"Great," I mutter. I'm not in the mood to investigate weird noises. But as the owner of the shop, it does fall to me to do that kind of thing. I give Bailey a quick pat and push off the counter, letting her know the petting is about to cease. I move my leg out of the way just as she brushes against it. If my leg had stayed put, she'd be bumping me off balance again.
"I'll check it out." I sigh as I step around Bailey, trying not to get tangled up when she stands up and begins walking the same direction I intend to go. You would think after two years either she or I would get used to the idea and not continue to run into each other. But I have a sneaking suspicion I have her being underfoot to look forward to for the next decade.
On the plus side, Sven being here means maybe I can corral him into checking out what could’ve caused the loud noise with me. If I'm lucky somebody threw something over the fence from the roadway behind the shop and it will be a simple matter of throwing out a tire or something to that effect. But I can't imagine my luck will be that good.
Sven's door is shut when I get there and I give three quick raps, our code letting him know it's me at the door.
"What?" Sven bellows.
I open the door a crack and Bailey pushes the door even farther open below me. I widen the space so she can walk in and go plop down at the small bed set out for her in the corner of Sven's workshop. When I do a quick scan, everything in his workshop seems in place, not that I will know if anything is missing, but if a shelf fell over, I assume that would be something even I would notice.
"A few things." The older man looks up at me, the goggles he's wearing making his eyes appear large and somehow emphasizing the frustrated expression on his face at being interrupted. "Welcome back. I hope you had a nice vacation, trip, or whatever it was. First, we had a break-in last week while you were gone. Let me know if anything is missing, so I can have it added to the police report. The door was still locked so I assume no one got in here but you can never be too careful, as they left a Geyser’s Volume Eight in the stockroom."
That gets Sven's full attention. He pulls the goggles onto his forehead and frowns at me with an arched eyebrow. "Someone broke in to leave something? A very valuable something?"
"It appears so. The other thing I wanted to ask about was the loud bang Reggie is so nervous about ..." The rest of the sentence hangs in the air as I hope Sven will finish it with additional information.
The older dwarf rolls his eyes and scoffs. "Nobody died, nothing burned up, or was destroyed so it's probably nothing."
Not the most reassuring of answers since lots of things can go wrong outside of those categories.
"Have you been outside to see if there's anything in the back of the shop?" I try to keep the frustration from my voice.
The old dwarf smokes a pipe from time to time when he has an exceptionally frustrating item to fix. He says it makes his brain work better.
"I did, probably about an hour ago I went out for a smoke and before you ask there was nothing outback that was worrisome. At least nothing big enough I could see from the back of the building."
That's something I suppose. That means either something happened in the storage room, where all the valuable objects are, or something happened out on the main road. I feel guilty to be this hopeful that there was a car accident.
Leaving the door open a crack, I step away and head farther down the hallway and hear Sven make a grumpy noise. Pushing the door open to the bathroom I see, even with the light off, everything is in place, thankfully that crosses off plumbing issues.
I make my way to the last door, my storage room. Taking a hesitant breath, I type in the code, put in my key and open the heavy door. As it swings inward, I curse.
"Hey, Sven?" I call loud enough the older dwarf hears me but no one in the shop will.
There are sounds of protest inside his office. A few moments later, he makes his way out to the hallway, his shorter legs eating up the floor between us. As he comes to stand next to me, I flick the light on in the back room.
"What the hell happened here?" He stares at the room in front of us.
"I don’t know, but I assume it has something to do with the loud thud."
The storage room isn't well organized. There are wire shelves along all four walls and space in the middle for taller items. Currently, there is a pile of random objects toward the opposite corner of the room from the door. It looks like several books, a few charm pouches, and a smattering of other objects.
A clanking starts on one shelf as if an item is shaking and a distant noise similar to when a train passes by grows louder. As my eyes find what's making the noise dread forms a pit in my stomach. The compact stolen from the auction flips open and the lower lid expands several times larger than the top and a wind whips across the room. Before my brain registers what that means, the compact is coughing up an object that goes flying through the air and then clatters to the floor.
"Is that the sword of Dwarphania?" Awe plain in Sven's voice.
"Yup."
"How on Earth did you get that boy?"
"Not by any fault of my own."
I pull out my phone and dial Blake's number. My friend answers after several rings. "Jas, we're still interrogating the thieves from the auction, so unless this is urgent, I need to talk to you later."
I ignore the exacerbation I hear in my friend's voice. "So ... I appear to have found the missing items from the auction. Or at least what I think are the missing items from the auction."
Blake is silent for several beats. "I know I'm going to regret this, but how?"
"It appears the compact has made its way to the shop and is regurgitating items."
Silence again. "I'm sorry, it has been a really long day. Did you say regurgitating items? How did it even get there?"
I shrug though my friend can't see me. "I haven't the foggiest idea. Reggie says there was a loud bang a while ago so I'm checking the back rooms and Sven seems fine, the bathroom seems fine, when I open the storage room there are items scattered across the floor. As Sven and I are standing here, we watch the compact open, spit out the sort of Dwarphania, and close again." Cautiously, I walk over to the pile of items on the floor. Without knowing if any of them are dangerous I don't want to touch any of them.
"Dammit."
"What, Jas, are you okay?"
"Yeah, I just got close enough to see that three of the four books on the floor are copies of Geyser's Volume Eight.
This time when Blake responds, he's laughing. He does so longer than I consider polite. "That's the best news I've heard all day. Lock the room. I'll wrap up here and come over myself and go through the items the compact regurgitated. Maybe you'll have everything of Billy's. But I warn you if you do, he's going to be extremely pissed at you. I'll call Violetta on my way over. Maybe she can track the magic of how the compact ended up at the store. Don't touch anything until I get there." The last was said with a sigh.
"You ruined my plan; licking everything on the floor felt like the best way to handle this scenario."
Blake doesn't do more than grunt before hanging up the phone.
"Well, this is an interesting development," says Sven from where he still stands in the doorway. "It's definitely an unorthodox way to collect antiques for the shop."
I frown and make my way toward him, bringing the door with me so I can shut it as I pass. "You're hilarious."
"I certainly think so. You think they'll let you keep those things?"
"No," I say as I relock the door. "At least some of those items were taken from Billy's auction. I can't imagine he'd be okay with them staying here."
Sven gives a low whistle. "Billy's items? Good luck with that, boy." He gives me a slap on the arm as he turns and heads back to his office. A moment later Bailey trots out and the door closes behind her.
"Yeah, good luck indeed."
Bailey and I stare at each other for several moments before I sigh heavily and head back toward the front of the store so I can tell
Reggie the bang wasn't any kind of disaster, at least not one he has to worry about.
About the Author
Gretchen spawned in the Puget Sound region. After some wandering she returned there and now lives with her husband and the daintiest Rottweiler on the planet. When not drowning herself in coffee, as is custom in the Greater Seattle Area, Gretchen can be found at her day job or sitting at her desk in the home office, flailing her arms as she dictates to her computer.
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Antique Absconding Arsonist Page 6
