Wreck the Halls

Praise for the
Home Repair Is Homicide
mysteries of
SARAH GRAVES

WRECK THE HALLS

“This book has it all…. Fun and gripping.”

—
The San Diego Union-Tribune

“[
Wreck the Halls
] entertains…. Graves's characters are very human creations, warts and all, with Jake in particular making fine company.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“What distinguishes the novel are its likable, no-nonsense protagonist-narrator, her references to home repair that the author cleverly fits tongue-and-groove into the story and, especially, the detailed descriptions of the town.”

—
Los Angeles Times

“Eloquently depicts the beauties and hardships of life on an island in Maine… Filled with believable and engaging characters, exquisite scenery and extravagant action.”

—
News and Record, Greensboro
, NC

“One cool caper.”

—
MLB 2001 Gift Guide

“A witty, wicked and to-die-for winter read… a holiday homicide that will make your yuletide season.”

—
Old Book Barn Gazette

“The town of Eastport and its warmly wondrous citizens continue to enchant!”

—
Booknews
from The Poisoned Pen

REPAIR TO HER GRAVE

“Enjoy the sparkling setting and dialogues.”

—
Booknews
from The Poisoned Pen

“Interesting reading.”

—
Romantic Times

“Fascinating reading.”

—
The Midwest Book Review

“An exceptionally fun book… Don’t miss it.”

—
Old Book Barn Gazette

WICKED FIX

“Graves skillfully… draws out the suspense.
Good entertainment.
”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Ms. Graves has created a bright and personable new detective who has been welcomed into the Eastport community with warmth and affection.”

—
Dallas Morning News

TRIPLE WITCH

“Graves affectionately creates believable characters… who lend depth and warm humor to the story….
The cozy details of small-town life and home repair make for an enjoyable read
.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“[
Triple Witch
] is a smartly written story, with lots of interesting detail about the area and restoration projects. But it never gets in the way of the mystery, which turns out to be both
complex and simple, an admirable combination.
”

—
Contra Costa Times

“[Graves] describes the beauty of the Eastport area with a pure eye for both its wonders and weaknesses. This is
a well-written… novel with a plot that keeps you pulled in close.
”

—
Bangor Daily News

THE DEAD CAT BOUNCE

“No cozy this, it's amusing, cynical, yet warm, populated with nice and nasty characters and some dirty secrets….
All the ingredients fit the dish of delicious crime chowder….
I am already drooling for [Jake's] return.”

—
Booknews
from The Poisoned Pen

“In her polished debut, Graves blends charming, evocative digressions
about life in Eastport
with an intricate plot, well-drawn characters and a wry sense of humor.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“Jacobia has a witty and ironic voice, and the book resonates with good humor, quirky characters, and
a keen sense of place.
”

—
Down East magazine

“Sarah Graves's novel is
a laudable whodunnit, but it's also a love letter to Eastport,
celebrating the cultural contrasts between the town and some misguided souls from the Big Apple…. The funky, low-key fishing community wins every time.”

—
Kennebec Valley Tribune and Morning Sentinel

OTHER BANTAM BOOKS
BY SARAH GRAVES

TRIPLE WITCH
THE DEAD CAT BOUNCE
WICKED FIX
REPAIR TO HER GRAVE

And now
in hardcover from
Bantam Books:

UNHINGED

For John Squibb

Chapter 1

B
lood was everywhere, so much of it that at first
Ellie and I didn’t realize what it was or understand what we’d walked into.

Before us lay Faye Anne Carmody's familiar Eastport kitchen, the woodstove at one end faced by a bentwood rocker and a small cushioned footstool, the table at the center with four painted wooden chairs pulled squarely up to it, and at the other end the sink with a few clean glasses upended on the drainboard. Tucked into one corner was a white, ornately framed metal daybed with a heap of quilts on it, a common item of furniture in an old Maine island home.

A door led to the butcher shop that Faye Anne's husband, Merle Carmody owned and operated in the ell of the house. The door was secured with a slide bolt near the doorknob and with two big hook and eyes screwed into the door frame.

“Jake,” Ellie said, nearly whispering it.

“I know.” So much blood… “Go next door, Ellie, will you? And call Bob Arnold and tell him—”

Bob was the police chief in Eastport, Maine, and the man
to call when you happened unexpectedly on a thing like this.

Whatever this was. “Faye Anne? Merle?”

No reply. The blood had begun to dry, darkening in sludgy droplets like paint. The smell of it hung in the air along with something else I did not yet want to identify.

It was just past nine on a Monday morning in early December. Ellie and I had knocked and walked in; in Eastport—three hours from Bangor and light-years from anywhere else—you locked your house up only if you went to Florida for the winter.

But now… “Tell Bob something bad has happened and we need him right away,” I said, but by then she had gone; when something bad does happen, Ellie is generally on her way to take care of it long before I’ve even absorbed it.

So I was alone. “Faye Anne?” I said again, not expecting anyone to answer. A sad, drowning sensation of comprehension was beginning to replace the shock I’d felt when we first entered; Faye Anne was dead and her husband, Merle, must have killed her. Everyone always said he would and now it had happened.

Said it, I mean, the way people do say such things: shaking their heads. Sympathizing with Faye Anne. Wishing she would leave Merle, even making offers designed to save her pride while ending the chronic parade of black eyes, split lips, bruised arms, and other injuries that Faye Anne blamed, utterly unconvincingly, on her own clumsiness.

I myself had pressed the card of the local women's shelter, printed with the 800 number and their slogan, “Domestic Violence Is Everyone's Business,” into her unwilling hand. But none of us had ever really expected to walk into a kitchen painted in her blood. No one ever does, I guess.

Faye Anne, I thought—damn it, I should have just gotten her out of there when I had the chance—Faye Anne was probably the only one who had really expected it.

Ellie's voice came from the hall. “He's coming. I called Bob from Kenty Dalrymple's.”

Kenty lived next door to Merle and Faye Anne, and I had not much doubt that Kenty was on the phone right now, telling all and sundry of the excitement going on over at the Carmody house. If a pin dropped in Eastport, Kenty heard it.

And reported on it. But pretty soon the whole state of Maine would know what had gone on here; Kenty, whose own life offered little in the way of excitement, might as well have the ghoulish thrill.

Ellie came up behind me. “He says stay right here, don’t do anything or touch anything,” she said, and I heard the irony in her voice, mingled with grief over Faye Anne.

“You mean we’re not supposed to barge in, put our handprints into all that… that…”

“Or make footprints,” Ellie agreed. Bob sometimes tended to state the obvious. “Poor Faye Anne. We should have done more.”

The smell was of meat cooking, mingled with the sour reek of scorched fabric. The last of the previous evening's fire still sulked in the woodstove and the room was warm. I opened the stove door; there was an old pot holder tied to the iron handle so it wouldn’t have held fingerprints, anyway.

Not that I thought anyone would be checking for any. Inside: rags, partially burned. There was enough fabric left to see what they were stained with. Sickened, I turned away. Winter sunshine slanted mercilessly between the white eyelet lace panels Faye Anne had hung at the kitchen windows.

Or they’d been white when she hung them there. A few small clay pots of herbs stood on the windowsill; cuttings, I supposed, out of Faye Anne's herb collection, from her homemade greenhouse. The first time I’d seen it, I’d made fun of the slammed-together two-by-fours, bent nails, and
flappingly overlapping plastic sheets that formed the slanting side. Not to her face, of course, but still…

Later I learned better; inside that slapdash structure Faye Anne had grown a paradise of exotic plant varieties, heirloom flowers, and antique pharmaceutical herbs. A shy, softly passive woman with moist brown eyes; pale, often bruised skin; and a breathy little voice that rarely rose above a tentative murmur, she’d been a self-taught expert in a kind of horticulture most people don’t even know exists: the indoor growing of useful, not merely ornamental, botanical specimens.

What would happen to Faye Anne's collection of greenery now? With the thought and as a distant siren came from outside I realized how perilously close to weeping I was, and gritted my teeth.

“Jacobia,” Ellie began steadyingly.

For our visit to Faye Anne's that morning Ellie had put on a bright purple turtleneck and an orange cardigan sweater she had knitted herself. And because Ellie's knitting is long on creative charm but short on the precise measurements needed to make hems end where they ought to, she was wearing it as a tunic. With it she had on magenta ribbed leggings, thick wool socks, and hiking boots tied with green-and-purple plaid laces; a yellow ribbon of some sparkly, gauzy stuff held back her red hair.

All of which should have made her look like an explosion at the thrift store's used-clothing bin, but Ellie is so tall and slender that she could wear the bin itself and look ready for a stroll down a fashion runway. Now her pale green eyes assessed me gravely through her new glasses, their lenses magnifying the tiny flecks of amber in her eye color.

“How are they?” I asked irrelevantly.

The glasses, I meant. Anything to stop looking at what was all over the walls and floor. To stop conjuring with such
hideous precision, complete with sound effects, of where it had come from and how.

Ellie touched the frames, heavy tortoiseshell that set off her hair. Below them, the freckles across her nose were like a sprinkling of gold dust. “All right, I guess. I’m still getting used to them.”

Ellie was so farsighted that she could spot the nostril in a sparrow's beak at two hundred yards, but without her glasses anything much nearer was just a blob to her. “What I want to know is, how are…”