I agreed. “Good bones, like her cottage.” In the oldest photos, Rich’s late wife was barely out of her teens. She’d been blond and blue-eyed with clear skin and a great figure, and she’d stayed classically lovely as she aged. In the newest photos, she looked about fifty years old, which meant that she and her husband had been close in age. Many of the pictures from approximately the final ten years of her life had been taken in and around this cottage. In one of them she was in an aluminum canoe like the one we’d seen on the dock. She was smiling and waving her paddle at the person taking the photo.
Feeling sorry for the woman who appeared to have loved life but hadn’t made it past middle age, I followed Nina downstairs to the combined living and dining room. Nina made a note about refinishing the hardwood floors and retaining the wood-burning fireplace. Like the walls, the mantel was due for a new coat of paint. I pointed at the blank space above it. “That’s where he would like one of your paintings.”
Nina cocked her head. “I don’t know if I could paint anything that would look right in a Cape Cod, unless we gutted the building and did away with the second story. I suspect he would prefer to keep his bedrooms and full bathroom, though. I would. I love this place!”
“Even though your paintings don’t suit it?”
“I paint them, but they’re for colder, harder, bigger spaces.”
“Like art galleries and museums.”
“You’ve got it. I paint the pictures, but I wouldn’t necessarily want to live in the sort of place where they’d look best. Cape Cods are about the coziest homes around.” She rubbed her palms together. “Let’s ask if he’ll let us choose new furniture.” She pointed at a corner next to one of the two front windows. “It looks like he’s already started decluttering.”
Books had obviously been removed from a bookshelf and heaped on a colonial-style maple table. “Or something,” I muttered. Maybe Derek and his buddies had emptied the shelves.
Nina pushed the books into a neater pile. “Why leave them in a mess when he could have stacked them? Oh!” She pulled four stapled-together packets of paper out from underneath books. She scanned them. “Emily.” Her voice was rough, as if a pine cone had become lodged in her throat.
I peeked around her arm. “Wills?”
“Two of them, two copies each. Richmond P. Royalson the Third and a woman named Terri Estable are making each other their sole beneficiaries. Wasn’t his date this afternoon named Terri?”
“Yep.”
“Fast work. Rich had a date with Cheryl this morning and one with Terri this afternoon.”
I told Nina that Rich had explained to Cheryl and her date that he’d reconnected with Terri after he’d arranged his date with Cheryl. “And he also yelled at Derek that Terri was the love of his life.”
“I heard that. So, his drowned wife was . . . what?”
“A different love of a different life?” I turned to the last pages of the wills. “How odd. The wills aren’t dated and signed.”
Nina shoved the wills back where she’d found them. “It’s strange, but if he likes my paintings or finds me a buyer or two, I’m not going to complain.”
Near the other front window, the writing surface of a slant-front desk was folded up in its closed position. Below that sloping expanse of maple, one corner of a small maroon book stuck out of the top drawer, preventing the drawer from closing. I opened the drawer, pulled out the book, and was about to put it back neatly. A slightly yellowed last will and testament was underneath where the book had been.
I called to Nina. Together, we paged through the will. It was nineteen years old, probably signed and dated shortly after Rich’s wife’s death. The beneficiaries were Richmond P. Royalson Junior and Alma Ruth Royalson. “Rich’s father,” I concluded. “And his mother? Or his sister?”
I put the will where I’d found it. The maroon book was a hard-bound notebook filled with blue-lined white pages. One word was printed in heavy black marker on the first page. RENTALS.
I flipped toward the back of the book and found the most recent entries, also printed in heavy black marker. I summarized, “A man named Derek Bengsen rented the cottage starting the Saturday before last, and he and his friends were kicked out on Thursday, five days into their week, like the Derek who came into Deputy Donut claimed.”
“Does it mention Terri?”
“No, but this must be the same Derek who accused her of wanting him to rent this place and encouraging him to throw a party here so she could get Rich to rescue her.”
Nina added, “And feel sorry for her, reconnect with her, and discover that she was the love of his life.”
Rich’s estimate of the damages caused by the partyers included a hefty amount of lost rental income while the cottage was being cleaned and repaired. Derek Bengsen’s address was near my friend Samantha Andersen’s town house. I closed the book, laid it on top of the old will, and closed the drawer.
Nina looked up at splatters on the ceiling. “I wonder if Derek and his buddies did that, along with the holes in the kitchen walls.”
“Probably, or Rich would have had it cleaned and repaired before they came.”
Nina planted her fists on her hips. “Maybe. Some landlords charge renters for damage that was already there. If renters don’t point out the damage when they first encounter the rental property, they let the landlord keep the deposit, you know? Like the amount had already been charged to the renters, so they feel like they’ve already spent it, although they haven’t.”
“Where were you when I was trying to figure out who had committed murders in Fallingbrook?”
“In my studio, wrestling with canvases. But I heard about those cases. That’s why I wanted to work at Deputy Donut. Well, in addition to the donuts and coffee . . . I knew that whatever happened, I’d be safe around you and Tom.”
“Ha. Good luck.”
“Safe from everything except calories.”
“The way you run around the shop, that will never be a problem.” Her donut-eating was like Tom’s and mine. We had to taste our creations, but we seldom ate entire donuts. I turned toward the kitchen. “Speaking of large quantities of donuts, I guess we should go look for the platter Rich wants me to bring to his party.”
In the kitchen, I opened doors on the left side of the upper cabinets while Nina checked the cabinets on the right.
She yelped, “Ow!”
Chapter 5
I whirled to find out what was wrong.
Nina was rubbing the back of her head.
Above her, a large and very deep cast-iron skillet was swinging from a hook in the ceiling. The skillet’s ridiculously long handle had allowed the pan to bump Nina and turn the skillet into a creaking pendulum. It looked about to hit her again or fall off the hook or both.
I yelled, “Watch out!”
She reached up with both hands. Holding the skillet by its pan, she attempted to resettle the handle on its hook, but the handle slipped off. She made a show of being pulled down almost to the linoleum by the skillet. “Ooof. It’s heavy.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, it barely touched me. It just surprised me. But feel how heavy.” She transferred some of its weight to my outstretched hands.
I couldn’t help laughing at the ungainly thing. “It’s ridiculous.”
Biting a lip, she studied it. “Whatever is it for?”
“I don’t know. Could that long handle let people use it over an open fire? It’s big enough to use as a deep fryer.” Maybe I was exaggerating.
Nina got into the spirit. “Pioneer donuts!”
“That’s where they got the name ‘old-fashioned’ donuts.”
Nina flashed me a stern look. “Groan. Can you help steady it while I try to put it back where it belongs?”
“Where it doesn’t belong. That’s another thing to tell Rich. Even if he and Terri are too short to run into that thing, his tenants might be as tall as you are. I doubt that anyone could use that skillet in a kitc
hen, so why keep it in here?”
“You might call it a skillet,” she said solemnly. “I call it a kill-it.”
“An overkill-it.”
We managed to hang the unwieldy thing up. Whoever had last cooked with it over an open fire had not cleaned it, unless bashing it into the wall next to the fridge and leaving a soot-rimmed and skillet-shaped hole counted as cleaning. We had to scrub about a ton of soot off our hands. And scour the sink afterward.
Finally, we returned to opening the upper cabinet doors to hunt for the platter Rich wanted us to use for the next morning’s Boston cream donuts.
Nina breathed, “Wow.” She examined her palms and must have found them spotless. With great care, she lifted a pottery bowl off a stack of platters. The bowl was an abstract of an open clamshell. It was glazed in iridescent pastels—aquas, pinks, blues, and ivories. She set the bowl on the counter. “It’s handmade.” Gently, she turned it over. “It’s a Cindy Westhill, signed and numbered. It’s number one of only ten, which makes it even more valuable. It’s dated, too, just over twenty years ago. Is she any relationship to you and Tom?”
“She’s his wife, my mother-in-law.”
Nina blew a whistling breath between pursed lips. “I knew that Tom’s wife was an art teacher who helped you paint the tables in Deputy Donut, and they’re beautifully done, but I didn’t realize that his wife was the potter I learned about in art school.”
“And I didn’t know that art students studied her work.”
Nina raised her head and stared around at the dark blue kitchen cabinets. “You know what?” Without waiting for me to answer, she went on, “The colors that your mother-in-law used for this bowl would be a perfect palette for a seaside New England cottage, even though the cottage is not in New England or anywhere near the sea.”
I would have high-fived Nina if I hadn’t been afraid of flapping our hands too close to the valuable bowl. “Perfect.” My one-word answer reminded me of Rich. I added, “I’ll take photos for reference.”
She gazed lovingly at the bowl. “For reverence.”
With our phones, we photographed the bowl from all angles, both with flash and without, until Nina got what we both thought was a faithful reproduction of the bowl’s hues.
We carefully removed plates and platters that the clamshell bowl had been on. The platter next to the bottom was decorated with seaside scenes. “This would fit Rich’s party theme,” I said, “but he specifically mentioned sailboats. I see only one sail, and it’s on the horizon.”
The largest platter was still on the shelf. Nina took it out and set it on the counter. “This is probably the one he meant. It has lots of sailboats.”
Agreeing, I set the seascape platter on the shelf. We stacked the other platters and plates on it. Nina eased the clamshell bowl onto the top of the pile. “I would display that in my home,” she said, “not in a rental cottage where it could be damaged by people like Derek and his friends.”
“Maybe Rich won’t rent it to people like that again, especially after he renovates. And maybe he and Terri will use the cottage themselves, instead.”
Nina closed the cabinet. “That could be fun—going all the way to the other side of the lake to their cottage for a weekend.”
“Or for a romantic lunch of donuts fried in a three-ton skillet over an open fire.”
She looked out the kitchen window toward the screened porch and the lake. “They could come by canoe. Paddling across the lake is more romantic and probably as quick as driving on that gravel road.”
“It did have a few ruts.”
“You know what?” Nina asked. Again not waiting for a reply, she said, “Terri might hate the renovations and decorations we suggest.”
I groaned. “She’ll probably paint everything green and gold.”
“Or black,” Nina added ominously, “to match the soot stains from someone bashing the skillet into the kitchen wall.”
I had to pull hard to close the back door, and then I had to fiddle with the key, but I finally managed to lock the door. I double-checked. It was firmly locked. As we left the porch, I noticed that someone had punched a hole in one of the larger screens closest to the building. Was that another casualty of Derek’s party?
I dropped Nina off at her apartment, a combined artist’s studio and loft above Klassy Kitchens, a shop selling top-of-the-line kitchen cabinets and fixtures. It was near downtown Fallingbrook and within walking distance of Deputy Donut. I didn’t think Nina owned a car. Easing herself out of mine, she said she would look in Klassy Kitchens for ideas for Rich’s cottage.
I drove home and went inside. Alec and I had painted the living room walls white.
The furniture and accessories were jewel tones approximating the ruby, sapphire, emerald, and topaz stained glass above the front windows and door.
Dep let me know that I had been gone too long.
I picked her up and hugged her. “On Wednesday, we won’t have to work.”
“Meow!”
I rested my cheek on her warm fuzzy head. “You’re right. I might not be here all day on Wednesday. Brent and I often go kayaking Wednesday afternoons.” My handsome detective, Nina had called him. He wasn’t mine, but he was handsome, and he was a detective. He had been Alec’s best friend and partner at work, first as patrol cops, and later as detectives. Grief had driven Brent and me apart for the first three years after Alec was killed, but during the past three years, Brent and I had returned to being friends who enjoyed meals together. And kayaking. Dep squirmed. I set her gently on the floor. “You’re not a boater at heart, are you, Dep?”
Tail up, she bounded toward the back of the house. I followed her through the dining room. It was mostly white because the room’s only windows were stained glass above built-in bookcases on both sides of the fireplace.
Alec and I had gone a little overboard on our kitchen. We had installed an oversized fridge and a double-oven range with six burners. The cabinets were pine to go with the woodwork in the rest of the house, and the floor was covered in terra-cotta tiles in shades of pumpkin, smoked paprika, and dark-roast coffee beans.
Dep ate her dinner from a chocolate-brown bowl that Cindy had made, complete with kitty paw prints and Dep’s full name, Deputy Donut, in white. I told her, “You’re a lucky cat, Dep, with your own personalized Cindy Westhill dishes.” Dep’s only answer was to tilt her head and crunch delicately on a piece of kibble. I grilled a mozzarella and pesto sandwich and ate it at the granite-topped kitchen island.
After dinner, Dep accompanied me upstairs to my combination office and guest room. The white walls, which Brent had originally helped Alec paint, were still waiting for the perfect artwork. I would find it someday, especially if Nina scaled down the size of future paintings.
At the computer, I found the obituary for Richmond P. Royalson Junior. He had died twelve years after his son changed his will in favor of him and Alma Ruth Royalson. Alma was Rich’s mother. She and Rich were the only family members listed as surviving Richmond P. Royalson Junior. Alma’s obituary was also easy to find. She had died only a couple of years ago, at the age of ninety-four.
From Rich’s rental book, I knew Derek Bengsen’s address, so of course I had to look for Terri Estable’s. I found a T. Estable in the town house complex where both Derek and my friend Samantha lived.
I went back downstairs and read in the wing chair in the living room with Dep purring on my lap until bedtime.
When I closed my eyes in my calming white and Wedgwood blue bedroom, I saw the lovely hues of the clamshell bowl that my mother-in-law had made about the time I was eleven and her son, my late husband, Alec, was graduating from college. Although Alec and I both grew up in Fallingbrook, we had not yet met each other.
Alec. I would always miss him.
Picturing the hues that Alec’s mom had put together when he was a teenager was comforting, and so was the purring cat nestled behind my knees. Rain pattered on my bedroom windows.
* * *
By morning the rain had ended, but the clouds had not completely rolled away. The first thing I said to Tom in Deputy Donut was, “I didn’t know that Cindy was famous for her pottery. I knew I liked her work, but . . .”
Nina chimed in, “We discovered one of her bowls in Rich Royalson’s cottage last night. It should be locked in a glass case in a museum.”
I added, “Alec never told me she was famous.”
Tom turned on one of the fryers. “Alec was away at college at the height of her fame. Besides, nothing about our parents is abnormal, while at the same time, everything is. And from the moment Alec began talking, he was determined to be a policeman like his dad.” He grinned. “I was the star in his eyes. Besides, Cindy did not necessarily want to keep up with all the latest trends in pottery.”
Nina measured flour into the bowl of one of our large mixers. “Artists can be stubborn about following our own vision and not caring about the market.” Those dark eyes glinted with self-deprecating humor. “Or pretending we don’t when all we really want is to become rich and famous.”
With three of us working, making an extra three dozen donuts for Rich’s birthday party was easy. Nina and I wanted to carve screaming faces into the thick fudge frosting. We restrained ourselves.
The Knitpickers and retired men came in and sat at their regular tables, across from each other and near the front windows. The retired men loved to tease the Knitpickers and vice versa, and Cheryl got a lot of teasing about Rich Royalson. She defended herself by telling them about Rich coming in later with a different woman, and about Steve, who, she said, was a better match. She had to endure even more teasing for dating two different men in one day. She didn’t stay as long as usual. Apologizing about needing to go home and change for Rich’s party, she left around eleven.
Shortly after eleven thirty, we packed an urn of fresh Guatemalan coffee, Rich’s sailboat platter, which we had wrapped in layers of plain newsprint, boxes containing three dozen Boston cream donuts, plus paper napkins and cups, into the Deputy Donut delivery car. The car was a 1950 Ford four-door sedan painted black and white like a police car, complete with our Deputy Donut logo on the white front doors. Instead of a light bar like real police cars had on top, a huge donut with white fiberglass icing was lying flat on the roof. The sprinkles were tiny lights that could be made to sparkle and dance.
Boston Scream Murder Page 4