Death at a Fixer-Upper (20 page)

I parked the bus on Eleventh Street opposite where I knew the gate to be. Merrit must have been watching for me, because she emerged from the shrubbery wearing a dark green slicker, her hair tucked under a baseball cap.

I leaned over and opened the passenger door for her. She climbed in, removing the hat and raincoat and rolling them into a bundle she stashed at her feet.

“Sorry to bring in all this water,” she said, blotting the cloth seatback with her sleeve.

“Don't worry about it.”

“You don't want mildew getting a foothold. It's the devil to get rid of.”

“That's for sure.”

She pressed her hands in her lap. “I shouldn't have bothered you, this being a workday and all.”

“No worries. I'm between clients at the moment.” Since they were dead, mostly. I reclined against the seatback as much as German engineering would permit and waited.

Finally she said, “I don't know why I'm telling you this.”

Since I didn't know, either, I shut up.

“Eddie didn't get out much,” she went on. “Because of his health.”

“Not even to the doctor's?”

She shook her head. “He came to the house. Dr. Allenson. He and Eddie went back a long time. He didn't normally do house calls, but for Eddie he made an exception. Twice a month, though, Eddie played poker over at the Moose Lodge. The second and fourth Fridays of the month, regular as clockwork. He'd put up a fuss every time and tell me he was too tired, that he had better things to do than hang out with a bunch of old farts who cheated at cards. I always made him go. I didn't want his world getting any smaller, if that makes sense.”

“I think you were wise.”

“And he enjoyed himself. Some of these fellows he'd known thirty years or more.” She fell silent for a moment. Beads of condensation ran down the inside of the window glass and seeped under the rubber seal. “It was a Friday.”

“When—”

“That last day. The day he died. I dropped him off at the lodge right after dinner. He gave me money to take Lily to the movies and get some popcorn. A buddy of his, fellow that ran the appliance store south of town until he retired, was always the one to run him home. Me and Lily could make an evening of it, maybe stop for ice cream later. Eddie was sweet that way.”

Her voice shook a little and she seemed to lose her momentum. Her left hand began to tremble, and she pinned it down with her right, breathing as though all the oxygen had been sucked out of the bus. “You gotta swear this is just between us.”

“Maybe you shouldn't tell me.”

“I have to,” she said. “I have to tell someone. There's no one that's close to me now. You've been kind. I thought—you'd understand.”

I thought I did. A burden carried alone can sometimes crush us under its weight. “All right,” I said.

She looked into my face and seemed reassured of my sincerity. “It was close to ten when we got in,” she said. “Eddie wasn't in his room. I figured he was still whooping it up with his poker buddies, so I put Lily to bed and waited up for him with a cup of tea. After a time, I started to feel a little funny about his being out so late. It wasn't like him. I took another look in his bedroom. His things were on the dresser. His wallet and his pills. Never went anywhere without them in his pocket. I knew then something was wrong.” She licked her dry lips. “I—I don't know what made me check the front of the house. Years ago he'd had a workman in to install that door in the hall and board up some of the windows. Said those big rooms were drafty and it saved him on heating. He had no cause to be there. But that's where I found him.”

“Dead.”

“On the stairs. I thought maybe I could revive him. But when I touched his skin it was cold.”

“Hold on. The lawyer told me he died in his bed.”

Her lips moved, and I leaned closer. “What?”

“I put him there,” she whispered. “While Lily slept. I moved him to his bed and tucked him in. He wasn't a big man, but it took all my strength. Then I went to bed. In the morning I called Dr. Allenson and told him Eddie'd died in his sleep.”

I stared at her. “I don't understand. Why? Why would you do that?”

“Because of the flowers. There was pots of roses on the stairs. Two of them, red and white hybrid teas. One was at the landing. The other one was up at the top.”

The blood went cold in my veins. She was watching me, her eyes opaque.

“You think he was murdered,” I said flatly.

“It wouldn't take much.”

“But you didn't tell anyone?” I was having trouble wrapping my head around this.

She shook her head stubbornly.

I tried a different tact. “How would someone get inside?”

“Not through the door. That'd been nailed shut for years. I don't know how, exactly. But it must have been so, to place the roses where they were.”

With a start, I remembered waiting for Richard as he checked the foundation and spotting the old ladder sticking out from a tangle of vines. It hadn't meant anything to me at the time. “And then?”

“And then ring the bell. It still worked, and it was plenty loud. It would have brought Eddie sure enough. And then he'd see the flowers. He'd have to look at them close. He was just that way. Couldn't do nothing else.”

“And that killed him.” I clutched my head. “I'm not saying you're wrong about this. I just don't see why anyone would go to the trouble. Unless—” I hesitated. “The engagement. Who knew about it?”

“His lawyer. Eddie said he was going to change his will. To take care of us. His lawyer was against it, but they'd fixed up a time the following week.”

“Anyone else?”

She shrugged. “He didn't have a lot of ties. His doctor. His lodge buddies. No family around him. Just me and Lily.” Her eyes blazed. “He could do as he liked. He didn't have to answer to nobody.”

“Merrit, you really should have called the police.”

The defiance went out of her, leaving her shrunken and small. The shaking had started again, affecting her wrists and arms now. She pressed her body into the seat. “I couldn't do that.”

“Why not? They could have investigated. Maybe gotten some fingerprints off the flowerpots. Do you still have them?”

She shook her head. “I moved the flowers to the greenhouse. After the funeral, I planted them in the rose garden. I threw away the pots.”

I groaned. “For God's sake.”

“You don't understand.”

“Help me.”

“I couldn't risk losing her.”

“Who?” But of course I knew.

“Not—not again.” She was shaking all over now. I thought back to what Lester Duschane had told me.

“Because of your husband. What happened.”

She nodded.

“But that was an accident.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I killed him.”

My mind went numb.

“I didn't mean to, but I did. I—” Her hand suddenly shot out and clasped my wrist. Her fingers were ice cold. “I can't lose Lily. She's everything. My little girl. They would take her if they knew.”

“Tell me.”

“It's better I don't.”

“Please.”

For a minute I thought I'd lost her; her movements were sudden and frantic, like an animal caught in a snare. Gradually her breathing evened out.

“I married him for better or worse,” she said dully. “It wasn't his fault. He was a good man underneath, but life kept knocking him down. He couldn't find work. We lost our house and our car. We moved down here and he was working again, so better times were coming. But he was drinking, too.”

I nodded. It happens.

She continued in the same dull monotone. “First it was a couple of beers with the guys after his shift. Pretty soon he was a regular at the bars, one of the hard drinkers. He'd come home late, after Lily was in bed. A couple of times he didn't make it home till morning. His boss caught on and told him to shape up or he'd be out of a job. I tried to talk him into getting some help.”

I took a guess. “He blamed you. Then he hit you.”

“Not at first,” she said. “But later, yes. I couldn't do nothing right. But he kept his job, and I thought, I can handle this. And I did handle it.”

Handle it? I looked at her incredulously. “He broke your arm, for Christ's sake. A couple of ribs.”

“He kept his job,” she repeated. “He said he was going to get treatment. Maybe go to AA. Set things right.” She fell silent again.

“Tell me what happened that day.”

She shook her head.

“He came home drunk, is that it?”

She held up a hand in protest. “I can't—”

“You thought this time he would kill you.”

She drew a trembling breath and said something so softly, I didn't catch all of it.

“Flowers? He hurt the flowers?”

Her eyes met mine in mute appeal, then slid away. Suddenly I was sick at heart. “He went after Lily.”

“The juice spilled,” she whispered. “It was in her lunch and it hit the floor when he knocked her down and the juice box broke open and stained the carpet. She didn't do nothing but cross his path. I screamed at him to stop but he pushed me aside. I knew something awful was about to happen. I'd seen him with that look on his face before.” Her fingertips brushed her forearm, her eyes turning inward. A bead of sweat coated her upper lip. “She was five years old. My baby. I was rolling out dough for sugar cookies. We were going to decorate them later, me and Lily. The rolling pin was there in my hand. I don't remember hitting him but the next minute he was laid out on the floor. I thought he was out cold. I hustled Lily off to the bus stop and told her everything was fine.”

“Go on.”

“When I got back to the apartment, I realized he was dead. The police were on their way. The lady next door had called the cops. I washed the rolling pin and put it in the back of the drawer. And I told them he'd fallen and hit his head. They could smell the booze on him. The officer had me write out a statement. There were never any charges filed. That doesn't mean there won't be. I talk to them about Eddie, that'll open everything up again. I can't take that chance.”

“Merrit.”

She looked at me from a long distance away, then slowly her eyes came back into focus. “You're going to tell me I was justified. Battered-woman defense. The hard truth of it is I have a daughter whose mother killed her dad. Help me live with that, if you can.”

“Actually, there's something else. My, uh, source told me Boyd died from hitting something sharp, made of metal. Like the corner of a stove. Not a rolling pin.”

“You're lying to me.” She spat the words out.

“I'm not. You never saw the autopsy report?”

“Why? I knew what had happened.” Her lip trembled. “I thought I knew.”

In a sudden jolt of intuition, I understood the connection we shared, the lonely years of self-imposed isolation. “You're really hard on yourself, you know that?”

“I have to do right by my girl.”

“You've done right. She adores you.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. “She told you that?”

I thought of Lily. Tough, resilient, ethereal, with her love of flowers and her grasp of the truth that went beyond her years. Then I flashed on the drawing taped to the refrigerator—a riot of flowers and greenery, with the words “TO MAMA” written in crayon across the bottom.

“Yeah,” I said. “She told me.”

At one o'clock, I entered the offices of Calville Title and Escrow, trying to shake off the emotionally charged remnants of my interview with Merrit. Scenes like that always left me discomfited, one of the reasons I'd never take up work as a therapist. The other being that I didn't really like people all that much.

Becky was there, wearing a bright smile. My heart sank.

“Come on back,” she said.

She led me to a small conference room, and we seated ourselves around an oblong of Formica tabletop. A second woman, carrying what looked like a ream of paper, joined us there; she was tall and ungainly, in an ill-fitting skirt and jacket. She dropped the documents on the table and the windows rattled in their frames.

“Sam?” she said. “Karla Davenport, your escrow officer. I just have a few things for you to sign.” She giggled at her little joke. To Becky she said, “I put your loan charges right on top in case you need to skedaddle.”

Becky picked up the top sheet and scanned it idly, humming a little tune in her throat. I felt a wave of nausea. Was I really going to go through with this?

The humming stopped. Becky's fixed smile faded.

“What's this shit?” she snapped.

Karla faltered at her tone. “What?”

“These charges.” Becky stabbed a finger at the paperwork, nearly puncturing it with a lacquered fingernail. “This one. And this. Three hundred bucks for document collation? A trained squirrel could do that. These are bullshit fees.”

“You said they were fine on Friday,” Karla said, a little defensively I thought. “Sent down and approved by your corporate office.”

“Fuck corporate,” Becky said. “Give me a pen. She slashed her way through the page with reckless abandon.

I let out a whoop of relief. “You're back,” I told her.

“Was I gone?” She smiled, a real smile this time, and handed me the pen. “You ready to buy this house or what?”

I left the title company an hour later with a cramp in my right hand and my stomach somewhere around my shoes. This time tomorrow, Becky'd said, I'd be a homeowner.

My plan was to head home and box up the last of our stuff. Instead, I drove to what would soon be Max's and my new home. And Stacy's, I reminded myself, but even that couldn't cast a pall over my sense of achievement.

The house on Fickle seemed to welcome me home. I loved everything about it, from its square and homely outline to the overgrown shrubbery and knee-high grass. Did we own a lawnmower? Pruning shears? I was going to have to start thinking about all that stuff. I pictured myself pushing a little reel mower around the yard. Then I pictured Max doing the same thing. Better. I glanced at my watch. Quarter to three.

I fired up the VW and drove to the unpretentious little building that housed the Arlinda Public Library, backing the van into a parking spot behind the building so that I had a good view of the front door. I was beginning to have second thoughts about Max's meeting with his father. What if Wayne tried to kidnap him? The man was a proven bigamist, a self-confessed felony abettor and car thief, and one of the prime suspects in a murder investigation. My guess was he also had stacks and stacks of unpaid library fines.

Max rode up on his bike at three-fifteen. He locked it to the rack provided, then hoisted his backpack on his shoulders and disappeared through the swinging doors. There'd been no sign of Wayne, but I assumed he was already inside, probably hatching a plot to steal the library's
Grovedale Dispatch.
All I could do was wait.

Twenty minutes passed. I squirmed restlessly in the driver's seat. What was going on in there?

The passenger door opened and Max climbed in. “I figured you'd be here,” he said.

“Jeez! You startled me. I didn't see you come out the front door.”

“Took the back.” He gave me his crooked smile. It sat differently on his face than I was accustomed to. He'd done some fast growing up over the last couple of days.

“Did you—was he—”

“He was there. We talked.”

“Are you going to see him again?”

“Probably.” He fiddled with the glove-box knob. “His nose looked funny.”

I cleared my throat. “Allergies, most likely.”

“You still want me to head to Peter's?”

“Yes.”

“I could help you, you know.”

“I know you could. Thank you.”

“You'll call me if you need me?”

“Of course.” I smiled faintly. Our roles were suddenly reversed.

Without warning, he wrapped me in a tight hug, squeezing hard. “I love you,” he said.

“You, too.”

I watched him go, striding across the parking lot with his shoulders squared. Realization struck that he wasn't my little boy any longer.

He unlocked his bike and gave me a wave before pedaling off. I waved back. Then, I confess it, I had myself a good little cry.