Spackled and Spooked

10

Or not. The man behind the counter wasn’t the type to set anyone’s heart aflutter, especially compared to the strapping Irish lad Brian Murphy had been seventeen years ago. Small and spare, his silver hair combed back in an early-Elvis ducktail, he was dressed in pale blue 1960s garb, complete with skinny lapels and a skinnier tie. “Help you ladies?” he asked, looking up.

“Mr. Nickerson?” I said. “My name is Avery Baker.”

“Nice to meet you, Miss Baker. John Nickerson. New in town?”

I explained that I’d been here since early summer. “My aunt died, and I inherited her house.”

John Nickerson nodded sagely. “The old Morton place, right? I drove by there the other day. Looks good.”

“That’s Derek’s doing. Do you know Derek Ellis?”

“Course,” Mr. Nickerson said. “Everyone knows everyone in Waterfield. Or used to, anyway. How are you, Kate?”

Kate said she was fine, and the two of them small-talked for a few minutes about how the summer’s business season had been for them both. I took the opportunity to look around.

There are all sorts of antique stores in the world, from your basic junk store, where the owner has no idea what he or she has, to the snobby and upscale places that are more like museums, which specialize in a certain era or type of thing, and where glass cases preclude you from picking anything up even if you dare. Nickerson’s was somewhere in between. John Nickerson had a little bit of everything, but if he had a specialty, it seemed to be midcentury modern: post-WWII up to about the 1980s. There was a ton of 1950s and ’60s kitsch sitting around: a tall, hooked, shag rug with a giraffe hung on one wall, while a pristine dinette set with a yellow Formica top and four yellow and white Naugahyde chairs had pride of place in the back corner. Under the giraffe sat a couple of orange scoop chairs and a glass table with a lava lamp on top, while a few framed examples of that big-eyed art that was so popular a generation ago hung above the dinette set. Everything was accessible and touchable, except for very few pieces of custom jewelry and other small items under the counter.

On a whim, I pulled the earring I had found out of my pocket. “I don’t suppose you have another one like this, do you? I lost one, and now I can’t wear them anymore.”

He took the earring from me with fingers that trembled slightly. I wondered if it was significant or if he always trembled. After a moment of peering myopically at it, he shook his head. “After my time, I’m afraid.” His voice was perfectly even and his face unexpressive; so much for trying to startle him by showing him Peggy Murphy’s earring.

“After?” I had thought the earring looked 1940s or thereabouts. Of course, Shannon had already confirmed that hers were reproductions, so maybe I should have considered that this might be, as well. Then again, that meant that someone must have lost it over the past few years, while the house had been empty.

He nodded. “It looks vintage, but it’s actually a modern reproduction. See the back? No soldering? It’s been made in a mold in the past few years. Sorry I can’t help.” He handed it back.

“That’s OK,” I said, tucking it back into my pocket again. So it wasn’t Peggy Murphy’s after all, or her mother’s, either. Maybe it had belonged to one of the teenagers that Venetia Rudolph had seen in the house a few years ago. “I was actually interested in that chest of drawers you have in the window.”

“The Fredericia? Beautiful, isn’t it?” He jumped down from the tall stool he’d been sitting on, and started toward the display window. His bearing was almost military, straight and tall, but he had a pronounced limp, as if one leg was shorter than the other. “ Vietnam,” he said briefly when he caught my reaction. I blushed.

“Sorry.”

“It’s been forty years. Don’t worry about it. This?” He pointed to the chest of drawers we’d seen through the window.

“That’s the one.”

“Nineteen sixty-five Danish Modern, teak, made in Fredericia Møbelfabrik. That’s the Fredericia Furniture Factory to you. Still in operation today. Give it to you for five hundred fifty dollars.”

“I don’t know…” I said, biting my lip. Five hundred fifty dollars was more than I wanted to spend, especially considering that I’d have to do modifications to turn it from a dresser into a sink base. The top drawer or two would have to be glued and nailed shut and the bottom of at least one of them removed to make room for the plumbing, and I’d have to cut holes in the top for the drain and waterlines, as well as the faucet. Lots of room for error in doing all that, and if I messed up too badly, the piece would be useless. On the other hand, it would look fabulous in the brown and blue bathroom. “What’s that?” I pointed. “A chip?”

Mr. Nickerson bent down. “A small one. I’ll knock off fifty dollars.”

“I don’t know. Five hundred dollars is still a little more than I’m comfortable with. See, I can go to the home improvement center and buy a sink base that’ll look OK for a lot less than that. But because it’s a 1960s ranch, I thought an authentic dresser would look good. With one of those vessel sinks on top, you know, like a bowl. There’s this little brown and blue bathroom that my boyfriend won’t let me tear out, because the tile is perfect…”

I peered at him for any sign of recognition, some clue that he’d been in the Murphy house and had seen-maybe even showered in-the brown and blue master bath, but he didn’t flicker so much as an eyelash. “Sounds like an interesting idea.”

“I hope so,” I said. “If you’ve lived in town for a while, you probably know the house. A family named Murphy used to live there, until seventeen years ago or so, when they all died.” I did my best to sound innocent, but I don’t know how well I did, especially considering that I was-surreptitiously, I hoped-gauging his reaction.

“Peggy Murphy used to work for me,” John Nickerson said neutrally. I opened my eyes wide.

“You’re kidding? Small world.”

It sounded fake even to me, and Kate rolled her eyes. She was over by the Naugahyde chairs examining the big-eyed people. “I remember these,” she said, pointing to the pictures. “My grandmother had them. Little boys with puppies, little girls with kittens. On her living room wall.”

“Highly collectible these days.” John Nickerson left me to limp over to her. He seemed not to care whether I decided to buy the Danish Modern dresser or not. Or maybe it was a tactic: leaving me to stew and decide that if he didn’t care, I’d better pony up. Or maybe my conversation was making him uncomfortable, in spite of his seeming lack of reaction to the earring and the mention of the Murphys.

“They’re kind of cute,” I admitted, following him, “in a weird way.”

“I think I’ll have to buy that one.” Kate pointed to a lost-looking waif in a harlequin costume with a big tear rolling down her cheek. The child had the biggest, sad dest eyes I had seen in my life. “Looks just like Shannon did when she was young. I’m going to give it to her for her birthday.”

“Will she appreciate that?” I asked, while Mr. Nickerson took the print off the wall and carried it to the counter.

“She’ll think it’s funny.” Kate dug her wallet out of her purse and paid fifteen dollars for the picture. Mr. Nickerson wrapped it in brown paper for her.

“I’ll let you know about the dresser,” I said. “I should probably talk to Derek first. See just how difficult it would be to turn something like that into a sink base. Do you expect to sell it in the next couple of days?”

“Can’t promise anything,” John Nickerson said, “but with everything slowing down after the summer, it’ll probably still be here a while. Let me know.” He nodded politely but obviously didn’t feel it necessary to offer me another incentive-like a lower price-to take the dresser off his hands now instead of later.

“What was that all about?” Kate asked when we were outside on Main Street again, continuing our way toward Aunt Inga’s house and the B and B.

I shrugged. “Cora Ellis thought there might have been something going on between him and Peggy Murphy, and that’s why Brian killed her.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Kate said. “John doesn’t seem the type, but even if it were true almost twenty years ago, does it matter now?”

“I guess it doesn’t, really,” I admitted. “There’s never been any doubt about it being Brian who killed the rest of the family. I’m not suggesting that it was really John Nickerson. I’m just curious what would make a man do something like that, you know. There had to have been something behind it, don’t you think?”

“You’d think,” Kate agreed, without sounding like it mattered to her one way or the other.

Derek called a little before nine that night to tell me that the skeleton was out of the ground and in storage at Barnham College. “It’ll end up in Portland eventually, at the medical examiner’s office, but Wayne wants to keep it here for a day or two to see if he can’t figure out who it is without their help. She was buried here, after all, so she has to have had some kind of connection to Waterfield, even if it’s just that her murder took place here.”

“Murder?”

He sounded tired. “The back of her skull was crushed, as if someone hit her with something.”

For a second, the room spun crazily, and I had to sit down on Aunt Inga’s newly reupholstered loveseat as the macaroni and cheese I’d had for dinner threatened to make a repeat performance. I swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on what Derek was saying. From the tone of his voice, the sight or thought hadn’t bothered him at all; he seemed to be treating the whole thing more as an intellectual riddle.

“Could she have fallen and hit her head on something?” I suggested once I could breathe again.

“It would have to have been something sharp. Like the corner of a table, maybe.”

Something skittered through my head and out on the other side. I didn’t even try to pursue it. If it was important, it would come back. “Surely the fact that someone took the trouble to bury her means that it was murder.”

“Not necessarily,” Derek said. “It could have been an accident, but whoever was there with her didn’t want to get involved.”

“Who would do something like that?”

It wasn’t so much a question as a rhetorical comment on the cowardice and lack of moral fiber of some people, but Derek chose to answer it. “Someone with a lot to lose. A cheating husband whose wife would cut up rough? Or just someone who didn’t think too clearly in the moment? Not impossible, under the circumstances.”

I nodded. “And by the time he’d buried her and come to his senses, he couldn’t very well dig her back up again and call the police. They wouldn’t like that, would they?”

“Not at all,” Derek said.

“Any idea who she was? Did you find any clues? Anything except the bones?”

“ Brandon found a small silver stud among the lumbar vertebrae.”

I flipped through my mental file. “That’s the spine, right?”

“Lower part of the spine, yes. Lumbar, then thoracic, then cervical.”

“A navel ring?” Whoever she was, she must have been fairly young, if so. Most middle-aged women don’t go piercing their navels.

“I assume that’s what it was,” Derek said. “As the flesh and intestines rotted away, the stud would have ended up among the vertebrae.”

“Gack!” I protested. Derek apologized.

“If he can’t identify her any other way, Wayne will place photographs of the stud in the Clarion and the Weekly, and see if anyone recognizes it. Brandon gathered it up and put it in a box.” His voice was flat and fatigued, and I took pity on him.

“Why don’t you go get some sleep? You sound like you could use it.”

“I’m tired,” Derek admitted.

“What about tomorrow? Are Wayne and Brandon going to dig up the rest of the crawlspace? Or will they be busy tracking down the identity of this woman?”

“Rather than dig up the rest of the crawlspace,” Derek said, “ Wayne has seen the light and agreed to bring in cadaver dogs. Brandon ’s idea. They’ll sniff around the crawlspace and see if there’s anything else down there, and then they’ll do the same to the yard, just in case.”

“And if they mark, or whatever it is cadaver dogs do, then Brandon will dig?”

“Guess so.” He sounded less than thrilled at the prospect.

“What about the house?” I asked. “Are they going to check that, as well?”

“I would. Just in case this woman died inside.”

He continued, but I didn’t hear him. That same thought as earlier skittered across my brain again, and this time I did try to chase it down. “I’m sorry,” I said, when I had tried and failed, “would you mind repeating that? I was thinking about something else.”

“I was just saying not to expect anything to get done on the house tomorrow. Maybe not the next day, either. So if you just want to find something else to do, that’s fine.”

“What about you? Don’t you want to do something together?” My voice might have been just a little come hitherish, because he chuckled.

“I’d love to do something together, Avery, but I think at least one of us ought to be there, keeping an eye on things, don’t you? It is our house.”

“True.”

“And you didn’t seem to be enjoying yourself today.”

“I’m not as fond of bones as you are,” I explained. “Nor as comfortable with them. The whole thing is freaking me out, to be honest, and that’s without worrying about how all this is going to affect resale.”

“Don’t remind me,” Derek said. “I figure with your aversion to bones, and the fact that I’m comfortable with them and can tell them apart if necessary, it’s probably better for me to be there. But feel free to stop by as well. It’s your house, too.”

“I might just do that. If I can find a ride.”

“I’ll call Brandon and ask him to pick me up in the morning,” Derek said. “That way you can drive the truck again. I didn’t even pick up the key yet. But I think we’re gonna have to seriously look into getting you a car, Avery. It’s no problem as long as we’re going to the same place at the same time, but we don’t always, and it’s gonna be too cold in the winter to do much walking. You really ought to have transportation of your own.”

“I guess you’re right.” Much as I hated to admit it. I’d spent my entire life in Manhattan, without ever owning a car, and I wasn’t looking forward to the responsibility. Which was why I had gone through the summer without buying one. “As soon as this skeleton issue is resolved, we’ll do something about it, I promise. Let’s just get over one hurdle at a time.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Derek said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Tink.” He hung up.

You’d think that with everything that had happened that day, I’d be so exhausted that I’d drop off to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Not so. Crawling into the warm softness of pillows and comforter was wonderful, but after my tense muscles had relaxed, my mind was still buzzing. Footsteps and disembodied screams, bones and buttons danced in my head. Also making appearances were the people I’d talked to that day: the Becklea neighbors, Denise and little Trevor, Irina and Linda, Arthur Mattson and Stella the shih tzu. Lionel Kenefick and Venetia Rudolph. Shannon and Josh, Paige and Brandon Thomas. Mr. Nickerson and his teak dresser. Melissa, playing on my insecurities and my history of picking all the wrong guys to sow doubts in my mind about Derek.

Eventually I drifted off, into weird dreams and night-mares. I was at the prom, looking for my date. But when I found him-Derek, dressed in a powder blue tux with a ruffled shirt-he had Melissa on his arm looking stunning in a slinky, white gown dripping with crystals or rhinestones or something. Other vaguely familiar faces danced by: John Nickerson and Peggy Murphy, the latter looking insubstantial and wraithlike, ghostly. Venetia Rudolph, hideous in a plus-sized copy of Scarlett O’Hara’s green dress, stomping on Lionel Kenefick’s toes. Denise, with Trevor still on her arm. Arthur Mattson squiring the regal Irina; the top of his head barely reaching the tip of her nose. Paige Thompson fragile in Brandon Thomas’s brawny arms. Ricky Swanson looking pale and clammy over in a corner, surrounded by the ghosts of dead Murphys.

In addition to the ghosts, there was also a skeleton at the feast. At first I thought it was Melissa, held tenderly in Derek’s arms, but when the rhythm of the music spun them around, I saw the grinning skull under the flowing hair, and the brittle bones rising out of the neckline of the low-cut, green dress.

Ask any dream interpreter, and they’ll tell you that dreams have meaning. Dreams are your subconscious’s way of telling you things you may not be aware of or that you choose to ignore. In the current case, I wasn’t entirely sure what my subconscious was trying to tell me, other than that I disliked Melissa James and wanted her dead. Figuratively speaking, of course. Although I probably wouldn’t mourn too long or hard if I left the house tomorrow and found out that Melissa had had a fatal accident overnight-driven her sleek, cream-colored Mercedes off the coast road and into the frigid waters of the Atlantic, for instance. Naturally I didn’t wish for it to happen-that would be unkind-but if it did, it wouldn’t break my heart, any more than my own untimely demise would break Melissa’s.

Between one thing and the other I didn’t sleep well until I finally found some peace in the wee hours of the morning. The result was that I overslept; by the time I woke up, the sun was slanting through the curtains and the birds weren’t just singing, they were carrying on an unholy racket in the trees and bushes outside my window. I dragged myself into the bathroom and stood under the needle-sharp spray of the shower until I felt prepared to face the day. Thank God for Derek; when I first moved in, there had been no shower in Aunt Inga’s house, just an old, footed bathtub, and for most of the summer, I’d had to be content with soaking my troubles away. It just wasn’t the same.

Feeling better, I dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt of my own design, with a pattern of stylized black and white poodles against a pink background-my take on the traditional 1950s poodle skirts. Derek had said the truck would still be where I parked it yesterday, in the lot behind his apartment, so after eating a bowl of cereal and a banana, I headed down the hill again.

The truck was right where Derek had said it would be, and when I fished under the mat, there was the key, as well. The engine turned right over, and a minute later I was navigating my way down Main Street toward the inland road.

Waterfield sits right on the water, although not right on the ocean. Unlike the coast from New Jersey down to Florida, with its miles upon miles of sandy beaches, the New England coast is rocky and craggy, full of small islands, coves, and inlets. Waterfield is situated at the end of one of the latter, a sort of natural harbor surrounded by rocks and sheer drops. There are three main roads heading out of town. The Atlantic Highway runs northeast, up along the coast toward Wiscasset, Thomaston, and, ultimately, Rockland and Belfast. To the west, that same road eventually merges with I-295 toward Portland. That was the way to Barnham College and the house on Becklea. In addition, there’s also another, smaller road heading pretty much due north from downtown, past Augusta, until it peters out somewhere in the wilds of Canada. I’d never been up that way, and had no plans to go now. Instead I turned the nose of the truck due west, and stepped on the gas.

Living in Manhattan doesn’t give a person a whole lot of opportunity to practice one’s driving skills, what with the ready availability of subways, buses, and cabs. The cabbies are disinclined to share the wheel with their passengers, and my ex-boyfriend Philippe had been almost equally disinclined to lend me his beloved Porsche for practicing purposes. I knew how to drive, but I wouldn’t call myself a seasoned, or even particularly comfortable, driver. For the first few minutes of the drive, both yesterday and today, I kept a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel and my eyes peeled for any sign of trouble. Once I left the more congested downtown area and turned west, away from the sun and ocean, I felt a little more comfortable: enough to relax until my back actually connected with the seat behind me.

It’s not a long drive out to Becklea. Derek had made it in ten minutes flat the other night, when we realized we’d forgotten the cats, and Brandon had probably matched that record yesterday morning, after he heard about the bones. Mostly, the road is a wide two-lane highway, the speed limit around forty once the major construction of the downtown area is left behind. I was moving along at a good clip, feeling more and more comfortable with every mile that passed. The radio was tuned to a local station, and I was singing along with Bruce Springsteen as I crested the hill above Devon Highlands.

The road dips right there; not much-no more than a three or four percent incline, maybe-but enough that I got uncomfortable with the way the heavy truck was picking up speed and felt a need to slow down. There was a big ditch off to my right, between the road and the construction zone, and down at the bottom of the hill, the road turned, just beyond the entrance to the new subdivision. Directly in front of me were the impressive brick gates I had noted the other day, beside the so-much-more-than-life-sized billboard of Melissa’s smiling face. Coming up the hill in the other lane was a yellow school bus. And when I stepped on the brakes, they didn’t respond.