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fine eighteenth-century Americana.”
    “Quite a coincidence they’d call you to inventory the estate.”
    “Well, I might have mentioned to Bill Myers when I ran into him at The American Hotel that you went to college with Jillian. I also might have known the Spensers were insured through his company.”
    “Not a good idea. At least not until they find Caroline Spenser’s killer.”
    “You know the family, and I’ll split the retainer with you. I don’t know if it’s because of your hearing loss, but you seem to notice things other people don’t.”
    “Ah, yes, my superpowers. A heightened sense of smell, an uncanny visual attention to detail, and the constant paranoia someone is talking about me behind my back, not to mention the fact my speech is off-kilter.”
    “No, it isn’t. I’ve never noticed any problems with your speech. If anything, you sound like a world traveler with a slight accent. Oh, and they also want me to inventory the Spensers’ Manhattan town house.”
    “I don’t think there’s an opening in my one-Zen-day-at-a-time planner, and there’s no way I’m going back to Manhattan. I never know who I’ll run into.”
    “Okay. I’ll do the town house myself.” Elle took her place on her stool, put on a silver-polishing mitt and went to work on a sterling fish knife with a carved bone handle. Elle clicked her tongue. “Seriously, look at the fantastic job you did for Mr. Febretti.”
    A few months ago, Elle brought me along to inventory the aftermath of a burglary at Macchiano Febretti’s Amagansett beach house. The following weekend, when I attended the Bridgehampton Antiques & Design Fair, I spied a woman selling one of Febretti’s missing items. I was able to read her lips as she spoke into her cell phone. She told the person on the other end she’d found a sucker for her ex’s prized statue. Febretti’s former wife was trying to get even with him for dumping her. I liked her style, but I couldn’t let her sell an Erté bronze statue valued at ten thousand dollars for a thousand. Could I?
    “When does the insurance company want you to start?”
    “After the funeral.”
    “Maybe they’ll catch Caroline Spenser’s killer by then. At least the insurance company initiated the inventory, not the Spensers. I hate to see boxes of family photos chucked in the trash at estate sales while the heirs walk around doing a mental accounting of how much Grandma’s flatware will bring in.”
    “I know what you mean.” Elle nodded. “I agree with Oscar Wilde, ‘People know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.’”
    Elle went to crank up the volume on the old Edison gramophone in the corner. Jazz filled the room, inspiring me to move on to my next project, a pine wall table with a bottomshelf and carved spindle legs. I tied on a vintage apron decorated with cherry pies sprouting legs and removed a trio of stain markers from the pocket. After a few strokes, the pine wall table, project number two, was complete. I’d use it in a guest bathroom to store rolled hand towels, leaving room on top for a piece of vintage pottery.
    “Bravo,” Elle said. “Make sure you invite me for the final walkthrough of the Kittinger cottage. I can’t wait to see it.”
    “Oh, don’t worry. You’re gonna be there,
and
you’re gonna help.”
    I moved on to my third guinea pig, a wood sign from a 1970s Adirondack guest colony, which read: TWIN PINES COTTAGES . I wanted to make it look distressed, more ’40s than ’70s. Elle recently told me the refinisher’s golden rule: NEVER alter the appearance of an item unless it has no value in its current state. Most of the items we worked on fell under the little-or-no-value heading, but they were the most fun to play with.
    An electric sander would have worked on the sign but instead, I used fine-gauged steel wool.
Do I want to hang out at the Spenser house of tragedy?
There was nothing better to take my troubles away than getting involved in