Chapter One - The Shop that Never Opens
In the town where Claire attends college, an antique store at one end of the old downtown strip mystifies her. The window display is arranged to catch the attention of passersby and she swears the pieces inside are moved around on occasion. The curios hint of a dedicated collector who ventured to far-off lands in a quest for exotic wonders. And never made it home again.
A blue and white cardboard sign lists their opening hours: Tues though Sat, 11:00–5:00. Yet the shop is never open. No lights ever come on. She’s never spotted anyone inside. An ornate Bavarian-style cuckoo clock hangs on the wall, forever frozen. The tiny yellow bird perches on a jutting platform, beak open wide for eternity.
The place next door, Anderson’s Tools and Hardware, also sits empty. It looks closed. The shelves and display cabinets are long gone and the blue industrial carpet is faded to a light grey where the sun strikes through the dusty window. Few businesses ever last around here. Now the café on the corner is closing. They opened less than a year ago. Claire rarely steps foot inside because their sandwiches are no better than what she can make at home. As a credit-shy student getting by on her summer job and occasional family generosity, she’s on a tight budget.
And yet she’d spend every last penny she has for one day in that antique shop.
The irony of the café going out of business––because people like her never came in––hit Claire harder than usual at the sight of the hand-painted newsprint taped to the window: Last week in business. Unlike the red and yellow poster board advertising Bankruptcy Sale 90% Off! Everything must go! at the Westwood Plaza furniture store on Route 105, this sign meant what it said. Maybe they’d have had more customers if the place two doors down was ever open.
Out of a misplaced sense of guilt, she went in to buy a coffee. She immediately remembered why she rarely came here. The owners never could decide whether they wanted to run a Starbucks knock-off or mimic the bistros lining side streets of Montreal or Amsterdam. The décor was replete with the sort of bric-a-brac you’d find in the clearance aisle of a Burlington Coat Factory or Marshalls. Vaguely ethnic, but generic and cheap-looking. Service was always slow, lackadaisical, and occasionally outright rude. Such a shame, she thought with a sigh, since it was locally-owned and so few places were anymore.
While waiting, she watched a couple stroll past on the sidewalk outside. The woman was petite like her with long brown hair and a freckled, squarish face. They could pass for sisters. The man was taller, with curly black hair that went past his ears, and he walked with his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his olive green parka. He looked shockingly similar to Dave. Pain flared in her chest that she tried to gulp back down. The anniversary of his death was coming up. She dreaded going back home to face everyone this coming weekend, face questions she still had no answers for. The police had done what they could. Or so they said.
“That’ll be three-fifty.”
With a start she turned back to the cashier and nearly handed him her entire wallet.
Keeping her head bowed, she withdrew a five. “I’m fine thanks.” She waved for him to keep the change. Grief had a way of tearing her feet out from under her whenever she least expected it to. She sucked her breath deep into her lungs. She was not going to cry in public. Never.
She took the coffee over to the stand with all the assorted milks and creams, honeys and sweeteners, shakers full of cinnamon and powered chocolate. No wonder a medium coffee cost $3.50. She kept her focus on opening the packets of brown sugar, ensuring every tawny crystal ended up in her cup, while evicting every dark thought from her mind.
The bus was roaring past just as she stepped outside. That was okay, she reminded herself, trying to shake her gloomy mood. The next bus to campus, which went a slightly different route, took only a few minutes longer. She wouldn’t be late.
Sipping her coffee, she turned her attention to her favourite store on the entire strip of Main Street. A wood sign hung over the entrance, the cracked red paint reading: Maurer and Son Antiques & Collectibles. Thanks to a childhood friend with the same surname, she knew that Maurer rhymed with flower. The first r was extraneous. When she first moved here, she’d been keen to go in and ask if they were related. She’d also wanted to ask about an ornate metal lamp of the sort sold in Turkish bazaars, half-concealed in the shadows. It would have gone beautifully in her old bedroom.
She only gave up when locals insisted the business had shut down decades ago. A shame, really. She also coveted the prominently displayed chair and sofa set carved from teak and upholstered in lush red velvet. She didn’t mind that the seat was faded to a dusty rose where the sun hit. Not that she had anywhere to put new furniture in her tiny apartment. She kept most of her and Dave’s things in a storage locker at the edge of town, and she had no car.
Each time she gazed in through the glass, she tried to spot one new object among the oddities coated in powdery beige dust. Several pieces she swore had never been there before. Last year she was baffled by the appearance of a toy wooden xylophone beneath the sofa, each metal key one colour of the rainbow. Last month it was a set of Russian nesting dolls arranged in descending order on a recessed shelf high along the wall on her left, above the window in the alcove. The tiniest ones were lost in the shadows while the nearest and largest, with rosy-cheeked faces, pencil thin brows, red roses as an offering on their chests, looked as though they’d just been polished. She’d love to take those home with her.
While waiting for the bus to arrive, she continued with her game. Her attention kept going back to a stuffed red-mouthed lizard, but that wasn’t it. Nor was it the ancient leather-bound dictionary, the frightful bronze Kali statue, or the vintage Chinese checkers game still in the original box.
Then, she saw it, behind the left foot of the velvet sofa. An antique pewter flask with a thick chain attached to a spherical stopper. A chill descended on her. She stooped to peer more closely. It looked just like the flask Dave had inherited from his grandfather. He used to bring it to parties as a conversation piece. She tried to think back to when she’d last seen it. She couldn’t remember packing it when she moved. But she must have.
Squealing brakes shook her out of her reverie. She lumbered up the steps of the idling bus, the engine droning like a giant beast. She shuddered as she swiped her card on the pad next to the driver. Whenever she’d shivered as a child, her grandmother would say someone had just walked over her grave. She kept forgetting to look up the origins of that expression, and yet she was filled with an eerie sensation she was being watched. She did her best not to glance back at the store.
She sat facing the row of buildings on the opposite side of the road where all but one, a sketchy pawn shop with rows of overpriced bicycles out front, were boarded up.
She glanced up at the spidery-limbed man seated across from her. Before dropping out last winter, she and Jacob had been in the same Urban Studies course. She’d hoped to learn why so many cities had boarded up storefronts on neglected Main Streets, while the highways leading in were dotted with newly-built strip malls. She never did get an answer beyond urban sprawl.
“Are you still taking medieval history?“ she asked.
He nodded his mop of sandy blond curls. “A fascinating era. I’m amazed at how differently my ancestors lived. The food, clothing, sleeping habits, you name it. Like an alien world.”
“I’ll bet.” She liked small talk for the same reason she took her time fixing her coffee. Idle chitchat had gotten her through her first Christmas holidays without Dave. Only when conversation about the ice storm, music, or the crisis in student loans, turned to what she planned to do next, did social interaction get awkward. Thoughts of the future terrified her.
Jacob seemed to sense her mood instinctively; he craned his head forward, as if peering out through the window behind her. “Nice weather today.”
“Yeah, easy to forget it’s still only January.” Last winter had been similarly mild. Yet the coroner said Dave froze to death. What he’d been doing out in a field next to a derelict factory, she never learned. He was found with a 1.8 BAC, although he rarely drank. Her case worker pointed out, however, that could’ve been a factor in and of itself. He had no tolerance.
“It’s supposed to snow next week. Four inches expected.”
“So I heard. Guess we should enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.”
He took out his phone and began fiddling with the screen. She probably bored him. Most people found her boring. Grief had a way of isolating a person. Few people her age had much experience with death beyond losing a pet, a distant relative who’d left them some money, or a grandparent they saw only a few times a year.
Worse was being left with so many unanswered questions. It all started and ended with Jordan, the childhood friend who’d been the last to see Dave alive, and yet police had absolved him of any wrongdoing. Claire didn’t believe it.
The bus lurched to a stop outside of Westwood Plaza. Big Ted clambered aboard, the bus keeling as he came up the steps. He sat next to Jacob. There must have been a big UFC match over the weekend, since that was what they launched straight into discussing.
She was spacing out again, disturbed by the sight of that flask, when she noticed Ted leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “So … did they ever find out what happened to Dave?”
Jacob blanched. Yet she was cheered by Ted’s tactlessness; she was tired of everyone hedging around the subject, wanting to ply her with questions but not wanting to seem intrusive. Claire had never been one to parade her life on Facebook. That didn’t mean she objected to sharing anything about herself. Nor was she fragile so long as she was on guard.
She shook her head. “Only sort of. They say he was drunk when he cut through that lot and must have tripped on a rock or lost his footing when he came to a dip in the ground.”
She smiled ruefully at the way he blinked and jerked his head back in response.
“And he couldn’t get up again? I heard he didn’t have any injuries or nothing.”
“He didn’t.” It didn’t make sense to her, either. “Apparently he’d been doing shots at his friend’s place, then left for home, and they figure he got disoriented and passed out.” He’d also been found with a street drug derived from horse tranquilizer in his system, which baffled her even more. She’d never known him to do anything stronger than pot or hash.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his deep-set eyes glistening with sincerity. “That really sucks.”
“Thanks.” Yet for Dave to get lost on his way home from Jordan’s, he would have had to go in the wrong direction, cross a six-lane highway, walk through a dense thicket of evergreens, and then two miles of vacant lots in the former industrial part of town. She sighed, sensing herself coming apart like a seam with a slight tear and the threads unravelling.
“I remember that day. Been to take my little niece and the dog to the park. A super warm day. But the temperature really dropped that night. Ice was everywhere the next morning.”
“Indeed,” she said, wishing she were a better talker. Aren’t women supposed to be better at communicating? She certainly wasn’t. Then something in her brain kicked, as if shifting gears. The word niece had done it. “You’ve lived here your whole life, right?”
“Born and raised. As were my parents, as were my grandparents.”
“Wow. Don’t see much of that anymore.” She forced a chuckle. “I was wondering. What do you know about that collectibles store on Main between Elm and Pine––More-er something?”
“This weird old man used to run it. Supposedly he was kind, but a little off.”
Excitement welled in her. Why had she never thought to ask him before? “I’ve always wanted to check it out but whenever I pass by, they’re never open.”
Both he and Jacob snorted. “That store’s never been open in my lifetime.”
“Then why are all those things just left in there all these years?”
“Probably nobody to take over running the place after the old man died.”
“Such a waste, all that cool stuff just sitting in there. Some of it must be worth quite a lot.”
He hunched his mountainous shoulders and she felt herself sinking into a mire of disappointment. No one else ever seemed to sense the magical feel of that shop. “You could say that about the entire downtown,” he said. “All those old buildings left to rot. Not even tenants in the upstairs apartments. I heard they were pretty nice inside.”
An idea came to her. Depending on circumstances, it might not count as trespassing, at least on private property. “So who owns those buildings now?”
“The city, or heirs who have since moved elsewhere. I know a few were seized over unpaid back taxes sometime in the 90s. Some were sold off. I’m sure some shady deals went on. I mean, how does that convenience store next to the pizza place stay in business?”
“Money-laundering front?” Jacob asked, looking up from his phone.
Claire had wondered that too. Dave, whose uncle on his Italian side owned a restaurant in addition to their construction company, had told her about all kinds of schemes for washing illegal income. He was more circumspect about the sources of that illegal income.
Ted glanced out the window behind him and yanked on the cord above. “Either that or they bought back when buildings were dirt cheap and made a deal with the city about taxes.”
“I heard they keep rents artificially high so that businesses go to those strip malls along the highway,” Jacob said. He and Ted launched into a discussion about some local inter-generational feud.
Claire found herself disappearing up into her own head once more. She had to track down the source of that flask, assuming it was Dave’s. If he’d been drinking, he’d have had it with them. She didn’t recall it being among the personal effects police had returned. His class ring was also missing. She racked her brain; she couldn’t remember when or where she’d last seen it.
Excitement rose in her. Could she do this. She’d lived here for nearly two and a half years, and not once had she ever ventured down the alleyway running behind that block of buildings on Main. Abandoned, city-owned, absentee landlords, what harm could there be trying to sneak in? Who’d be around to catch her? If she went to police about that flask in the window, she doubted they’d bother investigating it. She had to know whether it was Dave’s. But if it was, then what?
Her conscience began chiding her and she assured it that all she planned to do (for now) was take a walk along the litter-strewn lane and see if there were any hints of life inside. A light shining out of one of the upper-story windows. Or an unlocked door leading in.
