In May I was invited to participate in The Blog Short Story Project, organized by David White and Bryon Quertermous.
The word count: 3000 words. The assignment: The story should revolve around something taken to or bought at a police auction.
My story: WHY PEGGY DIDN'T GET MARRIED
A week after Daryl walked out on her without so much as a by-your-leave, Peggy was only half-pretending to be heartbroken.
“Almost two years,” her mother said, standing inches from the bed where Peggy lay curled on her side, hugging the Pepto-Bismol-pink wall and the pink-and-white striped comforter she’d pulled over her head to shut out her mother’s braying, praying she’d go away. “And what do you have to show for it? Nothing, that’s what.”
“Nothing” meant a wedding band, which Peggy had hoped for, and Daryl had kept promising, “I love you, baby,” not just when they were making the springs creak on the lumpy sofa bed in the Culver City apartment he’d been itching to leave.
“As soon as I have enough to set us up in a nice place,” he’d told her. “You deserve better than this.”
Most times Peggy was sure that anything had to be better than living under her parents’ roof. She’d moved back ten months ago when she got laid off from the bank where she’d been a cashier, and even if the temp work she’d found turned into a permanent position, Peggy didn’t earn enough to afford an apartment in a safe neighborhood, not when L.A. rents were climbing faster than the ivy in her parents’ yard, even for a studio like Daryl’s. And Daryl’s place wasn’t an option. It was a twelve-by-sixteen rectangle, overwhelmed by the large cardboard boxes that arrived almost daily, with a closet-size kitchen and a bathroom not much bigger, and rust stains in the sinks and tub that were webbed with cracks.
And although Peggy loved Daryl--he was smart and ambitious, and handsome, too, with a smile that had wormed its way into her heart the minute she’d laid eyes on him at her best friend Sheryl’s engagement party, and he made her laugh more than he made her mad, Peggy had begun to suspect that there was more to Daryl than he let on.
Or maybe less.
So when Daryl skipped—he wasn’t dead, Peggy realized with thumping relief that turned to anger as she took in the emptied apartment, not comprehending at first that he was gone, lightheaded from the fear that had pinched her heart and the breath she’d sucked in and hadn’t let out when she stepped inside behind the manager, whom she’d forced to unlock Daryl’s front door the morning after Daryl didn’t show to take her to dinner and a movie, didn’t return any of her increasingly frantic calls—when Daryl skipped, Peggy was grieved that she’d never feel his arms around her, never hear him whisper sweet words in her ear, most of which she believed. At the same time she was outraged that he’d allowed her to imagine the worst, how could he!, resentful that he’d proved her parents right. And a tiny part of her was relieved.
“At least he didn’t leave you pregnant,” her mother said.
Peggy sighed.
“You’re not pregnant, are you, Peggy? That would be rich.”
Peggy wasn’t pregnant, but she decided to let her mother worry. Her father, too. Maybe she would wait to tell them, put a pillow under her sweater in a few months, then two pillows, parade around the neighborhood. Her parents had never liked Daryl. Maybe that was why he’d left.
“What does he do, sitting in front of his computer all day?” her father had said. “No more day-trading, huh?” Her father had snickered.
Peggy was sorry she’d told her parents about the day-trading. She thought they’d be impressed, like she was.
“That’s not a job,” her homemaker mother had said, her hands on the hips the doctor had told her were too narrow, it was a miracle she didn’t die giving birth. Peggy couldn’t begin to count the number of times she’d been forced to hear the pain her mother had suffered to bring her ungrateful self into the world. “It’s one step away from gambling. Isn’t that so, George?”
George was an insurance salesman who usually finished his can of Miller Lite before he started snoring on his brown Naugahyde recliner while watching ESPN.
George had nodded. “Only crooks become rich overnight.”
“You wish,” Peggy had muttered.
“What’s that?” her mother had said, her voice grating like chalk against a blackboard.
“And the rich get away with murder,” her father said. “O.J. Robert Blake. Everybody knows Morton Wills killed his father, but he'll walk. Day-trading,” her father said again and huffed.
Peggy had taken pleasure in the envy that nibbled at her parents when Daryl’s portfolio soared up, up, up, along with her hopes. Then, seven months ago, she had burned with shame, for Daryl, at the gleam in her father’s eyes when she admitted that things had gone south, the engagement was on hold.
“Figures.” Her father had drained the beer can, smacked his lips, added a belch.
Peggy hadn’t told her parents about the merchandise in the boxes in Daryl’s apartment--cell phones, Sony Play Stations, drills, cameras, purses, laptops, other stuff Daryl hadn’t even unpacked yet or catalogued, stuff he’d bought cheap and hoped to sell high on E-Bay. She didn’t tell them about the sports memorabilia Daryl was buying and selling, also on E-Bay, mostly baseball cards, who knew there was a market for that?
Daryl did. He knew a lot about a lot of things. He read all the time, newspapers and Internet news. He was good with names, never forgot a face.
"This is our ticket to Beverly Hills, baby," he'd told Peggy, waving his hand at the boxes, his free arm snug around her waist.
And now he was gone. And despite what her mother had said, he hadn’t left Peggy with nothing. Her red leather jewelry case (five dollars on E-Bay, brand new) was filled with pretty things Daryl had given her, all in the past six months--bracelets, rings, earrings, pendants; some of them with pearls or precious stones, many of them with diamonds. Peggy’s favorite was a pendant with diamonds and sapphires that Daryl told her brought out the blue in her eyes. The pendant was shaped like a heart, and just because Daryl had stomped on hers didn’t mean she wouldn’t wear it.
The first time Daryl gave her a piece of jewelry, a tennis bracelet with more than two carats of diamonds, much nicer than anything her mother owned or hoped to own, her father had wondered how Daryl could afford it. “Now that he’s not making a killing in the market, heh, heh.”
“Probably got it off the back of a truck,” her mother said.
Peggy had stormed out of the den to her room, where she threw herself on her bed. But as she flicked her wrist back and forth and watched the light playing off the diamonds’ facets, a part of her had wondered, too. She nosed around the subject with Sheryl and her husband, Gordon, and learned that Daryl had recently sold them a flat-panel computer monitor at his cost, and an emerald-and-diamond ring, an anniversary gift for Sheryl.
“Daryl wouldn’t tell me his source, but the stuff is top quality,” Gordon said. “What does it matter? It’s not like he stole it or anything.”
Peggy had a sinking feeling. She loved Daryl. She loved the bracelet. But she had nightmares that one day soon the cops would come knocking on her parents’ front door and drag her from her bed.
“This is stolen property, ma’am,” they would say as they released the clasp on the bracelet and removed it from her wrist.
Her parents would love that. Oh, yes.
So she confronted Daryl.
He dropped the People magazine he was reading. He leaned his head back and laughed.
“Steal it back,” he told her.
Her heart pounded in her chest. “What?”
“You should see your face, baby, you’re red as a tomato. Stealitback.com. It’s a Web site.” He laughed again. “That’s where I bought the bracelet, and Gordon’s monitor and Sheryl’s ring. That’s where I’ve been buying other things, too, that I’ll be selling for much more. I didn’t tell Gordon because he has a big mouth, and I don’t want all his friends bidding against me. And I didn’t tell you--well, I’m not sure why.”
Daryl led Peggy by the hand to his computer and sat her on his lap while he logged onto the Internet and PropertyRoom.com, which, he had learned from surfing the Web one day, handles police auctions for over three hundred cities, including New York and L.A.
“It’s like shopping the day after Christmas and New Year, only with much, much better prices and no long lines,” Daryl said. “The police are thrilled, because they don’t have to deal with stuff piling up in warehouses, and I’m getting quality goods for pennies on the dollar. You can buy real estate, too. Can you believe that? A parcel of land for a few hundred dollars, maybe less.”
“So this bracelet was stolen?” Peggy asked.
“Not by me,” Daryl said, full of cheer. “The police don’t put anything up for auction until they’ve given up trying to find its owner.” He fingered the bracelet. “If I didn’t buy it, somebody else would have. Does it bother you, baby?”
Peggy wasn’t sure, but she said, “No, of course not.”
“The trick is to wait until the auction is almost over,” Daryl told her. “That’s when you bid. Otherwise, you’re just raising the price. Here, let me show you.”
In the following months Peggy spent hours watching Daryl bid for items, usually with success, which he punctuated with a whoop that she matched with a smile. At home she often found herself thinking about the owner of the bracelet, or the earrings that followed it, or the ring, or another bracelet, or the heart-shaped pendant with the sapphires that may have brought out the blue in its wearer’s eyes. But Daryl was right. If he hadn’t bought the items, someone else would have. And Peggy told herself the original owner had probably bought something else by now, with the insurance money.
Three weeks ago she decided to surprise Daryl with a digital camera he’d been pricing for himself. She saw one on PropertyRoom.com that had the features he wanted, and the right number of pixels.
She did what Daryl taught her to do: She waited until a minute before the auction was scheduled to close. Then she submitted her bid. When she won, her face was flushed with excitement that equaled several glasses of wine. She understood Daryl’s whoop, and gave one of her own.
Ten days later the package arrived while Peggy was at the market.
Her mother had unwrapped it. She waved it in front of Peggy when she returned home. “You can’t afford to move out, but you can afford an expensive camera, is that right?”
“It’s for Daryl,” Peggy said, seething. “A present. I got it at an auction, cheap.”
Her mother grunted. She extended the camera to Peggy, as though she were going to hand it to her. At the last second she released it, and Peggy had to scramble to catch it before it fell to the floor.
In her room, with the door locked, Peggy examined the camera, which the auction site had said was in excellent condition. She pressed the Zoom button. She checked the flash. She opened the tiny viewing screen, pressed a button, and found herself staring at a photo of a beautiful blond woman in her forties sitting at a blackjack table. Her makeup and hair were perfect, and she was smiling with delight, maybe because of the tall stacks of chips in front of her. Behind her, one hand on her shoulder, was a brown-haired man. He was smiling, too. Her husband? The woman looked like a celebrity. Daryl would know.
There were more photos, all with the blond woman and the man. At a golf course, on a balcony. In one shot, taken poolside, the woman was reclining on a lounge chair while the man squatted at her side. She had removed her sunglasses, which she held in one hand. In the other hand was the folded newspaper she’d been reading. To her right, several feet behind her, stood another woman in a bathing suit. Dark-haired, slim, with just the right amount of curves--the way Peggy would have liked to look.
Peggy was sorry she’d seen the photos. It made her wonder who had stolen the camera, and under what circumstances. Maybe the blond woman had forgotten the camera in the hotel. But then how had it ended up at a police auction? A home invasion? A street mugging?
A serial number was etched on the back of the camera. Peggy had read on the frequently asked questions posted on Stealitback.com that if an owner of a stolen object provided a serial number for that object and proof of ownership, Stealitback would return the item without charge. Peggy assumed that neither the blond women nor the man had written down the serial number. Most people don’t. She refused to worry about the unlikely possibility that the camera’s owners would, at some future date, contact Stealitback and claim their camera.
That night, in Daryl’s apartment, she watched his face as she presented him with the camera, which she had wrapped in teal foil paper and silver ribbon. She could see his boyish delight, even before he swooped her up in his arms.
“I had the winning bid,” Peggy told him, still airborne. “At Stealitback. It was fun,” she admitted.
He laughed and laid her on the sofa. “I’ve unleashed a monster.” He leaned over her.
“There are photos,” she said. “You’ll want to delete them, but there’s one of a woman. She seemed familiar.”
He looked at her, curious. “Someone you know?”
Peggy shook her head. “A celebrity? I’m not sure.”
Leaving Peggy on the couch, Daryl picked up the camera, flipped open the camera’s viewing screen, and advanced through the photos. Then he shrugged.
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” he said.
Peggy knew he was lying. She could tell from the tightening of his jaw, the darkening of his eyes.
He checked his watch, a Movado he’d bought on E-Bay. “We should go. I made reservations for seven-thirty.”
Peggy tried to imagine how she would feel if she could identify the person from whom someone had stolen the bracelet, or the ring, or earrings, or the heart-shaped pendant. She wouldn’t want to part with any of the jewelry she now considered her own, jewelry to which she’d attached memories.
She liked to think she would have done the right thing.
He saw her looking at him. “What?” he said.
“You’re sure you don’t recognize the blond woman? Or the man with her?”
“Positive. Never saw them before.”
He sounded so genuine. Maybe she was wrong. During dinner Peggy forced the camera out of her mind, and she returned with Daryl to his apartment and the sofa bed.
The following day Daryl flew to Arizona. Peggy drove to his apartment. Using the key he'd given her, she let herself in and felt like a thief as she checked his computer.
He’d downloaded the photos from the camera, had enlarged the one taken at poolside.
When Daryl returned the next day from Arizona--if that's where he really went, Peggy thought, miserable--she cancelled their date.
“Stomach flu,” she told him.
Two days later he was the one who cancelled. “A business meeting. If this pans out, Peggy—Oh, baby, baby, we’ll be set for life.”
Three days later she decided to tell him she didn’t care about the woman in the camera, though she did. But Daryl was gone.
That was a week ago.
Her mother had finally left the room. Peggy rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
The following week two male detectives were waiting with her mother when Peggy entered the living room.
“It’s about Daryl, sweetheart,” her mother said, barely containing her glee. “He’s—“
“Ma’am.” The taller of the detectives stopped her with a frown, then turned to Peggy. “I’m afraid we have bad news. Mr. Hunter is dead. Someone shot him.”
Peggy stared at him. Daryl being shot was so ridiculous she almost laughed. The room began to spin. She tried to concentrate on the questions the detectives asked: When was the last time Peggy saw Daryl? Had he seemed anxious? Fearful? Did he have any enemies? Did he have business problems?
Later, Peggy returned to her room and slammed the door in her mother’s face. On her computer she pulled up the copies she’d made of the photos before wrapping the camera, she wasn’t sure why.
Daryl had focused on the poolside shot and had enlarged the newspaper the blond woman had folded. Peggy did the same. She could make out the grainy headlines, and the date—June 18--but nothing she read seemed relevant.
Daryl had made another copy of the photo and zeroed in on the dark-haired woman in the background.
That was the woman he’d recognized, Peggy realized with a jolt. Not the blond. She stared at the woman’s face.
Nothing.
The door opened.
“Go away,” Peggy said.
It was her father. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Peg.”
Too little, too late, thought Peggy.
George peered over her shoulder at the computer screen.
“She’s a looker, that Angie Dean. Lucky for Morton Wills she says she was with him at his house when his father got whacked.”
“When was that?” Peggy said, her heart thrumming. “What day, I mean?”
“What day? Who cares?”
Peggy cared.
She looked again at the date on the newspaper. June 18. The same day, Peggy learned from Google, that Morton Wills’s father was murdered.
“Oh, Daryl,” she said, tugging at the heart-shaped pendant. “Oh, baby, baby.”
Copyright 2005 by Rochelle Krich
Do not reprint without permission.
I met Patty years ago when we were both involved with the L.A. chapter of Sisters in Crime. This past February we caught up at Left Coast Crime in El Paso, and last week we talked books at a local (L.A.) Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf on Robertson and Beverly. (I love the Coffee Beans, which are giving Starbucks a run for their java. The coffee is delicious--I'm partial to the white chocolate latte--and they have to-die-for pastries. Kosher. My favorite is the crumble cheese Danish. I had one this morning.)
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