Fatal Fixer-Upper (10 page)

I contemplated taking it for a spin but decided against it. I really had to do something about the grass. Instead, I went inside the house and called Kate, whose grass was just as manicured and lovely as the rest of her B and B. Maybe she'd be able to tell me the name of the person she used to cut her lawn. However, I caught her on her way out the door, late for a date with Police Chief Rasmussen. 'Ask Mr. Rodgers,' she said quickly. 'I do my own yard, but he has a huge house with at least two acres of grass around it, and I doubt he cuts it himself. Sorry, Avery, but I've got to run. Wayne's waiting in the car.' She hung up before I could tell her about the bike I'd found.

So I dug out Mr. Rodgers's number and dialed the attorney. After I had explained my predicament, he offered to call a lawncare person for me.

'Oh, you don't have to do that,' I protested.

'It is my pleasure, Miss Baker. I will arrange to have someone come out tomorrow to give you a quote.'

'Thank you very much,' I said.

'Is there anything else I can do for you, Miss Baker?'

'I don't think so,' I answered. 'Unless . . .'

'Yes?'

'I was just wondering . . . Did you ever have any contact with Professor Wentworth from Barnham College? Or know what he might have been doing in Aunt Inga's house?'

Mr. Rodgers was silent for a moment. 'I don't believe so,' he said eventually. His voice was somehow cautious, as if maybe he shouldn't be discussing Aunt Inga's business with anyone.

I tried to explain.

'See, I came across his business card the other day, when I went through Aunt Inga's desk.'

'Oh?' Mr. Rodgers said.

'It had fallen into Aunt Inga's cat file. Where she kept her cats' vaccination records and kennel club registrations.'

'I see,' Mr. Rodgers said.

'And then Wayne—the chief of police—told me that they'd found Professor Wentworth's fingerprints in Aunt Inga's kitchen.'

'Dear me,' Mr. Rodgers said.

'And I was wondering if maybe the reason Aunt Inga wrote to ask me to visit had something to do with Professor Wentworth and with the history of Waterfield.'

Mr. Rodgers didn't answer.

'But if you never met him, and Aunt Inga never talked about what they were doing, then I guess you can't help me.'

'I'm afraid not, Miss Baker,' Mr. Rodgers said.

'Thanks anyway.'

'My pleasure, Miss Baker. Is there anything else I can do for you?'

'No,' I said, 'I don't think so. Unless . . . you didn't happen to give out my address to anyone during the time I was in New York, did you?'

Mr. Rodgers's tone became even stiffer. 'Certainly not, Miss Baker.'

'I didn't think so,' I said apologetically, 'but I thought I'd better ask. Someone sent me a threatening letter, and I thought perhaps one of my cousins . . .'

'Indeed not, Miss Baker. No one asked me for your contact information. I did, however, have a consultation with the Misters Stenham last week, when they came to discuss their desire to contest Miss Morton's will. I happened to step outside my office for a moment to use the copy machine, but of course it is not my intention to accuse anyone of anything.'

'Of course not,' I agreed, thinking that for someone whose intention it hadn't been to accuse one or both of the Stenhams of snooping through his desk for my contact information, he'd certainly managed to leave the impression that that's what they'd done.

Mr. Rodgers asked again, with commendable patience, whether there was anything else he could do for me. When I told him there wasn't, he said, 'In that case, I will arrange to have someone come to your aunt's house tomorrow to give you a quote on the yard. And please don't hesitate to contact me if you need anything else.'

I promised I wouldn't—hesitate, that is—and hung up before I could think of anything else I wanted to ask, so as not to keep the old gent from his dinner any longer. My own stomach had started making plaintive noises, so I decided to take a walk into downtown to get some dinner. The weather was lovely, clear and cool. I'd been good all week, preparing and eating meals at the house, and I felt virtuous. Plus the fridge was almost bare, and I wanted something other than a tuna sandwich or macaroni and cheese for a change.

Aunt Inga's house was located three or four blocks from the center of Waterfield. As I walked down the steep street toward downtown, between rows of Victorian cottages spilling flowers out over and through picket fences, with a fresh sea breeze teasing my hair into snarls, I wondered if I would ever start thinking of it as
my
house and not Aunt Inga's. Or if maybe it would be better if I didn't. It wouldn't stay my house for long, and the less attached to it I was, the easier it would be to leave it at the end of the summer. When I returned to my shower, my working kitchen, and the hot and aromatic canyons of New York City.

Breathing deeply of the fresh air, nice while it lasted, I turned my attention to other things. As Mother had told me, Waterfield is the third-oldest town in Maine. The two older ones are Kittery and York, just FYI. Waterfield is smaller than either of them, with well under ten thousand inhabitants, although there was a lot of new construction going on, and the population of Waterfield was growing daily. Add to that the summer people, the ones with vacation cottages in the area, and there was plenty of activity around, with people wandering along the streets, in and out of the storefronts, as I threaded my way down Main Street. I could hear soft Southern accents and Texas drawls and even a few foreign tongues, along with plenty of the clipped downeastern dialect.

Waterfield's main drag is a whopping two blocks long, built at the turn of the century. Last century. LateVictorian commercial buildings lined the street, two and three stories tall with storefronts and offices on the main level and storage, apartments, or offices above. Everything was beyond quaint, so cute and clean and pretty that it looked like a movie set. I detected Melissa James's guiding hand in some of the more outrageous loveliness, like the baskets of velvety petunias hanging from all the lampposts, as well as the boxes of free real estate magazines on every corner.

I had passed the offices of Waterfield Realty and was on my way past the Grantham Gallery when someone bumped into me and knocked me rudely backward a step or two. I didn't exactly fall, although I stumbled, and it took me a moment to regain my balance. Once I had, I spun around, ready to do battle.

The man was tall and broad, and like me, he had curly hair. Unlike mine, his was short and dark, expensively cut and gelled, and he was wearing designer khakis and a shortsleeved, black polo shirt. Stenham Construction was embroidered across one pectoral in loopy script.

'Randy, I presume? Or is it Ray?'

Ray—or Randy; I never could tell them apart, even as a child—showed me all his teeth. They were less oversized than they used to be, but there were still a lot of them. If it was intended as a family-friendly, reassuring grin, it failed miserably. And of course he refrained from making my life any easier by telling me whether he was in fact Randy or Ray. 'Evening, Cousin Avery,' he said instead. 'I'd have known you anywhere. You haven't changed much in thirty years.' The implication was that I was still short, skinny, and easy to push around.

'Twenty-six years,' I corrected, not bothering to sound friendly. If he wasn't going to be nice, why should I? I may be short and skinny, but I'm not as easy to push around as I used to be, especially by someone who implies that I look older than I am.

He folded muscular arms across his chest. 'I hear you're renovating Aunt Inga's house.'

I looked up at him. Way up. He was almost a full head taller than me and correspondingly broad. 'She left it to me, so I figure I can do what I want with it.'

Ray—Randy?—grinned nastily. 'How's it going?' he asked.

'Slowly. With all the things Aunt Inga never got around to fixing, and the furniture and boxes everywhere, not to mention the mess that someone left in the kitchen . . .'

I watched him, hoping he'd give himself away, but I was disappointed. He nodded. 'I heard about that. Wayne Rasmussen stopped by. He seemed to think that my brother and I might have had something to do with it.'

'And did you?'

'Would we do something like that?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'Would you?'

His eyes turned a flat, muddy brown, like pebbles, and he lowered his voice as he leaned closer to me. 'A word of advice, Cousin.'

'Sure,' I said, trying not to show that the way he towered over me made me feel uneasy. He must have guessed anyway, because his lips curved unpleasantly.

'We've been working construction for eighteen years now. There isn't much we don't know about houses, including everything that can go wrong with them. Electrical shorts, plumbing leaks, falling bricks hitting people on the head . . .' He paused to let those visuals sink in, before he continued. 'A single woman living alone can't be too careful. You should consider leaving . . . while you can.' He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

I would have stepped back if I could, but I was already pressed up against the brick wall of the gallery, with nowhere to go. 'Are you threatening me?' I asked, and I'm afraid my voice sounded just as shaky as I felt. My cousin straightened up, feigning shock.

'Of course not, Cousin Avery. It's just a friendly bit of advice. Between family, yeah?'

'Right,' I said. He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, someone else spoke. 'Everything OK, Avery?'