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

by Bentley, Jennie

  “They didn’t,” Wayne said.

  “They didn’t?”

  He shook his head. “Mr. Silva picked her up to take her to dinner with his aunt.”

  By elimination, this was Darren, since Henry Silva didn’t have an aunt, at least not one I knew about. “Henrietta?”

  Wayne nodded. “They stopped outside the liquor store on Broad Street so Mr. Silva could pick up a bottle of wine for dinner.”

  Wine? For Mamie? Wasn’t she tipsy enough without that?

  “She stayed in the car,” Wayne continued. “Or so he thought, until he came out and found her gone.”

  “So he’s the one who called you?”

  “After he drove around for a bit looking for her. He didn’t think she could have gotten far. But when he couldn’t find her, he called us, and Brandon went out to have a look around. When he couldn’t find her, either, and it got late and it started snowing, we decided we needed to do a search.”

  So it was Darren’s fault. If he hadn’t picked her up—if he hadn’t left her unattended in the car—she would have been safe and warm inside the nursing home.

  No wonder he’d looked grim last night. Guilty conscience, no doubt.

  “He must feel terrible,” I said, unwillingly sympathetic. I didn’t like Darren, but God . . . what a horrible responsibility.

  Wayne nodded. “Tell me what happened last night.”

  I went through the events of the evening—from the start of my search with Dr. Ben up until we found Mamie’s body—in detail. “She was curled up on one of the wooden benches. They’re built in, and there’s a little table in the middle. It was set with the doll-sized tea set I found upstairs in her room, that I’d brought to her earlier.”

  “Earlier?” Wayne said.

  I squirmed. I had hoped he’d miss that. “Derek and I went out to the nursing home in the afternoon, to bring Mamie and Ruth some things we’d found in the house that we thought they might enjoy. The tea set and some doll clothes for Mamie, and a box of newspaper clippings about Elvis Presley for Ruth.”

  Wayne’s lips twitched. “Were they the same clothes the”—he hesitated—“the doll was wearing last night?”

  I hadn’t noticed the doll wearing anything, to be honest. It had been naked the other two times I’d seen it. “Blue wool?”

  Wayne nodded. “So you opened the door to the playhouse and saw Mamie.”

  “That’s correct. Dr. Ben went to check on her. He told me to call nine-one-one and to wait for the ambulance. I did. And you know the rest.”

  Wayne nodded.

  “What happens now?”

  “I’ll have Ramona type up a statement,” Wayne said. “It’ll take her a few minutes. Then you can sign it and leave. Thanks.”

  “No problem. But I meant, what happens to the . . . to Miss Mamie.”

  Wayne’s lips tightened. “She was taken to Portland, to the medical examiner’s office. Dr. Lawrence will look at her.”

  Dr. Lawrence was the medical examiner. She was a few years younger than Dr. Ben, who knew her well. As she said once, doctors of the dead are doctors, too. We’d met a couple of times, and she was rather nice.

  “Will there be an autopsy?”

  “If Dr. Lawrence thinks it’s necessary,” Wayne said.

  “It isn’t required?”

  “It is if she thinks it’s necessary.”

  Right.

  “For now, she’ll just take a look at the . . . at Miss Mamie and determine whether there’s any reason to do an autopsy. I’m sure I’ll hear from her in the next few hours.”

  I wanted to ask him to keep me in the loop, but there was no reason why he would, and if I asked, he’d tell me so. “I guess the Silvas will arrange for the funeral and all that?”

  “I imagine they will,” Wayne said. “Darren arranged for Mamie and Ruth’s accommodations at Sunset Acres, and for the sale of the house. I’m sure he’ll arrange for the funeral, too.”

  “Let me know what you find out, would you? I don’t think he’ll call us, and I don’t want to call him.”

  Wayne nodded and got to his feet. “Let’s go see Ramona, and then you can be on your way. What are you and Derek working on today?”

  I told him what Derek was doing while I was here—regrouting the lovely ribbon tile in the downstairs bathroom—and we wandered down the hall toward Ramona making small talk about renovating. Then his phone rang, and he loped off toward his office to answer it, telling me to go the rest of the way myself. I settled beside Ramona’s desk and told her my story, and watched her type it all into the computer. Five minutes later I was out of there.

  The rest of the day went by in a blur. We spent the time working on the house, and the evening working on Aunt Inga’s, getting it ready for the Christmas Home Tour. Derek decorated the big tree with all of Aunt Inga’s vintage glass ornaments, while I decorated the small ones with the miniatures. They were an unpleasant reminder of Miss Mamie’s tea set, but there was nothing I could do about that really, so I pushed the thought aside and focused on what I had to do instead.

  The dining room mantel was next, and I laid it out like a little winter wonderland with drifts of white snow—pristine cotton batting sprinkled with a little glitter—arranged with Aunt Inga’s little group of pixies. I had found them with the ornaments: an old cardboard box that had the words “Norwegian Nisser” written on it in my aunt’s spidery but elegant hand. I had assumed they were simply more ornaments—until I opened the box and realized that they were little figurines instead. Vintage, about two inches tall, little red-cheeked, red-hatted pixies in the process of sledding and skating and skiing. I gave them cotton batting to ski and sled on, and a mirror for a skating pond, and arranged them all over the mantel. Nisser, it turned out, were creatures of Scandinavian folklore: protectors of the farm or homestead, particularly at night when the family was asleep. In Scandinavia, families would put out a bowl of porridge for their nisse at Christmas, just so he wouldn’t feel slighted and perhaps cause trouble.

  These nisser looked adorable, if I did say so myself. Quaint and quirky and cute.

  The Chinese lanterns hadn’t turned out quite as nicely as I had hoped, so I ended up spray painting them with quick-drying enamel in bright red, midnight blue, and green, and then doing the stenciling and application of glitter all over again. They just hadn’t looked shiny enough the first time. I had wanted them to look like enormous glass ornaments, and they just didn’t. Derek tried to tell me that I could just leave it until next year, but I wanted everything to be perfect for the home tour—if it wasn’t, Kate might not ask us to participate again—so I did it over while he rolled his eyes and turned on the TV.

  It was almost ten o’clock by the time I called Kate. I had halfway expected to get her voice mail, but she answered herself.

  “We’re ready for inspection,” I told her.

  There was a pause. “I’m not doing that until tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t mean for you to come over now. Just that we’re done.”

  “Good,” Kate said. “I’ll be by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Can I come with you?”

  “You’ll already be there,” Kate said.

  “To the other houses. You’re checking them all, right?”

  “Ye-e-e-es . . .” Kate said.

  “I’m not going to have a chance to see them on Sunday. And they’re private homes, so it’s not like I can knock on people’s doors and ask to see their decorations when the tour is over. But I’d like to see my competition.”

  “It’s not a competition,” Kate said.

  “I know it isn’t. But I don’t want to look like a poor relation by comparison. Your house looks gorgeous. If they’re all like that, I don’t think I’d want anyone to see mine.”

  Derek frowned at me over the back of the sofa. I gave him a friendly, don’t-worry-about-it sort of wave.

  “I’m sure it looks wonderful,” Kate said. “You have a style all your own, Avery.”
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br />   Which didn’t necessarily sound good if you ask me. But since my whining was really only an excuse to get what I wanted, I didn’t quibble. And it’s true anyway. I do have a style all my own. None of the others had nisser, I was quite sure. Or Chinese lanterns, either.

  “I’d just like to see them. I won’t have a chance to leave here on Sunday. I’ll be too busy with my own house. Can’t I come with you?”

  “Of course you can,” Kate said. “I’ll do your house first, and then we’ll stop by all the others. It’ll take a couple of hours.”

  “That’s fine. I’m not doing anything else tomorrow night. I’m going to Dab’s house earlier to learn how to make stained glass chandeliers, but other than that I’m free.”

  “I’ll be there at four,” Kate said.

  I told her I would, too, and we hung up. Derek was still frowning. “The house looks great, Avery. Don’t tell me you’re worried?”

  I walked around the sofa and curled up next to him. “Not really. I just wanted her to agree to take me with her.”

  He put an arm around me and pulled me in closer. “You’ve done a great job. Tomorrow I’ll hang the Chinese lanterns on the porch and we’ll be done. And people will love it.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I know so,” Derek said and turned his head to drop a kiss on the top of my head. “You have a great eye, Avery. And you’ve turned your aunt’s house into a work of art. It’s beautiful. The house itself, as well as the decorations. Everyone will love it.”

  I nodded, but didn’t answer, since I didn’t want to say, “I hope so,” again. Instead I turned my attention to the TV. Someone was blowing something up. “What’s going on?”

  “Unrest in the Middle East,” Derek said. “Or maybe it’s an action thriller.”

  “If you can’t tell the difference, do you think maybe it’s time to go to bed?”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” Derek said and turned the TV off.

  • • •

  Dab turned out to live up north of town, in a small cabin set on a big, wooded lot. The house was surrounded by tall fir trees, still green now in the middle of winter and sparkling with snow.

  The property consisted of the main house and a secondary building, a bit smaller—an old garage maybe, or just a shed of some sort. It had a tall stacked-stone chimney with smoke coming out the top. Since there was no sign of activity around the main house, I headed for the smaller one, my boots crunching across the snow.

  There was music coming from inside the workshop—Celtic folk, best as I could make out through the heavy door—and I had to knock a couple of times before anyone noticed. I was just about to knock again, for the third time, when the door opened.

  “Oh,” Dab said. “It’s you.”

  “I hope it’s not a bad time?” She had told me I could stop by this morning, but maybe she had changed her mind.

  “It’s fine.” She waved me inside. I stepped across the threshold into a big, open space with vaulted ceilings and a couple of skylights. Not at all what I had expected from the rustic appearance.

  I looked around. “Wow. This is great.”

  She looked around, too. “I like it. You want to take off your coat?”

  I did, as a matter of fact. It was warm inside, with the wood-burning stove going. It was built into a corner of the studio, with a fire roaring inside.

  In the middle of the room was a big worktable littered with stuff, and I wandered over to take a look while Dab hung my coat on a hook by the door.

  The table was full of scraps of glass, in lots of different colors, along with various tools for cutting—they looked a bit like X-Acto knives, with grips and sharp points—as well as irons for soldering. A half-finished panel of something was in the middle of the table: I could make out the shape of a peacock looking at us over its shoulder, tail halfway spread.

  “Wow. That’s gorgeous.”

  “Bathroom window,” Dab said.

  “For here?”

  She shook her head. “Victorian renovation in York.”

  “It’s beautiful.” And very intricate. I wasn’t at all sure I’d have the patience necessary to do this kind of work. Each peacock feather consisted of five or six or seven different pieces of glass, and there were a lot of feathers. “How long does it take you to make something like this?”

  “A while,” Dab said, which didn’t sound like nearly enough time. “A month or two?”

  I definitely wouldn’t have the patience for that.

  But I was here to learn, so I smiled. “I don’t think I’d be able to do anything that intricate.”

  “Oh no,” Dab said with unconscious arrogance, “you’d have to start with something much simpler. Normally I’d recommend starting with something flat, like a panel, but Derek says you want to learn how to make a lamp.”

  There was a tone to her voice when she said Derek’s name that gave me a moment’s pause, but when I looked at her, there was nothing at all to be seen on her face. It was bland and mostly expressionless.

  “I’d like to,” I said.

  She nodded. “Come over here.” She headed for one end of the table. I mentioned that it was big, but I don’t think I quite managed to convey just how big it was. Think something like a king-sized bed, stationed in the middle of the room, so she could have workstations all the way around.

  The workstation over on the short end had some pretty basic tools. A couple of sheets of glass in a couple of shades of white, off-white, and brown, with a glass cutter and two copies of the same paper pattern: one taped to the table and one cut out into pieces.

  Dab picked up the cutter and held it up. “This is an oil carbide glass cutter. It’s a little more expensive than the steel ones, but it does better work, and it lasts a long time.”

  I nodded.

  “Stained glass is harder than just plain window glass, and you’ll want to make sure you have the right tool for the job.”

  Of course.

  “You hold it like this.” She demonstrated. “It’s called a pencil grip cutter, because you hold it just like a pencil. They make fist grip cutters, too, that are better for longer cuts. But we’re not going to do anything too long today, so this will be fine.”

  I nodded.

  “Cutting glass isn’t difficult once you know what you’re doing.”

  Nor is anything else, I thought, but I didn’t say it.

  “We’re going to start with straight cuts.” She picked a piece of glass, one of the milky white ones, and positioned it on top of the pattern. “You’ll know you’ve applied the right amount of pressure when you hear a nice, clear zzzzzip! as you score.”

  She scored—ran the cutter across the glass—and I listened for the sound she’d described.

  “If you don’t use enough pressure, the break won’t follow the score line, and if you use too much, you’ll cause unnecessary wear and tear on the cutter as well as your hand and arm.”

  I nodded.

  “Make sure you score from edge to edge. All the way to the edge on each side. It won’t break right if you don’t.”

  I nodded.

  “Position the glass with the score line along the edge of the table,” she demonstrated as she spoke, “and with the biggest piece on the table and the smallest in your hand. Hold the big piece down with one hand, and fold the small piece down with the other.”

  She did it, and it snapped along the score line, nicely and cleanly.

  I applauded.

  “Depending on the size of the piece,” Dab said and put the pieces on the table, “sometimes it’s easier to use a pair of pliers to grip the smaller piece. You won’t have to worry about cutting yourself then. And the process for cutting big sheets of glass is different. But we’ll stick with this for now. Your turn.”

  All righty, then. I squared my shoulders and plunged in.

  It turned out to be less scary than it looked, but also not as easy as Dab had made it seem. I did cut myself on a sharp edge, slicing m
y fingertip open, but other than that, I did all right. It took a little practice to figure out just how hard to score the glass to get that nice zzzzzip! sound, but once I did, the rest was a piece of cake. I cut the pieces I needed for my—very basic—lampshade in just over an hour.

  “Very good,” Dab said, which was nice of her, even if the tone was a bit condescending. While I’d been cutting straight pieces over on my end of the table, she’d been cutting small curved pieces for her peacock tails. She tapped them out with the little steel ball that made up the eraser end of the steel cutter. Every so often, I stopped what I was doing to watch her, amazed.

  Next she introduced me to the grinder, and showed me how to smooth the rough edges of my pieces before wrapping them in foil. Finally, I got to solder the pieces together.

  “If we were making a curved shade,” Dab said, pointing to one that was hanging over in a corner, a confection of deep ruby reds, forest greens, and warm yellows and blues, “we’d have to use a form. Since you’re just making a paneled shade, you don’t have to.”

  I nodded, the tip of my tongue at the corner of my mouth as I tried not to resent that word “just.” Yes, it was just a paneled shade, which couldn’t hope to compare to the gorgeousness of Dab’s creation, but I was a rank beginner. Not like I’d be able to create something like that after a couple hours’ crash course. And I’d like to see her design and execute a bolt of hand-designed fabric. Preferably an intricate one.

  But I didn’t say anything. I just finished my paneled lampshade and took it and myself out of there. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Dab said.

  “That’s very kind of you. Could I come back sometime? I’d like to learn how to make curved shades, too.” Because honestly, I wasn’t sure the lamp I had made would quite cut it in the house we were renovating. It wasn’t bad—at least for a first attempt—and I was proud of it, but it didn’t look like anything a professional would make. Compared to the piece of art in the corner, it made a pitiful showing indeed. In fact, compared to what I could produce in my own field of expertise, it looked pitiful as well.

  “Of course,” Dab said graciously enough. It was probably just my imagination that infused the two words with less warmth than she wanted me to hear.