No Lowballers: A Lowballers Mystery

Retired facilities supervisor Cal Mercer has a weakness for bargains, especially the kind that come with words like cash only, pickup today, and bring help.So when an estate-sale operator offers him an old oak machinist's chest for eighty dollars, Cal figures he has scored one of his better finds.By the next morning, the seller is dead.Now the seller's business partner says the chest belonged to the company, an angry daughter insists it disappeared from her father's estate months ago, and an anonymous buyer is suddenly willing to pay hundreds to get it back.The more Cal looks at the chest, the less its history makes sense. It was supposedly destroyed by water damage, yet the wood says otherwise. A penciled warehouse code leads somewhere it shouldn't. And behind a stubborn drawer is evidence somebody went to considerable trouble to hide.With a practical eye for repairs, a talent for noticing what other people overlook, and a curiosity his daughter wishes came with an off switch, Cal begins following the trail through estate sales, resellers, storage bays, and years of missing property.Somebody has been making valuable things disappear.And Lyle Pritchard may have died because he finally figured out who.No Lowballers is a warm, witty amateur-sleuth mystery about bargains, old objects, bad paperwork, and the secrets people leave behind.