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Authors: Kathleen Bridge

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #General, #Women Sleuths

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BOOK: Better Homes and Corpses
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CHAPTER

FIVE

The next morning, after ordering some fabric for a client’s wing chair, I grabbed a latte from Millie’s Bakery. Large boutique coffee chains weren’t allowed in Montauk. I crossed the street and walked over to the gravel parking lot of Sand and Sun Realty. The building was a small bungalow converted into a real estate office from March to September and an income tax office from January to April. Seeing as March was the cusp, it seemed both Jack Moss, the tax man, and Barb Moss, the Realtor, were in residence. Barb had rented me my cottage, telling me it was the deal of the century, and she’d been right. It was next to impossible to find an oceanfront rental on a yearlong basis. Luckily, I’d put aside the money from the sale of my Soho loft before moving in with Michael. I guess there’d been one advantage to living in his ex-wife’s Tribeca penthouse.

Barb and Jack jumped like guilty teenagers when I walked into the office. Barb outweighed her husband by a
good forty pounds. Most of her weight was located in her hair. She wore a towering updo laden with a bottle’s worth of hairspray.

“Whoa, what’s going on, you two?” The Mr. Coffee carafe smelled like road tar. I was happy I’d brought my own.

“I’m trying to spend time with my old man. Until all his clients’ taxes are filed, I have to take advantage of our time together.” Barb wrapped her arms around Jack and gave him a big, wet smacker. “Married thirty years and still madly in love.”

Barb and Jack had come to Montauk on their honeymoon and never left.

“I wanted to give you back an extra key I found at the Kittinger cottage,” I said.

“Are you almost done? I can’t wait to take a peek.” Barb took the key and put it in a cabinet behind the desk.

“I think one last trip should do it.”

“Have you recovered from your ordeal at the Spenser estate?”

“Elle wants me to help her inventory the house for the insurance company. What are your thoughts?”

“That you’re crazy.” Barb glanced at Jack.

“Whose estate?” A pencil rested on Jack’s huge ear. With his red hair and freckles, he looked like the
MAD
magazine mascot, Alfred E. Neuman.

“She’s thinking of going to work at the Spenser estate—Seacliff. Pay attention!” Barb slapped the top of his head. “Maybe you should tell the story?”

“It was a long time ago,” he moaned.

“Tell her!”

“I don’t like to gossip.”

“It’s not gossip. It’s fact.”

“I wasn’t there,” he said.

“No, but you know people who were, and you’re friends with Paul.”

“Who’s Paul?” I asked.

“He’s Mickey’s son. You know, from Mickey’s Chowder Shack,” Jack said.

“Paul is also the father of Tara, your archnemesis at garage sales.”

Barb had introduced me to Tara the previous summer during the Fourth of July fireworks on Umbrella Beach. After that, I started noticing Tara at local garage sales and flea markets. Once, at a sale in Southampton, I put down four panels of vintage bark cloth curtains in order to look through a box of books. Tara swooped in, grabbed the curtains, then continued on to the cashier without a backward glance. When I protested to the woman running the sale, Tara handed me a business card with a single word printed on it—
ChampagneAndCaviar
. “That’s my seller ID online. You can buy them there. That’s if you’re lucky enough to win top bid.” She gave me a vulturous grin. A month later, Tara was at a yard sale in Water Mill. While she was busy haggling with the home owner over the price of a two-dollar candlestick, I swiped an English mantel clock from a box near her feet and hid it behind the garage. After Tara zoomed away in anger, I placed the clock on the table and the home owner said, “That woman was going nuts looking for this. Where’d you find it?” Five dollars later I’d exacted my revenge. Afterward, I checked Tara’s rating online and was happy to find she had four recent negative feedbacks. Apparently she sold items that were “not as described.” The bark cloth curtains, however, sold for $162.
Darn.

“Tell her, Jack!” Barb moved across the room to her desk.

“Okay. Here’s the story. Around fifteen or so years ago,
Caroline Spenser was having one of her grand parties. Apparently, Cole got into a screaming match with his mother on the terrace. The windows were open and all the guests overheard. No one could make out their words, but it was ugly. Cole was angry and left with Tara on the back of his motorcycle. Later, the two of them ended up in a ditch. Tara’s father, Paul, told me he called Caroline Spenser from the hospital, but it was Cole’s father, Charles Spenser, who showed up—not Caroline. Soon afterward, Cole left East Hampton for good. He came back only once, for his father’s funeral.”

Barb cut in. “You are leaving out one part. The day before the party, Jillian and Cole got into a boating accident. Caroline throws a big soiree the next evening while her daughter lies in a hospital room. Apparently, the show must go on.”

It did sound a little cold on Caroline’s part. “Did Cole get hurt?”

“Not in the boating accident, a few stitches from the motorcycle,” Barb said.

“How did Tara handle Cole’s leaving?” I felt guilty I was actually happy she’d gotten dumped by Jillian’s brother.

“Tara was devastated, of course.”

I’d only met Cole Spenser once, but it was hard to picture him out of control and even harder to visualize him with that curtain-stealing witch Tara. What kind of mother was Caroline if she couldn’t make it to her son’s bedside after a motorcycle accident? What kind of resentment must Tara harbor toward Cole for leaving her and East Hampton? Unrequited love was a strong emotion, especially if it was your first.

“Tara seems to have recovered from both Cole and her current ex-husband, who, by the way, gave her nothing in the divorce settlement because of an ironclad prenup,” Barb said.

“Too bad, because her ex-husband was loaded.” Jack walked to the coffeepot and poured a cup of sludge into his
I
NY
mug. “Tara’s ex-husband’s father was one of those early mavericks who bought Hamptons oceanfront property when it was going for two hundred thousand dollars an acre.”

Barb turned to me. “Did you ever go into Tara’s antique shop in Bridgehampton? It’s called Champagne and Caviar Antiques.”

“No. I didn’t know she had an antique shop—thought she was strictly an Internet seller. Have you?”

“I chickened out when I peeked in the window. Not my cup of tea. Way too pricey. By the looks of the clientele, it should be called Snobby and Snobbier. Oh, I just remembered, I have something I want you to look at.” Barb stood and took a key out of the cabinet. “I got an exclusive on a cottage you might be interested in. The estate of Amelia Eberhardt. She left the house and everything in it to St. Paul’s Church. They want me to sell it for them.”

“Wow. Nice gift to leave to your church.”

Jack cut in, “Don’t you think you’re misleading our gal here? The cottage is really a hovel. Old Lady Eberhardt barely had any of her faculties left, which you might expect at the ripe old age of one hundred one. I don’t think she even had electricity or indoor plumbing.”

Barb gave her husband the
zip it
sign.

“On the water?” I asked.

“Oui, Oui.”

“Ocean or bay?”

“Ocean.”

Jack interrupted, “It would take years to hack down the jungle for even a glimpse of the ocean, then you’d have to
build an intricate set of steps and landings to get down to the
ocean
.”

“Toss me the key.”

“Keep it. I have another. I’m sure you’ll want to take a second look. I also wrote down directions.”

“Barb Moss, you do know me.”

Barb’s directions led me down Montauk Highway, past the turnoff to my cottage and a short distance from Montauk Lighthouse Park, or “The Point,” as locals called it. I passed the trampled copse twice before deciding it was an entrance. I put the Jeep in second gear and inched forward. Wild rhododendrons with thick, gnarled trunks twisted into one another like serpents in a claustrophobic snake pit. There was a small opening, and I forged ahead. I parked inches from an overgrown boxwood hedge, got out of the car via the passenger door, and slowly made my way to the front of the cottage.

The problems from the outside were near catastrophic. Broken windows and patches of missing shingles. The gabled attic was the only thing visible through the plant life. I hoped Mrs. Eberhardt had spent her last years in a nice home for the elderly, sipping Earl Grey tea, not living here. Thorny vegetation spread from both sides of the wraparound porch, making a trellised arch. I climbed the porch steps, then crawled under the arch, and stabbed my key in the direction of the keyhole. I pounded the bottom of the door until it creaked open.

The inside of the cottage read more like a haunted house. An enterprising spider had been busy covering two holes in the side window with intricate webwork, and I could have sworn the rocking chair in front of the fireplace moved on its own. I squinted to put a deliberate blur on my surroundings.
The cottage had an openness to it, and not because of the holes in the Sheetrock. It had a charm that couldn’t be concealed under the pretense of ruin. I wanted to bring it back—it could be someone’s happy home. Mine?

If my ex Michael saw it, he’d say it should be condemned.

Then I heard my mother’s voice.
Think of the possibilities. Look at those windows!
At the top of the bay window in the dining room were two wood-framed, stained glass windows in a fruit-and-grapevine motif. The colors in the glass appeared muddy, but I knew once cleaned, they’d be stunning.

My foot only went through one stair board; luckily it was the second from the top. The staircase divided the second floor into two equal sections. I went to the right and my heart raced. There was a possibility this was my reccurring antique-treasure dream come to fruition, which made me think of the attic at Seacliff. If I helped Elle inventory the house for the insurance company, I’d get a chance to check out the attic. Worst-case scenario, if I helped Elle at the Spensers’, I’d also help Jillian through a hard time and have extra cash to put toward a down payment on this place.

The first room I entered had walls with exposed layers of wallpaper. I pictured myself taking a sample then searching the far corners of the world for a match. There was a single bed with a brass headboard. Stuffing oozed from a striped mattress. In the corner a pine washstand stood with a severed towel bar. So much for finding riches.

There was a total of four bedrooms on the second floor. Each room had a few pieces of furniture, but all needed major restoration. There was one bathroom with a brown sink and tub and zigzag black-and-brown ’70s wallpaper. A door that most likely led to the third floor was locked, and I left it that way. Now I’d have something else to dream about besides Caroline Spenser’s corpse.

The contents of the Eberhardt house were disappointing, but the layout was wonderful. I’d soon be fantasizing about the possibilities. After my fourteenth sneeze, I crawled back out the front door.

I stepped off the porch and put my hands on my hips and scanned the landscape. Something felt right. If I wanted to explore the rest of the property, I’d need a machete. The surf sounded to my left, but there was no view of the ocean. In the distance, scrubby bushes protected the ghost of a garden, toppled cement urns, an alabaster arm jutting up from the ground and a stone altar ready for a sacrifice, or a crumbling barbeque. Whoever bought this place would need a bulldozer. Jack had been right, but so had Barb. Instead of ruin, I saw an heirloom garden. In my mind, I roped off a large space for my herbs. I may not be a gourmet cook, or even a decent cook, but I was passionate about my herbs. Add the right herb to a store-bought meal, and you make it your own. For the first time since Michael’s deceit, a seed of inspiration was bursting to germinate. By hook or by crook, it’d be mine.

I called Elle and told her I’d help her inventory the Spenser estate; then I called Jillian and told her of my plans. She was more than thrilled.

*   *   *

The rest of the day was spent hitting resale shops. It was slim pickings. I came away with only a Shelley candy dish in the Dainty Blue pattern. I usually called local thrift shops before they opened to get a heads-up on new donations. I’d negotiated a deal where I promised to give them items my clients deemed charity-worthy in exchange for cutting-edge insider info on new merchandise hitting the shelves. However, this morning I’d been sidetracked by the Eberhardt—hmm . . . Barrett property.

BOOK: Better Homes and Corpses
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ads

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