The Book of Old Houses (27 page)

“I'd of missed the old monstrosity if you'd got rid of it,” Bella confessed. “And I'm glad you didn't move the wall.”

The bathroom was no bigger but it
looked
bigger; pale paint and smooth surfaces. She avoided my father's gaze.

“No sense changing just for change's sake,” she said. “Most things'll do, you leave 'em the way they are.”

“Hmm. We'll see,” I said. My dad's face gave nothing away. “But while we're up here, Bella, let's look at the third floor.”

Because while I was away, George and his team had been working there, too; now we'd see if it had been worth it.

“Right this way,” I said, going ahead of her up the stairs. They'd been fixed, and the banisters repaired, as had that tub-battered front door, all while she was gone on a week-long, ordered-by-me vacation.

Peering past me as we approached what had been my work area, she frowned. “What's this? Why's there a lock on that door all of a sudden? It's never been locked before.”

Then, turning to look down at my father, who was bringing up the rear: “I suppose
you
had something to do with this, you stubborn old coot.”

Inserting the brand-new brass key into the brand-new lock, I opened the door. “Step in,” I invited with a smile that I hoped hid my sudden nervousness.

Because she might not approve, even though George and his team had transformed it into a cozy hideaway with a big, well-lit sitting room, a large bedroom with two closets, a galley kitchen, and a bath with a glass shower stall, his-and-hers sinks, and a towel warmer.

So my dad could keep his house. Bella could keep hers. And when they were here . . .

Bella's eyes widened. Walking from room to room she put her hand first on the rocker by the woodstove in the sitting room, then on the spotless white surface of the studio-apartment-sized stove. There was even a bottle of Kapow! on the counter.

Not that she'd need it. Everything was new and as easy to maintain as I could arrange. “Like it?”

“Yes,” Bella whispered, resting her chin on her clasped hands to keep it from trembling. Hastily she grabbed a corner of her apron and dabbed her eyes with it.

My dad stepped forward cautiously, ready to hop back again; Bella's elbows were sharp and accurate.

“Oh,” she breathed again into the apron; then a sob escaped her, and cautious or not, he knew what to do about that.

“There, there, old girl,” he said, slinging an arm around her. “Don't cry, now, you'll spoil that pretty face of yours.”

A snort burst through the apron. “Hush up, you old fool,” she said, seizing the red bandanna he offered. “Something wrong with your eyes,” she scolded, “if that's what you—”

Think.
But he did. I closed the door on them. Downstairs, Sam was probably already waiting; he'd asked me to go to an AA coffee-klatsch before the meeting with him tonight.

But when I reached the back hall, to my surprise Dave DiMaio was there instead.

“Hey,” I said. “I didn't know you were still in town.”

He bent to smooth Prill's ears as the big red Doberman gazed adoringly up at him. “I haven't been. I called the hospital to see how you were doing, they told me you'd been sent home. So I came back.”

He frowned. “Bert Merkle's ashes were scattered off the Deer Island ferry, today, too. I guess I thought somebody from the school should be there for that.”

Bert had died without regaining consciousness. “He'd left—”

“Instructions, yes. For the disposal of his remains. There's a fund for things like that, for alumni.”

“Well. It's good of you to handle it, then, after . . . anyway, I'm glad you're here. I've been wanting to thank you.”

“I was in the right place at the right time, is all. Got the tie pin back, too, by the way.” He tapped his chest.

It was in his tie; a silver quill with a drop of ink hanging from the tip. Or I supposed it was ink.

“Merrie Fargeorge had it all along,” he told me. “Must've found it where I dropped it. And she had Horace's house key,” he added, “in that big glass jar she hit me with. When I woke up, there it was, lying in front of my nose.”

“You recognized it? Among all the other . . . ?”

“Horace had painted a raised dot of enamel onto it so he'd know it by the feel,” Dave explained, “coming home from his walks at night. When I saw the enamel dot, I knew it was his.”

“So that's how she got in after she . . .”

He nodded. “It wouldn't have been like Lang not to lock up the house, no matter how upset he was. She must've taken it off Horace's body after she killed him, and in all the confusion afterward no one ever thought of looking for it.”

He paused sadly. “She'd kept the weapon, too. Some kind of reproduction of a medieval tool.”

I recalled the one missing from Jason Riverton's collection.

“So we have at least a part of the story of what happened, even though she's not around anymore to tell it,” he finished.

But
I
wasn't finished. “How did you know? Walking around out there in the fog that night, how did you—”

The yard lights had been on, so he could have seen me going in. And the house hid Wade's truck from his view as well as from Merrie's. But none of that would have told Dave the most important thing, so what had?

“She never asked.” Dave's eyes met mine. “I'd spoken with her, you see, told her I knew Horace, and she knew I'd met you. The obvious connection was the old book and in a town like this I felt sure she knew about that, too. But she never mentioned it. And when I saw you going into her house that night, all at once I knew why.”

It was precisely the same thought that had struck me with such force while I stood in her shower: that Merrie was such an avid finder and collector of Eastport artifacts.

But she'd never asked me about this one. Not once, as if by the force of her silence she could erase its very existence.

“But if Merrie's ancestor was a Fargeorge by marriage and took over the Fargeorge homestead,” I began, “then why—”

“Why would Merkle decide to hide a fake book in your house instead of hers?” Dave asked. He followed me to the kitchen where I got out cups and began making tea; Sam might want some, too, when he got here.

“I wondered that also, and it turns out there's an answer,” he said. From atop the refrigerator Cat Dancing opened a crossed blue eye, yawned, and went back to sleep.

“Do you happen to know two elderly sisters named Izzy and Bridey?” he asked me. “They make,” Dave added, “very good cookies.”

When I said I did he continued. “They seem to think Merrie's servant-girl ancestor didn't go right to the Fargeorge house from Halifax. They'd heard she worked somewhere else first. Although,” he added, “not for long.”

Of course. “Here. In my house.”

He nodded. “Maybe the original family caught on to her wicked ways and sent her packing. Or maybe they just didn't have a marriageable son.”

Dave looked regretful. “Merkle would've known. He'd've made sure to get his history straight before starting his own plan.”

The kettle whistled. “I imagine it'll be a mess trying to sort out all Bert's other book forgeries,” I said.

DiMaio watched me pour boiling water into a pot. “Yes. Lang Cabell's been hired by some of the dealers Bert sold to, to help identify them. Not that anyone will get any money back, but it's important figuring out what's what.”

“And Liane?” I asked. “Is she still suing you? Or trying?” I'd forgotten about the girl, but seeing Dave reminded me of her again.

“For the moment she's given up the idea.” His lips pursed judiciously. “We seem to've taken Liane under our wing, Lang and I. We'll see how that works out.”

I poured the tea. Outside the kitchen windows, the pointed firs at the edge of the yard cut sharp black outlines on a fading sky.

“So how'd you ever learn to swim like that, anyway?” I asked as he sipped. “Jumping in after Ann Talbert that way.”

He shrugged modestly. “The school where I teach has a pool. Water safety,” he added cryptically, “is quite a large part of the curriculum.”

Probably there was a story behind that, too. But I let it go. Then, getting to the heart of the matter: “Dave, how did you happen to lose the tie pin in the first place? Way out there on Dog Island.”

He glanced up alertly. “Well,” he began, preparing to lie. But my look must've told him not to bother.

“Did you by any chance hear the story about the Fargeorges' servant girl quite early on?” I asked him. “From Bridey and Izzy, maybe, when you were going around Eastport asking local-history questions?”

He might've met them on the street, or in one of the shops. And his air of being such a nice young fellow not having deserted him even in middle age, he might've engaged them in conversation.

And the girls, as everyone here still called them, did like to talk.

“And what you heard made you feel curious,” I said. “So you called Merrie Fargeorge, or . . . no, she called you, didn't she?”

His face said I was right. “Thinking maybe she could charm you somehow into going away,” I added.

“Why would she want to do that?”

“Maybe her guilty conscience convinced her your interest in local history was really a cover for something else. Curiosity about the manner of Horace's death, perhaps. But at any rate the conversation didn't develop as she planned, did it?”

I filled two cups. “Because Merrie didn't realize how much you'd already learned. Did the two of you end up swapping war stories? Two experienced teachers like yourselves trading tales out of school? She might've tried that, to soften you up.”

He smiled into his tea as I continued. “First she told one, about, say, a kid named Jason Riverton?”

Monday came in, laid her glossy black head on my knee. “She wouldn't have hesitated mentioning Jason to you. Her frustrations with him as a student, even her contempt? In a way, it would have helped divert suspicion, her willingness to express that.”

It was the reason behind the wine and the book, I thought:
Here is the antidote, here are the instructions for using it. Too bad you're too stupid to take advantage of them.
The initials on the computer screen, Merrie's insistence that Jason couldn't have typed them—misdirection, I thought, meant only to confuse.

Bottom line, Merrie didn't really care who took the blame as long as the boy's murder aimed any suspicion away from herself. “Then it was your turn to tell a story,” I said. “Only it wasn't about a student, was it? It was about a servant girl from long ago.”

He waited expressionlessly. “It was a test,” I continued. “What Bridey and Izzy told you made you wonder . . . had Merkle not killed Horace after all? Was there some other reason for Horace's murder?”

Still no response. “You panicked Merrie on purpose. To see what she would do or say. And her reaction confirmed your suspicion.”

I waited, thinking how difficult it must've been for her, putting a good face on for the party at my house after killing Jason and talking with DiMaio. Not that she'd kept it up for long; by the next day, she'd been acting like her old, irascible self again.

But what she really must have felt was pure panic.

“Maybe you didn't even mention the Fargeorge girl by name,” I said. “Maybe you just hinted. But that was enough to confirm what she feared, that you were indeed a threat. And whatever she said to you in response must've told
you
that, for a woman whose life revolved around the human equivalent of a dog's pedigree, that book was plenty of motive for murder.”

Dave's smile had vanished. “Merrie was the one who'd pestered Horace about it, not Ann Talbert,” I said. “Maybe she thought if she could get hold of the thing even briefly, she could destroy it.”

I put down my cup. “You probably saw her calendar, showing that she traveled all over the state for lectures and meetings. Maybe it said she'd been in Orono that night, I don't recall.”

His face said he did recall, and that it had. “So did you, Dave? Was that when you met her? Did you go out there to see her after she called you, and tell her a story, and was that when you lost your tie pin?”

Because if he had, he'd tipped over a final domino, spurring Merrie's fear to even greater intensity and leading eventually to my final encounter with her.

And to his justification in killing her. So that in the end he'd gotten what he came here for, hadn't he? Just not quite all of it; not yet.

I went to the dining room, took the old book from its place on the mantel; while still in the hospital I'd sent Wade upstairs to resurrect it from under the floorboard, before the carpenters could entomb it there forever.

With its soft, skinlike leather and the faint prickle of warmth seeming to rise from it as I held it, it
felt
real, as if some tricky wickedness was still in it. So much so that even now a faint uneasy feeling kept me from opening it.

Instead I returned to the kitchen. “Here,” I said, holding it out to Dave.

The look on his face was priceless. “Are . . . are you sure?”

“Why not? It's just a forgery. And it's not as if it's going to conjure up good memories, so I have no reason to keep it. But it might mean a lot to you, because of Horace's connection to it. So I want you to have it.”

As he took it, the back door opened and Sam burst in. “Hey!You'll never believe what I just—”

He held something in his closed hand. “You were right,” he told Dave. He uncurled his fingers.

On his palm lay a tiny tinfoil hat. I leaned in for a better look. “You found this where?” I asked.

“Out in front of the house,” Sam explained. “Way down deep in the ground where the old tree used to be.”