The woman’s eyes widened. “Are you sure?”
“Ninety percent. I have a friend who’s an appraiser. She can give you more information.” I started to look up the number.
“Why didn’t you pay me the ten and take them?”
I didn’t want to tell her it was because her house looked rundown or the three little kids clinging to her worn clothes made me feel guilty. “Half the fun of going to garage sales and flea markets is trying to find something for nothing. But I have to live with myself,” I said. I found my friend’s phone number and wrote it down.
“Thank you,” she said as I left. “You’re my hero.”
I cringed. There was that word again.
* * *
I drove over to the Spencers’ house. I tried telling myself it was to put the finishing touches on the garage sale. But I knew why I was really going. It was to find evidence to support my theory Mr. Spencer had faked his service, and that my brother had somehow found out and had confronted him. It explained why Luke’s DNA had been present at their house. But most of all, I believed someone was threatening to expose Mr. Spencer and blackmailing him. Probably his killer.
I went straight to Mr. Spencer’s office and started poking around in the old metal file cabinet. Whatever I found, I’d take straight to CJ. He dealt in facts and laws. I’d gone to him in the past with suppositions. This time, I’d go with evidence. First, I looked for military records, but I didn’t find any. Suspicious, but not damning. There were a lot of things already packed away in the stack of boxes in the corner. I flipped through a few tax records. Mr. Spencer had been getting disability pay from his time in the service for years. I stared at the page. The disability pay in and of itself wasn’t cause for alarm. Even CJ had a certain part of his retirement pay classified as disability, and therefore, taxed differently. But it meant either I was completely wrong and Mr. Spencer had served, which actually would be a good thing. Or, at some point Mr. Spencer had stolen someone’s identity and had been using it for years.
I opened another file drawer. A lot of the tabs on these folders referred to California. There was a base in Los Angeles aptly named Los Angeles Air Force Base or, as those stationed there affectionately called it, Hollywood Air Force Base. It was known to have a more relaxed atmosphere than operational bases, the ones with jets and missiles. I pulled a folder with a handwritten label that said Tropical Tragedy. It held a script written by a Velma Cooper. What the heck? Was that Velma Spencer?
I read the first few lines, then grabbed my phone and Googled the title. A few references to a low-budget comedy set in Vietnam came up. I found another file with photos from the set. That’s why the foliage looked arranged in the picture I’d shown Charlie. It was a movie set, and it also explained why the uniforms didn’t look right.
Maybe that’s how the Spencers had met. Mr. Spencer had been cast in the movie based on Mrs. Spencer’s screenplay. There was one photo that was very similar to the one on the wall. Only this photo had a fourth man in it, Ethan.
“What are you doing in here?”
I whipped around to find a very angry Tim Spencer staring at me.
Chapter 29
“Geez, Tim, you scared me,” I said, as my mind sorted through and discarded stories to tell him.
Tim frowned. “What are you doing in here?” He didn’t sound any happier this time.
“I was looking for your father’s military records for you. You’ll need them for his obituary and the funeral.”
Tim’s face relaxed.
“I haven’t found them yet. They must be packed in one of those boxes.” I nodded toward the stack against the wall.
“I’m sorry. There’s so many things to think about I can barely keep it all straight.”
I edged toward the door. Tim must not have heard the scuttlebutt about Luke or he wouldn’t be this friendly. “Since CJ was military, I know about these things. How’s your mom?”
“She opened her eyes this morning. Just for a minute or two, but her doctor said it was great progress. I wish she’d heal so she could tell us who did this.”
“So do I, Tim.” Because then my brother would be off the hook.
“I came by to get her a clean robe and gown. Some underthings.” He sounded about as enthused as a person facing their last meal.
“Do you want me to pack a few things for her?”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“I’d be happy to. I’ll grab a brush for her, too.” I scurried down the hall to the master bedroom. I found an old-fashioned rectangular-shaped overnight case, the kind with a mirror in the inside lid and a tray with little divided sections, in the closet. As I gathered things for Mrs. Spencer, I also looked through drawers, lifting stacks of clothes to see if anything was hidden underneath. But I came up empty.
A few minutes later, I found Tim sitting in the living room, holding the figurine Mrs. Spencer said looked like him. He set it on the table when I came in and looked up. Tears covered his face. It yanked at my suspicious mind. He might have been in trouble in the past, but I’d seen nothing but a loving son since he’d arrived. And how could I judge him so harshly when my own brother had problems too?
“What can I do?” I asked him. I sat on a chair across from him.
He pulled a handkerchief out of his jeans pocket. It was the old-fashioned cloth kind. He wiped his face with it. More tears rolled down his face as he looked at it. “This was my dad’s.” His fingers trembled, as did his voice. “He was my rock. The only person in my life who always had my back. I don’t know what I’ll do without him.” Tim cried quietly.
I didn’t want to say anything trite, like it’ll be okay or you’ll be fine. I certainly didn’t want to blurt out that his father had lied about his service at a time like this. I shifted on my chair.
“I’ve done some stupid things in the past. Screwed up more than once.” Tim took a deep, shuddery breath. “He helped out financially, but it wasn’t only that. It was showing up when I was at rehab, making sure my family was okay. He knew how to handle Mom. What am I going to do?”
I didn’t think Tim expected me to answer. I’m not sure he even remembered I was there. We sat quietly for a few minutes as Tim pulled himself together.
“Thanks for listening.”
“I wish there was something I could do.”
Tim nodded. “Look, Sarah, I don’t think I can go through with selling my mom’s things without her go-ahead.”
“I understand completely. It’s been weighing on my mind too.”
“I’ll need the key back then.”
Oh no. “How about I find your dad’s military paperwork for you and I can drop it and the key off to you at the hospital?”
“It’s very generous of you. But no thanks.”
Rats. “I’ll grab my purse from the office then.” Did Tim know his dad hadn’t really served?
Tim nodded. I hurried down the hall, snapped a quick picture of the script with my phone, and shoved the photo with Ethan in my purse. On the front porch, I handed Tim the key to the house.
“How much do I owe you for the work this week and for the work you did on Saturday?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” I wanted to get out of there because it felt like the photo in my purse was a big, throbbing tell-tale heart right out of an Edgar Allan Poe story. I waved as I drove off. Tim stood on the porch staring after me.
* * *
I went home and made a salad for lunch. I chopped away on carrots and tomatoes, and ripped pieces of lettuce to tiny bits. I realized I was sad and yet angry at Mr. Spencer. He’d lied to me about his service and defrauded the government. I surfed the Web while I ate, trying to find out more about Tropical Tragedy. But there really wasn’t anything. Maybe it had never actually been made. If the little bit I’d read of the script was an indicator of its quality, the project might have been filmed and shelved.
I was frustrated that Tim had wanted his key back. It meant I’d lost acce
ss to any more information. What had caused Tim to change his mind? Although, finding me in his dad’s office might have been reason enough.
After washing my dishes, I took the photo I’d swiped out of my purse. Yes, that was definitely a young version of Ethan. I snapped a quick picture of it with my phone. People had assumed Ethan was a Vietnam vet, but Ethan would never accept any help available to veterans. Maybe because he wasn’t one and felt guilty when people assumed he was.
Even scarier, maybe he’d known Mr. Spencer wasn’t a veteran either. Ethan could be the blackmailer. They obviously went way back. He’d been buying military memorabilia at the sales we’d both attended. I hadn’t seen anything like that when I searched his backpack. He might have been passing it off to Mr. Spencer to shore up his story about being a vet. I thought about Mr. Spencer telling me stories about his time in Vietnam. He always made it sound like some big adventure and I bought it believing it was his way of coping with the situation.
I thought about Herb and many of the other veterans I knew. They were stoic. Filming a story about Vietnam probably was a big adventure. I got up and paced my living room. It was a lot of speculation but my heart started to pound. How dare they?
It all seemed perfectly plausible to me but I needed more to get CJ to look at someone other than Luke. There’d been money on the garage floor and money in Ethan’s backpack. Hopefully, there would be serial numbers or something connecting those two piles of money. I needed to ask CJ ASAP.
I barreled out, but saw the door to the empty apartment next to mine open. I hurried over, entered, and heard voices coming from the bedroom.
“This looks perfect,” a woman said.
I couldn’t tell how old she was from her voice, but at least she sounded normal.
“Great,” Stella said. “I left the lease in the kitchen. Let’s go sign it.”
They turned the corner into the living room where I stood. The woman was tall, thin, and casually dressed and stunningly beautiful in a natural, no-makeup way.
“Hi,” Stella said. “I’m glad you could stop by, Sarah. You can meet your new neighbor.” She turned to the woman beside her. “This is—”
“I know who she is,” the woman said. “Sarah Winston.”
My face grew warm. I hope she didn’t start in on the hero thing.
“She always finds dead people. No way I’m renting a place next to her.” The woman hustled out without a backward glance.
I stared at her back, mouth open. I glanced at Stella and she was doing the same.
Stella put her hands on her hips.
“I’m sorry, Stella.”
“That’s a first.”
“Maybe, from now on, I shouldn’t meet the potential renters.”
Stella burst out laughing. “I had no idea you were so notorious.”
“From hero to zero.”
“She was a little too perfect anyway.”
“We can’t have anyone showing us up.” I managed a smile. I was an idiot thinking the woman had been about to call me a hero. Maybe I needed a good dose of reality before I became one of those obnoxious people who believed what they read about themselves in the press.
“How did dinner with the family and Awesome go?”
Stella sighed. “It was going along swimmingly. I warned Nathan not to say anything about baseball. As we were leaving, Aunt Gennie turned the game on. Nathan glanced back as the Yankees made a bases-loaded home run to win the game.”
“What happened?” I asked, trying to suppress a grin because I had a good guess.
“He cheered.”
“What did you do?”
“Grabbed his arm and made a run for it.”
“And?”
“And I’ve been ignoring all their phone calls and texts.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“So how are you doing?” Stella asked.
“I got fired from one job and am almost finished with your Aunt Gennie’s sale,” I said. “But there are plenty of other projects lined up.”
“Who fired you?”
“Tim Spencer. Actually, selling things while his mom was in a coma didn’t feel quite right to me anyway.”
“But?”
“There’s no but.”
Stella looked at me.
“Okay, there’s a but. I can’t share it right now.”
Stella nodded. “Okay, then. I’m going to go put the ad for the apartment back up.”
I loved Stella. She always knew when to push and when to back off.
Chapter 30
I drove through Dunkin’ at two and bought two coffees and then added a couple dozen donuts to my order. I was going to stop at the police station. Even though the whole cops and donuts thing was some kind of myth, I knew these cops, at this station, loved their donuts from Dunkin’.
Pellner was in the parking lot when I arrived. He relieved me of the donuts and took me in the back way so I didn’t have to sit in the lobby and wait to be buzzed in. A few minutes later, I sat across from CJ waiting for him to finish a call. When he hung up, he came around his desk and pulled me into a big hug, kicking the door closed with his foot. He turned me and backed me up against the door, kissing me the whole time. I reached up to pull him closer when the phone on his desk rang. He broke off the kiss. “Sorry.”
He sat back down and took the call. While he talked, I looked at the framed photographs on the wall next to CJ. A lot of them were of CJ and his dad deep-sea fishing in Florida. The first shot had been taken when he was around two. The last one I hadn’t seen before. It must have been taken while we were separated. CJ had hauled in a big fish. He looked happy. His dad grinned and pointed at the fish. In others, he posed with Air Force buddies or town officials. I’m sure the ones with the town officials had been hung for political reasons and not because he really wanted to see them.
CJ hung up again, but this time he stayed put in his chair. “I’m sorry I didn’t show up for dinner last night.”
“What happened?” Maybe he knew something about Luke and was avoiding telling me.
“Seth Anderson called and gave me a list of things to follow up on.”
“Oh.” Seth had given CJ a to-do list and then had dinner with me? Had he planned it somehow? Couldn’t have. He wouldn’t have known CJ and I’d planned to have dinner last night or that we would eat at DiNapoli’s. “What kind of things?” I asked.
“The kind of things a chief of police has to do when the DA asks him.”
“Thank you for the flowers and candles. It meant a lot to me that you took the time to do that, especially when you’re so busy.”
“You’re welcome. I hope it wasn’t too awkward sitting there alone.”
If I didn’t tell him, he’d hear it from someone anyway. “I wasn’t alone. Seth happened to be there and ate with me.”
CJ’s lips formed a grim line as he took that in. Time to change the subject.
“There were these four men sitting right behind me. I think they’re from out of town. Have you seen them around town?” I gave him a brief description of what they looked like.
“The turkey hunters? They were at karaoke the other night?”
Trust CJ to have noticed them. “Yes. How did you know they were hunters?”
“They stopped by the station to make sure they had the right permits. Why?”
“I don’t know. Something about them bugs me.”
“They seem fine. If they were up to something, they wouldn’t be coming to the police station or hanging at public places.”
“Or it’s the perfect cover.”
“Sarah—”
“Have you checked out the Spencers’ neighbor? He’s been gone since Saturday morning.”
CJ shook his head slowly.
“You haven’t heard anything?” I asked. Maybe this was the break Luke needed.
“I have heard something. Not that it’s any of your business.” He leaned back in his chair. “His brother died unexpectedly and he left on
short notice for Ohio.”
“Did he tell you? Maybe he was lying.”
“Why are you poking around? Do I tell you how to run a garage sale?”
He’d tried to when I’d started my virtual garage sale, but I wouldn’t bring that up right now. “No.”
“Don’t you trust me to do my job?”
I cringed a little. “I’m sorry. It’s my brother we’re talking about.” I paused. “Any word on Luke?”
“Nothing on where he is,” CJ said.
“But there’s something else?”
CJ steepled his fingers together. “We have his military records. His record isn’t good.”
“He had an honorable discharge, didn’t he?”
“Yes, but barely. There were fights and argue-ments with superiors.”
“Maybe he wasn’t cut out to be a Marine.”
“We also found arrest records over the years.”
“Recent ones?”
“No.”
“What was he arrested for?” I was getting mad, but tried to tamp it down. This was CJ’s job.
“Vagrancy. Drunk in public.”
“So nothing serious or violent.” I paused. “Why are you suddenly sharing information with me?”
“There’s a pattern of problems. I know you love him, but I want you to be prepared. All the evidence points to Luke.”
It’s what Seth had said too. “Luke has a good side.” I told CJ about Luke’s Purple Heart. “Luke tracked down people who faked serving in the military.” I told him how to find the link to the article.
CJ read it and then leaned back in his chair. “That’s interesting.”
“But wait, there’s more,” I said, imitating the television commercial. Then I started in with my theories about Mr. Spencer not being a vet and his possible connection to Ethan. I pulled out the picture and gave it to him.
CJ studied it. “How did you get this?”
Oh bother. I hadn’t thought it through. “I was working at the Spencers’ house. Remember, Tim had asked me to go through the house and find more things to sell.”
“And you found this picture with things to sell?”
A Good Day to Buy Page 17
