Mudflaps and Murder

by Tegan Maher

  Anna Mae frowned. “Why would she be with Jackson, though? She despised him.”

  I flicked on the blinker to turn into the diner, then pulled in to park lengthways along the fence so I wasn’t hogging spots or blocking the entrance with the trailer. “Women have done goofier things, I suppose. Or maybe she had an ulterior motive. From everything I’ve heard and from what I gathered from my one run-in with him, he was pretty high on himself. Maybe she thought she could get more flies with honey than vinegar.”

  “You mean, she got back together with him to get her truck back?”

  “Maybe,” I replied, unbuckling my seatbelt and shoving the door open. I waited for her to climb out and come around to my side. “It’s not like it would be a new trick. Plus, from what Alyse said, he was arguin’ with Andy in the Pigs parking lot. Maybe she figured she could get back in on his good side and get her truck and Andy’s money back.”

  The wind shifted, and the luscious smells of bacon and fried food wafted to us, making my mouth water.

  Anna Mae opened her mouth to say something, but turned green, covered her mouth, and made a mad dash back toward the truck. She barely made it to the bushes behind it before she bent double, tossing her cookies.

  I rushed to her. “Are you okay?” I asked, scooping her platinum hair from her face and holding it back while she heaved. I squeezed my eyes shut and did my level best to wrangle with my own gag reflex. I could handle just about anything except that. I was a sympathetic yakker. If you were sick, nine times out of ten, I’d join you if I couldn’t escape. This time, though, it wasn’t so bad since her stomach was mostly empty except for coffee. I became increasingly worried as she continued to dry-heave, her hands on her knees.

  Finally, after a minute or so, she pushed herself back to a standing position and pulled a tissue from her purse. “Wow,” she said, wiping her eyes then her mouth with a shaking hand. “Sorry about that. I guess I’ve had too much caffeine.”

  I blinked a couple times. Anna Mae was like me; there was no such thing as too much caffeine. “How much have you had?”

  She gave me a sheepish look. “A whole pot. I woke up at four and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I decided to clean up some where we’ve been remodeling the kitchen.”

  Examining her closely, I was happy to see that the green hue was gone, replaced by a healthy flush. “You okay now?”

  “Yeah,” she said, her voice no longer wobbling. “Fine. And starving.”

  “Let’s go, then,” I said, drawing my brows down at her. “And no caffeine for you. Sprite, or maybe just water.”

  “Trust me,” she said, holding up a hand, “no worries there. Just the thought of it turns my stomach.”

  “Yeah, mine too,” I muttered, pushing the visual of her being sick to the back of my mind. Fresh biscuits with gravy and mixed-berry jelly called, and I was up for the challenge.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  After a blessedly uneventful breakfast, we were back on the road and at the auction house in plenty of time to check out what all they had before the auction started. I found an awesome box of miscellaneous items and about hyperventilated from excitement when I found five antique blue-glass doorknobs buried at the bottom of a beat-up cardboard box and covered by old hinges, a couple junk picture frames, costume jewelry, and a variety of grungy yet colorful and interesting cabinet knobs and light pulls that I also suspected might be worth something. If nothing else, they were pretty and would look awesome on something. I had no idea how all that had ended up in a junk box, but I was already counting it as my potential score of the day, assuming somebody else didn’t find it and realize what was in it. For the most part, though, people tended to pass the boxes over because three-quarters of the time, they were just filled with junk. This was exactly why I loved auctions.

  Since the top layer had been a tangled mess of extension cords and old rope that would add an extra layer of disinterest to the contents, I tucked them back in and walked away, trying not to smile. It wouldn’t due to give away how happy I was by what was in that particular box.

  I stopped and rummaged through a few more, hoping to score twice in one day, and found a box of old saw blades that Kenny Sharp, one of Skeeter’s part-time appliance repair guys, would find useful. He was an artist and loved to sand them down and paint pictures on them, and he usually turned the round ones into clocks. If it went for cheap, I’d grab it for him.

  Those were the only boxes that held anything of real interest, so I joined Anna Mae. She loved the costume jewelry, and it was one of the biggest sellers at her shop.

  “I’m gonna see if they’ll sell it as a lot,” she said as we gazed at a case than held a variety of fifty or so necklaces, bracelets, brooches, and drop earrings. “I won’t be able to sell a few of the ones that are just beads, probably, but most of them are cool.”

  I looked at them closer. I wasn’t generally a beader, but sometimes they added a nice touch, especially to lampshades. “I’ll take the ones you don’t want.”

  She gave a sharp nod and then flagged down an older gentleman who was arranging jewelry in another case. Anna Mae could bargain with the best of them, so I left her to it and went to rummage through a collection of old furniture stuffed in a back corner. Those were the places where I found my best deals. Since I was looking for beat-up items, it was rare that I had any competition for stands with broken legs, doors with dings or broken windows, or smaller things like old milk buckets and wine bottles. That was good, though, because the cheaper I found them, the more profit I made when I breathed new life into them.

  My phone dinged with an incoming email, and I paused to check it. Since I sold a good portion of my work via my website, email was the primary way potential clients contacted me. Sure enough, it was from a woman looking for a bed. Unlike most people, though, she was providing the material. Her dad, who had been a champion calf roper, had just passed. She was selling his farm because she had one of her own but wanted to know if I could make a king-sized headboard and footboard from the barn doors. She’d attached pictures. Since I’d have to take a closer look, then figure how long it would take me and what materials I’d need to get the wood back in shape, I replied that I’d give her a call later in the day, then stuck my phone back in my pocket.

  Finally, they called time and the auction started. We’d just taken our seats when Addy popped in beside me. “Did you see that box of old signs stuffed in the corner back there?”

  I glanced in the direction she was pointing and shook my head. I couldn’t reply to her, obviously, because people who talked to thin air were considered crazy in most circles.

  “Bid on it,” she said. “I’m betting it goes for nothing, and there are at least ten signs at the bottom of it. Some kid was pilfering through it before his mama realized he’d wandered off, but as far as I saw, nobody else paid it any mind.”

  Nodding, I turned to Anna Mae. People wouldn’t think I was strange at all for talking to her, so I asked if she’d seen the box with the hinges. I didn’t want anybody to know I’d found doorknobs, because some of those were worth a mint. Anna Mae nodded, though she realized I was talking to Addy. It killed me that I couldn’t talk directly to her, so we’d devised this method of communication. Addy’d always loved auctions and junk shops, so she usually popped in when we were out shopping.

  She floated around so she was behind Anna Mae where I could see her and nodded, her whole form shimmering with excitement. “I did, then I blinked out and asked Raeann to look those doorknobs up on her phone. They’re worth like a hundred bucks each. More if you find the right buyer.”

  By the time the boxes came up for auction nearly two hours later, most of the big stuff was gone and people were starting to trickle out. Most folks came for the bigger antiques and had very little interest in odds-and-ends stuff. Anna Mae elbowed me while trying to maintain a bored expression. “There’s that box of junk you looked at.”

  There was a little old lady sitting a couple seats d
own from her who tilted her head a little bit to the side so that she could hear our exchange.

  “Yeah,” I replied with a long-suffering sigh. But all that’s in it are a bunch of old hinges. I suppose I’ll grab them just to have handy in case a stall door needs fixin’, as long as it doesn’t go for more than a few bucks.”

  I’d been watching my potential competitor out of the corner of my eye. Two years of experience doing this had taught me that old folks were the ones to watch out for. People often discounted them, but they’d lived through a lot and had seen items they’d once considered standard household stuff shoot to the moon in value. In short, watch out for wily little old ladies. I was happy when she let out a disappointed breath.

  When the box of saw blades came up, she put in a couple half-hearted bids but gave up at ten bucks. She gathered her bag and her umbrella and left before the other one even came up for auction, and I ended up getting the whole thing for seven dollars and sixty cents. It was officially my deal of the day.

  Anna Mae’d made out okay, too. So well, in fact, that between the two of us, we’d filled up the horse trailer. She sighed.

  “Should we call the guys and see if they’d be able to bring one of Matt’s work trailers to pick up anything we might find at the second sale, or should we just skip it?”

  I considered for a minute. “Do you need more stuff right now?”

  “Not really,” she said. “Plus, that one’s a two-day estate sale, not an auction.”

  “Oh, then let’s go home. All the good stuff probably sold yesterday.”

  We gathered our stuff, then went to supervise the loading. That was another thing I liked about this particular auction house—they had a crew that would help load. Some placed didn’t, and that made for a back-breaking day even when I used magic to lighten the load.

  We loaded all the big stuff first, and I tilted my head as I was tucking the box of knobs into the back corner of the trailer. A leather braided bullwhip lay curled on top of the extension cords. I picked it up and examined it, surprised by how good a shape it was in. I was positive it hadn’t been in the box when I’d sorted through it, but then I remembered the email.

  Of course. By this point, I was semi-used to items using me to find their actual owners. So far, three items had attached themselves to me until the person they were meant for came along. Since the woman who’d emailed me about making the bed from barn doors had said her dad owned a farm and had been a calf roper, it seemed logical that he’d owned a whip at some point. I tucked it back in the box, smiling. I’d be sure to show it to her when she came to bring me the doors.

  I was happy that—for once—I’d figured it out before it had just started popping up in random places, reminding me that it was there and that I needed to find where it was supposed to be.

  Smiling to myself, I climbed in the truck, a sense of accomplishment settling over me. Maybe I was getting the hang of at least one of my strange new gifts.

  It took us almost two hours to unload everything, because her stuff went directly to her shop, whereas mine could just go to the shed at my place until I needed to take them to the shop. It was a snap unloading a door or a bunch of baubles by myself because I could use my magic to lighten the load, but Anna Mae didn’t have that advantage. Even though she was strong for her size, she couldn’t load a solid oak chifforobe by herself.

  “Phew,” she said, handing Matt and me bottles of water when the last dresser was unloaded. Hunter had helped right up to four, which was when Evie got off work at the hospital.

  “I’m beat,” I said. “I was up late baking, and getting up at five was brutal. I think I’m gonna go home and take a nap before girls’ night.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Anna Mae replied. “I almost forgot about that. I’m tired, too.”

  I grinned at her. “You better not. We’ve been skipping them way too often. Besides, you beat me three games of pool in a row. You owe me a shot at redemption.”

  “Ha!” she exclaimed. “Owe you the chance to take another schoolin’ is more like it.”

  She was probably right, but I refused to admit it. She and Matt had turned her formal dining room into an entertainment room, complete with a pool table, and they played a lot. She was practically a shark. In fact, she’d won more than one bucket of beer when somebody’d complained that we were hogging the tables. One time, just on a lark, she told them that if they could beat her, they could have the table. That was, after all, how it worked.

  The guy’d gotten cocky and thrown a bucket of beer into the mix for fun. Ten minutes later, after she’d run the table before he’d even gotten a shot, we were drinking free beer and racking the balls up. To be fair, though, we only played one more game just on principle before we’d turned it over to them. It had been hilarious watching little bitty Anna Mae beat the pants off the guy, some baby-faced kid barely old enough to drink.

  “You can put your money where your mouth is,” I said, still smiling. “Nobody wins every game. I’ll get you eventually.”

  She huffed a breath out through her nose and raised her brows. “It’s cute you think that. I’ll take mercy on you and play for dollars rather than twenties.”

  Matt grinned and wrapped his arms around her from behind. “That’s one of the reasons I love you. You don’t take advantage of people less skilled than you.”

  I fake-scratched my nose, giving him a totally un-ladylike gesture. “That’s what I have to say to your schoolyard sarcasm, there, big guy.”

  He rolled his eyes. “And that’s what I love about you. Your utter disregard for the flawless raising Addy no-doubt gave you.”

  At the mention of her name, Addy popped in. “Don’t drag me into this,” she said, her silvery eyes glimmering with humor. “I raised her not to take any crap, and from what I’ve overheard, you’re talkin’ an awful lot of it for a guy who’s never crossed sticks with her.”

  She had a point. I was better at pool than most people, but, unlike Anna Mae, I rarely ran the table without missing a single shot. And that’s all she needed—that one turn.

  Matt wobbled his head left to right and gave a little hum, debating. “Maybe, but I’d be willing to bet a bucket of beer.”

  “Too bad, sunshine. We call it girls’ night for a reason. Besides, one of you two cleanin’ my clock is about all I can take in one night.” I winked to let him know I was kidding.

  “That’s fine,” he said. “Me and Hunter are going out the Earl’s, anyway. He’s off, and his boat needs a tune-up.”

  That was man-speak for We’re gonna sit out in the shed by the boat and drink beer and watch football, which was fine with me. I was glad the three of them were gonna hang out. Earl worked his butt off, but hardly ever took a night to just do nothing.

  Plus, anything else would be hypocritical. We were, after all, going out for a night of beer, wings, pool, and darts. The guys deserved their fun, too.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The next morning, I slapped snooze for as long as I could, then rolled out of bed, tore through my morning necessities, and yanked my hair into a messy top knot. Without turning on the lights, I pulled on jeans and whatever tee-shirt I grabbed from my dark closet and tore down the steps. It was Gabi’s morning to feed, so at least I didn’t have to go through that.

  “How was girls’ night?” Hunter was sitting at his usual spot at the table, scrolling through his social media feeds.

  “Good,” I said, yawning and blinking to clear the sleep from my eyes. Two late nights followed by two early mornings were almost beyond endurance. “As usual, Anna Mae kicked all our butts at pool, and the wings were fantastic. I miss our regular nights out. It seems like everybody’s kind of doing their own thing, but we all agreed that we need to make a concentrated effort to get together once a week. Oh, and Olivia showed up.”

  Hunter raised a brow as he pressed a to-go cup of coffee into my hand. “Since nobody called me, I assume you didn’t kill her.”

  I gave him my best ea
rly-morning attempt at a grin as I slipped on my sneakers and dug through the bowl on the entryway table for my keys. “Not that I’m confessing to, anyway. If it so happens that somebody reports her missing, assume she’s visiting her great-aunt Meg in Seattle.”

  “Great,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I happen to pick the only woman in Keyhole with homicidal tendencies and the nerve to date a cop.”

  “That’s not true,” Cheri Lynn said, fading in, “though to be fair, she’s entirely harmless to the rest of the population. It’s just Olivia who should be worried.” She cast Hunter a sassy look. “And is it really homicide if that person pushes you to do it? I mean, we can all agree that I did the world a favor by killin’ Hank, right?”

  “She has a point,” I said, grabbing my jacket from the peg, and he laughed.

  “How you’ve managed to get me to see that there are times when homicide is the best solution for a problem is beyond me, but I can’t disagree in this instance.”

  I smirked at him, but he pointed a finger at me. “But don’t kill Olivia. She’s a nuisance, not a threat to society as we know it.”

  “No,” Cheri Lynn said to me under her breath. “She may be a crime against humanity, but if brains were gun powder, she wouldn’t have enough to blow her nose. The only real threat with her is rolling your eyes to death.”

  Hunter bent down and gave me a quick kiss. “Don’t you have work to do? And Cheri, where’s Rupert? I’m sure he needs some company. Noelle scares me in the morning. She’s not rational, and frankly, I’m a little worried that if Olivia walked out in front of her, she wouldn’t stop.”

  “You say that like the time of day makes a difference in that scenario,” I replied as I bolted out the door.

  His laughter followed me all the way to my truck. “It should! If you do it in broad daylight in front of witnesses, I’d have no choice but to arrest you.”

  Smiling, I climbed in the truck and headed to work.