For Sale in Palm Springs: The Henry Wright Mystery Series by Albert Simon Page A

with all these beautiful things in
this house and in this room, what was Thornbird doing surfing on
eBay? Wasn’t it a little odd that he had a bargain auction site
bookmarked? Henry clicked the mouse on the browser and clicked
again on eBay in the Favorites list. The site came up with
Thornbird’s eBay name already filled in and requested his
password.

    Henry looked around the
computer; usually there was a little sticky note with passwords on
every monitor. Not in this case. The cursor was blinking at Henry
in the password space; Henry sat back in the chair, thinking of
what Rex Thornbird would have used for a password. The cursor
continued blinking at him as though egging him on, even teasing
him. Henry leaned forward in the chair, put his hands on the
keyboard and slowly typed in the word J-A-G-U-A-R. The screen went
blank and came back up and said “Welcome back, Rex.”

    Henry was quite satisfied
with himself and clicked on the My eBay icon. There it was, on the
list of “Items I Have Won”, was an 8 by 10 autographed picture of
Rudy Vallee. Thornbird had paid eight dollars for it. Not a bad
return, Henry thought, an eight dollar photograph, a five dollar
picture frame and the price of a house is bumped up by fifty
thousand dollars. Thornbird’s commission on just the fifty K was at
least four grand. There were other photographs that Thornbird had
bid on and won an 8 by 10 of Bette Davis, a “personally
autographed” picture of Robert Goulet, a “colorized” photo of
Veronica Lake, and a 5 by 7 picture of Lawrence Welk.

    Under the “Items You Didn’t
Win” category was an autographed picture of Peter Lawford.
Thornbird had bid five dollars and it was sold for seven. The date
it was sold was the day after Thornbird died. Henry could not
remember seeing a Peter Lawford reference in any homes that were
listed on Realtor.com, maybe this was Thornbird’s next house
listing with a celebrity tie-in. If so it didn’t matter that he
didn’t win it, Thornbird wasn’t going to pull that scam again. That
was one home that would be sold solely on its own
merits.

    Interesting, Thornbird could
have bought practically anything on eBay, he certainly could afford
it. But he allowed himself to be outbid for a photograph of Peter
Lawford by a couple of bucks. People are curious at times, Henry
thought, here was a guy making thousands in commissions as a result
of inflated home prices and he was going on the cheap on a
photograph.

    Henry got up from the chair
and walked out of the room. Back in the hallway, there was another
bathroom next to the office. This one was on the small side and
while it was appointed with the same quality fixtures as the other
rooms, its small size struck Henry. Why didn’t Thornbird borrow
some space from the office during his remodel and make this room a
little larger like he had done in the master bedroom? Wait a
minute, he thought, there was no room to borrow, the office was
already small.

    He retraced his steps and
looked inside the office again. The wall adjoining the bathroom was
the one with the aerial photograph he admired earlier. He walked
over to the picture and lifted it up to see where the wiring for
the backlight was coming from. As he did, the picture quietly rose
up by an electric motor and a track in the paneling that wasn’t
noticeable if you didn’t know it was there, to reveal a flat plasma
television screen. On a ledge under the plasma screen was a large
remote control with a touch screen. Henry picked it up and looked
at the choices. Television, DVD, VCR1, VCR2 and Vault. Henry pushed
the button on the screen that corresponded to Vault. The sides of
the paneled wall swung in to reveal racks with two VCR’s a carousel
DVD player and hundreds of videos. DVD’s on one side, VCR tapes on
the other. Some were labeled professionally; most had typed or
handwritten labels on them. Henry pushed the power button on the
plasma screen and on the DVD player and hit the