Do-It-Yourself - Spackled And Spooked Part 13

"You were inside her house yesterday? You should talk to Wayne, see if he'll let you look around. Just in case you notice something." He turned me around and escorted me up the stairs to the back door again, an arm around my shoulders hustling me along. I turned my face away from the TV camera.

Yesterday, I'd come through the front door, and all I'd seen of the house was the L-shaped living room-dining room combination. As in our house, Venetia's back door led into the den. Hers was paneled in a greenish color, with the same brick fireplace on the back wall. It had a swag of magnolias draped over the mantel and a picture of Tara hanging above. (That would be Scarlett's Tara, not my ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend, twenty-two-year-old Tara Hamilton.) The carpet was green and the furniture upholstered in floral chintz.

"In here," Derek said, gesturing to the doorway to the living room. I took a breath and plunged through.

Venetia was lying on her stomach in the middle of the floor, and there wasn't as much blood as I'd feared. Her gray hair was matted, and a smallish puddle had soaked into the rose-colored carpet by her head, but that was all. And she looked pretty peaceful, all in all. Her eyes were closed, and her teeth weren't bared or anything weird. She looked like she was sleeping, except for the fact that she was clearly not present anymore. Her soul, for lack of a word less fraught with controversy, had left her body.

Until we bought the house next door to Venetia's, I'd always thought ghosts were a bunch of hooey. People died and were buried, and that was that. But now, with unexplained footsteps walking down the hallway next door, I wasn't quite so sure. Maybe the soul really does survive the death of the body and goes somewhere else. Or stays where it is, hanging out, as the case may be. In certain circ.u.mstances, anyway; maybe when death comes unexpectedly. Maybe Venetia's soul was still hanging around, too. I looked around nervously, but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"Avery was here yesterday," Derek explained to Wayne and Brandon, who were busy looking around. "I thought maybe she'd notice if anything was missing or looked wrong. Avery?"

He turned to me. I shook my head. "It looks just like it did yesterday. Except that she's changed her clothes since I saw her. Yesterday afternoon she was wearing khaki pants and a blue s.h.i.+rt. This looks like pajamas."

Venetia's compact body was encased in a plain, white T-s.h.i.+rt and a pair of flannel lounge pants in shades of blue, green, and red plaid.

"Maine tartan," Derek said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"It's the official Maine tartan. Designed in the 1960s by a guy named Sol Gillis. The light blue is for the sky, the dark blue for the water, the green for the pine forests, and the red for the bloodline, or the people, of Maine."

"Huh," I said.

"I thought you'd want to know," Derek answered with a shrug.

"Well, whatever it is, she wasn't wearing it when I saw her. She must have put it on later. So she must have been killed late at night, after she got ready for bed."

"That's what we're thinking," Wayne nodded. "Her bed's been turned down, but not slept in, and there's a book on the sofa and a mug of cold tea on the table."

"I notice you didn't disagree with the idea that she was killed."

He shook his head. "Not much doubt about that. She's in the middle of the floor, there's nothing she could have hit her head on accidentally, and she couldn't have reached back and knocked herself out, either. Especially not with this big thing." He toed one of the pieces of the large fake magnolia arrangement.

"I guess not," I agreed. So someone must have gotten in somehow after all the hoopla died down last night, and had conked Venetia on the head. But why?

I looked around. "It doesn't look like anything's missing. All the collectibles are still here," and Venetia had had enough Gone with the Wind paraphernalia to make a fortune on eBay, "and so are the TV and the silverware on the table and the antiques, what few she owned. Most of this is reproduction furniture."

"You'd know," Derek said, making a sly reference to the fact that my ex-boyfriend and former boss, Philippe, had been a furniture maker.

"Unless we find a hidden safe somewhere," Wayne said, "and it's been cleaned out, it doesn't appear as if robbery was the motive."

I had to agree. "Do you think it has something to do with what happened in our house? Finding the bones?"

Wayne looked like he might have hesitated for just a second. "Likely there's a connection, yeah. Somewhere. When two unusual things happen back-to-back like this, usually they're connected somehow. When you saw her yesterday afternoon, how did she seem?"

I shrugged. "Just like always. Tart. Full of questions about what was going on next door. We talked a little about the people she'd seen around the house, because I was trying to figure out whether Venetia might know who the skeleton was, or who might have put her there. Without realizing she knew it, of course." I went through the list of individuals Venetia had mentioned, who had been seen in or around the house over the past few years. "That reminds me," I added, digging in my pocket for the earring, "I found this in the kitchen next door a couple of days ago. We thought it might have belonged to one of the Murphy women, but Mr. Nickerson, at Nickerson's Antiques downtown, says it's not old enough. And Shannon McGillicutty has a similar pair, which she says Josh gave her for Christmas a few years ago."

Wayne nodded to Brandon, who pulled a little Ziploc bag out of his pocket. I dropped the sparkly drop into it, and he sealed it and, after a moment's hesitation and a glance at his boss, put it down on the gleaming surface of the coffee table. I opened my mouth to ask if he recognized it, but before I had the chance, Wayne continued.

"It was in the kitchen?"

I nodded. "In the dust where the fridge used to be. See, Derek ditched the old fridge and stove the day we started work because . . ." I stopped, feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

"Because of what?" Wayne prodded. I swallowed.

"Because there was a spill of something down the side of the stove. From the corner. We thought it was tomato sauce or ketchup . . ." I trailed off, fully aware of how lame the excuse sounded. We'd talked about tomato sauce and ketchup, yes, but what had caused us to hustle the appliances out of the house in a hurry, was the thought that the spill was blood. I'd a.s.sumed the blood to be from one of the Murphys, but now . . .

"Where are the appliances now?" Wayne asked. Derek gestured with his thumb.

"The dump. They were more than twenty years old, so I doubted even the reuse center would want them. I loaded them in the truck and drove them out to the landfill. Didn't want them sitting around, even in the Dumpster." He grimaced.

Wayne nodded to Brandon, who left, without a word being exchanged.

"They were red," Derek called after him. He added, for our benefit, "No sense in him wasting time looking at every white and almond and stainless steel stove he sees."

"Maybe we should go with him," I suggested. "We're cluttering up Wayne's crime scene as it is. Is Brandon finished next door, so we can go back to work, or does he still have things to do?"

"There are no more bodies in the crawls.p.a.ce," Wayne answered, walking with us toward the back door of Venetia's house, "and none on the rest of the property, either. Just the one we've already got out. With this new victim, and figuring out who the old one was, and processing the stove and fridge when we find them, not to mention the work you two have already done tearing everything useful outta there, I'm gonna say that Brandon's probably finished. But it might be a good idea to wait until tomorrow anyway, just to get rid of the crowds and the reporters before you go back in."

I nodded. Made sense.

"If you'd wanna ride with him out to the dump to see if maybe you can expedite things, I wouldn't mind at all."

"I'll do that," Derek said. "Maybe he can drop me off at Cortino's on the way back into town." He jogged after Brandon, who was in the process of getting into his cruiser.

Daphne the state trooper was packing things up, too, letting Hans into his special compartment in the K-9 vehicle. I guessed their job here was done. Wayne excused himself to go talk to her, and I stood on the lawn for a second, at loose ends, before I trudged back to the neighbors. Word would be out in a few minutes anyway, and they'd already started speculating-wildly-so maybe it would be better just to tell them the truth instead of allowing them to perpetuate the myth that Venetia had murdered untold numbers of people and hidden them in her house.

"Well?" Arthur Mattson said when I was close enough to hear him. The rest of the group turned, eagerly.

I waited until I didn't have to raise my voice. "I'm afraid Miss Rudolph has died."

"Died?" Arthur repeated, as if the word didn't quite compute. I nodded.

"Murdered?" Denise asked shrilly. Tony the TV guy's head turned toward the sound. She lowered her voice. "By the same person who killed whoever was in your bas.e.m.e.nt?" It was by no means certain that the same person had killed both our unknown skeleton and Venetia, although as Wayne had said, when two unusual things happen in close succession and right next door to one another, it would be a monstrous coincidence if they weren't related.

"I don't know about that," I said as Tony started toward us.

"But she was murdered?"

"Well . . ."

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Denise glanced down at the sleeping Trevor and around as if she were afraid someone was getting ready to pounce on him.

"How?" Arthur demanded.

"Um . . . I think maybe it would be better to leave the telling of that to the police."

Arthur looked like he wanted to argue, but he didn't. "An accident?" he suggested.

I shook my head. "Likely not."

"Mercy." He shook his head. Irina muttered a Russian word or two, and Denise squeaked. Linda crossed herself.

"She was an awful old battle-ax," she said, with the air of one giving credit where credit was due. "Always carrying on about the kids today. No morals, no sense, no respect for their elders; and the girls, how they were dressed . . . ! Remember, Denise?"

Denise nodded, a faint smile on her lips as she watched Trevor sleep. Linda continued, "But she surely didn't deserve that. There wasn't any harm in her. Just because she couldn't seem to mind her own business . . ."

She pulled a miniature liquor bottle out of the pocket of her housecoat and tipped it in the direction of Venetia's silent house before taking a swig.

"Amen," Arthur Mattson said. "She'd always stand behind those curtains whenever we'd walk by, making sure I kept Stella off her gra.s.s and didn't let her do any of her business on Venetia's lawn. Still, you wouldn't wish something like this on your own worst enemy."

The others shook their heads solemnly.

"I remember once," Denise said with a giggle, "when Holly and I . . ." She stopped abruptly, blus.h.i.+ng, and made herself busy adjusting the light blanket that covered the sleeping Trevor. n.o.body spoke, and the silence lengthened, heavy.

"Who's Holly?" I said eventually, looking from one to the other of them. Irina shrugged. Denise still had a betraying blush in her cheeks. I guessed that she and Holly, who must have been her friend, had done something mean or embarra.s.sing to Venetia back in the day, which she wasn't about to own up to now, when Venetia was due the respect usually accorded the newly deceased. "Holly White?"

Linda shot me a look, and Denise nodded. "We were friends growing up. How do you know about Holly?"

"I don't," I explained. "Just the name. Brandon Thomas mentioned her yesterday, when he was talking to Lionel Kenefick, and I happened to see her picture in the newspaper archives yesterday, too. Prom photo. Pretty girl."

"Gorgeous," Denise nodded.

"He said she went to Hollywood to become an actress?"

"That's what she always said she wanted to do. Hollywood or Las Vegas. Or maybe Paris or Rome."

Linda snorted and took another swig from her bottle. At this rate, it would be empty in another minute.

"She didn't even stay for graduation," Denise added. "Just up and left one day. Without even a good-bye. They had to mail her diploma, didn't they, Mrs. White?"

She looked at Linda. I blinked, surprised. Whoa, not much family resemblance there between the lovely and svelte creature from the photograph, in her s.h.i.+mmery gown and tiara, and her mother, overweight and boozy, in a wrinkled house dress and with rollers in her hair.

"You're Holly's mother?" slipped out of my mouth.

"For my sins."

"Surely she can't have been that bad?"

Linda didn't answer. "She wasn't bad," Denise said. "Just . . . different, I guess. Waterfield was too small for her. She was always talking about how she needed to get out, to see places and do things. Exciting things. Because nothing exciting ever happens here." She shrugged.

I looked around at the hustle and bustle of police cruisers and K-9 vehicles, cops and TV cameras. There was nothing slow and sleepy about what was going on in their quiet subdivision these days.

"Looks like something exciting has happened now," I said.

13.

I was pretty much stuck where I was for the time being, a fact that hadn't occurred to me until now. But with Derek's truck in the shop, and Derek off with Brandon, and Melissa long gone, and with Wayne stuck here processing and keeping watch over the new crime scene, I had no way to get back to Waterfield unless I wanted to walk. Which I didn't.

Luckily, a ride arrived shortly in the form of Josh Rasmussen and Shannon McGillicutty.

Wayne wasn't happy to see them, something the look on his face made abundantly clear as he stalked across the gra.s.s toward the blue Honda. "Listening to the secure channels again?" I heard him inquire tightly as Josh rolled down his window.

"Actually, dad," his son responded, "it's all over the news. Tony the Tiger on channel eight has been broadcasting live for the past two hours. Talking to the neighbors, giving updates of the cadaver dog, stuff like that. When he reported a second body twenty minutes ago, we figured we'd come see if there was anything we could do."

"You did, huh?" Wayne said, ominously. Josh shrugged. "I'm paying fifteen grand a year for you to cut cla.s.s, is that it?"

"Relax, dad." Josh rolled his eyes. "I'm between cla.s.ses, OK? I've been helping the anthropology department process the bones from the crawls.p.a.ce. Dr. Hardiman said he'd be calling you this afternoon." I'd heard Wayne and Josh mention Dr. Hardiman. He was a forensic anthropologist who had joined Barnham's faculty a few years ago but still worked on a freelance basis for the Portland medical examiner. He'd probably never expected to have a case so close to home. "The dentist, Dr. Whitaker, stopped by this morning. He made a record of the teeth-marked which teeth had fillings and which didn't-and said he'd check his records and notify you if he could identify the skeleton. Also, it is Professor Hardiman's educated opinion that the skeleton is that of a young woman, and that she's been in the ground no more than six years and no less than two."

"So Derek was right," I said.

Josh continued, "I took a photograph of the skull. I figure I'll try to use a facial reconstruction program on the computer to see what I can come up with."

"Facial approximation," his father corrected. "You know how unreliable it is."

"It's mostly just for fun," Josh said calmly. "You'll probably get a hit on the dental records long before I get any results on the facial reconstruction, but I figured it couldn't hurt to try."

"As long as you let me know what you find," Wayne said. "In fact, why don't you go get started right now? I have work to do."

"Can you give me a ride back to town?" I shot in. "Derek's car is in the shop somewhere on Broad Street."

"Sure," Josh said. "Get in."

I crawled into the back seat while the kids pestered Wayne for details on what was going on. He was circ.u.mspect, but a lot of what they'd discovered was public knowledge, thanks to Tony the Tiger. Wayne summarized what had happened this morning.

"Murdered?" Josh asked, eyes alight behind the gla.s.ses, after Wayne had finished. His father shrugged.

"Wow," Shannon said. "I wonder why."

"She probably knew something," Josh answered. "Something she didn't realize she knew. She was old. She's probably been sitting behind her curtains for twenty years, looking out, seeing everybody coming and going. She probably saw the murderer as well as the victim-the woman in the bas.e.m.e.nt-and just didn't realize it."

"Or maybe she did realize it," Shannon responded. "Yesterday. Maybe she didn't know that the woman was dead until then, but when she heard about the bones, she realized who it had to be, and also who killed her. And maybe she told the killer that she was going to turn him or her in."

Josh nodded eagerly. "That'd work. Maybe she asked him or her-the murderer-to stop by, because she was old and couldn't get around well."

"She could get around just fine," I said, remembering Venetia stomping across the gra.s.s toward me. "She may have been old, but she wasn't frail. Or weak, either." Venetia had been bigger and taller than me, and she had carried both Maine c.o.o.n cats at the same time, from her yard to our front door, the other day. I sometimes had a problem trying to lift just one, especially if he-Jemmy-didn't want to be lifted. He weighed almost twenty pounds and could make himself seem twice as heavy when he wanted to. It was like trying to hoist a sandbag.

"OK, then," Josh said gamely, "so maybe the murderer worried that she'd seen him and knew who he was, and so he decided to pay Miss Rudolph a visit to find out how much she knew. And when she told him she had seen him with the victim-or maybe he tipped her off, just by coming-he had to kill her before she could tell anyone else."

"Makes sense," I admitted. Shannon nodded. Josh looked at his dad for approval.