Lot A-014
Brass Skeleton Key, Ribboned
Hardware · Available
$48
Recovered from the lockbox beneath the floor of 9 Mill Road. The red ribbon was tied by the previous owner; we have left it as found.
V
Vale & Company
Ashveil · Est. 1974
Cart
Open by appointment
File No. 02 · Ashveil, Vermont · Population 1,412
The estate of a town
that won’t speak
above a whisper.
Vale & Company catalogues and resells the belongings released by the Ashveil County Probate Office. Every lot here was once owned by someone whose name now appears in a file folder at the courthouse.
§ 01. All items lawfully obtained at probate auction.
§ 02. No proceeds benefit the accused or his estate.
§ 03. The proprietor was not acquainted with the deceased.
A note from the proprietor
I came to Ashveil for the quiet.
I am still waiting for it.
I am Edmund Vale. I bought the old Tannery in the spring of last year, intending to deal in plain estate furniture. Three weeks later the Sheriff’s office released the first inventory from the Mill Road property, and the County asked whether I would take it.
I took it. I am still taking it. The work is honest and the paperwork is in order. I have never met the man they have in custody and I do not intend to.
What I sell here is what is left over when a life is opened on a table by people who did not love it.
This week on the floor
Featured Lots
Lot B-007
Leather Daybook, 1989–1991
Papers · On Hold
$220
Estate of M. Harlow. Entries are mundane through October 1990. Sixteen pages have been removed at the seam.
Lot A-022
Cracked Silver Pocket Watch
Personal Effect · Available
$165
Stopped at 2:47. Engraving reads 'For E.V. — keep good time.' Initials do not match any known party.
Excerpt · Ashveil County Bulletin
What happened on Mill Road
- Mar. 11, 1991
First report
A delivery driver notes the porch light at 9 Mill Road has been on for four consecutive nights. He does not stop.
- Apr. 02, 1991
The mailbox
Postmaster Eileen Brace returns a stack of unopened correspondence to the county. Among them, a postcard from Hallow Pines, postmarked the previous winter.
- Jun. 19, 1991
The search party
Volunteers walk the river road from the old grist mill to the county line. The compass in Lot A-009 is carried by a man who later asks to be left out of the report.
- Aug. 30, 1991
Custody
An arrest is made at a roadside motor lodge nineteen miles south. The accused is unknown to the town and to this mercantile. He waives counsel and then requests it back.
- Feb. 2026
Probate released
Vale & Company is awarded the contract to inventory and resell the estate.
The shop is small.
The inventory is not.
New lots are catalogued each Thursday morning. Visitors are welcome between eleven and dusk. Please knock twice; the bell has not worked since the storm.