Chapter 13 The Grand Preview and Curious Suspects
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If you have never witnessed the opening moments of an estate preview in the Blue Ridge Mountains, imagine the Oklahoma Land Rush, but with eighty silver-haired retirees armed with magnifying glasses, collapsible tape measures, and an ungodly thirst for depression glass.
At nine minutes to ten on Friday morning, Blackwood Manor's gravel driveway resembled an invasion staging ground.
Subarus with roof racks, pickup trucks loaded with moving blankets, and luxury SUVs sporting Atlanta and Charleston dealer plates stretched down the mountain lane beneath blazing scarlet oaks.
I stood on the wide stone portico, clutching my laminated badge—*Maggie Callahan, Callahan to him, an estate sale was simply a magical convention where three hundred strangers arrived in shifts specifically to scratch his chin and drop pastry crumbs on the grass.
"Steady, boy," I murmured, resting a hand on his broad head. "Remember our policy: no accepting jerky bribes from aggressive dealers, and if anyone tries to sneak out with a silver ladle, you bark once and sit on their ankles."
Buster gave a soft, affirmative huff and leaned seventy-five pounds of solid golden retriever weight against my knee.
From behind the heavy mahogany doors, the grandfather clock in the foyer began its solemn, brassy chime. Ten o’clock sharp.
"Release the kraken, Luke!" Birdie’s voice rang out from the hall.
Luke Sterling stepped forward to the iron latch of the ornate gates at the bottom of the steps.
In his faded chambray work shirt, denim trousers, and scuffed leather boots, Luke possessed the unflappable calm of a man who spent his life handling five-hundred-pound chestnut bridge timbers.
He gave the padlock a swift turn, unhooked the chain with an authoritative clink, and stepped back onto the lawn.
"Welcome to Blackwood Manor, folks," Luke announced in his slow mountain drawl, touching the brim of his ballcap. "Front entrance only. Single file for registration. Keep your elbows to yourselves, or Miss Birdie will confiscate your checkbooks."
The gates swung wide, and the horde surged.
It was a magnificent, terrifying spectacle.
Veteran local dealers with jeweler’s loupes dangling from cords surged forward, expressions taut with predatory calculation.
High-strung interior decorators from Charlotte whispered urgently into Bluetooth earpieces while pointing at the second-story dormers.
Porch-rocker locals who had lived in Black Walnut Cove for sixty years came solely to see whether Eleanor Vance had really kept a stuffed albino peacock in the billiard room (she hadn't, though there was a rather disturbing papier-maché pelican on the landing).
And, lurking along the margins, curiosity seekers gawked at the yellow crime scene tape fluttering near the carriage house where Julian Croft had met his end.
"Welcome! Welcome to Callahan and Company! Line starts to the left, cash or certified funds for deposits, and if you touch the crystal chandelier, you are adopting it for life!"
Birdie Jenkins’s voice rang through the grand foyer like a diamond-tipped bugle.
I slipped inside to observe my best friend and business partner in her absolute glory.
Birdie had commandeered an imposing Victorian oak library table as her registration command center.
Resplendent in an emerald-green silk tunic, chunky amber beads, and magenta cat-eye glasses perched on her nose, she wielded an aluminum clipboard like a broadsword.
Flanking her were neat stacks of cardstock bidding paddles, two card readers, and a large chalkboard upon which she had penned in pristine calligraphy: *Rules of Engagement: 1.
You break it, you bought it. 2. Haggling is a spectator sport, not a municipal right. 3. Be nice to Maggie.*
"Name, please?" Birdie demanded of an imposing woman in a lavender windbreaker attempting to duck under the velvet stanchion.
"Mildred Higgins," the woman huffed, clutching a canvas tote. "I’ve bought at Sotheby’s, young lady, and I have never waited in a queue behind people wearing mud boots."
"Well, Mildred," Birdie replied with a smile of pure southern syrup, "Sotheby’s doesn't have sixty-eight pieces of authentic Vance sterling silver at forty percent below market appraisal, and my mud-boot friends have cash in their pockets.
Here is Paddle Number Forty-Seven. If you swing it like a tennis racket, I will personally revoke your bidding privileges and send you back to Hendersonville with nothing but a complimentary brochure. "
Mildred sputtered, snatched the paddle, and was instantly swept into the drawing room by the crowd.
"Next!" Birdie sang out, winking at me over her rims. "Paddle sixty-two for the gentleman with the tape measure. No, sir, you may not pry off the backing of the grandfather clock with your pocketknife. Ask Luke for assistance or suffer the wrath of my clipboard."
"You’re running a tight ship, Birdie," I said, leaning over the table to check the registry. We had already logged forty-eight buyers in four minutes.
"I am a shepherd of fine decorative arts, Maggie Callahan," Birdie corrected without missing a beat, handing a paddle to a young couple looking for stoneware.
"If I show even an ounce of weakness, these people will have the floorboards pried up before eleven. Where’s your clipboard?
Shouldn't you be guarding the crown jewel? "
"Heading there right now," I said.
The "crown jewel" was Eleanor Vance’s 1820s Moravian cherrywood secretary desk, cataloged as Lot 42, resting under the morning light in the formal sitting room.
Ever since Julian Croft had died in the carriage house after trying to devalue it, the desk had become the unspoken epicenter of the entire estate.
I navigated through the parlor, weaving past two rival collectors locked in a polite but lethal standoff over a set of Limoges oyster plates.
"I touched the saucer first, Beatrice," one woman hissed, knuckles white on the gilt edge.
"Your thumb was on the linen runner, Corinne, which legally constitutes common territory," Beatrice countered, eyes blazing beneath a straw sunhat.
"Ladies," I intervened smoothly, stepping between them with an authoritative smile.
"Both plates are part of Lot Eighteen. They sell as a matched set at the live auction tomorrow. If either of you chips the glaze before noon, I’ll have Luke charge both your credit cards and award the porcelain shards to Buster. "
Both women froze, checked my badge, and slowly withdrew their manicured fingers.
"Have a lovely preview," I added, moving briskly into the sitting room.
The cherrywood desk looked magnificent. The morning sun illuminated the rich, molasses-colored patina of the wild cherry timber, highlighting the hand-planed chamfers and delicate Moravian bonnet top.
To protect it from overzealous hands, Luke had built a low mahogany railing around the perimeter, draped with a velvet cord and a prominent notice: *Lot 42: Moravian Secretary, circa 1825.
Inspection by visual preview only. Do not touch drawers. *
I stopped by the railing, checking the seals.
The central cabinet was locked, the brass batwing pulls gleaming.
But looking at that desk never failed to send a chill down my spine.
The secret compartment behind the central pigeonhole had been pried open and emptied before Julian was killed.
The missing leather-bound 1845 Vance ledger—which contained either a fortune or a scandal—was still out there.
"Admiring your bait, Mrs. Callahan?"
The dry, raspy voice behind me carried the bitter tang of menthol tobacco.
Vanessa Vance leaned against the carved archway connecting the sitting room to the central gallery.
Eleanor Vance's forty-something niece had arrived from Florida three days ago, radiating brittle hostility.
Today she wore oversized tortoiseshell sunglasses indoors, an expensive black linen trench coat cinched tightly around her narrow waist, and stilettos that clacked like gunshots against the oak parquet.
Between two scarlet-tipped fingers, she held an unlit cigarette.
"It’s not bait, Miss Vance," I replied evenly. "It’s Lot Forty-Two. And judging by the turnout, it will fund a substantial portion of the estate's tax settlement."
Vanessa pushed her sunglasses down the bridge of her sharp nose, surveying the crowded room with unfiltered disdain. Her pale blue eyes were rimmed with dark circles, and an agitated twitch pulled at the corner of her mouth.
"A room full of vultures picking over an old woman's dirty laundry," Vanessa drawled, waving her unlit cigarette toward a sweet elderly couple examining a braided rag rug.
"Aunt Eleanor lived like a hermit, hoarding dead people's trash, and now half the county comes tromping through in their muddy boots to buy her chipped teacups for five dollars. "
"Your aunt had an extraordinary collection of early southern craft pieces," I said. "And the proceeds go directly to the beneficiaries. That includes you."
Vanessa let out a sharp, humorless bark of laughter that caused a nearby decorator to drop an embroidered cushion.