Picked Clean: Antique Pickers in Paradise Cozy Mystery Series, #7

By Maggie West

No bones about it. Sherri got more than she bargained for when she won a storage unit auction. Now she must solve a murder.

The books in the Antique Pickers in Paradise Cozy Mystery series are perfect for fans of cozy mysteries featuring women sleuths. The Antique Pickers books are set in a small town in the Midwest. 

Clean read suitable for most readers. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maggie West
• Release date: Jul 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386018810

Book preview

But men are so full of greed today,

they’ll sell anything for a little

piece of money.

~Little Richard

Chapter 1

Sherri Green was tired. For three nights straight she’d lost sleep over this stupid storage auction. It’s not stupid, Sherri. Don’t say that. This is a chance of a lifetime—anyway, that’s how Sherri looked at it. When she learned of the unit up for auction, Sherri was bound and determined to win the storage unit of a fellow antique dealer. A man who dealt in real antiques. Antiques and valuables that were actually really valuable. But she was stressed out and tired from worrying about whether this was really a good idea. She was willing to spend more than she did for inventory for three normal months. But would she get her money back? She knew there was no guarantee that the unit even had anything good inside. She finally decided the adage ‘nothing ventured, nothing gained’ was true. She was doing it, but she was scared and excited and nervous.

The self-storage facility in Paradise was hopping. Sherri dropped off her picking partner, Carol O’Brien, in front of the storage facility entrance then drove off. She finally managed to find a place to park a block away from Safe and Sound Storage in Paradise, the one and only self-storage joint in their little Midwestern town. The other self-storage facility in Paradise, Park It Here, blew down in a horrific tornado last year, along with the contents of all of the units. People jammed the Swap and Shop phone lines the following Friday with reports of what they’d found. A bike in a ditch thirty miles away. A desk, legs up like a lazy dog, in someone’s front yard. A set of good tires discovered behind a barn neatly stacked like someone had actually placed them there on purpose. One woman’s box of winter clothes opened mid-flight and landed like flags on clotheslines and power lines from Paradise to Round Bottom. She never did find her good cream-colored cable knit sweater. Of course, it had been her favorite.

Sherri had enjoyed listening to the calls from people who lost things and those who had found them, and what had ended up where. The stories people told about missing treasures had so captivated her that each day she stopped what she was doing and sat down and listened to the Swap and Shop program. She was sad when, after a few weeks, the calls had stopped and the normal I’ve got a used washing machine for sale. It works good. calls resumed. The effects of the tornado’s destruction had been entertaining while it lasted.

Sherri hoofed it back to Safe and Sound and found Carol. She shook her head as she gazed into the storage unit.

Why would Aaron let this all just sit here? And not pay the rent on the unit? They were doing their best to obey the rules of storage auctions, which basically included one thing:  don’t go inside, just look from outside the unit to see what was inside. What was in there that Sherri wanted was a set of English bone china that she hoped was a complete set. She spied two boxes clearly marked ‘china set – England’ in Aaron’s distinctive scrawl. He’d bragged about bringing that set back from England a few years ago on a huge buying trip, and Sherri didn’t know why he hadn’t resold it yet.

I don’t know. Has anybody even seen him lately? Carol asked.

Aaron Wilkie, the owner of the storage unit, was an antique dealer. A real antique dealer. And Sherri knew that he didn’t think Sherri and Carol, being antique pickers, were fit to breathe the same air as him. He dealt in the good stuff, none of the rustic old farm equipment or common kitchen items from yesteryear that Sherri and Carol found so charming. But being part of the same small community, Sherri and Carol knew Aaron, but they also knew he was several notches above them in the quality and rarity of antiques he dealt with. And Aaron loved to flaunt his superiority. Sure, in a pinch, he’d lower himself to come speak at a Pope County Antique Pickers meeting if enough pickers bowed down and begged him, but he mainly showed up to unload some of his lesser quality wares he’d had to take when buying large lots. He’d keep the items he really wanted and sell off the rest to the lowly pickers. And the pickers were always more than happy to oblige. They would happily buy his rejects since his stuff tended to be of good quality; they just weren’t the top shelf wares he personally liked to resell.

Carol looked around at the competition. The storage facility saved up delinquent storage units until they had several to make paying the auctioneer worthwhile. Several other pickers from the picking club milled around, rubber necking to try to get a better look at the boxes and furniture inside Aaron’s unit.

One woman had gotten creative and was using a selfie stick with a mirror attached to try to get a better look at the contents at the back of the unit. When the mirror held on with rubber bands fell off the stick and clattered to the floor inside the storage unit, the manager of Safe and Sound Storage barked, Hey, step back. You know the rules.

Sherri sighed and said, No one’s heard hide nor hair of Aaron in months. That’s why the storage unit’s up for grabs.

Wonder where he is? Did he owe money? I guess his shop is closed, isn’t it?

Carol said.

Yeah, but it’s so weird. I mean, wouldn’t you think Paul would have paid the rent? Sherri scanned the crowd but didn’t see Paul Whitman, Aaron Wilkie’s partner. She thought maybe he’d show up