Do-It-Yourself - Spackled And Spooked Part 9

"Gee," I said, leaning back and worrying a fingernail, "that could be bad."

It was just a few days ago that I'd been concerned about how the long-ago tragedy of the Murphy murders would affect the resale of the house, once we finished fixing it up and got it back on the market. And now here I was, faced not only with having all of that dredged up again, and reimpressed on people's minds, but with the additional discovery of a skeleton buried in the crawls.p.a.ce. All we needed at this point was to find out that the skeleton had been murdered upstairs in the house, and my life would be complete. We'd never be able to sell the house. We'd end up in foreclosure, and I'd have to bag groceries as Shaw's Supermarket to make a living. It was a real shame that there weren't more people like Kate in the world, who wanted to live in haunted houses.

"You've been living here a while," I said. "Lionel Kenefick-you know, from down the street?"

Venetia nodded, her rather large nostrils flaring. I deduced she didn't entirely approve of Lionel. I couldn't blame her, since I didn't entirely approve of him myself. Not that I had any real reason to disapprove; I just didn't like the way he looked at me. Or the fact that he'd scared me the other day.

"He told us that he's heard screaming from the house at night. And a couple of days ago, I heard footsteps inside when no one was there."

"I told you. I'd never heard anything spooky-until last night," Venetia said, "and you told me that was one of the cats."

I shook my head. "It wasn't. Derek thinks something was rigged to go off when we opened the door. We looked again this morning, but we didn't see anything. No wires or speakers or anything like that. I don't suppose you've noticed anyone hanging around, that shouldn't have been? Either lately or a few years ago, when that body may have been put in the crawls.p.a.ce?"

Venetia shook her gray head. "No one I haven't told you about. There were the squatters two years ago. The teenagers a couple of years before that. Since then, I've only seen the folks that were supposed to be here. The lawn care people, the handyman, the person servicing the heat-and-air system. The meter readers, every month. A suit, walking around making notes on a clipboard a few weeks ago."

I had an insane vision of a man's suit walking around on its own, clipboard and pen held in an invisible hand. It had probably been the lawyer from Portland, preparing for the sale.

Venetia continued, "I or one of the other neighbors will walk around the house once in a while to make sure there are no broken windows or doors. The mailman comes by once a day, but of course he doesn't deliver anything. Same with the newspaper boy or girl. Every so often, some nosey parker will drive up, gawk at the house, maybe peer through the windows, and drive away again. I don't know whether they're looking for ghosts or hoping to see old bloodstains, or simply want to buy the house. Oh yes, and that realtor was here a couple of weeks ago, too."

"Realtor?" I said. Venetia smiled. Her teeth were yellow as old ivory between her unpainted lips.

"That woman your boyfriend brought here ten years ago. His wife."

It had, in fact, only been about six years since Derek and Melissa came back to Waterfield so Derek could join his father's medical practice, but I had a more important point to make. "Ex-wife, please. They've been divorced for five years by now. So Melissa James was here, was she? When? What did she do?"

"Walked around with a camera," Venetia said. "Taking photographs and measurements. Of the house and yard. Like I said, it must have been a couple of weeks ago now. Maybe as much as a month."

While Patrick Murphy had been considering our offer to buy the house, then. Melissa must have gotten word that the house might be available, and she had stopped by to see how much it might be worth and maybe also whether her boyfriend, my cousin Ray, would be able to knock the house down and build something else here instead. Several somethings, if I knew Ray. Like a whole little development of townhouses, for instance. The yard was certainly large enough for more than one house, and if Ray and Randy had gotten approval to knock down Aunt Inga's house in the historic district, surely they'd have no problem getting permission to do the same here.

Much as I disliked Ray and Randy, I had to admit that for once, it wasn't a bad idea. Razing Aunt Inga's Second Empire 1870s Victorian was one thing; razing this prosaic 1950s brick ranch was quite another. This was no architectural gem that had to be preserved for posterity, and tearing it down to start over might also remove the stigma attached to the murders. People are more likely to buy a brand-new construction on the lot where a house stood where a murder once took place than they are to move back into the house where the ghosts are still-supposedly-walking.

"I'd love to pin this murder on Melissa James," I said, as much to myself as to Venetia, "but I just can't see her killing someone and burying them in the crawls.p.a.ce. The digging would chip her manicure. She might have rigged the screaming, though-and the footsteps-to try to scare us into giving up the renovations so she and the Stenhams could swoop in and buy the house out from under us. They're probably planning to subdivide the lot."

"Harrumph!" Venetia said.

"Right. It doesn't matter, anyway, since it's not going to work. We're not selling the house again. Not until we're ready. So you've never seen or heard anything unusual during the time you've lived here?" Venetia opened her mouth to answer, and I added, quickly, "Anything supernatural, I mean? Screams? Footsteps? Lights going on and off?"

Venetia shook her head. "Nothing like that. Just comings and goings by people with no business being here, mostly."

"The squatters and the teenagers?"

She nodded.

"Anyone you recognized?"

"Several. Lionel Kenefick. That young policeman who's next door. His girlfriend. Holly. Denise. Her husband."

"Who are Denise and her husband?"

"They live down the street," Venetia said. "You'll meet them."

I stood up. "I should probably go."

Venetia stood, too, to walk me to the front door. "Back to the house?"

"Back to town. Wayne . . . the chief of police won't let me do any work to the house until they finish with the crawls.p.a.ce. That will probably be tomorrow. I'll find something to do at home while I wait. Maybe stop by the hardware store and pick up some paint swatches, or go to some of the junk stores to see if I can find some retro pieces of furniture I can use to stage the house, or something . . ." I trailed off, already scavenging in my mind.

"Have a good time," Venetia said, from far away, and I pulled myself back to reality.

"Thank you. I guess I'll see you tomorrow."

She inclined her head, and I slunk out, feeling stupid for fading out like that.

Here's the thing: I love junking, and I can totally lose myself in the thrill of hunting second-hand bargains. Salvage stores, thrift stores, consignment stores, flea markets . . . I love them all. My New York apartment had been mostly furnished from second-hand pieces I had sanded and polished, reupholstered and/or repainted. Some of the furniture I'd even found on the street. New Yorkers tend to put their discards out on the curb for the trash trucks to pick up, and for someone thrifty, who doesn't mind getting up early-which I do; although the five A.M. alarm on trash day had usually been worth the trouble when I managed-the pickings can be surprisingly good. I'd found a lovely futon frame once that, with some glossy black paint and a new mattress and cover, had been the center-piece of my living room for a while, as well as a nice, st.u.r.dy bookshelf that just needed a coat of paint to fit right in. Bought new, it would have been a couple hundred bucks, easy-it was a very nice bookshelf!-and I got it for the price of cab fare from Midtown to my apartment.

When I left New York, the woman who took over my lease asked to keep a lot of the furniture, though, so upon arrival in Waterfield, I had to start over. Aunt Inga's house had been furnished, for the most part, when I inherited it, but a lot of what my aunt had owned was ugly 1970s stuff, and even the things I'd liked needed reupholstering, sanding, and painting. I'd been busy this summer recovering Aunt Inga's pieces and hunting for cheap replacements for the ones I absolutely couldn't live with. And since the Mainers didn't have the same habit of putting discarded furniture out on trash day, I'd had to become familiar with the various thrift, junk, and salvage stores in the area.

The crowd outside had swelled by this time, and on a whim, I wandered over to the small group of what I a.s.sumed were neighbors. I hadn't met any of them, save for Lionel Kenefick, but as I was now a homeowner on their street, I figured I'd better introduce myself. They probably had some questions and comments about the situation, which it might do them good to get off their chests, and who knew; maybe I'd learn something.

"Hi!" I divided a bright smile between them. There were five people in the cl.u.s.ter, counting Lionel. The woman with the hair rollers and bathrobe, whom I'd noticed earlier, was one of them. The others were a businesswoman in her thirties, dressed in a suit and high heels with a briefcase in her hand, and with brown hair so severely pulled back from her face that her eyebrows were elevated; a younger woman, no more than twenty-two or twenty-three, who had a chubby baby on her hip and looked like she hadn't slept or taken a shower in at least two days-she was wearing faded jeans, which were a size too small, and a T-shirt pulled too tightly across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s; and, finally, an older man in wrinkled khakis and a blue windbreaker holding the leash of a grumpy-looking shih tzu with a red bow on the top of its head. The dog barked shrilly when I got too close, and I jumped back a pace.

"Sorry," the owner said. "Stella, no."

He jerked the chain halfheartedly, and Stella huddled behind his legs but kept growling at me. I wondered if I ought to crouch down and try to make friends with her, but I decided it wouldn't be worth the trouble. My chances of having anything to do with Stella after this were slim, and I depend on my hands too much to want to play fast and loose with them.

Instead, I smiled sweetly at Stella's owner. "My name is Avery Baker. My boyfriend and I own this house. Since about Monday or so."

"Arthur Mattson. I live at number fifty-three." He pointed down the street.

"Irina Rozhdestvensky," the immaculately turned out businesswoman said, with a faint Russian accent. I didn't ask her to repeat the surname, but she must have seen my reaction anyway, because she added, with a smile, "You may call me Irina."

"I appreciate that," I said, smiling back. "Please call me Avery." Her teeth were crooked, but the smile was genuine and friendly.

"My name's Denise," the younger woman said, "and this is Trevor." She jiggled the baby, who grinned, showing toothless gums. Babies are really not my thing, but I tickled him anyway and told her what a cutie he was. Denise beamed.

"And I'm Linda," the lady with the hair rollers said, pulling the fuzzy bathrobe a little tighter around her body. "I live down on the corner, in number fifty."

I peered down the block to the house on the corner. Like all the rest of them, it was built of brick, and like Linda herself, it looked like it could use a little TLC. She was a blowsy fifty-something, with vivid chestnut hair, obviously color-treated, and with bright coral lipstick leaking into the tiny lines around her mouth. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her breath smelled of day-old liquor. I moved back fractionally before I smiled around the circle.

"Nice to meet all of you. Sorry about the hoopla. Police and all."

"I'm sure it's not your fault," Arthur Mattson murmured, while Irina said, "What is going on? Lionel told us there is a body buried under the house, but that is all we know."

I shrugged. "That's all I know, too, right now." Not exactly all I knew, but it was probably better not to say too much. "My boyfriend was working down there this morning, footing supports, when he found a bone. So of course we had to call the police."

Arthur Mattson nodded. "Human remains, however old, have to be reported. Probably find out it's an old Indian burial ground or something." He looked disgusted.

"Gosh," I said, diverted, "if it is, will they have to dig up everybody's bas.e.m.e.nts?"

The rest of them looked at each other. "They'd better not be touching my house," Linda said belligerently. Denise shook her head.

"The baby won't be able to sleep if there are people going in and out, making noise." From the looks of her, she desperately needed little Trevor to take a nap so she could take a shower and get a little rest herself, too.

"They can't touch private property," Lionel said in his surprisingly deep voice. "You have to give them permission to do that. All you have to do is say no."

"Except then they'd come back with a search warrant because they think you're hiding something," Linda answered. Lionel shrugged and turned to me.

"What's up with Miss Rudolph?"

He glanced at Venetia's curtains, which were still fluttering.

"As far as I know," I said, "nothing. She's sitting in there, keeping an eye on things. Just like she has done for the past twenty years. I asked her about anyone she might have seen around the house, and she gave me a list of people."

"Really?"

I nodded. "The mailman, the handyman, the newspaper boy, the realtor . . ."

"The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker?" Irina suggested, in her accented voice. I grinned.

"Pretty much. The squatters, the teenagers, the suit with the clipboard. And now Derek and I. All manner of people seem to have been coming and going. Quite a lot of activity for an empty house. I don't suppose any of you have noticed anyone suspicious hanging around?"

Irina smiled apologetically. "I've lived here for less than a year."

"I'm all the way down at the end of the street," Linda said.

"I've been busy with Trevor," Denise added.

"I work a lot," Lionel said.

"And we try to mind our own business," Arthur Mattson finished. "Don't we, Stella?" He smiled at the growling canine, in flagrant disregard for the fact that he and Stella-that they all-were standing here in the middle of the afternoon, with nothing better to do than to gawk at two parked police cars and someone else's mostly empty house.

9.

Derek lives in an updated loft above the hardware store on Main Street. It's a great location, very convenient to everything Waterfield has to offer, as well as to where I was eventually going, i.e., Aunt Inga's house. All I had to do was drive the car from Becklea into town and park it in Derek's usual spot, leaving the key under the mat. Grand theft auto isn't a big problem in Waterfield, so I wasn't worried that it wouldn't be there when he got home tonight. And then I had a simple four-block walk up the hill to Aunt Inga's house. Before I started walking, though, I popped into the hardware store to grab some paint swatches for the walls at Becklea, as well as some inspiration, if there was any to be had.

Five minutes later, totally free of inspiration-but with a couple of do-it-yourself and home-renovation magazines in a bag with the handful of paint swatches-I headed up Main Street toward Aunt Inga's house, gazing into store windows as I went.

In addition to the two newspapers and the hardware store, Main Street comprises most of Waterfield's shopping district. There are restaurants and supermarkets on the outskirts of town, but most of the little mom-and-pop places are right in downtown-hole-in-the-wall restaurants and delis, bookstores, offices, as well as antique shops and galleries. I had pa.s.sed the Grantham Gallery, with its gray-tone painting of c.u.mulus clouds on hard-board in the window, and was on my way past Waterfield Realty when someone called my name.

"Yoo-hoo! Avery!"

It was Kate, laden down with shopping bags and on her way across the street toward me at a fast clip. "Shannon called," she said breathlessly when she caught up to me. "What's going on?"

"If Shannon called, didn't she tell you?"

"She said that Josh said that there's a dead body in your house."

I rolled my eyes. "Josh and his police band radio, right? They must have called you before they had all the information."

She looked disappointed. "So there isn't a dead body in your house?"

I shook my head. And then she looked so crestfallen that I added, "There's a dead body under my house. In the crawls.p.a.ce. Or more accurately, a skeleton."

"You're kidding!"

"I wish I were. Derek found it when he started digging this morning. So we called Wayne, and he radioed Brandon Thomas-that's probably when Josh picked it up-and the three of them have been down there all afternoon."

"Wayne, Derek, and Brandon?"

I nodded. "Josh showed up, too. With Shannon, of course, and Paige and a young man named Ricky Swanson."

"Shannon has mentioned him," Kate nodded. "He's new at Barnham this year. Transferred in from somewhere in Pennsylvania, I think. Paige seems to be developing a thing for him. What were the four of them doing?"

"Just gawking. The girls were looking at the house and listening to me going on about what I want to do to the bathroom. Wayne wouldn't let Josh down into the crawls.p.a.ce, so he had to content himself with eating half a pizza and asking a ton of questions. I thought he was studying computer science. Why is he so interested in criminology?"

"I think he has plans of becoming Waterfield's first cyber-detective," Kate said. "He's definitely interested in crime and police work, but he wants the excitement of the chase, not the plodding of the patrol."

"But won't he have to do both? Even Wayne goes on patrol, doesn't he?"

"Of course he does," Kate said. "Everyone goes on patrol here, including the chief of police. Josh would have to, as well. Just like Brandon Thomas, who'd much rather be tinkering with his fingerprints and dust particles than driving a patrol car. That's just life in a small town." She shrugged.

I nodded. "Yeah, Brandon seems to be in his element. He's down there in the crawls.p.a.ce, wielding paint brushes and teaspoons, just like in an archeological excavation, while Derek is cheering him on. They found a b.u.t.ton, and when Brandon handed it to me, he picked it up with a pair of tweezers and put it into a little box first, so I wouldn't touch it and mess up his forensic evidence."

"What kind of b.u.t.ton?" Kate wanted to know. I told her. "So this isn't an old skeleton, then?"

"Doesn't seem to be. Originally, we thought maybe we'd stumbled over an old Indian burial or something. There were Indians around here in the old days, right?"

"Still are," Kate nodded. "Maliseet, Pa.s.samaquoddy, Micmac, and Pen.o.bscot, mostly."

"Well, we were wrong. This is someone more recent. She was wearing clothes from Target."

"Target?" Kate repeated, hazel eyes big. "She?"

I explained about the b.u.t.ton and what it signified, and also what Derek had said about the length of the femur, tibia, and fibula.

"If Derek says so, then I'm sure it's right," Kate said loyally.

"No doubt." Her faith in Derek was touching, and I was about to comment on it when another voice interrupted me.

"Afternoon, Avery. Kate."