Death at a Fixer-Upper (2 page)

Biddie was waiting for me at the foot of a small porch, snapping her fingers with irritation. She snatched the keys from my hand, selected one, and unlocked a weathered door. The old door creaked open, a plaintive sound like the howl of a dog over a corpse. For the second time today, an uncomfortable feeling assailed me, comprised of the deep solitude, the decay of the old mansion and…something else. “Is—is anyone home, you think?”

“Shouldn't be. There's a tenant. The old man's live-in nurse, as a matter of fact. She stayed on after he passed, with the permission of the probate attorney. But Lois Hartshorne, the listing agent, told her to make herself scarce today and tomorrow.”

“I hope she didn't put it like that.”

“You don't know Lois.”

“She a friend of yours?”

Biddie snorted. “Sure, we go way back. She worked for Everett Sweet, as a matter of fact, before they had a falling-out. Now she runs her own agency over in North Arlinda.”

“A falling-out? Over what?” Everett Sweet was our persnickety boss, the broker of Home Sweet Home Realty.

She shrugged and didn't respond, clearly tired of exercising her lips. We stepped into a kitchen that surprised me by being both light-filled and cheerful. Flowered curtains hung at the windows. An old wooden table with four square-backed chairs sat in the middle of the floor. The table was worn but clean, as was the old-fashioned sheet linoleum underneath it. The sink was a single well of cracked white porcelain set under a small window and surrounded by scarred butcher-block counters. A splash of color caught my eye: it was a drawing of flowers, done in exuberant crayon and taped to the round-shouldered refrigerator. The words “TO MAMA” were written across the bottom in staggering caps. I felt a flicker of surprise. Somehow it was hard to picture a child living here.

I poked my head into a tiny room off the kitchen, crowded with two cots and a worn oak dresser, then backed out. “Seems a little harsh to be selling the place out from under the tenant,” I said. “Where will she go?”

Biddie pinched her lips together. “Here's some advice, honey. It doesn't pay to be soft in this business.”

“I'm not
soft.
”

“Righty-ho. Real estate is dog-eat-dog. You have to disconnect your emotions if you want to make it. Everett should have told you that.”

“Maybe a hundred times. Still—”

“For a miserly horse's ass, the man's spot on. Toughen up. Case in point. This morning I found an old bum sleeping on the deck behind the office. Told him to beat it or I'd call the cops. I'm thinking you'd've brought him a cup of coffee and a pillow for his head.”

I opened my mouth to protest, then closed it again. There was no winning an argument with Biddie.

My colleague disappeared down the hall. I moved more slowly, glancing into a tall-ceilinged room that might once have been a study, now converted to an invalid's bedroom. I took in the medical-supply adjustable bed and the three-footed aluminum cane that was propped against the wall next to it. The top of an antique oak dresser was covered with bottles of prescription medicines. The air was fusty, scented with the perfume of age and illness: stale aftershave, menthol, dried urine. The windows were closed, with a nail driven through each sash to keep them that way. Maybe the old man had had an aversion to fresh air.

Back in the hall, I paused to examine a doorframe that didn't appear to be original to the house, separating the front from the back.

“Sam!”

Biddie's voice rang in my ears like tinnitus. I hurried after her and found her tapping her foot at the bottom of a flight of stairs. It was wide, even majestic, with an ornately carved mahogany rail. I barely got an impression of the two big rooms at the front of the house—darkly varnished wainscoting, heavy Victorian furniture shrouded in cotton sheets, tall windows blocked by moth-eaten velvet that let in only a glimmer of daylight—before she started up the stairs.

The air seemed to grow heavier as we ascended. We reached a small landing where the staircase took a ninety-degree turn, then climbed the last ten steps and arrived in another narrow hallway. The walls were covered in sprigged floral paper, curled at the seams and dotted with stains around the baseboards. A tattered strip of Oriental carpeting sent up little clouds of dust and spores with every step we took.

The thick air caught at my throat and I coughed. “This is terrible. Six hundred grand for a house that's falling down? What a waste.”

“Nonsense. Just needs a lick o' paint.”

“You really believe that?”

“My clients will.” She opened a door and we looked in silence at a bedroom coated in dust. There were two more rooms just like it, devoid of life.

The hall ended at another boarded-up window and another flight of stairs, this one leading up to the tower. Yellow tape stretched across the newel posts to block access. Water had pummeled the stairs, warping the treads and pulling at the risers as if intent on taking them apart piece by piece. The ruined woodwork and its accompanying smell of decay swept over me in a wave that almost knocked me off balance. Like I said, I'm not a believer in things I can't see. But there was something dark, almost menacing, in the air, an oppressiveness that was nearly unbearable.

“The old man,” I said abruptly. “He died from natural causes, right?”

Biddie stared at me.

“I mean, he wasn't, uh, murdered or anything, was he?”

“Saints preserve us,” she crowed. “Lassie's got the second sight.” She threw back her head and enjoyed some Biddie-style mirth, shoulders twitching, making a noise in her throat that was not unlike a cat bringing up a hair ball.

“He died of a heart attack,” she said when she'd finished. “He'd had a dicky heart for years, which is why the second story was shut off. Doctor forbade him the stairs.” Her bosom heaved with another paroxysm of amusement.

I reddened. What on earth had prompted me to blurt out something so foolish?

“Let's get out of here,” she said.

I was only too glad to comply. We'd started down the stairs and were a few steps shy of the middle landing when Biddie stopped dead in her tracks so abruptly that I almost plowed into her. She stood stock-still, frozen in place.

“What is it?” I said, a trifle impatiently.

She turned toward me, lips moving, her voice just a breath of sound. I leaned closer.

“Blood,” she whispered.

A chill traveled down my spine. I looked around the stairwell, trying to see what she'd seen. Biddie's eyes were unfocused and her hands clenched and unclenched themselves, as if controlled by unseen strings. More words tumbled out in a flat, eerie monotone.

“Death. Red roses. Too much red, dripping down the stems, ruining the pretty petals…”

Without warning, her eyes rolled back in her head and she sagged like a balloon from which all the air had been suddenly let out. I caught her by the shoulders just before her head smacked into the stairs. Her face was dead white against the halo of auburn curls. I tugged her toward the landing like a sack of potatoes, groaning with effort. Shifting my grip to her ankles, I tugged hard. Between gravity and my efforts, she slithered to the landing, the back of her head beating a rhythmic tattoo on the treads as she descended. Her breasts rose and fell like twin buoys rocked by the ocean swell. The whites of her eyes gleamed.
Shit!
What was I supposed to do now?

Memories of old black-and-white movies, where the heroine swoons gently, frequently, and with far more grace than my colleague, flashed though my head. Water—that's what I needed. I thundered down the stairs two at a time and galloped across the hall to the kitchen. There was a coffee mug in the sink half filled with dark fluid. I dumped the contents and filled the mug with cold water from the tap.

I raised my eyes and found myself staring at a face through the window, almost close enough to touch. With a shriek, I dropped the cup and reeled back a pace. The face vanished, leaving the window empty.

My heart was doing calisthenics in my chest. How many shocks could my ticker sustain in one day? I reached for the doorknob, willing my reluctant legs to give chase, then thought of Biddie sprawled on the stairs. I couldn't just leave her.

The mug lay in the sink, mercifully unbroken. I filled it again, checked to make sure the door was locked, and raced back to where Biddie lay, still as a stone. Dipping three fingers into the water, I flicked a few droplets on her pallid cheek.

“Biddie! Are you okay?”

No response.

At a loss, I gripped the mug by the handle and dashed the contents into her face.
“Biddie!”

Unexpectedly her right arm shot out, catching me in the chest and knocking me back a pace. Biddie snorted and sat up, shaking her head. Water dripped off her chin and flowed into her cleavage. She looked down and spotted the wet stain spreading on her blouse.

“Geroff me!” she snapped, shoving at me again. “What the hell are you playing at?”

She rooted around for her handbag, found it, and reached inside, pulling out a tissue with which to mop her face. It was still ashen, with a sheen of perspiration on her brow.

“You were having some sort of fit.”

“Balls. Look what you've done to my blouse. This is goddamn imported silk.” She dabbed at her boobs with the tissue. Grasping the railing, she pulled herself to her feet.

I stood by, muscles taut with nervous strain. “Really, you should sit a minute,” I said uneasily.

“I'm fine.” Then she swayed and clutched my shoulder, running the other hand across her forehead. “Maybe I do feel a bit peculiar. Hypoglycemia, that's all it is. I'm subject to it.”

She released me and extended a cautious foot. I didn't dare take her arm as she made her way down the stairs, but I watched for another sudden collapse and breathed a sigh of relief when we arrived at the first floor.

“Well,” she said, seeming confused as to the next move.

“Listen—we've seen enough, right? I'll lock up. You head back and get something to eat.”

She looked at me doubtfully. “I can lock up.”

“I got it. Just take it easy. Have some juice.”

“I might at that.” She moved through the hall to the kitchen before turning back to me. I thought she was going to thank me for my concern.

Instead, she said, “Don't forget to leave your card.” The door slammed shut behind her.

Huh. No sense overdoing the gratitude. I returned the mug to the sink and dropped my business card on the kitchen table after penciling in the date, time, and my initials in an artistic scrawl. I checked all the doors, then twisted the button on the knob of the back door and made my exit.

Once outside, I let the cool air wash over me, willing the tension from my muscles. It wasn't just my co-worker's peculiar turn, and the
face
—all blazing light eyes, with a cap pulled low and a collar shrugged up high, blotting out any other distinctive features. It was the house itself: the atmosphere had turned my insides to jelly. I needed sweets, and fast.

But my foolhardy feet, instead of leading me to my car, took a right, toward the back of the house. The weeds poked through the path more aggressively with every step, breaking the brick into powdery shards underfoot as I rounded the corner.

My breath caught in my throat at the explosion of flora that greeted me. Roses of all shapes and sizes, more than I could count, were planted in concentric circles with grass walkways woven between them. Some were in full flower, with heavy blooms the size of baseballs; others were furled buds showing just a promise of color: deep red, pale lilac, peach, a pale yellow edged with coral.

Beyond the rose garden was an expanse of knee-high lawn dotted with islands of flowering shrubs. Mature trees with thick trunks grew farther out. In the distance, I could see glimpses of the wrought-iron fence that enclosed the property.

My path ended at a circular patio made of spiraling brick, with a wishing well at the center. I'd planned to do a little detective work, maybe check for footmarks outside the kitchen window; instead, I crossed the bricks and peered down into the well before trying the crank.

“That chain's been rusted solid for years,” a voice said.

My nerves were as tightly cinched as banjo strings, and I suppressed a yelp. Off to the left was an old greenhouse made of cloudy glass, with a wheelbarrow parked around the side. A woman had come to the door and was watching me.

“Sorry,” she said. “I didn't mean to startle you. You're the real estate agent?”

I nodded. “I was just about to take off.”

“No need. Come on back and I'll show you around.”

I picked my way toward her through the grass. A little tan pug boiled out of the greenhouse, barking energetically. With each bark, its front feet lifted off the ground.

“Oliver,” the woman said.

The dog toned it down to a grumble, edging closer to snuffle at my shoes. Apprehension must have shown on my face, because she said, “Don't worry about him. He's all bluff.”

Oliver grunted, gave my shoes a final sniff, then moved away. He found a patch of bare dirt and turned around twice before settling down, resting his grizzled face on his paws with a sigh.

The woman held out her hand. “Merrit Brown.”

“Sam Turner. You live here?”

Her hand felt hot to the touch. I studied her face. She was of medium height and stick-thin, with untidy hair gathered into a ponytail, its dull brunette shade offset by a single white lock at her forehead. Her eyes were light brown, almost gold, but lacking the sheen. Lines of suffering creased the corners of her eyes and mouth. Not the face I'd seen through the glass, which had been…broader? More alive? A man's face, was my hazy impression.

She nodded. “That's right. Just on three years now. I moved in to care for the old man. His great-granddad, Northrup Harrington, he was the one who built this place and put in the well. At one time you could turn the crank and pull up a bucket full of pennies. My daughter still likes to make a wish now and again.”

“I take it the house has always been in the family,” I said, keeping one eye pinned on the dog.

“For more than a century. Northrup'd been to London as a young man and wanted an English-style garden with the brick and all. His great-grandson, Edsel Jr., is the one who hired me. Congestive heart failure finally took him last fall.”

“So there are no more Harringtons?”

She shook her head. “Eddie stayed a bachelor until he died. There was a great-nephew, though, who came to live with him fourteen, maybe fifteen years ago. His sister's grandson, the last of the family. But the young fella didn't stay long. Wanderlust and gardening seem to have run in the family, from what I understand. Eddie told me that as a youth he'd traveled all over and never expected to settle anywhere. But the estate drew him home like a bee to a flower, and he went on to live here nearly forty years.”

I glanced around. “The house could use some repairs.” Or a wrecking ball, I thought.

She nodded. “It's a shame. There's plenty of cash value right here in the land, but Eddie wouldn't hear of borrowing against the property to fix things up. Said his family'd always owned it free and clear and it was going to stay that way. He was an old fool in a lot of respects. But good company. Truth is, I don't know that money can fix what's wrong with the place.”

“How do you mean?”

She shrugged. “It's been an unhappy house since it was built. Bad karma's what they'd call it nowadays. Northrup had his grand plans, but in the end he died a broken man. Took his own life, as a matter of fact.”

I gulped. “He did?”

“Shot himself up in that there tower. No one ever knew why. His son died a few years later of septicemia. Just a scratch, but it took bad and he was gone in a week. Eddie's father, Edsel Sr., he lost the family money in the stock market, and that's when the place was let go so bad. When I hired on, Eddie was living like a hermit. Hadn't stepped foot off the grounds in years. Just him and his roses. He planted more than fifty varieties, a little of everything: the hybrid teas, the rugosas, them climbers over there, the floribundas and grandifloras. He had a soft spot for the heirlooms and old-fashioneds. He tried his hand at breeding them, too. Look here.”

She led the way to a cluster of plants. Her gait was off, one leg dragging a little behind the other.

“This is a rose Eddie called Arlinda June,” she said. She pointed to a partly unfurled flower of such a deep, moody lilac that it was nearly gray. “You won't find it in a garden shop. Give that a sniff.”

I bent down and inhaled. The smell was intoxicating, like a lazy summer day distilled down to a single drop of heady perfume.

“Wow. What about the color? I've never seen anything like it.”

“And you won't, like I said. Eddie put years into developing that. But he lost all except for these three to black spot, which we're susceptible to here on the coast.”

I nodded. I wasn't much of a gardener, but I could get black spot in my shower without even trying. I cleared my throat. “You, uh, see anyone else around here? A couple minutes ago?”

She shook her head. “Not a soul. Are you meeting someone?”

“No, I just thought—” I faltered and glanced at my watch. “Oh, jeez, I should get back. Thanks for the tour.”

“You want a cup of tea before you go?” she said.

I hesitated. There was a wistfulness to her invitation that made me wonder how often she had company.

“Maybe another time,” I said.

She made a gesture that included the house and grounds. “When the place sells, what will happen to Eddie's flowers?”

A troubling question, to which I didn't have the answer. I shrugged. “That depends, I suppose. Maybe the new owner will keep things as they are.”

“That's what Eddie would have liked,” she said. “But, believe me, things don't always turn out the way we like.”

It was almost noon when I left Aster Lane, bouncing over the ruts once more until I emerged on Eleventh Street. A busy arterial, Eleventh ran from the heart of town west toward the Pacific Ocean, passing through a working-class neighborhood of modest post-war bungalows. Most of the properties were in good repair: fresh paint, neatly trimmed shrubs, Christmas lights taken down, solid American-made cars parked on the pavement instead of on the lawn—something we in the business call “pride of ownership.” Cherry blossoms floated down like pale pink confetti from the trees that lined the street, and soft drifts of petals had collected along the curb.

I was rolling past the ecclesiastical bulk of Our Lady of Perpetual Melancholy when the steering wheel slipped from my fingers and the VW lurched toward the curb. What now, for heaven's sake? I hauled the wheel around and pulled in as close to the sidewalk as I could, then hopped out. The right front wheel was resting on its rim, the tire as flat as my first training bra.

“Would you look at that,” I said aloud. “Son of a b—oh, hi, Father.”

A gray-haired man in a stiff white collar smiled and nodded as he strolled by with a fluffy elderly lady on each arm, no doubt pillars of the church. While I waited for lightning to strike me, I checked the spare, which was bolted to the nose of the bus. It didn't look much better than the flat, but at least it was holding air. I stripped down to my stretchy black T-shirt, then grabbed some tools out of the back of the bus and went to work.

Twenty minutes later, I sat back on my heels. My hands were dirty and my fingernails had an arc of grease under them. There was road dust on my knees and a crick in my back. The “new” tire looked like a stout man's flabby midsection. I sighed and added new tires to the list of expenditures I'd put off until we closed on our house. At least I could have the old tire patched. Probably.

The rest of the VW was looking equally timeworn. The pea-green paint had gone chalky around the doors and the dents and rust spots were starting to add up. It was years overdue for a tune-up at Ernst's Foreign Car Care. But it was the groovy camper all the aging hippies wanted, with a pop-up tent, an icebox, and a full sink—and it was paid for. A stack of flattened moving boxes sat on the rear bench seat in readiness for our big move. Bob Hancock, our landlord, was eager to see us go, so much so he'd offered to have the county Sheriff's Department assist us in packing up our things and moving us the hell out.

A black-and-white patrol car eased in behind the Volkswagen.
Now
the cavalry arrives, I thought bitterly. Then my pulse quickened as Bernie Aguilar climbed out of the vehicle.

I raised a hand in a casual wave to cover the usual rush of warmth I felt in the presence of Arlinda's chief of police. Bernie was just over six feet and stocky from hard work and good Portuguese food. His hair was thick and dark, touched with silver; he wore a mustache and a beard trimmed to regulation standards. He was dressed in the navy blue of the APD, his name pinned over the pocket of his shirt and his badge over his heart.

Maybe I'm a sucker for a man in uniform, but, to be strictly honest, I'd had a pash for Bernie even back in the days when he'd been my sister's soon-to-be ex-husband. But I knew better than to act on it—or, at least, I thought I did. A few weeks back, topped off with beer and euphoria after learning our home offer had been accepted, I'd…well, kissed him. My mind stole back to that evening so cruelly interrupted by Bernie's pager: his breath soft and warm in my hair, his hands on my breasts and then—

I gave myself a smack on the head. This would never do.

Bernie strolled over to where I sat, one hand resting on his belt, a smile flickering on his lips. “What seems to be the trouble, ma'am?”

“Nothing I can't handle.” I wrenched my thoughts back to the present and gave him what I hoped was a cool little smile, to show him I was a take-charge woman with full command of my impulses.

He glanced over my handiwork. “Happy to help you change that tire.”

“You're
looking
at the new tire.”

His smile widened. “Of course. What was I thinking?” He shifted his weight so that he was leaning against the van. I didn't want to be caught staring up at his off-duty hardware, so I clambered to my feet, making plenty of noise to cover the creaking of my joints. I brushed the street off my jeans and looked up to find his eyes on mine. We didn't say anything for a moment.

“So what brings you here?” I said, before the pink flush stealing up my neck could reach my cheeks.

“My duty to protect and serve. Report of a motorist in distress.”

“And?”

“And I heard you might be free for dinner Saturday.”

“I'll have to check my social calendar. How'd you hear that?”

“I'm a trained investigator. You still in your old place?”

“We close Wednesday.” Knock on wood. “I figure it'll take the rest of the week to get our stuff moved.”

“Perfect. You won't want to stop packing to cook. I'll bring you dinner and help with the heavy stuff.”

“What'd you have in mind? Nothing fancy, I hope.”

“Not at all. Pizza, actually. I could bring over a pie from Big Louie's.”

I bent down and gathered up my tools to buy myself some time. Dinner was a mistake. Still, Max had plans and would be staying with friends on Saturday. It was only pizza, right? Wrong. There was a lot more on the table here than a pie from Big Louie's.

My mouth opened to tell him no, no, no. “Pizza sounds, um, good. Perfect. Six o'clock?” Inwardly, I cursed my traitorous libido.

“I'll be there.” Bernie's fingers brushed my shoulder, and my body temperature ratcheted up a few degrees. “I like this shirt. It's new, isn't it?”

“Yeah. Fifty percent off at the big box store.”

He leaned in, his words caressing my ear. “Maybe Saturday we can make that a hundred percent.”

After Bernie drove off, I was conscious of a certain degree of unseemly warmth that didn't mesh well with my professional-woman image. So instead of rolling straight to the office I parked at the town common, a green square of grass with a bronze statue of William McKinley at his crankiest in the center. The corner bakery had just set out a basket of buttery chocolate-chip muffins fresh from the oven; I grabbed a coffee and a muffin, still seductively warm inside its white bakery bag. Nutritionists tell us chocolate is a superfood, and I was never one to argue with science.

There was a vacant bench on the Plaza near McKinley, and I settled down to cool my fires and do some people-watching. The bench kitty-corner to me was occupied by a gentleman dressed in a makeshift kilt composed of two plaid shirts tied at the waist, one in front and one in back. To complete his ensemble, he wore a puffy dark green vest with nothing underneath, his arms sticking out like unbreaded chicken wings. He hiked a leg up to adjust the laces on his boots, and I was treated to a view of the lower Hebrides in all their glory.