An Uncollected Death Read online

especially since she had only an abstract idea what kind of home or lifestyle was going to replace them. Charlotte felt she needed something to plan towards. Downsizing, facing life on a pittance, felt negative unless one could replace it with attractive possibilities. She imagined feeling unfettered by stuff, bills, and upkeep, free to focus on work and maybe even resurrect a hobby. A minimum of expenses meant a small income would go a long way.

  What she needed was to make it feel real to her in a positive way: the space, the furniture, the neighborhood. The windows here needed to be replaced in her mind’s eye by the windows of a new space, the quality of the light, the view, the kinds of trees, the kinds of activities and people and cars and noises and smells. Would the windows of the studio above Good Stuff do the job? One of the crows that nested in the pine trees flew by the window. She would miss him, but there would be other crows in other places, wouldn’t there? And other rabbits and squirrels and deer? Well, maybe not the deer in downtown Elm Grove. She’d heard a coyote was spotted there last summer.

  And what furniture would she have, what layout of the rooms? Would she be able to make it her space if she was only renting? Of course she would. She loved nesting. Big or small, her space was always her space.

  Charlotte heard the doorbell ring, and took a couple deep breaths to calm her nerves.

  Five

  Saturday, September 14th (Another long day)

   

  When Charlotte opened the front door, she almost gasped.

  Bosley Warren wasn’t much smaller in person than he was on the billboard. She wasn’t sure if she’d ever been up close to someone this large in her life: just short of seven feet tall and nearly four feet wide, with eyes that looked twinkling and smiling on the billboard but in person just looked like small round black beetles buried in fat.

  But those beetle eyes were moving around fast as Charlotte walked him through the house, taking in every square inch of the entry, the kitchen, the living room, taking in every object large and small. She could almost see the calculations occurring behind them. He reeked of strong aftershave or cologne, which made her nose itch.

  “Well, now, Ms. Anthony,” he drawled—and it was a good imitation of an authentic drawl, designed to make others think he was just an ordinary good ol’ boy there to do some honest business with them—“you’ve got some mighty fine things here, all in a real beautiful house. It’ll put people in a buying mood, and I’m sure there will be no problem making a tidy sum from it.”

  “That’s good to hear, Mr. Warren. How would you proceed? How much of the set-up do you take care of, and how much would I have to do, that sort of thing?”

  “Call me Bosley, Ms. Anthony, and if I may call you Charlotte?” he asked, with an inflection that automatically made Charlotte feel she was in a used car lot, and not in her lovely house. But she nodded her assent, and he continued,

  “Okay, Charlotte, here is how it works. I see you’ve already started cleaning things out and boxing up stuff, but I want you to stop, as you might be throwing out something that somebody might want to buy. You’d be amazed at what people will pay money for at these sales, and even something that goes for a couple of dollars adds to the total. As we like to say, ‘it might be worth more than you think!’ Even any clothes you don’t want, you can leave those for us to sell, too.”

  Charlotte knew he was thinking of the pile in the walk-in closet and felt herself blush. “The rod fell down this morning….”

  Bosley grinned and lifted his hand to stop her. “I unnerstand.”

  She then felt less embarrassed and more irritated, as if he now had something on her, which was of course ridiculous, wasn’t it? Snap out of it and pay attention, she told herself.

  “Anyhow, my team and I would then come in with big banquet tables and set out some things by themselves and group some less expensive items together in boxes. This tends to speed things up, as many people will spend five dollars on a box of stuff that has only one thing they really want in it. We like to call ‘em treasure boxes. That’s part of the enjoyment folks get from going to sales like this, as sometimes you never know what else might be in a box you pick up for the one thing you thought you wanted.” He nodded in a knowing manner, almost winking at her, as if to imply another side of things that were known, but not directly spoken of.

  “That’s good to know.” Charlotte paused, and watched Bosley’s eyes do their darting around thing again, as if he didn’t even realize she’d stopped speaking. Maybe it wasn’t so unlikely that he found a first edition of Least Objects. “Is that how you found that book?”

  Her question took a full two seconds to register in his brain. He didn’t look at her this time, but smiled more to himself and said, “Somethin’ like that.”

  Then he continued with how things would be set up. Charlotte found it a lot to take in, but heard nothing that differed from the details in the spreadsheet Lola had given her to look over. “What should I do with the things I want to keep?”

  “That’s up to you. Generally, we mark items not for sale as such. Some clients move everything to a lockable bedroom or study, particularly small things. You might want to use your office. There will be a representative in every room of the house to keep an eye on things, don’t you worry about that.” He opened his notebook to a calendar page. “My crew and I can come in and start setting up two weeks from today. We work fast and can have your sale a week after that. That’ll give you some time to sort through anything personal you want to hold back.”

  “It sounds good, but it’s a lot to take in. How soon would you need to have my answer?”

  “The sooner the better, and—.”

  Bosley’s cell phone interrupted him, and he surprised her with the speed with which he pulled it out of his jacket pocket and answered it, as if he had been waiting for the call. “Yeah,” he said into the phone, turning his back to her and moving away to stand in front of the fireplace. “What?” He paused, then drawled, “Oh, for cryin’ out loud.” He turned back toward Charlotte as he ended the call with, “I’ll be there in about half an hour.”

  Charlotte had to give the man credit for quickly getting past whatever news was disturbing enough to take the color out of his face, and resume his smile, even if he couldn’t control the way the flesh around the outside of his eyes sagged with worry.

  “Charlotte, here’s a copy of our standard agreement, if you’ll just look it over, plain English, all straightforward,” he handed her the paper from the folder, and then offered her a pen.

  “I want to sleep on it, Bosley. Like I said, it’s a lot to take in. I can drop this off at your shop, though, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am, that would be perfectly all right. Lola said you are in a little bit of a hurry, and I’ve set this date aside for you, so don’t wait too long if you wanna keep it. Best you let me know one way or the other no later than 6 p.m. on Monday, okay?”

  Charlotte had the sense that if he didn’t have someplace else he had to get to he would have pressed a lot harder for a decision right then and there. As it was, however, he made his way back through the kitchen and out to his Esplanade, drawling remarks about the weather and the “cute knick-knacks,” as if he really wasn’t in a hurry, even shaking her hand with the tips of his fingers. He took his time backing out of the driveway, but she could see him driving faster and faster down the lakeshore road, and blow the stop sign on the way to the highway.

  Back in the house, she looked over her “cute knick-knacks,” and felt her mood turning dark. She knew that she ought to go with Bosley to get as much cash as she could from everything—who knew how long it would take before the house sold, if it would sell enough to cover the mortgage, or how long it would take to rebuild her career and income? But it was hard enough to effect a complete life change like this without feeling like one’s dignity was also being liquidated. The smell of whatever fragrance Bosley Warren was wearing still lingered in the living room, and she felt smothered by it.

 
 

  A cup of tea in her familiar, cozy office put Charlotte in a better frame of mind. She called Helene, and asked how Olivia was faring.

  Helene sighed. “I went to see her this morning, and thought maybe she was coming to, she started talking. I was holding her hand, and then she looked right up at me and said, in French, “It’s my book! My book!” I asked her what book that was, but she drifted off again, and went back to sleep.”

  “Maybe she meant the notebooks?”

  “Possibly. It seems likely. But there were those books on the floor. I wonder if whoever else was there took something that belonged to her. I did call the police detective and told him, but it is hard to tell if we should take it seriously or if she was just talking in a delirium.”

  There was a lull in the conversation, and Charlotte looked down at the various papers Lola left behind. The chart with the estate liquidation services was on top, and it dawned on her why one name in particular seemed familiar.

  “Helene, when you were preparing to move to Elm Grove, you had an estate sale, right?”

  “Yes, that is right. Paul and I had so many things in that big house and of course I could not take much of it with. Why do you ask?”

  Charlotte told her about Diane’s budget plan and about listing the house with Lola McKennie. “She recommended that I use an