Mortar and Murder (18 page)

“Are you serious about not wanting to work today?” Derek asked. “Do you want me to turn around?”

I gnawed on my bottom lip. “Would you mind? I’m a little worried about Irina, to be honest. You don’t think Wayne suspects her of anything, do you?”

Derek pondered. While he did, he slowed the boat to a crawl. “He might,” he admitted, finally.

“Do you think we should go look for her? Give her the news?”

“I think,” Derek said, “we should leave that to Wayne.”

“He probably wouldn’t like it if we did, would he?”

“No,” Derek said, “he wouldn’t.”

“I’m concerned, though. That he’ll think she had something to do with it.”

“Why would she have something to do with it? And why would he think so?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But remember yesterday, he said she was unhappy when he told her about the ICE agent? Maybe she really is illegal. And if she is, even if she didn’t do anything to Agent Trent, she had a motive.”

Derek didn’t answer. After a minute, though, he turned the boat around and headed back to the harbor.

By the time we reached the pier, it was empty. Wayne had left, and so had Brandon. Probably because the pier and the water below wasn’t much of a crime scene, really. There was debris floating in the water—empty soda bottles, beer cans, scraps of newspaper, last autumn’s dead leaves—but nothing that looked like it would have anything to do with a dead Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. And there was no telling how she’d gotten into the water, anyway; whether she’d been pushed off the pier right there or had been dumped off a boat. She might even have floated in on the tide, for all I knew.

“Are you coming with me?” I asked Derek when we were walking up Main Street again, toward the hardware store and the truck parked in the lot behind it. “Or do you want me to go home and get the Beetle?”

“D’you think I’d trust you on your own?” He glanced down at me.

“I think you’d better. What are you afraid I’m gonna do? Tell Irina to make a run for it because the law is on her tail?”

He didn’t answer.

“I just want to know what’s going on,” I said.

“That’s fine,” Derek answered, “but what if she did have something to do with it? What if she bashed Agent Trent over the head with a rock or something?”

I looked at him sideways. “You don’t think she did, do you?”

“If she’s illegal, and Lori Trent threatened to have her deported? I think she might.”

“How would she have gotten the body into the water?”

“She’s a big woman,” Derek said. “Tall and strong-looking. I imagine she might have managed.”

“She doesn’t own a car, though. How would she have gotten the body from her house on Becklea Drive and down to the harbor?”

It was his turn to give me a sideways look. “How do you know they met at Irina’s house on Becklea Drive? They could have arranged to meet somewhere in town. Irina may not have wanted Agent Trent to know where she lives.”

Damn. I bit my lip. He was right about that.

Derek had been watching my face, and now his voice softened. “I’m not saying she had anything to do with it, Avery. I don’t want to believe it, either. I like Irina. But you’ve had a couple of close calls this year, and you’re not always careful. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“You’re worried about me? And you’re coming along to protect me? My hero.”

“Whatever,” Derek said, a flush of color creeping onto his cheekbones. I giggled. He looked down at me, and then he bent and tossed me up over his shoulder, the way he used to do when we’d just met and I was exasperating him. I squealed and giggled and hung on as he strode around the corner of the hardware store and across the parking lot to the truck.

“It’s been a while since you did that,” I remarked a couple of minutes later, when we were rolling sedately down Main Street and I had gotten my breath back. “We’re not becoming set in our ways and boring, are we?”

He shot me a glance out of the corner of his eye. “You can ask that, after last night? And this morning?”

“Oh . . . um . . .” I flushed, remembering our breathless session between the sheets before rolling out of bed this morning. “I guess not.”

“I should hope not.” He grinned, but after a block or two he added, seriously, “It’s different when you’re in a relationship. Last summer we were just getting to know each other. Now we’ve been together awhile. Things are quieter.”

I nodded. “This is the longest I’ve ever managed to last in a relationship. That’s a little scary, isn’t it?”

“Not that scary. Means I’ve beaten all the other guys.” He winked.

“I’ve still a ways to go.” He and Melissa had been married for five years. They’d probably dated for a while before that, too. I’d never asked how long, and I didn’t now.

“Don’t worry about it. You’ve already beaten all the other girls, too.”

“How so?”

His voice was easy. “After Melissa, I thought I’d always break out in a cold sweat at the thought of commitment. And then I met you.”

“And I don’t make you break out in a cold sweat? Awww! That’s so sweet!”

“Except when you do stupid stuff,” Derek said.

“Good thing you’re around to rescue me.”

He smiled back. “Good thing.” And then he leaned over to drop a kiss on the top of my head before he concentrated on driving.

Becklea Drive lay quiet and peaceful when we turned the corner from Primrose Drive. Arthur Mattson, who lives two doors down from Irina with his shih tzu, Stella, was in the front yard working on one of his flower beds. I waved when we drove by, but he didn’t wave back. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. It was almost six months since I’d spoken to him, so he might have forgotten me. People do when they reach a certain age. Not that Arthur is old; just around sixty. But maybe he couldn’t see me clearly; the truck had tinted windows. He ought to be able to recognize the truck itself, though, with its Waterfield R&R sticker: Derek Ellis, Proprietor; Avery Baker, Designer. He’d seen it every single day six months ago.

Whatever. Derek pulled into the driveway two doors up, and we got out. Arthur shaded his eyes and peered at us. I waved again. After a second, he waved back. Stella yipped.

There was no sign of life at Irina’s house and no answer when I knocked on the door.

“She’s probably out showing houses,” Derek remarked. “Weekends are busy for real estate agents. It’s not a nine-to-five job. Nor is home renovation.”

I nodded. He had that right. When we’re working on a house—and that’s most of the time—every day is pretty much the same, unless something specific is going on that we have to take time off for. But if not, we’re just as likely to work on a Saturday or Sunday as we are on a weekday. When you’re in business for yourself, the faster you work, the sooner you see a payoff. And when you’re dealing with other people, who often work nine to five, and whose only opportunity to go look at houses is Saturday and Sunday, weekends become even more important. Someone in Irina’s position, eager to get a foothold in a competitive business, would make herself available whenever someone wanted her.

She didn’t answer her phone, though, when I tried to call.

“She may not,” Derek said, “if she’s with a client. She might think it would be rude.”

“That’s true.” I bit my lip.

I knew he was right about everything he’d said. But something about this still didn’t feel right. Or maybe it was just my imagination. If I’d gone to Irina’s house any other time and hadn’t found her at home, I would have assumed she was working. Now her absence worried me.

Something else was missing, too, I noticed: that big, heavy
pysanka
she’d had on her living room table yesterday. When I peered through the window, it wasn’t there. Not where I’d put it, and not where it had been when I first saw it.

“Why don’t you go ask Arthur if he’s seen her,” Derek suggested, interrupting my train of thought. “Meanwhile, I’m gonna check around back.”

“You don’t want me to come with you?”

He shook his head. “Just go talk to Arthur. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“OK.” I walked with him to the corner of the house and watched him go into the backyard before I cut across the neighbor’s lawn and hailed Arthur Mattson.

Stella the shih tzu went crazy as soon as I set foot on Arthur’s property, but because she’s only about fifteen pounds—roughly the size of Inky the cat—and not all that brave, she barked at me from behind Arthur’s khaki-clad legs. I’d long since given up on making friends with the little mutt; she growled and snapped every time I came near her.

Arthur was friendlier. “Haven’t seen you two for a while,” he remarked, showing me his dirty hands and making a face to explain why he couldn’t shake my hand.

“The house up the street is finished, and we’re on to the next project,” I explained.

“Where are you working now?”

I filled him in on the house on Rowanberry Island, and Arthur nodded. “Nice out there.”

“You’ve been there?”

“Not to your house. To Rowanberry. Got a friend who owns a house on the island.”

“Really? In the little village where the ferry docks?”

Arthur shook his head. “One of the summer homes. He retired to Florida and only comes up when it’s warm.”

“It isn’t Gert Heyerdahl, is it?”

“Oh, no.” Arthur gave another decisive shake of his head. “Name’s Lon Wilson. Gert Heyerdahl’s house makes Lonnie’s look like a shack. Lots of people around here are snowbirds. Spend their winters where it’s warm and only come back to Maine in the summer.”

I nodded. Derek’s grandfather, Willie, had retired to Florida, too. Except he hadn’t been back since. Too busy playing bocce ball and driving a golf cart through the sand dunes, I guess.

“You looking for Irina?” Arthur changed the subject.

I glanced over my shoulder. Derek was still behind the house and out of sight. “That’s right. Have you seen her today?”

Arthur shook his head. “Not since yesterday,” he said. “She came home in the late afternoon and then left again around six. Haven’t seen her since.”

“Any idea where she went?”

“Camping,” Arthur said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“She had on jeans and a sweater, and she was carrying a big backpack with a sleeping bag attached.”

“Wow.” I had a hard time picturing Irina in jeans and a sweater; every time I’d seen her, she’d been dressed in a severe business suit, with her hair so tightly scraped back from her face that her eyebrows were elevated. Then again, I’d pretty much only seen her when she was working. It stood to reason that she had to have a personal life, too. Maybe she spent every weekend tramping around in nature.

“Oh, no,” Arthur said when I suggested this, shaking his head. “Not at all. I’ve never seen her do it before. Usually she works on the weekends. She works all the time.”

“I don’t suppose she told you where she was going?”

But she hadn’t. Of course not.

Behind me, Derek came toward us across the grass, his approach accompanied by growls and tiny yips from Stella. He stopped next to me and put a hand out. “Arthur.”

Arthur shook it, of course. Apparently it was OK to shake Derek’s hand when his own was dirty; just not mine.

“Anything?” Derek asked me.

I repeated what Arthur had said. “What about you?”

His shook his head, a floppy lock of hair falling across his forehead. “Nothing. The place is locked up tight. No way to know whether she talked to Agent Trent or not.”

“Agent Trent?” Arthur repeated.

“Lori Trent, special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. She was up from Boston to talk to Irina about the body of a young Russian woman who was found in the sea earlier this week.” Derek’s voice was bland, giving no hint that we knew anything more about the body than anyone else would.

“I met Agent Trent.” Arthur dug in the pocket of his khakis and came up with a battered business card. It had the logo of ICE on it, Lori Trent’s name, and an address and phone number in Boston. “She stopped by yesterday afternoon.”

“Before or after Irina left?”

Arthur thought back. “Before. About one o’clock or so. Irina came back around five and left again around six.”

Derek and I exchanged a look. So there was still time for Agent Trent to have pinned Irina down in Portland or downtown Waterfield in the hours between one and five. There was probably time for Irina to have bashed her over the head with something and to have tipped her into the water, too. That kind of thing is a lot harder to do in broad daylight, but not impossible. And it would explain why Irina had grabbed a backpack and her sleeping bag and disappeared.

Down at the corner, a car appeared. It was black and white and had the logo of the Waterfield PD on the door.

“Here we go,” Derek said.

“Did you call them? Him?” I recognized Wayne’s profile as the cruiser pulled up to the curb.