The Body in the Basement (29 page)

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Authors: Katherine Hall Page

BOOK: The Body in the Basement
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“Which reminds me, what were you and John talking about so earnestly over your lobsters?”
If her mother wondered at the abrupt change in subject, she did not show it. She was working on a pair of mittens with sailboats on the back for the Sanpere Stitchers Fair and her needles continued to click rapidly. Pix had worn similar mittens in her youth, ones with kittens, ice skates, and once her flower namesake done in purple on green. Pix was a fair knitter herself, but her mittens tended to be utilitarian solid colors, as the Miller children scattered them all over Aleford while sledding, making snow forts, and skating on the old reservoir.
“We were talking about changing one's occupation in midlife. He was expressing some amazement, and contentment, with the way the Lord had worked things out for him.”
There didn't seem anything untoward here.
“What about Mitchell Pierce? Did John mention him to you or have you heard why Mitchell moved out?”
“It was foolish to think those two could ever have lived together. They were both much too stubborn, but that wasn't what happened. John caught Mitch using his tools without permission and went through the roof. It seems he's very, very particular about them—the same way an artist would be about his brushes, I imagine.”
“What was Mitchell making?”
“That, I cannot tell you. You'll have to ask John. I do know he was very upset, because Mitch had waited until John was asleep, then went out to the woodworking shed. It may have been the subterfuge that bothered John most.”
Woodworking in the dead of night, a fake quilt for his landlady: It all sounded very much as if Mitch had been in the business of making and selling forged antiques. But had John realized this, too?
Or had Mitch found something in John's shed? Something John didn't want him to know about?
Pix wanted to go home, make herself a drink, and stretch
out in the hammock. There was a pizza in the freezer and she could make a salad for their dinner. It was the utmost effort she could envision, and she knew Samantha wouldn't mind.
As it turned out, she didn't even have to do that much. Samantha called as she was about to leave to tell her she was going out with Arlene. Fred was helping some relative move and he'd let his girlfriend have his car. Samantha and Arlene were looking forward to Girls'Night Out: dinner and a movie in Granville. Pix gave her consent, said good-bye to her mother, and went home.
She poured herself a drink, put the pizza in the oven, and tried to decide whether she had enough energy to wash some lettuce for a salad. She didn't. She grabbed a handful of carrot and celery sticks to munch on instead and prepared to head for the hammock until the pizza was ready.
They kept only a small portion of the lawn mowed, so the kids could play croquet and badminton. The rest they left to its own devices, watching the cycle of wildflowers and grasses change over the course of the summer. Now the meadow was filled with white daisies, purple vetch, and hawkweed, yellow and dark red against the green. Pix stretched out in the hammock and looked up into the sky. The air was cooler as dusk approached. She gave herself a swing with her foot and balanced her glass on her chest. The phone rang.
She leapt from the hammock, setting the drink down on the grass, and sprinted for the house. Fortunately, Faith did not hang up.
“I figured you'd be out doing something energetic in the garden or digging clams at the shore. Whatever.”
“Actually, I was lying in the hammock.”
This did not sound like the Pix Miller she knew, Faith thought. When her Pix Miller indulged in contemplation, it was usually paired with something else—taking the dogs for a run or a ten-mile hike with Danny's Boy Scout troop. Things must be seriously out of kilter on Sanpere.
“What I have to tell you may help put some of the pieces together—or confuse things further. I'm not sure.”
“Tell me. Tell me!”
“A few days ago, I called a friend of mine who has an antiques shop on Madison Avenue. She knows everybody in the antiques world, nationally and internationally. Anyway, right off the bat, she hadn't heard of Norman Osgood, which was pretty surprising. But she said she'd check her professional directories and ask around. She called me back today, and the man does not exist. She didn't even find him in the Manhattan phone book!”
“Faith, this is amazing. What made you think about checking on Norman?”
“You kept saying something wasn't quite right about him, and I trust your impressions absolutely.”
“I'll let Earl know right away. Obviously Norman Osgood is an alias. If they can find out who he really is, we may have found the link between the two murders.” And the murderer. She couldn't bring herself to say it out loud, even to Faith. The murderer? He'd been sitting on her blanket watching fireworks two nights ago.
“So, you actually think Adelaide was murdered?” Faith asked.
“Yes, and what's more, so does Mother.”
“No question, then.” Faith sighed. She knew how Pix and the whole Miller-Rowe clan felt about Sanpere Island, and now it would never again be the unsullied Eden it had been.
Pix told Faith about her trip to Sullivan and what she'd found at Jill's.
“I can't see Jill being involved in this—fake antiques, murder. Besides, she was close to the Bainbridges, wasn't she? And isn't she in that sewing group of your mother's? I believe it's an unwritten law in these societies that one lady does not bump another off.”
“It does seem improbable, but I saw the quilt with my own eyes, and she has been behaving strangely this summer.”
“True, if you're engaged in any sort of criminal activity, the last person you want for a fiance is a cop.”
They talked a bit more, particularly about the possibility that Mitch and Norman, or whoever he was, had been in business together.
“All those buying trips Norman made off the island—maybe he was meeting Mitch. And staying with the Bainbridges—that could have been to swindle them out of more things. Addie must have found out something. Oh dear, it's too dreadful to think about.”
“Forget the Fairchilds and their traditions! I'm coming up this weekend!” Faith felt she belonged with her friend—and besides, things were heating up.
“No, you go. Plan to come up the following one. Arnie and Claire will be here by then and I'm giving a party for them.”
Faith correctly sensed that Pix was more thrown by the idea of cooking for the party than solving any multitude of crimes.
“If you change your mind, call. We won't be leaving the house until ten.”
“I will—and have fun.”
“Fun
is not the word we're looking for here, but I'll have something. Mosquito bites and sunburn maybe.”
They laughed and said good-bye.
Pix had to cut some burned edges off the pizza and it was pretty crusty. She'd completely forgotten about it while talking to Faith. It tasted fine with the scotch she'd retrieved from the lawn, only one small ant having invaded the alcohol. She might not be hitting all the food groups, but it was exactly the kind of supper she wanted.
Afterward, she cleaned up, taking a mere merciful three minutes, and called Earl. He wasn't around, so she left a short message for him on the office machine to call her back, which he did an hour later. He did not seem unduly surprised at the news she had uncovered about Norman. Maybe he was getting
used to having her for a partner, she thought somewhat smugly. Well, Faith had John Dunne, a detective lieutenant with the Massachusetts State Police.
She went to bed early and tried to read while she waited for Samantha. So, Norman Osgood wasn't an antiques dealer and might not be Norman Osgood, either. Who and what was he?
 
Samantha and Arlene had gone to the early movie and at nine o'clock found themselves in a booth at the new pizza restaurant near the cannery, consuming a large pie with everything on it but anchovies.
“Who eats those things? Why do they even bother putting them on the menu?” Arlene asked.
“My father loves them,” Samantha said, making an appropriate face. “He says our tastes are not as refined as his.”
“Yuck!” Arlene popped a stray piece of pepperoni in her mouth. It had taken her a few years to work up a taste for that.
“What do you want to do? When do you have to get the car back to Fred?”
“I'm supposed to pick him up at his cousin's around ten-thirty. He's going to be ready to leave, I'm sure. They've been working since early afternoon.”
The girls gave their full attention to the food before them for a moment. It was disappearing fast.
“It's great having a place where you can get real pizza on the island. Gives us somewhere to go, too.”
The restaurant was jammed and the crowd at the door was eyeing their booth longingly—and in some cases, aggressively.
“Let's go,” Samantha said after catching one particularly beady eye.
“Yeah, I'll take the rest for Fred in case he's hungry, although his aunt and mother sent over enough food for an army.”
They got in the car and Arlene started the engine.
“Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” she said to Samantha.
“Will Fred be mad if we go without him?”
“No, I told him we might. He just wants to know what's in the trunk. He doesn't care if he's there or not. I don't think he likes to go into the cabin, anyway. He told me if he sees the stuff Duncan has around again, he might be tempted to smash it to pieces.”
“Maybe it's better he doesn't come, then.”
Arlene turned the car down Main Street and drove up the steep hill by the old Opera House, where the movies were shown now. In an earlier era when Granville had been a boomtown because of the granite quarries and fishing industry, Nellie Melba and other stars had tread the boards.
They parked the car by the side of the road again and made their way to the cabin with no difficulty. It was dark. Fred had left his flashlight in the glove compartment. With it to guide them, they went back up the tumbled-down stairs and pushed open the door. It was much as before—the bed mussed, some dirty clothes in the corner, the candles placed about. Samantha had come armed with several bobby pins.
“I'll try to open it and you stand guard.”
She directed the beam of light on the lock and wiggled the bobby pin around, trying to press down on the catch. The first pin snapped and she tried another with greater success.
“It's open!”
Arlene came quickly to her side and they raised the lid slowly.
A heavy smell of incense made Samantha sneeze. The black robe was on top and they lifted it away apprehensively. Underneath were some books, magazines, and several large photograph albums. There were also more clothes.
“This is really weird. Why would he keep his clothes locked up?”
Samantha thought she knew why and she found she had a lump in her throat.
“These aren't his clothes. They're his father's. Look at this Nautica sailing jacket. It would be huge on Duncan.”
At the bottom of the trunk was a box with a man's watch, some cuff links, and a bunch of birthday cards—all from Duncan to Dad.
“And the albums are probably full of pictures of him,” Arlene said. “I can't believe it, but I'm actually feeling sorry for the creep.”
The albums did have pictures, starting with Duncan as a baby and his young parents, smiling and looking straight into the camera with the confidence they would all live forever that a moment like this brings.
“Let's put it back. It's too sad.”
“Sssh,” Arlene said, and grabbed the flashlight, clicking it off.
Samantha heard it, too. Someone had jumped off the porch and was running into the woods.
They went to the window, but all they could see were some tiny red flashing lights disappearing into the darkness.
“Let's get out of here before he comes back!”
They hastily put the things into the trunk, trying to remember exactly where everything had been. Some of the books were about the supernatural, but the magazines were mostly back issues of
Hustler.
As Arlene refolded what must have been Mr. Cowley's gown from some graduation, something fell from the pocket and onto the floor with a clunk. Samantha trained the light on it.
It was a hunting knife.
“Should we give it to Earl?”
“Let's ask Fred. But I'll tell you one thing, I'm not leaving it here.” Arlene took off the tank top she was wearing over her shirt and wrapped the knife in it.
They closed the trunk and returned to the car through the woods, much faster than they had come.

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