Murder by the Spoonful: An Antique Hunters Mystery (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Sassy was nipping at her heels; breakfast was late. Anne stumbled out of bed, fed her and then sank into her favorite chair. She switched on
Meet the Press
, her favorite show. She pulled the tarnished silver spoon out of her purse and held it in her hand. She got up, walked to the sink and pulled out a soft cloth. She might as well clean the spoon while catching up on her Sunday morning news shows.

She admired the ornate scrollwork on the spoon handle. It reflected a more elegant and genteel time. As she scrubbed, she noticed an interesting mark on the back of the spoon. She couldn’t quite make it out. This would require a trip to CC’s house, but first––the pants. She went into her closet where the pants were dangling from a silk hanger. Taking them off the hanger, she held them for a moment, admiring the craftsmanship. Then, she slid them on, reveling in the feel of the silky material against her legs.

She then went to grab her car keys. It seemed like her keys always had legs; they were never where they should be. She moved the stack of
National Geographics
from the 1950s, but they weren’t under them. She inspected the stack of silk scarves she kept in a woven Longaberger basket, but they weren’t there. After ten minutes of searching the usual hiding places, she opened the front door to go see if she’d left them in the car, and that’s when she found them dangling from the keyhole.

Driving as fast as she could, she raced to CC’s house in her Mercury Mystique.

Wearing a large straw gardening hat, CC was in her backyard, weeding her vegetable garden. Along with tomatoes, cucumbers and lettuce, CC grew peppers––not just ordinary peppers––but jalapeno, ghost peppers and, her new favorite, Carolina Reaper peppers. Tasty but extremely hot. The hotter the better for CC. She took the hottest of the peppers along with assorted herbs and spices from her garden and made her own seasonings. CC looked up, startled when she heard a
hello
coming from over the large wooden fence. Bandit barked excitedly. “Quiet, down, Bandit; it’s just Anne. You know Annie.”

Bandit apologized by rubbing his head against Anne’s leg. Anne ran her hands through the dog’s soft fur. 

“Hi, Anne, I wasn’t expecting you.” CC pulled off her gardening gloves and put her trowel on the patio table.

“I was so excited about what I found, I had to show you! I had to run over right away to use your computer,” Anne spat out breathlessly, flopping herself into one of CC’s lawn chairs.

“What did you find? I don’t recall you talking about shopping today.” CC looked her friend over. “I see you’re wearing
the pants
.”

Anne stood up and did a quick turn. “Pretty good fit, don’t you think?”

“Yes, they do fit,” CC said. She was not a fan of loud and bright colors, but such colors constituted Anne’s wardrobe.

“It’s like they were made for me. Anyway. . .” Anne pulled the spoon out of her large orange Prada bag. She had wrapped it very carefully in a white cotton handkerchief. She handed it to CC. “Look at the mark on the back. In all my years of collecting spoons, I’ve never seen a mark like that before!”

“Interesting.” CC turned the spoon over in her hand. “Looks like the letter
P
.”

“Can we use your computer and look it up?”

“Sure.” They walked into the house and sat in front of CC’s 23-inch iMac. Opening the search engine, CC typed
silver marks
into the search field. Immediately, images of silver marks came up. Anne leaned closer over CC’s shoulder to see the results.

CC scrolled through the long list of images and compared them to the one on the back of the spoon, which she was still holding. “I’m not seeing it. Nothing looks like the mark on this spoon.”

“Me neither.” Anne released a large sigh. “I don’t even know where to start looking from here.”

“I don’t either,” said CC. “Maybe at the auction house when they have their free appraisals?”

“I don’t want to sell it!” Anne grabbed the spoon back from CC.

CC stood up from the computer. “I’ll make us some tea and we can figure out where to go from here.”

CC’s house was in direct contrast to Anne’s cluttered bungalow. It was neat, organized and efficient, as was CC–– thanks to her German upbringing. She came back to the living room with a Rogers’ silver service that she’d picked up at an estate sale, a bargain for only $25. Anne took a sugar cube from the bowl with the silver tongs, thought about it and then took two more. CC watched with a disapproving eye. She was not a fan of excess of any kind.

“So, we know what the spoon isn’t. Now we have to figure out what it is. That should narrow it down a little. The problem is getting a clearer view of the mark.”

“I wonder if I could use my microscope at work,” Anne said.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Usually Anne wasn’t very excited to go to work but on Monday she was early for the first time in many years. She couldn’t examine the spoon first thing because there was actual work to do. Throughout the day, she kept looking at her purse, the spoon calling out to her. She just had to make it to lunch and then she could start her investigation. When the clock ticked noon, she ran to her purse. The rest of the chemists and lab technicians were either at lunch or in the cafeteria. Anne stayed behind. Placing the spoon under the microscope she could zoom in on the mark. However, the mark was too worn to even make out under the microscope.

She sent CC a quick text to tell her she couldn’t make out the mark. CC was on deadline and probably wouldn’t be checking her phone regularly. Perhaps she could find the answer in a book. Anne stopped on her way home at her favorite used bookstore. She still liked the weight and feel of paper versus the cold click of a computer keyboard. For someone who’d worked in technology all day, she rarely used it after hours. She hated the inhumanity of it. Besides, she loved walking up and down the aisles. 

By the time she got home, Sassy was furious. It was an hour and half past dinnertime. This was unacceptable. Sassy relayed her feelings to Anne by not doing her usual purr and wrap around her ankles. Sassy would teach her a lesson.

“Sorry, Sass, I know I’m running a little late.” Dropping her bagful of books, Anne bent down to pet the Persian who was oblivious until the can opener sounded. Then all that was wrong was right.

Anne made herself a turkey wrap and grabbed a diet ginger ale. Before settling into her favorite chair by the fireplace, she stopped to admire the stained glass fire screen she’d picked up on one of her excursions. It was difficult for her to hold her attention on the glass when so many things were calling to her from around the room. Strengthening her resolve, she opened one of her new old books. She had a lot of research to do. At 9:03 p.m., her phone rang. It was CC. She’d finally received Anne’s text and was anxious to hear more about the spoon.

“I stopped at Secondhand Books, and bought every book I could on silversmithing,” Anne said.

“Why didn’t you just go to the library?”

“I can’t use my library card. I owe them money.” Anne paused. “Oh, I forgot to tell you what happened when we were at the Highland Park sale.”

“Is it about the pants?” CC asked.

“No, though those pants are fantastic.” Anne paused again. “I overheard a conversation between Mr. Ripley and some man named Banning about Tim Whitmore’s nephew being upset about a spoon.”

“Do you think they’re talking about your spoon?”

“There were several silver settings for sale there––in much better condition than mine. I can’t imagine he would be upset about an old tarnished teaspoon that doesn’t even belong to a set.”

“Are you going to contact Mr. Ripley?”

“No, it’s mine now. I paid for it, and I’m keeping it.”

“If what you’re saying is true, the only one who seems to know anything about the spoon is Whitmore’s nephew,” CC said. “Don’t you think he has a right to know what happened to it?”

Anne struggled. It was a moral dilemma of biblical proportions. On one hand, she’d paid fair and square; on the other hand, she supposed he did have a right to know where it had ended up. Besides, he might have more of his uncle’s antiques which hadn’t been sold at the estate sale, and Anne was never opposed to taking a road trip for antiques. Dilemma solved. “Okay, CC.”

CC went to her iMac and Googled
Tim Whitmore
. It brought up his obituary. “It says here he was originally from Moreland, Illinois,” she read to Anne.

Anne interrupted, “Where’s Moreland?”

“Let me finish,” CC continued reading, “He is survived by his nephew Jared Whitmore. There’s no phone number or address for Jared. Let me look up Moreland.”

She Googled
Morelan
d. “Anne, Moreland is off of Route 125 downstate. That’s where the Lincoln Yard Sale is Fourth of July weekend. We’ve talked for years about going to that sale.” CC Googled Lincoln Homestead Yard Sale and found a website that detailed the route of the weekend-long sale, which extended from various areas where Lincoln had settled before he became president. “We could wind up in Springfield for the fair.”

Road trip! Anne’s eyes lit up. Normally, Anne wasn’t a large fan of garage sales. She felt they were mostly used to offload baby toys and clothes that nobody would ever wear. But maybe this sale would be different.

They made arrangements to leave early in the morning. After hanging up from Anne, CC went to the
Chicago Tribune
website. There she saw her picture––front and center with Anne and the pants! CC skimmed the article and at the bottom saw the link to her blog, “Oh, good; they put our blog site on there.” She clicked over to her blog and saw there had now been over 12,000 views. New comments were noted at 2,200. She ran downstairs and grabbed the bottle of Asti she’d been saving. She skipped back into the living room with Bandit skipping around her. “Booboo Bear, this is good, very, very good!” She popped open the sparkling wine and drank it right from the bottle. Bandit took care of everything that spilled on the oak floor.

She sat down to scroll through the comments. Many were from readers sharing their own experiences with antiques, but the majority were from people looking for stuff. She grabbed her reporter’s notebook from her bag and added the new items to her list. She probably should start cataloging them by type such as household, tools, and games. Maybe she and Anne could find some things this weekend during their road trip.

Chapter Twenty-Five

They took the car less likely to break down––CC’s red Pontiac Grand Am. In the passenger seat, Anne played navigator and was guiding them according to the turn-by-turn directions on Google maps. She couldn’t stand the robotic voice so she preferred to read along as they drove. She leaned back for a long ride as the suburban landscape gave way to rows and rows of early summer corn. While the upper third of Illinois was urban, this part of central Illinois was all farmland and native prairie.

“Hey, CC,” Anne said as she looked through an Illinois guidebook of unusual sights. “It says here this guy in Gilman created a rock garden to memorialize his wife. We should stop. It says visitors are welcome. A rock garden could be neat. . .”

CC interrupted her, “Anne, we’re barely going to get there as it is. Plus, I think Gilman is completely in the other direction.”

Anne sighed. She relished every chance to get out of her suburban comfort zone. She liked visiting far away places. She never knew what treasures awaited her there. “There’s an Amish enclave in Arthur,” she read.

“Anne,” CC said, frustrated. CC was more pragmatic and liked to focus on the task at hand.

They drove along. About 30 miles outside of Springfield, they started seeing signs for the “Lincoln Yard Sale,” the second longest yard sale in the Midwest. The thought of miles and miles of bargains was almost too much for Anne to stand. Fifteen miles outside of Springfield, traffic slowed down; five miles out of Springfield it was at a dead stop. They bypassed Springfield proper and headed down the back roads.

“I think the real finds are off the beaten path,” Anne said.

CC pulled her vintage Ray Ban Wayfarers down to the tip of her nose and looked over the top as the overhung oaks, elms and maples made a canopy of shade. There was something romantic about back roads. CC thought about Tony. She hadn’t allowed herself that pleasure since seeing his wedding ring the other day, but she thought how nice it would be to be traveling a back road like this one with him.

“Stop!” Anne screamed.

CC slammed on the brakes. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Look!” she said, pointing at the first house which popped up through the poplars. It was a well-worn farmhouse set back from the road; the yard was covered with long tables. From her perch on the passenger seat, Anne couldn’t see what was on the tables but she knew she had to look. CC pulled over halfway into the drainage ditch on the side of the road.

The girls exited the car, Anne moving quicker than CC.

There were hand-drawn colorful cardboard signs with Abraham Lincoln’s picture and
Yard Sale
written all over them. The first table was littered with piles and piles of clothes––ranging from children’s to adult sizes, many still bearing Wal-Mart tags. They nodded hello to the harried-looking woman sitting on a lawn chair wearing her Wal-Mart best. A battle was being waged between the woman and the chair. For now, she was winning, but the chair was crying uncle.

Three young boys buzzed around her like fireflies, except these she didn’t swat. She just screamed at them to settle down. The young boys had their mother’s red hair and freckles. They also had the devil’s energy. CC thought about what it’d be like to be in that house at bedtime and a cold shiver went down her spine. It made her glad that she’d never had kids.

The woman sipped her ice tea. “You ladies lookin’ for something in particular? We got everything.”

“You’re our first stop,” Anne said.

The Wal-Mart lady said, “You don’t want to regret not buying something when you see it. Things go fast during the Lincoln Yard Sale. Last year, I was sold out after two days.”

CC noticed an old Ford tractor peeking out from behind the house. “Excuse me, I noticed your tractor back there. Is that an 9N?”

“You got a good eye. It sure is. That’s my grandfather’s 1940 Ford. Is that the kind of thing you’re looking for?”

“I like any farm or industrial tools.”

“We haven’t farmed this land since my grandfather passed. There’s some stuff in the barn that you might be interested in.” The Wal-Mart lady struggled to get out of the lawn chair. The legs bowed and creaked as she was finally released from its hold. The waffle tattoo on the back of her thighs was the lawn chair’s revenge.

CC followed her to the barn, watching the tattoo disappear and her breathing get louder. When she reached the barn door, the Wal-Mart lady turned and said, “The roof’s a little leaky, so be careful.”

She opened the door, and it gave a loud creak. She brushed away the cobwebs. The sunlight rushed into the barn, highlighting the rusty traps hanging from the ceiling. The walls were lined with pitchforks, rakes, milk pails, shovels, and bales of barbed wire. Engine parts and tires lined one side of the barn. CC stepped carefully, avoiding the raccoon droppings. She could feel a thousand beady red eyes looking at her from dark corners of the barn. “How old is that barbed wire?” CC asked, pointing. She walked over to examine it more closely.

“That was here when my grandfather was a little boy. It’s been here as far back as I can remember. We never strung any barbed wire, but my grandfather wasn’t one for throwing anything away,” The Wal-Mart lady said.

CC recognized the pattern of the wire as an early example of Lucien B. Smith’s work, which was very collectible. Dating back to 1886, Smith was the first to patent barbed wire. “Is this something you’d consider selling?” CC asked the woman.

She did not hesitate. “What do you think it’s worth?”

CC paused. “It’s been sitting here under the raccoon poop for how many decades? It’s not something you’re going to use. I have to tell you that it’s worth money to the right collector.” CC could never take advantage of someone who didn’t know what they had. “I’d give you a hundred for the one bale,” CC said.

The Wal-Mart lady appeared quite pleased with the number. CC ran back to the car to get her wallet and her leather workman’s gloves that she always carried.

While CC was in the barn, Anne perused the tables, thoughtfully picking up various items and then setting them back down. Her eyes settled on a water-stained cardboard box. Opening it, she found a collection of daguerreotypes. These early photographs were composed on a mirror-like surface of silver and reflected back either light or dark, depending on the process. An early example of photography, these late 1800s images were very collectible and one of the items on their list. The masking tape price tag said
$35
.

CC and the Wal-Mart lady returned from the barn, CC carefully carrying the barbed wire. “Anne, I’m going to put this in the trunk,” she called over.

“Okay,” Anne said, waving her off, holding the cardboard box in her hands. “Hi, I’m interested in this box,” Anne said to the Wal-Mart lady who’d settled back in the lawn chair.

“What do I have that marked?” The lady peered at the tag.

“Would you be willing to take $20?” Anne asked.

“Those are real old. They’ve been in my family a long time. I got to get at least $30 for them.”

“Okay,” Anne quickly agreed. She opened up her wallet and handed the woman the money. “Do you have anything I can wrap these in? We have a long drive.”

The woman handed Anne some napkins and Wal-Mart bags. Anne very carefully wrapped each photographic image in the napkins and the bags before putting them back in the box. “Thank you,” she said, walking to the car where CC was waiting.

“What’d you find?” CC asked after Anne had settled back in the passenger seat. She’d gently placed the box on the floor of the back seat.

“I found a box of daguerreotypes. A box of ten of them. I think one or two might be African American images. I can sell each one on eBay for a few hundred dollars, and I only paid $30 for the whole box,” Anne said. “And, they are one of the items on our list.”

The next several houses they drove past because they had baby clothes, children’s toys and rusty bicycles––nothing on their list and nothing they’d be interested in. Throughout the day, they stopped at various houses, picking up different items including a McCoy planter, a wooden barn birdhouse, a case of green mason jars, spools and a silk scarf, checking off items as they went along.

“This is so exciting. All these people depending on us to make their dreams come true,” Anne said, reviewing the pages and pages of CC’s cramped handwriting on the list.

“I don’t know if it’s that dramatic.”

“Think about it. Think about how you felt when you found your dining room set. How’d you feel?”

“I felt good. It was exactly what I wanted. I was happy to get it.”

“Exactly. The harder it is to find, the sweeter the reward,” Anne said. “Right? How many times do you just sit and stare at your 1920s slag glass lamp? How do you feel when you read one of your biographies?”

“I feel good. I feel connected to it. It’s special.”

“Exactly. Just like you and me. We’re unique.”

“Yes, Anne, we are unique.”

“I could see us making a living out of this. We quit our jobs––do this full time. Travel the country just like those guys on that show you like to watch. Except prettier.”

CC laughed. “Yes, prettier.”

“Stop, stop, pull over!” Anne shouted. On the edge of a cornfield, there was a tractor with a sign on the side saying
Barn Sale
. “Yes,
Barn Sale;
two of my favorite words.”

The gravel kicked up under CC’s Grand Am as she spun down the winding road leading to a red barn with a large American flag painted on its side. Several cars were parked out in front along with a farmer who was parked behind a folding table.

The outside was cluttered with milk pails, concrete lawn animals, hand-held farm tools and corn-stalk scarecrows. Anne got out of the car and picked up a scarecrow with a straw hat. “This is really charming.”

Inside were copper cowbell wind chimes that clanked in the afternoon breeze. A pile of old almanacs were clustered on a wooden table. CC thumbed through them. They dated back to the 1860s and were in excellent condition. She piled them up in her arm. Anne came along, dragging a butter churn and milk pail. They stopped and looked at each other. “How are we going to fit all this in the car?”

“We can ship it home.”

“That’s crazy. We’re going to spend more in shipping than this stuff is worth.”

“We can pay for it and then come back later.”

“I’m not driving another 12 hours back here.”

They brought their items out to the farmer and asked him to hold them while they continued to look. “CC, come here!” Anne was waving madly from a table near the barn entrance.

CC walked over.

“I think these are authentic. I think it’s John Zadzora.” Anne held up a winged wall packet that appeared to have been hand carved.

“He was a famous tramp artist,” CC said, taking the piece from Anne and examining it. “You know
tramp
comes from the German
trampen
, which acknowledged the craftsmen’s’ apprenticeship in medieval times. It came into its own in the 1850s when cigars became popular. Artists would use their cigar boxes to carve various items using a pocketknife.”

“Yes, I know all that,” Anne interrupted her. “I think this is one of the items on our list.”

CC pulled the list out of her purse and scanned it. “Yes, it is. Let’s add it to our pile,” she said, taking the piece outside and to the farmer. They split up again and walked around the overfilled barn, picking up occasional pieces here and there. Anne’s pile was growing with additional finds including an early copy of
The Wizard of Oz
complete with the original illustrations, a pink Fostoria vase and some children’s wooden spinning tops. This was the best stop of the day. As she carried items out to the table, she could tell the farmer thought so, too.

As the hours passed away, the sun shifted over to the American flag side of the barn and the sunlight came sifting in. That’s when CC saw it. Just a glimpse of the big VW illuminated by the afternoon light. It was rusty, the windows were broken, and all the tires were flat, but CC had never seen anything so beautiful. It was a 1968 Volkswagen microbus. It was the same model year that CC’s father had driven in Germany right before they moved to America. She threw open the sliding door of the van which didn’t give lightly and groaned with a metal on metal cry. The inside was in pretty good shape or at least the mice thought so as they scurried out. She climbed in and sat in the driver’s seat, caressing the leather-wrapped steering wheel. She imagined driving down the open road––no deadlines, no editors, and no problems. Anne poked her head in the passenger window. “This thing is huge inside. We could fit everything in here.”

“That’s not going to happen now. It’s going to need a lot of restoration,” CC said.

“Yeah, but it’s going to be awesome when we’re done, isn’t it?”

CC nodded, still staring out the windshield, turning the steering wheel like she was already on the road.

The farmer walked up to them. “Barn sale’s over. It’s almost five. You’re the last ones. I got to lock up,” he said.

“Is the bus for sale?” CC asked, getting out of the van.