Murder during the Antique Auction

Title: Murder during the Antique Auction
Series: Mallory Beck Cozy Culinary Capers #6
Published by: Denise Jaden Books
Release Date: 2021-11-09
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Pages: 430
ISBN13: 978-1989218082
ASIN: B095CZPZWJ

A Glittering Auction. A Missing Collector. And a Clock Worth Killing For.

Mallory Beck and Amber are ringing in the New Year with their biggest challenge yet: catering their very first event—an elegant antique auction on New Year’s Eve. Between champagne flutes, decadent appetizers, and a room full of competitive bidders, everything is set for a glamorous fresh start.

Until the auction’s most anticipated collector never arrives.

When concern turns to suspicion—and then to murder—Mallory quickly learns that some guests are willing to do far more than overbid to claim a priceless antique clock. With midnight approaching and tensions running high, secrets begin to surface among the dealers, collectors, and locals who all seem to have something to hide.

As the countdown to the New Year ticks closer, Mallory and Amber must uncover the truth before the killer disappears into the celebration—and strikes again.

Perfect for fans of cozy mysteries with culinary flair, found family, small-town secrets, and gentle humor, Murder during the Antique Auction is a standalone mystery in the Mallory Beck Cozy Culinary Capers series.

 

🕰️🎉 Curl up, pour a cup of something warm, and start sleuthing today!

Find the eBook, paperback, and large print paperback at Books2Read.com/antiqueauction.

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Excerpt from Chapter One:

Nothing said black tie like eight dozen chocolate cappuccino cupcakes that were dressed up in fondant tuxedos.

Amber had spent countless hours molding decorations for the sweets and carving black olive accents for the savory appetizers we had prepared for our first catering event. My sixteen-year-old best friend and business partner insisted we pick a theme for the event, and after much deliberation, I’d chosen black tie from her many, many suggestions. It suited an antique auction on New Year’s Eve, and I hoped it would elevate the evening.

Chad, the antique dealer in town who was putting on tonight’s auction, met us at the door to the community hall. Chad was a slim man in his seventies with a gray ponytail and an ever-present twinkle in his eyes.

“Can I help?” He held out his hands, but Amber and I were not about to ask a senior citizen to help us carry in our culinary treats. Besides, we only had one tray each for the moment. Once we scoped out the space, we’d go back for the rest.

“Not at all,” I said. “Just point us in the right direction, and we won’t bother you a bit.”

“Pshh. Bother.” He waved a hand. “You ladies are sure to be the hit of the evening.”

I hoped he was right, although my brief introduction to antique aficionados had taught me that many serious collectors had their eyes on little else.

“I was thinking I’d have you set up next to the clock.” Chad led the way across the community hall.

A dozen or so people were busy setting up everything from doilies and old doll dresses to table and chair sets, all behind ropes in an arc around the perimeter of the room. The center of the room held about twenty rows of chairs, I guessed for the bidders. Chad led us to an empty table next to a roped-off ornately carved reddish-brown grandfather clock.

“It’s my crowning triumph, and I’m sure every attendee will make their way by it multiple times this evening.” He arrived at the empty table and turned toward us, looking at the two platters in our hands. “Is this table suitable?”

I suspected what he was really asking was if we had more in the car. I chuckled under my breath because boy, oh boy did we have more. “Actually, if there are any more tables around, we might grab a second one.”

Chad’s twinkle erupted into a full-blown spark. “You bet!” He rushed off. I hoped he knew we weren’t expecting him to do the heavy lifting.

Amber placed her tray on the table. “We should probably get the bin with the tablecloths first, right?”

But she didn’t wait for an answer and strode toward the door. She’d had an all-business attitude all day. I wanted to tell her to relax, but at the same time, I was nervous, too, and I wanted us to both do our best.

“For sure.” I turned to follow her, but caught sight of Chad in the back corner of the large community hall trying to drag a fold-up table out of a storage room. “I’ll be right behind you.”

I rushed toward Chad, being careful to dodge all of the tables along the way. I glanced at silver candelabras and china teacups, wondering what kinds of prices each would garner. One lady worked her way around the room, carefully placing numbered bid cards in front of each item.

“Here, let me take that,” I said to Chad when I was still several feet away.

Gratefulness crossed his face. “Why don’t you just grab that other end, dear.”

When I picked up the one end, I realized the table was actually lighter than it looked but awkward for one person.

By the time we had it set up, Amber had returned with our Rubbermaid bin of tablecloths and décor and another platter of cupcakes stacked on top.

“It’s snowing again,” she said. Her hair and the Rubbermaid bin were dotted with snowflakes. The local weatherman had been predicting an unseasonably cold winter, but lately, it had felt more like the blizzardy winters I’d endured in Pennsylvania. “I hope it doesn’t affect your turnout.”

“Oh, it won’t.” Chad sounded self-assured. “Antique collectors are not put off by much, and with this baby here tonight…” He motioned to the grandfather clock. “We’re sure to draw a crowd all the way from New York.”

I raised an unbelieving eyebrow, but I decided not to challenge Chad on this. Whether or not he was simply a positive thinker, I didn’t know, but I was ignorant enough about the antique business that I wasn’t about to challenge him on it.

Chad reached into the front of his tweed suit jacket and pulled out an envelope. “Can I give you your payment now?”

“Oh. Um. Are you sure you don’t want to wait and see how we do?” I wasn’t used to getting paid for delivering culinary treats. Even though I had spent a good amount of my own money on the ingredients for tonight, I would have been perfectly willing to eat the expenses, so to speak, so we could get our feet wet in this new catering venture of ours.

But Chad laughed at my question. “After those little drops of heaven you brought me at the shop a couple of weeks ago, I have no doubt everyone here tonight will be simply blown away.”

While investigating a recent case, we’d delivered a container full of caramel rum tartlets to Chad at his antique shop. It was how we’d talked some information out of him about a suspect, but also how we’d gotten the gig for tonight.

I fought my blush and accepted the envelope from him. “Well, then at least let me start you off with a cupcake.”

I lifted the lid from the cupcake container Amber had just brought in, and Chad happily accepted an offering from the tray.

“Tuxedos!” he said. “I love it.”

“We thought we’d do a black tie theme for tonight’s event.” Amber’s words sounded like we did this all the time and this was simply one of our many themed events. I knew her well enough to hear the glow of pride behind her words.

“They’re almost too pretty to eat.” Despite his words, Chad took a large bite and then closed his eyes at the taste of coffee and chocolate. “I said almost.”

Amber headed back for the car. “You’ll have to come back once we’re all set up. Chocolate cappuccino is only the beginning.”

Chad’s eyes widened in excitement, but I chuckled to try and quell his anticipation. I was pretty sure our treats would be well received tonight, but at the same time, I wanted to make sure to under-promise and over-deliver.

By the time Amber and I had set up a dozen varieties of sweet treats and savory items like triangles of brie with Dijon and black olives on Ritz to balance them out, the antique collectors had begun to arrive.

I recognized a few people, like Marv and Donna Mayberry and even our pastor from the Honeysuckle Grove Community Church. I wondered if they were serious collectors or simply here for something to do on New Year’s Eve.

Chad had been correct, and there seemed to be a lot of out-of-towners I didn’t recognize as well. He brought an unfamiliar stocky man in a navy suit our way to introduce us. “Mallory, Amber, this is my auctioneer, Roland Conway.”

I reached out a hand to shake his, but Roland had his wide eyes on our refreshments and his hand already outstretched for a tangerine vanilla tea cake.

“You’ve outdone yourself this time, Chad.” Roland looked at us almost as an afterthought. I had expected his words to come out fast and jumbled, being an auctioneer, but he spoke in an even, mid-pitch tone.

“These ladies just happened into my shop a couple of weeks ago with a few of their treats, and I knew right then that I had to somehow make our little auction attractive enough for them to attend.” Chad winked at me in a way that might have made me feel disregarded by the other man, Roland, but from Chad, it was nothing but genuine.

Not that Amber and I had much to do with the bigger agenda tonight. We planned to keep the patrons happy as they strolled to view the wares, hopefully putting them in a more bid-friendly mood.

“No sign of Winston Blakely yet?” Roland scanned the room. Since I wasn’t familiar with the name, I had to assume the question was directed toward Chad.

“Ah, you know Blakely.” Chad sighed. “He’s only coming for the one item, so he won’t waste his time getting here early.”

Chad and Roland took a long beat to survey the ornately carved grandfather clock, roped off beside our tables. Since the crowd for tonight had started arriving, a uniformed security guard had also been placed on the far side of the high-priced antique item. He regularly put his hands out to approaching guests, as if warning them not to get too close. I had yet to see anyone try, so it seemed like overkill.

“We’re still starting the bidding at fifteen thousand?” Roland asked.

My eyes widened. I knew antiques were valuable, but fifteen thousand dollars for a starting bid? That seemed outrageous.

Chad scanned the room. “Yes. I don’t see many here that will actually bid on it, but the bank insisted they needed that price at a minimum.”

“The bank?” I asked.

Chad nodded. “This clock is from a foreclosure. Mayhew Bank delivered it this morning.”

My stomach hollowed at his words. A year ago, my husband, Cooper, had died in a fire in that very building. The bank had been completely restored since then, but the mention of it brought me back as though it had happened yesterday.

“A foreclosure?” Amber asked. “Like someone got kicked out of their mansion and lost all their expensive possessions?”

When she went on with more questions, I could tell she was only trying to deflect the conversation from me. I kept a pasted-on smile in place, but she knew me well enough that she could probably tell I was struggling to catch my breath.

“It’s from an estate,” Chad explained. “A local man had all sorts of expensive antiques from all over the world, but it turned out that he had spent money he didn’t really have. After he passed, his son, Ted, had to let the bank take most of it away to cover many years of back taxes.” Chad pointed across the room to a bald man in jeans and a black T-shirt that stretched tight over muscular arms. “That’s Ted there. I’ll bet he came to see who walks off with his dad’s clock.”

The man looked more like a nightclub bouncer than a man concerned with antiques, but perhaps the clock had a personal significance for him. The clock was a bit gaudy for my taste, with porcelain accents on each corner and every inch covered with detailed carving, but I still felt bad for the man who must have been grieving his father and yet had to deal with the loss of all of his possessions from a bank.

I looked around the large room again, which had filled considerably. The serious collectors were obvious. They studied items from different angles, bending down or leaning across ropes to get a better look. A couple of them even had magnifying glasses out, and I saw one man investigating what looked like a cake platter made from Vaseline glass. I’d learned about the uranium-infused glass during our last case, and I wondered what kind of price the platter would garner.

“Uncle Ben and Aunt Bertie are here,” Amber said. She didn’t make any move to go and say hello, and Ben and Bertie didn’t look terribly approachable, keeping their heads down and striding for some seats near the back section of chairs in the middle.

“Just awful what happened at their place.” Chad shook his head.

Word had finally gotten around town about the fatal tiger attack that had happened on their property a couple of weeks ago. Ben held a bid card on his lap, as Amber’s aunt and uncle were big collectors of antiques, but it looked as though they planned to get in and get out with zero chitchat tonight.

I didn’t recognize any of the other serious collectors from Honeysuckle Grove. “This Winston Blakely, is he local?” I asked, recalling the name of the man they expected to walk away with the grandfather clock tonight.

“I’d better go and get my notes ready.” Roland excused himself and headed for the podium on the stage, which left Chad to answer my question.

“Winston Blakely moved to Honeysuckle Grove in the summer to retire near his daughter. At least that’s the story he gave, but word has it, he still keeps a business office in a cabin behind his mansion, where he spends most of his time.”

“Does he deal in antiques?” I asked, surveying the expensive clock once again.

Chad chuckled. “Oh, no. That’s just a hobby. Mr. Blakely owns Juniper Mills.”

“The whole town?” I asked.

Chad shrugged. “Might as well. He owns the outlet mall there.”

I’d been shopping at Juniper Mills a couple of times. It was worth the hour-and-a-half drive for the two hundred stores it boasted.

Chad raised his eyebrows. “Word has it that he owns other properties around the area, too, although he’s pretty secretive as to which ones.”

This made me think again about the property I’d found under Cooper’s name on the Comptroller website. Cooper’s bigwig literary agent in New York had suggested I could just head down to the local title deeds office to find out more about the property and the ownership. I’d never bothered, as I figured it was probably just an error, but I wondered if a curious person couldn’t just do the same to find out more about this Winston Blakely’s business acquisitions.

“So you don’t think he’s actually retired?” I asked.

“Who knows.” Chad winked. “The way that man dresses and with his hard-as-nails personality, though? That makes me think he probably won’t retire before the day he dies.”

“And you don’t own these antiques?” I motioned to the room filled with old precious items, still trying to get a handle on exactly how this worked.

Chad shrugged. “A few are from my store, but generally, for our New Year’s Eve auction, I serve as the auction house.”

“Auction house?”

“Folks list their items with me during the two months prior, let me know if they want a reserve bid posted, and then I take fifteen percent off the top if they sell.”

I wondered if that would be a good income for one night’s work. If the grandfather clock indeed sold for fifteen thousand dollars, that alone would garner him over two thousand dollars.

“There are a few high-demand items that serious collectors would kill for here tonight, but none quite as precious as this beautiful clock.” Chad reached out as though he might touch the clock over the rope, but then retracted his hand before the security guard could raise an eyebrow.

A flurry of attendees made their way to our corner of the room right then, so I slipped behind our tables to help Amber while Chad excused himself to greet others arriving. I wondered if any of them were this Winston Blakely he’d spoken of, but from a distance, none of the new arrivals looked particularly serious.

As I served cupcakes, I asked attendees if they’d come to bid on a specific piece. Most laughed nervously at my question and said they’d only come for the excitement, and they couldn’t actually afford most of the items up for auction tonight.

Donna Mayberry, always one to stir up mystery or gossip, informed me, “I like to play these things by ear. Maybe I’ll bid on something, maybe I won’t.” Her voice carried from my table, no doubt to try and entice those around her to wonder what kind of a big spender she might be, but no one paid her any real attention. Even her husband, Marv, seemed to tune her out from only a few feet away.

“Would you like to try one of our chocolate cappuccino tuxedo cupcakes?” I asked Marv.

This he found interesting. “What? Oh, yes, Mallory. Anything of yours, I’m game.”

When Cooper and I first moved to Honeysuckle Grove, Marv and Donna had been one of the most welcoming couples at the church, inviting us over for dinners in the winter and barbecues in the summer. They always told me not to bring anything, but I couldn’t help myself and usually spent the day preparing some sort of fun and tasty side dish. I’d learned since then that Marv was a bit of a workaholic, working remotely for an advertising firm in New York City, while Donna didn’t seem to have enough to do with her time and ended up spending much of it gossiping about others in the small town.

“I’m surprised to see you two here,” I said as I passed him a cupcake on a black-and-cream-colored napkin.

Marv chuckled. “Donna wouldn’t miss it. Everybody who’s anybody comes to this thing.”

He wasn’t wrong. As the time clicked closer to eight o’clock, the community hall filled to capacity. There were about a hundred chairs lined up in rows through the center of the hall, but that wasn’t nearly enough to seat everyone who had shown up. It seemed the serious bidders knew those chairs were for them and helped themselves to seats when Roland set up his notes and tested the microphone at the podium.

Donna Mayberry helped herself to a seat and placed a bid card on her lap. Even from my distance away, I could see her number read 79 in big block letters.

Chad came over to help himself to another cupcake as Roland announced the start of the festivities, and the audience began to settle. Once most of the chairs in the center were filled, a couple of dozen people still milled around the outer arc of wares.

A woman who looked to be eight or nine months pregnant in a hunter-green jumper approached Chad. “Where’s my dad? He’s never late, and he’s been talking nonstop about that clock since it was added to your roster.”

Chad surveyed the room. “I’m afraid I haven’t seen him yet, Sheila. You’re right, it is rather unusual for him to arrive late. He’s assured me he would be taking this clock home tonight as well.”

I glanced again at the grandfather clock, wondering if this was Winston Blakey’s daughter, and what that would mean for Chad if his biggest ticket item didn’t garner any bidders.

The lady in her early twenties—Sheila—sighed loudly, looking as though either this inconvenience or her pregnancy were exhausting her. Maybe both. “Well, I guess I’d better get a bid card.” She rubbed her lower back and headed for the table near the hall’s entry where a couple sat, writing down information from bidders and then passing them paddle-shaped cards to bid with.

By the time Roland finished his welcoming words to the crowd, Sheila had taken a seat in the back row with a card on her lap that read 148.

It seemed there would be almost a hundred and fifty bidders this evening. I wondered if that was more or less than what Chad expected, but he had disappeared into the fray of onlookers, so I didn’t have a chance to ask.

Roland started the bids with a jade beaded necklace, which he described as Qing jewelry with Chinese motifs. He spoke in an even and understandable voice until he started the bid off at a hundred dollars. Then he slipped seamlessly into the fast tongue of any auctioneer I’d ever heard on television.

“One twenty, one twenty, do I hear one thirty?” Donna Mayberry’s card flashed up, and Roland added, “We have one thirty from the lady in blue.”

Donna Mayberry had worn a royal-blue pantsuit that looked striking on her long frame. Something about her actually bidding on antiques surprised me—perhaps because I had been to her home, and everything in it seemed ultra-modern. When the bidding hit three hundred dollars, though, her other hand rested on her bidding card as though she was holding it down through the rest of this auction.

Roland glanced over at a woman seated near him on the stage with a laptop open to take notes. She shook her head at him, and then Roland confirmed the winning bid of three hundred and eighty dollars to bidder number twenty-nine into the microphone. The woman typed this in, and Roland moved onto the next item, an English bone china tea set.

The auction continued with item after item, and the evening seemed to run like a well-oiled machine. The Vaseline glass cake platter only had three bidders and ended on a measly forty-five dollars. I soon tired of standing behind my table, and I could sense others around the room who weren’t in on the bidding action starting to fidget, so I helped myself to a tray of mixed goodies and a stack of napkins and told Amber I was going to take a walk around the room.

I kept to the outskirts, so as not to disturb the bidding action, and was surprised to see my friend from the church’s children’s ministry, Sasha Mills, in attendance. Sasha was in her fifties and, other than some gray wisps in her hair, looked identical to how she had when she’d been my seventh-grade teacher so many years ago. I sidled up beside her, and when she looked over my tray of delicacies, I directed her to a fudgy brownie bite I knew a chocolate lover like her would enjoy.

“You’re catering?” she whispered.

I nodded and glanced back toward our tables where Amber was now slumped into a chair, scrolling on her phone. “Amber and I are trying it out to see if we should make it a regular thing.”

“You know, I think it’s wonderful that you’ve taken such an interest in Amber after her father’s death. I’m sure she appreciates having someone to talk to. But do you think Amber’s up for that kind of responsibility?” Sasha wasn’t the first person in my life to mistake my time with Amber as something I was doing solely for her, and she wasn’t the first person to dissuade me from putting all of my hope and trust into a sixteen-year-old. But most people didn’t know Amber the way I did. The reason she was so easily bored was because her speedy brain activity needed to be constantly stimulated. Give her something to do, or even many things to do, and she was more than capable.

Give her nothing to do, such as at an antique auction where people were too busy bidding to eat, and she’d probably have her college essays written on her phone’s note program by the intermission.

“I’m certain she is,” I told Sasha. “I’m trying to decide if I’m up for the commitment.”

Sasha smiled as though I was joking. She’d only really known Amber as a small child in her class years ago at the elementary school.

“You should come out with the lunch ladies this week,” she suggested.

The lunch ladies weren’t actual lunch ladies, but simply a group of ladies from town who ate lunch together once or twice a month. Sasha had invited me one time before, but when I dropped a hint about inviting Amber and had gotten a laugh and a “Can you imagine?” type of response, I’d ended up claiming busyness.

Getting to know some local ladies my own age would probably be good for me, I decided. “Sure. Just text me the time and place.”

I was getting to know Sasha more and more since helping out with the kids at church. This would be a good opportunity to tell her more about Amber’s special talents when I could speak at a normal volume, but for now, I moved on just as Roland announced an antique dining set—an item too big to bring up to the stage, but he motioned toward it just below him at the foot of the stage.

He talked about the refurbishing efforts of the owners and then said, “Bidding starts at thirteen hundred dollars.”

I was glad to hear the value of the items increasing, and the bidders were certainly active, so Chad would be sure to make some money.

As I moved past the entryway toward the other side of onlookers, an unshaven young man swept in through the door in a blue plaid jacket and a cowboy hat.

The man headed straight for the pregnant lady, Sheila, in the back row, and while Roland’s assistant marked down the sale of the dining set and he moved onto the next item, the young couple had a hushed but animated conversation.

People stared at them, and my knee-jerk reaction was to defuse the tension with food. I strode forward through the middle row of seats and whispered loudly for all to hear, “Could I offer anyone a little snack?”

Several bidders took me up on it, standing from their seats and helping themselves to napkins and then sweet treats. A cleared throat at the microphone made me look up at Roland’s annoyed face.

Oops. It seemed I’d only compounded the problem.

I smiled an apologetic smile and then backed my way down the aisle while Roland announced the next item on the roster. As I passed Sheila and the man in the cowboy hat, I heard him whisper, “Are you kidding me? We can’t afford that, Sheels! And what if your dad won’t pay?”

Another cleared throat, and I couldn’t tell whether Roland was glaring at me or at the arguing couple. I decided in an instant I’d at least get myself out of the line of his glare, and I disappeared back into the outskirts of the room.

Soon after that, Roland held an intermission. I hoped it was scheduled, and he wasn’t simply doing it because he was annoyed with all the distractions. I skirted behind our tables to help Amber as a crowd quickly swarmed the area, ready for a mid-meeting pick-me-up.

By the time Roland announced the commencement of the auction, our tables were almost cleared of anything edible.

“Maybe we should have made more,” Amber observed.

We still had our midnight truffles packed away for later, but she was right. I thought we’d prepared more than enough for tonight, but many patrons had helped themselves to three or even four different treats each, which we hadn’t been anticipating.

As if her observation didn’t make me feel bad enough, Donna Mayberry was lurking nearby and tsked, shaking her head at my table. “Too bad you don’t have any of those tuxedo cupcakes left. Those were my favorite.”

She’d had three.

I was lost in thought over the depleted baking, so it took me a minute to clue in when Roland motioned in our direction and announced over the microphone that he was resuming with the final auction of the evening. Every person’s gaze moved to the grandfather clock beside us, and I felt awkward and embarrassed by the state of our scant and disorganized tables.

Roland announced the starting bid of fifteen thousand dollars, and thankfully, this brought the attention back to him. The lady making notes beside him got his attention and tapped her cell phone. A moment later, she appeared to be speaking into it, from right beside him on the stage.

“What’s happening?” I whispered to Donna, as she had been to more of these types of events than me.

“Oh, that?” She motioned to the woman with the phone and Roland, who was at a silent standstill at his microphone. “Someone must be phoning in their bid.”

“You can do that?” That seemed pretty big-time for such a small town. Then again, Chad seemed proficient at running these auctions and had clearly garnered a following.

Donna shrugged. “Sure. I don’t know why anyone would want to. Isn’t the excitement of it being here in person to compete for the items you want?”

With that, Donna took her cupcake back to her seat. She and Marv had bid on several items this evening, but had not won any of the auctions. Now it suddenly made sense why Donna seemed ambivalent about it. She truly was only here for the excitement. She didn’t care if she actually went home with anything.

Roland cleared his throat and officially started the bidding at fifteen thousand dollars. He glanced beside him to the lady on the phone, who nodded in response.

“We have fifteen thousand dollars. Do I hear sixteen thousand? Sixteen thousand?” He moved seamlessly into his quick auctioneer tongue.

A man in wire-rimmed glasses on the far side of the room flashed his bid card, and then Donna flipped hers up. I grinned and leaned toward Amber. “Watch. I think Donna Mayberry is only bidding up the item for a little excitement.”

The pregnant lady, Sheila, held up her card, and I remembered that her father was supposed to be here to bid on the grandfather clock. I glanced back to the woman on the stage with her phone to her ear, who gave another nod, and I wondered if that could be Sheila’s father on the phone.

Was she bidding against her own father to try and win the item for him?

I nibbled my lip. I didn’t know the woman. It was none of my business, and I was certain Roland would have a fit if I made my way back toward the seated bidders to interfere again.

Three other people from around the room joined in on the bidding, and the muscular man who had lost the clock to the bank watched from the back of the room with his arms crossed. The price went up and up. Soon it was nearing twenty-five thousand dollars. Donna dropped out of the race after two others in the room hesitated with their bid paddles. Worry lines etched Sheila’s face, and she took longer and longer to raise her paddle. Roland’s smooth speech was the only thing that remained quick and calm in the room.

“Twenty-five thousand, four hundred going once…” Roland stared at Sheila with raised eyebrows. This last bid had come through the phone. “Going twice…” Sheila sucked in her lips, bowed her head to her lap, and shook her head slowly back and forth. “Sold to our bidder on the phone for twenty-five thousand, four hundred dollars.”

Roland quietly spoke with the lady beside him for a moment and then returned to the microphone to thank everyone for joining him for the auction. But the second the winner of the clock had been announced, a hubbub rose over the room. People started to move from their seats. Ted Callaghan, the muscular man who had just watched his dad’s clock go to a new owner, turned and strode for the door.

I checked my watch, and it was eleven thirty. Thankfully, Amber and I had prepared special truffles for midnight, and Chad returned to our tables with one of his assistants, carrying a case of champagne.

“Where’s Alex?” Amber asked. She’d asked me this once earlier as well, but I’d been able to change the subject, as our cupcake tower had been depleted.

I shrugged. “He was supposed to be here.”

An old-time fiddle trio took the stage, and the lights around the community hall dimmed. Along the walls, white twinkle lights glimmered, giving the room a celebratory feel.

As someone entered, I looked to the door, hoping it was finally Alex arriving, but it was just the young guy in the cowboy hat again, along with an older man with thick gray sideburns.

“Still no Alex, huh?” Amber asked, reading my mind as usual.

I sighed. “I hope everything’s okay with him.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Our closest friend, Detective Alex Martinez, had been keeping his distance ever since our private little Christmas celebration with just the three of us at my house. I’d had my suspicions that he’d been shaken up about getting shot in the line of duty and just wasn’t ready to admit it. I had been shaken up.

But for all I knew, I was just projecting my own issues onto him. So I said, “Oh, I’m sure he is. He’s just been so busy lately.” Before she could push further into this conversation, I changed the subject and pointed to where Mr. Cowboy Hat seemed to be arguing with his pregnant wife again. “What do you think that’s all about? Do you think he heard she’d been bidding into the twenties of thousands for the grandfather clock?”

The young guy certainly didn’t look as though he had that kind of cash to spare, and I’d mentioned to Amber the argument I’d overheard between them earlier.

Thankfully, Amber took my lead with the change of topic. “And who’s the old guy? He looks like he could be the guy’s dad.”

The man with the gray sideburns lurked near the couple, his arms folded over his chest, certainly hearing every word of their argument, but he turned away as if pretending to watch the security officer and another man wrap the grandfather clock in a blanket, secure it to a furniture dolly, and prepare to move it.

I may not have noticed the resemblance if Amber hadn’t picked up on it. But now that she’d mentioned it, I could see that the two men frowned in a similar way and even held their posture, now with hands on their hips, in a similar fashion. “I’ll bet you’re right.”

The fiddle music started up, and Chad and the woman who had been taking the phone bids filled our mostly empty table with half-full champagne flutes. Amber and I arranged our midnight truffles on the other table.

“They don’t waste any time in getting the winning antiques out of here, do they?” I asked Chad, motioning to where the two men wheeled the wrapped clock toward the door.

“Most people will pay out and take their items with them when they leave tonight, but because our prize offering was won by a phone bidder, we want to make sure to keep it safe at a secure storage facility until we can deliver it tomorrow.”

“Was it the man you expected to win?” I glanced again at Sheila, arguing with Mr. Cowboy Hat. “Winston Blakely?”

Chad shook his head. “No, surprisingly, it was a man calling from Juniper Mills. One I’ve never met.”

Juniper Mills, home to Winston Blakely’s outlet mall. Interesting coincidence that someone from that same town had won the clock Mr. Blakely had wanted. Then again, after solving so many murder investigations, my mind was often in hyperdrive, looking for coincidences. It likely didn’t mean anything.

“Huh. So Winston Blakely didn’t bid at all?” I didn’t know the man from Adam, but I could feel Sheila Blakely’s stress over the subject.

“His daughter, Miss Blakely, was bidding on his behalf. To be honest, I’m surprised she gave up so quickly.”

I wasn’t sure I considered twenty-five thousand dollars “quickly,” but I didn’t argue. From across the room, I could see the worry lines on her face. She had apparently been right to bid on her father’s behalf. He clearly had money, if he owned Juniper Mills. I wondered if she’d reluctantly given up on the bidding because of her concerned husband. Perhaps that was why they were still arguing.

Before Chad had a chance to tell me anything more, Roland Conway strode purposely our way and spoke without seeming to notice if he was interrupting anything. “I want to get out of here. Can I get my money now?”

Chad glanced toward the table near the door. “Have you gone over the bid list with Sara?”

I found it curious that Chad had so easily offered to pay me in advance, yet he double-checked that Roland had finished all of his duties before offering him payment. Considering Roland seemed to have worked for Chad many times before, I found this extra curious.

Roland scowled. “Of course.”

Then again, Roland had a chip on his shoulder about something. I suppose a person like that might not have finished their assigned work sometime in the past.

“You’re not staying until midnight?” I asked, holding out my tray of truffles toward him.

He ignored my offering and picked at some frays along the edge of his suit jacket. “The last place I want to be at midnight is hobnobbing with the richies.” He said the words to me, I was pretty sure, but kept his eyes on Chad as though he expected a challenge.

Leave it to an auctioneer to have a chip on his shoulder about people with money. Ah, the irony.

Chad passed over an envelope, and Roland opened it in front of him and double-checked the amount before offering a curt nod, turning on his heel, and heading for the door.

“Not the friendliest guy, is he?” Amber asked from beside me.

Chad sighed. “He’s the best auctioneer around here, so we put up with him. The poor guy has had several business deals go bad over the years and always seems to be climbing out of some sort of debt every time I see him.”

So it made sense why he had a chip on his shoulder. It was probably good that he’d left before midnight, so he wouldn’t ruin the fun for everyone else.

Before I had a chance to ask more about him, Mr. Cowboy Hat and his dad marched back out the door.

Sheila Blakely headed our way. “Something’s wrong, Chad. My dad should have been here.”

Chad nodded. “Yes, dear, I thought so, too, but you know we can’t hold auction items. The bidding starts when the bidding starts.” Chad said this in a sympathetic tone, but it sounded practiced, as though he’d given this same speech a thousand times.

“No, of course. I know.” She fiddled with the hem of a maternity cardigan she’d thrown on over her jumper. “It’s not the clock. It’s just…well, I’m really worried. He’s not answering his phone. Not even his cell phone.”

Chad adopted a fatherly tone. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sure he’s fine. You know your father gets busy.”

She shook her head. “But not too busy for this. He’s been talking about that clock for months. He desperately wanted it before the baby was born. I wonder if I should drive out to his place and check on him.”

I tilted my head in confusion over what owning a clock had to do with her unborn baby.

Chad glanced toward the door. “Have you been outside, Sheila? It’s been snowing all evening, and I’m certain the road out to his place hasn’t been plowed. Can Dylan take you?”

She shook her head. “He had to get home to bed. He gets up early.”

I wondered if Dylan was Mr. Cowboy Hat. I, too, wouldn’t want to see this pregnant lady venture into a rural area in the middle of a snowstorm. I couldn’t help offering to help. “I have a friend in the police department,” I said. “If you give me his address, I can see if they could send someone out to check on him.”

Sheila’s worried eyes darted quickly to me. “Would you? He lives up in Breckendale Ridge.” Then she rattled off an address, and I jotted it onto the notepad from my purse.

In truth, I’d been looking for a reason to call Alex. Maybe I could talk to him at midnight on New Year’s Eve, even if I couldn’t have him here. At the same time, I did want to help this poor distraught woman.

“Absolutely,” I told her. “Enjoy the party, and I’ll come and find you when I hear anything.”