Appraisal for Murder (25 page)

Roland looked up as the door chimed, and a quick frown creased his brow and left as he nodded at me. I nodded back. “I’m not here to bug Ramona.”

I started to say no, but changed my mind. Maybe I didn’t want my name showing up on the Police Department caller ID. “If you don’t mind.”

He walked about a dozen feet away and began to straighten a table of discounted goods.

Morehouse took about five minutes to get on the line. I figured he was hoping I’d go away. Once I began to say where I had seen a man I assumed was Paul Hammer he interrupted me and got off the phone. Since I was in the Purple Cow, I stayed on the phone for the several minutes he was gone; otherwise I would have hung up. If he didn’t want to hear about someone driving with a suspended license did I really care?
Of course you care. The next car he hits could be Aunt Madge's.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Jolie. I wanted to get someone over to the Sandpiper right away.”

Gulp.
“No problem,” I said. “I guess I don’t know anything more…”

I embellished a bit, telling him I was driving by Elsie’s house and saw him stumble as he got into the truck, which got my attention. I could almost see him roll his eyes. There was a slight pause. “I’d hate to think you were sticking your nose someplace it didn’t belong.”

“I’m not spying on Elsie, if that’s what you mean. You can ask Harry if he just gave me a house to appraise a block from the Hammer’s.” He either believed me or was tired of me, because he thanked me and hung up with his usual style, which meant no goodbye.

When I turned to thank Roland for the use of his phone he was only about three feet from me, and I jumped. “Sorry,” he said. “I wanted to tell you that you did a good thing. Paul Hammer is one evil man.”

“I don’t really know him, just heard he had a lot of DUIs and lost his license.”

“That’s not the half of it.” He walked behind the counter and put the phone back on a shelf under the cash register. “My wife and I went to high school with Elsie and Paul. He gets more like his old man every year.” Seeing the question on my face, he added, “He skipped a lot of school and stuff like that, but nothing more. But the older he gets the more he drinks. My wife thinks maybe he hits Elsie sometimes.”

“Good God.” Though I did not consider my life to be protected from the real world (especially in the last few weeks), I had never actually met someone who beat his wife.
Not that you know of.

“So, does Elsie not have anywhere else to go…?”

“She’s had offers.” He glanced around. “I shouldn’t really say, but my wife works in the ER. I know they talked to her a couple times when she came in.” He shrugged. “Nancy, my wife, says Elsie is always emphatic that she fell or something.”

I thought about how stressed Elsie looked the day Lester and I barged in on her. Sounded as if Paul Hammer was a lot more trouble than a flat tire would indicate. I shook my head slightly. “I hope I didn’t buy her more trouble.”

Roland looked puzzled for a minute, then caught on. “Oh, if he’s pi.. irritated if he gets arrested.” He thought for a moment. “I’ll ask Nancy to give her a call. Maybe invite Elsie out for supper.”

A customer came in, and I left. I knew I did the right thing, but if it meant Elsie got a black eye, or worse, it would be awful.

I was still feeling heartsick about Elsie’s situation as I pulled into the driveway of the Cape Cod house on the west edge of town, facing the beach. I concentrated on an attitude adjustment as I stepped out of the car, and promptly stumbled on a child-size green football. “Sorry,” a woman called from the back doorway, which faced the driveway. “I didn’t quite get finished picking up the yard.”

I glanced around at the toys that littered it, and heard shouts of play from the front. “It’s okay,” I said, limping forward. “We really only look at the house itself, not stuff that’s around.”

She hovered by me until I found a polite way to tell her she was driving me nuts. The house had a lived-in look that spoke of an active family rather than poor housekeeping or neglect. As I was measuring the dining room a naked boy of about two ran through, followed by an older sister, clutching a diaper. “Come on, Randy,” was all she said, and I sensed this was a regular routine.

Though it was a difficult house to measure, I didn’t mind, and even found myself relaxing. By the time I left it was hard not to laugh at Randy as he ran out the back door, again buck naked. “Don’t worry, he’ll be in real soon, it’s cold,” the mom said as she reached for a hooded sweatshirt hanging on a hook and stepped into the yard after me.

When Lester appeared at the Register of Deeds Office as I researched for comps, I remembered he probably looked for me on the days he knew I was appraising one of his sales. Crafty guy.

“It’s Scoobie, and the police asked him to help with some information, that’s all.” I forced myself to think about the information I was writing rather than my desire to scream at Lester.

He pushed up the sleeve of his suit so he could reach into his pocket for a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. “How do you know that?”

“You know what they say about that little bird.” The weak smile I gave him was the best I could do. Before he could ask anything else I said, “I hear you have a cash sale coming up.”

“Yeah, I love those. Get my commission really fast.” He blew his nose again, emitting a loud, squeaky sound.

Such a gentleman.

“Harry tells me I can do the appraisal tomorrow.” I shut the ledger I was looking in and closed my own notebook.

“Yeah, but not until late afternoon. It’s vacant, and it’s supposed to rain. The buyer wants you to see if any water seeps in anywhere.”

I DROVE AROUND FOR ANOTHER half hour and then parked and headed for the boardwalk. I had no idea where Scoobie’s “permanent halfway house” was on F Street, and probably wouldn’t have gone there anyway. After walking up and down the boardwalk for an hour and peering into Java Jolt twice, I gave up and headed back to the Purple Cow, my local news source.

This time I actually liked what was on the white board. “The greatest part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not on our circumstances.” Martha Washington.

The feathers on the top of her brown felt hat looked as if they would fall off as she tilted her head back, seemingly deep in thought. “Oh, maybe an hour ago.”

She nodded. “He gets upset sometimes.” She leaned closer. “I think the pot used to calm him down, but he swore off it. I told him that was good. It’s supposed to lower a man’s sperm count, you know.”

Because Roland wasn’t around, I didn’t buy anything. I gathered he hadn’t mentioned my phone call to Morehouse, or Ramona would have asked me about it. She promised to tell Scoobie I was looking for him, and I headed back to Aunt Madge’s.

Her car was gone, but Scoobie sat on the porch, collar of his pea jacket up around his ears, writing in his steno pad. The late afternoon temperature had fallen to about forty degrees, and he was glad to be invited in for a cup of tea.

“I’ve been writing. Want to read it?” I turned up the kettle and sat next to him at the kitchen table.

You ask

What is this

That you call soul?

It is the stuff

That makes me whole

Not just me

No

But rather

Uniquely me

And it is not for sale

It used to be

“I’m not, but I reminded myself I can’t do anything about it.” He kept studying the poem, and then said, “Whatever happened to that guy from the boardwalk?”

I thought Scoobie knew this, and decided he was just checking up on my safety. “Robby’ll be my ex-husband eventually. He…well, you know he flushed a lot of money down the toilets that masquerade as slot machines at the Atlantic City casinos. I guess he borrowed money from the wrong people.”

EVEN THOUGH THE APPRAISAL was not until afternoon I was up early. I’d been thinking about Elsie Hammer as I fell asleep, and my sleep was fitful. When I got downstairs, Mister Rogers was running through the great room, ears flapping behind him, making circles around the couch. I let him into the back yard and looked at Miss Piggy, who only yawned.

As I walked into the kitchen area I saw the cause of his consternation. A mound of chewed plastic, formerly a bowl, sat in the middle of the floor. Aunt Madge hadn’t been kidding about their affinity for prunes. I made Miss Piggy get up and was ushering her out the door when Aunt Madge came out of her bedroom, dressed for the day. I held up the remains of the bowl.

“Drat. I must not have shut the door to the pantry completely.” She took the bowl and threw it in the trash and began to make coffee, muttering to herself about the trouble the dogs caused.

I pulled out two mugs for us and began to thumb through the paper. Yesterday’s paper had reported on the judge’s finding, and today’s had a caustic editorial about how the prosecuting attorney had based the case against Michael on “pretty flimsy” evidence. It urged the police to solve the murder quickly, for the sake of the family and the tourist trade. At least they had put family before tourism.

“I’m going back to Ruth’s today, probably for the last time. Can you help?” Aunt Madge asked. When I hesitated, Aunt Madge added, “Michael won’t be there. He’s leaving for DC this morning.”

“I guess he told you I called him arrogant, huh?”

“Not in so many words, but he didn’t ask where you were, and all Larry said was that they had run into you at the police station.” She took out the muffin batter she had stored in the freezer. “He’s not an easy man to be with, I suppose.”

“I’m not always eggs-over-easy either.” I thought about it for a moment. “I don’t have any business falling for anybody now. It hasn’t even been two months.”

“It’s not a matter of time, just who the person is.” She glanced at me. “You’ll know if it’s right.”

“Bottom line is, I’ll go,” I told her, “But I have to leave by three to do an appraisal.”

Before we left an hour later I checked the small backyard for signs that the dogs had done their business. From the look of the small mulched flower bed and bricked walkway, they had done a month's worth. I let them in, and they waited patiently on a scatter rug while I wiped their paws.

Aunt Madge and I took separate cars, since I was going to work after we helped at the Riordans'. It looked as if it would drizzle or rain lightly all day. I was glad I’d found my sturdy shoes, as any work I did outside the house I was appraising would involve sandy muck.

AUNT MADGE HADN’T MENTIONED that Larry Riordan would be at the house, but I found him much easier to be around than his son. Honey was another matter. She followed me from room to room as I checked in closets and drawers for anything that looked like a family heirloom or memento Michael might like to keep. He was going to keep these and a few pieces of furniture and have an estate sale company take away the rest of the house’s contents.

I thought I’d gotten away from Honey when she went downstairs to have coffee, but I heard her and Larry coming up the stairs. I had spread much of the costume jewelry on the bed, trying to decide what to donate to the Church Thrift Store and what to put in a box for the sale, and was sorry she was going to see it all. Surely she would want something.

Larry had a forlorn look about him, and I recalled that Mrs. Murphy had said she thought he and Ruth might have gotten back together if he hadn’t met Honey when he did. I tried to be charitable, remembering that he had lived in this house for many years and it must be hard to see it being picked through and packed.