Plaster and Poison (14 page)

“And here’s her car,” I added.
Melissa nodded. “Of course.”
Derek pulled the truck to a stop and got out, and she turned to him. “Derek. I’m so sorry.”
He nodded, face grim. “Got the key?”
“Right here.” She lifted it. “We were waiting for you.”
“I’m here now.” He headed for the door. “Let’s do it.”
Melissa inserted the key in the door and turned it. I held my breath as Derek reached out and turned the knob. The door opened soundlessly, and I was grateful. The atmosphere at Clovercroft was creepy enough without doors opening with an eerie shriek. And it wasn’t just the knowledge that Bea was missing and might be inside. Whether it was the fact that I knew that this place was an old burial ground, hallowed to the Native Americans, or because there’s just something depressing about a construction zone where no one is constructing anything, I’m not sure, but the truth is, I was spooked. The sky was bright blue and the air was crisp, but the sun was hidden behind the bulk of dark pines, and they cast a shadow over the storefront where we were standing. I shivered.
“Beatrice?” Derek stepped through the open door. “Are you here?”

12

“I think it’s time we call Wayne,” Derek said ten minutes later.
We had ascertained that Beatrice was not in the office, alive or dead, and that there were no obvious clues to where she’d gone. Everything looked normal. There was no sign of a struggle or anything to indicate that she hadn’t left under her own steam, except for the fact that her cell phone was still on the desk. And as it was half hidden under a stack of financial statements, things she must have been working on in the afternoon yesterday, it was conceivable she might have forgotten to take it with her when she left, quite possibly of her own volition.
A locked door at the very back of the office led upstairs to what Melissa called the model home.
“There are doors that can be locked on either end of the stairway,” Melissa explained, demonstrating. “This door down here would be locked from the office, while the one up there would be locked and bolted from the apartment. That way, if the owner of the storefront doesn’t need an attached apartment, he or she can rent it to someone else but not have to worry about the tenant getting into the office space. There’s a separate stairway to the apartment with an entrance from outside.”
“And the tenant can lock the door upstairs and not worry about the landlord or anyone from the office or store coming upstairs.” I nodded. It was smart.
“Exactly.” Melissa beamed at me, as if I were a slow student unexpectedly coming up with the right answer to a tricky question.
“Can we look upstairs?” Cora asked.
Melissa hesitated. “I’m afraid I don’t have the key to the apartment on me. I gave it to someone a few weeks . . . I mean, a few
days
ago, and I haven’t gotten it back yet.”
I looked at her. She sounded like she was hiding something. “It wasn’t Steve, was it? ”
“Who?” This time she sounded perfectly sincere, and sincerely baffled.
“Never mind,” I said.
“Steve is Beatrice’s husband,” Cora added.
“Oh. No.” Melissa shook her head. “This wasn’t Steve. Just a . . . um . . . maintenance man. Someone from the crew at Devon Highlands. The apartment needed some upkeep.”
She turned to Cora. “I’m sorry I can’t oblige you, Cora. If I can get the key back today, I’ll let you know, and you can come back out and look around all you want. Although Beatrice would have had no reason to go upstairs, you know. And she wouldn’t have had a key to get through the door up there, either, for that matter. But we can go to the top of the stairs, if you’d like, and I’ll show you that the door is locked and bolted on the other side.”
She undid the bolt on the downstairs door. As the two of them headed up, Derek pulled out his phone. “I think it’s time we call Wayne.”
“It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet,” I pointed out. “Don’t you have to wait twenty-four hours before you can file a missing-person report? ”
“Officially, maybe. But Wayne’s been relegated to traffic duty, so I’m sure he’d like something more exciting to do than waving cars around for old Mr. Mosley’s funeral.” He dialed. I waited while he connected with Wayne and relayed the information.
“He’s on his way,” he said a minute later, tucking the phone in his pocket just as Cora and Melissa came back into the office. “Wayne,” he added, in explanation. “It shouldn’t take him more than fifteen minutes to get here. Anything upstairs?”
Cora shook her head. “Just a locked door. We knocked, and there was no answer.”
“There wouldn’t be,” Melissa added. “It’s unoccupied. Clovercroft isn’t zoned for occupation yet.”
“I’ll talk to Wayne about getting the door open when he gets here. He’ll probably have a universal key, or something. Or a battering ram.” Derek turned to me. “Do you want to take the truck back to town, Avery? Your mom and Noel must be awake by now.”
“I don’t know . . .” I said, glancing at Cora. And, I must admit, at Melissa. “Don’t you want me to stay? ”
“Of course I want you to stay. I always want you to stay. But there’s nothing you can do here. And I know you’re eager to see your mom.”
I nodded, reluctantly.
“We’ll keep you up to date,” Cora assured me. “I understand. Your mother came all the way here from California; you shouldn’t miss out on the opportunity to spend time with her. If we find Beatrice, or find anything to tell us where she is, Derek will let you know.”
I took a breath. “OK. You convinced me, plus there’s nothing I can do here anyway. I just don’t want you to feel like I’m abandoning you.”
“Never,” Derek said with a grin. Cora shook her head. “C’mon, Tink. I’ll walk you out to the truck.”
He guided me toward the door to the outside, pausing only long enough for me to peck Cora’s cheek. Once we got out into the crisp winter air, though, he stopped.
“What?” I said, missing the feeling of his arm around my shoulders.
“Didn’t Melissa say there was an outside entrance to the model home? Wonder where it is? ”
“Probably there.” I pointed to a door on the other side of the storefront. “It’s locked, though. I checked earlier.”
“Huh.” He went over anyway and shook the knob. It didn’t open for him, either.
“Guess we’ll just have to wait until Melissa gets the key back from whoever she gave it to.”
“Guess so. Unless Wayne can get it open.” He turned toward the truck again, but before he got there, he stopped. “What’s that? ”
“What?” I examined the ground in front of his feet. There was a glimpse of something shiny among the snow and dirt.
Derek bent to pick it up. “Cufflink,” he said after a brief inspection. “With
RS
engraved on it. Ray Stenham, I guess. Or Randy. Not a clue at all. They’ve probably been in and out of here a million times, at least. One of ’em must have lost it sometime.”
He stuffed it in his pocket. “Let’s get you back to town, so you can see your mom.”
When we got to the truck, he turned to me, boxing me in on both sides with his arms, hands braced against the hood and eyes serious. “Avery.”
I nodded, my heart in my throat, the way it always is when I’m close to him.
“You’ll drive carefully, right? ” His eyes were deep blue, looking into mine.
I swallowed and nodded. “How will you get home? ” “I’ll get a ride with Cora. Or drive Beatrice’s car back to town, if Wayne thinks it’s OK.”
“You have a key to that? ”
He grinned. “No, but I have a screwdriver.”
I rolled my eyes. “The fruits of a misspent youth.”
“Something like that.” He leaned in. I closed my eyes. And when his mouth closed over mine, I lifted my arms and wound them around his neck and returned the kiss for a moment.
“Here, let me help you in.” He opened the truck door for me and boosted me inside, a hand lingering for a second on my hip. “Drive carefully, Tinkerbell.”
“You, too,” I said, turning in the seat to face him again. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Never.” He grinned and leaned in for another quick kiss, a light brush of his lips over mine. “I’ll see you later.”
I nodded. My breath was gone.
Derek hotfooted it back into the building after closing my door, and I put the truck into reverse and backed out of the parking space. When I looked back at the windows of the storefront, I could see a shadow standing there looking out. Just in case it was Cora or Derek, I waved. The shadow didn’t wave back, so it was probably just Melissa.

Mom and Noel were up and dressed and drinking coffee with Kate when I got to the Waterfield Inn. Mom’s face was made up and her hair fluffed out, and Noel’s bald head looked buffed and shiny. They both greeted me with big smiles.
“Morning, Avery!”
“Hi.” I smiled back. “Did you sleep well? ”
“Oh, yes. Wonderfully comfy beds.” Mom grinned. “Sorry you had to wait for us.”
“It’s no problem. I got French toast when I was here earlier, and then Derek and I had something to do.”
My voice or face must have changed on that last sentence, because Mom looked at me with concern.
“Where did you go?” Kate wanted to know, mirroring my mother’s look.
“Out to Clovercroft. It’s one of the Stenhams’ construction sites,” I explained for Mom and Noel’s benefit. “The Stenhams hired Beatrice to handle things in the office for them after their other accountant was killed in a hit-and-run accident last month, and she’s been working out there for the past few weeks. Crunching numbers.”
“So you went to see Beatrice? ”
I shook my head. “I wish. We went to look for Beatrice. She didn’t come home last night. Her car is parked in the lot out there, and the office was locked up nice and tight with her cell phone inside, but Bea is nowhere to be found.”
“Oh, no,” Mom said, paling. “That’s horrible.”
“It’s a little worrisome, yes. We’re hoping that it’s something simple, like Steve finally realized she was gone and drove up from Boston to beg her to come back to him, and now they’re shacked up in a motel somewhere. Cora called Alice—that’s Bea’s sister—and Alice is going to go to Steve and Bea’s house in Boston to see if she’s there. If she isn’t, I guess Alice will track down Steve. He has a right to know that his wife is missing, even if she left him. Maybe that’ll finally make him sit up and take notice.” I rolled my eyes.
A long moment followed while the mental lightbulb flickered on over my head.
“You don’t think that’s what’s going on, do you? ” Kate said. “She faked her own disappearance to see if that will bring him up here, when just leaving him didn’t? ”
Mom and Noel turned to me, too, waiting to hear what I’d say.
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “I didn’t think about it until just now. But it makes sense, in a twisted sort of way.”
The others nodded encouragement.
“You told me her husband’s been ignoring her,” Kate said, “ever since he got this fabulous job that keeps him away from home all the time, right? She probably tried to get him to stay home more. Cooked great meals, maybe offered sex, or said she wanted to get pregnant and needed to practice a lot . . .”
I nodded. “When that didn’t work, she left him, hoping he’d come to his senses when he realized he missed her. But it’s been weeks, and he hasn’t taken the time to drive the two hours from Boston to talk to her, and in the meantime, she’s been bunking in Cora and Dr. Ben’s guest bedroom, when she was used to having her own nice house.”
“And she’s been here in sleepy Waterfield, when she’s been usedto the hustle and bustle of Boston,” Kate reminded me. “She’s been working for a pittance and having to deal with Melissa and the Stenhams on top of it, when she’s been used to being a lady of leisure. I wouldn’t blame her for getting a little desperate.”
“And she wouldn’t have told anyone what she was planning,” Mom added, “because the whole idea is to get her husband so worked up that he’ll finally realize he might have lost her. And to do that, no one else can be in on the deception. Everyone has to think she’s really missing.”
“So where would she be? ” Kate asked.
I shrugged. “If that’s really what happened, she could be anywhere. She grew up in Waterfield. I’m sure she has friends here she could stay with. And she has money. Lots of money. She could have taken a cab to Portland and be staying at the Harbor Hotel, watching HGTV and eating Cordon Bleu cuisine from room service.”
“That’s easy to check, anyway,” Noel said. “Not for us, but for the police. Or her husband. All they have to do is monitor for activity on her credit and debit cards. I assume she took her purse with her? ”
“I assume she did, too,” I said, “since I didn’t see it anywhere. Not in the office and not in her car. That doesn’t mean anything, though. If someone took her, they could equally well have taken her purse. And left the cell phone, not realizing it was on the desk underneath the papers.”
“That’s true,” Kate said. “But at least this is another possible avenue to explore. It’ll give Cora something to do today, instead of just sitting at home wringing her hands. She can contact all of Beatrice’s old friends and see if they know where she is, or whether she mentioned anything to any of them.”
I nodded. “I’m going to call Derek and suggest it. And also see what Wayne had to say. He was on his way out to Clovercroft when I left. Derek decided to wait for him and get a ride back with Cora. They may still be there.” I pulled out my phone.
“How did you get into the office?” Kate wanted to know. “Was it unlocked? ”
I shook my head, listening to the ringing on the other end of the line. “Locked up nice and tight. Derek called Melissa. She came out and opened it up.”
“That was nice of her,” Kate said blandly.
I shrugged. “Hey, it’s me,” I said into the phone.
“Hi, Tink.” Derek sounded tired.
“Nothing new? ” I asked, sympathetically.
“Unfortunately not. We’re back at the house. Wayne’s here, too, but there’s nothing he can do until tonight. He’s going to put out an unofficial APB, but until Bea has been gone for twenty-four hours, we can’t file a missing-person report. And he warned us that a twenty-eight-year-old woman who doesn’t come home from work, after she has left her husband and is bunking with her parents two hours away from where she lives, isn’t going to be a high priority. As we’ve talked about ourselves, there are a lot of things that could be going on, and none of them criminal.”
“I’ve got another one for you,” I said, running through the scenario I’d just discussed with Mom, Kate, and Noel. “You know her better than me. Does this sound like something she’d do? ”
“I wouldn’t have thought so,” Derek said, “but we’re not that close. I get along well with both her and Alice, but we’ve never spent much time together. We were all adults when Dad and Cora got married, and Beatrice was already away at college by then. It’s more a question for Cora or Alice, I think.”
“Can you ask? ”
“Sure I can. But I don’t want to right now. Cora is too upset. I’ll broach the subject a little later.”
“It’ll be something for her to do,” I said, “something to make her feel like she’s not just sitting there waiting. She can contact everyone Beatrice knows, friends from school, anyone she’s met since, and especially anyone she’s had contact with since she got back to Waterfield, and see if they know anything.”
“I’ll suggest it. It’s not a bad idea in any case, whether Beatrice left of her own free will or not. But I may wait to make that other suggestion. Maybe I’ll talk to Alice first. See what she thinks.”
“Do what you think is best. Is there anything we can do to help? ”
He sighed. “I don’t think so. Just have fun with your mom and Noel. I’ll catch up with you later.”
“OK,” I said. “Um . . . Cora invited us to dinner tonight. Remember? Me and you, Mom and Noel. I guess that’s not going to be happening, right? I mean, I don’t expect it to—she has other things to worry about—but I just wanted to make sure. Just in case she’d like the distraction.” If our company would make her feel better, I was only too happy to go, plus I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to ask Dr. Ben about William Ellis. Although we had more important things to think about now, I was still curious about the cold case.
“Let me ask.” He moved the phone away from his ear, and I heard his voice put the question to Cora. I could also hear her answer.
“They’re like family. They’re welcome to come over. But it won’t be anything fancy.”
“She says you’re welcome to come,” Derek told me.
“I know. I heard. My mom likes to cook, so maybe we can throw something together between all of us. Potluck.”
“Sounds good,” Derek agreed. “I’ll be in touch, OK? ”
“Me, too.” I ended the call and turned to Mom and Noel. “We’re on our own. He’s sticking with Cora for now. And there’s nothing we can do for them, for the time being. Anything we can do for you, Kate? ”
“Nothing,” Kate said. “Shannon’s asleep; the pills Dr. Ellis prescribed worked. Josh went back to school. He would have been happy to sit here and watch her sleep, but I kicked him out. No sense in both of them missing class. If you’re leaving, I think I might just go back to bed, too. I didn’t get much sleep last night, either.”
“Sounds good.” I smiled encouragingly. “Don’t worry. I’m sure the police will figure out who killed Gerard and get off your back. And they’ll release the carriage house, and then we can get back to work. We’ll still be able to finish by the time you come back from Paris.”
“If we go to Paris,” Kate said.
“Why wouldn’t you go to Paris? ”
Her voice was brittle. “I’m afraid one of us will get arrested before we get that far. When my ex-boyfriend shows up three weeks before my wedding and is murdered on my property, with my fiancé on the premises, not to mention myself, I’m not sure anyone will let us leave the country. Not until the murder is solved and the case closed, and God knows when that’ll be. Especially if they won’t let Wayne work on it.”
“I’m sure Reece Tolliver from the state police will figure it out,” I said. “After all, he wouldn’t be where he is if he didn’t know what he was doing.”
“We’ll see.” But she didn’t sound hopeful. “I’m going to go lie down. Excuse me.”
She wandered out, taking her apron off as she went.
“Great,” I said after I’d heard her door close, “that’s all we need. Kate falling apart.”
“You can’t blame her, Avery,” Mom answered. “There’s a lot going on. Her ex-boyfriend getting killed, her fiancé being a suspect, she and probably her daughter being suspects . . . and you two renovating the house where he died, so she and her new husband can move into it once they’re married. It’s a lot to process.”
“That’s true,” I admitted. “She might not want to live in the carriage house now that Gerard’s body has been there.” And what the hell would we do then? Would we get paid for the work we’d done and reimbursed for the materials we’d bought, or would we be out of luck? And what was wrong with me to even be worrying about something like money at a time like this?
Mom lifted a shoulder. “There’s no telling. You’ll just have to ask her. Some people wouldn’t care, but some people would. I’m sure there have been other deaths in this house already. But this was someone she knew, so it might be different.”
I nodded. Might. Might not. For now, renovations seemed to be on hold, anyway, until the state police decided to release the carriage house to us.
“So what do you want to do now? ” I asked.
“I wouldn’t mind showing Noel Aunt Inga’s house,” Mom said. “If you don’t mind, that is.”
“Of course not. Why would I mind? ”
It had been sort of a rhetorical question, but Mom answered it. “Well, it’s really your house now, and we don’t want to intrude on your privacy.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “You’re welcome to look at anything there. If you had wanted, you would have been welcome to stay with me while you’re here, too.”
“I know.” Mom smiled and squeezed my arm as we walked out together. “But we didn’t want to cramp your style. Didn’t want you to feel that you couldn’t have Derek sleep over if you wanted, or do what you normally do because we were in your house.”
“And maybe you didn’t want me to cramp your style, either? ”
Mom had been celibate for seventeen years—at least to my knowledge—from when Daddy died until she met Noel, so I had no doubt she and Noel had had fun the year they’d been married, making up for lost time.
Mom blushed. “Maybe so.”
I grinned. “That’s fine. But I don’t mind you coming over and seeing the place. I made the bed this morning, and unless the cats have made a mess in the past couple of hours, the house looks just like it did when you were there yesterday. I left Derek’s truck in the lot behind his loft and walked over here, so I’m without wheels. Do you want to walk or drive your rental car? ”
“Let’s walk,” Mom said. “Such a nice, crisp day.”
She breathed deeply of the nice, crisp air, cold enough to freeze the insides of my nostrils. Noel huddled inside his sheepskin-lined coat and pulled his hat farther down over his ears. He sneezed twice on the way.
“Brrr!” he said when we were standing inside the central hallway in what had been my aunt’s house, stamping his feet to regain circulation and flapping his arms like a penguin. “Nice place.” He sniffed.
“You should have seen it in June,” I said. “The grass was a couple of feet high, the paint was flaking off in sheets, the porch floor was a death trap, and the wallpaper in here was the most god-awful pattern of orange and green plaid I’ve ever seen in my life. But it looks great now.”
I looked around, proudly, at Derek’s and my handiwork. The hardwood floors gleamed with three coats of high-gloss polyurethane, the walls were painted in dramatic jewel colors—appropriate for an 1870s Victorian—and at the end of the hallway, my pride and joy, Aunt Inga’s kitchen, was visible through the open door.
When I’d first moved into the house, the kitchen had been a total disaster area. I was able to look past the ugly wallpaper everywhere—wallpaper comes off—and the scuffed and dull heart pine floors throughout the house—hardwood floors can be sanded—as well as the clutter littering every flat surface—clutter can be removed—but the kitchen, with its rusty, half-circular wall-mounted sink, its crooked cabinets that looked like they were made from driftwood, and its peeling vinyl floor exposing dry and blackened floorboards, had me in tears. I didn’t feel any better when Derek refused to tear out the cabinets with the explanation that they were custom made and would cost a fortune if I were to order them today. I didn’t want them, so what did I care?
He turned out to be right, though. He usually is, at least when it comes to repair and renovation. The cabinets were fine once we leveled them, and painted them, and punched out the center panels in the doors and replaced the wood with pieces of Aunt Inga’s wedding veil, which I’d found in a box in the attic. The broken pieces of china that someone smashed all over the floor in an effort to scare me into leaving Waterfield had turned into a marvelous backsplash, perfectly complementing the bright blue resin countertop, and the floors, though weathered and full of character (Derek’s word), had come out looking great. At this point, the kitchen was probably my favorite room in the house. Not because I like to cook so much—whenever I eat at home, it’s usually canned tuna or microwavable macaroni and cheese—but because it just makes me happy to look at the results of all our hard work.