Remodeled to Death

by Valerie Wolzien

  “And it wasn’t?”

  “Well, the contract says that some of the money can be refunded if the cancellation is due to illness or death, but no one was ill.”

  Or dead yet, Susan added to herself when Patricia didn’t continue.

  The phone rang in another room and Patricia excused herself, suggesting that they might like more refreshments while she was busy.

  They took her up on her offer. Susan poured out more lemonade and munched on cookies while Brett wrote in the tiny notebook that he carried in his pocket. Patricia returned in less than ten minutes, writing on a notepad of her own.

  “Calls about funeral arrangements,” she explained, sitting and jotting down a few more words. “I understand my husband’s body”—she paused and it was the first time Susan had seen her act like most recently created widows—“is going to the mortuary this afternoon. So plans need to be made.”

  Brett surprised Susan by standing up almost immediately. “We’re imposing. I’m sorry. There will, of course, be more questions. I need to know further details about your husband’s personal life as well as his professional affairs, but if you’ll just give us your sister’s phone number, this will do for now. You will be available later?”

  “Naturally.”

  “But I do have one request.…” Brett struck Susan as unusually reluctant.

  “Yes?”

  “Would you give us a tour of the house?” Brett asked.

  NINE

  “I was so glad you asked … I mean, I certainly was wondering what the rest of the house looked like, but still it was a surprise. And what do you think about Patricia’s last-minute trip to her sister’s house? Do you think … Why are you stopping the car? Is something wrong?”

  “I just need to make a few notes before I forget anything.”

  Susan suspected that Brett’s brisk answer was his way of telling her to shut up, so she did, sitting quietly in her seat and thinking over the extraordinary home she had just toured.

  The second floor, not surprisingly, continued the theme set up on the first: a unique collection of crafts incorporated into a spectacularly attractive setting. Two large guest rooms were decorated in ways that indicated to Susan that children never stayed in them. (Especially the one that contained the collection of delicate glass goblets. Susan had found herself clutching her hands behind her back in there.) She had even checked out the bathrooms for ideas that might be appropriate in her own home. The master bedroom suite had surprised her by being very old-English-leather-smoking-room masculine with traditional furnishings until she discovered that Patricia was sleeping in what had once been a small sewing room or nursery tucked between a bathroom and a large linen closet. Unlike the voluptuous visual appeal of the rest of the house, that room was almost monastic. Its twin bed was fashioned from rough twigs; the mattress was covered with white cotton sheets and an elegant silk paisley shawl. But the hardwood floor was uncovered, the lone window was hung with a paper shade, and a tiny, white night table with a modern halogen lamp was the only other piece of furniture. Nothing was displayed on the rough white walls, and Susan assumed a large walnut-burl dresser that stood on the landing in the hallway contained Patricia’s casual wardrobe. Two paperbacks were sitting on the bed and Susan had been intrigued to see Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance keeping company with a cozy mystery novel.

  It was the third floor Susan kept thinking about. A more competitive craftsperson might have been tempted to explain Patricia Fairweather’s superior products on the multiple studios that filled the large space. Susan, a humble class-taker, wasn’t deceived, but she was momentarily jealous and permanently impressed. Two Swedish looms as well as a large American tapestry frame stood beneath a pair of skylights. A table covered with watercoloring supplies was against the far wall. And close to the stairs an electric wheel, a small drying kiln and shelves of unfinished work, jars of glazes, and potter’s implements were handy. Without prompting, Patricia explained that she had recently installed an outside kiln under an overhang near the carriage house. Susan had left that floor reluctantly.

  Brett had asked for a drink of water, so they stopped in the kitchen on their way to the car. In the name of good taste, Susan had resisted reading the personal messages and notes on the bulletin board and had discussed the relative merits of gas versus electric stoves until a phone call from the director of the town’s interfaith mortuary interrupted them.

  “Okay, I think I’ve recorded all the pertinent facts,” Brett said, tucking the notebook back in his jacket and starting the car. “So what do you have to say about that?” he continued.

  “Amazing. I wish we’d had a chance to look at the kiln, though. I understand it’s got some unique features—”

  “Susan, what are you talking about?”

  “The Fairweathers’ home. What else?”

  He chuckled and gave her a sidelong glance. “You’re not going to tell me that you missed the note on that bulletin board, are you?”

  “What note?” So much for being polite.

  “I suppose I shouldn’t have called it a note. It was a full page, after all. It was from the cruise line, outlining various details about the trip.”

  “I didn’t see it. I guess I was thinking about something else.” She was unwilling to admit that she had been so intrigued by the hand-thrown canisters that she had—only momentarily—forgotten that she had been invited on this trip to help investigate a murder.

  “Susan, that note was the reason that I suggested a tour of the house. Why else did you think I would ask to look around, for heaven’s sake?”

  “I thought perhaps you were interested in getting some idea of the Fairweathers’ lifestyle,” she answered, somewhat miffed. Exactly what gave this man the right to act like they’d been married to each other for twenty years?

  “Such as?”

  “Well, didn’t you think it was interesting that Simon and Patricia didn’t share a bedroom?”

  “You think it has something to do with his death?”

  “If they didn’t share a bedroom, were taking separate vacations,” Susan began, and then stopped.

  “You think that’s a sign she killed him?” Brett asked.

  “Or that they had developed parallel but separate lives, which would eliminate the tension that might be necessary to get mad enough to kill someone, don’t you think?” Susan suggested a different interpretation.

  Brett gave his passenger a skeptical glance. “Possibly.”

  “And, in fact, Patricia has a very happy and productive life in that house. Why would she kill her husband and risk it all?”

  “Well, let’s think about that. Her life is very independent. Apparently she didn’t need her husband in her life at all. He turned her parents’ home into a showcase for the work she loves to collect and the work she loves to do. She produces excellent crafts and presumably could make a living selling them. If not, she has family members with enough money to own large homes on Montauk—they might help her if she had trouble supporting herself. Added to that let’s assume the story your pottery teacher told you is correct and Simon Fairweather was beating his wife before he died. She might have an excellent incentive to kill him and reason to believe that she could create a good life for herself after his death.”

  “You think …”

  “I think it is too early to think anything. I didn’t even begin to ask all the questions that I wanted to, but I was afraid that Patricia Fairweather would realize what she had said, figure out a reason to return to the kitchen and tear that notice off the wall before I got a chance to read it.”

  Susan shook her head. “I hate to admit it, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “The notice from the cruise line. I wanted to be sure it said what she said it did, that it was a list of emergency numbers.”

  “And was it?”

  “It was the complete itinerary for her trip. Where it started, where it stopped and when, as well as numbers
to call in case there was an emergency. It’s not like the old days when liners crossed the Atlantic; a cruise ship going up the Inland Passage between Seattle and Anchorage, Alaska, has little trouble staying in almost constant phone contact—some of the cabins have their own phones, in fact.”

  “That’s interesting,” Susan said, not really understanding why he thought it was.

  “It very well could be, in this case.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, according to the details from the cruise company, Patricia Fairweather had her own phone line. In fact, someone had circled it.”

  “So?”

  “So that wasn’t the number that the cleaning woman gave us. She gave us the number that the cruise line has for emergencies.” He frowned. “It could, of course, mean nothing. But it’s possible that she had some inkling that Patricia Fairweather wasn’t on board.”

  “I suppose it’s worth checking out. I assume you’ll speak with her.” Susan doubted if he would find any answers. So many of the women who cleaned in Hancock were recent immigrants, trying to earn a living while getting their green cards, frequently unable to understand all but the simplest English phrases.

  “I don’t understand why you’re so serious about this,” Susan continued. “Isn’t it just routine? After all, we know that Patricia was out in Montauk at the time of her husband’s murder. Her sister will be able to verify it.”

  “Her sister, whom she admits to being very close to, remember,” Brett reminded her. “A sister who just might lie to keep her from being convicted of murder, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose it’s possible.”

  “Look at it this way, Susan. Assume Patricia Fairweather is the murderer. She plans to go on a cruise, tells her family and her friends that she’ll be gone for two weeks. Makes preparations, chats about it around town at the dry cleaner’s and the grocery store, just like she says she probably did, and then when she leaves the house everyone naturally assumes that she is where she said she was.”

  “Except that she’s a smart woman and she knew the police would check her whereabouts when her husband was murdered. What was she going to do? Make a dummy with the pillows and keep it on the bed on the ship and claim that she slept through the cruise? Besides, the police called the cruise line to notify her of Simon’s death. Surely she never thought that anyone would wait until a murder victim’s spouse returned from a vacation to tell them that someone had died!”

  “But she didn’t do that,” Brett reminded her. “She claims to have gone off to her sister’s house at the last minute, conveniently forgetting to tell anyone but her husband—who is now dead and can verify nothing—about her change in plans. So she had accomplished something. She not only has an alibi for the time of her husband’s murder, but she managed to keep us from finding her immediately after his death.”

  “And what advantage is that to her?” Susan asked, genuinely perplexed.

  “She could have come to Hancock, killed him, and returned to Montauk without us knowing.”

  Susan didn’t argue.

  “Do you think I’m wrong?” Brett asked.

  “Actually, I was just thinking.…”

  “Did you say anything about Simon Fairweather hitting Patricia to anyone else?”

  Susan thought for a moment before answering. “When I was worrying that I should do something—speak to Patricia Fairweather or someone—about Simon hitting her, I probably talked to Kathleen about it. I usually tell her what’s worrying me. But she’s been so busy with Banan—her son and her pregnancy that it was probably just mentioned in passing.”

  “Jed?”

  Susan shook her head. “I guess so. I don’t actually remember.”

  They had turned on to Susan’s street. A gigantic truck was unloading the biggest Dumpster she had ever seen at the foot of the driveway.

  “Oh, no!” Susan cried out. “Hurry up. We’ve got to stop them!”

  “What’s wrong?” Brett asked as he accelerated the car.

  “They’re going to trap my car in the garage!”

  TEN

  “Lady, believe me, we do this every day. We ain’t never trapped a car in a garage—not since that lawyer sued us, at least … course that wasn’t his car. Wasn’t even his wife’s car. Belonged to his secretary; he claimed she fell asleep working late.”

  Susan spied her husband over the shoulder of the man who was speaking to her. “I didn’t mean to imply that you didn’t know your business. I think I’d better go see what’s happening in the house,” she muttered, smiling weakly and starting up the walk. She noticed that the small rhododendron had once again gotten in someone’s path; the poor thing had lost a few more branches.

  “Jed,” she breathed. “Why is that Dumpster so huge? And how long is it going to sit in the driveway?”

  “As long as it’s needed. And it’s not so big. Ken says they’re expecting to fill and dump it more than once.” Jed shook his head. “Susan, that’s not our most immediate problem. What are you doing investigating a murder at a time like this? We have to get this house in shape before the kids come home. Let someone else worry about who killed Simon Fairweather. Please.”

  “Hey, you trying to find out who killed Simon Fairweather?” Buns appeared behind Jed and stuck out a greasy paw. “Let me shake your hand. And I’d like to shake the hand of the person who did it when you find out.” A large grin appeared on his face. “Just kidding, Mrs. Henshaw. Just kidding,” he repeated, chuckling, as he left the house.

  Susan looked at her husband. “I’ll tell you about that. Everything’s fine. There’s not a chance in the world of having a nice, quiet glass of iced tea in the kitchen, is there?”

  “None. The house is an oven because the air-conditioning is off again. We shouldn’t open the freezer if we don’t want things to start melting.”

  “Maybe I could change and we could go to the inn.” Susan began envisioning a cool, intimate lunch.

  “At least one of us should be here to answer questions, hon. And we have more than a few decisions to make. Once the construction begins, every change is going to cost money. Why don’t you go around back to the patio, I’ll bring you something to drink, and we can talk. You look tired.”

  Tired, Susan knew, was her husband’s code word for dreadful. “I could use a shower,” she muttered, pulling her hair off her forehead. “But I’d like to see what’s happening in the house. Then I’ll tell you everything Brett told me. I promise.”

  “Okay. But, remember, things look worse before they look better.”

  Susan understood his warning as soon as she stepped through the door. A heavy, black plastic runner snaked its way down the hall and up the stairs. Woven batting of the type movers use to wrap furniture had been hung over the wood paneling on the walls. Transparent plastic was attached to the molding around open doorways, sealing off the rooms. Through one Susan spied Clue lying on the living room couch, chewing on one of Susan’s favorite leather sandals.

  The second floor was worse than the first. The carpet was covered and the doors to her children’s bedrooms were sealed with large sheets of the same plastic.

  “We talked it over and decided that it was the best way to localize the dirt and dust,” Jed explained.

  “Well, I was thinking about straightening out the kids’ rooms while they’re out of town, but that can wait. And we’re certainly not going to have guests with all this going on. Why didn’t they seal off the guest room?”

  “We might want to sleep in there,” Jed said, opening their bedroom door.

  “We definitely don’t want to sleep in here,” Susan agreed, looking around. Plastic covered everything: the floor, each piece of furniture, the shutters on the windows, the doors to the closets. On the bed, towels, tissues, makeup, a full wastebasket, and the entire contents of the medicine cabinet formed a large pile.

  “Nothing is sealed tightly. I knew we would want to get things out of the closets and the dresser.”

 
Susan, staring through the plastic over her nightstand at the paperback she was reading, only nodded.

  Kyle Barnes appeared in the bathroom doorway, a red bandanna wound jauntily around his head, a toilet bowl in his hands. “Hi. Want to look around?” He tossed his head to indicate the room behind him.

  “You were going to tell me what Brett said,” Jed reminded her before she followed Kyle.

  “It will only take a second. There’s not much left in there to look at.” Kyle laughed, then headed out into the hallway.

  There wasn’t.

  The tall young man with blond dreadlocks, Frankie, was kneeling on the floor cradling the rest of the toilet in his arms.

  Susan stood in the middle of the room with her mouth open. Pieces of the bathtub were shoved up against the walls, the light fixtures were dangling in place, falling wallpaper hung across the window.

  “Susan? Are you okay?”

  “I think …” she started slowly, “… I think there’s room for a large bathtub in here. Like the one at that hotel in Lucca, remember?”

  Jed grinned. “I sure do. And we need one, definitely,” he added with a matinee-idol leer.

  “And maybe a shower in that corner,” Susan added, kicking aside some rubble and peering down the hole in the floor. “Why is there newspaper in here?”

  “It’s where the toilet was installed. It keeps sewer gas from escaping. Sue, you were going to tell me about your conversation with Brett,” Jed reminded her again when she didn’t respond to his teasing.

  “Yeah, let’s go downstairs. He just wanted me to go with him to Patricia Fairweather’s house because I knew her from the class we took together.”

  “I remember that. Didn’t you tell me some sort of dreadful story about them last spring?” her husband asked, following her down the stairs. “Wife beating or something?”

  “Do you think this plastic is strong enough to take much traffic?” Susan asked, ignoring his question and looking down at the steps.

  “Susan!”