Garage Sale Diamonds (Garage Sale Mystery) Read online

  Garage Sale Diamonds

  Garage Sale Mystery Series

  Suzi Weinert

  Dedication

  To my children, Mike, Wendey, Greg, Brad and Sally and husband, Don, the wind beneath my wings

  LETTER TO MY READERS

  Terrorism is not new. My story’s about Middle-Eastern terrorism, but historically this tool has served conquerors, militias, governments, religions and Mafia-like organizations. The contest between power via intimidation and freedom to cooperate voluntarily continues in the 9/11 era.

  My book is fiction but terrorism is real, affecting citizens of every nation. For open societies like ours, peaceful coexistence vs. the need for safety requires constant vigilance. Live-and-let-live philosophy works where groups live in relative harmony, not attempting to destroy one another.

  With the remarkable technology of modern warfare, no person or place is safe from harm. Any nation’s capital is a strategic target for attacks, so people living near Washington, D.C. recognize their particular vulnerability. Just such a suburb is McLean, Virginia.

  All countries, cultures, societies and religions incorporate the full range of human behavior: kind and cruel, war-like or peace-loving, close-minded or open-minded, progressive or regressive and so on. Education and economics affect the global family. Rights of individuals vs. collectives continue to challenge the brightest minds. Since we all share the same planet, survival of mankind may rest on designing ways to live harmoniously on spaceship earth.

  Thank you for reading my book.

  E-mail me if you like at [email protected]

  ~Suzi Weinert

  Prologue Part A

  Hearing insistent knocking on the front door of their hovel in a remote Middle Eastern village, Ahmed obeyed his father’s hand signal pointing the child to hurry upstairs. The boy scampered to the top step, pressed himself against the wall and peeked at the scene below.

  Their heavy pounding unanswered, the intruders escalated to boot kicks and shoulder thuds against the wood to bash down the door. With triumphant snarls, four men burst into the home. Already on his feet, Ahmed’s father lurched forward to protest their invasion; but they muscled him into a corner, punched him to the floor and took turns delivering vicious kicks to the helpless man’s torso. Then one dragged Ahmed’s father to a chair to prop his bleeding body upright.

  The five year old cowered at the top of the stairs, staring open-mouthed at the horror below. An ear-shattering BANG echoed around the room. The child watched red and gray explode onto the wall behind his father. When the men stood back, the child saw a faceless man dressed in his father’s clothes sprawled at the base of the wall beneath the dripping splatter. The men grunted and gestured among themselves. One pointed toward the foot of the stairs.

  But Ahmed had already sprinted into the bedroom where his mother’s eyes peered at him from her tear-streaked face above the infant she held against her heart.

  Wide-eyed with terror, he whispered, “The men who hurt Baba are coming for us.” Heavy footsteps thumped on the stairs as the boy spoke.

  His mother reached a quick decision and moved faster than he’d ever remembered. In one swift, continuous motion she lay the baby on the floor, closed and locked the bedroom door, grabbed Ahmed’s arm and flung him into the wardrobe. He heard her turn the key to lock it.

  The sounds of the men knocking down the bedroom door penetrated the darkness where the terrified child shrank against the back of the dark armoire. He heard his mother talk to the men, then whimper as she begged them to spare her baby. The infant’s hysterical cries stopped mid-wail. Ahmed’s mother screamed. He heard scuffling and the men shouting among themselves followed by a crude laugh. His mother’s anguished voice rose decibels higher. “No, please!” she cried. The scrambling and grunting intensified as his mother’s screams filled the air. Those screams changed to horrific shrieks of agony, sounds he’d never heard her make but knew came from her mouth because her voice was as familiar to him as his own.

  Ahmed heard her gagging, coughing and sobbing while the men laughed. Then one man shouted a command in a language he didn’t understand. More scuffling. His mother’s final scream halted as abruptly as the baby’s had.

  The boy heard another harsh command from the same man’s voice. Then their shoes shuffled across the room, grew fainter and disappeared in footfalls descending the stairs. Then silence.

  Paralyzed with fear, he pressed himself into a corner of the cupboard’s inky blackness. But as the unbroken silence stretched on, he finally sat up, pressed an ear against the doors and listened with great care.

  “Ummi?” he risked calling his mommy. No response. “Ummi?” he called louder. Silence.

  He pushed his small hands tentatively against the wardrobe’s doors. They wouldn’t budge. Would his mother turn the key to let him out? Could she if she were hurt? How long should he wait?

  Listening again but hearing no sound, he touched a foot against one of the wardrobe’s two doors and pressed, jostling it a little. He listened again, heard only silence and pushed harder, this time with both feet. A thin vertical crack of light appeared where the double doors joined in the middle, but the lock’s resistance held them. He listened again for any noise from the room. Nothing! Squaring his back against the rear of the wardrobe, he bent his knees and pushed with his feet as hard as he could. With a creak of wood and metal, the doors popped open.

  The sight before him stunned Ahmed. His baby sister lay still in a circle of blood near the door, her eyes open but unblinking. His mother slumped across the bed’s edge. Blood stained her clothing, pushed askew. Her bare legs stuck out from her twisted skirt.

  He gazed open-mouthed, stupefied by the ghastly scene. What did it mean? His parents always explained such events, for he was only a boy. But unless they woke up…

  Hearing no sound from downstairs, he eased himself out of the wardrobe and touched his mother.

  “Ummi?” His small hand gently shook her shoulder. “Ummi?”

  She moaned, feebly lifting the fingers of one hand. With difficulty, she opened her green eyes.

  “Ummi,” he urged. “How can I help?”

  She moaned again. “The…baby?”

  Ahmed looked at his tiny sister. “She…she doesn’t move. Maybe she’s resting.”

  His mother’s eyes closed, pain and despair distorting her usually cheerful face. She struggled to form words.

  “Your path…difficult. Allah...will guide you,” she whispered hoarsely. “Seek…truth. Use…your mind to…sift what you see and hear. Think for yourself. Listen to your heart.” A long pause. “Take care of Amina.”

  In the craziness, he’d forgotten his twin sister. Cousins from a neighboring village had picked her up only this morning to visit with their young daughters for a few days.

  “Yes, Ummi,” he answered obediently. “But…I don’t know where to find her.”

  His mother gazed deep into his eyes. “Take care of her. And…avenge our undeserved deaths.”

  “Yes, Ummi. But how?

  “You will…know what to do when...the time comes. Kiss me…good-bye.”

  He pressed his warm lips against her cheek, exactly as he had kissed her so many times. He pulled back, but the usual loving smile he expected wasn’t forthcoming. He buried his face against the familiar cloth of her garment, clasping her in a desperate hug, his little arms stretching around her as far as they could reach. At last he pulled back to look again into her loving eyes gazing deeply into his own, locking him in wordless communication forever connecting mother and beloved son. One moment he saw his image reflected in her moist pupils. The next moment their
clarity blurred as her dying eyes unfocused, fading into a vacant stare.

  "UMMI!" he screamed, first nudging her to wake up and then urgently shaking her. Instead, she slipped from the bed to the floor and lay in a lifeless, crumpled heap.

  His anguished sobs of loss and fear lasted until dark, when at last he crawled back to the earlier safety of the wardrobe, closed the doors and began a fitful night’s sleep. The following morning he again tried to wake his mother and baby sister, but even a five year old realized something irreversible had happened. He crept across the grisly bedroom scene, down the stairs, past the faceless thing dressed in his father’s clothes and into the kitchen to find some food.

  When Amina’s visit ended in a few days, wouldn’t the cousins bring her back? Could they explain what happened? Maybe they could live here with Ahmed and his sister. All he needed to do was wait for them.

  Prologue Part B

  Two strange men arrived the next morning as Ahmed sat on the cooking hearth, gnawing a piece of bread. Forcing the resisting child to accompany them, the older one explained to the younger one, “When our cleansing team punishes troublemakers like this, we usually find the orphans in the kitchen. Hunger is stronger than fear.” Older gave a mirthless laugh.

  Younger politely emulated the laugh but with a nervous edge.

  “You who I train,” Older said to Younger. “Do you see how we attack the snake four ways?”

  “Four ways, Teacher?” asked Younger with respect. If this were another test, failure to answer correctly meant consequences.

  Satisfied at this deference, Older continued. “First, we forever silence the snake’s slander against our glorification of Allah, blessed be His name. Second, we take the snake’s children to further our cause, not theirs—to become human swords for our crusade against all heretics here and in other lands. Third, this snake’s punishment frightens the other villagers enough to look away and make no trouble for us now or in the future. Fourth, our cleansing team returns to bury the bodies before confiscating the snake’s house and belongings.”

  “Ah…yes, now I do see, Wise One. But how do you explain to the children the murder of their parents, perhaps witnessed by their own eyes?”

  Younger registered alarm at Older’s initial menacing look but sighed with welcome relief when his teacher’s disapproval changed to a smug response. “We tell them agents of the American Satan or the evil Jews committed this act. We say we rescued the children from those vicious enemies, the Unbelievers of the one true faith. We say we will teach these children the skills to deliver the vengeance due those enemies who destroyed their family.”

  “And now we take this new ‘recruit’ to meet his destiny?” Younger asked.

  “You learn fast,” Older said with approval. “Yes, at the madrassa boys receive intense religious instruction When old enough, they learn fighting at the training camps.”

  “And the girls?”

  “They have a different future.”

  “Different?” asked Younger.

  But Older ignored his question, turning instead to the little boy. “Your name, child?”

  “Ahmed,” he managed in a frightened whisper.

  “Speak up, boy,” Older demanded gruffly.

  He repeated his name a little louder.

  “And what is this on your neck and shoulder?” Older pointed to a large maroon birthmark.

  “Baba says Allah drew this mark on me to show my special importance to him.”

  Older processed this information uneasily. Allah’s signs weren’t always easy to understand. He studied the shy boy. Was he in the presence of a child bearing a holy mark or had a father invented this tale to comfort his disfigured child?

  “So what do you think?” Older asked Younger.

  Younger thought fast. “Maybe we should watch the boy to learn more before we decide what his father meant,” he suggested.

  “But of course,” Older agreed with a raspy laugh, hiding his own uncertainty.

  • • •

  Not understanding their words when the men switched to another dialect, Ahmed stumbled along with his right hand clenched in Older’s tight grip. Through tears the child looked back at his home, reaching his left arm in that direction as if his small grasping fingers could grab and hold forever the memories of his precious life there…precious until yesterday’s madness changed everything he knew.

  If they took him away, would he ever see his parents or his twin sister again? Staring at his home for the last time, the boy sobbed with such anguish that his steps faltered.

  His head snapped back and he choked on his sobs when, cursing with annoyance, Older jerked him hard—toward a future he could not imagine.

  DAY ONE

  Thursday

  1

  Thursday, 9:31 AM

  Jennifer Shannon grinned with triumph as she drove from the estate sale at the sprawling Rotunda condo complex toward her home in McLean, Virginia. Reaching that sale early, she stood third in line when they handed out numbers controlling how many shoppers entered the apartment at one time. Had she really bagged this unlikely treasure? A quick glance at the shiny contents in the shoebox nestled beside her on the passenger seat confirmed she had.

  Was that a siren whining in the distance? She turned off the radio and lowered her window an inch to gauge the emergency vehicle’s closeness. No, it sounded far away.

  As she browsed this morning’s estate sale in a spacious apartment, nothing caught her eye until she spotted the very silverware she needed—a stainless steel pattern she started years ago with four packages of eight place-settings, long before Oneida discontinued this Bancroft style. What happened to all those missing forks and spoons remained a mystery. She’d rescued two from the trash where table-clearing “helpers” mistakenly scraped them along with uneaten food. But could that account for eleven disappearing?

  The siren again, a little closer this time.

  Only last week Replacements, Ltd, the magic source for discontinued china, silverware and crystal patterns, charged more for these eleven missing forks and spoons than she originally paid for a set for eight many years ago. And now ten place-settings glinted in the box beside her—fifty pieces for only $20! Even husband Jason should salute this fortuitous coup!

  But that wasn’t all. She’d also found the 20-lb exercise weight he’d asked for only yesterday. She filled many requests from family, friends and neighbors who knew about her regular treks to weekend sales, but finding this improbable item so fast beat all odds. Maybe now he’d stop irreverent references to her “garage sale mania.”

  The siren pierced the air again, triggering an automatic wish for the safety of her five grown children and their families. All lived within a two-hour drive of the McLean home she and Jason bought twenty-five years ago, their proximity to parents seeming a gift in today’s mobile society. This nearness allowed frequent family gatherings, which she cherished.

  She marveled that a marriage of two such different personalities could last forty-one years, but in the process she and Jason had morphed into a team. At sixty-one, she enjoyed good health, a close family, a loving husband, many friends and a financially comfortable life in upscale McLean. With their child-rearing responsibilities largely behind them, these recent years seemed the best ever. Well, except for her major foible: succumbing to the irresistible weekend lure of garage and estate sales. If Jason grumbled, comparing her “sport” to his golf and tennis brought silence.

  She drove into her cul-de-sac, pressed a button to open the iron driveway gates and another to lift the garage door. As she climbed out of her car, the siren whine wafted even closer. Fire? Police? Ambulance? Trouble for someone, she thought, but at least help’s on the way.

  She shelved newly bought under-the-pillow gifts in a garage cupboard as later surprises for Grands who spent the night. Then she carried her remaining items into the house. As she loaded the sale silverware into the dishwasher to be sanitized, the siren sounded louder. Must be
on her side of Dolley Madison Boulevard, the major road cutting through the center of McLean from the George Washington Parkway through Tyson Corner and into Vienna where it became Maple Avenue.

  As she pulled clothes from the laundry room dryer, the siren wailed insistently. Was the engine hurtling past her neighborhood?

  She stacked the laundry to carry upstairs but the siren’s shriek stopped her. Looking out the front door’s glass sidelights, she checked for tell-tale smoke somewhere in the neighborhood.

  Now deafening, the sound penetrated the walls of her house as it roared into her community and, screaming louder yet, arrived on her street!

  Was her house on fire? With a gasp she jerked open the basement door, sniffing for burn odors. She dashed through the house, fearing the acrid smell or billow of smoke. Detecting neither, she rushed out the front door. Covering her ears at the siren’s shrillness, she stared open-mouthed at the sleek red-cream-and-silver fire truck and EMS ambulance circling the cul-de-sac in front of her house. They parked opposite her. The piercing siren stopped. Four firefighters poured from the big truck and two from the ambulance, disappearing around the other side of the engine.

  After final anxious glance to assure her own home wasn’t in flames, she peered nervously at neighbors’ houses around the circle and as far down the road as she could see. No smoke or flames. What was going on? She ran outside and skirted around the truck to find out.

  2

  Thursday, 9:46 AM

  The firefighters strode straight to the Donnegan house directly across the circle. She and Jason had known Kirsten and Tony Donnegan for at least twenty years. Their children grew up together, they shared family camping trips, the men went deer hunting each year and the two couples dined often at local restaurants. A practicing veterinarian, Tony was the kindly go-to person for neighborhood kids who found injured or orphaned animals.

  What had happened here? Maybe a false alarm like the time their son burned microwave popcorn? The smoke had triggered their security system’s fire alarm, alerting the fire department. The big engine had pulled into the cul-de-sac that day just as now. Those fire fighters had insisted on coming inside to assure themselves popcorn was the only smoke issue. Bless ’em.