The Case of the Angry Auctioneer (Auction House Mystery Series Book 1)

The Case of the Angry Auctioneer

An Auction House Mystery

Sherry Blakeley

First in a New Series

Copyright © 2015 New Light Productions LLC

Cover design by Tina Lenz-Mandt

All Rights Reserved.
This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Dedication

For David Lundahl, artist extraordinaire and the most unusual person I have ever known, with love, gratitude and admiration

Prologue

When Jasper Biggs crossed that first threshold to the basement, she held her breath. She expected the stench of death, like the rotting sweet stink of a drawerful of mice, but when she breathed again, it was only the old tired smell of dust and mold that the whole house held. Plus an overlay of urine. The police detective Glenn Relerford said, “Put your hand on my belt and follow me nice and slow.” She did as she was told and inched her way down the steep stairs, illuminated by the detective’s flashlight. At the bottom she looked around warily, thinking maybe she wouldn’t be able to recognize her stepfather in the gloomy light. But she saw him lying there on the ground and was surprised that even before she focused on his features, she would have known his slightly chubby shape, the length of his legs, his overall shortness, anywhere. His height, breadth, width. His very Jimminess.

She moved in closer, her skin crawling with emotions: worms of fear, centipedes of grief. The musty clutter in here had been moved out toward the walls, piles of National Geographics, the bowling ball that had rolled downstairs when she and Jimmy had first viewed the basement, a broken pseudo Chippendale chair with only two legs, and lots of unrecognizable debris. Jimmy lay in a circle cleared of junk, like a fallen gladiator at the bottom of the amphitheater. Dizziness compelled Jasper to sit on the cold floor. She eased herself to her knees and crawled over to Jimmy. She inhaled a hint of sweat and the strong aroma of some cologne she didn’t recognize. He was always helping himself to cologne found in auction clients’ houses. Jimmy had several bad habits. Jasper and her twin sister had long suspected that the perfumes he gave them birthday after birthday probably came out of housefuls of stuff destined for the auction. “Is it okay if I touch him?”

Glenn nodded. “Take your time.”

Having asked, Jasper suddenly felt awkward. Jimmy had never been much of a hugger. She touched his face. Cold. Shouldn’t a hothead like Jimmy have stayed warmer even in a cellar? She drew her hand back, then reached forward and stroked his thinning hair. She patted him on the shoulder. “What was he doing here alone?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

Up close, Jasper could smell the flowery dryer sheets Jimmy was so fond of adding to his laundry. The rough-and-tumble auctioneer had always been a stickler for personal cleanliness. He wore his favorite watch, a Tag Heuer he’d gotten for a song at the auction. That night he had left a proxy bid, then did the bid-calling himself so he could control how the sale went. “What were you doing here, Jimmy?” she asked the dead man. A chill vined up her back. Maybe Jimmy hadn’t been alone when he died. She turned to the detective “Did you check his pockets?

“Yes, ma’am,” Glenn said.

“Was anything there?” Jasper asked in a small voice.

“This was on the floor near him.” He handed her a Biggs Auction House key fob, one of the freebies they kept on the counter at work. He crouched down next to her. He pulled a wad of something from his own pocket and passed it over. He shone his flashlight on it. Jasper’s hands shook. It was a roll of bills that relaxed open to reveal Ben Franklin’s tight-lipped smile. Jasper spread them apart. Four hundred dollars plus a George Washington.

“Looks like you’ve been dealt a little gift hand there,” he said.

“My sister and I get to keep this?”

“Later. But why $401?”

Jasper sighed, relieved that Jimmy hadn’t died at the hands of a robber. She handed back the money. “It was just one of those Jimmy things. For luck, I guess. Or maybe just out of habit. When we were girls, he used to take us out for ice cream sometimes. He made us splurge on triple-decker cones even if we weren’t hungry. I always got butter brickle. I think he liked to impress the people at Moo’n Goo when he whipped out a hundred doll bill.”

The detective remained quiet.

“Sometimes though he’d just pull out the extra $20 he always kept in his wallet. Oh my gosh, where’s his wallet?”

“Easy now, easy. It’s right here.”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Jasper said. She opened the worn leather billfold and ran her fingers over the plastic covered driver’s license, foggy in the flashlight beam. Jasper slipped her fingers under the license. Nothing.

Jasper said. “It was his emergency plan. He always told us we should tuck $20 away for emergencies. $401 but no 20? That’s kind of odd I guess.”

“True that,” he said. “It is odd.” He opened his palm to her. “I found this too.”

The flashlight revealed a small silver figurine with some kind of sparkly stone in the center. Jasper brought her face in close. “It’s from a necklace, I guess. What is that – a crab or a lobster?”

“So it’s not familiar to you? “

Jasper shook her head. “Where did you find it?”

“Next to him on the floor.”

“Oh-h-h. Were you cherry picking, Jimmy?” she whispered.

“Cherry picking?”

“Sorry. That’s auction speak for picking out the most valuable items ahead of time. Before the regular auction crew comes over for the pickup.”

“To protect the good stuff, so to speak.”

“Uh-huh. So to speak.” She got slowly to her feet. Glenn held out his ringless left hand to help her up. “That’s okay, detective. I can manage on my own.”

“Jasper.”

“Now that we know Jimmy fell in the line of duty, more or less, I guess we should get back upstairs to the others,” Jasper said. She stumbled forward. The detective caught her in his muscled arms. Jasper began to cry, and he drew her in closely.

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” Glenn said. “I’m really sorry. But it’ll be okay.”

It felt good to rest for a moment in his protective hold, but the rest of her life was waiting for her and she had to get on with it. “Let’s go,” she said.

“It’s your world,” he said. He kissed her palm gently then guided her to the stairs.

Two weeks earlier, Candace Jasper Biggs Rowe had stood next to her husband The Right Reverend Timothy Rowe in front of the cheerful group in the basement of the Truman Free Church. The hall, as it was called, was nearly full of parishioners come to wish her well on her last day of full time duties as the pastor’s wife. There was a polite silence for the most part. They were a polite group, made up almost exactly half and half of Social Security-ites and young farm couples. The children and grandchildren did what children and grandchildren do anywhere, making Jasper feel sad and relieved at the same time that she didn’t have any of her own. The kids ran around the hall, laughing and dashing between tables, until the admonishments of the adults and slices of the chocolate-frosted marble cake brought them back to the white oil cloth covered tables. The air smelled of sweet and spicy Sloppy Joes and vinegary potato salad with traces of incense around the edges. Several church women moved among them, offering cups of burned coffee to the adults and more lemonade to the children.

The pastor’s wife’s stomach growled. She’d never liked church hall food. And she hadn’t been able to find any pink medicine to tuck in her suitcase. Her nerves were bad enough without the bad food. She was about to embark on a solo adventure. The Right Reverend had wronged her too many times. She fingered the synthetic diamond wedding ring she still wore, the cheap one Tim had put on her finger long ago with a promise to make it better when he could.

In spite of her best intentions to stand on her own two feet, she leaned a little against her husband’s muscled body. She supposed she’d miss that. His body. Being able to lean on someone. Even a man like Tim. Tim loomed a head higher than her five and a half feet, and he kept his former football player musculature toned and ready for action. He wasn’t a handsome man but his big blue eyes could go from pleading to understanding in a blink. His eyes were what first drew her to him, up in Madison at the University of Wisconsin. His eyes and his build were what attracted all the girls. But he seemed to focus only on her. She was Communications. He was Religious Studies. Two years apart. When he got his calling to attend divinity school, he invited her along – as Mrs. Timothy Rowe of course.

That had been nearly two decades and three churches ago. The Rowes couldn’t seem to settle in. Every time she thought her husband would leave the women of the new church alone, he’d come confessing his guilt and remorse first to her, then to the wronged other woman and cuckolded husband. On rare occasions he extended his flirtations and assignations to unlucky men who might have been even more heart-broken than the “gals,” as Tim termed them. Jasper would step into one of her roles in her time as Tim’s wife: consoler of the deserted lover. She had not signed on for that back when she was a naïve young “gal” herself. Tim’s resignation would follow. And off they’d go to another small town, another denomination. This last one was non-denominational. And when long-suffering Mrs. Rowe found out about the latest wooing of the youth services director, she realized she could go on no longer. What could possibly follow “non-denomination?” No denomination. She felt just too demoralized to go on.

There’d been only one pregnancy, followed by one miscarriage. Tim did not want to try again. “I don’t know what would happen to me if something happened to you,” he had told her. Somehow that rang in her ears as another of Tim’s selfish remarks. So no children. She was free to go.

“Candy?”

She tuned in to the voice of her still-husband Pastor Tim. He was holding the microphone toward her, but when she reached for it, he drew it back toward him. He was all for show.

Thanks, anyway,
she mumbled. “You’re kindly welcome,” he said right on mike. He used that pseudo folksy tone that he thought would carry the day wherever he landed in the Midwest. Why, if the folks of Truman knew what all he subscribed to on the Internet, one, they’d be suspicious of his hidden radicalism both right-wing and left, two, they’d be horrified by his fondness for soft porn, and three, they’d be mad at him using the church’s computer for all of the above. She longed for a laptop of her own where she would not be bombarded by advertisements for hot guys and gals every time she wanted to e-mail her sister or read the Aquarius horoscope for the day.

“Well, folks, as you know, we’re here today for a fond send-off for one of my favorite people. My wife.”

There were titters in the crowd. Nerves, friendliness, confusion.

“Candy will be going to tend to her aging father over in Forest Grove.”

“Stepfather and he’s not all that old,” she mumbled.

“And doing a fair amount of soul searching along the way. It’s kind of a modern vision quest, wouldn’t you say so, honey? Thirty days in the desert and all that.”

“Jesus.”

“What’s that, honey?” Again, he made as if to hand her the mike, then snatched it back. He waggled his finger at her as if keeping her from being heard was just a playful routine between a happy husband and wife.

A hand went up in the crowd.

“Yes, ma’am?”

Snoopy old Mrs. Bachmeier asked, “How long will you be away, dear?”

“That depends,” she said quietly.

“What? What’s that, dear?”

Pastor Tim said, “An undesignated period. Any rate, let us now bow our heads in prayer.”

If she had to hear him say “any rate” instead of “at any rate” one more time, she would…she would probably just take another ibuprofen and drown her annoyance in something sweet and chocolaty. Maybe salty too. Chocolate covered pretzels sounded pretty good at the moment. She sighed and refocused.

He led them all through an appeal to the Almighty to look out for loved ones especially his wife and keep them all safe in their travels and travails. Mrs. Rowe couldn’t even shut her eyes. She had walked through life with her eyes closed for far too long. She was so over all his B.S. If he and the Almighty were such good friends, then she didn’t even care to be on speaking terms any more with God or Whomever in the Sky.

Just get this over with and get me out of here,
was her prayer.

A short while later the women and men gathered around her and said they’d be praying for her father and for her speedy return.

She did not correct them. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she repeated. What was the point in trying to tell any of them the truth of her life, as a stepdaughter not a daughter, as Rev. Rowe’s wife? Her motto as a door mat would be,
Go away and let me be myself. By myself.
That would probably not all fit on an average welcome mat. She would probably have to settle for something shorter and more to the point like
Wipe your feet on me. That’s what I’m here for.
Oh, too many words again.
Let it go, let it go, let it go,
she told herself.

If the faithful church-goers only knew she planned on filing for divorce, they would feel shocked and…hurt. She just couldn’t stand to hurt their feelings. And although they were modern people, some of whom themselves had endured family crises of one kind or another, they would feel so betrayed if they knew what a rat their pastor was and the more conservative would blame her if the truth about his wayward ways came out. When rattled, the residents of Truman could revert to that old rotten prejudice: Isn’t it always the woman who leads the man down the wrong path?

How did she ever come to be living out only part of her personality in a place like that? What had happened to her young dreams of occupation and activity and intellectual stimulation?

So surrounded was she by well-wishers and consumed by her own sad secrets, that she lost track of her husband. Where had Tim gone? The clock on the wall with its numbers big enough for even her myopic eyes to make them out, said 1:25. She would have to get on the road if she expected to reach Forest Grove in time to meet the auction van with some furniture inside for her new apartment.

“Now you pack up some of this good food for yourself, dear. I’ll just pull together a few things for you in the kitchen,” one of the ladies said.

If she let them help, she would be there all afternoon. Jasper felt fresh out of patience. Her skin itched. “No, no, you’ve been too kind. I’ll go wrap up a few things myself. Be right back.”

“Don’t forget the potato salad!”

“Don’t worry,” she called back over her shoulder. Who could forget that potato salad? She could finally admit to herself that she detested pseudo-German potato salad laden with apple cider vinegar and sugar.
That’s a real declaration of independence
, she chided herself. Then she told herself to stop being so self-critical. Even that sounded so negative. She had to escape this land of self-abasement and guilt before her head started spinning around in complete circles.

Pushing open the swinging door to the kitchen, she wondered about the life she was leaving for the one that lay ahead. Would living in the same town as her cranky stepfather be an improvement over pretending to be happily married to a two-timing, small town minister? Of course her twin sister Cookie would be nearby.

As the door swung fully open, she caught sight of a tangle of humans over near the sink. It was Pastor Tim intertwined with the Director of Youth Services. Tim pushed Elaine away from him. The gray-haired woman began to stammer, “Mrs. Rowe, oh, Mrs. Rowe.” Then she was crying.

“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” was all Jasper could muster. To Tim she said, “Hadn’t you better do something? Give her a paper towel or something?”

She marched back out to the main hall and, ignoring the people who again began to mass around her, picked up the microphone and flipped the switch on. “I want to thank you all for your kindness.” She glanced toward the kitchen. Tim was headed her way. “You should know that Rev. Tim is on his own kind of quest. Isn’t that right,
honey?
“

Murmurs of “whatever does she mean?’ started through the crowd.

Tim reached her and grabbed for the microphone. But for once, she was too fast for him. She walked to the length of the microphone cord and said, “I just want you to know…”

The worn, working faces of the crowd looked up at her puzzled. She couldn’t do it. Even though her own heart had broken long ago, she couldn’t break theirs. “I want you to know that my stepfather is not all that aged.”

Tim mouthed
thank you
to her and again reached for the microphone. Jasper put it away from him. She continued, “Oh, and if I ever see you again, no more ‘Mrs. Rowe.’ Please call me Jasper Biggs.” Finished at last, Candace Jasper Biggs Rowe, now plain Jasper Biggs, handed the microphone back to her soon to be ex-husband, and turned to go.

“Who’s Jasper Biggs?” someone in the crowd asked.

One of the children ran up to her with a platter of cranberry cookies. “Mom said you should take these.” She smiled and thanked the girl.

Jasper nearly tripped over her long skirt as she marched up the steps. Just as she reached the door at the top, the newly christened Jasper Biggs heard Mrs. Bachmeier saying brightly into the microphone, “Well, it’s been quite a day!” The microphone screeched.

Footsteps raced up behind her. “Candy! “ Tim stood there looking up at her with beseeching eyes. “Can you give me just one more minute?”

She nodded and he climbed the stairs toward her.

“I just wanted you to know that I’m really grateful for what you did, or rather, what you didn’t do back there. Any rate, I wanted to say thanks.”

“It was more for them than you,” Jasper told him.

“Be that as it may. Thanks.” He gave her one of those bluey looks that could melt the heart of any straight woman or yearning man within sight. “How ‘bout a little kiss for the road?” He snaked his arms around her. “Hmm. Candy?”

“Stop!” Jasper gave him a little shove. He stumbled down a step or two. A few cookies flew after him. He recovered his balance.

“You’ll need to get somebody else to clean up your mess!” she shouted at him. “Oh, and Tim?”

Some of the church people had gathered below, watching the drama wrap up.

Tim’s voice was falsely calm. “I’m fine, I’m fine. What were you saying, Candy, dear?”

“Don’t ever call me that again! ‘Candy’ or ‘dear!’” Jasper Biggs and her mostly full platter of cookies reached the top of the stairs and marched on out.