“I can get her out of the water!”
“Right. Well, Wayne will be here soon. In fact”—I risked a glance over my shoulder—“here’s the ambulance now. The paramedics will be on top of us in a minute. Maybe you’d better come back up on the pier. This pole is a little heavy for me.”
It wasn’t, really, but the suggestion that I needed him brought him back up the ladder, just as I intended. He really is incapable of turning down anyone who asks for his help.
The paramedics arrived, the same two guys as last time, and while Derek held the body steady and I watched, wincing, they were able to get the woman up out of the water and onto the gurney. By then, Wayne had also arrived, and he let out an expletive when he got a good look at her.
From the front, I could tell she was a little older than our other victim, although she was still a year or two younger than me, I thought. Right around thirty, at a guess. Her short, dark hair started curling as soon as it got out of the water, and her eyes were dark brown and startled. It was Derek who reached out and closed them. I shuddered but continued looking.
She was tallish and lean and looked like she’d have been in pretty good physical shape. Under the black corduroy jacket, she was wearing a turtleneck in the same color. There were small silver hoops in her ears, and the water hadn’t completely managed to eradicate what had to be waterproof eye makeup. It was smeared but still there. Before Wayne let loose with his four-letter word, I already suspected we were not dealing with the same sort of situation as last time, and the crack on the head was only one of the clues.
“Who is she?” Derek asked, his voice soft. He must have come to the same conclusion I had.
Wayne glanced at him, his face grim. “This is Lori Trent.”
“The ICE agent?” I turned back to her, my eyes wide.
“Afraid so. Damn.” He reached for his phone.
Derek put his arm around me, and I realized I was shaking. “I’m OK,” I tried, but he didn’t let go, and I was glad. The warmth of his body through the wool sweater felt good. I snuggled in closer, slipping a hand into the back pocket of his jeans.
“What happened?” Wayne asked when he had completed his phone calls; one to Brandon asking for backup, and one to Dr. Lawrence the medical examiner, telling her to expect a new delivery. I guessed he would wait to make the unpleasant call to ICE until he was on his own.
We went over the story again. Not that there was much to tell; we’d just been on our way to our boat when we’d noticed the body in the water below.
“Getting a late start this morning, aren’t you? Any particular reason?”
“The whoopie pie from yesterday,” Derek said.
The tight set of Wayne’s lips loosened a little. “Right.”
“And then we stopped by the Fraser House on the way. To pick up some information about our house on the island. Where’s the folder?” I looked around for it.
“You must have put it down somewhere,” Derek said, “when I asked you to take the pole. Over there.” He pointed. I could see the pale square of the manila folder on the worn planks of the pier a few yards away. We’d only planned to work a half day today—it was Saturday—so there was no lunch basket beside it.
“Can’t lose that. Miss Barnes will have my head.” I didn’t make a move toward it, though. Didn’t want to miss anything Wayne might say.
“Did she contact either one of you yesterday?”
Derek and I exchanged a glance. “Agent Trent? Of course not.” And especially not after nine P.M., which was when we’d left Kate and Wayne at the restaurant. If we’d heard from the ICE agent before then, we would have mentioned it last night.
“Why?” I added. “What would she want to talk to us about?”
“Can’t imagine.” Wayne grunted. He turned away to give the paramedics instructions for the body; the same instructions as last time. I watched them wheel the gurney down the pier toward the ambulance with an unpleasant sense of déjà vu.
“What happened?” I said, more to myself than to the two men. Both of them looked at me.
“Guessing,” Derek said, “she discovered something she shouldn’t have.”
“Or something someone didn’t want her to discover,” Wayne added.
Obviously. That wasn’t really what I’d meant, though. “Does this have to do with the other body? The probably Russian girl? Or something else?”
The two men exchanged a glance. “Could be either,” Wayne said. “She was in Waterfield to look into that, but she could have stumbled onto something else while she was here. Or into someone she knew from before.”
“Could even be personal,” Derek added. “You never know.”
The chief of police nodded.
“I suppose you’ll have to talk to Irina about what the two of them discussed yesterday.” I made it something of a question, although it wasn’t really.
Wayne nodded. “Guess I’d better. See if I can track Miss Trent’s movements yesterday. I’m sure I’ll have help in that.” He grimaced.
“The ICE?”
“They’ll be crawling all over everything in a couple hours, I’m sure. And that reminds me . . . you two are free to go. I know where to find you if I need you. I’m gonna wait here for Brandon and make my phone call to ICE.”
“Good luck with that.” I left the comfort of Derek’s arm to go pick up my manila folder. Derek gave Wayne a sympathetic clap on the shoulder before he followed. By the time we were in the boat and chugging out to sea, Brandon’s squad car had arrived at the entrance to the pier, tires squealing, and Brandon was on his way out to meet Wayne at a good clip.
“I’m not sure I can concentrate on working today,” I told Derek. We’d both been quiet so far; this second discovery had been an unpleasant surprise for both of us. I mean, what are the chances?
Then again, the two situations were totally different, really. The young Russian woman had died accidentally, either from going or falling in the water and getting hypothermia before she could get back out. Agent Trent had been deliberately killed, or so it seemed to me. But maybe I was wrong.
“Could it have been an accident, do you think?”
Derek glanced at me over his shoulder. As usual, he was steering the boat and I was sitting on one of the seats farther back, after cranking up the outboard motor. “The knock on the back of the head, you mean?”
I nodded.
“Anything’s possible.”
“But maybe not likely?”
Derek shrugged. “I didn’t have a chance to examine her,” he said, his words coming back to me on the wind. “I just saw the back of her head from a few feet away. It looked like she was hit with something smooth and round, not too big around.”
“Broom handle?”
“Not big enough. A boom, maybe. Although I don’t quite understand . . .”
“What’s a boom?”
Another flash of blue eyes. “The beam that holds the bottom edge of a sail on a sailboat. It swings. Sometimes people get knocked overboard when the wind shifts.”
“And that could have cracked her skull that way?” My stomach was objecting to the subject matter, but I pushed on.
“It oughtn’t to have hit her on the head at all, unless she was kneeling. Would have gotten her in the middle of the back instead, and sort of swooped her into the water.”
“So that’s something that might have happened to the other dead girl. The Russian. Or the one we think is Russian. She could have been on a sailboat and been hit by the boom and swept overboard. If she were alone, no one may have realized it.”
Derek nodded. “Someone would have noticed the boat adrift, though, probably.”
“That’s true. What about Agent Trent? She could have been kneeling, couldn’t she? And the boom hit her on the back of the head? And then she lost consciousness and fell in the water?”
“But again, either she was with someone, who ought to have reported her missing, or she was alone, and we would have found the boat
.”
We traveled in silence another few minutes.
“Are you serious about not wanting to work today?” Derek asked. “Do you want me to turn around?”
I gnawed on my bottom lip. “Would you mind? I’m a little worried about Irina, to be honest. You don’t think Wayne suspects her of anything, do you?”
Derek pondered. While he did, he slowed the boat to a crawl. “He might,” he admitted, finally.
“Do you think we should go look for her? Give her the news?”
“I think,” Derek said, “we should leave that to Wayne.”
“He probably wouldn’t like it if we did, would he?”
“No,” Derek said, “he wouldn’t.”
“I’m concerned, though. That he’ll think she had something to do with it.”
“Why would she have something to do with it? And why would he think so?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “But remember yesterday, he said she was unhappy when he told her about the ICE agent? Maybe she really is illegal. And if she is, even if she didn’t do anything to Agent Trent, she had a motive.”
Derek didn’t answer. After a minute, though, he turned the boat around and headed back to the harbor.
By the time we reached the pier, it was empty. Wayne had left, and so had Brandon. Probably because the pier and the water below wasn’t much of a crime scene, really. There was debris floating in the water—empty soda bottles, beer cans, scraps of newspaper, last autumn’s dead leaves—but nothing that looked like it would have anything to do with a dead Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. And there was no telling how she’d gotten into the water, anyway; whether she’d been pushed off the pier right there or had been dumped off a boat. She might even have floated in on the tide, for all I knew.
“Are you coming with me?” I asked Derek when we were walking up Main Street again, toward the hardware store and the truck parked in the lot behind it. “Or do you want me to go home and get the Beetle?”
“D’you think I’d trust you on your own?” He glanced down at me.
“I think you’d better. What are you afraid I’m gonna do? Tell Irina to make a run for it because the law is on her tail?”
He didn’t answer.
“I just want to know what’s going on,” I said.
“That’s fine,” Derek answered, “but what if she did have something to do with it? What if she bashed Agent Trent over the head with a rock or something?”
I looked at him sideways. “You don’t think she did, do you?”
“If she’s illegal, and Lori Trent threatened to have her deported? I think she might.”
“How would she have gotten the body into the water?”
“She’s a big woman,” Derek said. “Tall and strong-looking. I imagine she might have managed.”
“She doesn’t own a car, though. How would she have gotten the body from her house on Becklea Drive and down to the harbor?”
It was his turn to give me a sideways look. “How do you know they met at Irina’s house on Becklea Drive? They could have arranged to meet somewhere in town. Irina may not have wanted Agent Trent to know where she lives.”
Damn. I bit my lip. He was right about that.
Derek had been watching my face, and now his voice softened. “I’m not saying she had anything to do with it, Avery. I don’t want to believe it, either. I like Irina. But you’ve had a couple of close calls this year, and you’re not always careful. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“You’re worried about me? And you’re coming along to protect me? My hero.”
“Whatever,” Derek said, a flush of color creeping onto his cheekbones. I giggled. He looked down at me, and then he bent and tossed me up over his shoulder, the way he used to do when we’d just met and I was exasperating him. I squealed and giggled and hung on as he strode around the corner of the hardware store and across the parking lot to the truck.
“It’s been a while since you did that,” I remarked a couple of minutes later, when we were rolling sedately down Main Street and I had gotten my breath back. “We’re not becoming set in our ways and boring, are we?”
He shot me a glance out of the corner of his eye. “You can ask that, after last night? And this morning?”
“Oh . . . um . . .” I flushed, remembering our breathless session between the sheets before rolling out of bed this morning. “I guess not.”
“I should hope not.” He grinned, but after a block or two he added, seriously, “It’s different when you’re in a relationship. Last summer we were just getting to know each other. Now we’ve been together awhile. Things are quieter.”
I nodded. “This is the longest I’ve ever managed to last in a relationship. That’s a little scary, isn’t it?”
“Not that scary. Means I’ve beaten all the other guys.” He winked.
“I’ve still a ways to go.” He and Melissa had been married for five years. They’d probably dated for a while before that, too. I’d never asked how long, and I didn’t now.
“Don’t worry about it. You’ve already beaten all the other girls, too.”
“How so?”
His voice was easy. “After Melissa, I thought I’d always break out in a cold sweat at the thought of commitment. And then I met you.”
“And I don’t make you break out in a cold sweat? Awww! That’s so sweet!”
“Except when you do stupid stuff,” Derek said.
“Good thing you’re around to rescue me.”
He smiled back. “Good thing.” And then he leaned over to drop a kiss on the top of my head before he concentrated on driving.
Becklea Drive lay quiet and peaceful when we turned the corner from Primrose Drive. Arthur Mattson, who lives two doors down from Irina with his shih tzu, Stella, was in the front yard working on one of his flower beds. I waved when we drove by, but he didn’t wave back. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. It was almost six months since I’d spoken to him, so he might have forgotten me. People do when they reach a certain age. Not that Arthur is old; just around sixty. But maybe he couldn’t see me clearly; the truck had tinted windows. He ought to be able to recognize the truck itself, though, with its Waterfield R&R sticker: Derek Ellis, Proprietor; Avery Baker, Designer. He’d seen it every single day six months ago.
Whatever. Derek pulled into the driveway two doors up, and we got out. Arthur shaded his eyes and peered at us. I waved again. After a second, he waved back. Stella yipped.
There was no sign of life at Irina’s house and no answer when I knocked on the door.
“She’s probably out showing houses,” Derek remarked. “Weekends are busy for real estate agents. It’s not a nine-to-five job. Nor is home renovation.”
I nodded. He had that right. When we’re working on a house—and that’s most of the time—every day is pretty much the same, unless something specific is going on that we have to take time off for. But if not, we’re just as likely to work on a Saturday or Sunday as we are on a weekday. When you’re in business for yourself, the faster you work, the sooner you see a payoff. And when you’re dealing with other people, who often work nine to five, and whose only opportunity to go look at houses is Saturday and Sunday, weekends become even more important. Someone in Irina’s position, eager to get a foothold in a competitive business, would make herself available whenever someone wanted her.
She didn’t answer her phone, though, when I tried to call.
“She may not,” Derek said, “if she’s with a client. She might think it would be rude.”
“That’s true.” I bit my lip.
I knew he was right about everything he’d said. But something about this still didn’t feel right. Or maybe it was just my imagination. If I’d gone to Irina’s house any other time and hadn’t found her at home, I would have assumed she was working. Now her absence worried me.
Something else was missing, too, I noticed: that big, heavy pysanka she’d had on her living room table yesterday. When I p
eered through the window, it wasn’t there. Not where I’d put it, and not where it had been when I first saw it.
“Why don’t you go ask Arthur if he’s seen her,” Derek suggested, interrupting my train of thought. “Meanwhile, I’m gonna check around back.”
“You don’t want me to come with you?”
He shook his head. “Just go talk to Arthur. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
“OK.” I walked with him to the corner of the house and watched him go into the backyard before I cut across the neighbor’s lawn and hailed Arthur Mattson.
Stella the shih tzu went crazy as soon as I set foot on Arthur’s property, but because she’s only about fifteen pounds—roughly the size of Inky the cat—and not all that brave, she barked at me from behind Arthur’s khaki-clad legs. I’d long since given up on making friends with the little mutt; she growled and snapped every time I came near her.
Arthur was friendlier. “Haven’t seen you two for a while,” he remarked, showing me his dirty hands and making a face to explain why he couldn’t shake my hand.
“The house up the street is finished, and we’re on to the next project,” I explained.
“Where are you working now?”
I filled him in on the house on Rowanberry Island, and Arthur nodded. “Nice out there.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Not to your house. To Rowanberry. Got a friend who owns a house on the island.”
“Really? In the little village where the ferry docks?”
Arthur shook his head. “One of the summer homes. He retired to Florida and only comes up when it’s warm.”
“It isn’t Gert Heyerdahl, is it?”
“Oh, no.” Arthur gave another decisive shake of his head. “Name’s Lon Wilson. Gert Heyerdahl’s house makes Lonnie’s look like a shack. Lots of people around here are snowbirds. Spend their winters where it’s warm and only come back to Maine in the summer.”
I nodded. Derek’s grandfather, Willie, had retired to Florida, too. Except he hadn’t been back since. Too busy playing bocce ball and driving a golf cart through the sand dunes, I guess.
Mortar and Murder Page 13