Page 4 of A Dead End Fourth of July (Tiger’s Eye Mysteries #14)

Tess

"What is it?" I looked down at what appeared to be an ordinary piece of jewelry, albeit fairly gaudy.

It was a gold brooch—a fancy word for a pin—set with semi-precious stones in a triangular cluster.

The whole thing was maybe three inches across and two inches high.

Or vice versa. I wasn't exactly sure which way was up.

"It's a magic brooch." He pronounced the word as if it rhymed with pooch.

Or mooch.

I sighed and didn't touch the thing. "Right. But what kind of magic? What does it do?"

He shifted his gaze, so he wasn't meeting my eyes anymore, which was never a good sign in the pawnshop business.

"Um. It's a mmphhlm," he mumbled.

"A what?"

"Are you going to buy it or what?" he demanded, poking his balding head forward on his scrawny neck exactly the way chickens peck for seed. The image of a chicken dressed in orange shorts and a yellow shirt flashed through my mind, and it took all my skills to keep a straight face.

A high-pitched voice rang through the shop, saving me. "Elmer! Did you sell that hideous thing? My mother swore she wouldn’t come to visit anymore until it's gone."

The man's hand tightened on the brooch. "So, it would be a win-win," he muttered. But then he gave me a wide-eyed look, as if afraid I'd rat him out to the woman, who must be his wife.

I couldn't help the grin that escaped. "I heard nothing."

He grinned back at me, transforming his face from old and grumpy to surprisingly handsome.

I could see that Elmer must have been quite the catch back in his day.

When the woman marched up to join us, I instantly clocked her as a former prom queen or head cheerleader at the very least. She had thick waves of white-blonde hair, dark brown eyes, and warm brown skin, and her cheekbones were gorgeous.

But her mouth was set in a firm line, and she crossed her arms beneath her considerable chest and glared at Elmer. "Well?"

When he shrugged, she turned to me. "Well?"

When I was younger, Mrs. Elmer would have intimidated me, but I'd been through a lot lately. So, I flashed a big smile, which caught her off guard, and pulled a square of black velvet out from beneath the counter.

"Please place the brooch here," I said, pointing. I considered pronouncing it like he had, so as not to embarrass him, but I couldn't bring myself to say brooch. "I need to examine it. And while I do that, perhaps one of you could tell me exactly what magic it has?"

Elmer pointed at his wife. "Mabel, you tell her. Nobody ever believes me when I say it."

Mabel bit her lip. "Well. I … um …"

Fascinated despite myself, I leaned on the counter and smiled encouragingly. "Yes?"

"It makes the person who wears it tell the truth—the absolute truth—for as long as they wear it!" Elmer blurted out, evidently tired of his wife's hesitation.

I'd been reaching for the piece, but when he said this, I yanked my hand back and reached for gloves. "They have to wear it, or is touching it enough?"

"Seems like they have to wear it," Mabel said, joining in freely now that the secret was out. "You can touch it all day long with no effect."

I nodded and pulled out my jeweler's loupe. The tiny magnifying glass allowed me to inspect jewelry for qualities like inclusion, clarity, and craftsmanship. Jeremiah had taught me about jewelry early in my apprenticeship at the shop.

Not that I'd known at the time that it was an apprenticeship and not just an after-school part-time job. I'd still had dreams of leaving home to go to college back then, before my talent had manifested and the fear of knowing how everyone around me was going to die had changed my path.

"It's not especially … trendy," I said, careful not to say anything rude about the ugly piece. "But I can see how collectors of this type of item might really go for it. Are you sure you don't want to try the online auction sites? They can pay more than I can, certainly."

They moved away to confer, and I rang up several sales. Maud called out to the group to be on the bus in five minutes, and everyone headed towards the door. I expected Elmer and Mabel to leave, too, but they walked back to me.

"Thank you for your honesty about the online sites, but please just tell us what you can offer for it," Mabel said. "We want it out of the house. It has caused enough problems already."

Elmer's grimace made me desperately curious to know what horrible truths had been revealed, but that was just my innate Dead End gossip gene trying to break free. "Okay. How about this?"

I offered them a price. They haggled a little, and I wound up going about twenty-five percent higher than my first offer, which made both of us happy enough. A good compromise was the best result possible in my business, so both sides could feel like they came out on top.

I wrote up the sale, paid them, and carefully wrapped the brooch in cloth to put in the vault until after I could research it a little and warn Eleanor.

I couldn't imagine the damage absolute honesty would do to our friendship if she tried on the brooch and started telling me all about what Bill was like in private. Or in the bedroom.

I shuddered.

Eleanor was a talker.

My phone rang, so I put the brooch down and picked up the phone, but I didn't recognize the number, so I didn't answer. As soon as I sent the call to voicemail, though, it rang again. Same number. And then a third time. I finally picked up, worried that it was bad news.

"Dead End Pawn. Hello?"

I heard breathing, and then a man's voice some distance from the phone said something I couldn't make out.

"Hello?"

The call clicked off. I shrugged and put the phone down, and then my sister Shelley stormed into the shop, her face a thundercloud.

"Tess! You need to tell Aunt Ruby—"

Aunt Ruby walked in right behind her, breathing hard, the two spots of red in her cheeks telling me all I needed to know. She and Shelley must have had a major confrontation like the ones Aunt Ruby and I'd had in my childhood.

My aunt was a blue-eyed blonde and swore she’d be blonde "as long as God makes Miss Clairol." She wasn’t very tall, but she’d been a giant in my childhood—the source of hugs and cookies and kindness.

But occasionally, we’d fought in spectacular fashion, and this looked like she and Shelley were following in those rocky footsteps.

"Tess! You need to do something with this child!"

"Um …" I glanced between the two of them. "Donuts?"

"Yay!" Shelley changed course.

"You don't need more sugar," Aunt Ruby said in a voice just shy of a shout.

She was really worked up, and I was almost afraid to ask why. My aunt and uncle had loved, treasured, and even coddled Shelley since we'd taken her in, because my new sister had been through some truly horrible things. For Aunt Ruby to be this angry now, something awful must have happened.

Of course, Shelley wasn't just an ordinary child who might be acting up in a perfectly normal way. She was a powerful witch just learning to use her powers, and my aunt and uncle were trying hard to learn how to deal with all the issues this brought up.

"Did she float Bonnie Jo through the air again?" My elderly horse still avoided Shelley after that episode. There had also been the matter of a flying reindeer …

"No! She told us she doesn't need to go back to school, because she should attend magic school. And she refuses to do her summer reading list!"

This was serious. Shelley loved school, and she loved to read, so something major must be going on behind the scenes.

"Magic school?"

Shelley came running back out with a sticky mouth and half a donut in her hand. "I need to learn the ways of my people," she said solemnly.

"Your people? I thought Jack and I and Uncle Mike and Aunt Ruby were your people now," I said. "And Zane? And Eleanor and Lorraine and—"

My phone rang again before I could continue listing off every resident of Dead End. I glanced down to see that it was the same number.

"Hold on, let me get this." But when I picked it up and said hello, it was more of the same. Silence and background muttering.

"So, stop calling me already," I said, frustrated, and then I hung up and turned back to my family, just in time to see Shelley fasten the magic brooch on Aunt Ruby.

"Stop!" I yelled, but it was too late.

Both of them turned to stare at me with wide eyes.

"Tess," my aunt chided. "Since when do you talk to a child like that? I haven't been this surprised since you and Molly put the goldfish in the baptism holy water basin at the church!"

My mouth fell open. "Aunt Ruby!! You promised me you’d never, ever tell anybody about that! Molly and I did all those hours of community service cleaning up town square after the Swamp Cabbage Festival that year!"

She blinked. "I said that, didn’t I? I’m sorry; I don’t know why in the world I’d bring that up. I have to admit I feel a bit dizzy, like when I first had champagne on our wedding night and your uncle caught me dancing in my underwear—"

"STOP!" I shouted. It had to be that dang brooch.

Shelley’s face was a picture of scandalized horror. "In your underwear? That’s so gross!"

I grabbed Aunt Ruby’s arm. "Listen. This is important. That brooch—"

Her phone rang, and she pulled away from me, giving me an impatient glance. "Tess. I have important town business to take care of today."

She answered her phone, said "Yes," "No," and "I’m on my way," and then rushed out of my shop, ignoring my protests.

"I have to go meet the doctor. Please keep Shelley with you. With any luck, we’ll hire her and be on our way with the new health clinic," she said, opening her car door.

"But Aunt Ruby. I need to talk to you right now. That brooch—"

She glanced down at the pin resting on the lapel of her pink jacket. "Oh, this? It’s nice, honey. I’ll keep it. Let me know later how much you want for it. I have to run now."

"But you can’t—"

"Bye, now!" She waved, hopped in her car, and took off.

I groaned. "This will not be good. Not good in any way."

From behind me, Shelley piped up. "What’s wrong?"

"We need to call Susan. Now."

"Why do we need the sheriff?"

"Because Aunt Ruby may need to be locked up."