by Maia Chance
“Have a seat, I guess,” Karen said. She slapped the computer shut, but not before I had seen she was on eBay. “I’ll go grab a vase.”
Upstairs, someone turned on what sounded like a vacuum cleaner. It droned, the wheels bumping back and forth over floorboards. Who was vacuuming? A friend? A relative?
Effie and I sat down side by side on a white slip-covered couch. I placed the boxed apple pie on the coffee table, noticing with dismay that the top had caved in. We both eyed the huge, hand-lettered wooden sign hanging over the fireplace, which read FAMILY RULES: BE NICE.
“Nauseating,” Effie murmured.
“What are you, Cruella de Vil?” I whispered back. “That’s a cute sign!”
“And not a speck of dust anywhere, yet those sweatpants…”
“She’s in mourning!”
Karen came back with a large white enamel jug, which she set on the coffee table. Without unwrapping the cellophane, Effie stuck the roses unceremoniously in the jug. A red REDUCED sticker was on full display. Karen was looking at it.
Crud.
“Is there any news on the—” I cleared my throat. “—on the police investigation?”
“No. They brought in Mikey’s boss at the shop—Otis Hatch?—but they released him. Mark is starting to freak out.”
“Your husband,” Effie said.
“Yeah. Mikey is—was—his little brother, and even though they weren’t super close, a death in the family is a death in the family. Plus, this was—” Karen swallowed. “This was murder. Honestly, I’m a little scared. What the heck did Mikey get himself mixed up in? He was always such an idiot.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He was incapable of making good choices. He had zero common sense. He was like a thirteen-year-old boy trapped in a forty-year-old body. Put him within a ten-yard radius of a dirt bike, a chainsaw, or a wasp’s nest, and someone was going to get hurt. Although, the funny thing was, up until yesterday, Mikey seemed to always get out of these stupid situations he created unscathed. It was the people around him who got hurt.” Karen’s eyes flashed.
Effie and I exchanged a look—red alert—and then Effie said, “Did Mikey ever hurt you, Karen?”
She snorted. “No. I always had the good sense to steer clear of him. Growing up, Mikey got Mark into plenty of trouble. Bowie knife scars, concussions, a broken arm from falling out of some crappily built tree house. Pfft. And I wasn’t too happy about the way my son Scootch was starting to think Mikey was all that and a bag of chips. Mikey would take Scootch dirt biking, or have him over to play video games. Mark said it was nephew–uncle bonding, but I knew it was just a matter of time before something bad happened to Scootch.”
“Did something bad happen to him?” I asked. Karen’s bitterness was making my skin crawl.
“Nope!” She made a weird bark of laughter. “And now it never will.”
“Did Mikey have a girlfriend?” I asked.
“Mikey? Girlfriend? Ha!”
“He wasn’t popular with the ladies?” Effie asked.
“Well, he was, back in high school when he was the town football hero and before all those Hostess Ding Dongs caught up with his gut. Before the rest of us grew up and left him behind.”
“So … no recent dating or anything?” I asked.
“Well, no one I ever met, although the last time I saw him, which was when he came over to mooch dinner a few weeks back because apparently he was out of frozen burritos, he claimed he was seeing someone.”
Oh-ho.
“But I didn’t believe it. I thought it was just one of the stupid things he said to try and impress Scootch, like how he was going to buy a Chevrolet Camaro. That one got Scootch pretty worked up, until I had to break it to him that no way could his Uncle Mikey afford a Camaro.”
Upstairs, the vacuum switched off. “Sweetheart?” a man shouted down the stairs. “For the millionth time, could you please put your dirty towels in the bathroom hamper, not the one in the closet?”
“Sure thing, Mark,” Karen called back. She rolled her eyes at Effie and me. “My husband is a clean freak,” she said softly. “This weekend, Mark took Scootch camping in Canada, and I felt like I was on a freaking vacation not having someone nagging me all day. I swear to God, he’s going to kill me.”
I shifted on the sofa cushions.
Karen laughed without humor. “I guess I shouldn’t be saying stuff like that when there’s been a murder, huh?”
Upstairs, the vacuum swooshed back on.
Effie said, “Karen, dear, who could possibly have wanted Mikey dead?”
Karen’s eyebrows shot up in surprise, and then she looked away. “Honestly? Probably lots of people.”
“He had … enemies?” Effie said.
“Not enemies exactly. He was too much of a doofus for that. More like people he messed things up for.”
“Like who?” I asked. Yesterday, Delilah had hinted at something similar, saying that Randy from Naneda Orchards had been “best frenemies” with Mikey.
“Well, like his next-door neighbors, Clifford and Belinda at the Birch Grove Bed and Breakfast.”
Clifford. Clifford of the “good riddance” comment.
“Why?” I asked.
“Listen, I’m not comfortable with gossiping, okay? Why don’t you ask Clifford and Belinda about Mikey? Basically, all I’m trying to say is that Mikey was one of those people who screw things up for other people, not totally intentionally, just thoughtlessly. But then if you pointed out how he was screwing things up, he’d get all belligerent and hurt. He said he meant well, but how could he possibly mean well if he kept doing things over and over again after you told him to stop?”
At that moment, I heard the front door burst open, stomping, and then a teenage boy appeared in the living room doorway. “Hi, Mom,” he said. He had blond hair and a fresh crop of pimples, and he wore a red plaid hunting jacket. His eyes looked a little pink, as if he’d been crying or maybe smoking something he shouldn’t have been. He kept going.
“Hi, Scootch baby,” Karen called after him. “I made you a snack! It’s in the fridge!”
No answer.
Karen sighed. “I let Scootch skip school today. He’s pretty broken up about Mikey. It makes me feel so guilty. Why should I have to feel guilty all the time?”
Effie and I both leaned forward fractionally on the couch.
“Yes,” Effie said in a soothing voice, “why should you, Karen?”
Karen’s expression shuttered. “Well, anyway. Thanks for the visit and the—” She looked at the dented pie and the “reduced” roses with distaste. “—for the gifts, but I really have to go and spend time with Scootch.”
“Okay,” I said, standing. Effie stood, too. “Just let us know if there’s anything we can do to help.”
“Here’s our card,” Effie said. She handed over one of our Stagecoach Inn business cards, which had my phone number, Chester’s, and her own.
“Actually, there is something you could do,” Karen said. “If, that is, you really want to get involved with the Chamber.”
“Oh, we do,” Effie said.
“Okay, well, as you probably know, the Harvest Festival Kick-Off is this afternoon at three o’clock, when the Peeper Prize judge will be introduced and all that hoopla—you know what the Peeper Prize is, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. Effie nodded.
Every year Naneda entered to win the Peeper Prize, a trophy awarded to the most delightful leaf-peeping town in the northeastern United States, sponsored by VitaGrain Breakfast Cereals. The winning town won bragging rights and a spread in the American Association of Retirees’ My Turn magazine.
Naneda never won.
“Since you’re new to the Chamber, you may not realize what a huge deal the Peeper Prize is,” Karen said. “Winning would mean more tourism for Naneda, and more tourism obviously means more business, and that means—”
“Ka-ching,” Effie said.
“Uh-huh.” Karen’s eyes g
littered. “We have to win this year. We have to.”
I thought of how the receptionist at the Lilting Waves Day Spa had hinted that business was slow. Could Karen be hurting for money? Her house was certainly in good repair.
Karen said, “I was supposed to be the one to introduce the Peeper Prize judge on behalf of the Chamber—I’m the Chamber’s official liaison to the contest’s judge—but…” She looked down at her stained sweatpants.
“No one could possibly expect you to do such a thing while in the midst of a family tragedy,” Effie said.
“Great.” Karen turned to me. “All you have to do—”
“Why me?” I said.
“Agnes, darling, no one wants to see an old lady strutting on a stage,” Effie purred, not sounding as if she meant a word of it. No, she sounded as if she had ulterior motives. “We’ll just have to get something suitable for you to wear.”
Great. Effie was forever looking for reasons to give me little makeovers. I knew it irked her that no matter how many cute dresses or pairs of Spanx she treated me to, in the end I always defaulted back to jeans, T-shirts, sneakers, and a small yet unrestrained pooch above the waistband.
“All you have to do is make a little speech welcoming the Peeper Prize judge on behalf of the Naneda Chamber of Commerce,” Karen said to me. “Try to sound warm and inviting, and don’t forget to smile. Oh—and do you have contact lenses? And maybe a dress? Because those glasses won’t look good in the newspaper photographs. Too much glare. Not, of course, that you need to look glamorous. Your homegrown look will be okay. It’s just the Naneda Gazer.” She stole a look at my orange sneakers. “Not Star magazine.”
“Newspaper photographs?” I pictured myself standing onstage with hundreds of townspeople gawking. My belly trout-flopped.
“She’ll do it,” Effie said.
“Aside from the speech today,” Karen said, “there isn’t much the liaison needs to do. Unless, of course, we win the Peeper. The judge—he’s just one of several who are deployed in the towns that entered the contest—will spend the week here, visiting local businesses and events and tallying up a score. He’s staying in one of those lakeside rental cottages, I heard, but we should just leave him alone. We don’t want to look like we’re trying to cheat by currying favor.”
“Um, okay,” I said.
“Let me go get the card.” Karen padded out of the living room in her Hello Kitty slippers.
“Thanks a lot,” I whispered to Aunt Effie. “Why did you volunteer me to humiliate myself?”
“To put her off the scent,” Effie whispered back. “We’re posing as overenthusiastic newbie members of the Chamber. If we didn’t agree to this liaison thing, it would’ve roused her suspicions. All in the name of staying undercover, darling.”
“More like all in the name of giving me another makeover.”
“That’s merely an added bonus.”
Karen reappeared with an orange greeting card–sized envelope and passed it to me. A yellow Post-it note stuck to it said HUGH SIMONIAN VITAGRAIN PEEPER PRIZE. “That’s the judge’s name. Hugh Simonian. And make sure you mention VitaGrain. There should be a bouquet of flowers for the judge waiting next to the stage. Floral Poetry is donating them. After you make a little speech of welcome, give him the bouquet and this card.” She was leading us to the front door. “Thanks. The idea of going out in public was just … too much. You know?”
“Oh, we do,” Effie said.
Karen herded us onto the porch.
“Please let us know if there is anything else,” Effie said.
“Uh-huh,” Karen said, starting to shut the door.
Just then, a champagne-pink sedan stopped across the street. Otis’s Grandma Bee got out of the passenger seat, said something to the driver, and shut the door. She waved the sedan off and then, catching sight of us on Karen’s porch, waved at us, too, before heading to her kitchen door.
Effie and I waved back.
Karen didn’t wave. She narrowed her eyes. “Crazy old bat,” she muttered.
“What?” I said, incredulous. In my opinion, Grandma Bee definitely had all her marbles. She had whupped me at Clue.
Karen gave me a sharp look. “Do you know her?”
“Oh.” My instincts screamed, Lie, Agnes, for the love of Pop-Tarts, lie! “No. She just looks … nice?”
“Nope. She’s crazy. Delusional.”
Hmm. I should probably mention this to Otis.
As Effie and I headed down the leaf-crunchy front walk, we heard Karen shut her front door hard.
Chapter 7
“Did you unearth any clues?” Lo asked as Effie and I climbed into the Dustbuster.
“Yes,” Effie said, putting on her sunglasses. “And a new lead.”
“Fun!” Lo clapped her hands.
“What’s in the envelope?” Myron asked me.
“This?” I tucked the orange envelope with the Post-it note in the console. “Something for the Harvest Festival Kick-Off this afternoon.”
“I need to use the restroom,” Hank droned from the third row.
“What kind of clue?” Myron asked. “Direct or circumstantial?”
I was digging my keys from my shoulder bag. “Circumstantial, I guess. A potential murder motive for Karen—”
“Ooh, what is it?” Lo asked. “Revenge? Money?”
“More like … protecting her teenage son from harm, I guess.”
“That sounds like an unconvincing motive,” Hank said.
Yeah. Said aloud, killing someone just to prevent their teenage son from getting a dirt-biking concussion sounded … improbable. I mean, Karen could’ve simply forbidden Scootch to hang out with Mikey, right?
“How would you like to make a little visit to Birch Grove Bed and Breakfast?” Effie asked. “In the capacity of potential future guests, of course.”
“Absotootly!” Lo said.
“When is lunch?” Hank asked. “I need to take my pills with food.”
“Right after the B and B,” I said.
Myron said, “If I hadn’t gone into carpet sales, my second choice would’ve been working for the FBI.”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Effie said. She peered at Hank through the rearview mirror. “Dr. Li?”
“As long as I can use their restroom,” he said.
*
Birch Grove B and B was in a pretty section of Naneda where the historic residential district gave way to one-acre lots and, after a few blocks of that, farmland. It had always been one of my favorite areas of town, the kind of neighborhood where the yards had room for tire swings, big dogs, and greenhouses.
“Before we stop at the B and B,” I said, “let’s try to figure out which house was Mikey’s. Karen said he lived right next door.”
“Good idea,” Myron said.
Effie nodded.
We cruised past Birch Grove B and B, a gingerbreaded Queen Anne Victorian amid trees heavy with bronze foliage. Tall hedges separated the yard from the neighboring properties. On one side was a cottage with late-blooming rosebushes, a porch swing, and lace curtains.
“Uh—that’s probably not Mikey’s house,” I said, recalling the meatball sub exploding on his mechanic’s overalls.
On the other side of the B and B was a saggy one-story house shaped like a shoebox, with asbestos siding, a boarded-up window, and a lot of miscellaneous junk on the front porch. The lawn was shin-high. The one tree in the yard looked diseased.
I braked at the curb, and we all stared.
“I suppose we can’t go in there and poke around,” Effie said.
“Aunt Effie! Do you want to get arrested?”
“Not in these pants.”
“What?”
“Being arrested means a lot of sitting around, and these pants have no stretch.”
“That’s why I like my leisure suits,” Lo said. “I’m always prepared for anything. You can even get sequined ones for fancy occasions.”
Effie shuddered slightly.
We stared at the house some more. Then I said, “It would be pretty interesting to see what’s in there.”
“A lot of empty beer bottles and pizza boxes, would be my guess,” Myron said. “Girlie magazines, too.”
“And video game systems,” Effie said. “Karen mentioned video games. But there would also have to be some kind of clue about who killed him, right?”
“Unless it was a random violent act,” Hank said. “Some nut job who came in from the Thruway.”
“Yikes,” I said. “I hadn’t even thought of that. But seriously, you guys—we can’t break into a house. Let’s go talk to Clifford and Belinda.”
I circled around the block and parked in front of Birch Grove B and B. As we all walked up the long front walk, it became apparent that the B and B wasn’t exactly in tip-top shape. Paint peeled here and there. A section of the porch roof looked as if it could’ve used new shingles. The leaf-blanketed lawn needed raking, and the picket fence slumped. Still, it was a beautiful house, and the front door had original-looking beveled glass and an amazing ornate brass doorknob and key plate.
Yup. I was picking up some vintage expertise. I had once loathed secondhand shops—the grime, that stale odor that clings to your hair, the hyperawareness that eighty percent of household dust is said to be human skin. But the allure of old house-pieces—vent covers, light fixtures, doorknobs, salvaged decorative moldings—was twining around my soul. For one thing, the craftsmanship. People don’t make stuff the way they used to. Second, I loved the idea of each vintage thing having a secret history of its own. Old stuff has personality.
I rang the (vintage!) doorbell, and Clifford opened the door.
“What,” he said—or, rather, grunted—eyeing Hank, Lo, and Myron behind Effie and me on the porch. “We’re sold out, so if you’re looking for a place to dump the guests you’re not equipped for in your rattrap inn, you’re out of luck.”
“Oh, no, honey!” Lo cried. “We just love the Stagecoach Inn!”
“Love is a strong word,” Hank said.
“We were actually here to see if you’d give our guests a tour of your B and B,” I said to Clifford. “For future reference, I mean. We’re trying to give them a nice big taste of Naneda’s highlights and, um, hidden gems.”