April at the Antique Alley Read Online Free Page B

called Ruby Glass) was a forty year old retired military type with hair way too long and shaggy. His army fatigues were well worn which one would expect for the work uniform of one in his profession. He was pretty old school. I mean he would never look you directly in the eye, but he stared instead directly at my chest and made no attempt to hide it. He had to take the glove off of his right hand so that he could shake hands when we were introduced and he sort of did it like it was a big imposition to himself. Rough as he tried to appear I felt him quite harmless and to me at least it was quite apparent that he and Shelly were much more than co-workers. She obviously was the love of his life but his machismo would not permit him to show tenderness towards her when others were present.
    Once the mask and glove were off, and since he was taking a break anyway, Rubert quickly lit up a cigarette and I wished he would step a few feet away from the chemicals he was working with. Rubert knew nothing about Lola, and Shelly had to give him several clues before he even realized who had been murdered. He had a rather stupid look about him and one could not quite be sure whether it was the chemicals he constantly worked with or perhaps an over familiarity with Jack Daniels.
     
    Just west of Buy It Bare was a smaller shop called Uptown Treasures owned by a young lady named Jana Little. It was a name that fit her well as she was hardly Jill’s equal in height or weight. She told us she was thirty years old and had never wanted to be in the antique business but her parents had owned the store all of her life and just two years ago she had lost the pair to a drunk driver on New Years Eve. She had not had the heart to close the place but admitted she was losing money every month and would have to close it soon if things didn’t turn around.
    Jana claimed to not know the other shop owners well at all including Lola Martin preferring to keep to herself and could give us no help at all in finding Lola’s next of kin. When I questioned her about the breakin though we hit pay dirt. The story she told was exactly like the tale Lola had told us. Some guy had stopped with a truck loaded down with several pieces of old furniture and had sold the lot to her at a price so low she could not afford to pass it up. The next morning she had found the back entrance to her shop wide open but the only thing missing was one piece of the recently acquired furniture. She was able to give a good description of the piece of furniture, the truck, and its driver. I wish I had gotten a better description from Lola, but, of course, at the time Lola was telling me the story we did not know it would become important. Somehow though the details Jana provided matched Lola’s story too closely to be coincidence.
    Of the nine pieces of furniture she had purchased from the man she still had eight of them. This time we took pictures, and I told Jana that the pieces may need to be examined by the crime scene techs so she should not sell any of it until after the investigation was complete. Jill and I looked over the pieces of furniture that Jana had bought from the truck driver, but we did it without touching just in case the police would want to try to get finger prints. Without knowing what we were actually looking for we found nothing remarkable about any of the pieces except that they were old wooden furniture pieces.
    I asked Ms. Little if she had any records from the purchase of the suspicious goods but she had none. She had not even paid for it all with a check giving the man cash instead. I questioned her about when exactly the piece had been stolen and she told me it had been two weeks earlier on Saturday. She had called the police and they took the information over the phone and told her they would send someone over to talk with her in person in a few days but so far no cops had shown up. She had called her insurance agent who told her she had no insurance that