diamonds. It should sell for $2,700 to $3,000.”
My mouth fell open, as did Madge’s. The dog was cute, but I’d never pay $3,000 for him. But someone out there would, and that was what mattered. “And this one?” With a shaking hand I held up what I thought was a diamond brooch.
“I found a similar one for $3,250 at a very reputable online site.” Sam sat back and folded his hands over his stomach. “How much did you pay for it?”
“The entire shoebox cost me $25.” I laughed and Madge laughed along.
“Twenty-five dollars.” Sam grinned. “Someone, as they say, was robbed, and it wasn’t you. I’d suggest you leave them in the safe here until you decide how you want to dispose of them, but I set the timer yesterday when I left, and it won’t open again until next week when the store opens. I’ve got a young woman who works here who could probably override the commands, but I have no idea if she’s even home today. You’ll have to keep them with you.” He looked apologetic.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, though I did wish for the security of his safe. “We just appreciate that you were willing to come in.”
“I’ll come back from the shore one day next week and give them the time I need for a thorough evaluation,” he assured us. “I’ll let you know which day. You can leave them in the safe then if you want.”
We wrapped everything carefully, placing each piece in its own little cotton-lined white box. Madge and I were putting the boxes carefully in the shoebox when Sam’s cell rang. He answered, then rolled his eyes.
“Coming home right now, Marly!” He was on his feet before he hung up. “I’m late. I’ve got to go.”
He was herding us out the door when Madge’s cell rang.
“That was Bill,” she explained after her brief conversation. “I’m late for a cookout and swim party at th
e Winstons’ place. We leave from there for a week in Massachusetts at my in-laws’ summer place. I’ve got to run!” She gave me a quick hug and left, Sam on her heels.
By default, I ended up driving back to Aunt Stella’s with a small fortune in jewels in the van with me. I almost raced from my parking spot to the house. If the local thieves only knew what I had!
I unlocked the front door as quickly as I could, my eyes darting up and down the lane for thieves lurking behind window boxes. I slammed the door behind me and twisted all the locks. I know. Paranoid.
As I turned from the door, my nose wrinkled, not at my personality foibles but at the smell.
“What’s going on in here? It smells like a beauty parlor!”
“Mom!” Chloe called from the kitchen. “I’m getting highlighted!”
I gulped. The only person I could think of that Chloe knew here was Jenna, and the thought of the girls coloring each other’s hair was unnerving. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if Chloe’s hair turned bright orange or green or something, but it would be the end of Chloe’s world. The weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth would continue for weeks until it grew out.
I set my shoebox on the dining room table and peeked hesitantly into the kitchen. Chloe sat at the table wearing enough foil to transmit to Mars, and Tori sat on the counter watching a stranger brush smelly, foamy stuff on a strip of Jenna’s beautiful dark hair, then wrap it carefully in more foil.
“Tori! What’s going on? And tell me you checked with Jenna’s dad.” Please.
“Hey, Libby.” Tori waved negligently, ignoring the Jenna’s dad issue. My heart sank. “This is Mindy. She’s a friend of a friend.”
“Hi.” Mindy glanced at me. “I went to beauty school with Tori’s friend Val.”
“Val does my hair,” Tori explained.
I had to admit that Mindy knew what she was doing—which didn’t make doing Chloe’s and Jenna’s hair without checking okay.
Mindy nodded. “Val called me this morning because she knew I lived here in Philly. She told me I had a gig making three ladies beautiful.” She grinned at me. “I guess you’re lady number three.”
9
THE LANE’S FOURTH OF JULY block party was well under way when, newly highlighted and coiffed, I took my baked beans out to set on the tables James had lined up along the walk in front of his house and Mark and Tim’s.
James eyed my dish as I set it on the red, white, and blue covering. “They don’t look like Stella’s beans.”
“That’s because they’re Libby’s,” I said. “Not the brand, but mine. I’ve got to say, James,” I added hurriedly to distract him from the fact that being Libby’s meant, at least in this case, that they came out of a can, “this is a very impressive spread.”
And it was, a curious melding of traditional area dishes and ethnic contributions. Garden salad, caesar salad, potato and macaroni salads, three-bean salad, pickled eggs and deviled eggs, cole slaw, creamed cabbage, falafel balls, couscous, a platter filled with hoagie makings, and a squeeze bottle filled with oil to moisten the Italian rolls, sliced and waiting. On the other side of the rolls was a hot dish holding razor-thin slices of roast beef in gravy and beyond it another hot dish filled with sausage and green peppers. Then began the table filled with homemade desserts—pies, cakes, cookies—and finished off with two boxes of Tastykakes, one Butterscotch Krimpets, the other chocolate cupcakes. They were Tori’s contribution, which she rushed out to buy when she realized I wasn’t making a second dish for her. Chloe brought a giant bag of potato chips and a dish of brownies. She brought the chips because she and Jenna had eaten half the brownies as they beautified themselves earlier in the day.
“I can’t take just this,” she’d cried as she looked in dismay at the half-empty platter she’d arranged the brownies on.
“Is there another box of mix? Make more.” I pulled the baked beans out of the oven.
“There isn’t time!”
“Then put them on a smaller plate,” I suggested. “It’ll look like more.”
She grabbed a luncheon plate.
“Not the Wedgwood!”
She gave me a look. “Easy, Mom.” She put the Wedgwood back in the cupboard.
“There are paper plates over there.” I pointed to a cabinet.
“Paper?” Her voice dripped disdain.
Three days and already she was disparaging paper plates? “Paper,” I said firmly.
She complied. “Still too little.” She brightened. “I know!” She grabbed a bag of vinegar-and-salt chips.
So we sallied forth, food in hand, hair gilded and curled. As soon as Chloe put her food down, she ran to find Jenna. I didn’t blame her. The lane was crawling with adults she’d never seen before. I was a bit overwhelmed myself.
I took a plate and began helping myself to the glorious bounty. I wanted some of everything, so I took little dibs and dabs, filling my plate to the point I feared its collapse.
As I turned away from the feast, I saw Drew Canfield emerge from his home, dish in hand, Jenna and Chloe on his heels. In his shorts and polo shirt, he looked rugged and very unscholarly. I smiled. He didn’t look very much like a cook either, and I couldn’t help wondering what he’d made. Jenna carried a nine-by-thirteen cake pan.
“You’re drooling, Elizabeth.”
I spun at Tori’s mocking words.
“Though he is certainly handsome. A hunk.”
I shrugged. Never would I admit to my sister that I felt some sort of connection with him after our early morning experience with murder. “I’m not drooling, and the world is full of handsome men.”
“True, true.” She looked at me with that disdainful smile that made me squirm every time I saw it. It always preceded a barb.
“But sadly none of them are yours.” She shook her head in mock sorrow. “That’s what comes of trying to pretend you’re a virgin all these years.”
I tried not to flinch. The last thing I wanted was to let Tori see how her taunts hurt. “Don’t, Tori. Let’s just enjoy the night without any pettiness, okay?”
“Why, honey, I wouldn’t want to hurt you for the world, bless your heart.”
Like I didn’t know “bless your heart” was a euphemism for “don’t believe a word I’ve just said.”
She sauntered away, hips swaying, to talk with Tim and Mark. She was gorgeous in red cropped pants, her toenails, visible in her stiletto sandals, a matching red. Her white tight tee was cropped so that the gem in her bellybutton—a real diamond or a cubic zirconium? And wouldn’t the loan shark like to know?—winked when it caught the setting sun.
I had on navy slacks and a red tee neatly tucked in, a white belt, and white flat sandals, my nod to the patriotic nature of our party.
Bling and bland. That was the Keating twins. Well, at least my hair looked good tonight. Funny, I hadn’t thought it looked bad until Tori showed up all highlighted and lovely. I sighed and went to get something to drink from the coolers filled with ice and beverages.
I straightened with a Coke in my hand and found myself face to face with Drew. I gestured toward the coolers. “Quite a selection.”
He glanced at the coolers but made no move to get a beverage.
I smiled. If he didn’t want something to drink, maybe he had sought me out. Now there was a lovely thought. And where was Tori when you wanted her to notice something? “I want to thank you for being so helpful the other morning.”
He gave a little nod but didn’t smile back.
I plowed on. “It was very nice of you to check on us that afternoon too. My sister appreciated your concern.”
“Speaking of your sister—”
My smile tightened to a wince.
“Jenna tells me she arranged for the hair job.”
Uh-oh. His tone of voice made it clear he wasn’t happy with the “hair job.”
At that moment the girls came rushing over.
“Mark and Tim have invited us to come up on their roof to watch the f
ireworks.” Chloe was so excited she vibrated.
“Philadelphia has big, huge, awesome fireworks because this is where it all started,” Jenna bubbled. “Tim says.”
I glanced at Mark and Tim, sitting in a pair of padded lounge chairs in front of their house. Tori sat on the foot of Mark’s chair, talking animatedly with them. The men each held a plate and were making their way through an impressive mound of food, nodding at Tori’s remarks, pausing in their eating every so often to comment. Mark saw me watching and waved a fork at me. Tori turned, saw Drew beside me, and raised an eyebrow. I made believe I didn’t see it, though I was smugly glad she saw him beside me.
“You’re invited too, Mom.” Chloe, no dummy, picked up on my cautious reaction to the invitation from two men I didn’t know. I was sure Tim and Mark were gay and therefore not interested in Chloe in that sense, but still, I didn’t know them. And this was the city, home of mayhem and murder, one of which I’d already encountered.
“And you too, Dad.” Jenna bent for a soda, and the blond streak that began at the hairline over her left eye and flowed across and down to flip at her chin fell forward over her cheek. She straightened with a bounce, a bottle of root beer in her hand. “They have a clear sightline, and we should bring our own chairs if we want. I don’t think we have chairs, at least not here, but who cares? Everybody comes. Isn’t that cool?”
“Definitely cool,” I agreed. “A real treat!”
Drew grunted something that could have meant anything, but Jenna seemed happy with his response.
With a wave the girls raced off to the food table, where they each grabbed a pack of Butterscotch Krimpets. The prepackaged generation, passing up all the great homemade goodies for assembly-line sweets, though there was no question that such goodies didn’t get any better than Tastykakes. Chloe’s blond hair gleamed in the lights shining up and down the street. The highlighting and the new cut made her look about five years older, a fact that dragged at my heart. I didn’t want her to grow up too fast. I wanted her to enjoy being young with a relatively uncomplicated life.
