Do-It-Yourself - Spackled And Spooked Part 21

"I'll make one for you for Christmas, how's that?"

"I was hoping you'd make one for yourself, but I guess that'd be OK, too. C'mere, Tink." He reached a hand down and pulled me to my feet. Once there, he put his arms around me. "It's been a crazy couple of days, hasn't it?" he said into my hair.

I nodded, cheek against his chest. "Totally."

His voice was a low rumble against my ear. "Are you reconsidering the idea of renovating for a living? It might be hard getting rid of this house once we're done with it."

"I haven't been reconsidering," I said. "Have you?"

"Not for myself, but I thought maybe you had."

I shook my head. "I'm having fun. I'll admit I'm a little worried about being able to sell the house again, but not so much that I want to give up."

"So we're still partners?"

"Of course we're still partners." I tilted my head back and smiled up at him. He tilted his head down and kissed me. This state of affairs went on for a few minutes, and might have gone on longer if there hadn't been a knock on the door.

"Saved by the bell," Derek said, with a rueful look at me. I smoothed my hair.

"It's just as well. This isn't really the place, is it? You go see who it is. And wipe your mouth on the way. Lipstick, you know."

Derek grinned, rubbing the back of his hand over his lips as he went. I ducked into the bathroom to inspect myself in the mirror and make sure I looked decent before I went to join him.

When Derek came back, he had Wayne with him. The chief of police looked particularly bland. "Sorry to interrupt," he said, by which I deduced that I-or Derek-hadn't done as good a job as I had hoped of hiding the evidence of our recent clinch.

"No problem. We were just . . . um . . ."

"Right," Wayne said when I faltered on the description of exactly what we'd been doing. "I came to tell you about Ricky Swanson. Or Patrick Swanson. Formerly Patrick Murphy."

"He admitted it?"

Wayne nodded. "No reason why he shouldn't. Being Patrick Murphy isn't a crime. Even hiding the fact that he's Patrick Murphy isn't a crime. He isn't impersonating anyone. The Swanson name is legal; he took it when he was adopted by his aunt and uncle. His aunt Laurie, who he grew up with, is Peggy Murphy's sister. Her married name is Swanson. And he's registered at Barnham as Patrick Swanson; Ricky is just a nickname."

"And being Patrick Murphy doesn't mean that he's guilty of anything at all." I nodded. "Derek and I were just talking about it."

"Oh, is that what you were doing?" Wayne said. Derek grinned. I blushed.

"Earlier. We were talking about it earlier."

"Right. And you decided that just because he's Patrick Murphy, it doesn't mean squat."

"Pretty much," I admitted. "We did come up with a few possible scenarios, though."

Wayne hooked his thumbs in his belt and rocked back on his heels while I went through the various combinations of events that Derek and I had come up with earlier.

"I'll look into it," he said when I was done, "but I doubt anything will come of it. I just don't think he's involved, Avery. Yes, he's Patrick Murphy, and yes, the house belonged to him. Yes, he knew Holly, but there's no reason to think he would have wanted to murder her. They were five the last time they met, and we have no proof that he ever came back here. Not until a couple of weeks ago, and by then she was long dead."

"True."

"Much simpler to a.s.sume that someone local killed and buried her. Someone who knew Holly and knew that the house was empty. And then that same person killed Venetia Rudolph when she realized what had happened. It's so much easier that way."

"Occam's razor," Derek nodded. I glanced at him.

"Pardon me?"

"Occam's razor. Lex parsimoniae. The law of parsimony. Or, in common parlance, the simplest solution is often best. And right."

"Fine." I shrugged. "Have it your way. Ricky Swanson is Patrick Murphy, but he didn't have anything to do with Holly's death or Venetia's murder. He just came back to Waterfield because . . . ?"

"He was curious," Wayne said. "His mother went to Barnham, and so did his grandfather, and he wanted to face his demons and see the house again before selling it. Or so he said. I'll make some inquiries, see if he was in Pittsburgh four years ago for his own high school graduation, but I don't think this'll come to anything. Sorry, Avery, but . . ."

He was poised to continue, but had to take a break when his cell phone rang. "Scuse me. Rasmussen here. Yeah, Ramona . . ."

"That reminds me," I said to Derek, "remember a couple of months ago, when we got pulled over for doing that U-turn on Main Street, and you said you hoped it was Officer Estrada-Ramona Estrada-because you'd be able to talk yourself out of the ticket?"

He grinned. "You've realized that Ramona Estrada is older than my stepmother and happily married, haven't you?"

"And not an officer, either. She's the police secretary, you jerk."

The grin widened. "Were you worried?"

"Not at all," I said robustly.

Derek chuckled, but before he could answer, Wayne severed the connection with Ramona Estrada and turned back to us. His face was expressionless. "Have to go, I'm afraid. Ramona just took an anonymous tip I have to check out."

"You're kidding," I said, interested. "What?"

"Someone called to say we'll find Holly White's missing bag of clothing in a house in the Village."

"That sounds like good news," Derek said. "Might be a break in the case?"

But Wayne shook his head, his face gloomy.

"Why not?" I asked. And then, "It's not Aunt Inga's house, is it?"

"Phoebe Thomas's house," Wayne said. He added, after a beat, "Brandon's mother."

And with that bombsh.e.l.l he walked out, leaving us speechless and gaping at each other.

Thirty minutes later we were sitting outside a house in the Village watching Wayne greet Phoebe Thomas.

The house was another Queen Anne Victorian, but less ornately built than Kate's B and B, which boasted two different turrets-one with an onion dome, one with a square mansard roof-a wraparound porch, a bay window, and gables in every imaginable direction. The Thomas house was much simpler: just a square, two-story box with a porch across the front and a steeply pitched gable up top.

"Eastlake," Derek said.

"Excuse me?"

"Charles Eastlake. British architect and furniture designer. The Eastlake style is named after him."

"I knew that," I said.

Derek glanced over at me. "Uh-huh."

"No, I did. Really. Mandatory architecture cla.s.ses in design school. I've heard of Charles Eastlake. Also called stick style, right?"

He grinned. "Right."

I smiled. "See? I told you."

"You did. So what do you think is going on over there, O smart one?" He indicated the porch of the stick, or Eastlake, Victorian, where Wayne was still speaking earnestly to Phoebe Thomas. She was a tall woman, approximately the same age as him-mid to late forties-with the fair hair that her son had inherited. But where Brandon was strapping and st.u.r.dy, with rosy cheeks and bright eyes, Phoebe looked thin and pale. She was hugging both arms around herself, and silver strands were mingling with the light of her hair. Her face was pinched and drawn. Not that I could blame her for that under the circ.u.mstances, although I suspected that the anonymous tip hadn't been the cause; this was something deeper.

"Is she sick?" I asked. Derek nodded.

"Multiple sclerosis. Symptoms started to manifest four or five years ago."

"Around the time Brandon graduated from high school."

"A little before, I think. Her husband decided to make himself scarce, and no one has seen him since. He's living somewhere in Connecticut with a new wife."

"What a peach," I said. "That explains why Brandon joined the police force instead of going to law school. He wanted to stick around in case his mother needed him, and he probably needed to make a living, if she couldn't."

Derek nodded. "How did you know that he wanted to go to law school? Did he tell you?"

"Lionel Kenefick did. Yesterday. He sounded resentful. I didn't get the impression that he likes Brandon very much."

"Probably not," Derek admitted. "I can't imagine they have much in common, can you?"

"Probably not. Look, he's going around back." I pointed to the house, where Wayne must have convinced Phoebe Thomas to let him take a look around the outside of the property. She went back inside while he made for the yard.

"Shall we?" Derek said, reaching for the door handle.

"Will he let us?"

"We'll find out." He exited the truck and came around to open my door for me. Hand in his, I trailed behind him through the yard and around the corner of the house.

Up close, I could see just how badly in need of repair it was. Not as bad as Aunt Inga's house had been when I inherited it-my aunt had neglected it for twenty years or more-but bad enough that unless someone paid it some attention soon, the damage would be irreversible. The paint was peeling away from rotting boards, the windows were in desperate need of glazing, and there were cracks in the foundation.

We found Wayne in a small building on the back of the property. Once upon a time it had presumably been a garage, with a rutted track leading up to it, but over the past few years, someone had converted it into a gym, with mats on the concrete floor and a punching bag hanging from the rafters next to a stout climbing rope. A weight bench stood in one corner, and one of those chin-up bars was lying discarded on the floor next to the door.

"Must be Brandon's personal gym," Derek muttered. I nodded.

Wayne scowled. "What are you two doing here? I don't recall asking you to come along as backup."

"We're curious," I said. "Holly was buried in our crawls.p.a.ce. We feel a proprietary interest."

"Sure you do. Fine, since you're here you can witness that I didn't bring anything with me into this place and that there's nothing up my sleeve."

"I'll witness that," I said. "So what are we looking for?"

Wayne looked around. "A bag."

"What kind of bag?"

"One that's big enough to hold a few changes of clothes and whatever else an eighteen-year-old girl might have decided to take with her to Hollywood. Or whatever someone thought she'd have wanted to take to make it look like she was going there."

"Her mother gave you a list, right?"

He nodded. "What she could remember, now. I don't know how accurate it is."

"What did the tip say?" Derek asked. He was poking around over in the corner, behind the weight-lifting bench.

Wayne turned toward him. "Just that I should look for Holly White's stuff on Brandon Thomas's property. That they were dating before she disappeared. Phoebe won't let me search the house unless Brandon is here, but she told me to look around out here as much as I wanted while I wait for him to come back."

"I guess she's not worried that you'll find anything, then."

"I'm not worried that I'll find anything," Wayne said. "But I have to look. It would look bad if I didn't."

I nodded. Bad enough that Brandon and Holly had dated in the first place, now that she was dead, but if word got out that Wayne had received an anonymous tip that Brandon was involved, and he'd ignored it, the manure would hit the fan for sure. "But you don't really think he was involved, right? Even though he and Holly dated?"

"I'd be very surprised," Wayne said. "I've worked with the boy for two years. He's not a killer."

I hesitated, but in the end I felt I had to speak. "Is he the type to try to hide a crime, though? If it was an accident, and he was afraid he'd go to jail? His father just left, and his mother would be all alone, with no one to take care of her. . . . Is it possible that he'd panic and bury Holly's body and try to get away with it?"

Wayne didn't answer for a moment. "Much as I'd like to say I know he wouldn't," he said eventually, "I'm not sure. It was four years ago. He was eighteen, just a kid; there's no telling what he might have done in a moment of panic. Let's just say that I'm hoping real hard the call was just a prank and there's nothing here for us to find."

I nodded. I could get behind that.

"Sorry to burst your bubble," Derek said from over in his corner, "but I think I found something."

Wayne stiffened, like a pointer scenting game. "Don't touch it!"

"Do I look stupid to you?" Derek stepped aside as Wayne came closer. "There, in the corner. Under the bottom shelf. I don't think Brandon would own a hot pink backpack, do you?"

"I wouldn't think so," Wayne agreed. He pulled out a small digital camera and snapped a couple of shots of the bag in situ before tucking the camera back into his pocket and fishing out a pair of surgical gloves instead.

Five minutes later the bag was in the middle of the floor, emptied of all contents. Surrounding it were those of Holly's possessions the girl had wanted to take to California with her. Or those whoever packed the bag had thought it would make sense for her to take to make it look like she'd left town of her own free will. Two pairs of jeans, a half dozen T-shirts, socks, bras, and panties, a makeup bag, a small jewelry box, and a pair of black patent-leather shoes with four-inch heels sat in neat piles on the floor. A clingy, black dress that looked like it might have covered the essentials but very little else was draped over the weight bench next to the sequined, green gown from the prom photos. A little black book full of phone numbers and addresses lay in Wayne's gloved hands. A quick look revealed that Brandon's name and number was present, with a little heart next to it, no less.

"That's to be expected, though," I said. "They were dating."

"Sure." Wayne kept flipping through the book, back to front. "Here's Denise Robertson. She was Denise Kurtz back then. And Lionel Kenefick, with no heart next to his name."

"I'm not surprised," I said. "They knew each other, but they weren't involved."

Wayne nodded. "I'll have to go through this in more detail down at the station. Eventually, I guess I might have to interview everyone whose name is in this book."

"That sounds like it ought to be fun," Derek commented. He was standing next to me with his arm around my shoulders, watching Wayne go through the contents of the backpack. "How was she going to get to California? Hitchhike?"

"Let's hope not. Or maybe that's what killed her. She tried to hitch a ride with the wrong person." Wayne looked around, vaguely. "You're right, though. There ought to be a wallet here, with money and identification. She'd have to prove she was eighteen to get a job once she got settled, and surely she would have made sure she had some cash."