Lucky Stuff (Jane Wheel Mysteries)

by Fiffer, Sharon

  Jane took a sip of coffee. Her father had a scratch pad in front of him and was making a list. At the top, he had titled it CARL, printed in all capital blocky letters. She felt a breeze coming in through the window over the sink and stood, deciding to grab a sweater to bring with her to Evanston. Jane reminded herself that she now had one cardigan, not a closet from which to choose.

  “No, Dad, I probably won’t get it back,” said Jane. “It doesn’t matter, though,” she whispered, laying her hand on her dad’s shoulder. “It’s only stuff.”

  * * *

  A few minutes later when Jane was ready to leave for Evanston, her father was on the phone, fielding another call from a customer, answering questions about Carl and the CLOSED sign on the EZ Way Inn. Jane blew him a kiss and picked up the keys to Tim’s van. Rita was curled up under the kitchen table, and she began to disentangle herself to come with Jane, but Jane held up her hand the way Officer Mile had taught her when Rita had first wandered into Jane’s life. “Stay,” said Jane. “Stay with your buddies, Don and Nellie. I’ll be home before you know I’m gone.” Jane knelt down and gave Rita a good ear rub, then headed for the garage door.

  Jane had thrown a few essentials into her just-in-case for her trip to Evanston, but realized as she chose a pen and notebook, her cell phone, and the digital camera Tim insisted she use instead of the one in her phone so she could document what was left in the house, that she was traveling ultra-light. No extra sweaters, notebooks, earrings, scarves, books; no roll of duct tape, no bungee cords, no folded up canvas bags, or envelopes packed with clippings of wish-list objects. Her bag looked curiously squashed in the middle. Was it time for a smaller just-in-case? Just in case?

  As Jane was musing about the pared-down life and the odd feeling of lightness it bestowed upon her, she realized that one item that she carried everywhere with her as personal baggage had not been lost in the move. It occupied its own corner of the front seat of Tim’s van.

  “Mom, get out of the truck,” said Jane.

  “Number one, you shouldn’t be driving through Chicago alone,” said Nellie, scrunching her already small form into a tiny woman in the shape of a fist in the front seat. “Number two, you don’t want to go through your house for the last time by yourself. Number three, you need somebody to make sure that real estate woman isn’t out to screw you. Number four…” Nellie hesitated, looking down at the ring finger of her left hand. The only jewelry Nellie wore was a thin gold band. She pointed to it now as she finished. “Number four, I can’t be in the house all day alone with your dad. He’ll be calling people and people will be calling us and I just can’t think about Carl all day long like your dad can. He’s good at all this and I’m not.”

  That might not have been Nellie’s longest speech, but it was close. And it was certainly one of the more revealing. Carl’s death had made everyone look in some kind of a crazy funhouse mirror, but instead of delivering distortion, it made things crystal clear.

  “So my pathetic homelessness is your distraction for the day?” asked Jane.

  “Yup,” said Nellie, opening a brown paper bag on her lap. “And I brought snacks.”

  “Number one, I drive in Chicago by myself all the time. Number two,” said Jane, starting the truck, “Melinda will be there and possibly the new buyer, so I won’t be alone to collapse in a sobbing heap on the floor.” Jane continued, backing out of the driveway, “Number three, if Melinda was screwing me, she’s already done it since I’ve signed and agreed to the offer, and number four? You’re good at so many things, Mom, I think you can let Dad handle this one.”

  “And he can call me on this damn cell-phone thing whenever he has a question,” said Nellie, pulling a phone equipped with the largest keypad Jane had ever seen out of the paper bag. “I texted him we were on our way to Chicago, so let’s see how long it takes him to figure that one out.”

  Jane had forgotten that Nellie, who never liked to talk or answer personal questions, became a complete chatterbox once they were in the car driving down a highway. As long as Jane drove silently, Nellie played navigator and entertainer.

  “Look at the way that woman drives, will you. What the hell does that billboard mean anyway? That woman’s hardly got any clothes on, how’s that supposed to sell scotch whiskey? Watch out, that guy’s going to change lanes, I can tell the way he’s bobbing and weaving in his seat, see? I told you. Want a Fig Newton? I don’t give a damn what you say, this is the best cookie in a package. They never get stale, you notice that? What the hell they put in these things anyway, they never get stale?”

  “So, Mom, since we’re on the road and you need to keep me company, tell me more about Herman Mullet.”

  “What the hell is guar gum?” asked Nellie.

  “I’ll tell you if you tell me more about the whole Boing Boing episode. Lucky Miller claims not to remember anything about that time and he’s here trying to get the whole story back, so maybe you can help.”

  “Yeah, I brought that book with us,” said Nellie, pulling Belinda St. Germaine’s heavy volume out of her bottomless paper bag.

  Had Nellie taken on the role of overpacking a just-in-case?

  “Have you read any of it?” asked Jane, knowing her mother’s answer. Since Jane was a child, Nellie had railed against reading as the tool of the devil. “It’s laziness pure and simple,” Nellie would shout when she caught Jane holed up in her room, hiding out with the latest Nancy Drew mystery.

  “Yeah, I read the first chapter or so,” said Nellie. “Claptrap.”

  Jane held her hand out for another Fig Newton and made her own childhood memories promise to shut the hell up for a while.

  “They way I see it,” said Nellie, “if a memory isn’t pressed in good enough, you lose it or if something bad happened, you just don’t want to remember it. But this idea that you have to go back to where you lost it? If you can’t remember it, how do you know you’re in that right spot? Lucky Miller changed his name, which says to me that he didn’t want to be who he was as a kid. That says to me he did something bad. What happened bad while he was here? Dickie Boynton burned down his garage, ran off, and got himself drowned. Herman might want to forget that since Boing Boing was his friend, but…”

  “But Herman’s family moved away right after the fire, before he knew Dickie drowned,” said Jane, exiting the highway. “Did you ever hear any news about Herman after he moved away?”

  “Slow down,” said Nellie, sliding over in the seat.

  “Sorry,” said Jane. “We’re almost home … I mean, we’re almost at the house.”

  “No, I mean slow down on Herman and Dickie. Before we had these things,” Nellie said, holding up her cell phone, “people wrote letters and postcards and such. Maybe Herman wrote to Dickie and…” Nellie stopped. “What the hell am I saying? Two guys who hung around on the playground wouldn’t become pen pals all of a sudden. That isn’t how things worked.”

  “No,” said Jane. “But maybe Mr. or Mrs. Mullet kept in touch with somebody … or … hey wait. We keep trying to come up with stuff Lucky forgot, which is impossible because we can’t know for sure what he’s blocking. But what about the stuff he remembers? The places he’s trying to recreate like Mack’s? And didn’t he get the bowling alley all fixed up for a shoot? Seems like somebody or something from what he remembers might lead us to what he doesn’t remember.”

  “Just as good an idea as what’s in that book,” said Nellie, dropping it on the floor next to her feet.

  “Okay, we’ll save this discussion for the way back. Now it’s time to switch gears,” said Jane, pulling up to her house, looking not quite familiar with its giant FOR SALE sign, already with a large UNDER CONTRACT banner running across its face, planted firmly in the front yard.

  Nellie was opening the door before Jane could get her seat belt unfastened. Melinda stood on the porch with a giant convenience-store drink cup in her hand. Over her shoulder, Nellie cautioned Jane. “You just let me do the talking.”
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  Jane expected the walk through the house to be strange. After all, she had lived on Hartzell Street with Charley for almost twenty years, raised Nick there. In fact, she had been anxious about Nick’s reaction to this. It was one thing to tell him the good news about a quick sale, but to tell him she’d be walking through their home for the last time? She had called him yesterday, trying to reassure herself that he wasn’t just saying that he was pleased about the sale. He was such a good kid, Jane reasoned, that he just might be suppressing his own feelings about the house to make life easier for her.

  “Mom, I am so okay with this. Please. I loved the house. I loved being there with you and Dad. But now, I’ll just love being with you and Dad wherever you both are, okay? Honest. You’re the one who likes the walls and floors, Mom.” Jane could almost hear the smile in her son’s voice. “You like having a place to put things or hang things. Me, I’d rather be in a tent. Or maybe once in a while in a classroom.” Jane could hear boys yelling in the background. “I got to go. Soccer practice. I love you, Mom, and I’m happy about the house. So’s Dad. I told him last night in an e-mail and he said he’s happy we’re all moving forward.”

  Nick’s happy. Charley’s happy. And the really odd thing, the strange part about walking through the house? Jane realized she was happy.

  It was so unlike her.

  “Beatrice is meeting us here in a half hour or so if that’s okay with you,” said Melinda, staring at her phone. “I’m supposed to text her either way.”

  “Beatrice who?” asked Nellie, opening up the bottom doors of the built-in corner hutch.

  “The buyer, Mom,” said Jane. “Tell her it’s fine. Weird, but fine.”

  Jane was using the paper and masking tape that Melinda had provided to make a sign for the built-in book case in the hall. With smaller items, like books, Jane was leaving notes that said she was okay with leaving whatever remained on the shelves. Melinda was following her listing figures that Jane threw out so they could negotiate a final price for the contents. Melinda had two large cartons for smaller items Jane wanted to subtract from the contents. Jane removed eleven books from the shelf, signed first editions that she cared about. Seven of them had been gifts from Charley and four of them had been scavenged from estates, missed by the book guys and discovered by Jane. She was relieved that she hadn’t boxed them up for the movers, but surprised that there were only eleven that she wanted.

  “Take that one,” said Nellie, pointing out a hardcover on the top shelf that Nellie herself couldn’t reach.

  “No book jacket, Mom, so its value isn’t really that great,” said Jane, squinting at it to read the title. “Oh my god, you’re right,” said Jane.

  It was a gift edition of Little Women. It had come with a cover and cardboard slipcase that Jane had mislaid long ago. It wasn’t a valuable book, but when Jane opened the cover she saw the note from her grandmother. For Jane on her eighth birthday. Below it, Jane had written her name in shaky cursive.

  “How did you spot that?” asked Jane, placing the book in the box.

  Nellie shrugged. “Just thought twelve was a luckier number than eleven.”

  Jane looked at her mother, already sprinting ahead into the kitchen. She barely made it to five feet and her eyes were thirty plus years older than Jane’s. Had she spotted the title, thought of its sentimental value, or just wanted Jane to go out with a dozen books? Nellie was superstitious and had an internal divining rod for four-leaf clovers, but Jane hadn’t really seen Nellie using her powers out in the wild.

  “Hey, I forgot to tell you. Bruce called this morning while you were in the shower and I told him he could meet us here,” said Nellie, shaking her head at the sorry state of Jane’s pots and pans.

  “What?” asked Jane. “Stop calling him Bruce, Mom.”

  “It’s his name, ain’t it?” asked Nellie. “What do you call him? There is nothing in this kitchen that you want, right?”

  Jane shook her head. She had packed up all of her vintage tablecloths, her fiesta ware and Hall china, her Hazel Atlas juice glasses, her Heisy pitchers and punchbowl, and all of the other brightly colored kitchenalia that she had accumulated over the last twenty or so years and it was gone, either stuck in the back of a truck or moldering in the back of a stranger’s storage locker. The pots and pans and detritus of twenty years of failed attempts at cooking and binders filled with take-out menus could easily be left behind. Her red formica kitchen set was a good one, but did she really want it to define her new kitchen, wherever her new kitchen happened to be?

  “We can take the table and chairs,” said Nellie. “I’ll put them in the basement and Dad and I’ll keep them if you can’t use them.”

  “Do you really want them?” asked Jane.

  “Nope,” said Nellie.

  Jane was touched. Her mother was really trying to help.

  “We’ll let them go,” said Jane. “For now, anyway. We’ll put a good price on them and see what happens when we add everything together.”

  Melinda nodded at the figure thrown out by Jane.

  “Wise, dear,” said a familiar voice. “These retro kitchen sets have remained fairly desirable, but I’ll be able to find you another,” said Claire Oh, preceding her husband into the kitchen.

  Jane was always startled by Claire’s low throaty voice. It seemed to come from somewhere other than this impeccably groomed stately woman. When she described the high-end antiques and objets’ d’art that she dealt with in her business, Claire always made the items sound provocative, dangerous, like something it might be naughty to own.

  “This Capodimonte porcelain stallion? Perfect for the master bedroom,” Claire would croon and the North Shore matrons would eat it up. Jane hardly believed Claire would stoop to scavenge for a fifties dinette set.

  “Claire thought she might be of some help, Mrs. Wheel,” said Detective Oh, slightly bowing toward Nellie, who was shaking her head at Claire’s pronouncement.

  “We already got Lowry to look for more junk. We’re here to get rid of crap,” said Nellie.

  “Not that I agree with your mother’s assessment,” said Oh, “but it appears that many things have already disappeared.”

  “Disappeared is exactly what they’ve done,” said Jane, with a smile.

  Why did she feel so calm? Breathing new air? Was it the clean slate that Oh had described?

  Jane had a few large pieces of luggage that she filled with some clothes from her dresser. There really weren’t many things she wanted to take, but the clothes needed to be either packed or donated. Melinda had some large heavy trash bags Jane filled with over a dozen worn black turtlenecks. Why did she own so many? All black? If Tim were here, he would analyze her dour fashion choices as the selections of a depressed woman, who thought she was dressing boho but instead was sporting hobo. Just the fact that Jane knew that was what Tim would say made her hear his voice in her ear. Time for a new look. Time for some color. Time for …

  “Beatrice would like to meet you, Jane,” said Melinda, from the door to the bedroom.

  “I would like to meet her as well,” said Jane, turning to face the soon to be new mistress of the castle.

  Beatrice had a wide open smile to which Jane immediately responded. How can you not like someone who likes your stuff? Beatrice came forward and shook Jane’s hand.

  “I am so pleased that this is working out,” she said. Her voice was musical, with a clear bell tone. She had the slightest hint of an English accent. Jane, from her former career selecting commercial actors and actresses and voice-over talent, could detect accents, even those long tucked away in childhood.

  “I am, too, of course,” said Jane. “I’m not sure how I got so lucky.”

  Melinda shook her head slightly.

  “It’s a beautiful home and I can tell you’ve cared for it lovingly,” said Beatrice and behind her, Melinda nodded. Jane realized she wasn’t supposed to act lucky, she was supposed to act businesslike.


  “My realtor said he would try to be here, but wasn’t sure he could come over. He was shocked that you agreed I could be here while you walked through. I half think he didn’t believe you’d show up,” said Beatrice. She gestured to a large shopping bag and basket. “I stopped at the charming little purveyor on Central Street and brought a picnic lunch. I think I have enough for everyone.”

  Nellie entered the bedroom in time to hear the last statement. She hefted the trash bag filled with Jane’s castoffs to take out to the car and said she’d bring in the pie she had brought from Kankakee.

  This was turning into quite the party.

  Jane gave Beatrice the list of items she would be taking. Two antique Persian carpets, three lamps, the elegant partner desk she had purchased from the Kendall estate in Kankakee and the leather chair and ottoman from the den. Although Jane had found most of the furniture piece by treasured piece, she now looked at each item with a different eye. If she wanted to replace it all, she could do it easily, probably with better pieces now that she really knew what she was doing. Her real treasures had flown the coop, so what was left, the remains, were mostly expendable. If she did move into a loft or a condo or a barn or a houseboat, the desk and the leather chair would keep her happy.

  Beatrice had thought of everything for their picnic. She had brought paper plates and napkins and explained while laying everything out and opening containers of curried chicken salad and green beans vinaigrette and roasted vegetables and pesto pasta that she had been a transient for so long with her husband on the move for his job that she was over the moon about settling down on such a lovely block, in such a lovely neighborhood.

  Claire asked her about her plans for the house and Beatrice began explaining that she had apprenticed to a decorator in London years earlier and was anxious to try her hand at bringing the house back to a kind of authentic twenties to thirties late-Arts-and-Craft style. Jane knew Arts and Crafts was not Claire Oh’s cup of tea, but that did not stop Claire from oohing and aahing over Beatrice’s ideas, handing over her business card and offering to find her any piece she might need.