Killer Chameleon

by Chassie West

  I wasn’t sure. I could hear Nunna’s voice in my ear advising me not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but something, I couldn’t pinpoint what, made me cautious. Elizabeth’s reason for wanting me to accept Roosevelt’s house made perfect sense to anyone who knew Ourland’s history. Still, something about this didn’t feel right.

  It was almost dark now, that soft, shadowy period after the sun’s just dropped below the horizon. With the demise of day, the temperature had plummeted, the breeze off the water contributing to the chill in the air. I shivered and buttoned my coat. Winters on the water had to be colder than in town. I’d have to invest in some thermal underwear. I shuddered again, remembering the snuggies I’d hated as a child.

  “There’s got to be a fortune in antiques in there,” Tina said, as we went down the steps. “Hope they’ve got a good security system.”

  I snorted. “They do. Nothing but first-class for my grandmother. Sorry Granddad wasn’t here. He’s an absolute doll. And you’ll have to meet my Aunt Ruth. She’s —”

  “Goddammit!” Tank roared, his long legs narrowing the distance between us and the SUV. “Just goddamn!”

  “Tank!” Tina hurried toward him. “Lower your voice! What’s the matter with you?”

  “What’s the matter with me?” he asked, performing an about-face to confront her. “What’s the matter with your eyes? Look at the tires, woman!”

  The floodlights at the corners of my grandparents’ house illuminated the parking circle out front just well enough for us to see. All four of the Explorer’s tires were as flat as crêpes.

  8

  TANK WAS STEAMING AND I COULDN’T BLAME him. Silently, he circled the vehicle, checking each tire with my Maglite. I sat down on the bottom step, dismayed.

  Tina dropped down beside me and wrapped an arm around my waist. “Come on, it’ll be okay. It’s not your fault.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said for the tenth time. “I’ll pay for everything.”

  Tank stood up and brushed the grit from his knees. “Stop kicking yourself, Leigh. All the son of a bitch did was let the air out. Who do you know that drives an old tan compact? And I do mean old, an early model Honda.”

  The question seemed to come out of left field, yanking me out of my self-imposed misery. “Uh . . . Eddie Grimes but he traded it in last year. I can’t think of anyone else.” A distant bell tinkled somewhere deep in my gray matter, but I was too distracted to figure out the reason. “Why?”

  “I think we had a tail,” he said, leaning against the passenger door and gazing off into the darkness.

  “A tail?” Tina stood up, fists propped on her nonexistent hips. “And you didn’t say anything or try to lose them?”

  “I wasn’t sure at the time. Probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all, except back there where we got off the Beltway, the Honda was in the wrong lane and cut in front of a Jag to move over. Missed hitting it by a whisker. I spotted it again at the next exit, then again on Route Four, but once we turned onto the road with all the potholes, I didn’t see it again and we were going slow enough that I wouldn’t have missed anyone behind us. I figured I was being paranoid.”

  “Well, did you at least notice the license plate, Mr. D.C. detective?” Tina demanded, hopping off the step.

  “Maryland, but that’s all. Thought it was probably someone who lived out here somewhere.”

  “What about the driver?” I asked, moving down to join them.

  “Black, medium complexion, short gray hair, so it could have been a male or a female. I just couldn’t tell.”

  “Well, that helps a hell of a lot,” Tina grumbled. “So now what?”

  “Oh! Wait a sec.” My mental gears had finally engaged, and I sat down again to search in my purse for my address book. “I’ve got a cousin who owns a service station here. I just hope it’s still open.”

  “It’s not all that late.” Tank checked his watch, the kind that looked like it did everything except scour toilets. “Not even six.”

  Shows you how subjective time can be. I would have sworn it was more like ten. I found the telephone number and used my cell phone, praying that it wasn’t W. Two’s poker night. It wasn’t.

  “You’re at the manor?” my cousin bellowed in my ear, the whine of a lug wrench almost drowning him out.

  “Parked out front, an Explorer. Someone’s let the air out of all four tires.”

  “Sounds like Grady’s boys are back in town. It’s the sort of thing they’d do for fun. Y’all are in for a wait, though. Gotta finish what I’m working on. That’ll give you time for a nice visit with the grands.”

  I’d had enough of the one grand for the night. “I’ve already seen her. Tell you what: we’ll be at Four-ten Ritch Road. That okay with you guys?” I asked Tank and Tina.

  Tina bobbed her head with enthusiastic approval. Tank shrugged. His attitude toward life seemed to be if it was all right with her, it was all right with him.

  “Rosie’s place?” my cousin said. “Well, well, well. Okay, see ya there.”

  “Thanks so much, W. Two. We’re saved,” I said, as I disconnected. “But he’ll be a while, so let’s go see this house. It can’t be that far away.”

  “Your cousin’s name is W. Two?” Tank asked, as we set off in the direction we had come.

  “Short for Wayne Walter Ritch. Every other male around here is a Wayne after my grandfather, or a Warren. Add members of the family whose last name is R-I-C-H and it makes for a lot of confusion. By the way,” I added, “W. Two mentioned local boys who have a reputation for letting air out of tires. So maybe we jumped the gun.”

  “Yeah. Maybe,” Tank said, without conviction. He didn’t believe it any more than I did.

  “Ooh. How pretty.” Tina pointed down the street. Now that it was dark, Christmas lights were on along Ritch Road, white electric candles glowing softly in the windows of practically every home. No outdoor displays, not a single Santa, reindeer, or lawn decoration. I wondered if there was a neighborhood covenant stipulating what was acceptable inside the gates and what was not. Probably.

  “Oh, Tankie!” Tina stopped in her tracks, head thrown back. Above us a clear, cloudless heaven was strewn with points of lights that set the standard for the twinkle of the Christmas candles. “I’ve never seen the sky look like this!”

  “Too much competition from city lights,” I said, nudging her into step again. “Growing up in Sunrise spoiled me. Nunna and I used to sit on the back steps and watch the moon and stars move across the sky. Sometimes I miss that, a lot.”

  Tank chuckled. “Duck always said you’re a country girl at heart. This is four-eighteen. We’re getting close.”

  “Should be the fourth from here,” I said, squinting into the darkness, but trees between adjacent residences would block our view of it even in daylight. “It’ll probably be the only one with no decorations.”

  I was mistaken. Neither of Roosevelt’s neighbors, four-oh-eight or four-twelve, was lit. One, I knew, was occupied only on weekends. I wasn’t sure about the other. Taken together, the three houses amounted to a black hole, a “bah, humbug” in the face of all the Christmas spirit in the vicinity. Four-ten, set farther back than its neighbors, was barely visible from where we stood.

  “Maglite,” I urged Tank, who still had mine. He flipped the switch and aimed it at the house.

  My mouth dropped open. I’d been expecting something small, perhaps one among a number of decades-old cottages on Ritch, with rough-hewn clapboard and screened porches. The yellow beam of the flashlight played across the railing of a very broad deck and beyond it an expanse of plate glass surrounded by redwood siding. I had wondered about this house each time I’d passed it.

  “Come on,” I said, grabbing Tina’s hand.

  We had been walking in the middle of the street, since there were no sidewalks on Ritch and traffic almost nonexistent. Twin driveways edged by holly bushes enclosed the lot, a feature that had always puzzled me. We turned onto the closest alon
g the right side of the house. I couldn’t see much of the lawn but it seemed to be in good shape. At least it wasn’t smothered under a blanket of leaves.

  “Man, you need night goggles around here,” Tank said as we halted at a bank of steps. The house loomed above us, its outline barely distinguishable from the inky blackness surrounding us. I tripped over a stone or something, and Tank steadied me, a hand on my elbow. “Give me the keys. I’ll go open the door and find the lights. No point in all of us stumbling around in the dark.”

  I fished the keys from the coat pocket, my thumb inadvertently fitting into a depression on the small plastic key retainer as I pulled them out. Immediately, lights flared from beneath the house and each corner of its exterior.

  “Oops!” Tank exclaimed, hand shielding his eyes. “We must have set off a motion sensor or something.”

  “I think it was this.” I extended the key ring. “It’s a remote. Why didn’t my grandmother say so?”

  “Probably didn’t know. Will you look at this place!” Squinting, he started up the steps, Tina dogging his heels. As I hadn’t moved, he asked, “You coming?”

  “In a minute, okay?” This was the closest I’d been to it, and I wanted to see it from the bottom up.

  Like most, it was elevated, and although I couldn’t see it, I realized that the driveway must circle the rear because not only had Roosevelt paved under the house, he had marked off four spaces for cars, two labeled “Unit One,” the others “Unit Two.” A bank of steps, also reached from the rear, scaled the left side of the house.

  I came out from under and backed up a little to get a good look so I could describe it for Duck. A redwood square, two stories, a deck around each floor, the railings leaning outward at an angle. Vertical blinds behind plate-glass windows across the entire front of each level. Redwood timbers framing an A-shaped roof. All in all, it was completely different from its neighbors, yet seemed perfectly at home tucked back among a grove of fir trees on one side and some variety of oaks and birches on the other. And definitely not your typical rooming house.

  I climbed the steps to join Tank and Tina, who was hopping from one foot to the other.

  “Need a bathroom?” I asked.

  “No.” Her eyes gleamed in the light above the door. “Just excited, is all. Can we go in now?”

  “Why not? Tank, do your thing.”

  He tried a couple of keys and finally found the right one. Nudging the door open, he groped the wall inside, and lights came on.

  “Oh, my God,” Tina said, sighing.

  Given my grandmother’s pained expression when she’d mentioned the furnishings, I’m not sure what I expected, certainly not what greeted us. A wagon wheel chandelier illuminated a great room, its walls swathed in panels of light oak, the sofa and easy chairs straight out of Country Living with a dab of chintz here, a small floral print there, the occasional tables a pleasant mixture of dark and light woods. The planked oak floors were relieved by braided and rag rugs of assorted sizes. A rocking chair and spinning wheel in a front corner contributed a final, homey touch.

  On our right, a well-appointed kitchen occupied an L-shaped niche in a rear corner, its cabinets of dark oak with glass front panels. An old-fashioned sideboard separated the kitchen from the great room and dining area nestled behind a massive open hearth in the center, complete with cast-iron hooks on which to hang pots.

  Next to the kitchen a hallway led to a utility room at the rear on the left. On the right was the guest room with twin beds, a mahogany chifforobe and dresser, sturdy and old-fashioned. In the bathroom, Uncle Roosevelt had installed a vintage toilet with overhead water tank and chain and a claw-footed tub.

  Upstairs in a loft running the length of the house front to back was the master bedroom, its main feature a patchwork quilt–covered sleigh bed so high that there were step stools on each side of it. A wall-to-wall closet behind shuttered doors was roomy enough for a complete year’s wardrobe, floor-to-ceiling drawers in one end substituting for a dresser. The master bath was a twin of the one downstairs, the tub practically deep enough to swim in. The only concession to the contemporary were the plush carpeting in the loft and the vertical blinds at the wall of windows on the front.

  “It reminds me of Aunt Freda’s house on the farm,” Tina said wistfully. “Especially the bed. I always needed a boost to get in it at night. And I just love the tubs. They’re almost long enough for you, Tank.”

  “Yeah, I guess they are,” he responded, watching her warily. “Let’s take a look at the upstairs.”

  We went out, rounded the rear, and took the steps to the second unit. Tank found the right key on the first try, unlocked the door, and hit the light switch.

  It was my turn. “Oh, my God.”

  Either Roosevelt Lawrence had plowed every cent he’d saved into this house or he had a hell of a lot of expendable cash. Up here I was reminded of Gracie Poole’s apartment with the contents updated by seventy-five or so years—white walls decorated with enormous abstract paintings, splashes of vibrant colors that challenged the imagination. Highly polished hardwood floors dotted with thick Oriental rugs, a massive see-through stone fireplace dead center of the great room. Contemporary sectional furnishings, simple, upholstered in white, occasional tables of teak that smacked of Scandinavian design.

  The kitchen cabinets had solid doors rather than glass, the countertop beneath them a warm, smooth granite cradling a pair of stainless-steel sinks. Up here a butcher-block island separated the kitchen from the great room and the dining area.

  Upstairs in the loft, which could be closed off by a wall of sliding shuttered doors, the reason for my grandmother’s sniff of disdain became clear, and I dissolved with laughter.

  Tina’s reaction? “Holy shit!”

  “Looks like good ol’ Uncle Roosevelt was a player,” Tank said, his grin so wide it practically wrapped around his head.

  The master bedroom was, so to speak, a chamber of sinful pleasures or pleasureful sins, take your pick. Mirror on the ceiling above a heart-shaped bed plumped with heart-shaped pillows, another mirrored expanse behind it with a shelf lined with bottles of scented massage oils and lotions. If you didn’t like your reflection in either of the mirrors, you could look through the skylights flanking the mirror overhead.

  A dozen shallow niches resembling shadow boxes were cut into the wall on either side of the bed, each with a frosted snifter containing a candle. Satin drapery camouflaged a door opening onto the outside, to a diminutive platform and steps down to the second-floor deck. The master bath, with mirrors on the walls and ceiling, starred a toilet, bidet, glassed-in shower stall with nozzles on three sides, and glory be to God and all His angels, a Jacuzzi.

  I could sense Tank and Tina watching me, waiting for my reaction. The truth was, I was speechless. Elizabeth was right. I had no idea what the market value of this place might be, but I could certainly envision fisticuffs on the front lawn to claim ownership.

  “So, what do you think?” Tank asked finally.

  “It’s incredible. Let’s face it, the bed is downright tacky. Makes me wonder how many women Uncle Rosie played honeymoon with over the years. But the house itself doesn’t feel like a vacation home, a place for weekends or the occasional stay.”

  Tina bobbed her head as we went back down to the great room. “Can you imagine anyone renting out a place this nice? You are gonna take it, aren’t you? I mean, you’d be a first-class dumb ass not to.”

  “I need to think. You two make yourself comfortable.”

  I opened the blinds wide enough to access the center glass pane, unlocked it, and stepped out onto the deck. As my grandmother had mentioned, I was treated to a view of the bay between the two houses across the street. It would be the same from the deck of the lower floor. This, along with the master bath, sold me. I might even sign over my mother’s lot to the Ourland Trust. If Duck didn’t like this house, I’d spend the rest of my life a single woman right here. Well, not really, but I’d damne
d sure be tempted.

  It was cold as hell out now, but wanting a private conversation, I closed the sliding door and used my cell phone to call the man in question. To my surprise, he was at home.

  I plunged right in. “Duck, how would you feel about having a house in Ourland?”

  “Is that where you are?” he asked.

  “Yeah, with Tank and Tina. You didn’t answer my question.”

  A chair scraped. He was in the kitchen. “What’s the big deal? We talked about putting one on your mom’s lot, didn’t we?”

  “Yes, but I’m talking about now, one already built. On Ritch Road. With a view of the Chesapeake.”

  Silence hummed at me for an eternity. I stopped breathing. Then, “How about you explain?”

  I ran it down for him, described the house as best I could and held my breath again.

  “You’re talking about the place about, oh, three houses east of your brother’s on the other side of the street? Redwood, wraparound decks? Double driveway and lots of holly bushes?”

  Why was I surprised that he remembered it? “Yes, that one. I have all the information on it, cost of taxes, utilities, upkeep, etcetera, which, according to Elizabeth, was more than covered by renting it out. Uncle Roosevelt only used it himself for short stints every few years.”

  I closed my eyes and crossed my fingers. I’d save praying for later. “Maybe you can take a look at it on your next day off. I’m just letting you know that if you’re interested, it’s available.”

  “You want it, don’t you?” A smile warmed his voice.

  No point in hedging. “Yes.”

  “Then I guess I’d better come see it, don’t you think?”

  “Now?” I gasped. “I mean, tonight?”

  “Might as well. Traffic should have let up some by now. I’ll be there in, say, forty minutes.”

  “Duck, I absolutely love you,” I said, and meant it.