Squatter's Rights

by Cheril Thomas

  McNamara laughed. “Your brother is probably enjoying himself immensely.”

  “You know it. Even Dad laughs every time he sees it. That part’s kinda nice. Or it would be if Mom would just chill. I should have told her to come with me today to get her mind off Winnie. She’s looking forward to meeting you, Grace.”

  Grace noticed Niki didn’t say how her father felt.

  Turning to McNamara, Niki said, “I was surprised when you called, but of course I wanted to come and meet my cousin. Oh! Is this about your accident?” She grabbed Grace’s arm again. “Dad heard you fell in the backyard and ended up in the hospital. Are you okay? Hope I didn’t hurt you with my hug.”

  Grace wanted to shout that of course the hug hurt. Niki was hurting her now. She wanted to yank off her shirt and show the rainbow of bruises, her stitches and the sumac rash. Instead, she patted Niki’s hand and removed it, saying, “I was walking near the rear of the property and fell. I’ll live.”

  McNamara raised an eyebrow but only said, “Why don’t you both sit down.”

  Niki took the second wingback, still smiling at Grace. “I can’t believe it! You’re really here!”

  Grace couldn’t believe it, either, but refrained from saying so.

  Focusing on Niki Malvern, McNamara said, “I was just talking to Ms. Reagan about her accident. It turns out the situation is a bit more complicated than we originally thought. I asked you to come because your parents indicated they’d rather not deal with the police again so soon.”

  “So you did call them.” Niki’s face reddened. “Did Dad hang up on you?”

  “He usually does if he doesn’t like what I have to say,” McNamara sounded unperturbed. “I need to interview your family and you’re the low hanging fruit in that contest.” This got a wan smile from Niki. “I’ve told your cousin, we’ve discovered she fell into a grave.”

  Grace wanted to leave. She wasn’t ready for the Delaney relatives. Cyrus Mosley had left her four messages demanding to know how she was. Adding more people to the problems she had to deal with was too much. Her back hurt and her head was in a steady rhythm of pulsing pain. She dug in the tote for Ibuprophen, washing three pills down with the strong coffee.

  “Oh, don’t be silly,” Niki said. “I’m sure she fell into the swimming pool.”

  “What swimming pool?” Grace perked up. Mosley had conveniently forgotten to mention a pool.

  “Gran’s, of course. She never liked it or the tennis courts, so she let the woods take them both over. She threw her trash out there for years. She said it was biodegradable. The neighbors couldn’t see what she was up to because the area is so overgrown, but one of them eventually caught on and complained to the town.”

  “Avril Oxley?” Grace guessed.

  “Yes! You’ve met her?”

  Grace winced at the squeal in Niki’s voice.

  “Miss Oxley is an active supporter of community policing,” McNamara said without a hint of sarcasm.

  “Oh, Miss Avril’s an institution,” Niki said. “If you’re doing anything in this town, you’re dealing with her, whether you want to or not. She used to complain a lot about Gran and the house and property. It was embarrassing. She kinda calmed down over the last few years, but if she’s stirred up again, you’ll have your hands full, Grace.”

  “More useful information Mosley didn’t share,” Grace said. “A death trap pool and a neighborhood vigilante.”

  “We’ve seen the pool,” McNamara said quietly. He sat on the arm of an overstuffed sofa and looked at them each in turn. “Niki, I know it’s been a rough few months for your folks and for you. First your grandmother’s death, then Winston’s troubles -”

  “You mean totaling his car and blowing three times the limit on the Breathalyzer. Don’t sugarcoat it. Grace’s gonna hear it all sooner or later.”

  “Okay, straight talk, then.” McNamara agreed.

  Grace didn’t want straight talk. She wanted no talk. She wanted them both to go away and her head to stop hurting.

  McNamara said, “Grace didn’t fall into the pool. It was a grave. We found skeletal remains just below the surface of the pit.”

  “It’s a small pool,” Niki said in a defensive tone.

  McNamara shook his head. “I am sure this is hard to believe, but you need to listen to me. The grave is a good fifty feet away from the swimming pool.”

  “Oh,” Niki sat up straighter and after a moment nodded her head. “Well, okay. I remember now.”

  Grace’s mouth fell open. Niki suddenly remembered a grave?

  Even the Chief appeared surprised, but only said, “Please explain.”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Niki insisted. “A long time ago Gran had a big dog named Clancy. My dad remembers riding on him. He even has a painting somewhere of Gran and Clancy. Gran told us lots of stories about Clancy, but the one Dad tells the most is about when Clancy died. Gran wouldn’t let Grandfather dispose of the body, and did I mention Clancy was a Great Dane? Dad said he weighed close to two hundred pounds. Anyway, Gran insisted Clancy had to be buried in the backyard. Grandfather wouldn’t allow it and they had a huge fight. But in the end, Gran won, as usual, and Grandfather ended up burying the dog in the woods. It caused him to have a heart attack. He recovered, but Dad said things were never the same.”

  “In what way?” McNamara asked.

  “I don’t know for sure. Dad only said Grandfather was never healthy after his heart attack.”

  “So, is it possible?” Grace asked. “That’s a big dog, maybe -”

  “No.” McNamara was firm. “The bones that are left are human, not canine. The pit isn’t a swimming pool, it’s a grave. If either of you knows anything that might help us determine what happened, now’s the time to tell me.”

  He’d spoken to both of them, but Grace saw his eyes were on Niki. The younger woman flushed. A brief shake of her head was her only response.

  “How long has it been there?” Grace asked. “The grave and the bones, I mean. When did the death occur?”

  McNamara closed his notebook and rose. “Inconclusive at the moment. Given the state of the remains, it’s been a long time. If either of you remembers anything or just want to talk, call me. I’m sorry to delay the renovation plans, but Delaney House and the grounds are blocked off until the MSP finish their investigation.”

  “The State Police?” Niki’s head came up. She stood and reached out to touch McNamara’s arm. “I want you to handle it. You know us. Why do the State Police have to come in?”

  McNamara patted her hand. “It’s protocol in a homicide investigation for a small department like ours. It will be a joint operation. We’ll help, but the State folks will be lead.”

  “Homicide.” Niki sat back down abruptly.

  “Until we know otherwise, that’s how we proceed.”

  Grace followed him to the door of the library. “Sounds as if it will take a while. I’ll return to Washington if that’s okay?”

  “I have your statement. If the MSP have questions after they’ve seen my report, someone will contact you. If you should remember anything your mother may have told you that could have bearing on the investigation, get in touch immediately.”

  Grace agreed but knew she wouldn’t be making a call. For thirty-six years, her mother had avoided the subject of the Delaneys and Mallard Bay. It was only while she was dying that she talked about her family home. Grace thought she had more questions than the police did and far fewer resources to get answers.

  Chapter Thirteen

  M-I-N-E

  Three weeks later, the red letters still defaced the white metal cabinets and the kitchen still smelled. Henry Cutter’s crew had cleared the garbage in the short period they’d been allowed to work, but years of abuse, neglect and decay weren’t so easily removed. While the State Police had sliced and diced the grounds and searched the house looking for clues to a murder, Delaney House had been quarantined to all but law enforcement.

  Grace wis
hed they’d just bulldozed it.

  “Are you excited to finally get started with the renovations?” Niki asked.

  “Sure,” Grace said without enthusiasm. She’d left her condo in Washington hours ago with the pre-dawn commuters, turning not towards the L Street offices of Farquar, Mitchum and Stoltzfus, but taking New York Avenue to Route 50 and Mallard Bay. As she reached the peak of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, her BMW broke through the fog to a beautiful sunrise. For a moment, her heart raced with a rare feeling of joy and something that almost felt like freedom. A half-hour later, freedom was not an option. Delaney House was a huge ball and chain.

  She’d turned down Cyrus Mosley’s offer to buy the house outright. She’d promised her mother she’d follow through with the plan to renovate it and sell it in a respectable condition. That promise was looking more and more like a life-altering mistake.

  “You should have told me you were coming,” Niki said. “If I hadn’t run into Henry yesterday, I might have missed you.”

  Niki had contacted her daily in the weeks since they met. At first, Grace was flattered to have an actual blood relation who wanted to be connected. She wanted - needed - to know about the Delaneys, but she was an introvert and Niki’s constant contact quickly became intrusive. Still, Grace tried to make herself engage. Niki gave exhaustive details about her visits to Delaney House where she watched the MSP technicians perform work she didn’t understand and gossiped with the neighbors. As the investigation dragged on without a quick identification of the body in the grave, Niki’s emails took a more personal turn.

  Everyone is on edge here. I can’t wait for you to come back. We need to be together and get to know each other. What’s your work like? What did you do today? Come for a visit, come for a visit, come….

  A loner by nature, Grace felt smothered. She went longer between responses, which only made Niki resort to phone calls. Grace had hoped to slip into Mallard Bay, meet with Chief McNamara and the Cutters and be back in Washington before Niki heard she’d been there. She wanted to be charitable, but the word stalker flashed through her mind as she realized Niki was waiting for an explanation. “I’m not staying today. I’m only here to set up a work schedule with Henry and get some prices from Bryce.”

  “And to see Chief Mac,” Niki added.

  “I’ve already done that.” Grace was happy there was something Niki didn’t know. “Let’s go outside,” she hurried on in an artificially cheery tone. “We can wait for Bryce and Henry out there. I’m hoping there’ll come a day when I can stay in this house longer than ten minutes without getting nauseous, but it’s not today.”

  Outside the air smelled better, but the grounds looked like a set for a B-Grade disaster movie. The stretch of woods behind Delaney House had been trampled. Many of the trees near the grave had broken limbs. One small mulberry had been uprooted and dragged out onto the lawn. A white tent complete with secured side-flaps covered the grave and neon yellow caution tape tied to stakes cordoned off the back half of the property. Two warning signs declared the area to be a crime scene. Grace wondered if they would still be there when she was ready to market the house.

  “Bryce!”

  Niki’s shout interrupted Grace’s sour thoughts. She turned to see her cousin run across the lawn to meet the handsome contractor and his partner. By the time Grace had joined them, Bryce had gotten one of Niki’s bear hugs and an enthusiastic kiss.

  Henry Cutter gave Grace a gentle pat on the shoulder. “Don’t mind them,” he said. “All the girls do that. You can go next if you want.”

  Niki giggled as she dabbed her pink lipstick off Bryce’s mouth. “Bryce and Henry gave me my first job out of high school. I didn’t like cleaning, so Bryce hired me to paint. Some of the best houses in town have my handiwork.”

  “You maybe did three kitchens, max, before you decided college was a better option,” Bryce said. “But you were our favorite employee while you hung around.”

  “And not for the reason you might think,” Henry said, adding a Groucho wiggle of his bushy eyebrows. “Niki’s an enthusiastic baker. Every morning we had muffins, sweet rolls and donuts. I gained a lot of weight that summer before she decided manual labor wasn’t for her.”

  “What do you think running an inn is, if not manual labor?” Niki demanded. “A lot of good a history degree did me. I still clean house, bake and paint. But I do love it.”

  Niki’s emails had been full of details about the bed and breakfast she owned. Grace had politely declined several invitations to visit, but Niki continued to raise the subject.

  “Hey! Let’s go to the inn to talk. I baked a coffee cake this morning and there’s plenty left. We can discuss the house and I’ll show you around.”

  Niki continued to hang onto Bryce as she talked. Grace thought they could be models for a wedding cake topper: Bryce tall and dark, Niki petite and blond, both gorgeous.

  “Sorry, kiddo,” Bryce peeled Niki off his arm. “We’ve got business to transact and I’ve got to be at another job site in an hour.”

  “And I have to be back in DC for a four-o’clock meeting,” Grace added. “I’ll need to leave soon.”

  Undeterred, Niki said, “So, do you know anything new? What’d Chief Mac tell you?”

  “The police are finished for the time being and they’re going to let me start renovations on the house as long as I stay away from the woods. They have a lot of forensic work to do, but beyond the basics, nothing new.”

  “I’ve also heard from Avril Oxley.” Grace turned her attention to Bryce and Henry. “She wanted me to know she would be taking an interest in any work we do on the house.”

  “Avril and I get along fine,” Bryce said. “She’s the chair of a local unofficial historical preservation group. They’re rabid about saving the area’s history, and I find working with them not only makes my life easier, it brings in business. We’re better off having her on our side from the outset. Avril’s a purist, she only cares about history and buildings."

  “Because she’s so obnoxious humans won’t have anything to do with her,” Henry said.

  “Cut it out,” Bryce said. “You know how much business she sends our way and no, we wouldn’t get it anyway. She tells everyone we do quality restorations.”

  “She’s a pain in the ass.”

  “She has influence,” Bryce countered.

  “I get it. She’s an influential pain in the ass,” Grace said. “I’d like to move on to the schedule for work. Whatever we do will be scrutinized and we’ll just have to deal with it. Well, gentlemen, let’s get to it. Ready for a walk through?”

  Once again, subtlety was lost on Niki. She stayed close to Bryce, pointing out obvious areas for renovation as they walked through the house. Grace tamped down her irritation and tried to take in the tidbits of useful information Niki dropped. It was helpful to learn where the mechanics of the house were located, and that the basement was full of spiders, camel crickets and the odd snake. She considered locking her cousin down there so she could have a conversation about finances with the Cutters. Privacy wasn’t possible with Niki around.

  Niki’s tour concluded in the entry hall. “This is my favorite room in the house. I used to love to play dress up and pretend I was a queen in here.”

  “Who are you kidding, Nik? You still do that,” Henry teased.

  “Okay, this has been fun,” Grace interrupted. “But I’m running out of time and Bryce and Henry and I need to talk contracts. So, Niki, I’ll call you later in the week. How does that sound?” It sounded rude and she knew it, but she’d had all of the giggly gossipy Niki she could take.

  To her surprise, Niki took the hint in stride, gave Grace a fierce hug, planted another kiss on Bryce and left, honking and waving as she pulled out of the driveway. Grace felt limp with relief.

  “I’ve only got about ten minutes,” Bryce said, “but this won’t take long. I worked up an estimate last night and from what I’ve seen this morning, I think it’s sound. We can stay w
ith the basics, or we can do the full restoration or anything in between. It’s your call.”

  Grace looked at Henry, but his face told her nothing. If he still had reservations about renovating Delaney House, it didn’t show.

  “Where do you propose to start?”

  Henry said, “My crew will need about a week to get the place emptied and surface clean.”

  “I wanted to talk about the clean out,” Grace said. “The police took all the documents and photographs they found. Chief McNamara has promised to give me copies of what they have.” This was what she hadn’t wanted to discuss in front of Niki. “I photographed the interior of the house the last time I was here. I’m looking for any information on my mother. My parents. Anything at all.” She felt her face redden, but hurried on. “As you saw, the first floor rooms are empty except for trash. I’ve studied the photos and didn’t see much of interest or value other than the furniture on the second floor. And I want to go through the books and the clothes stored in the main upstairs bathroom, so you can leave it as it is.”

  Henry nodded and said, “We’ll leave that room for you and we’ll keep a lookout in the rest of the house for anything that isn’t ordinary trash.”

  “You will be careful, though?” Grace asked.

  Henry frowned, “Well, look. I can’t guarantee anything. Maybe you should be here while we work, you know, check everything before we take it to the dump.”

  “There’s no need for that,” Bryce broke in. “We’ll be careful. It shouldn’t be hard to tell what’s valuable.”

  She wanted to stay and sort everything herself, but it wasn’t possible. She had a long-running case coming to trial and obligations to her client. She needed to leave soon in order to make a scheduling conference.

  “I wish I could stay,” she said. “I’ll check in with you often. Send me a text with a shot of anything you’re unsure about. Or better yet, if there’s any question about an item, keep it.”