Ella Barrick - Dead Man Waltzing

We toweled off, dressed, and left the gym as the last glimmers of sun faded from the sky. Before we separated outside the gym, I asked Dani whether she wanted to go swimsuit shopping with me on Saturday. “I need a new suit for Jekyll Island,” I said casually.

She eyed me with affectionate scorn. “Is that your subtle way of trying to nudge me into a decision?”

I don’t know why my subtlety was so obvious to everyone. “Maybe.”

She laughed, punched my shoulder, and strode off with a toss of her red curls.

“Is that a ‘yes’?” I called after her.

I arrived at the estate sale the next morning moments after it began, Tav, surprisingly, in tow. He’d shown up at Graysin Motion before heading to his business downtown, hoping to have the talk about our financial situation which we’d postponed from yesterday. He’d caught me shooing out the sweaty ballroom cardio students, anxious to get to Corinne’s house before someone snapped up the typewriter, and had decided to ride along when I told him where I was going.

He let out a low whistle when he caught sight of the mansion. “Ballroom dancing pays better than I thought,” he said.

“Marrying well pays better than ballroom dancing,” I said dryly, maneuvering the car down a side street where arrows indicated we should park.

“Maybe I should try it,” he said with a sidelong look at me.

“Great work if you can get it,” I said, refusing to take the bait.

He laughed and freed himself from the seat belt. “Which way is the house now? I got lost two turns back-I have no sense of direction.”

I put my hands on his shoulders and pointed him in the right direction. The number of cars parked on both sides of the street between here and Corinne’s filled me with dismay, and I found my pace quickening as we approached the house. “I hope it’s not gone,” I muttered, as we came within sight of the house, the lawn crawling with dozens of people pawing through goods set up on card tables outside, while a steady stream of buyers disappeared through the front doors or into the open garage.

A fortyish woman and a man sat behind a six-foot-long folding table with a cash box in front of them and a professionally lettered sign proclaiming PINE ESTATE SALES propped to the side. The woman wasn’t Eulalia Pine, but I approached her anyway. She looked up from making change for a dealer apparently buying several pieces of furniture and gave me a harassed look over the tops of her reading glasses. When I introduced myself and told her I wanted to speak to Eulalia Pine, she shook her head of frizzy brown hair. “Mom tore a ligament in her ankle out appraising some antique farm equipment last evening,” she said with an exasperated sigh.

“She was going to put a typewriter aside for me,” I said anxiously, scanning the boxes and items stacked behind and under the table.

The woman threw open her hands in a “nothing I can do” gesture. “She didn’t say anything to me. Your best bet is to find it in the house. All I can say is we haven’t sold any typewriters today.” She turned her attention to a customer behind me.

I grabbed Tav’s hand. “Come on. Thanks,” I threw over my shoulder to the woman, who was now haggling with a portly man about the price for a life-size ceramic tiger he towed on a child’s sled.

Tav and I threaded our way through the throngs of shoppers; it felt as crowded as Christmas Eve at the mall. “Who knew a garage sale would draw so many people?” I said.

“Estate sale,” corrected a thin woman holding a laundry basket full of what looked like antique linens. “Very different. I don’t do garage sales.”

“You say tomahto, I say tomayto,” I whispered to Tav as we made our way into the high-ceilinged foyer. I thought of all Great-aunt Laurinda’s stuff I wanted to get rid of and wondered whether either an estate sale or a garage sale would net me enough to buy a few new pieces of furniture. Maybe if I combed garage sales for bargains, I thought. I hadn’t been to a garage sale in years; last time I’d purchased an Aladdin VCR tape with a quarter from my allowance. I started for the stairs.

Midway up, a young couple, each toting one end of a rolled-up carpet, bumped into me. Tav’s arm clamped around me as I teetered on the stair. He drew me tight to his side.

“This is more dangerous than playing football”-I knew he meant soccer-“on the highway.”

“The possibility of bargains can drive even usually sane, calm people to hitherto unknown acts of violence,” I said, trying not to show how his closeness affected me. His warmth and the woodsy scent of his shampoo or deodorant made me lose focus for a moment.

“Do you suppose that woman woke up this morning saying, ‘I must have a bronze planter engraved with scenes from an African village, because my life is incomplete without it’?” Tav asked in my ear as an elderly woman tottered past us with just such an item clutched to her chest.

I stifled a laugh and continued up the stairs. On the landing, practically within sight of my goal, I bumped into Turner Blakely. A knowing smile oiled across his face when he recognized me, and I could tell he thought I’d come looking for him. He threw an arm across my shoulders. “Too many people around right now, Stacy,” he said. “But I’m free tonight.”

I wiggled out from under his arm and drew Tav forward. “Tav, this is Turner Blakely, Corinne’s grandson. Turner, Tav Acosta, my partner.” I deliberately didn’t specify what kind of partner.

The men eyed each other with instant, mutual dislike and shook hands briefly. “I am sorry about your grandmother’s death,” Tav said.

“What are you doing here, then?” Turner asked me, suspicion darkening his eyes now that he knew I hadn’t come chasing after his hot bod.

“The same as everyone else,” I said as casually as possible. “Looking for a bargain.”

“They’re not charging enough for Grandmother’s treasures,” Turner said. His face wore an expression of discontent. “I tried to tell the woman in charge that she was pricing things too low, but she wouldn’t listen to me. Told me she knew her business and to butt out.”

I grinned inwardly and wished I’d been present for the confrontation between Eulalia Pine and Turner Blakely.

“I know Grandmother paid twenty times more for some of her things than that Pine woman is asking for them.”

“Things always go cheap at a garage sale,” I said.

“Estate sale.” Turner glared at me.

I suddenly thought of Maurice’s painting. I knew he didn’t have possession of it yet. “Where are the items that Corinne willed to people?” I asked.

“In storage,” Turner said. “Goudge’s staff collected the bequeathed items. They also removed all the good art, Grandmother’s jewelry, and pieces of furniture; it’ll be auctioned off later.” He looked a bit happier at the prospect of making more money.

“Look, Verena, this chest of drawers is only one hundred dollars,” exclaimed a woman’s voice behind us.

“That can’t be right!” Turner brushed past Tav and me and went to confront the women attempting to lift the chest.

As soon as his back was turned, I grabbed Tav’s hand and pulled him down the hall to Corinne’s office. Only a couple of shoppers browsed in the small room. One was standing on tiptoe to take down a clock mounted on the wall. The desk had a “sold” sticker on it. Gaps in the bookshelves showed where buyers had removed books. The desk chair was gone.

So was the typewriter.

I must have gasped, because Tav turned to look at me. “Stacy?”

“It’s gone,” I wailed. “But the woman said they hadn’t sold it yet.” I rushed to the desk, looking under it and around it, in case someone had moved the typewriter so they could examine the desk better. “It’s not here.”