An Anniversary to Die For

by Valerie Wolzien

  “But the Markses weren’t like that.”

  “No. I don’t have any idea how they ended up in Hancock, but—”

  Susan leaned forward. “Really?”

  “Really what?”

  “What you just said. Why did they come to Hancock anyway?” Susan asked, wondering if Martha knew about Signe’s earlier explanation. “We have great schools, but the Markses were well past worrying about that. I love Hancock, but our taxes are high and the homes expensive. And I don’t believe they had any friends in the area. At least they never mentioned any to me, and I don’t remember meeting anyone who knew them before they arrived.”

  “They didn’t know a soul. I’m sure of that. I remember Doug said that it was a fresh start for them. I hadn’t spent a lot of time with Ashley at that point, but I could already believe they needed one.”

  Susan nodded. “She really had the most amazing ability to alienate people.”

  “Amazing is the right word. The first time I met her I wanted to kill her.”

  “What happened?”

  “I was sitting at my kitchen table during the open house. It’s strange selling your own home after decades of giving sellers advice on how to move theirs. I really felt I had to do it right. Of course the place was clean and had fresh flowers and green plants everywhere. And I turned on every light in the place. Then I did what I tell clients to do: I stayed out of the way but was available to answer questions. So I sat in the kitchen with tea, fresh home-baked cookies, and the information sheets on the house on the table.”

  “You baked?”

  “Yes. I convinced the owners of the specialty shop that used to be out on the highway to sell me the dough. I sliced it, put the cookies on the baking sheets, and had warm—if rather lopsided—gingerbread ready before the first looker entered the house. I always tell owners that the smell of home cooking can sell a home.”

  Susan, whose favorite gingerbread recipe contained fresh, candied, and ground ginger, reminded herself that she wasn’t here to argue with anyone else’s idea of home cooking. “And that’s where you were when you met Ashley?”

  “Yes. She came into the room, followed by her husband as always, looked around, and did a pretty good imitation of Bette Davis. You know, her ‘what a dump’ scene in All about Eve?”

  “She called your kitchen a dump?” Susan was indignant. “I always loved your kitchen. That wonderful seating area in the bay window. That old Wedgewood stove . . . Oh, she probably didn’t appreciate the stove.”

  “Or the old pine cabinets or the hand-painted mural on the walls around the soapstone sink, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. By the time she got through looking around and making loud comments about everything she despised, I was ready to kill her. She was quite literally driving away potential buyers.”

  “Do you think it was deliberate on her part? That she had decided she wanted the house and was hoping no one else would bid for it?”

  Martha frowned. “I don’t think so. Although I did consider that possibility at the time. But then her husband came by with an offer for the asking price . . .”

  “What’s wrong?” Susan asked when her friend didn’t finish her sentence.

  “You know, that may have been exactly what she was doing.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I just said that Doug made the official bid on the house. But her name wasn’t on the bid. It’s just possible that Doug was making the first independent move of his life when he bought our house.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Look, Susan, I didn’t say anything to anyone at the time. I mean, I mentioned it to Dan when we saw the first stories about Ashley’s arrest in the Herald, but he said— and I agreed with him—that Doug was just making one of those comments that husbands make all the time, and that it didn’t mean anything significant.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said his wife was going to kill him for buying a house in the suburbs.”

  TWENTY

  “AND THEN, OF COURSE, SOMEONE TRIED TO DO JUST THAT.”

  Martha nodded. “I assumed she was guilty, and I assumed she would be found guilty. Reading the stories in the Herald . . . Well, I never thought she’d go free.”

  “Which is why you didn’t tell anyone about what Doug had said to you.”

  “Exactly. It seemed unnecessary. And Dan’s right. Husbands say that very thing about their wives all the time.”

  “True, but . . .”

  “But most husbands don’t have to worry about their wives actually doing it, and it’s just possible Doug did. I’ve thought about that.”

  “Did he sound . . . I don’t know . . . more serious than Jed might sound making the same comment?”

  “I have no idea. I didn’t think there was anything unusual about it at the time—except that it seemed to be so unlike Ashley to allow Doug the freedom to make such a decision on his own. Heavens, I sold homes for almost thirty years. There was only one other time that I know of that a married man bought a house without his wife’s approval. And that marriage lasted only a few years. Buying a home is something a couple does together. Period.”

  “If Doug bought the house and Ashley hated it, it would explain a lot of things,” Susan mused.

  “Like what?”

  “Well, for starters, like the fact that Ashley changed everything she possibly could.” She looked up and watched the expression on her friend’s face change—for the worse. “Oh, Martha . . .”

  “Susan, Dan and I had a good life in that house. We raised three great kids there, and we made the right decision when we decided to move to Tucson last year. I’m being foolish and sentimental when I start thinking that it should have been left the way it was. Hell, over the years we obliterated every trace of the Coles as well.”

  “Who were the Coles?”

  “The people we bought the house from. They built that house.”

  “I hate to make you feel worse, but Ashley not only remodeled and redecorated but she made everything ugly and depressing.”

  “What did she do? Paint all the walls black?”

  “No, but everything she did was overdone—you know the type of thing—each window was draped in at least two layers of fabric; the walls were papered, stenciled, gilded, with borders and fancy doodads. Her color scheme was black, ochre, purple, and gilt.”

  “Sounds hideous.”

  “It is. And expensive. She had people in doing faux finishes for months. And you know how, when you go to a lighting supply store, you wonder who buys all those ugly fixtures?”

  “Ashley Marks?”

  “Yup.”

  “Damn. I knew we should have taken the carriage lamp in the foyer to Arizona with us.”

  “You can. The Markses left it out for the garbagemen. But I picked it up and put it down in the basement. I thought maybe Chrissy and Stephen might like it someday. But it should stay with you.”

  “Susan, how sweet.”

  But Susan was interested in getting back to their subject. “You know, now that I understand that Doug picked out the house, what Ashley did makes sense. She just didn’t love old colonials the way you and I do. And she spent a huge amount of money trying to turn one into a modern trophy house— like the ones in that new development outside of town.”

  “But just because she had no taste doesn’t mean she was poisoning Doug because he picked out their home without consulting her.”

  “True. Although it’s an excuse many women could understand—if she had gotten a completely female jury . . .”

  Both women laughed.

  “Of course, she got off anyway. Apparently because the investigation was inadequate or something,” Susan said more seriously. “Brett said he wasn’t surprised that Ashley wasn’t convicted.”

  “From reading the paper, I didn’t get the impression that there were any other suspects.”

  Susan thought of Signe and decided not to bring her into the conversation. “No, the pap
er didn’t mention anyone.”

  “What did they do once they moved in besides redecorate?”

  Susan dropped the packet of Equal she had been playing with onto the tabletop. “What do you mean?”

  “What church did they join? Did Doug play golf at the Field Club? Did Ashley join an aerobics class? What sort of connections did they make in the community?”

  “Besides being the sole supporter of decorating firms without taste? To tell you the truth, I’m not sure.”

  “Susan, that doesn’t sound like you. You lived next door to these people for almost a year.”

  “I know. And we did our best to be neighborly. I was on their doorstep with freshly baked cinnamon rolls the morning they moved in—and Ashley explained that she and her husband had given up sweets years and years ago. I mean, she took them and said thank you and then made me feel as though I had shown up with a bag of heroin as a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift. But we invited them over for a barbeque in the backyard the next weekend. You know, to meet the neighbors and all.”

  “And?”

  “Actually, that went pretty well. Ashley ate salads and ignored the meat. But Doug ate everything in sight and thanked me more than once for the delicious cinnamon rolls.”

  “Who else did you invite?”

  “Let me think. Kathleen and Jerry, of course. And our immediate neighbors. And Dick and Barbara from the Field Club. I thought the Markses might be interested in joining, and Dick is head of the membership committee now. Oh, and Brett and Erika. More because of Erika than Brett, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, Signe, the Markses’ daughter, works for Erika in the city. You know, they did have a connection to Hancock before they arrived here: Erika!”

  “Which also means they had a connection to the police department. Erika and Brett have been together for years, right?”

  “Yes. And Erika really seems to depend on Signe. I can’t imagine that Brett and Signe wouldn’t have met over the years—probably many times.”

  “Which also means that her parents probably had met—”

  “Not necessarily. Signe and her parents weren’t close, but I can’t imagine that the Markses didn’t know about Brett and Hancock. It’s certainly possible that Signe’s connection to the town is one of the reasons they looked for their new home here.” She didn’t think it was necessary to mention Signe’s tale of her mother’s reason.

  “Do you think it means anything?”

  “I don’t know. It is odd, though, isn’t it? I mean you look for good medical care, schools, public facilities, whatever when you decide to move. But there aren’t a whole lot of people who would look for a friendly police department, unless . . .”

  “Unless you were planning on committing a crime . . . like a murder,” Martha finished Susan’s thought out loud.

  “I guess.” Susan was having trouble imagining what—if anything—this might mean when Martha surprised her again.

  “Of course, I’d be more inclined to accuse Doug of his wife’s murder if Ashley had been shot.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, he loves guns, right? At least that’s what he told me.”

  “I never heard anything about that.”

  “Then I guess the soundproofing does work.”

  “Martha, what are you talking about? What soundproofing? And how do you know Doug loves guns? Did he just walk up to you and say, ‘I love guns’?”

  “Of course not! But when he was looking at the house that very first day, he said he needed to have a practice range built in the basement. In fact, he was very enthusiastic about the basement. You know we never finished it the way so many in the neighborhood did and it is—or was— just an open space with a small laundry area at one end and pool table and Ping-Pong table at the other. Doug told me he was going to have the entire room soundproofed and a shooting range installed.”

  Susan was stunned. “Next door? There is a shooting range in the house next door and I didn’t know a thing about it? Is that legal?”

  “I assume he has a permit to own the guns, and we’re talking about the inside of his home. It’s perfectly legal.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “Susan, you’d be amazed what people have in their homes.”

  “Like what?” Susan asked, momentarily distracted.

  “Well, like bomb shelters full of survival gear, or walk-in safes full of original artwork.”

  “But a shooting range?”

  “That’s what he was planning on. Have you ever been in the Markses’ basement?”

  “No.”

  “Then I’d bet it’s there. He was really enthusiastic about the possibility.”

  “He never mentioned guns to me. I wonder if Jed knows.”

  “Did they become close?”

  “No. Jed invited him to play some golf at the club, but I don’t think they ever actually arranged a game. Apparently for men, saying let’s have a game of golf is like when we say let’s get together for lunch sometime—just politeness unless someone actually works to make it happen. Anyway, a shooting gallery in the basement next door is definitely something Jed would have mentioned if he’d known about it.”

  “Probably.”

  Susan thought for a moment. “You said the money for the house came from the sale of their farm.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So you don’t know what Doug did.”

  “You mean professionally?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not really. For some reason I got the impression that he was a lawyer. Maybe he mentioned going to law school or something. Because, come to think of it, I don’t know. They lived abroad a lot, though. I do know that.”

  “Me, too. Martha, you don’t think he could have been CIA, do you?”

  “Something like a secret agent?”

  “Maybe. What do you think?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “It would explain everything: The travel. Us not knowing what he did professionally. I know the CIA hires lawyers.”

  “I think you’re thinking of the FBI. Why would the CIA need lawyers? They don’t worry about whether or not what they do is legal, do they?”

  Susan dismissed this with a wave of her hand. “The guns in the basement! A CIA operative would have guns in his basement!”

  “I suppose. But if Doug was a secret agent, he wouldn’t tell people about the guns, would he?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know anything about that world. I don’t even read spy novels. But it all fits together, doesn’t it?”

  “It might,” Martha said slowly. “But . . .”

  “Oh, damn!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Peter Konowitz just walked in the door.”

  Martha turned and peered over her shoulder. “Who is Peter Konowitz? Do you mean that nice-looking man in the chinos?”

  “He’s the chief of police in Oxford Landing and a major pain in the butt. Every time I run into him he seems to feel obliged to detain me on some silly charge. Let’s get going before he sees us.”

  The women paid their bill and hurried from the room, moving too quickly to see the slow smile cross Chief Konowitz’s face as he spied their departure.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “SO, WHAT’S FOR LUNCH?”

  Susan took a deep breath and decided not to kill her only son. But for the life of her, she couldn’t understand how Chad could live on his own for ten or eleven months of the year, go to school, get decent summer jobs, have an active social life, and apparently take care of himself. Then, when he bothered to reappear at his family home for short periods of time, he forgot everything he knew about selfsufficiency and needed to be cooked for, cleaned for, and have every single piece of his laundry washed, folded, and put away by his mother. She mentioned none of this. “What would you like?”

  “I don’t know. What about those sandwiches you make, the ones with cheese and tomatoes and that green sauce? They’re p
retty good.”

  Susan rightly interpreted this to mean Brie and tomato topped with homemade pesto broiled on a sliced baguette. It was one of her summer favorites, so even though she wasn’t particularly hungry, she agreed to make one for him. At least he had become sophisticated enough to request something other than hot dogs, she reminded herself before noticing that he had just pulled a can of Mountain Dew from the back of the refrigerator. So much for sophistication.

  “Mrs. Gordon called about half an hour ago,” Chad announced, plopping down at the kitchen table without bothering to get a glass.

  “Oh, thanks. I’ll give her a yell when I’m done here.” Susan took a deep breath. “You know, Chad, your father and I were wondering . . .”

  Half an hour later, Susan was explaining to Kathleen how a poorly timed phone call had saved Chad from what might have turned out to be an intimate conversation with his mother. “He was out the door and on his way to the pizza parlor in less than five minutes. From the speed of his departure, you would have thought he was fleeing an interrogation by a member of the gestapo rather than a chat with his mother.”

  “Kids,” was Kathleen’s only comment.

  Susan smiled. Kathleen’s children were six and ten years old—ages when their demands for attention were more annoying than their avoidance of them. “At least Chad gave me the message you had called. For years I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “I’ve been talking to Erika, and she said something I thought might interest you.”

  “About Signe?”

  “Nope. About Doug.”

  “That he was a spy for the CIA?”

  Kathleen’s eyebrows shot up. “He was? I didn’t know that! He told me he was a clean-water expert. Was his job a front for something more interesting?”

  “He told you he was an expert in clean water? When?”

  “I don’t know. Probably when we first met. At that party you gave. I’m sure that’s true, because we were looking at your pool and there was some algae growing along the edge. I said something about clean water and . . . and, well, he told me water was his field. It’s funny; I got the impression that he loved his job. He talked on and on about the challenges of producing water fit to drink in underdeveloped countries and how an adequate water supply was the key to surviving global warming. It sure was a good act. It never occurred to me that he wasn’t telling the truth.”