by Traci DePree
Phillip had mentioned that he had yet to purchase display racks, glass cases for smaller items, and a cash register. Hopefully they would arrive soon, since he hoped to have his grand opening within a week or two.
A couple of men from a moving company were bringing in items from the large truck parked in front. The license plate read Texas.
“I’ve been waiting for this stuff to arrive from San Antonio,” he explained, a look of eager anticipation on his face.
“Are these the racks and cases you mentioned?” Kate asked.
“Afraid not,” he said. “It’s just some inventory the manager of my store in San Antonio sent. No, those things are on back order from the manufacturer.”
Kate nodded. “So, what would you like me to do?”
Phillip jumped down from the truck and wiped his hands on his jeans, then reached to grab a box off the back of the truck.
“Come on in.” He motioned for her to follow.
“The floors turned out really nice,” Kate said, looking at the newly refinished dark hardwood.
“Aren’t they?”
“Can I help bring stuff in?” She stepped aside as he moved past her with a boxful of vintage hats in his arm.
“Nope,” he said. “I have something else in mind for you.”
He led her to a pile of goods at the back of the store—picnic baskets and tin serving trays, boxes of Depression glassware, and old magazines. There was no sense of order to the items.
“If you could start figuring out how to display this stuff,” he began, “I think if we create little rooms within the larger space throughout the store, that will help us organize our goods so shoppers can see all the great stuff we have and help them to visualize how they could utilize it in their own homes. Put the kitchen stuff in one area next to the kitchen tables, that kind of thing...”
Kate nodded and was soon at work, sorting and rearranging. It was a monumental task, and she could see why he’d asked for her help. Beyond the pile Phillip had pointed at was another and another.
Once he had finished unloading the truck, he joined her. Near the front of the store, they set up the dining-room section, with lovely tables and chairs, china dinnerware and teacups, silver place settings, and tablecloths that Kate ironed and displayed on a walnut quilt rack. When noon arrived, at least that section of the store looked as if it was ready for company to arrive.
They stood back to admire their handiwork.
“This went so much faster with you here,” Phillip admitted. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“That’s what friends are for,” Kate said. “Should we get going on the rest?”
Phillip waved a hand of dismissal. “You’ve done enough for today.” Then he motioned for her to wait and disappeared into the back, returning after a few minutes with several newspaper clippings in his hands.
“I saw these in the paper and thought you could come along.”
He laid the cutout articles in front of Kate on an antique oak kitchen table. Kate read the announcement for an estate auction. “This auction is up by Maple Hollow.” He pointed to the first clipping. “It’s tomorrow...and there’s a huge flea market in June,” he added with a mischievous grin.
“I’ll come, but I can’t guarantee how good I’ll be at bidding.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Phillip assured her. “I’ll teach you the ropes. You’ll be better than me at wheeling and dealing in no time.”
Kate paper-clipped the articles into the day planner she kept in her large handbag and wrote the events on her calendar as well.
“Also,” he went on, “I was thinking about that transom window over the door.” He pointed to the plain clear-glass window that was tilted open to let out the day’s rising heat. “Would you be willing to make a stained-glass piece for it?”
Kate studied it for a long moment. Of course she could make a stained-glass window for it. She turned to study Phillip and realized there was something deeper at work here.
“Wouldn’t any of Ginny’s windows work instead?” she probed.
Phillip’s eyes clouded as he stroked his chin. He sighed and shook his head. “It’s all in the basement downstairs, in storage, Kate. I thought maybe I could sell some of them, but I can’t even bring myself to go through them.”
His voice cracked, and he turned away from her. A knot formed in Kate’s throat, and she touched his shoulder, but he moved toward the door.
“I shouldn’t have brought it up,” she apologized.
“It’s okay,” Phillip mumbled as he walked away.
Kate’s cell phone buzzed in her purse. She dug for it and hit the Talk button.
“Hello,” she said. It was Eli.
“Hey, Kate. Jennifer McCarthy from the Chronicle is here. She heard about the mannequin and was wondering if you and Paul could come by for an interview.”
“Um,” Kate hesitated, glancing toward the office, where Phillip had retreated.
Kate wanted to talk with him, yet she sensed that he needed his space.
“I’ll be over in a few minutes,” she told Eli.
JENNIFER MCCARTHY was a pretty young woman with a nose for news. She was the primary reporter for the Copper Mill Chronicle and a fixture in town, keeping track of all the comings and goings. If there was a city council meeting or a sporting event, Jennifer was there with her insightful questions and her long-lensed camera.
Notebook in hand and camera slung around her neck, she peered at the mannequin that still lay on Eli’s back-room table. Jennifer was silent, though her mouth was open in unabashed awe, excitement sparking from her clear eyes as she snapped photo after photo.
Paul hadn’t answered his phone when Kate had called to see if he could join them, and Millie, his secretary, must’ve already left for her afternoon job in Pine Ridge. She’d known he had a counseling session scheduled for that afternoon, though she hadn’t known the exact time, and he likely hadn’t wanted to interrupt it by taking a call.
“Good afternoon,” Kate said to Eli, who barely met her gaze when she came inside. She wondered what was up, but with Jennifer there, she didn’t ask. “Is Mr. Hanlon joining us too?” Jennifer asked. “I had some questions for him about all of this.” She pointed to the mannequin. “What he knows about its history, that kind of thing.”
“I couldn’t reach him,” Kate said. “I think he’s busy this afternoon.”
“Oh, that’s too bad.” Her brow furrowed. “Do you know much about the history of Hanlon’s Boutique?” she asked Kate.
“Only a little,” Kate confessed.
Jennifer scribbled in her notebook. She lifted the camera to snap another shot, then bent close, using the magnifying glass that Eli had left out.
“Can we put the dress back on so I can get some shots of the dummy as she was found?”
“Sure,” Eli said, quickly moving to comply.
After a good ten minutes of picture taking and note making, Jennifer turned to Kate.
“Do you think it would be okay if I called Paul later and asked him a few questions?” she smiled, then looked down at her notes.
“Of course,” Kate said.
“I saw in the city council minutes that your friend Phillip Loving got a business permit to open a new antiques store.” Kate nodded, and Jennifer went on. “This community needs a fresh boost of excitement; a store like his is just the ticket. Do you think Mr. Loving would mind if I did a human-interest piece on him?”
“You’ll have to ask him, though I don’t see why not.” Kate smiled.
“I heard you’re working for him?”
Feeling suddenly awkward, Kate said, “No. I’m just helping him as a friend, to help get started.”
She saw Eli’s brow furrow at the admission, and his eyes turn away from her. Jennifer seemed oblivious.
“Let’s talk about the cache of money that was found inside the mannequin.” Jennifer turned to Eli.
“Well...we discovered that Sunday night,” Eli said, cleari
ng his throat, “at the Hanlons’.”
Kate wished she could talk with Eli in private, but she’d have to wait. Eli showed the reporter the latches hidden in each section of the mannequin and how they opened. Then he stood back, chewing on his lower lip.
“What about the mannequin itself?” She glanced at Eli. “Any idea how much she’s worth?”
“Probably around a thousand,” Eli said with a glance at Kate before adding, “I looked it up.”
“Did you count the money that was in there?” Jennifer went on, this time turning to Kate.
Kate nodded. “Yes.”
“How much was it?” Her pen was poised over the pad of paper.
“All the bills were collectible notes from the 1890s to the 1930s,” Eli cut in.
“How much are they worth now?” Jennifer asked.
“Until we hear back from the sheriff, we won’t be able to get an estimate on exactly how much,” he said, his voice terse.
“Sheriff?” Jennifer asked as she jotted something down.
“We wanted to be certain everything was on the up and up, so we called him to make sure,” Kate clarified. “He’s having the lab run a few tests on the bills.”
“So the mannequin belonged to Hanlon’s Boutique?” This question was directed to Kate.
“It was found on Weston’s land, south of town...”
“But,” Eli jumped in, “as I told you on the phone, it has an inscription from Hanlon’s Boutique on the right foot.” He pointed out the engraving.
“And Hanlon’s Boutique was...?” Jennifer lifted her face to Kate.
“A clothing store that belonged to Paul’s grandfather back in the twenties and thirties,” Kate clarified.
“What was his name? Paul’s grandfather?” Jennifer pushed her long, dark hair behind her ears.
“Horace Hanlon,” Kate said.
“So you think the money was from his business?” Jennifer raised her eyebrows and scratched her forehead with the pencil.
“We don’t know,” Kate confessed.
“How did the dummy end up being in a copper mine and not in a family member’s basement? Or lost to some auction?”
“We’ve been asking ourselves that since Eli found it,” Kate replied.
“So,” Jennifer went on, her reporter’s instincts obviously on full alert, “you said earlier that you don’t know much about Hanlon’s Boutique, but can you tell me what you do know?”
“Paul would be able to help you more than I can.” Kate hedged. This wasn’t her story to tell.
“Do you know anything about Horace Hanlon?” Jennifer leaned forward, her gaze intent, her tone challenging.
“Well...,” Kate said, “from what Paul’s told me, he was a good man, personable and generous, had a lot of friends, so going into a retail business suited him.” Kate glanced at Eli, who was frowning. “I also vaguely recall some family pictures of him in front of the boutique.”
“Do you think we could get copies for ‘Peek at the Past’?” Jennifer asked. Peek at the Past was a weekly column in the Copper Mill Chronicle that featured articles from years gone by. Sometimes it would feature an old story about a hunter getting caught in a storm, other weeks, a story of kids smoking cigars under the trestle bridge outside of town in the 1940s.
“I can look around,” Kate said.
“We’d just scan it, and you can have the copy right back,” Jennifer assured her, looking over her notebook. “So why did the store close?”
“The business was hit hard by the Depression, when fewer and fewer people were buying ready-made clothes.” Kate repeated what Paul had said. She paused while Jennifer scribbled furiously.
Jennifer tapped her pencil on the notepad. “Do you think the cash in the mannequin was simply Paul’s grandfather’s way of squirreling away money? Like a big piggy bank?”
“I’m not sure,” Kate admitted.
“It seems awfully suspicious, doesn’t it?” Jennifer tucked the pencil behind her ear and looked squarely at Kate. She pointed to the mannequin. “I mean, if he had this kind of cash lying around, why close the store? Unless it was some kind of retirement fund...” She paused to write something down.
Kate had no answer to the question, though she had already considered the theory.
“What happened there?” Jennifer said, pointing to the hole on the mannequin’s arm where the bullet had been extracted by Zachary Boelter.
Kate hesitated, then Eli said, “We hired a ballistics expert to look at something.”
“A ballistics expert? You mean there was a bullet in there?” Her voice rose in obvious excitement.
Eli nodded.
“What did the expert say?”
“Just that the bullet was from a Colt .380,” Eli answered.
“So was Paul’s grandfather involved in illegal activities?” Jennifer said.
Kate sucked in her breath. “There’s no proof of that—” she began, only to be cut off by Jennifer.
“Maybe the mannequin was used for something unsavory...” She let the implication linger in the air like smoke on a windless day.
Kate shook her head, but she didn’t know how to respond.
KATE WAITED FOR ELI to say something once Jennifer had left. She’d felt the tension between them since she’d first mentioned helping Phillip at the store, and it was eating at her.
“I should have told you that I was helping Phillip,” Kate began.
“It’s none of my business who you work for,” Eli said with a shrug.
“I’m not working for him,” Kate said. Eli merely shrugged. “It wasn’t my intent to hurt you, Eli.”
Eli pursed his lips as if biting back a retort.
“I hope Phillip does well,” Eli said, his tone again terse as he lifted the mannequin and carried it to the front window, wending his way through the maze of antiques with Kate following. He lifted the mannequin into place, red-fringed dress and all, and positioned it so visitors would get a good view through the front window.
“Are you worried that a new store will eat into your business?” Kate guessed, recalling his statement about the mannequin bringing in business and ready to offer Phillip’s theory of how another store could bring in more business.
But Eli turned, and the expression on his face said she’d hit the nail square on the head.
“You heard Jennifer. Copper Mill needs excitement.” The biting sarcasm in his tone was unmistakable as he adjusted the mannequin in place next to the door and added, “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He marched to the back, disappearing into the room they’d just come from.
Kate’s heart sank as she headed for the door.
Surely there was room for two antique stores in Copper Mill. She hadn’t meant to hurt Eli; she’d only meant to help Phillip.
THE MAPLE HOLLOW estate auction took place outside a run-down Victorian house. Auction goers arrived early to peruse the tables stacked with a lifetime of possessions to be sold to the highest bidder. In every room were handmade quilts, jewelry, pictures, knickknacks of all kinds, clothing, and dishes. The yard held furniture—beds, chairs, threadbare couches, oak tables, and nightstands.
Kate and Phillip had arrived early to look over the selections and scope out which items were of particular interest for the store. Phillip was mostly interested in the bedroom furniture and kitchen accoutrements.
They both compiled lists of potential items to bid on, and their target price, above which their bidding would cease. Phillip was inspecting the items outside while Kate took on the smaller things inside. In the car ride over, Phillip had given Kate a book that detailed the value of different items, and she referred to it as she gazed at the boxes of goods in the cramped kitchen. She examined a marble rolling pin, some metal serving trays with white magnolias painted on their tops, a ceramic sink that was still in excellent condition, and white Ironstone plates and serving dishes that, given the whispering of the others in the kitchen, would be hot items when put up for bid.
Finally the bidding began, and she joined Phillip on the front lawn. He looked over her list and said, “Looks like you have a handle on this already.”
“We haven’t gotten anything yet,” Kate reminded him.
“Can I have your attention please?” the auctioneer, a rail-thin man with sunken cheeks and too-big eyes said into a megaphone.
Excitement was in the air as bidders jockeyed around each other to see what was to come on the auction block. Kate and Phillip moved into place so they could see. The competition would be fierce, given the large crowd that had shown up for the event. Kate held her clipboard in front of her and jotted notes.
Phillip was soon immersed in the tension of the auction. There was something about the intrigue of these relics from the past that seemed to bring out the boy in him—even now Kate could see a glint in his eyes at the prospect of a few bargains.
The auctioneer held up a beautiful hand-stitched quilt and began the bidding at five dollars. Those gathered around acted nonchalant, and Phillip said, “Don’t be fooled. Folks do that so you won’t think they’re too interested in a piece and drive the price up. But they want it as badly as you do.”
Kate watched the interplay of bidders, each vying to win yet acting coy, turning away from the auctioneer at times or picking at their fingernails.
The bidding on that particular item ended, and the female assistant brought up a box of old Life magazines. The bid started at one dollar. Phillip put up his hand, and the auctioneer acknowledged him by pointing a finger in his direction.
Kate glanced around the assembly. There were more than two hundred people gathered, she guessed, most in grubby clothes—bargain hunters looking for a deal or antique dealers like Phillip. She glanced down at her own outfit, a green voile tunic top and black slacks, and felt overdressed.
When Kate’s gaze moved to the far side of the semicir-cle, her eyes met the intent stare of a man she didn’t recognize. She glanced behind her to see if he might be looking at someone else, but there was no one.
When she looked back toward the man, she saw him limping away. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized it was the man Phillip had seen at the Bristol.
She turned to tell Phillip, but he was still bidding on the magazines, so she pushed through the crowd, trying to see where the man had gone. The surge of bodies pressed against her, and an elderly woman gave her a disgusted look. Kate searched the faces to try to spot him, but he was nowhere to be seen.
