Crowned and Moldering (11 page)

“Are you kidding?” I said, not quite believing my luck. “That was so fast.”

“Well, it’s been three months,” she said with a laugh. “But I know what you mean.
We were just talking about it yesterday.”

“I’m completely thrilled.”

“Good. Me, too. If you’re available, why don’t you swing by my office in the next
two hours? We can sign some forms to make it official.”

“I can be there by ten.”

I arrived on time and we gave each other a quick hug before I sat down to sign some
boilerplate waiver forms. She handed me a tentative schedule for completing the work
on the parking lot. I thanked her again for the opportunity and she gave me a high
five.

I walked out to the hall, chuckling to myself and mentally scanning the list of job
sites I needed to visit that day, when I was stopped in my tracks. Halfway down the
hall, Police Chief Jensen and Tommy Gallagher were walking into the counselors’ offices.

Without thinking, I scurried down the hall to see if I could talk to Tommy. He would
tell me what the police were doing here. Was this about Lily? Of course it was. So
who were they here to question? Were they going to arrest anybody?

By the time I reached the doorway leading to the offices, the short inner hall leading
to the clerk’s counter was empty. I glanced around, wondering which of the three counselors’
offices they’d entered, but I wasn’t about to knock on each of the doors to find out.
Maybe I’d be able to catch up with Tommy in the next day or so to get the scoop.

Back in the main hall, I took a quick look at the brass plate on the door. It listed
the three high school counselors who had offices down that hall, and I saw a name
that sent chills up my spine:
DARREN DAIN
. So he was still working here, still giving bad counsel to the poor students assigned
to him. Thank heavens there were two other counselors to choose from—a good thing,
since the school enrolled almost five hundred students from all around the county.

“I can’t believe it,” I muttered. Darren “Dismal” Dain had been the world’s worst
counselor, even back in my day. There was no way he’d improved, because besides being
a stupid man and a bad counselor, he was a condescending prig who hated teenagers.
I’d had the bad luck to be assigned to him when I first started high school. I couldn’t
count the times he’d ridiculed me for thinking I could ever make a living working
in construction. He thought that with all my hair, I should consider going to beauty
school and becoming a hairdresser. I could just picture Whitney and her pals having
a field day with that news. I mean, the man was a clod. I remembered leaving school
in tears one afternoon when he pulled me into his office to tell me I should wear
a dress once in a while so the boys wouldn’t be so turned off by me.

What kind of a creep said that to a teenage girl, especially when that girl worked
a construction job every afternoon with her dad? My father finally had to complain
to the principal, and I was reassigned to Mrs. Sweet, whose personality fitted her
name. I still sent her a Christmas card every year.

Why would Ms. Barney continue to allow Dismal Dain to counsel students? Did school
counselors get some kind of tenure? Maybe he was blackmailing her. There was no other
reason I could think of. The man was a horror show. There had to have been hundreds
of complaints by now.

I glanced up and down the hall and realized it wouldn’t be smart to be caught snooping
around here, so I walked away.

I didn’t know which office Eric had gone into, but his visit must have had something
to do with Lily. Which meant that one of those three counselors had to have advised
Lily all those years ago. And on the off chance that she’d been stuck with Dismal
Dain, I fully intended to visit Eric that afternoon to let him know why that despicable
man belonged right at the top of his suspect list.

I reached my truck, still flipped out about Dismal Dain. It had been almost fifteen
years since I’d been stuck with him. I had to think that in all that time he must
have been warned at some point to clean up his act. I hoped he’d been forced to take
sexual-harassment training and psychological counseling so he no longer came across
like the sexist troglodyte he’d been when I knew him. One could always hope. But the
real issue with him went deeper than that. Dain’s real problem was that he hated people,
especially teenagers. I wondered just how bad his own school counselor had been to
steer him toward a career working with the very people he most despised.

I drove through town on my way to my friend Emily Rose’s new home, the former Rawley
mansion, where several of my guys were already at work. Sean would be assigned there
for the time being, until we could get back inside the lighthouse mansion. Although
now that I thought about it, it would be better to switch him with Douglas. I doubted
Sean would want to work every day in the place where his sister’s remains had been
found.

As I stopped at the light across from the Cozy Cove Diner, my cell phone rang. I clicked
the button on my Bluetooth and said hello.

“Shannon? It’s Teddy calling.” Teddy Peters was head of the Planning Commission and
an old friend of my father’s.

“Hi, Teddy. What’s up?”

“It’s Aldous again,” he said, his tone apologetic. “Do you have time to come by the
office this morning? I need your help talking him down off the ledge.”

“Off the ledge? Is he about to . . .” Was Aldous threatening to kill himself? The
Planning Commission’s offices were on the first floor of City Hall. Could he really
hurt himself?

“No, no, it’s nothing like that,” he rushed to add. “But I just ran into him in the
hall and he’s all riled up again. He’s still got that bug up his bum over the lighthouse-mansion
rehab and he won’t let it go. Can you talk to him?”

I didn’t resist rolling my eyes, since no one was there to see me. From the first
day I’d met with the Planning Commission to discuss Mac’s proposal for a few modest
changes to the mansion, Aldous Murch had questioned my ideas and had worried aloud
whether I would destroy the town’s beautiful old landmark. Never mind the part about
insulting me professionally and hurting my feelings on a personal level; he was just
plain wrong. I’d tried at least ten times—no exaggeration—to go over the blueprints
with him, but he would just shake his head, grumble that I didn’t know what I was
talking about, and stomp off.

“Is he there right now?” I asked.

“Yes. I swear he’s going to have a heart attack over this thing if he doesn’t calm
down.”

“We don’t want that, but I’m not sure I can do anything to help. We’ve gone around
and around on this issue.”

“I know, but I’d appreciate your coming by if you can.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Thanks, kiddo.”

As I drove to City Hall, I thought about the best way to handle the crotchety old
man. Aldous was at least eighty-five years old, and besides his long-held seat on
the Planning Commission, he also ran the town’s Historical Society. He had been one
of the original group of coastguardsmen stationed at the lighthouse mansion during
World War II, when there was a constant threat of Japanese submarines along the coast.
So, to be fair, no one in town had a more vested interest in making sure the lighthouse
mansion maintained its historical integrity than Aldous. But the fact that he doubted
my ability to do my job was upsetting. The man knew me. Knew my work. I was trying
to be thoughtful of his age and his concerns, but all this arguing was starting to
annoy me.

I tracked down Teddy in his cramped office and knocked on the open door. He glanced
up. “Oh good. You’re here.”

“I wouldn’t get your hopes up. He’s not going to listen to me. He never has.”

“That’s funny, because he complains that you’re the one who won’t listen.”

“He would never have pulled this attitude with my father,” I muttered, disgusted with
the old guy.

“You’re partly right, and I’m sorry. But, truth be told, your father would’ve dragged
Aldous over to the pub for a beer and they would’ve hashed it out.”

“Well, even if I invited him to the pub, he wouldn’t show up. And that’s the crux
of the problem. He doesn’t trust me because I’m female, and that little detail isn’t
going to change anytime soon.”

Teddy chuckled as he led me down a long hallway and into the large mahogany-paneled
meeting hall. He gestured toward the old man sitting in a chair at the massive conference
table, his back toward us. He didn’t see me standing at the door.

“Just go talk to him,” Teddy whispered.

“I’m willing to do this for you, Teddy, but please don’t blame me if nothing changes.”
I walked straight across the room and right up to Aldous, who flinched when he saw
me. “Hello, Mr. Murch.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you here to admit your mistake?”

“What? No.” He really was losing it. “I’m here because the other commission members
told me you have something to say to me.”

He shook his finger at me as though I were a misbehaving ten-year-old. “I drove out
there, and the place is covered in yellow construction ribbon. You can’t start the
project until you tear down the stairway.”

“It’s not construction ribbon,” I said sharply. “It’s crime-scene tape. We found a
dead body inside the house.”

His eyes blinked and his hands shook. “A . . . a body? You found her, then? On the
staircase?” He worked his jaw back and forth and rubbed his hand over his mouth a
few times, clearly uneasy. “No. Not on the staircase. The body was . . . We . . .”
He blinked again and continued to mumble, but I couldn’t understand him.

I regretted my outburst. Aldous was an old man and obviously couldn’t take that kind
of shock. But he’d said something about a body. Had he been around when Lily was killed?

“Aldous, do remember seeing someone hanging around inside the lighthouse mansion?
A girl, maybe? Someone who didn’t belong there?”

He stared at me for a few long seconds, as if he didn’t know me. A moment later, the
haze cleared from his eyes and he was glaring at me again. “You need to tear down
the staircase.”

My shoulders sagged a little. Hearing him say the same words he’d been repeating for
the past two months made me want to run from the room. In the beginning, I had worried
that Aldous’s protests over the sale itself and the plans for renovation would cause
Mac to back out of the deal. That worry had passed, thank goodness, but now I was
concerned that his mind was slipping.

The problem was that just when I was about to feel sorry for him being nonsensical,
he would turn all cantankerous about the mansion because he’d lived there once upon
a time and he considered himself an expert. He was also a stickler for the most obscure
Historical Society rules and procedures, which he’d probably made up himself.

I wanted to be kind to the old man, but he had tried my patience to the limit. I decided
to take a different tack. I pulled out the chair next to him and sat down. “You’ve
been friends with my father for years and he taught me everything he knows. Don’t
you trust him?”

“This isn’t about your father.”

“Of course it is. He entrusted his company to me. Now it looks like you don’t trust
me to do a good job on the mansion and you’re letting everybody in town know about
it. Are you trying to ruin my business?”

I caught the distress in his expression as he leaned back away from me. “I’m not ruining
your business.”

“But you’re bad-mouthing me around City Hall,” I explained. “What if some homeowner
gets wind of it? Do you think they’ll ever hire me?”

“Now see here, young lady.” He wagged his finger at me. “I have nothing but respect
for you and your father, and your business is doing just fine. My concern is with
the lighthouse mansion.”

“That’s my concern, too.”

“Good. Then we’re agreed.”

I frowned. “Okay.”

“So, you’ll admit that you’re wrong about the blueprints.”

“What? No.” I shook my head to clear it. “No. I have the very latest version of the
architect’s prints and I’ve done a complete walk-through of the house. The blueprints
are correct.”

He threw his hands up. “Then it’ll all be ruined.”

And we were back to where we’d started. This was the same argument I’d been having
with him for weeks. And I didn’t even understand what his problem was. Aldous had
claimed there were other blueprints for the mansion and I had the wrong set. But I’d
gone back in the Planning Commission archives and checked the original version against
the more updated set and they were exactly the same. I’d followed them as we did our
walk-through the other day. The blueprints I was using were correct. I didn’t know
any other way to explain that to the old man.

“Chimney,” he muttered, mindlessly scribbling squiggles on a piece of paper. “There’s
no chimney.”

“There are four chimneys,” I said quietly.

He shot me a heated look. “How many staircases?”

“One.”

His jaw clenched so tightly, I thought he might break a tooth. I hated to see him
so angry. I sighed and reached over to take his hand in mine. I could feel every one
of his fragile bones and his thin, crepey skin. I wondered how much longer he would
live, and I was suddenly afraid this fight would be the death of him. I wanted to
end our argument right here and now. “Mr. Murch, I don’t want to argue about this
anymore. All I can do is promise, on my father’s honor, that I will make you proud
of the job I do on the lighthouse mansion.”

His lips shook slightly as he spoke. “I believe you, dear.”

“And anytime you want to come out to the mansion and see what we’re doing, you’re
always welcome. I’ll even drive you out there myself.”

His smile seemed a little sad. “I’ll take you up on that offer one of these days.”

Was that an admission of my ability to do a good job or had he just given up the fight
for now? I didn’t have a clue, but I wasn’t about to go another round with him.

“I’m available anytime. All you have to do is call me.” I squeezed his hand once more
before letting it go. Giving him an encouraging smile and a nod, I stood and walked
away. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry as I left the meeting hall. I felt bad
for Aldous, but I couldn’t do anything to fix a delusion from the past that had no
basis in reality.

I made a quick detour to Teddy’s office to let him know that Aldous seemed willing
to call a truce for now. “I can’t tell you if he’ll feel the same way tomorrow, but
he didn’t want to argue anymore. Maybe I just wore him out.”

Teddy shrugged. “I guess that’s something. But I’m afraid the old guy still has plenty
of rant left in him.”

“I suppose you’ll call me if he gets going again.”

“You bet I will,” he said cheerily.

I shook my head and walked out of his office.

*   *   *

I finally made it to Emily’s house and walked in on the organized chaos of a full-blown
rehab. A ladder was perched under the chandelier medallion in the foyer. A dozen five-gallon
drums of paint were lined up along the stairwell, along with clean paint rollers,
a couple of roller extensions, and a stack of paint trays. Streaks of different colors
were slashed across the wall of the dining room, where Emily was testing which ones
she liked best. Splotched drop cloths covered every inch of floor space. Blue painter’s
tape masked the edges of all the windows.

“Hey, boss,” Johnny said from atop the ladder. He wore a baseball cap backward to
protect his hair from flakes of dried spackle as he patched up a thin crack that ran
half the length of the narrow room. If the crack had been any wider, we would’ve had
to use drywall compound, because spackle was likely to dry unevenly and eventually
crumble and fall out of a large crack. For a small one like this, I thought we were
safe with spackle. It went on more smoothly without having to be sanded, and it dried
quickly.

“Good job, Johnny.”

“Ceiling should be ready to paint anytime.”

“Has Emily chosen the colors she wants in here?”

“Yeah, about six different times.”

I laughed. “She’s having an adventure.”

“She’s cool,” he said, grinning.

Emily had surprised us all a few months ago when she announced that she’d purchased
the old Rawley mansion. She’d heard the rumors that the place was haunted but laughed
it off, especially since the asking price for the home had been drastically reduced
based on those rumors. Little did she know that the ghost of Mrs. Rawley would indeed
turn out to be her new roommate.

Nobody had believed me when I’d claimed to have seen the ghost once years ago, when
my friend Jane and I had been trick-or-treating. I’d dared to peek through a window
and had seen a woman sitting nearby writing a letter and crying. I didn’t realize
she was a ghost until she started to fade and I could see right through her!

I didn’t dare mention it to Emily at first, but then I didn’t have to, because as
we started working on the house, Mrs. Rawley made her presence known in some startling
ways: shaking chandeliers, moaning and groaning, flying paint cans. Ever since we’d
discovered her old diary buried behind a wall, though, she had eased up on the spirited
antics. Emily insisted that the ghostly presence was comforting.

Things felt peaceful as I walked through the house, checking on the work we’d done
so far. I tracked down Sean and Douglas in the kitchen, where they were removing the
old sink in the butler’s pantry.

“Hey, guys,” I said.

“Hi, Shannon,” Douglas said, grunting as he lifted his end of the heavy cast-iron
sink. They set the thing down on the linoleum and stood, breathing heavily.

“That weighs a ton,” Sean said, wiping his forehead. He looked at me and smiled, but
I could tell by the sad look in his eyes that he wasn’t himself yet. And who could
blame him? “Where have you been all morning?”