The Longest Yard Sale

by Sherry Harris

  Last spring, not long after I’d met him, a magazine had named Seth “Massachusetts’s Most Eligible Bachelor.” He usually dated models, which made me wonder why he’d be interested in me. Two weeks ago, we’d argued when Seth asked me to go to some hoity-toity soirée at his family’s compound on Nantucket. I’d refused. He’d called me stubborn. Which I was, but that wasn’t the point.

  The last I’d seen or heard of him was in an article in the Boston Globe. He’d been pictured at the event with a super-thin Victoria’s Secret model. She glowed on his arm, dressed in a gown that probably cost more than I’d spent on clothes in the past five years. Seth looked a little stiff in the picture, or maybe it was my wishful thinking.

  “Open up, Sarah,” Seth yelled through the door. “You won’t even eat a pizza with me now?”

  I didn’t want him to cause a scene—not that he would—but that was my excuse for opening the door and letting him in.

  “Where should I put this?” he asked, raising the pizza box. I pointed to the right, toward the kitchen. Seth paused, looking around the apartment. I looked around, too. The old oriental rug glowed against the painted, white-wooden floors, a claw-and-ball-foot table sat next to my grandmother’s rocker. The down-stuffed couch was comfy. Paintings, one by Carol and the rest treasured finds, warmed the walls.

  “I like it,” Seth said. “It looks like you. Full of personality.”

  “Thanks.” I followed him into the kitchen. He put the pizza box and wine on the table. He turned, pulling me into his arms and giving me a kiss so incredible that I felt like a lone ice cube under the Saharan sun. He broke the kiss and stared into my eyes, the ones without any eye shadow or mascara. Personally, without makeup I thought my eyelids looked like fish eyelids, if fish had eyelids. It was not the way I wanted Massachusetts’s most eligible, Victoria’s-Secret-model-dating bachelor to see me.

  Seth pulled out a chair for me. I hesitated.

  “I can leave you the pizza and wine if that’s what you want. But that kiss didn’t seem to say that’s what you wanted.”

  What was that song? Something about lips don’t lie? Stupid lips. I sat in the chair and realized the song was about hips, not lips—not that it really mattered. I gestured for Seth to sit. Instead of sitting across from me, he moved the other chair next to mine and took my hand as he sat down.

  “No one can see us here,” he said. “We’ve spent the past six months meeting at hole-in-the-wall restaurants in towns that feel like they’re farther away from Ellington than the northern tip of Maine. Are you ashamed to be seen with me?”

  “No. That’s ridiculous.” No one would be ashamed to be seen with Seth. He looked like he could be a model—high cheekbones, wavy, dark hair with some silver woven in, broad, thick shoulders. The only thing keeping him from actually being a model was his nose, which was a bit broad, not aquiline—and that made him all the more sexy because he looked like a real man, not some photo-shopped, starved version of a human male.

  “You date models. Not regular women who look like this.” I air-circled around my face.

  “I see a beautiful, vibrant woman who eats actual food instead of surviving on liquids and carrots. One who doesn’t pretend to like pizza and the Red Sox because I do. One who isn’t interested in me because of my last name.” He kissed me again. “You’re still afraid that CJ will find out you’re seeing me, that someone will spot me sneaking out of your apartment at dawn.” He grinned, but I could see his feelings were hurt.

  “You’ll be leaving after we’re done eating. Not sneaking out at dawn.” I got up and grabbed a corkscrew. “I’ve told CJ we need to see other people. But I haven’t told him who I am seeing. It’s none of his business.” I didn’t want to hurt CJ, and he would be hurt if he found out I was dating Seth. “It’s awkward that you two have to work together.” Seth was the district attorney of Middlesex County, and since CJ was Ellington’s chief of police, they worked cases together on the rare occasion when a crime of significance occurred in Ellington.

  “I agree. I don’t like it.”

  I opened the bottle of Merlot and poured us both a glass.

  “A woman with the strength to open a bottle of wine.” Seth sighed and batted his eyelashes at me. “You’re amazing.”

  “Oh, stop,” I said as I handed him his glass and sat back down.

  “CJ’s a good guy, but I’m better for you.”

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye.

  Seth leaned forward in his chair. “I wouldn’t have let you slip away in the first place.”

  “Oh.” His statement bounced around in me like a ball in a pinball machine, touching this emotion and that until it settled in a spot so tender, so hurt that I’d kept it locked away for months so I didn’t have to feel anything.

  I leaped up. “We need plates.” The door on the cupboard stuck, as it tended to do. I yanked, and it opened with a screech. After setting the plates on the table, I sat back down.

  Seth opened the pizza box and stared. “I ordered a meat lovers. There’s no meat on this pizza.”

  The pizza was a bianca (white) pizza with tomatoes and garlic. My favorite. CJ knew that. “Did you mention me while you were at DiNapoli’s?” I asked.

  “No, but while I waited to order I looked to see if your light was on and your car was home.”

  “Angelo and Rosalie know this is my favorite pizza. So either they’re psychic or you were really obvious.”

  “I’m a skilled trial attorney. There’s nothing obvious about me.” He grinned.

  I grinned back at him. We both knew he stood out in any crowd. Seth put slices of pizza on our plates, muttering something about any decent pizza needing meat.

  After my third piece, I pushed back from the table, glad for my yoga pants but embarrassed when I realized I still wasn’t wearing a bra. “Excuse me.” I hurried into my bedroom and threw on a bra and a Red Sox T-shirt. While a pair of jeans would have looked better, the thought of fastening anything over my full belly dismayed me. Yoga pants it was.

  “I liked the other outfit better,” Seth said when I returned.

  “Why’d you come here tonight?” I asked.

  “I saw that you made a statement about the murder this morning. I wanted to make sure you were okay. Are you?”

  I gritted my teeth and tried to shut out the picture of the victim sprawled on the floor. “I’m fine.” I pushed my chair back and refilled our wineglasses. “Do they have any suspects?” Maybe since CJ had yet to return my calls, Seth would know something.

  Now Seth was the one to look down. “They’re looking at a lot of angles.” He grabbed another piece of pizza and bit into it—a sure sign he knew something he didn’t want to tell me. I thought about what it could be as I sipped my wine. “Is it Carol?” I asked. A hint of color going up Mr. Trial Lawyer’s not obvious face told me I was right. “How can she be a suspect? She didn’t know the guy.”

  “I can’t talk about it.”

  For once, I decided to let it go. Maybe if I kept up some casual chatter, something would slip out.

  An hour later, we stood at my door after Seth had cleverly dodged all my attempts to talk about the murder. He’d never even mentioned the victim’s name. Darn him and his skilled trial lawyer ways. Seth kissed me, garlic breath and all, at the door after trying to convince me he should stay. The jury was still out on that one. We’d slept together exactly once, the first night we’d met, and I’d put the brakes on that whole issue. It surprised me that he still came around.

  “Out,” I said, pushing gently on his chest until he stood outside my apartment.

  He snagged my wrist and kissed it, right where my pulse beat madly. I almost reconsidered but found some last bit of willpower and closed the door.

  A couple of minutes later, I heard another knock on my door. I frowned. If it was Seth coming back for another try, the only piece of me he was going to get was my mind. If it was CJ, he would have seen Seth leaving. I eased open the door
, debating which scenario was worse. Carol stood there. My first thought was, What has gone wrong now? We’d already covered burglary and homicide. Arson, vehicular manslaughter, mail fraud?

  “Are you going to let me in?” Carol asked.

  “Of course.” I felt more than a little guilty for having such thoughts and chalked it up to being tired. Carol had put up with me ending up on her doorstep a number of times when CJ and I were divorcing. I even called her store Paint and Whine because I’d been over there so much grousing about my life. She’d been my cheerleader and confidant. I needed to do whatever I could for her.

  “Who was that guy I saw leaving your building?” Carol asked.

  I hadn’t told her anything about Seth. I shrugged. “Maybe someone Stella’s seeing.” Another thing to feel guilty about. Carol was my “tell everything to” friend. As the words came out of my mouth, I realized the air still smelled of Seth’s delicious aftershave. And—worse—in the kitchen, the two chairs were pulled close together, and two wineglasses were on the table next to the pizza box with only one piece of pizza left. Carol knew I loved pizza, but she also knew I couldn’t eat a large DiNapoli’s on my own.

  Carol pursed her lips as she took in the scene in the kitchen. “Can I have a glass of wine? It looks like there’s a little left in the bottle.”

  If Carol wasn’t going to question me about who had been here, something must be really wrong. I scooted into the kitchen, poured her a glass, and was back in a flash. Carol sat on the couch with her head leaned back and her eyes closed.

  “What’s going on?” I asked. I put the glass of wine on the vintage trunk I used as a coffee table. Carol didn’t even reach for it, but she did finally open her eyes. This time I noticed they were red and puffy from crying. Maybe she’d found out she was a suspect in the murder. I picked up the wineglass and handed it to her.

  She took a sip. “After I left you this morning, I told Brad about the body. And then the missing painting.”

  “How’d he take all of that?”

  “After he got done yelling?”

  “It probably scared him.” I refrained from adding that it could have been her dead on the floor.

  “Brad’s furious with me.”

  “Why?” I was stunned. Brad usually indulged Carol’s every whim.

  Tears rolled down Carol’s cheeks. She sat up and grabbed the wine but didn’t drink any. “Because I copied Battled.”

  “He knows you’ve copied famous paintings before.”

  “I’ve copied a few paintings for family and friends. But I usually sell originals only to people I don’t know.” Her tears increased. “And I’ve never been paid this much for a painting, original or copy.”

  “How much are you being paid?” I wondered if she’d answer since she’d been so evasive about it the first time we talked when the painting disappeared.

  “If I get the fee and the bonus, nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety-nine dollars.”

  I sucked in a breath. I’d worked part-time for a financial planning company a long time ago. I knew that amount was one dollar under what triggered alarm bells with banks and the government. And from the look on Carol’s face, she knew it, too.

  “Brad pointed out that was five times more than I’d ever made for a painting,” Carol said after a couple of minutes and a couple of sips of her wine.

  “That’s a lot of money. Not that I don’t think you’re worth it.”

  “They raised my rent, and I thought I’d be further along by my third year than I am. The shop hasn’t made as much money as fast as I thought it would when I wrote the business plan and convinced Brad it was a good idea.”

  “So the infusion of cash seemed like a good idea.”

  “It still is,” Carol said.

  “Someone must have seen the painting and wanted it—maybe one of your customers or one of the tourists who were here over the weekend. Have you reviewed your security tapes?”

  “The cops took them. It’s not that sophisticated a system. I only have one camera, and it points into the front of the shop. My studio and the back door aren’t covered. I didn’t think a bunch of paints were that valuable. And no one goes back there but me, Olivia, and occasionally you or Brad.”

  “The police will probably check any cameras near the store to see if they caught anything,” I said.

  “That’ll take time. And it’s Ellington. It’s not like the town is plastered with security cameras. On top of that the state police showed up and interviewed me too.”

  I thought for a moment. What could I do to help her? Seeing Carol cry hurt my heart. “Maybe we can figure out who took the painting. And get it back.”

  “You’d do that for me?”

  “Of course. We’ll start with your client list.”

  “You think it’s one of my clients?”

  “It’s a possibility. We’ll start with people who came in on Saturday. We can question the ones who aren’t familiar to us.”

  “When can we start?” Carol asked.

  “When they let you reopen.”

  “Did you hear any more about Terry McQueen? Who he is or why he was in my store? Assuming we have the name right,” Carol said. “What did CJ say?”

  “CJ hasn’t called me back,” I said. “I found out a Terry McQueen worked on base.”

  “I wonder if he knew Brad,” Carol said it more to herself than me.

  “I’m not sure where he worked.” But that was something for me to find out. “Laura told me that Terry and Bubbles had started a financial planning company together, and some people weren’t very happy about that.”

  “Who is Bubbles?”

  “Dave Jackson. An old friend of mine. Do you know him? He’s in the air force, too. Do you have any money invested with him?”

  “I don’t know him. All our extra money is invested in the shop right now.” Carol shook her head. “I’d better get home.” Carol hugged me as she left. At least she’d quit crying, and her shoulders weren’t slumped as she trotted down the steps. She didn’t seem to know she might be a suspect in the murder. Maybe that was for the best. I realized I’d do whatever it took to clear her name.

  CHAPTER 8

  I washed the wineglasses and plates and put them away. I wrapped up the last piece of pizza in aluminum foil and stuck it in the fridge. After tossing the pizza box in the recycling bin, I set the chairs back at opposite sides of the table. Carol had been so worried about her problems that she hadn’t grilled me about Seth. It was only 8:30, but it felt much later. As I cleaned, I thought about my promise to help question Carol’s clients whom neither of us knew. What had I been thinking? There were probably lots of people on the list. Knocking on their doors and asking them if they’d swiped a painting didn’t seem practical.

  Another knock on my door interrupted my thought process. I usually didn’t have more than one person stop by my apartment in a given week, and that person was usually Stella. Maybe Carol had decided to come back and grill me about Seth, after all. I opened the door to one very tired-looking CJ. I hoped the apartment didn’t still smell like Seth.

  CJ trudged by me and over to the couch. He flopped onto it, making no attempt to kiss me in the process. I was grateful since only an hour ago I’d been kissing Seth. I may need to rethink trying to date more than one guy at a time. I’d done it in high school, but the older, wiser me understood the consequences, especially when one of the guys was CJ, although we weren’t really dating. I blew out a huge breath.

  “What was that for?” CJ asked.

  Trust him to notice the breath. “I guess I’m surprised to see you.”

  “You left me multiple messages. I thought you might have information for me.”

  “Carol’s a suspect,” I said.

  CJ narrowed his eyes. “How do you know that? Have you been talking to one of my guys? The ones who all promised they wouldn’t discuss this case even with their own families?”

  Rats. I couldn’t very well tell him Seth had been
over. And sadly, his reaction confirmed my fears. “You know your guys don’t like me, so why would they talk to me?”

  “Then how?”

  “I was over at DiNapoli’s.” I had a pizza box in the recycling bin that would corroborate my story. “It’s just the gossip in town. Toss the newcomer under the bus.” Even though Carol’s business had been open three years, in an area where people traced their families to the Mayflower if not the Vikings, Carol was a newcomer. Just as I was.

  “You sounded more certain. You made a statement instead of asking a question.”

  And that is why CJ was such a good cop. Sometimes I wondered if he was wasting his talents being a chief of police instead of a detective. “I was married to you, a cop, for twenty years. There was a dead body in Carol’s store. I assumed she was a suspect. I guess I was hoping you’d deny it. And don’t give me any of that ‘I can’t confirm or deny’ crap.”

  CJ managed a grin.

  I continued, “Beyond the fact the dead guy was in her store, I bet her fingerprints are all over that frame because she bought it at Ellington’s yard sale.”

  “Hanging around with cops might lead you to think you know more about investigating than you do.”

  “I never said I knew anything about investigating.”

  “It also might lead you to conclusions that may or may not be true.”

  “There’s a piece of pizza left if you want it.” Feeding CJ a piece of Seth’s pizza seemed awkward, but he looked like he could use some food.

  “Only one?”

  Arrgh. “Carol was over.” Another verifiable statement as long as the subject of pizza didn’t come up. I suspected that, if it did, Carol would cover for me and then grill me about what was going on.

  I went into the kitchen and heated the pizza in the microwave. I rustled up a salad. CJ wasn’t a big fan of salad, but he needed more to eat than one piece of pizza. “Do you want a Sam Adams Summer Brew?” I asked. I had one six-pack left. Octoberfest was the seasonal beer, but I liked the Summer Brew better.