Remodeled to Death

by Valerie Wolzien

  “Your uncle Joe can speak for himself. And what he wants is to find out if he’s been working with a murderer,” the older man said, managing to include both his nephews in one outraged glare.

  “Well, now that we’ve gotten some of the confusing issues out in the open, why don’t we try to make some order of all this, something I’ve been trying to do for the last few days,” Susan said seriously.

  “You see,” she continued, “this is the first time I’ve tried to solve a murder where everyone talked openly about hating the victim. And that was a big problem to begin with. Instead of hiding their dislike after the murder, everyone volunteered to tell me how thrilled they were that Simon Fairweather was dead. Even people down at the club were quick to offer stories about how the building inspector had made their lives or the lives of their friends just a little more complicated.

  “Of course, it was really the job that most people hated, not Simon Fairweather himself. No one likes to be told what they can and can’t do with their own property, and it was Simon Fairweather’s job to do just that. And every time he refused to sign off on an illegal project, every time he refused to bend the rules, every time he did exactly what the town of Hancock paid him to do, he made another enemy.

  “There was a dartboard with his picture on it at the tile shop. And to bring up his name in the locker room down at the club was to be regaled with tales of work stopped and permits denied. Of course, the killer had to hate Simon Fairweather the man, not just Simon Fairweather the building inspector. But it was sometimes difficult to separate the two.

  “And then, of course,” Susan continued, “everyone knew that Simon Fairweather played favorites with the contracting companies. At least that’s what it looked like from the outside.”

  “And, in fact, according to the information that Mrs. Fairweather has given us—information that she just discovered—it turns out that it wasn’t just the general impression. It was true.” Brett spoke up. “Simon was making extra money—a lot of extra money—by forcing one contracting company at a time to pay him off. Or else he would see that they went out of business.”

  “You mean …” Ken Cory seemed to be so surprised that he was speechless. “You mean, it happened to other guys?” he asked when he had finally regained his composure.

  “Yes. I’ve had men on the phone all morning checking it out ever since we were given the information. Cory Construction was just the last in a long line of companies that was told to either pay up or get out,” Brett assured the man.

  “Of course, your company was a little different,” Brett continued. “In the first place, there aren’t as many contractors around these days. The economy has changed.” He shrugged. “And I suppose there isn’t as much space left vacant to build new homes on. You see, Simon Fairweather didn’t just go after any company. He was very careful about those he chose. And, we think, although we haven’t checked them all out yet, that the other companies were from out of town. Most of them were from places closer to New York City, places that had accepted payoffs as just one of the costs of doing business.” Brett stood up and looked sternly around the room. “Things like that aren’t done in Hancock.”

  “Cory Construction has always been located here.” Buns spoke up for the first time in a while.

  “That’s right. And in the nineties there isn’t a lot of work; most people chose to hire locals, so Simon Fairweather didn’t have the luxury of picking on an out-of-town contractor.”

  “So he stuck a pin in a book and came up with Cory Construction?” Frankie asked.

  “No. I don’t think Simon Fairweather did anything without thinking about it. But, you see, Ken is vulnerable, more vulnerable than other contractors, I’d imagine. Because he is known to have had affairs with the women he worked for. Women whose husbands might not be so happy to pay his high bills if they knew he was sleeping with their wives.”

  Susan remembered what Natalie McPherson had told her about herself and Ken and nodded. His crew members were grinning broadly.

  “But there was something else different about Ken Cory, wasn’t there?” Brett asked, turning to the men.

  They all stopped smiling and looked at one another.

  “It was George Porter, wasn’t it?” Brett asked Ken quietly.

  “Hey, that was an accident, man,” Angelo said. “I’m an electrician. I know about those kinds of accidents.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about right now,” Brett continued, still staring at Ken. “You didn’t want to fire him and Simon was pushing you to, right?”

  Ken nodded his head slowly. “Yeah, George had been with me from the beginning. Art and George and I used to work ’til all hours of the night to get jobs done. But things changed when George’s wife died. He became forgetful and incompetent.” Ken looked at Art Young. “I know you were trying to cover up for him, but the problems were obvious to me—and to Simon Fairweather, I’m afraid.

  “Simon said he wouldn’t approve our work unless I fired George. I suggested that George retire, but he said it would kill him not to work. What could I do? George was a good worker who had been with me from the beginning. I couldn’t hurt him at that time of his life. I refused to fire him. So Simon asked for a payoff. I refused that, too, and threatened to make his request public.”

  “He even talked to George Porter about it,” Susan added. “Patsy Porter said that her father had been claiming that Simon Fairweather wanted him fired and that he went to his office to talk to him about it a short time before he died.”

  “Poor George,” Ken said. “That must have been horribly humiliating for him. Well, I wasn’t going to have any part in it. And I wasn’t going to pay Simon Fairweather off. But he had dug up that stuff you were saying about those women and he threatened to make it public. Well, that would have ruined me. I didn’t pay. But I didn’t talk. And Simon started refusing to accept any of our work.” Ken sighed. “It was a miserable time. And then George died.…”

  “An accident,” Angelo insisted.

  “Yes, it was,” Susan said. “But like so many accidents, it was caused by someone else.”

  “I did it.” Art Young stood up and faced the room. “I caused my friend’s death.”

  “No,” Susan said gently. “You didn’t do it. Simon Fairweather just let you think that you did. It was really his fault.”

  “Manslaughter, probably,” Brett agreed quietly.

  “What? I didn’t do. it? And that man … I talked to him the night before he was killed and he … he let me believe that it was my fault.” It was obvious to everyone that Art was near tears. “I thought for sure I had told George to disconnect that electricity the day before. And then, when George went through that wall, I could hardly believe it. Obviously George had forgotten to do it. There was nothing I could do and everyone thought it was just one of those accidents.” Tears were flowing down his cheeks, and Frankie, closest to him, reached over and put his arm around the older man’s shoulders. “I worried about how I would make it up to him. We were buddies, you see. I worried each and every second. And then I got this idea that I could try out for Jeopardy! again. And this time I’d get on and win a lot of money. And I’d give it to that sweet little Patsy. George would have liked her to have something.”

  “It was a lovely idea, but it wasn’t your fault,” Susan said. “George was supposed to turn off the power and cut those lines the night before, right?”

  “Yes, but they should have been checked out …” Art began, and then looked up at Ken. “There was an inspection due to happen. They should have been checked by Simon Fairweather before any work was done.”

  Ken nodded. “But Simon had long ago stopped bothering to even come to a Cory Construction worksite since he wasn’t going to approve anything that we’d done. I knew that, but you guys didn’t.”

  “So in many ways it really was Simon’s fault that George died. If Simon had been doing his job—”

  “George would still be alive,” Art
finished quietly.

  “But I still don’t know why you went to see Simon Fairweather the night that he was killed,” Susan said.

  “I wanted to talk to him. I’d started a few letters to him, but I never could get the words right.” Susan remembered the note she had seen hanging out of his tool chest the day they’d met. “I thought I should visit him in person and tell him that George’s death was my fault. We—the guys on the crew and me—all knew that Simon was after Cory Construction and I thought maybe that was my fault, too. So I went to confess, but he just sat there and doddled on the sheet of paper in front of him.” Art took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. “And to think that all the time I was talking to him, he knew that George was dead because of a mistake he’d made, not because of something I’d done. If he weren’t dead, I’d take my nail gun and kill him myself.”

  “But it was the nail gun that you left behind that was used to kill him,” Brett said. “And it was that nail gun that almost convinced me that the murderer had to be a member of the crew.”

  “Except,” Susan said. “Except if Simon was going to be killed by a member of your crew, wouldn’t it be more logical if the murderer made it look like just another fatal accident? After all, as the man on the radio said, ‘Seventy-eight percent of all accidents happen in the home.’ ”

  “And you’re suggesting that my husband should have been killed in my home?” Patricia Fairweather asked.

  “In your home?” Josie spoke up, shaking her red curls, which were more unruly than usual, and looking at the woman. “I don’t understand. Who is your husband?”

  “Simon Fairweather,” Ken Cory answered for the woman. “This is Patricia Fairweather.”

  “No.” Josie stood up and faced Susan. “This is the woman who paid me to come to Hancock and work for you.”

  THIRTY-THREE

  “This is Patricia Fairweather,” Susan insisted.

  “Wait a minute. You said this woman paid you to come to Hancock and work for Ken?” Kyle asked. “You didn’t get your job just like the rest of us did?”

  “No, I …” Josie looked at Ken and then at Patricia and frowned. “Obviously, I don’t understand exactly what is going on here, but maybe I should tell my part of this story.”

  “Please do,” Susan requested, sitting back down on the desk with a loud thump.

  “It happened last week. I was working on this house that we were beginning to work on out in Montauk and this woman”—she nodded toward Patricia—“came across the road to talk to me.

  “That’s not all that unusual. Neighbors frequently drop in at the beginning of projects. They’re naturally curious about the work being done in their neighborhood, about the people who are working there, and whether or not the final result is going to meet their standards. Well, this woman—”

  “Why don’t you call me Patricia?” Patricia suggested gently. “It will be easier all around.”

  “If you say so,” Josie agreed, sounding as if she wasn’t convinced. “Well, Patricia hung around for a while and asked some questions about the house I was working on and then she asked some questions about me. That’s not all that unusual, either. There aren’t a lot of female carpenters out there. I suppose we’re still something of a curiosity. And so she started asking questions and I answered.

  “And I told her something about myself and how I needed more money for my son’s camp expenses. He has a scholarship to camp, but his clothing and equipment were so expensive that I was completely broke.

  “And then Patricia Fairweather—and that’s not who she told me she was—said that she would pay me to move to Hancock, Connecticut, for a month until my son came back home on Labor Day. That she would rent me an apartment and pay a fee on top of my regular salary if I would work for a contractor there and try to discover exactly what was going on with the members of the crew.”

  Josie stopped talking and looked at Patricia. “But I didn’t know that it was a murder that we were talking about. I thought there had been some funny business in a contracting company, but nothing like a murder,” she repeated. “I never would have come if I had known what I was getting into.”

  “That’s why you were so willing to help me out. You were already investigating for Patricia,” Susan said. “I never guessed.”

  “And that’s why you stayed on the fringes of the group—always wanting to go off and work by yourself,” Frankie said. “You wanted to listen in, but you didn’t want to get too involved.”

  “That’s true. Especially when I realized how serious the situation was,” Josie admitted. “But I was feeling so guilty. I’m not much of a spy, I guess. I like what I do and I like working with people. I had really gotten in over my head, just for a few extra bucks.”

  “But Ken must have known,” Susan said. “He didn’t just happen to hire you. It must have been arranged between him and Patricia.”

  “You’re right there,” Ken said. “I was desperately afraid of losing my company. I had finally gotten together my courage, decided the hell with it if a few men in town got mad at me for sleeping with their wives. Hell, it was their wives’ fault, too. And I filed a protest with the planning board. But when Simon found out, he convinced me that he controlled the planning board, too.”

  “That’s just not true,” Brett said. “The corruption stopped with Simon Fairweather. Those people on the planning board are honest—as you’ll find out in a few weeks.”

  “But I didn’t know that. And when I got a call from Mrs. Fairweather suggesting that I could hire this young woman to find out if anyone in my company had killed her husband—”

  “Wait, when did you talk with Patricia?” Susan asked Josie.

  “I’d better answer that,” Patricia said. “I spoke with Josie early in the morning the day after my husband was killed.”

  “We started work at seven a.m., as usual,” the young carpenter agreed.

  “So you didn’t kill him either,” Frankie said, looking around the room to see if he had missed any possible suspects. “But if it wasn’t someone on the crew and it wasn’t you …”

  “I think I’d better explain,” Patricia said slowly. “It’s the least I can do. In fact, right now it’s the only thing I can do. It is, I’m afraid, a long and sordid story. And some of you already know parts of it.”

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning,” Susan suggested.

  And Patricia took her suggestion. “You see, I grew up in Hancock. I was the youngest of four sisters and we lived in the house that I live in today. Except that when I was a child, I hated that house more than almost anyplace on earth—we all did. By that I mean my sisters and myself. My mother never expressed an opinion, not about that or about much else. My father was a tyrant and he had her and his children completely under his thumb. My sisters left home for college and never came back. I was the youngest and I stayed here. There wasn’t anyone left to give me moral support and I was too weak to leave alone.

  “And then, when I was in my late teens, Simon proposed to me. We’d known each other for years. Hancock wasn’t a very large town back then and pretty much everyone knew everyone else. Simon was older than I was, and although I didn’t know him well enough to love him, I thought he was offering me a chance to escape my family. I was seriously mistaken. What had actually happened was that my father had offered Simon a way of moving painlessly from the wrong side of the tracks to the top of the hill. Painless, that is, if Simon didn’t mind marrying his youngest daughter. Then we could move into this great mansion with my parents and all would be well—for a man who liked to control the lives of those around him.

  “But my father had a heart attack and died. I know how insensitive this sounds, but his death freed me from years of terror and obligation to a man I had grown to hate. And it was a stroke of luck for Simon, because he got a house that he could use to parlay himself into being a major figure in town. As Hancock grew, so did Simon’s importance.

  “And during this time, I was tryi
ng to find myself. That sounds very psychobabble silly, I know. But when you’re raised the way I was, it is very difficult to know exactly one’s own identity. I was lucky, though, and one of my sisters gave me a wonderful present: tuition to a class at the art center in town. I found something that added meaning and beauty to my life. That class changed my life.

  “Meanwhile Simon and I just toddled along in our marriage. The only thing we did together was plan and work on the house. For Simon the house was a professional showpiece. For me it was turning the darkness of my childhood and youth into something bright and beautiful. We continued that way for years.

  “But Simon was becoming mean and bitter. He was always jealous of the people in town with more money and power than he had and it was only getting worse, not better. And one night he started hitting me.”

  “When was that?” Brett asked.

  “About a year ago,” she said. “I realize now that he was in danger of losing all the extra money that he had depended on to allow him to hobnob with the important and wealthy people in town. I didn’t see that at the time, of course.”

  “And it went on until his death, didn’t it?” Susan asked gently.

  “Yes. I … I didn’t want anyone to know,” Patricia said.

  “You didn’t tell anyone?” Susan asked.

  “Just …” Patricia had been getting more upset as each moment passed and she finally broke down.

  “Your sister?” Susan asked gently. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  “Yes. She’d suspected for months. When I decided not to go on the cruise it was really because Simon had gotten mad and hit me. I went to Montauk and told her about it.”

  “And she came here and found Simon working late in his office. Someone had left a nail gun there. And she killed him, didn’t she?” Susan asked gently.

  Patricia, in tears, could only nod her head.

  “And where is she now?” Susan asked, seeing that Brett was already heading for the door.