Such Beautiful Deadly Things: A Miller's Fine Antiques Mystery by Heather Mosko

Author:Heather Mosko [Mosko, Heather]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2022-04-30T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

-- unknown

Chasing powdered creamer around Styrofoam coffee cups with wooden sticks, Lucy and C.A. discussed the Toy Guy. Lucy said, “Do you think we should tell the police about Eddie bouncing checks?”

“I’m not sure.” C.A. made a face after taking a sip of her artificially flavored drink. “I’m sure they have access to all his bank records. One look at his statements and they’ll see all the bad check fees.”

“True. I guess there really isn’t anything else to tell then.”

“I don’t think so. But if we find an effigy of Eddie hanging from a noose in one of the dealer’s stalls, or one of them confesses to hitting Eddie over the head with an excellent example of 1920’s Amish crockery, then I think we’ll need to call Detective Randolph.” C.A. walked down another row of tables.

Lucy raised an eyebrow at her friend’s facetiousness “Now there’s the old sarcastic Carol Ann Miller I know and love. Where have you been?”

“Freaked out. But getting back to work is doing wonders for my attitude.”

Their shopping trip was fruitful. In the next hour they found several reasonably priced silver serving pieces, midcentury Christmas decorations, a hand turned set of folk art candle holders and two vintage Wilendur cotton tablecloths with floral prints—Lucy’s favorite. Their bags getting fuller, the women suddenly realized their bellies were not. “I’m starving,” Lucy said.

“Me too.” C.A. set down her bags. “But I hate eating here. Our selection is nachos with synthetic cheese, or hot dogs made of God-knows-what.”

“Why don’t we just try and finish going through the last building and then we’ll get out of here and go find someplace decent to eat.”

“Sounds good.” After stretching out their backs and picking up their purchases again, they set out for a long green nondescript building at the edge of the property. Inside were more stalls filled with everything from 1914 naval uniforms to hand knotted Persian meditation rugs.

“Missy McGarvey has a table in here, I think.” C.A. peered down the long aisle that ran through the center of the building. “She always has some interesting things.”

“Yeah, right,” Lucy said. “Interesting garbage.”

“Oh, stop. Missy has a good eye. You’re right, most of it doesn’t have a high resale value, but I’ve found some surprisingly good things mixed in with all the other garbage, as you call it.”

“Fine, let’s go find Missy. Then I want to go to lunch.”

Carol Ann made her way down the aisle, glancing left and right at the other dealers’ wares to make sure she wasn’t missing anything along the way. Almost to the end of the row, C.A. spotted two folding tables side by side crammed with porcelain figurines, glass ashtrays, pipes, beer mugs, salt-and-pepper shakers and tableware—Missy’s table.

Wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and multi-colored stretch pants, Missy sat sprawled out in a law chair sipping a Big Gulp and watching the customers go by. She spotted C.A. and Lucy. “Hello, girls. What’s happenin’?”

“Not much, Missy. How are you?” C.A.’s eyes scanned the clutter on the table, searching for anything of value.

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