One Bad Apple (10 page)

“I don’t want to be any bother,” Meg protested.
And I don’t want to pay the going rate for a room either.
It had already been an expensive few days, and it would get worse if she had to find herself a lawyer.

He seemed to read her thoughts. “It’s off-season, and if Rachel hasn’t got a booking by now, the bed’s going begging anyway. She won’t mind.”

“All right, I guess,” Meg said. Much as she hated to admit it, she felt profoundly relieved that she didn’t have to stay in the house, at least for this one night.

“I’ll give Rachel a call.” Seth went into the dining room to use his cell phone, and Meg cleared away the untouched coffee mugs while keeping an eye on the activities outside.

He was back in under a minute. “You’re all set. Why don’t you let me drive you over when we’re done here? I can swing by tomorrow morning and bring you back. Okay?”

“Isn’t that out of your way?”

“It’s no trouble.”

Meg sighed and said, “Thank you. That’d be very kind of you.”

“Well, then, I’d better go out and see how the clean-out is going.”

Meg watched him as he joined the rest of the men clustered around the hole in the driveway, and then she turned away. She didn’t want to see what came out of it. She couldn’t allow herself to think of that sodden corpse as Chandler, someone she had known intimately, someone she had once cared about. Whatever had happened between them, he didn’t deserve to die that way. And she didn’t deserve to have to clean up the mess.

The afternoon dragged on interminably. The light was fading from the sky before the various teams of people finished collecting whatever they thought might be evidence, and the body was bundled up and carted away. After the last official vehicle had pulled away, Seth reappeared at the back door. “Listen, you have any plans for eating?”

Meg realized she had completely forgotten lunch. “No, I haven’t even thought about it.”

“You look like you could use some food. I thought maybe we could stop in Northampton on the way to Rachel’s.”

Seth looked like an embarrassed schoolboy, and Meg was touched. And she realized she
was
hungry. “Okay, sure. Let me grab some clothes for tonight, and I’ll be good to go. Give me five?”

“Deal.” He smiled more openly this time.

She made her way to the bedroom at the back of the house that she had been using since she arrived. Based on the out-of-date flowered wallpaper, she guessed that the sisters Lula and Nettie had staked out the two front rooms, and subsequent tenants hadn’t bothered to change anything. From the look of the back bedroom, there had been few guests. The room reeked of mothballs and abandonment. Still, it was reasonably clean and quiet, and it suited Meg for now.

She sat heavily on the creaking bed, glad for the moment of silence. She felt numb. Chandler was dead, and all she could summon up was a combination of sadness and annoyance. Not exactly overwhelming grief. She had never met any of his family, and she wondered who the police would notify of his death— and who would actually miss him.

Being suspected of killing him was unsettling. If it weren’t so personal, she would have found it amusing: Chandler’s last joke. She was the most law-abiding person she knew, and the idea of committing a murder, much less wrestling with an inert body, was beyond her comprehension. But how was she supposed to convince the detective of that? He didn’t know her. Nobody in Granford knew her, and they couldn’t vouch for her. And her Boston friends … would remember when she was with Chandler. What would they say?

Enough, Meg!
Right now she was tired and hungry, and those were things she could do something about. She scrabbled through the drawers of the walnut dresser, hunting for clean jeans and a shirt without paint streaks, then rummaged through the pitifully small closet and tossed the change of clothes, a nightgown, and some toiletries into a bag.

Suddenly she sat down hard again, slammed by another unwanted thought, one that she had managed to avoid thinking about all afternoon. Was Chandler’s death going to put a damper on selling the house? Who would want a house where a murder had happened? Maybe if she was lucky it hadn’t happened here. Maybe the detective would find that he had been killed somewhere else. Unfortunately this would always be the place the body had been found. And then there was the community development project, which might or might not have died along with Chandler. How would local people feel about that? And if the project wasn’t dead, she might lose the orchard she hadn’t even known about a few days earlier.

“Everything okay?” Seth called up the stairs.

Meg shook herself. If nothing else, she had found herself one friend in town, and luckily he was one who was willing to help her. Of course, he might turn out to be the killer. How was she supposed to know? Still, she had a hard time visualizing Seth as a murderer—and how could her luck be that bad? No, she was going to consider him one of the good guys and hope for the best. For the moment, at least she knew where her next meal was coming from and where she would sleep that night.

“Be right down,” she answered, and finished packing.

When she headed down the stairs, Seth was waiting at the bottom, apparently engrossed in a study of the construction of the stair spindles. When he saw her coming, he nodded toward them. “Nice. Not the originals, but probably mid-nineteenth century. Looks like they upgraded the place then, added some fancy touches.”

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t really looked into it.” Feeling somehow apologetic, Meg collected her coat and her purse, and led the way to the front door and yanked it open. Seth politely held it open for her, which surprised her.
Why are you surprised?
she wondered.
Plumbers don’t have to be boors.
In fact, Seth kept surprising her. He was clean, courteous, intelligent, a whole list of Boy Scout traits. She was going to have to rethink a lot of her preconceptions about plumbers.

“Hope you don’t mind riding in the van,” he said, unlocking the passenger door for her.

“Not at all.” She peered over her shoulder at the materials and tools in the back, neatly arrayed. “My, this looks almost like a workshop. You have everything right here.”

“Pretty close. You never know what you’re going to run into, and it saves time if I don’t have to run back to the shop for parts.” He started the engine and turned on the heater. “What do you like to eat?”

“Almost anything. I haven’t had a chance to try most of the restaurants around here, so feel free to pick something you like.”

“Let’s head for Northampton, then. They’ve got something for everyone.” Before pulling out, he took another look at her. “Hey, I know you didn’t kill him. And from what little I knew of him, there are probably plenty of other candidates.”

“I’m not sure that makes me feel any better. I mean, I was involved with him, for a while. Even if I didn’t kill him, what does that say about my judgment, if he was so widely disliked?” She caught herself. “Don’t answer that. It’s a stupid question, and nothing you have to worry about. And Chandler and I were over a long time ago, no matter what happened in Granford. I guess it’s just the shock of seeing him unexpectedly and then finding him dead. It seems so unreal.” Meg hesitated for a moment. “Did anyone say how Chandler was killed?”

Seth kept his eyes on the road. “Apparently the old standby ‘blunt force trauma’—a blow to the head. That’s all they could tell for the moment.”

“Oh. So he was dead when he went in?”

Seth nodded. “Looks like it. I can’t imagine anyone could get him in there if he wasn’t. But don’t worry about it, Meg. Let the police do their job, and get on with your life. How are you enjoying your house?”

Meg was relieved by his change of subject. “I don’t think ‘enjoying’ is quite the right word. Sometimes I feel sorry for it—people have done such tacky things to it.”

Seth smiled, his gaze still on the road. “If you can tell that, you can see what lies beneath. And the place has good bones.”

Meg turned in her seat to face him. “That’s an interesting way to put it. You said you had been inside before?”

“Sure. More than once, in fact, now that I think about it. When the Warren sisters, uh, passed on …” He paused, uncertain.

Meg interrupted, “Hey, it’s okay. I only met them once, and my mother barely knew them.”

He looked relieved. “Well, when the place was rented out, you can guess that the tenants had some problems now and then. The sisters had never done anything to upgrade the plumbing—I think their father had it put in, and I won’t even guess when. We were the nearest plumbers, so we were the ones who got called when something went wrong.”

“That’s right—you said you live close by.”

“Yup, just over the hill from you.”

The trip to Northampton was brief. Seth concentrated on the road, tossing a question at Meg now and then. “You said you hadn’t been around here long?”

“Just since the first of the year. You heard what I told the detective: I used to work at a bank in Boston, but they got bought out and then they downsized. I guess I came out better than most, and at least I didn’t have to worry about supporting a family. Then my mother had this bright idea that fixing up the house would keep me busy while I sorted out what to do next.”
I’m still trying to figure out just how to thank my mother for that
, Meg thought sarcastically.

Seth chuckled. “An old house’ll do that, all right.”

He skillfully navigated his large vehicle into a parking lot behind the main street in Northampton. “Here we are,” he said. “Hop out.”

Meg opened the door and climbed down from the high seat, looking around her. “Where are we going?”

“I was thinking of this great Argentinian place just up there. Unless you want Tibetan, or Thai, or vegan—well, you get the idea. Ever eaten Argentinian?”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“Well, there you are, a new experience. Come on.” Seth led the way down the street, then up a series of steps to a small restaurant that smelled wonderful. He greeted the owner by name, and they were quickly escorted to a table.

After they were settled with menus, Meg asked, “You come here often?”

Seth was reading the specials for the day. “What? Oh, sure. I like to eat in Northampton. You never know what you’re going to find.”

“Maybe you can give me a list—in case I ever have a chance to eat out again. I haven’t seen much in the way of restaurants in Granford.”

Seth laughed. “No, there’s not a lot to choose from. Certainly not like Boston. But this isn’t far, and there are more good places in Amherst. Want me to order?”

“Please. You know what’s good here.”

Meg watched Seth as he conferred with the waitress, who looked like a college student. He didn’t wear a ring, so she assumed he wasn’t married. But maybe a ring would get in the way of plumbing activities. Still, he hadn’t had to call anyone to say he wasn’t going to be home for dinner …
Meg, stop it!
She wasn’t looking for a new relationship, especially since she didn’t plan to be around for long. She sighed.

“Problem?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.

“No, nothing. I’m just worried about everything that’s happened, I guess.”

“Well, you can’t do anything about it right now, so why not just relax and enjoy dinner?”

With a smile, she said, “You’re right. So, you’ve lived here all your life?”

“Born and raised—and as I told you, my family goes back a whole lot of generations. Didn’t even go far for college.”

Politely, Meg asked, “Oh, where did you go?”

“Amherst College.” He didn’t elaborate.

Sure, it was just down the road, but wasn’t it also one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country?

Seth was watching her face with clear amusement. “That’s okay, you can go ahead and ask. Why does an Amherst grad work as a small-town plumber?”

She felt herself blushing. “I’m sorry—I feel very petty. But you’re right. Why?”

“Simple. The money’s good, and I can work as much or as little as I want. I’m my own boss. Besides, it’s a family business. My dad started it, and my brother Stephen works with me. How about you?”

“Brown undergrad, then an MBA at the Sloan School at MIT. I always liked numbers. Although you wouldn’t know it at the moment. I had no idea how much this house overhaul was going to cost …”

Their meals arrived after only a short wait, and the good food was a happy surprise to Meg. They chatted amiably as they ate, but the eating took up as much time as the talking. By dessert, Meg was feeling much more right with the world. Amazing what a difference a well-filled stomach could make.

“Ready to go?”

Meg looked at her watch. She was surprised to find how late it was, and they still had a drive ahead of them. “Sure. How far is it to Rachel’s?”

“Maybe twenty minutes.”

“I feel bad, taking you out of your way like this. I could still go to a motel, you know.”