Home For the Homicide (A Do-It-Yourself Mystery)

by Bentley, Jennie

  “Lock away your valuables,” Kate went on. “Keys, money, credit cards. Bank statements. Prescription drugs. There’s no telling who might come through your door, and you can’t keep an eye on them all at the same time.”

  I raised my hand. “Do we have to keep our whole houses open, or just a few rooms?”

  “In your case,” Kate said, since she obviously knew my house well, “the downstairs will do. Hang a rope on the staircase with a piece of paper, and write ‘Private’ on it. That should keep people from going upstairs. Move anything valuable up there.”

  Most of my valuables were upstairs anyway. Jewelry in the box by my bedside, and the cough syrup in the bathroom cabinet.

  “The tour starts at noon,” Kate said. “Prepare to stay home with a run on the door until after four o’clock. There are always a few stragglers.”

  No problem.

  “You won’t have to deal with money. People who want to go on the home tour can purchase tickets online, at the library, at the Fraser House, or at the church. When they get to you, they should already have paid, and they should have a hand stamp saying as much.”

  Good to know.

  “Any questions?”

  I had a lot, and so did other people. After a while, the meeting dissolved into chatter, and I addressed Kate. “Where’s Wayne tonight?”

  She swallowed. “Working.”

  “Anything interesting going on?”

  “Nothing you’d consider interesting,” Kate said. “No murders or anything.”

  “I don’t find murders interesting.” Not particularly. “I can’t help it that so many people have dropped dead in Waterfield in the time I’ve been here.”

  “You could help getting involved,” Kate said, and relented. “It’s the robbery season. Purse snatchings and people getting carjacked in mall parking lots.”

  “And Baby Jesuses going missing.”

  “That happens every year,” Judy interjected. “It usually comes back after a few days.”

  “Is it back now?”

  Judy had to admit it wasn’t.

  “How long has it been?” Two days, at least, since Kate had told us.

  “Five days,” Judy said reluctantly.

  “Is that longer than usual?”

  It was. But—“It’s probably just someone having fun, Avery,” Judy said. “Teenagers or something.”

  Maybe. I turned to Josh and Shannon, who had both grown up in Waterfield. “Did you ever steal the Baby Jesus from the manger?”

  “No,” Josh said, looking offended. He’s a lanky guy, almost six and a half feet tall, with glasses and his father’s dark curly hair. He does offended quite well. “My dad’s the chief of police, Avery. You really think I don’t know better than that? He’d ground me for a year.”

  Shannon grinned but shook her head. “Me, either. And I haven’t heard of anyone else who did.”

  “It isn’t some kind of high school tradition? Or a college dare or something?”

  “Not at Barnham,” Josh said. “And not at the high school, either.”

  “It’s been going on a very long time,” Judy added. “Since before Barry took over. It’s just one of those endearing quirks you put up with.” She smiled.

  “Just as long as the baby comes back again.”

  “It always has before.” She didn’t sound worried, and if she wasn’t, I probably shouldn’t be, either. Even if the baby had been missing for longer this time than ever before.

  The meeting broke up shortly after that, and Cora and I headed out to the car. I drive a spring green VW Beetle that my mother and stepfather had given me for Christmas last year. I’d had a license when I lived in Manhattan, but driving hadn’t ever figured large in my life, since the city is all about subways and taxis. Over the last year, I’d been surprised at how much I enjoyed driving around in my zippy little Bug.

  I wedged behind the wheel and Cora climbed in beside me, and we took off. Zipping around the corner. Zipping around the next.

  “How is the work on the Green sisters’ house coming?” Cora asked, hanging on to the edges of the seat.

  I smiled. “It’s coming. We’ve finished cleaning out the junk. You won’t believe the kind of stuff we found. Old Christmas decorations, a bicycle, skis, snowshoes, an old baby carriage with a doll in it . . .” I slowed down for a stop sign—California rolling stop—and took off again as we neared the Green sisters’ block. “We can stop and go inside if you want.”

  “It’s a little late,” Cora said diplomatically. “And cold.”

  And she wanted to get home. I couldn’t blame her. I was looking forward to seeing Derek, too.

  “That’s fine.” But the house was coming up, and I pulled up to the curb to peer at it as we got there.

  It looked just the way it should. Big and imposing and dark, like a black void against the night. Derek didn’t trust the electrical wiring, so we hadn’t left any lights on, not even on the porch. Didn’t want to come back and find a charred mess tomorrow morning.

  “It’s big,” Cora remarked.

  “Not as big as the house on Rowanberry Island.”

  The rambling center-chimney Colonial from 1783 had seemed to go on for days. But the Green sisters’ house was certainly a lot bigger than the other two projects we’d done since then: the small condo in Josh Rasmussen’s building and the even smaller 1930s cottage in the Village that used to belong to news anchor Tony “the Tiger” Micelli—until he was stabbed to death with a screwdriver in the kitchen.

  “Did you leave a light on upstairs?” Cora asked, and I returned to the present, pushing the mental image of Tony and the pool of blood aside to peer up at the house.

  “No. Why?”

  “I thought I saw one.”

  I looked again, staring at the three side-by-side windows in the dormer in the front of the house. They were dark, just as they should be. “I don’t see anything.”

  Cora shook her head. “Maybe it was the reflection of a pair of headlights up on the hill. Or a reflection from the house across the street.”

  Maybe. I looked to the left, at the farmhouse Victorian located there. One story tall. No second-story windows.

  “I must have made a mistake,” Cora said, still staring at the bungalow. “There’s nothing there.”

  No. Although now that she’d suggested it, I was loath to leave without making sure. Even if I was equally loath to leave the car to investigate.

  Cora glanced at me. “There’s nothing there, Avery. I made a mistake.”

  “Right. It’s just . . .” What if she hadn’t? What if someone was inside the house?

  “Why would anyone break into an empty house?”

  “People do sometimes,” I said. “To steal the tools. And the copper pipes.” Or so Derek had told me.

  “Are there any copper pipes in the house? Or any tools?”

  Well . . . no. We hadn’t needed tools yet. So far it had all been about hauling junk to the Dumpster. Taking stuff out of the house, not putting anything in. There were no pipes, either, for the same reason.

  I shook my head.

  “I really think I made a mistake, Avery,” Cora said. “It was just a trick of the light. Let’s go home. If you want to come back, you can take Derek with you.”

  That made sense. He had the key, anyway. And I’d rather have Derek next to me than Cora when exploring a creepy old house in the dark.

  I put the car back into gear and rolled away from the house, with a last look past Cora and out the passenger side window. There was nothing to see. All the windows were dark. The front door was closed. There were no sinister shadows skulking around the corner. Nothing was stirring. As she’d said, she must have made a mistake.

  In contrast, the small green Folk Victorian on Cabot where Cora and Dr. Ben lived was cheerfully blazing with lights. And with sound, we realized when we walked in. It wasn’t just Derek and his father in residence; I could also hear the television, as well as the voices of Beatrice, Cora
’s second daughter—her first is Alice, who lives in Boston—and Bea’s husband, Steve.

  “Is so!” Steve said.

  “No, it isn’t!”

  “Yes, it is. And if you’ll give me a minute, I’ll prove it to you.”

  There was silence apart from the TV, then a groan from Beatrice and a crow of triumph from Steve.

  “Scrabble,” Cora said, hanging up her coat.

  I nodded, keeping mine on. “Wonder which word he spelled?”

  “‘Syzygy,’” Derek said when I asked.

  “Bless you.”

  “That’s the word. ‘Syzygy.’” He spelled it, and added, “It means a conjunction of three astronomical objects.”

  I stared at him.

  “Also a metrical unit of two feet,” Steve added. “In poetry.”

  I stared at Steve. And then at Derek again. “How do you know this stuff?”

  “Just because I’m a handyman . . .” Derek began, and I rolled my eyes.

  “You didn’t become a handyman until you’d been a doctor for a few years first. It’s not like you’re uneducated. But I still don’t see how you’d know about the conjunctions of astronomical objects.” Or poetry. “It isn’t something you’d learn about in medical school.”

  “I grew up playing Scrabble,” Derek said. “Of course, he had to use a blank for the third Y. There are only two.” He looked me up and down. “Why do you have your coat on?”

  “I just came in.”

  “Cora’s taken hers off.”

  She had, and sat down next to her husband on the sofa.

  “We thought we saw a light in the house on North Street when we drove past,” I said. “I thought maybe you’d want to come with me to check it out.”

  “A light?”

  “It was probably a mistake,” Cora said, settling into the sofa next to Dr. Ben. “A reflection of headlights from the hill. Or a reflection of light from the house across the street.”

  “The house across the street is only one story tall. It wouldn’t reflect into the second-story windows.”

  My husband looked at me, and then at Cora. “You didn’t stop and check?”

  She shook her head.

  “It’s late,” I said. “And dark. And Cora wanted to get home. And besides, you have the only key.”

  He nodded and got to his feet. “I was losing anyway. It’s hard to compete with words like ‘syzygy.’ Say good night, Avery.”

  “Good night, Avery,” I said, and followed him into the foyer.

  “I’m proud of you,” he told me a couple minutes later, when we were in the car and on our way back to North Street.

  I glanced across at him for a second. “You are? Why?”

  “You could have run inside the house and gotten yourself killed. But you didn’t. You came and got me instead.”

  Right. Um . . . “I probably would have gone inside,” I admitted, “if I’d had the key, and if Cora had been willing to go with me. But she insisted that she’d made a mistake and she wanted me to take her home, so I did. I’d rather go sleuthing with you anyway.”

  “Flattered,” Derek said and opened the glove box. “Is there a flashlight in here?”

  “Should be.” I risked a glance in that direction as he rummaged, but I didn’t want to take my eyes off the road any longer than I had to.

  “Got it.” He pulled it out and flicked it on. Nothing happened. “Out of batteries,” Derek said, disgusted.

  “We can use my cell phone instead. I have a flashlight app.”

  “That’ll work.” He returned the useless flashlight to the glove box and leaned back in the seat, folding his arms across his chest. “Remind me to get you new batteries. I don’t want my wife driving around with a nonfunctioning flashlight.”

  “Flashlight app,” I reminded him.

  “Not the same thing.”

  Maybe not, but we had reached the house now, and the time to argue was over. I pulled up to the curb and cut the engine. Derek peered out the window. “I don’t see anything.”

  “I didn’t, either. There probably wasn’t anything there. But Cora said she saw a light, and it couldn’t have been a reflection from the house across the street.”

  Derek glanced at it. “No.”

  “I’m sure there’s no one there at all. But just in case she wasn’t wrong . . .”

  “May as well take a look.” Derek nodded and unlocked his door. Before he swung his legs out, he opened the glove box again and palmed the flashlight.

  “I thought it didn’t work.”

  “It’s not for lighting our way,” Derek said. “We have your cell phone for that. This is for protection.”

  Wonderful. Yet another reason to hope we’d find no one in the house. Or my husband would be hauled off to jail for assault with a deadly flashlight.

  • • •

  The front door opened with that long, drawn-out shriek of rusty hinges familiar from scary movies. I hadn’t really noticed it during the day—possibly because the door had been standing open most of the time—but now it sent a chill down my spine.

  We stepped through and stopped to listen. Nothing moved within the living room. Nothing moved anywhere, as far as I could hear. All I could hear was Derek’s steady breathing and my own heartbeat thundering in my ears.

  “So far, so good.” His voice was more breath than actual words, and tickled the flyaway hair near my temple. I jumped. He chuckled. “C’mon.”

  He moved farther into the room, old floorboards creaking under his feet. I followed, tiptoeing and holding my breath.

  It was amazing that this was the same house we’d spent most of the past two days in. Other than a few exceptions—like scaring myself half to death finding the doll, and Brandon scaring us both half to death wandering around over our heads—I hadn’t been aware of a sense of discomfort. It was just an old house with no particular vibe to it. Not particularly happy, but not particularly sad, either. Now, however, with the darkness bearing down on us, only able to see as far as the weak light from the cell phone illuminated, it felt like a different house. Silent, sinister, full of secrets.

  There was nobody on the first floor, and no sign that anyone had been here, either. There were footprints and scuffmarks all across the floors, of course, and tracks from where Derek had pushed the baby carriage, but with as much coming and going as we’d done today and yesterday, there was no way to tell whether any of the footsteps belonged to anyone else. Certainly not in the dark.

  And anyway, the light Cora had claimed to have seen—and then claimed not to have seen—had been upstairs.

  I crept up the stairs in Derek’s wake, keeping to the outside of the steps, where it was less likely that the wood would creak.

  Craftsman bungalows could be one story, but more often they were one and a half: a first floor that looked just like any other house, and a second floor tucked under the eaves with sloping ceilings and dormers in front and back.

  We went into the bathroom first, since the door stood open. There was no one in there. I hadn’t expected anyone, but it was still a relief.

  Derek pushed open the door on the right next, and shone the dim light of the phone into one of the bedrooms the Green girls must have used when they were small. Ten by ten or so, with heart of pine floors—not as upscale as the oak floors downstairs—and with sloping ceilings and knee walls.

  “Empty,” he said, flashing the right around.

  “What about the closet?”

  “I don’t think anyone’s hiding in the closet,” Derek said, but he crossed the floor and yanked open the door anyway. When he jumped back, my heart jumped, too, and my voice reached up into the soprano register.

  “What is it?”

  He turned to me and grinned, the light from the flashlight shining up into his face giving him a sort of demonic look. “Nothing.”

  “That’s mean.”

  “Maybe I was hoping for you to throw yourself into my arms,” Derek said with a waggle of eyebrow
s. “All we need is a few thunderclaps to complete the scary-movie feel.”

  “I can do without the thunderclaps,” I told him, but I threw myself into his arms anyway. Or not threw exactly, but I walked over to him and let him put an arm around me. When that was done, I peered into the closet. It was empty, save for a row of skeletal wire hangers on a rod.

  “Let’s get outta here,” Derek said and pulled me toward the door. “Get home and to bed.”

  Fine with me. “Just one room to go.” I preceded him out onto the landing and stopped. “Have you been up here today?”

  “No,” Derek said.

  “Do you remember closing the door?”

  He shook his head. “But Brandon was wandering around. He may have done it.”

  “I don’t think he went upstairs, did he?” I eyed the door apprehensively.

  The thing about closed doors is you never know what might be behind them. Not so with open ones.

  But I wanted to get home and to bed, too, so I followed Derek across the landing and waited while he turned the knob and pushed the door open. And when he jumped, I told him, “Very funny.”

  “No,” Derek said.

  No?

  I peered over his shoulder and jumped, too.

  —5—

  For a moment, I lost my breath, and not in a good the-Waterfield-Inn-is-gorgeous sort of way.

  I’m not particularly superstitious, but for a moment I could swear I was looking at a ghost: a little girl curled up on the floor, her blouse gleaming blue-white in the light from the cell phone, with two long braids wound like ropes around her throat and a doll clutched to her chest.

  Then I realized what I was looking at.

  “It’s Mamie Green.”

  Derek nodded. “Brandon was right. She did come back here.”

  “He must be frantic.” It had been four or five hours since he’d been here looking for her. If she’d been missing this whole time, Brandon—and her sister, not to mention the staff at the nursing home; the staff that had lost her—must be going out of their minds with worry.

  “Call him,” Derek said, handing me my phone. “I’ll get her.”