Garage Sale Diamonds (Garage Sale Mystery) (16 page)

Their happy faces, rapid nods and enthusiastic murmurs confirmed they had.

“Could we do it again tomorrow?” Christine asked.

“Maybe. Now since it’s raining outside, please take the toys you bought at today’s sales downstairs to the playroom.” Chatting happily, they bustled down the carpeted steps.

35

Saturday, 10:16 AM

Jennifer’s mind wandered as she vacuumed the remaining glass slivers from the kitchen floor. Forty years ago she and Jason had started producing five children in eleven years. Now all were grown, four of the five married and the fifth finishing college. Her bonus: ten little Grands.

She thought of the three Grands’ excitement at this morning’s garage sales. Like her own young children, they enjoyed this bargain-hunting fun, and each found special treasures.

Jennifer’s zeal for these sales finally overcame the understandable fear after her terrifying abduction and narrow escape last year. Surviving the nightmarish hell-hole she stumbled into while following a seemingly harmless garage-sale sign, she vowed never again to attend such sales alone. With second-hand sales gaining popularity due to the economy’s slump, her desire for mutual protection wasn’t difficult to solve, as shoppers flocked to them.

Besides local weekend garage and estate sales she often visited the “Treasure Trove,” McLean’s long-time successful consignment shop benefitting Fairfax Hospital. Two newer consignment shops also made her list: “Betsy & Cornelia’s” on Chain Bridge Road and “The Treasure Shop” in Chesterbrook’s strip mall, which benefitted Vinson Hall residence for military seniors. Annual standbys included certain McLean and Arlington church bazaars.

Some friends scoffed at her garage-sale hobby, but she found the sales entertaining and practical. Today, for example, she armed each Grand with five dollars before they piled into her Cadillac Crossover for the adventure. She reviewed the notebook listing sales attended each day. They'd stopped at one big community sale offering scores of treasure-finding opportunities.

Seeing this as a useful budgeting lesson, she said, “Remember, this is your money now. You might buy one thing for five dollars or five things for a dollar each. You decide how to spend it.”

Digesting this, Alicia asked shrewdly, “Gran, if I don’t buy anything can I still keep the money?”

“Yes,” But Jennifer knew this unlikely as she stopped at the first sale and they all jumped out.

“Let the fun begin,” she said as the children scampered in search of toys. While examining merchandise herself, she kept a close eye on the children. Her trauma with Ruger Yates honed her sense of caution. Better safe than sorry with beloved Grands to protect.

During their tour of the many sales, Milo bought four life-like dinosaurs and a pop-up picture book about them. The book retailed for $22 but a delighted Milo paid only $1.00. At that sale Alicia bought an unusual doll and at another a doll bed with sheets and a pillow, the right size for her new doll. At yet another she found a case for storing the doll. All this and a dime left.

Christine spotted a velvet-lined jewelry box with a pirouetting ballerina twirling to a music box melody. At other sales she added bracelets, a ring and hair clips. Last, a brush, comb and mirror set in a lovely case to groom her dolls and herself.

Jennifer found a $30 pair of artificial topiary trees in terra cotta pots for each side of her front door.  But the timeliest discovery of the day was a $5 wood-framed bathroom medicine cabinet for Hannah, new, with the original bill in the box.

She must call Hannah about that find. Jason should return from golf any minute and she needed to plan lunch for them all. She opened the refrigerator when a thunder of footfalls pounding up the basement steps distracted her. The Grands rushed into the kitchen, breathless and wild-eyed messengers of volatile news.

Their normally high young voices rose to even shriller falsettos as they all shouted in varying decibels: “BROKEN GLASS.”

36

Saturday, 10:29 AM

Grabbing broom and dustpan, Jennifer hurried after the Grands, who careened ahead down the stairs. “Are you wearing shoes?” she called ahead. “Please don’t touch the glass until I get there.”

Except for windows or light bulbs, she could think of no breakable glass in the playroom. Turning right at the bottom of the steps, she noticed each child had staked out a new toy area. Alicia pointed. Her doll’s undressed body lay on the floor amid a splash of glinting pieces of glass.

“Careful,” Jennifer cautioned. “Let’s take a look.” At first glance, these twinkling glass fragments looked different from the jagged irregular pieces in the kitchen. She knew tempered glass shattered in sheets but could glass shatter into uniform lumps?

Mindful of the lesson upstairs, the Grands gasped as Jennifer brushed a tentative finger lightly over a few of the pieces as she investigated the situation. “Christine, please run up to the kitchen desk drawer and bring the magnifying glass. It should be right on top.”

The child rocketed away, returning breathless to give it to Jennifer. Trying for an even better look, she pointed to the corner. “Alicia, would you please bring the flashlight plugged into the wall socket at the bottom of the steps? This light just isn’t bright enough.”

Alicia spun away to get it for her grandmother. Jennifer focused the flashlight beam under the magnifying glass until clear, enlarged images focused. The children sensed something amiss when she gasped.

“Gran, what is it?” Christine asked.

Jennifer moved the magnifier across the pieces several times.

“What’s wong, Gwan?” asked little Milo’s troubled voice as Jennifer stared at the scatter of glittering globs on the rug and floor. What she saw seemed impossible. Diamonds?

Jennifer sat down on the rug. “Children, these don’t look like regular glass. These look like special glass used for jewelry. But where did they come from?”

Christine answered quickly. “They came out of Alicia’s doll.”

“Is that right, Alish?” To the girl’s affirmative nod, Jennifer asked, “But how? Bring the doll and show me.”

Alicia took a deep breath to propel the excited rush of words tumbling out. “A boy in my class at school, his name is Tommy, he had an operation in his chest but the doctor left something inside when he stitched it up and it made Tommy sick so he had to go to the hospital again to get the thing taken out and when he came back to school at recess he pulled up his shirt and showed us his stitches.” Out of breath, she inhaled quickly before racing on. “So when I undressed my new doll, I saw stitches across her chest just like Tommy’s and when I squeezed her body I felt something inside just like what happened to Tommy. I didn’t want it to make her sick like it did Tommy so I broke the thread to get it out and when I pulled her chest open folded papers fell out and the glass chunks fell out of them.”

“Actually,” Chris revealed, “she opened the papers to see what was inside and then they fell out.”

“Since this happened without warning, then is it an accident?” asked Alicia.

Jennifer recalled her explanation of good and bad accidents. “Yes, I guess it is but a strange accident indeed. The good news is they aren’t sharp and can’t hurt you the way most broken glass does. See.” She let each child hold one to confirm this. “Let’s collect them all with a lump-of-glass hunt like an Easter-egg-hunt. We’ll crawl around looking everywhere with sharp eyes to find them all. Milo, could you please bring a container from the toy box big enough to hold all these little pieces?” He hustled on his assignment, returning with a plastic bucket.

“Perfect, Milo. Thank you for finding just the right holder. Okay, put the ones you find in your own pile and at the hunt’s end we’ll see who found the most.”

They scurried around, retrieving sparkling gems that had skittered across the floor. The girls found many and Jennifer surreptitiously placed a few near Milo’s fingers.

“Look, I found some, too, Gwan,” he crowed, placing two gems in his “pile.”

Wanting to search more thoroughly on her own, she said brightly, “Thanks children. Good job. Let’s see. Looks like Chris gets first prize for the most, Alish gets a wonderful second prize and Milo gets the thrilling third prize. Why don’t you all run upstairs to watch the special movie I rented for you while I get your prizes and sew the doll back together?”

She followed with the bucket of gems and the doll as the children rushed upstairs to the media room, found places on the couch, snuggled against welcoming pillows and pulled fleece throws over them. Starting the DVD, Jennifer guessed they’d remain enthralled for at least an hour.

Putting the bucket and doll on the kitchen table, she started back downstairs but stopped, hearing Jason’s voice as he came in the front door.

“Hello,” he called. “The victorious golfer has returned.”

They hugged, but one look at her face signaled a problem. A man learned a few things about his wife in forty-one years of marriage.

“So,” he said tentatively, “have you survived the Grands today?”

“Oh, Jay, I’m so glad you’re home. Where to begin?”

“Some excitement this morning?” He braced himself for a hold-onto-your-hat tale.

She recounted the broken-glass-in-the-kitchen saga and the diamond story. She showed him the sparkling gems in Milo’s plastic bucket. Jason rolled a few around in his hand. “They look real enough,” he said. “You think more might still be downstairs? Let’s grab flashlights and have another look.” He found several more stones and, using a chopstick from the toy box, she slid another two from the narrow space beneath a heavy bookcase.

Back upstairs, Jason examined the doll’s incision. “Jen, what’s this?” He extracted four more folded paper packets. They exchanged bewildered looks as he eased the packets open. Sure enough, diamonds twinkled inside each.

He stared at his wife incredulously. “You say these came from a garage sale, Jen?”

“I know it sounds incredible, Jay, but…yes, they did.”

37

Saturday, 10:40 AM

“What explains this?” Jason wondered aloud. “If someone hid the diamonds inside this doll to protect them, how did it end up in a garage sale?”

“Jay, aren’t you assuming they’re valuable? They might be glass beads or rhinestones or zircons. But isn’t the mystery kind of exciting?”

“Exciting? It’s bizarre! We need to figure this out.”

She nodded, his response calming her a bit. They checked on the Grands, ensconced in the media room, before spreading out the evidence on the glass-topped wicker table.

“How many do you suppose there are?” she speculated.

“If you count the loose ones from the basement, I’ll count these in the packages.”

“Wait!” she said. “Let’s pour each batch onto a paper plate to separate the groups. Easy to count and they won’t roll away.” He nodded, she brought the plates and they counted.

“Let’s see, this first package has fifty,” Jason counted.

“And eighty-six came from the floor.”

“Fifty each in the second and third pouches. Here, you count the last one.”

“Fifty here also.”

“So, the four unopened packages hold fifty diamonds each and the other two probably did also. Since the two packets spilled on the floor should equal 100 but since we found only 86…”

“…the other fourteen might still be downstairs.”

“Six pouches times fifty in each equals three hundred stones.”

“…assuming we find the missing fourteen.”

“Geez!”

“Isn’t this wild?” she laughed. “They’re big stones. If they’re real and each is worth even $3,500 times 300.” She grabbed the kitchen desk’s calculator, punched in numbers, read the total and giggled. “Just over a million dollars! It’s like winning the lottery, Jay.”

“Jen, Jen. Calm down.

“You’re right. Let’s think this through. Two possibilities: they’re real or they’re fake. Maybe just ‘paste’ as the British call that brilliant-looking lead-glass composition stuff.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “We need to know which.”

She brightened. “It’s Saturday morning. Stores are open. If you watch the Grands, I could take some stones to a local jeweler. Learning their value is critical to deciding what to do next.”

Planning on a relaxed Saturday watching sports on TV or working in the garden, Jason frowned. “Well, I guess I could. You wouldn’t be gone long, would you?”

“Back in an hour, tops.”

“Well…okay then.”

She grabbed her purse. “How should we organize this?” She focused on the stones. “They all look the same, but what if some packages have fakes and some reals?”

“Let’s put one from each group in a different Ziploc bag. I’ll put a post-it note number from one to five on each pouch and we’ll magic marker that same number on the corresponding Ziploc.

“But didn’t we find six pouches?”

“Well, yes, but two packets mixed together when they fell out on the floor.”

“You’re right.” They followed Jason’s plan. She put the Ziplocs in a large manila envelope, hiked her purse strap over her shoulder, jingled her keys and started for the garage. “About Grand-sitting, it’s easiest to entertain them inside, but if you decide to garden they could play near you in the yard. Just keep a close watch on them please, Jay. I couldn’t face their parents if anything happened to them on our watch.”