Evidence in the Echinacea Read online

  Mack looked at that piece she held and whistled. “That’s not exactly a car part,” he said. “That’s a stovepipe for a Harley.”

  “Stovepipe? How does this hook onto a stove?”

  She watched him as he turned it around in his hand and squatted in front of the box. “Okay, so this could be worth some decent money.”

  “Seriously?”

  He nodded. “But you need somebody who knows what they’re talking about.” He opened a couple more boxes and then said, “I have a buddy who collects and restores old cars and bikes. Let me talk to him.” He pulled out his phone and walked out to the driveway.

  She busied herself opening the rest of the boxes, but, to her, it was all unrecognizable. The pallet itself was a good four feet by four feet and at least another four feet high.

  She turned to find a couple spindles from something and another chair behind it that she dragged out to the junk pile in the grass. She looked around at a collection of brooms and just more junk and said, “What do I do with the rest of this stuff?” She moved something leaning up against the wall, and she realized it was a massive mirror. She cried out softly as she turned it around. Something about it made her think it didn’t belong in the junk pile. She stared at it for a long moment, and then she took a picture of it and sent it to Scott. She moved it safely in the back of the garage with a blanket over it until everything was cleaned out but the pallet.

  Dusty, tired, but absolutely thrilled to have her garage back and to know the stuff outside was literally garbage, she turned around to find Mack once more buried in the pallet of boxes. “What did your friend say?”

  “He’s on his way,” Mack mumbled as he pulled out more pieces.

  She stepped forward and said, “Did you say he’s coming right now?”

  He looked up at her and nodded. “He is coming right now. And his brother. One handles the bikes, and the other restores cars, so, with any luck, they’ll be able to tell us what this is.”

  “That would be lovely.” She shoved her hands in her pockets as she waited, and her fingers came into contact with the laminate stuff she had found at Penny’s. She pulled out the pieces and held them in her hand, trying to put them together. She looked down and frowned. Pieced together they looked like a nurse’s badge. The metal clip was still attached to one of the pieces. She laid them down on the garage steps. It wasn’t a complete badge, and it had been chewed up and blackened in places, but a name was here. Nancy Cousins. She took a picture of the pieces together.

  Mack walked over and asked, “What have you got there?”

  She pointed at the pieces. “Apparently George used to burn garbage behind his house, and he always dumped it where the echinacea plants originally were. Penny was trying to make the corner look better, but the plants weren’t doing so well, and, when I dug them up to transplant them, I found a bunch of these laminate pieces.”

  “The plastic is partially melted, and some of it’s quite black,” he said, “but it looks like an ID tag for a hospital.”

  She nodded. “But I don’t know how or why,” she said.

  Mack frowned and said, “I know that name.” He stared off in the distance. “I’ll check on it. Don’t you lose those.”

  “Do you want them?”

  He thought about it and nodded. “Put them in a bag for me, will ya?”

  She could hear vehicles parking out front. She looked out into the driveway to see a couple very rough-looking guys.

  Mack grinned and said, “That’s the brothers.”

  “Are you sure you should have called them?” she asked doubtfully.

  “They’re good guys,” he said. “Go put that stuff in a bag please, and then come on out. I’ll introduce you.” He walked out and shook hands with both men. A lot of shoulder slapping was going on as he brought them over to the pallet, pulled out his pocketknife while she watched, and he cut off the rest of the plastic.

  She went inside and bagged up the laminate pieces Mack needed. When she came back out again with the bag in her pocket, she found the men exclaiming over the boxes. She stood off to the side and asked, “Is anything there of value?”

  The two brothers looked at her, one coming over with his hand outstretched, and said, “You must be Doreen.”

  She grinned and shook his hand. “What gave me away?”

  “How about that big bird on your shoulder? And this handsome fella.” He bent to greet Mugs, who seemed delighted to see the man.

  She chuckled. “I forget Thaddeus is there most of the time.”

  “He was on my shoulder not long ago,” Mack said cheerfully, “until he pecked me because I wasn’t giving him enough attention.”

  The men just laughed. She looked at the boxes on the pallet and asked them, “Do you know what any of this stuff is?”

  “We certainly do,” one of the brothers said. “And, if you’re interested in selling the whole lot of it, we would be interested in buying it.”

  She stared at them in surprise. “Wow, okay. That’s not what I expected.”

  One nodded. “They’re all parts, original pieces from what we can tell, but a bit of a mismatch, like they’re from a parts shop or something going under, where everything was sold off in lots. It does happen on a regular basis,” he said, “but, in this case, you’ve got some decent inventory here.”

  “The question then becomes,” she said, “what’s it worth and what would you pay me for it?”

  “And, of course, you’re wondering if those are two different things, right?”

  She laughed. “Well, I admit I’m a little on the broke side, so, if we can do a solid deal, that would be nice.”

  “We’re prepared to give you a fair deal,” the taller one said. “What happens is, when we restore bikes, we’re always looking for original parts, and sometimes we scour the countryside for them. All of these parts here don’t belong on the same type vehicle. So we always need the right parts for each vehicle we work on.”

  “Ah,” she said. She walked over, and they had all the boxes open and laid out in the garage. She shook her head. “None of that looks special to me.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” one brother said. “It doesn’t look like a lot to most people. But we can probably do a few thousand dollars, if you’re interested.”

  The other brother said, “Absolutely. That’s about the right amount.”

  Doreen looked to Mack, who shrugged before looking over at the brothers. “What do you mean by a few thousand dollars?” he asked.

  The two brothers looked at each other and said, “Top dollar would be three thousand, and we’ll take it right now off your hands.”

  Mack raised an eyebrow.

  “Don’t suppose you can do a dump run as part of the deal, can you?” Doreen asked craftily.

  Mack laughed. The men looked at her in surprise. She pointed to the pile of stuff in the grassy area and said, “I have no way to get rid of all that busted-up material.”

  They took a look and said, “We can take that too. We’ll throw it in the back of our truck, put all this stuff inside the truck, and we’re good to go.”

  She beamed. “So three thousand dollars and a dump run. It sounds good to me.”

  They all shook hands. One of the brothers pulled out a roll of one-hundred-dollar bills and counted off Doreen’s three thousand. When done, Mack threw an arm around her shoulder, hugged her, and whispered in her ear, “Tricky bit to add to the deal but nicely done.”

  The brothers were already loading the individual boxes into their truck. They had one of those big cab things and it just seemed to absorb the boxes.

  She beamed up at Mack. “Hey, once we can get rid of the garbage and the car parts, we can unload your truck and my car into my garage, and we can open the doors to the basement. Maybe move some of that up here.”

  He groaned and rolled his eyes at that. “I was happily forgetting the basement.”

  She smiled.

  “But, if that’s where the money is,”
he said, “I can’t forget about that.”

  “Well, before that,” she said, “let’s get rid of all this and the outside stuff.”

  He nodded. “That’s my marching order then,” he said. “How about you put on coffee? I’ll give the guys a hand loading up everything, and maybe we can get them to give me a hand unloading those workbenches and the tool chests. I’m not looking forward to unloading that sucker.”

  When she had the coffee on, she stepped out to see all the junk had been loaded, her garage was empty, and the men were cheerfully helping Mack unload the toolboxes and the workbenches. They placed everything neatly, almost identical to the way it had been in George’s garage, and then she popped the trunk on her car and started unloading the drawers.

  With the drawers in place, the men stood back and said, “Wow, you got yourself a nice little workshop.”

  She smiled and brought out the pegboards and said, “Not yet but, once I get these hung, then maybe yes. I’ve got all the tools to hang, and I took pictures to see how it all should be set up.”

  One brother grabbed a pegboard and said, “We can have these hung in no time. I’ve even got nails in the truck.”

  Doreen said, “I’ve got a hammer. If you can do that, I’m about to pour coffee. I’ll bring out a couple cups.” And that was what she did. She poured coffee for everyone and brought them out with sugar and cream for the men. She’d chosen the best of the mugs but they were still chipped. The men didn’t seem to mind. It took only fifteen minutes, and all the pegboards were hung, with the workbenches below. She stared in amazement. And then she took the tools from the back seat of her car and hung them up. Using the pictures off her phone, all three men stayed long enough to get everything hung until her car was empty. She turned, looked at the guys, and smiled. “Thank you so much,” she said. “I had absolutely no idea how I would get all that done.”

  They shook their heads, and one said, “That’s a hell of a deal you got here today. Thousands of dollars’ worth of tools are here.”

  “I know,” she said. “Unfortunately tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of renos have to be done on Nan’s house, so I’ll learn how to use some of these tools myself. Not to mention the gardening that has to be done here too.”

  “Whenever you get ready to hire people to do stuff you can’t do, let us know,” said one of the brothers. “We have a pretty good network of tradesmen.” They tossed back their coffees, handed her their empty cups, shook Mack’s hand again, and took off.

  Doreen stood there, holding the empty cups and staring at her garage. She looked back at Mack and said, “How the hell did we do that? We went from a garage full of junk to an absolutely fantastic workspace.”

  He shook his head and said, “Only you. You’re the only person I know who could possibly make this happen so fast. Now get into your car, turn it around, and park it inside your garage. It’s a much safer way to come in and out every day.”

  She grinned, hopped into her vehicle, and parked right in the middle of her newly repurposed garage. As she got out, she cried out, “Look. It fits.”

  He nodded. “It does now.” He walked to her car and placed the garage opener that she hadn’t seen before on her visor. “Now you can get in and out using this. And to open the door from the inside use the control on the wall beside the light switch.” He pointed it out to her.

  She beamed and tried it out. “Perfect.”

  “Except… we have to get some of the furniture out from the basement. There’s a lot to move so we might want to get a start on it now. Especially as I don’t have to go back to work today.”

  She groaned, got in her vehicle, opened the garage door and backed it out, and parked it where it had been before. “I think I might need more coffee before we start that.”

  Chapter 28

  Friday Dinnertime …

  Inside, Doreen put on a second pot of coffee. Mack stood behind her and said, “I don’t know if you’re anxious to get out there and work on that right now, but it is past dinnertime.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “What time is it?”

  He tapped his watch. “It’s after six. If we’re doing pasta, we still won’t be eating until six-thirty or a quarter to seven.”

  She nodded. “Food then. It should still give us an hour, maybe two hours to haul some of that basement stuff upstairs before I give out completely.”

  “I noticed you already put some stuff in the living room. Is that for Scott to check over?”

  She nodded. “And, so far, it seems to be a bit of a mismatch. I took out what I could, but I can’t reach the dresser. It’s still in the far back corner.”

  “I remember that,” he said. He pulled out a big pasta pot, filled it with water, and turned it on to boil with a lid on it, then brought out the sauce she had frozen and put it into a pot to warm up.

  She looked at him and asked, “Are we having the same thing as last time?”

  “Yep. We need a bit more sauce,” he said, “so I’ll extend it while the water for the pasta is heating up.”

  With everything set, he said, “I want to go take a look at what you’ve pulled out so far.”

  He walked into the living room, and she stood there, saying, “See? It’s just chairs and coffee tables at this point.”

  He opened the living room door to the basement and disappeared. He came back a few minutes later, bringing up an odd-shaped high-backed winged chair. She looked at it and frowned. “That’s odd, isn’t it?”

  “I’ve seen them before,” he said. “But I don’t know if there are more of them. Nan seems to have a group of individual items down there. Hopefully, by the time we get them all out, we’ll know what belongs with what, so we can keep like things with like. We need to open up those big doors in the garage too. I can start on that end.”

  She led the way through the kitchen into the garage, crying out in joy again as she walked into the big open space. She hit the lights, walked over to the double doors, and opened them wide.

  Mack stood behind her and whistled. “Now that’s a nice set of wide stairs.”

  She nodded. “That really helps, doesn’t it?”

  He went down the stairs from the garage side and turned on the lights in the basement, and now they could see the full extent of all the furniture down here. He groaned, motioned at one end of a table, and asked, “Can you lift that up?”

  She grabbed it, and together they lifted up a large dining room table, which they upended onto its legs and set it in one corner of the garage. Six trips later, Doreen wiped her forehead and said, “Maybe we should check the pasta pot.”

  He grinned and nodded. “And you need a break.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I tell you, since I arrived at Nan’s, I’ve done more physical work than I have in a lifetime.”

  At that, he burst out laughing. “It’s probably good for you,” he said.

  They trooped into the kitchen. Mack stirred the sauce, added more tomato, some garlic, and she wasn’t sure what all else, but it looked like various herbs, and then he added oil and salt to the big pot. He said, “We still have another ten minutes before this thing is boiling. We can do three more trips.”

  Privately she thought they’d have time for one more trip, but she was willing to give him a chance.

  They walked back into the basement, and he said, “Okay, what’s next?”

  She looked around and said, “A couple really big mirrors are here as well.”

  Carefully Mack picked up one and carried it up. She picked up a much smaller one and carried it to the garage and then said, “You know what? It’s foolish for you to carry stuff that I can take care of. Why don’t you carry the bigger stuff because I can do the rest on my own.”

  He nodded, went back down, and grabbed a matching pot chair to the one they’d seen earlier. As she stood here in the basement, she pointed out a couch. “Looks like it matches the chairs.”

  He nodded. “Looks like it.”

  Inste
ad of three trips, they ended up doing five trips before dinnertime. As she carried up yet another mirror, Mack disappeared into the kitchen. Grateful, she followed him to see him adding the pasta to the big pot. “So, do we get to eat soon?”

  “A few minutes yet,” he said. “Let’s take another look in the basement.”

  The garage was half full by now, with everything well spaced out instead of being stacked on top of each other. Mack and Doreen returned to the basement again.

  He looked at a few of the bigger pieces and said, “If we get those up into the garage, that’ll give us access to some of these on the side here.”

  It took several attempts to lift her end of the couch. Then she had to back up the stairs, so he carried the bulk of the weight. They stopped halfway, and then gamely she grabbed her end and lifted it up two more stairs. She shook her head at him. “I’m sorry. This is just really heavy.”

  “Take your time,” he said. “Every step you take, the closer we are to getting it into the garage.”

  She sighed, bent down, gripped it again.

  “Lift with your knees,” he warned, “not your back.”

  She lifted using her quads and found it much easier. She got to the top and backed up slowly through the doors as Mack came up the stairs behind her. When they set it down, she said, “This couch is quite pretty.”

  “Do you like it?” he asked. “It’d be a bitch to get into the living room, but if that’s what you would like there …”

  “Not until I hear what Scott has to say,” she said.

  At that, he chuckled. “Still after the money, are you?” he teased.

  “I’m okay with modern furniture that’s worth a fraction of what Scott took out of here,” she said, “and I don’t want anything worth big money with the animals to ruin it.”

  “Good point,” he said, disappearing into the kitchen. He came back out a few moments later while she was still resting and said, “Noodles aren’t quite there. Let’s get another bit done, then we can eat.”

  She headed down herself, relieved to see the basement was at least half empty now. “We can probably get another four or five pieces into the garage,” she said, “if they’re not too big. Maybe we can sort these out here so they’re not stacked, and Scott can take a walk through here too.”