OK, then. Change of plans. “I’ll just go to the meeting by myself,” I said.
“You don’t have to go. You already know everything that’s going on, and I’m sure Wayne wouldn’t care if you came with me to Portland instead.”
“What am I going to do while you and your friends carouse? Sit in the hotel room and watch HGTV?” I shook my head. “No thanks. I’ll stay here and go to the meeting and take care of the cats and drive up tomorrow morning.”
Ryan’s fiancée and her bridesmaids were having their own shindig tonight, but I hadn’t been invited, since I didn’t technically know Carla. Staying in Waterfield and listening to Wayne discuss Hilda Shaw’s death and Brandon’s mishap with the neighbors sounded more interesting. And then there were the cats. Mischa gets mopey when I leave. After months of living under the porch on Rowanberry Island, you’d think he’d be used to being alone, but ever since I brought him to the mainland with me, and into Aunt Inga’s house, he’s been more like a limpet than a cat. The other two have made independence and self-sufficiency a religion, but Mischa is happiest when I’m right at home and he’s right where he belongs, in my lap. And although Derek might be right, that I did know everything that was going on already, it was possible Wayne had dug up some little tidbit of information I hadn’t heard. And I was damned if I would miss out on it. Not to sit in a hotel room in Portland watching HGTV.
“Do what you want,” Derek said. “I need to get back to work. We have to knock off early today as it is.”
“I’ll be back in thirty minutes. Roast beef OK for lunch?”
Derek allowed as how it was, and we hung up. I headed into town and down Main Street to one of the cafés, where I ordered two roast beef sandwiches on rye to go. It was while I sat there waiting for the food to be made and handed over that the door opened and John Nickerson walked in.
He’s a small, skinny man with an Elvis haircut and a limp left over from Vietnam, usually dressed in a vintage 1960s suit with skinny pants or a vintage 1970s ditto with bell-bottoms and appliqués of flowers and peace symbols. Sometimes he even sports rhinestones. He’s totally enamored with midcentury chic—1950s, ’60s, and ’70s—which is pretty much all he sells in his store. Finn Juhl–inspired sofas, teak tables and TV stands, shag rugs, and wall hangings with giraffes and zebras. He also has an outstanding selection of pictures of big-eyed children with puppies and kittens.
When he saw me, his thin face broke into a grin. “Afternoon, Avery.”
“Hi, John,” I replied. “How’s it going?”
“Good, good. You?”
I said I couldn’t complain.
“Derek not around?” He looked over his shoulder.
I shook my head. “He’s working. I’m picking up lunch to go.”
“New project?”
I nodded, and told him all about it. Including the fact that one of the neighbors had just kicked the bucket last night. John nodded sagely. “That’s no surprise.”
“What isn’t?”
“That Hilda Shaw is dead.”
“And why is that?” Other than the fact that she was getting on in age and we’re all going to die sometime.
“I knew her,” John said.
OK. But that wasn’t a reason for her to be dead, either. Or was it?
“We’re the same age. Went to school together. I’ve wanted to kill her myself on occasion.”
Ah. “I guess I didn’t make myself clear. She wasn’t murdered.”
John tilted his head. “Really? That’s surprising.”
I know murder isn’t a laughing matter, but I couldn’t help the surprised giggle that escaped my lips. “What makes you say that?”
“In school she was voted ‘most likely to die mysteriously.’”
“You’re kidding?”
John admitted that he was. “But she was the kind of girl who liked to know things about people. And once she figured out something juicy, she liked to hold it over their heads.”
“Blackmail?”
“More or less. There was this girl that I liked, back when I was thirteen or so. Her name was Susie Lawrence. She had no idea who I was, and I preferred it that way. So, of course, when Hilda found out, she threatened to tell Susie, unless I gave her the dessert out of my lunch box every day.”
“I thought she was allergic to gluten.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” John said. “I do know that she was allergic to nuts. One day, my mom put pecan sandies in my lunch instead of chocolate chip cookies, and that took care of the problem.”
“She realized they were bad for her?”
He shook his head. “She ate them. And then she had to go to the hospital with some sort of allergic reaction, and that was the end of it. Her mom knew she hadn’t packed anything with nuts, so Hilda had to have gotten the cookies somewhere else. Mrs. Shaw got the whole story out of Hilda, and she made Hilda apologize to me. I got to eat my dessert in peace after that.”
“What about Susie Lawrence?”
“Oh, Hilda told her,” John said with a shrug. “But it’s going on fifty years ago. I’m over it.”
“Was Susie nice about it at least?”
“She couldn’t care less,” John said. “That’s why I didn’t want her to know. It’s no fun having a crush on someone who doesn’t know you’re alive.”
“She knew you were alive after that, though.”
He shrugged. “You sure Hilda wasn’t murdered?”
“Not entirely sure,” I admitted. “The medical examiner hasn’t done the autopsy yet. But Derek said it looked like anaphylactic shock. The ME will probably concur.”
“If Derek says it’s anaphylaxis, I’m sure it is.”
“Although there was one sort of weird thing. Or if not weird, at least interesting.”
He tilted his head, birdlike. “What’s that?”
“Well, everyone seems to agree she had allergies. Amelia Easton, the neighbor, said she did. There were a ton of medications in the apartment, and some very specialized foods. Gluten free, no nuts, no seafood, that kind of thing. And now you’re telling me she had allergies when she was a child.”
“Uh-huh,” John nodded.
“Well, it seems like she should have had an EpiPen. You know, emergency injection of epinephrine. But she didn’t.”
“Really?”
“Brandon didn’t find one. And he spent a lot of hours, both last night and this morning, going through the place. Derek thought that maybe she’d run out and just hadn’t been able to get a refill yet, but it’s interesting.”
“Very,” John agreed, as the cashier nodded to me, white plastic bag with wrapped sandwiches in her hand. I got to my feet.
“I should get back. It isn’t fair to let Derek do all the work. Even if I’m sort of in the way at this stage of the game.” I don’t update electrical plugs or change out plumbing; those sorts of things are Derek’s domain. My contribution comes either before, in the design, or a little later, with painting and adding finishing touches. Once he got done with the major mechanicals, which wouldn’t take more than a couple of days in a small apartment like that one, I could start throwing myself into the project as well, but until then I was mostly relegated to making lunch runs and appreciative noises.
“I’ll see you around,” John said. And added, “I almost forgot. Got your invitation in the mail the other day. He finally got around to popping the question, huh?”
I smiled. “I’ve only been in town a little over a year. It isn’t like we’ve been dragging our heels.”
“Seems longer,” John said.
I nodded. It seemed longer to me, too. In some ways, it felt like I’d always been in Waterfield. “You’ll be able to come, right? To the wedding?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” John said before he turned his attention to the cashier, who was waiting patiently for him to tell her what his to-go order would be. I took myself and my sandwiches out the door and down the street to the truck.
At five we
knocked off work for the day. Derek drove me home and dropped me off before going to his loft to shower, change, and drive to Portland with his nice suit in a garment bag for tomorrow. I took a bubble bath, washing all the grime and dust from the renovations off in Aunt Inga’s clawfoot tub, and made myself some dinner. I petted Mischa a lot, making him purr hysterically, and I made sure the other two cats were fed and watered and had what they needed before I got in the Beetle and headed back to the condo building.
Until Wayne mentioned it, I hadn’t realized there was a community room in the basement. I knew there was a laundry room down there, along with a utility-type area where the various heating and air units sat, blowing hot and cold air to the rest of the building. The other side of the basement had a line of small storage rooms: one for each condo, with enough room for a couple of bikes, a few boxes of Christmas decorations, maybe some old clothes, and a chair or two. As Derek had said, the small community room was beyond: 10 by 15 feet, maybe, with a couple of rows of metal folding chairs in it. When I passed through the door at seven o’clock, most of the seats were taken and Wayne stood at the front of the room, preparatory to making his announcement. I raised a hand in greeting, and he smiled. “Hi, Avery.”
Heads turned, and Wayne added, “For those of you who don’t know her, Avery Baker and her boyfriend have bought the Antoninis’ condo and are renovating it. Where’s Derek?”
“Portland,” I said, avoiding all the eyes. “Bachelor party.”
Wayne nodded. “Find yourself a seat. We’re about to get started.”
I slid onto the chair next to Josh, who gave me a distracted look and smile. Probably because Shannon was leaning up against his other side, whispering in his ear. Next to her was Gregg the resident and the young man with dark hair we’d seen a couple of days ago—the one Derek had said looked Hispanic and must be Mariano. In the row behind, Jamie sat next to Amelia Easton on one end, while on the other was William Maurits. There were several empty seats between them. Candy was nowhere to be seen, so maybe she was working tonight.
In the far back were Robin and Bruce with little Benjamin; the boy had a coloring book on his lap. This was the first time I’d seen Bruce, and he turned out to be a stocky man around my own age, with a shaved head, a little goatee, and a tattoo of a skull and crossbones on his neck. Robin, once I saw her up close and personal, was pretty in a washed-out sort of way, like a faded watercolor. Little Benjamin had gotten all the color in the family, it seemed, with that shock of jet-black hair and—when he looked up for a second, gnawing on his crayon—big, dark eyes.
While I’d been looking around, Wayne had explained the situation. Hilda Shaw was dead, most likely from natural, or seminatural causes—the medical examiner had completed the autopsy and had confirmed anaphylactic shock as the cause of death—but there were just a few questions that Wayne hoped the neighbors could help out with.
“She obviously had food allergies,” Wayne said, looking around the room. “Dr. Lawrence, the medical examiner, thinks the allergic reaction was due to ingestion of a trace matter of peanuts, probably in her breakfast cereal yesterday morning.”
I had met Dr. Lawrence once, about six months ago, after Derek and I had found the body of a young girl floating in the water between Rowanberry Island and the mainland. She’d been a nice lady, who knew Dr. Ben, Derek’s dad. As she’d said, “Doctors of the dead are doctors, too.”
I raised my hand. “I spoke to John Nickerson earlier today. You know, from Nickerson’s Antiques? He went to school with Miss Shaw, and said she had allergies back when she was a child, too. Severe ones. She had a bad reaction to pecan sandies once.”
“Corroborating evidence is always nice,” Wayne said, “although the contents of her cupboards speak for themselves. I’ve also spoken to her doctor and had the allergies confirmed that way. Thank you, Avery.”
He addressed the rest of the room. “Someone with long-standing, severe allergies should have had an EpiPen. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, it’s an emergency self-administered dose of epinephrine that someone with severe allergies can take in the event of an allergic reaction. The same way an asthmatic would carry an inhaler around.”
A couple of people nodded, Gregg the resident among them. Robin put her hand on Benjamin’s head and stroked his hair; maybe the boy had asthma. He shot his mom a quick grin.
“Her doctor confirmed that she had a standing prescription for one at the local pharmacy,” Wayne continued.
He glanced around the room. “We’ve spent quite some time going through Miss Shaw’s apartment and her things, and so far, there’s no sign of an EpiPen. Which seems unlikely. In every other aspect of her life, Hilda Shaw seems to have managed her illness very carefully. It doesn’t make sense that she wouldn’t have made sure she had a dose of epinephrine in case of emergency. So I thought perhaps one of you might know what happened to it. Whether she ran out of medicine and hadn’t gotten around to ordering a refill. Whether she’d misplaced it and told you she’d lost it. Whether she came to visit and accidentally left it behind.”
Silence greeted this statement. Gregg leaned toward Mariano and whispered a few words in his ear. Mariano nodded. Nobody else spoke.
“Moving along,” Wayne said. “We have to track down any extra keys Miss Shaw may have given out. Her next of kin is a sister in Oklahoma City, who will arrange for everything long distance. The condo will be cleaned out and, I’m sure, sold. There will be no funeral or memorial service, unless you’d like to arrange your own.”
There was another long pause, during which I imagined I could hear the wind rustling through the grass on the lonesome prairie. Obviously nobody felt the need for a memorial service, and no one wanted to confess to being in possession of a set of Miss Shaw’s keys. In the back of the room, the door to the hallway opened, and Candy slipped through. After a quick look around, she dropped onto the last seat in the last row of chairs. She didn’t sit down with Jamie and Amelia Easton, and although Jamie glanced over her shoulder, she didn’t acknowledge Candy in any way, nor did Candy acknowledge Jamie. Maybe they’d had a tiff. I’d never had a roommate other than my mother—I lived at home during the time I went to Parsons School of Design—but I could imagine it might sometimes be grating to be on top of one another, especially when there was a lot of added stress in the situation. Such as when one of the neighbors dies suddenly and the police are all over everything.
“I’m going to need all of your fingerprints,” Wayne added, “as well as a statement from each of you regarding where you were last night between the hours of ten P.M. and eight A.M. today.”
Another pause ensued, this one fairly humming with tension.
“Why?” Bruce asked eventually, with a glance at Robin.
Wayne turned to him. “To match with fingerprints found in Miss Shaw’s apartment. Someone was there overnight, after we sealed the place and locked up. We’d like to know who, and what that person was looking for.” He took in the rest of the room with a glance. “I don’t suppose any of you would like to tell me?”
No one did.
After a few moments, William Maurits raised his hand. “Are you still investigating, or is the case closed?”
“The case is open,” Wayne said. “But we’re finished with the apartment. I’ll make sure it’s locked up and leave it for Mrs. Carroll to deal with. If you’ll all go to your apartments, I’ll be by to get your fingerprints in the next few minutes, as well as a record of your whereabouts last night. And any keys you may have. If there’s anything else you’d like to confess, you can do it at the same time. Dismissed.”
There was a scraping of chairs and quiet whispers as everyone got up and filed toward the door. Robin helped Benjamin close his coloring book and gather his crayons while Bruce watched, the look on his face somewhere between doting and fierce. When she straightened and gave him a smile, he smiled back, and put his hand on the small of her back as they walked out. Mariano and Gregg had their heads togethe
r, whispering. Candy and Jamie, on the other hand, each seemed to be taking great pains to pretend the other wasn’t there. They departed separately, without looking at one another.
I turned to Wayne. “I don’t suppose you need my prints, do you?” He’d taken them before, last summer, when everything was happening in and around Aunt Inga’s house.
He shook his head. “I already have yours. And Josh’s and Shannon’s. You’re free to go.”
Not until I’d gotten a little more information. And shared some. “Is the medical examiner sure it was an accident? When I told John Nickerson that Miss Shaw was dead, he thought she’d been murdered. Said he’d wanted to kill her himself.”
Wayne’s eyes sharpened, and I added, “It was a long time ago. I think he said he was thirteen. Hilda Shaw found out that he liked this girl named Susie Lawrence, and she threatened to spill the beans to Susie unless John gave her his dessert every day.”
“What happened?”
“His mom sent pecan sandies instead of chocolate chip cookies one day. Miss Shaw ate them and had a bad reaction. Her mother found out what was going on and made it stop.”
Wayne tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile.
“He said,” I added, “that she was the kind of person who liked to know things about people. And who liked holding them over people’s heads.”
“Blackmail?”
“Maybe. Or maybe she just felt unimportant, and knowing things about people made her feel better about herself. Both Kate and Shannon told me that she knows everything there is to know about everything in the building. Maybe she found out something that someone didn’t want her to know.”
“Huh,” Wayne said. “I’ll look into it. But I doubt anyone will admit it if she was holding something over their heads, Avery.”
Likely not.
“It’s a reason why someone might have broken into her apartment last night, though. If Miss Shaw knew something, and had proof, maybe in writing, someone would have wanted to make sure the police didn’t find it, wouldn’t they?”
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