Garage Sale Stalker (Garage Sale Mysteries) (2 page)

Ruger felt apprehension grow, as if an unstoppable living object had broken free inside him and begun to move—something getting bigger and rising higher within, something that would not remain suppressed any longer. His throat tightened and he drew his arms protectively close to his body as a second memory hurtled up and exploded into his conscious mind. He stared numbly as the vivid old tape replayed in his brain. At this very table his raving mother chopped off one of Mathis’ fingers to punish him for spelling mistakes. The gushing blood, the wrenching screams, the total terror…

Ruger stood motionless several minutes, paralyzed by these violent recollections and feeling again the fear and pain inflicted then. Suddenly he strode across the kitchen and dry-heaved into the sink. Recovering at last, he slumped onto one of the ancient chairs, leaned forward on his elbows and covered his eyes with his hands.

He’d successfully blotted out the old terror these many years. For all his military toughness, he still wasn’t ready for this inner child’s sickening journey through horrifying past events. Stop this, he ordered himself. That was then, this is now. She’s gone; you can do this. Focus on the situation at hand—the same single-minded focus that marshalled you through the near-impossible military assignments where you excelled. Form a plan, eliminate distractions, go!

He stood, did a disciplined 360-degree take of the kitchen and walked across the hall to the parlor. The boys were never allowed into this room. Even now, he stepped back from the forbidden threshold. Finally prodding himself forward, for the first time in his life he entered this area of his childhood home. Like a museum still-life with everything in place, the room was frozen in time. He swept a finger through dust on the nearest end table. Clearly his mother also avoided this room, keeping it perpetually unused and pristine for company who never came.

Returning to the hallway, he followed the threadbare carpet runner’s trail from the kitchen to the first bedroom. As a child, he’d peered into but never entered his mother’s room. Hesitantly, he opened the door to reveal a bed with bare mattress, an austere dresser, a listing lamp and a tattered floor rug. Adding to the unwelcoming dimness from tightly drawn shades covering otherwise bare windows, an unpleasant sick-room odor assaulted his nostrils. He’d later find that smell concentrated in the mattress when he threw it away. He choked, gripped by unbearable claustrophobia. Backing out rapidly, he lurched heavily against the wall and closed his eyes to gather courage and resolve.

The next bedroom triggered yet another memory. He and Mathis had shared this room with twin beds when one wasn’t punished by imprisonment elsewhere in the house or outdoor sheds. “Elsewhere in the house” shook a kaleidoscope of crisscrossed, nauseating images through his mind. He glanced anxiously at the closet and cringed at a vision of the cellar.

Suddenly he couldn’t breathe. Clutching his chest, he hurried down the hall, through the kitchen, wrenched open the back door and gulped in the cold winter air. Still sitting in the previously ordered position, his dog studied him, alert for the next command.

“What the hell are you looking at, you mangy hyena?” Ruger shouted, booting the animal fiercely in the ribs. Propelled into the air by the vicious kick, the dog yelped sharply, landed hard and scrambled to recover footing. With an anxious look at its master, the dog eased itself back into the “stay” position again.

His anger relieved by action, Ruger took more deep breaths before finally reentering the house. The second time was easier. He walked back down the hall to the third bedroom, pushed open its door and gaped at a room outfitted for a little girl—a room he’d never seen. Faded hand-sewn gingham curtains hung limply at the window and a matching drab coverlet lay on the simple twin bed beside a scuffed chest of drawers. On a child’s chair sat the shabby remnant of a worn teddy bear, the penetrating stare of its remaining eye aimed straight at Ruger.

He drew back and shut the door hard. Despite no memory of her room, he vaguely recalled a little girl. From Bromley’s story, she must have been his young sister.

Returning to his truck, Ruger sat down to think. Should he stay here tonight or go to a motel? Should he move in here at all or rent a flat in town? Admittedly, this isolation provided privacy and security for his clandestine computer work, never mind rent-free. Until he sold this property, money might get scarce once his military pay ran out and before his “consultant fees” rolled in.

Hadn’t he survived Navy Seal training to which his Army Special Forces unit was attached? Hadn’t he accepted military assignments so risky that only he volunteered? Hell, if he could do that he could take on an empty old house and in the process rid himself of whatever demons it held. The sensible solution was to stay and come to terms with the violent memories.

A simple, constructive plan dawned. He could erase the past by erasing everything in the main part of the house that pertained to it. He’d ditch his mother’s furnishings and substitute his own stuff. He’d transform what was hers into his. He’d take control!

No need for
new
furniture with the length of his living situation here uncertain, but he would need
different
furniture and used would work just fine. Salvation Army and Goodwill sold what he needed. He’d donate this existing furniture while there. Newspaper ads listed household items for sale and didn’t he remember something about garage sales? He considered selling his mother’s old furniture at such a sale of his own but dismissed this idea. A loner, he didn’t like people, didn’t want them near this house and certainly didn’t want to draw any attention to his living at this location. Still, he might attend other people’s sales to find what he needed at reasonable prices.

He’d first transform the girl’s room into an office because his on-going work eclipsed all else. He’d sleep in a twin bed in the room once shared with Mathis until refurnishing it as his own sleeping quarters. Next, he’d replace everything in the kitchen and redo the parlor into a comfortable place to watch TV. But the third bedroom, where his mother slept for forty years and where she died, awaited a yet uncertain use. Maybe if he scrubbed every inch of it and let the room stand empty for weeks until he was certain his mother’s purged spirit joined her belongings clustered in the cellar, then he could turn her bedroom into a gym. Add a thorough house cleaning and window washing—how long would the whole refitting take? Ten days? Two weeks? Three? As for the cellar, he shuddered, much later, if ever at all…

His face set with resolve. He wouldn’t let exposure to gruesome memories change his plan. He wouldn’t let their accumulating horror take on a power of its own. He wouldn’t let that power push him in directions he didn’t want to go. He
wouldn’t
…

CHAPTER 1

Jennifer Shannon thr
ew a
c
ardboard box into the passenger side of the vehicle, raced around to the driver’s side and jumped into the front seat of the white Cadillac Crossover SUV. Revving the motor, she needed to move fast with only an hour to complete her plan.

Barreling down the street, she glanced at the notebook on the seat beside her to verify her destination. No need to consult the book map since she’d driven that neighborhood before. She fingered the zippered fanny pack belted around her waist, in which she’d stuffed small bills and coins. Earlier she’d locked larger denomination “backup bills” in the glove compartment.

Several turns, a glance to verify the correct street name at the corner, and she slowed to identify house numbers, odd/even, ascending/descending, to establish the correct direction and which side of the street. A cluster of parked cars a block ahead confirmed the location even before the street address appeared on the mailbox. Seconds later, she swung into an open parking spot in front of the house.

From the number of parked cars and array of items strewn before the house, this might be a winner. Jennifer glanced at her reflection in the rear-view mirror. In her rush to get away this morning, rather than dealing with “bad hair” she covered her honey-colored bob with a scarf moments before leaving the house. Now she tightened its knot at the back of her neck and applied the lipstick forgotten in her hasty no-makeup departure. Rubbing her lips together to spread the color evenly, she turned her perceptive bright blue eyes toward the first garage sale of the day!

She was early—at 7:45 a.m., fifteen minutes ahead of the 8 a.m. start listed in the newspaper ad which, along with numerous others, she’d cut out and taped in her notebook. With luck, she’d hit most, maybe all these close ones, even in this morning’s abbreviated time. Out of her car and moving rapidly along the sidewalk, she blended with other shoppers advancing toward the house.

Lots of potential “treasures” here—pieces of quality furniture spread across the front lawn, household knick-knacks heaped on tables along both sides of the driveway, a makeshift clothes rack on a pole suspended between two ladders—items stretching from the curb, up the driveway, back into the garage and even laterally across the front porch. Her pulse quickened!

Sliding purposefully around other shoppers, she began her initial “overview scan” to quickly identify any standout—a piece of furniture, painting, lamp, or other unusual item inviting a hasty claim. She’d disciplined herself to pause briefly like this at the outer edge to scope the scene first, stifling a nearly overwhelming urge to dash instead toward whatever beckoned first. Later, she’d look over the remaining items in more detail. A thorough inspection of a sale this size should require less than ten minutes for her practiced eye.

She noticed the random scatter of “merchandise,”
not
arranged into like groups of furniture, luggage, books, jewelry, sports equipment, clothing, appliances, shoes, baby items, tools or household goods. Few were pre-priced, and those tagged bore post-it-notes. A poor sticker choice for uneven surfaces, humid summer temperatures and tag-switching customers, she thought.

The seller, a pinch-faced middle-aged woman, appeared to be running the sale by herself—also not a good idea, Jennifer knew. Aside from answering questions, demonstrating how things work, and keeping an eye out for shop-lifting, cashiering for a busy garage sale crowd required full-focus vigilance. Jennifer hoped the woman had helpers coming soon because even before the 8 a.m.
start, Seller was al
ready outnumbered. An
amateur operation,
Jennifer concluded—hard on the Seller but perhaps advantageous for the Buyer!

Spotting a luxuriant six-foot tall artificial bamboo tree rooted in a handsome brass planter, Jennifer instantly envisioned it gracing a waiting corner in her living room. Trying to control her eagerness as another shopper appraised the tree by touching its leaves, Jennifer pretended to study a china plate. As soon as the other shopper moved on, Jennifer grabbed the tree, inspected it top to bottom and wrestled it over to Seller, who stood near her garage entrance with one hand clutching a cash box and the other pushing wisps of hair back from her nervous face.

“Good morning,” Jennifer began conversationally. “Great weather today for your sale, isn’t it? It’s a lot of work getting it all ready.” She gestured toward the yard. “Are you moving?”

“Well, yes, I...I’ve sold the house to move to a smaller place,” Seller’s downcast eyes brimmed with tears. “I recently divorced my husband, and,” suddenly her chin came up with resolve, “and the house sold so fast that now I have to be out in just three weeks!”

Maybe priced the house too low? Jennifer wondered to herself. Instead she said, “A garage sale is a great way to clean out the house and make some money in the process. Good idea!”

Seller managed a self-conscious smile. “Thanks, I hope so. I... I’ve never held one before; actually I’ve never even been to one, but a friend suggested I try it so... ” her voice trailed away.

“After today, you’ll be very experienced. How much are you asking for this tree?”

“Oh, I’m sorry it’s not priced,” Seller apologized. “I ran out of time after midnight getting everything ready.”

“Hey, no problem! What amount do you have in mind?”

“I guess $40. It cost $80 new and half price seems about right,” the Seller reasoned.

Jennifer knew some garage
sale buyers thought bargaining tacky and paid the asking
price while others considered bargaining pra
ctical and even entertainin
g. The worst the Seller could sa
y was “no.”

Classic bargaining strategy dictated offering about 50% of the asking price for a good-condition item. Seller might agree, but if not they usually negotiated toward a compromise figure less than Seller’s original price but more than Buyer’s original offer.
E
xceptions included items alrea
dy very fairly priced or o
nes
priced so ridiculously low that the buyer snapped up the purchase without hesitation.

“Yes,” Jennifer pointed to the tree offered for $40, “but after all, this is a garage sale where people look for real bargains.” Per formula, she offered half the asking price. “Would you accept $20? You don’t want to cart it back inside after the sale if it doesn’t sell, do you?”

Seller offered a thin smile. “That’s true,” she hesitated as other buyers jostled toward her, items in hand. “How about $30?”

“Sold,” Jennifer agreed, thinking the brass planter alone was worth that much. She gave Seller the money and began lugging the cumbersome artificial tree toward her car.

And that’s when it happened!

CHAPTER 2

S
omething thud
ded hard against
J
ennifer, knocking her completely off balance! The bamboo tree fell from her grasp and she stumbled awkwardly, wind-milling her arms in a frantic effort to stay afoot. “Why don’t you watch out where the hell you’re going?” a cross male voice snarled as a burly man with a blond crew cut muscled past her. He carried a huge, heavy TV set without apparent effort. Reaching a black pickup, he deposited the TV lightly onto the truck bed as only a powerful weight-lifter could… and without a glance of concern in her direction.

Jennifer quickly looked back toward the sale to see if someone witnessed what happened, but all were engrossed in shopping.
She turned again towar
d the man who’d slammed into
her. Despite his gym-trim muscles and hulking football player physique—which might be admired under other circumstances—he accepted no responsibility for the incident he’d just created, moved to the driver’s door of his pickup and climbed inside.

Politeness character
ized most garage sale shoppers,
and,
frankly, everyone Jennifer knew, so she half-expected him to call out an apology or even return to help pick up her fallen tree. Instead, his truck motor roared to life and she heard its gears shift. That he ignored his role in nearly decking her upset Jennifer; but this coarse disregard paired with his startling strength reminded her that raw power in irresponsible hands spelled danger! A look at any day’s newspaper underscored that chilling observation!

This guy acted very differently from the well-mannered men Jennifer only now realized she took for granted. The men she knew not only behaved politely but large physically-intimidating men
doubled
their efforts at respectful, non-threatening behavior around women. Never would her husband, sons, male neighbors or business associates treat a woman so crassly.

C
onsidering this, she fel
t a new relief that he sped
away
instead of returning, perhaps to confront rather than assist her. She shivered, the hair on her arms prickling alarm as she watched his truck disappear down the street, grateful that he didn’t know or care who she was.

What was going on here? Jennifer liked people, made friends easily and avoided the rash judgments of flimsy first impressions. Was he just a jerk or maybe a nice guy having a bad day? Was the TV heavier than he let on, forcing him to concentrate more on hefting his burden than finding a clear path to his truck? Why did she even attempt plausible explanations for his callous behavior when her intuition told her this man spelled trouble? She’d steer clear of him if he appeared at other sales—or anywhere else for that matter!

Enough time wasted on this. She struggled to her van, stuffed the tree inside and took a tape measure from the box on the front seat. Checking the furniture measurements written this morning in her notebook, she locked the van’s doors and returned to the sale. Now for a close look at what remained.

Her eyes darted across the jumbled sale items. There—the bench she’d noticed earlier! She whipped out her tape measure. Darn, too long for the mud room that needed seating space. She walked a last once-around the driveway, porch and garage.

Of the dozen shoppers here, she recognized several “Regulars” as she called them because of their frequent attendance at these sales. There was “Englishman,” a quiet fellow concentrating on
reusable
construction materials and “Steve
dore,” a large man
with an angular face and thick, white hair, who typically bought furniture. She’d observed him consigning some at the local Treasure Trove thrift shop and guessed he refurbished and sold pieces found at these sales.

She
noticed “Duchess,” a tall, el
egant-looking middle
aged
woman with dark brown hair piled into a tall beehive atop her head, who moved regally among the wares, fingering better quality jewelry, linens, china, silver and leather and buying upscale items.

Sometimes Jennifer saw friends or neighbors at these sales. For instance, that man with the curly black hair and scimitar-shaped scar on his lower left cheek. He looked familiar, but why—a distant neighbor, a clerk in a store she patronized, a waiter in one of the many local restaurants she and Jason frequented? She’d certainly seen him more than once!

Wait! A month ago at an estate sale, they passed on the stairs when she started down as he came up—and more recently, last week at a moving sale. Now it all came back: she’d seen him prior to that in Great Falls and again in Vienna. But wasn’t something about him different then? She thought she remembered the scar but his hair… was her memory failing?

If a Regular, he needed a name. His cheek blemish reminded her of the dueling scars from centuries earlier when fencing was commonplace. Though not likely what disfigured this young man, Jennifer nevertheless chose “Swordsman.”

Refocusing on the sale, she spotted a new-looking four-slice toaster, but did it work? She moved toward Seller who, without a calculator, attempted to total the prices of numerous items a Buyer handed her. As she waited in the check-out line, Jennifer’s eyes surveyed the other shoppers to assure that the ill-mannered blond body-builder wasn’t there. Mercifully, her turn came next.

“You have such great stuff that I’m back again!” Jennifer said to Seller, trying to sound cheerier than she felt. She held up the toaster. “What are you asking for this?”

“How about $4.00?”

Great
price, but Jennifer knew that pur
chasing used items
cautioned “buyer beware.” In their zeal to complete a sale, some Sellers couldn’t resist stretching the truth a little and, unlike protocol for store purchases, you couldn’t return faulty merchandise the next day. All electrical appliances invited testing, as did anything battery-operated. The cardboard box in her van held aids to cope with this need, such as light bulbs to test lamps, various batteries, a flashlight and screw drivers, together with rope to tie down the SUV ’s tailgate if something large had to stick out, a bungee cord, packaging tape, newspapers for wrapping glass or ceramics and a blanket/pillow combo to cushion fragile cargo.

“Do you mind plugging it in, please, to make sure it works?” Jennifer asked.

“I guess it is only fair to test it,” Seller acknowledged, “although I didn’t really set up for that...”

“Have you an extension cord or maybe there’s an electrical outlet in the garage?”

“Let me think,” said the bewildered Seller. “I’m pretty sure there’s no plug in the garage. I... I guess you could try an outlet in the kitchen. I understand you want to be sure. Just go on in....”

“Thanks!” Jennifer hurried to the back of the garage, through the kitchen door into the house. “Hello,” she called, not wanting to startle anyone inside. “Hello,” she called again. Silence.

Plugging the toaster into the first outlet she saw, she depressed its plunger and watched closely as the coils inside glowed. Though grateful to test it out, she knew it risky for Seller to allow a stranger into her house unsupervised! Jennifer posed no problem, but others might. How could Seller know the difference? Should she share this thought or keep it to herself?

When the toaster popped its imaginary bread to the surface, she wrapped the cord around one hand and, gripping the appliance by the handles, hurried back outside.

“Thanks so much for letting me try it. It works perfectly. I’ll take it.” Jennifer fished $4.00 from the purse fastened around her waist, paid Seller and then hesitated as several customers pressed forward to pay for their items.

Shielding her words from the others with a cupped hand, Jennifer whispered to Seller, “I just want to mention that it’s probably not a good idea to let anyone into your house unless you or someone you trust is there. Good luck and I hope you do really well today.

Seller’s startled gaze followed Jennifer down the driveway to her car, before other Buyers jostled forward, demanding check-out attention. Now she probably wonders if I took something—
the messenger never
wins, Jennifer thought! Still, the woman
needed warning…

Jumping into her van, gunning the motor and simultaneously glancing at the notebook on the seat beside her, Jennifer placed a finger on the ad listing her next stop. Two garage sales on the same street and only a few minutes from her current location. As the SUV‘s motor roared to life, she executed a remarkably close U-turn and sped down the street.

Jennifer’s mind wandered as she drove, thinking that behind every garage sale lay a story. At the last house, the story was doubly unfortunate—an obviously painful divorce and a sorely needed, if poorly executed, sale of belongings. Jennifer sincerely hoped happiness lay somewhere in Seller’s future.

But what was happiness anyway? If you couldn’t achieve it in privileged and affluent McLean, Virginia, where the heck could you? The third world’s desperate poor who scrabbled in gritty poverty for daily survival surely imagined if they lived in safe and beautiful homes with plenty to eat they’d be happy forever. Yet she knew from newspaper accounts and neighborhood stories that the full gamut of crime—domestic abuse, child neglect, fraud, theft, arson and even murder—surfaced right here against McLean’s backdrop of comfort and wealth!

She sighed as her thoughts turned again to the last Seller. If fifty percent of today’s marriages ended in divorce, what future did that suggest for her five grown children, three of whom already had spouses? And what of the ups and downs in her own forty-year marriage to Jason?

Thinking of his familiar craggy face, balding head and warm grin, she smiled and then chuckled aloud as she drove. Somehow, they’d survived those frenetic early years together, enduring each other’s foibles, building Jason’s business and raising a big family. Now they found themselves sharing a particularly comfortable time with each other and with the life they’d shaped together.

As the congesti
on of parked cars just ahe
ad signaled her
upcoming destination, she pushed aside her thoughts to concentrate on finding a place to wedge her crossover. Since every sale reflected a story, what tale would unfold at this next stop?