Remodeled to Death

by Valerie Wolzien

  “YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT MY MUSIC,” he insisted, doing as she requested. “I DON’T LISTEN TO NO HEAVY METAL. NONE OF THAT SATANIC SHIT FOR ME, IF YOU’LL PARDON THE EXPRESSION. YOU KNOW WHAT THOSE CULTS DO TO PEOPLE?”

  “I think I hear the phone ringing,” Susan told him, backing away. Actually, she was fairly sure the ringing was coming from inside her head, but an hour or two alone might cure it.

  “YOU THE LADY THAT INVESTIGATES MURDERS, AIN’T YOU?”

  “I have in the past,” she admitted reluctantly.

  “YOU GOING TO FIND OUT WHO KILLED SIMON FAIRWEATHER?”

  “No, I—”

  “YOU FIND HIM, I’LL GIVE HIM AN AWARD. THAT SLIMY BASTARD REALLY SCREWED ME. I’LL TELL YOU ABOUT IT SOMETIME.”

  “I’m not investigating,” Susan repeated. “And I’m pretty busy now.”

  “WE’LL BE SEEING A LOT OF EACH OTHER IN THE NEXT FEW WEEKS—OR MONTHS,” he added, chuckling, as he reached out to turn up his radio. And he turned back to his examination of the hole in the wall, giving Susan the opportunity to see for herself the reason for his nickname.

  She frowned and decided to continue up to the third floor. She wanted to check out the clearance under the eaves and contrast it with some measurements in the Kohler catalog. It might just be possible, she thought, to add a tiny tub in the far corner of the room. As long as they were going to be doing so much work, surely one extra bathtub would add little to the cost. And it would be nice to have a third-floor guest room in case there were grandchildren in her future.…

  This time, she thought, stopping on the third-floor landing, it was certainly the ghost of Chad who was playing the local college station she was hearing. She gingerly opened the door. Warm, musty air from under the eaves wrapped itself about her, and a good-looking young man standing in the middle of her attic turned around and smiled. “Hi.”

  “Hi.” Susan felt herself begin to slip into giggly adolescent girl mode and made an effort to pull herself together. “I heard your radio downstairs. I’m Mrs. Henshaw,” she explained, offering her hand.

  He jumped over and turned off the radio. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know there was anyone else at home, and Art never hears anything.” He nodded toward the bathroom and his blond hair swept his broad shoulders. Susan could see an older man bending over the largest toolbox Susan had ever seen. A bright yellow Sony Walkman was plugged into his ears.

  “That’s Art Young. He’s the head carpenter on this project and my boss. He can’t hear anything,” he added as Susan started to speak. “He has a headset on. He’s listening to his tapes.”

  “He doesn’t like your music?” Susan asked politely.

  “He’s boning up on general information this week. He wants to be a Jeopardy! contestant. And you wouldn’t believe how much information those guys have to know just to get chosen to go on the show!”

  “So I’ve heard,” Susan commented. “I don’t think I know your name.…”

  “Wow. I’m sorry. I’m Kyle Barnes.” He offered her a large callused hand.

  “Hi, Kyle. Can I ask what you’re both doing up here?”

  “Measuring. We have to get the lumber order into the yard before it closes in a few hours if we’re going to accept delivery tomorrow.”

  “So you’re a carpenter?” Susan asked, staring at his live to ski—ski to live at breckenridge T-shirt. He didn’t appear to be much older than her son.

  “I am these days,” Kyle answered cheerfully. “This was supposed to be just a summer job—I finished my freshman year of college last June—but now I’m thinking about taking a year or so off. I can work at this until Christmas and then I’ll have enough money to bum around Europe for a while. I may even find a job at a resort in Switzerland, you know?”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “The highest mountain in Switzerland is the Dufourspitze. It’s 15,203 feet.” Art Young had removed his headset. “Most people think it’s Mont Blanc, but that’s actually in France.”

  “Really?” Susan feigned polite interest, then introduced herself. What she was most interested in was the clearance between her eaves and the floorboards, not the mountains of Europe.

  “Yup. I’m past that geography stuff though. Going on to jewels and minerals of the world now.” Art Young was slightly chubby and boyish-looking. His hair was cut in a style that had been popular in the fifties and his nose was dusted with freckles. In his jeans and plaid shirt, he made Susan think of Jerry Mathers, the Beaver, blown up rather than grown up.

  “I understand you’re interested in being a Jeopardy! contestant.”

  “I’m going to be one, ma’am. All it takes is determination and concentration. Last time I screwed up the geography part. But I didn’t care as much back then. This time I’ll be more prepared for my audition. I’m also growing bonsai—they’re ugly little trees, never make much in the way of lumber, but it will look good on my bio, don’t you think? They like people with interesting hobbies.”

  “Really?” She was trying hard not to stare at the note hanging from the toolbox. After all, she was there to check out the bathroom, not to investigate a murder.

  “Yo, Artie, man.” A young man with blond dreadlocks had joined them.

  “Frankie, you might want to talk like a high school graduate. This here’s Mrs. Henshaw. The lady of the house.” Art Young introduced Susan. “This here Frankie is one of your plumbers. You have any leaks after this project, you blame him.”

  Susan smiled weakly. This was all getting to be a bit much. Maybe they could learn to live without water in the bathrooms.…

  Frankie took the time to nod to Susan before returning to the reason for his visit. “I need to see one of you downstairs. If there’s going to be any changes in the venting system of those bathrooms, someone better figure it out now—before the window order gets picked up.”

  “I hadn’t decided on the window shape,” Susan protested.

  “All I know is that there’s an opening hexagon in the diagram I was given,” Frankie replied. “If you have a problem with that, you better give Ken Cory a call.”

  “Yes, I will. Right away,” Susan agreed, heading down the stairs to her bedroom and the phone.

  Clue was nestled in the middle of the quilt on the bed, a look of extreme contentment on her face. Susan knew that she was doing nothing for the discipline in the house by allowing the animal to stay, but how many times had she heard the expression “let sleeping dogs lie”? Why fight the wisdom of the ages, especially when she had more important things to deal with, she thought, flipping through the Cs in the phonebook. Impatiently, she dialed.

  And got an answering machine.

  She hadn’t remembered the number, but she remembered the answering machine with its skimpy time allowance. Her message was short and to the point. “This is Susan Henshaw. Please call me immediately.”

  Susan hung up and stretched out across the bed in the space Clue had generously left. Maybe she should have left her home phone number. She found the number again and called back, adding “It’s important” to the message before lying down again.

  Clue nudged Susan’s arm.

  “You know what I need, Clue? A snack.”

  Apparently Clue felt the same way. The two of them were in the kitchen staring into the refrigerator in record time. Susan was juggling low-fat cheese spread, crackers, and a dish of leftover tomato, basil, and mozzarella salad when someone knocked on the back door. Susan called out a greeting and a strange man appeared.

  Susan was becoming accustomed to seeing strangers within her territory, but this man was different. He was wearing a suit. She had a moment or two of confusion until he explained that he was from their insurance company.

  “Your husband called the office and asked that we do our inspection as soon as possible,” he explained. “And I can see that you wouldn’t want to live with this mess for any longer than necessary,” he added, looking around the room. “Have you found a contractor yet?”
He put his black briefcase on the countertop.

  Susan, remembering her husband’s admonition about offering extra information to this man, didn’t answer immediately, and he continued to talk while removing a Polaroid camera from the case and proceeding to take three pictures of the room. “The rest of the damage is on the floor above this?” he asked, knowing the answer.

  “And on the floor above that,” Susan answered. “Do you want me to show you the way?”

  “Please.”

  “Just let me put the dog in the yard first.”

  “Take your time. I need to get the rest of my materials together.”

  He was rummaging in his briefcase as Susan pulled Clue out the door.

  And he still hadn’t found what he was looking for when she returned to the kitchen. Susan sighed and picked up the broom that was waiting in the corner. She might as well begin to clean up this mess. After all, the photographs of this room had been taken.

  “Why are you doing that?”

  “Excuse me?” Susan looked down at the substantial pile of plaster and slop that she had accumulated by taking three swipes at the floor with the broom.

  “Don’t all those trucks in front of your house belong to the contractor’s crew?”

  Susan nodded.

  “They’re going to tear down before they start building up. I wouldn’t bother to clean if I were you—you’ll be doing enough of that in the next few months.” He chuckled ominously and followed Susan from the room.

  It turned out it wasn’t actually necessary for Susan to direct the insurance investigator from damage location to damage location. He could have merely followed the filthy footprints up the stairs and through the hallway. “I can’t believe how messy all this is,” she muttered at one point.

  “You think this is messy? Wait until these people start to work” came the reply. “I guess you haven’t had a lot of work done on your house,” he added, snapping a photo of the gaping hole in the bathroom wall.

  “We had the kitchen remodeled and a laundry room added in the basement,” Susan protested.

  “But both of those jobs were next to outside entrances, right?”

  Susan agreed that he had hit the nail on the head.

  “But this job—first, second, and third floors—is going to be different,” he suggested. “This job is taking place all over the house.”

  Susan, who remembered how the plaster dust had invaded every corner of the living room when her kitchen had been remodeled, began to understand what he was talking about.

  “Of course,” he continued. “That’s not going to be your biggest problem. Your biggest problem is going to be Simon Fairweather. In Hancock the biggest problem in any remodeling job is always Simon Fairweather.”

  “Simon Fairweather? I don’t understand,” Susan protested. “How could he be a problem now that he’s dead?”

  “Dead?” The man seemed taken aback. “Well, what do you know. So who murdered the son of a gun?”

  “Exactly how did you know that Simon Fairweather was murdered?”

  Susan turned and found that they had been followed up the stairs by her husband and Brett. “I don’t believe Mrs. Henshaw told you that Simon Fairweather was murdered. I’d like to know how you heard about it,” Brett repeated, a serious look on his face.

  Jed, standing at the police chief’s side, was wearing a similar expression.

  SEVEN

  By the time the insurance investigator had explained that he had only heard negative things about Simon Fairweather and that he had never actually met the man and was continuing his inspection accompanied by a grim-looking Jed, Susan was more confused than ever.

  “Why are you back here?” she asked Brett when they were alone together.

  “We have a problem—nothing serious, but I need to speak with you. And Patricia Fairweather is back in town. I was wondering if you would come along when I meet her. It might make her more comfortable and we could chat on the drive.”

  “Fine.”

  “But this has to be done right away.”

  Susan decided to ignore her grubby clothes and go. A recent widow probably wouldn’t notice what anyone was wearing. Besides, she wasn’t going to resist Brett’s offer. Usually she had to plead and connive to go along on a police questioning. She followed him to his patrol car.

  “You said something about Patricia Fairweather living in Hancock for a long time,” Brett began as he steered the car onto the parkway.

  “A native. At least that’s what I’ve heard,” Susan answered, scowling at her shoes. They were scuffed brown suede, old and dirty. Well, she’d just keep her feet tucked underneath her.

  “Anything wrong?” Brett asked, noticing her expression.

  “Nothing important. Let me see. Patricia Fairweather. Well, she was born a Storm, and she and Simon moved into the Storm family home shortly after they were married. I don’t know the exact address. It’s that gigantic dark green Victorian with the cream and burnt-orange trim up on the hill—you probably know it. It’s been expanded and remodeled over the years, of course. That’s one of the things people get angry about when Simon Fairweather is mentioned—”

  “Excuse me for interrupting. You’re telling me that Patricia Storm married Simon Fairweather and became—”

  “Patricia Fairweather. I know. And I’m sure she’s gotten tired of hearing cute comments about it over the years.”

  “Understandably so. I wasn’t going to mention it. I just wanted to get everything straight. I gather they weren’t married recently.”

  “Probably twenty or thirty years ago. But that’s just a guess.”

  “Any children?”

  “None. I’m sure about that. People have mentioned it to me more than once in relation to Simon’s position.”

  “How does having or not having children relate to being a building inspector?” Brett asked.

  “His job was to approve or disapprove of any building project that fell outside of the town’s standards and he frequently rejected plans that called for major expansion.”

  “So?”

  “So he lived in a huge house that his wife inherited and they had no children. The general feeling was that he lacked a personal understanding of the fact that no house is big enough when you have a couple of preschoolers—or a teenager.”

  “And did the Storms need such a large house? Was it a large family?”

  “There were four girls. Patricia is the youngest. She’s also the only one who still lives here in town.”

  “Which is why she moved into the house?”

  “I don’t know about that, but by the time she got married, her older sisters had moved out and established their own homes. In fact, I think that her father died fairly close to the time of her marriage and her mother moved in with one of the other sisters—in North Carolina, I believe. I know it was someplace warmer than Connecticut.”

  “So this recently married couple moved into a large house in the best part of town?”

  “Yes. I suppose they expected to fill it with children, but then none came. On the other hand, Simon was exactly the type of man to live in a large, old Victorian. Everyone says that he had worked wonders with the house—and that he’d done all the work himself.”

  “Do you know what he used for cash?”

  “Not really. I do know that he created an apartment above a carriage house on the property and they rented that out for years and years. Also he ran a contracting business and I imagine it was profitable. And he subdivided the property behind his house and built two houses there. And then he bought some land down near the creek and built a few houses on that.”

  Brett nodded. “Those fake Victorians that look like they belong in Disney World.”

  “They’re very popular,” Susan said, although she agreed with him.

  “But he didn’t build them anymore,” Brett said, not bothering to argue about questions of taste.

  “Not for years and years. He became the building inspe
ctor and stopped contracting. I suppose there must be laws about that type of thing—conflict of interest and all.”

  “Let’s get back to Patricia Fairweather. What do you know about her beside the fact that she’s a native and she takes classes like you do at the Art Center?”

  “Don’t think that everyone who takes classes there is like me, just a housewife looking for some sort of creative outlet.”

  “I don’t—” Brett began.

  “Patricia is a serious craftsperson—an artist, really. She was a weaver and she does fabulous watercolors. She only began to work in clay in the last few years and she’s not just competent, she’s developed her own style. And it’s wonderful to take a class with her—she’s willing to help out the most incompetent student, which in our class was me,” Susan admitted.

  Brett chuckled. “Sounds like we wouldn’t have any suspects if anyone had murdered Patricia Fairweather.”

  “Except for Simon Fairweather.”

  “Exactly what do you mean by that?”

  “It’s just a thought.…”

  “What is just a thought?” Brett insisted on knowing.

  “Well, it’s possible that Simon Fairweather hit his wife.”

  “Simon Fairweather was a wife beater?”

  “Not necessarily a wife beater, it’s just that he hit her once that I heard about.”

  “A man who hits his wife is a wife beater. Even if it only happens once. And it usually happens more—much more—than that.” Brett’s tone of voice didn’t allow for argument, not that Susan disagreed with him.

  She was silent for a moment, looking out the window as they drove down the quiet, tree-lined street. Susan knew, better than many, the pain that lay behind some of those elegant, brass-trimmed doors. But imagining Patricia Fairweather in the role of subservient, abused wife was difficult.

  “She doesn’t seem like that,” she began.

  “Like what?”

  “Like someone who would let that happen to her. You know, let someone else hurt her—especially not more than once. She’s always struck me as a very strong woman.”

  “You know how I respect your intuition about people,” Brett said, not taking his eyes off the road, “but there are some women in this town who have been abused by members of their family, husbands in particular, whose identity would shock you. Believe me.”