Home For the Homicide (A Do-It-Yourself Mystery) (26 page)

“That was nice of you,” I managed, to keep the conversation going. But I must not have managed to keep the horror out of my voice, because he looked at me rather narrowly. I added, “So you searched the house?”

“I searched everywhere. The yard, the basement, the playhouse. I even stuck my head into that damn attic and looked around. I didn’t find anything.”

“The crate was there,” I said. “You must have overlooked it. It was hard to see, up against the wall and wedged in beside the chimney.”

He scowled. “I should have burned the house down then, instead of selling it to you.”

That might have been better. Even if the word “then”—as opposed to now—sent a chill down my spine. “Why didn’t you?”

He shrugged. “I’d already checked it out and hadn’t found anything, so I figured it was safe. That way I could use that money to pay for Ruth and Mamie’s bills, and I wouldn’t have to spend ours.”

“So why did you end up killing Henrietta after all? By then, we’d found the skeleton and everyone knew.”

“I killed Mamie first,” Darren said in the same tone as someone might say, “I went to the grocery store first,” “and Henrietta found out. She was going back and forth about whether to tell my dad. He might have cut me off, and I couldn’t risk that.”

Of course not. “Why did you kill Mamie? She had no idea what Ruth did with the baby. She probably thought he was kidnapped.”

“She did,” Darren growled. “But I couldn’t have her go back and tell Ruth I’d asked about it. So I left her in the playhouse and jimmied the lock so she couldn’t get out.”

“So the story about her getting out of the car in front of the liquor store was just a story.”

“Of course.” He sounded impatient. “I took her to the playhouse and left her there. With a little knock on the head so she wouldn’t think about leaving. And then I drove to the liquor store, in case the police checked that I’d been there. I got a bottle of wine and I made a big fuss in the parking lot about not finding my aunt. Then I drove around for thirty minutes looking for her before I called the police to report her missing.”

“And by the time we found her, she was dead.”

He shrugged.

“I suppose you went down there, to the playhouse, in your fancy dress shoes, because you were afraid you’d left tracks or DNA or something when you were there the first time.”

He didn’t answer, which I took as confirmation. I added, “So when Henrietta realized you’d helped Mamie along, you thought you’d better get rid of her, too?”

“She might have another heart attack,” Darren said. “Any day really. Especially with all the stress. And who knows what she might say if she did?”

“Of course.” She might decide to confess her sins again, and to someone other than Darren. Someone like Arthur. Or Ruth. Or the chief of police. “I still don’t understand what you’re trying to do, though. Killing us won’t help. Your father still won’t turn into Henry Silva, and someone else might realize that you killed Mamie and your aunt Henrietta.”

“I have a plan,” Darren said.

“What kind of plan?”

He grinned. “Once you’re inside the house and the place is burning, everyone’ll rush here to try to save you. Meanwhile, I’ll go downtown and shoot John Nickerson. Without him, there’ll be no one to take over Silva Lumber.”

“You won’t get away with that!”

“Sure I will,” Darren said, “after I shoot my dad and make it look like he shot himself. It’s his gun. And then I’ll be the only one left. And who do you think’ll get Silva Lumber then?”

I admit it, I was speechless. He’d killed Mamie and Henrietta, and had probably tried to kill Ruth in that fall down the stairs. That was two murders and one attempted. Now he was planning to kill Derek and me. Then he was headed over to Main Street to shoot John Nickerson. And after that he planned to shoot his own father and pin all those homicides on him?

And the worst part of it was, he might even get away with it. Because it made sense. He could make it look like Henry—aka Arthur—had done it all for him, Darren.

I felt sick to my stomach.

In the silence, Darren looked around, and I realized that while we’d been standing here talking, for the past several minutes, I hadn’t heard a sound from Derek. Had he managed to sneak away while I was keeping Darren occupied?

Not that I’d been consciously trying to keep Darren occupied so Derek could sneak away. I’d pretty much just wanted to know why he felt he had to kill me. But if it had given Derek a chance to escape, so much the better.

Except it hadn’t, it seemed.

“Get over here.” Darren gestured with the gun, and my husband came around the truck to stand beside me. Close enough beside me that his hand could fumble for mine and give it a reassuring squeeze. “Move,” Darren growled.

He herded us up the driveway toward the house. We skirted the Dumpster and climbed the steps to the porch.

“Open the door.”

Derek took his time digging the keys out of his pocket and fitting one into the lock. Darren shifted from foot to foot, looking over his shoulder.

The door swung open. I could smell the gas seeping out.

“Get in.” Darren waved the gun impatiently.

I balked. “I can’t.”

The gun swung in my direction again.

“C’mon, Tink.” Derek put his arm around my shoulders. If he was worried at all, he didn’t show it. “It’ll be all right. We can die in each other’s arms, just the way I’ve always wanted to.”

Darren snorted.

“I’d rather not die at all,” I said.

“It’ll be all right.” He winked.

Sure it would.

But there wasn’t anything I could do really. I could make a break for it and have Darren shoot me in the back, I guess, but it wasn’t that attractive of an alternative. And Derek didn’t seem concerned. Maybe he knew something I—and Darren—didn’t.

“Fine.” I stepped into the house and tried to hold my breath as the gas assaulted my nostrils.

Derek stepped in behind me, and the door slammed. Darren got busy with a hammer, nailing it shut.

“C’mere.” Derek pulled me close to him so I could bury my face in his sweater. He smelled of laundry detergent and Ivory soap and paint, and I breathed deeply, trying to chase the taste of the gas out of the back of my throat.

“How long can we last in here?” I asked against his chest.

“Long enough,” Derek said into my hair.

“Should we break a window?”

He shook his head. I didn’t lift my head out of the sweater, but I could feel the movement.

“Why not?”

“That’s original glass. We won’t be able to replace it.”

If he was more worried about the windows than about our survival, I guess maybe we’d be all right.

Outside, Darren threw the hammer aside and fumbled in his pocket. I closed my eyes as he pulled his hand out and I saw a tiny little flame ignite.

The next second, everything lit up, and a booming voice told Darren to drop the gun and put his hands up.

We finished the house at the beginning of February. A few days after the For Sale sign went into the yard, while we were finishing up the last few details of the renovation, Henry Silva showed up, with Ruth Green and John Nickerson in tow.

The For Sale sign had Melissa’s name on it incidentally. I hadn’t come up with a good excuse why she couldn’t list the house, since she seemed adamant that she wanted to, and since she, as Derek reminded me, was very good at her job.

“She’ll phase out of wanting to work in Waterfield over the next year,” he assured me. “She just doesn’t have a lot of Portlanders clamoring for her business yet, and she doesn’t want it to look like she’s less popular than she used to be.”

“Did she tell you that?”

He nodded. “She called the other day.”

Of course she had.

“I don’t like that,” I said.

He shrugged. “What am I gonna do? Refuse to take her calls?”

He could, as far as I was concerned. I had never liked the fact that his ex-wife kept calling him, and I liked it even less now than he was married to me. But Derek is nothing if not loyal, and although they hadn’t worked out as man and wife, he still cared about her. He had no plans, desire, or intention to get romantically involved with her again—he mentioned that proverbial ten-foot pole in connection with Melissa—but she had no family in Maine, and no close friends, and I guess he felt responsible for bringing her there. So he took her calls and gave her help when she asked. I guess I should be happy, because those were the qualities that made him a nice guy, and the qualities that had made me fall in love with him.

But I digress.

The sign was in the yard, and we were in the process of doing the final cleanup, like hanging light plates and wiping fingerprints off the doorjambs, when Henry Silva’s Mercedes pulled up to the curb outside. He got out of the driver’s seat, and John out of the backseat, and between them, they managed to get Ruth out of the passenger seat.

The big, unwieldy cast was off her leg, and she was able to move under her own steam, with the help of a sturdy arm. Her brother provided one.

Yes, it had been established that Henry Silva was actually Arthur Green. Not that there’d been much question really. But the DNA test had proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Henry’s DNA was a perfect match to Ruth’s, and just to make doubly sure, Wayne had checked Henrietta’s DNA with the baby skeleton’s, too, and had gotten another match. So it was definitely Baby Henry’s bones I had found in the attic, while it was Arthur Green who was standing on our porch, tall and strong and very much alive.

He still called himself Henry Silva, though. After sixty-five years, it was too confusing to do anything else, both for him and everyone around him.

I hadn’t had occasion to speak to either of them since the events before Christmas. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. What do you say to a man after his son has tried—and failed—to kill you, and you’ve been responsible for putting him in jail?

So no, I hadn’t gone out of my way to track down Henry. I had stopped by the nursing home to visit Ruth again, because I had said I would, but that had been a little awkward, too, so I hadn’t done it again. I had even stayed away from John, whom I normally enjoyed talking to, because he was caught up in the whole mess, as well.

And then we’d been busy with Christmas and family and the renovations, so it wasn’t just avoidance, either.

Yet here they were, all three of them, on my doorstep, and I couldn’t avoid them any longer.

“We saw the sign go in the yard,” John explained when Derek opened the door. “Ruth wanted a look at the place before it’s sold.”

Another bit of awkwardness. She’d lived here her whole life and hadn’t wanted to move, and Darren had sold the house out from under her.

I managed a smile. “Of course. Come in.”

Henry assisted her across the threshold and they stopped to look around. I did, too, and tried to see it through their eyes.

It looked very different. The walls were a warm yellowywhite now. A color wash technique I’d talked Derek into letting me try. It wasn’t as opaque as paint—almost luminescent really—and it set off the dark wood of the windows and baseboards perfectly. My Mason jar solar lanterns hung above the fireplace mantel, and Derek had added bookshelves to the inglenooks on either side of the fireplace, under the casement windows, and stained them to match the dark wood trim elsewhere in the house. The built-in breakfront had been updated with new—or more accurately, vintage—glass knobs in lieu of the tarnished brass ones that had been there, and I had sewn a couple of brightly colored pillows to decorate the window seat, to match the curtains I had also sewn and hung. The expanse of oak floors gleamed with varnish and extended all the way into the kitchen, where we could see a glimpse of new cabinets and counters through the open butler door. We’d sprung for Shaker-style cabinets with glass fronts, and had stained them the same dark brown as the original woodwork and the breakfront, to look like they’d always been there.

When I looked back at Ruth, she had tears in her eyes. “It’s beautiful.”

It was. And I felt horrible. “I’m sorry.”

She sniffed and shook her head. “Don’t be.”

“We took your house. You didn’t want to leave.”

“I couldn’t leave,” Ruth said. “Not with the bones in the attic. Not as long as Mamie was alive. She kept returning here from the nursing home. She would have tried to go back from wherever we lived. This was her home. She would never have been able to settle down anywhere else.”

“But you don’t mind that you don’t live here anymore?”

“I’m happy not to live here anymore,” Ruth said. “I would have left a long time ago if I could have. This wasn’t a happy house for me. Too many memories.”

Too many skeletons.

I glanced at Derek, who looked back at me. A corner of his mouth quirked, so he must be thinking the same thing.

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said, turning back to Ruth, “because we’ve been feeling a bit guilty about it.”

Ruth shook her head. “Don’t feel guilty. I’m glad to be out of here. And you’ve done a wonderful job. It looks beautiful.”

It did. If I do say so myself. “Let me give you the tour.”

We toured, which took a while given Ruth’s difficulty in walking. But she wanted to see everything, so between Henry and Derek, they even got her up to the second floor, to see the bedrooms and bath.

“Where will you go now?” I asked when we were finally downstairs again, and Ruth had been installed on the window seat with John next to her, to rest the leg.

She glanced up at Henry aka Arthur. “It’s all worked out. I’m moving in with Henry.”

“On Cabot Street?”

She nodded. “He’s all alone now in that big house.”

He was. And that was my fault, too.

“I’m sorry,” Henry said, and when I looked up, I saw that he was looking at me. “About Darren. About what he tried to do.”

For a moment I wasn’t sure what to say. What Darren had tried to do to me, and to Derek, was nothing compared to what Darren had tried to do to his father. At least he’d only tried to kill us. He’d planned to kill his dad and pin all seven murders on him.

Derek got in ahead of me. “Darren’s actions were his choice. You don’t owe us an apology for Darren.”

“He’s my son,” Henry said.

“And he’s a grown man. He made his own choices. You can’t take responsibility for those, any more than you’re responsible for what happened when you were an infant.”

Henry nodded, but he didn’t look convinced.

“We don’t blame you for anything Darren did,” I said. “Derek’s right. He made his own decisions, and he knew you wouldn’t want anything to do with what he did, so he made sure you didn’t know about it. You’re not responsible for any of it.”

There was a pause.

“So what’s happening with Silva Lumber?” Derek asked, probably in an effort to break the silence. It might not have been the most diplomatic, or for that matter tactful, change of subject, but it worked.

“Henry’s continuing to run it,” John said. “I wouldn’t know how, and I have my own business anyway.”

“And the money?” The Silva fortune?

It was another touchy subject, and none of my business really, but I was curious, and I figured I’d earned the right to ask.

“We’re sharing it,” John said. “I don’t need much. My business supports me just fine, and I have my parents’ house to live in. And now I’ll have a little bit to fall back on once I retire.”

He grinned at Henry.

“So everything’s been worked out.”

“We’ve restructured the company,” Henry answered. “The lawyers have had a busy few weeks. But for now, four of us own it together. The three of us here, and John’s sister. When we’re all gone, her children will inherit. But we’re running the business as a board, with equal shares and equal rights. So will they. No more of this ‘oldest son of oldest son’ rubbish.”

I wanted to ask whether Darren would be part of the board, too, whenever he got out of prison, but I decided that would be tactless, not to mention none of my business. And even if Henry and Kerri ended up together on a permanent basis, chances were there wouldn’t be any offspring from the union. They were both too old for that. “I’m glad you got it all worked out,” I said instead.

They all nodded. And then there was a little pause while we all tried to come up with something more to say, but couldn’t. I thought about asking Henry about Kerri, but it wasn’t really any of my business, and besides, as long as I stuck around Waterfield—and I planned to—I’d learn about anything that happened when it became official anyway.

They left after that, and Derek and I got back to our final polish.

It was later that afternoon that I finally straightened my aching back and surveyed the house. “I think we’re done.”

Derek nodded, stopping beside me. “I think so, too.”

“I don’t see anything else that needs doing.”

He shook his head. “Me, either.”

When he put an arm around me, I sagged against him and put my head on his chest.

“Tired?” His voice rumbled in my ear.

I nodded, rubbing my cheek against his T-shirt at the same time, because I couldn’t bring myself to lift my head. “Beat.”

“Want to go out and celebrate? Or do you just want to go home and put your feet up?”

I hesitated. Going home and putting my feet up sounded great, especially if I could talk him into giving me a foot massage, but I’m not the girl to turn down dinner out. A dinner I didn’t have to cook. “What did you have in mind?”

He put on a fake French accent. He’d spent a year in France once, in his teens, as an exchange student, so as accents went, it was a pretty good one. “A leetle food, a leetle wine . . .”

A little dessert? “Whoopie pie?”

“I could be talked into whoopie pie,” Derek said.

“In that case, I could be talked into dinner.”

“Or we could go home and put our feet up and order a pizza. I’ll give you a foot massage.” He smiled.

“You’re on.”

“Always.” He picked me up and headed for the door.