Death of a Garage Sale Newbie (17 page)

Tammy tapped her hands on her thighs while her throat grew tight. “I’ll be here for my shift tomorrow. I’ll pick up my assignment. And I’ll go out on patrol. I’m a good cop. I’ll do what I’m told.” She leaned toward him. “But I don’t deserve this, and I know what it’s really about.”

Stenengarter rose to his feet. His Adam’s apple moved up and down. A moment before his expression turned to granite, she thought she saw a flicker of something, maybe hurt. “You’ve got some nerve telling me that the men don’t respect me.” His voice was low, smoldering. “I will be checking to ensure that you make your shift.”

Tammy nodded, then turned and strode toward the door. Ever hopeful that she had reached him with something she said, she glanced back. He squared his shoulders and lifted his chin.

Why did she allow herself to hope?

Ginger drove into town. When she pulled up to Arleta’s house, the older woman was waiting on the porch. Arleta’s steel gray hair was pulled into a bun, and she wore slacks and a light blue button-down shirt. A sweater that looked like it had been in style during the Eisenhower administration was draped over her arm.

They drove to the Jackson-Wheeler Real Estate office. This time, the office was buzzing with activity. Several agents sat at desks flipping through piles of papers. Two agents dashed outside, cell phones and folders in hand.

A blond woman rose from her desk as Ginger and Arleta made their way down the center aisle. “I remember you. Mary Margret’s friend, right?”

Ginger nodded. That whole day was a bit of blur, but she did remember this nice lady, whose name was Dana, Dana Jones. Arleta crossed her arms and wandered toward the wall of fame, where all the top sellers were pictured.

Ginger glanced over to where Mary Margret’s desk had been. A redhead in a short skirt sat in the chair where Mary Margret used to sit. There was no evidence left that her friend had ever worked in this office.

Dana must have picked up on her sadness. “I miss her, too. She was a very kind person.”

Ginger heard heavy footsteps behind her. She turned slowly. Mr. Wheeler, all six plus feet of him, loomed over her. Just like the day of the funeral, he was dressed in jeans with a saucer-sized belt buckle, cowboy boots, a brown blazer, and Western cut shirt. He must have come out of the glass-walled office in the corner.

Arleta wandered toward Ginger. Some almost undetectable signal passed between Mr. Wheeler and Dana—a slight lifting of his chin sent her scurrying back to her desk.

“Ginger Salinski, right?” He held out a huge hand toward her.

Hmm. He remembered her name, too. “Yes.” What was she? Some kind of celebrity?

Arleta whispered in Ginger’s ear. “My goodness, you are popular.”

After releasing Ginger’s crushed fingers from a death grip of a handshake, Mr. Wheeler put his hands on his hips. “Have you changed your mind about setting up that fund for Mary Margret?”

“Actually, Mr. Wheeler, I’m trying to retrace Mary Margret’s movements on the Saturday she died.”

He cocked his head sideways, like he expected her to explain further. She didn’t owe him an explanation. Behind Mr. Wheeler, she could see his office through the glass walls. The primary features were a huge desk that had only a telephone on it and some kind of dead wildlife mounted on the wall.

“She left a message on my machine saying that after she had hit a few garage sales, she would be meeting another agent at some property. I wonder if you know who that agent might have been and where the property was?”

Mr. Wheeler pulled a toothpick out of his chest pocket and placed it in his mouth. “Agents are always meeting other agents.” He worked the toothpick back and forth with his teeth. “We wouldn’t have a record of that. Sorry.”

Dana jumped to her feet. “I might know who it was. Right before she died, Mary Margret was trying to get her sales up. Mr. Jackson was helping her by giving her some key listings and offering her some general advice on sales technique.”

Mr. Wheeler yanked the toothpick out of his mouth and cleared his throat. “Well, there you have it. It most likely was Mr. Jackson himself. I’m sorry, he’s not in the office.”

“I know where he is.” With a nervous glance toward Wheeler, Dana tugged on her shirt cuff. “Before Mr. Jackson left about thirty minutes ago, he said he was going to pop over to that restoration being done on the Wilson mansion.”

Mr. Wheeler snapped the toothpick in half. “Thank you, Dana.” He tossed it in the garbage can. “Maybe you should go back to your buy-sell agreement.”

Dana lifted her chin and narrowed her eyes at Mr. Wheeler before turning to Ginger and Arleta. “It’s over on Thomason in the nine hundred block.”

She strutted back to her desk with a backward look at her boss. Wheeler returned to his office.

On their way out, Ginger noticed a photograph of Wheeler standing outside the office shaking hands with a slender dark-haired man.

Dana swiveled in her chair and offered an explanation. “That’s the ribbon-cutting ceremony for when the Jackson-Wheeler office first opened twenty years ago.”

Ginger rested a finger on the dark-haired man. “Who is that man with him?”

“That’s Mr. Jackson. I guess he’s gained quite a bit of weight over the years.”

“Poor man.” Ginger crossed her arms. “He must have gained 150 pounds. Does he have health issues that would make him gain weight?”

Dana shook her head. “He just likes pork chops and Twinkies.”

Arleta and Ginger walked past two stone lions guarding the entrance to the Wilson mansion. Ginger was already breathless from trotting just to keep up with Arleta’s huge stride. A hedge framed a huge expanse of lawn. A red Hummer was parked in the driveway. That car probably belonged to Mr. Jackson. All the other vehicles referred to some aspect of the construction trade on their doors.

They ascended a stone and brick staircase.

“I remember when this house was used by a fraternity,” commented Arleta as they stood on the wraparound wooden porch. “It’s gone through quite a few changes.”

Inside, drop cloths covered the floor. A man in painter’s pants and a mask worked on his knees spraying trim. The abrasive hum of power tools and the pounding of hammers echoed through the house.

Arleta took the lead as they walked down a dark hallway that led to a kitchen, where a man wedged a ceramic tile into place on the floor. The man rose to his feet and wiped his hands on a rag tucked in his back pocket. “Can I help you ladies?”

“We were told Mr. Jackson was here?”

The man pointed up. “Third floor. The servants’ stairs behind me.”

Arleta and Ginger made their way up two flights of narrow, winding stairs. Ginger’s loafers with jewels on the toes made the floorboards creak with each step. The walls closed in on them in claustrophobic proportions. Servants’ stairs indeed. She’d seen the huge sweeping staircase in the living room that the wealthy owner must have traversed at the turn of the century The maid was the one who had to run the food and wine and candy up this scary contraption. The arrangement struck Ginger as very unfair.

The top of the stairs opened up into an expanse of room surrounded by windows. A billiard table occupied the center of the room. In the corner, Mr. Jackson sat at a card table, his lunch spread out before him. Ginger was pretty sure there was enough on the table to feed a small country—two sandwiches still wrapped in paper, a plastic bowl filled with salad, a Big Gulp, and several tacos completed the spread.

Mr. Jackson’s eyes were visible above the sandwich he’d just brought up to his mouth. He bit into the sandwich, chewed for some time, took a moment to wipe his mouth with a paper napkin, and then sipped from his Big Gulp. “Can I help you, ladies? The house won’t be on the market for another month.”

Funny, Mr. Jackson didn’t seem to remember her as well as Mr. Wheeler had. “We’re not here to look at the house. I’m Ginger Salinski. Mary Margret’s friend.”

Mr. Jackson stood up, nearly knocking the table over. His head brushed against the slanted ceiling. He dropped his sandwich on the table. “Oh…yes.”

“I’m trying to figure out what happened to my friend the day she died. I understand you saw her that Saturday morning.”

Mr. Jackson ran his hands through his hair. He trudged to the billiard table and rolled a ball across it. “And you heard that from…?”

“Dana from your office.”

Arleta crossed her arms and wandered to the window. Mr. Jackson rolled several more balls across the table before answering. “You know, that was almost two weeks ago. Mary Margret and I were getting together several times a week. I’d have to check my Day-Timer to see if we met that Saturday.”

“So check it,” said Arleta without turning around.

Mr. Jackson waddled back to the table and lifted a briefcase off the floor. He unzipped it and pulled out a burgundy leather-bound book. By the time he made his way back to Ginger, he was sweating and breathing heavily “Let’s see,” he made a clicking noise as he flipped through the pages, “that would have been July.”

Ginger stepped toward him. “Saturday, July 15.”

He read and nodded at each entry as though it held a fond memory. In an effort to hurry him a little bit, Ginger peered over his shoulder. “Ah, here it is. Yes, she and I did a walk-through a house on Stalter Street.”

“Did she seem upset?”

He shook his head for several seconds. “No, no.” A stream of sweat trickled past his temple.

“Did she say anything about the garage sale stuff she had bought that morning?”

Mr. Jackson puckered up his bulbous lips and released them. “She said she was in a bit of a hurry because she was going to more sales after we were done. Oh wait, she mentioned a little fishing pole she’d gotten for her grandson, Donald Duck on it, I think.”

“Mickey Mouse,” said Arleta and Ginger in unison.

He pointed his puffy finger at her. “Right, Mickey Mouse.”

“So she didn’t seem agitated at all to you?”

Mr. Jackson shook his head, causing his second chin to wobble. The moments ticked by. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi.

Arleta turned to face Mr. Jackson. Her fists rested on her narrow hips. “How much does a house like this sell for?”

“When it’s restored, it will be worth a couple million.”

Arleta nodded. Ginger wasn’t sure what had motivated Arleta to ask the question, but she was grateful for the participation. Frustration made Ginger’s toes curl in her jeweled loafers. Mr. Jackson was hardly a hotbed of information. Both he and Mr. Wheeler had seemed reluctant to share information.

Arleta continued, “Did Mary Margret sell houses like this one?”

“I’m afraid a property like this is something a more successful agent like myself would take as a listing. Actually, I purchased this house because I knew it would be valuable when restored. Mary Margret tended to take on lower-end houses, fixer-uppers. She liked to help first-time home buyers. It was kind of her specialty.”

Ginger shook her head. Once again, Mary Margret’s heart had kept her from making the bigger money. She had loved it when she was able to help renters become homeowners.

Mr. Jackson removed his jacket, revealing huge sweat stains around his armpits. He tugged at his cartoon tie in primary colors. Bugs Bunny munched on carrots and ran from Elmer Fudd.

She stomped her foot lightly on the wooden floorboards. Mr. Jackson wasn’t going to volunteer any information. She’d have to force it out of him. “Something sent Mary Margret to the library in a panic, and then she made a frantic phone call to me.” She edged a little closer to him. “She must have said something to you.”

“All of that must have happened after she talked to me. If you ladies will excuse me, I have a great deal of work to get done.”

“Got to get back to laying that tile and sanding the banister?” Arleta said dryly.

Ginger had a hard time picturing Mr. Jackson doing anything physical without drowning in his own sweat. She appreciated Arleta’s sharp wit. It was nice not to have to do this alone.

A nervous chuckle escaped through his lips. “I do have work to get done.” He lumbered toward the stairs, not the servants’ stairs, mind you, but those that the bigwigs of yesteryear used.