Mortar and Murder

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Mortar and Murder Page 27

by Jennie Bentley


  He disconnected. I sighed, shaking my head.

  Epilogue

  “I’m never doing this again,” Derek said.

  It was the end of June, and we were sitting on the porch outside our house on Rowanberry Island, watching the sun rise while sipping high-octane coffee and petting Mischa the cat. We had just come off another all-nighter; the last in a long line of them lately. There had been times, many—and most of them wholly unrelated to that nightmare afternoon with Calvin and his uncle Hal and the Ukrainian women—when I’d been sure Rowanberry Island would be the death of me.

  We’d made it into Boothbay Harbor without any problems that day, Irina, Svetlana, Olga, and I. Oh, and Calvin. By the time we got there, Irina had used my phone to call Derek, who had told Wayne, who had gotten hold of Reece Tolliver with the state police in Augusta, who had called the chief of police of Boothbay Harbor, who had been on the dock to meet us. He had already snagged the two buyers of Calvin’s “merchandise”: a pudgy fifty-something with moist hands and chapped lips, who was eagerly awaiting his nubile twenty-something mail-order bride, and a sleek and dangerous East European, who was there to pick up his latest CSW—commercial sex worker. I never found out which girl was supposed to be going with which man, and I was quite happy not to know.

  Olga had long since gone back to the Ukraine. She’d accompanied Katya’s coffin, in fact, just about a week after the ordeal, when Wayne and company released the body and sent it back to Kiev for burial. Any dreams Olga had had of starting a new life in the golden land of opportunity had been beaten out of her by the time Irina and I found her, and she just wanted to go home where she’d be safe. Wayne had asked his new contact in the Kiev police to keep an eye on her for a while, since she was clearly pretty traumatized by what had happened, and Wayne was worried that she might develop some issues as a result.

  Svetlana was made of sterner stuff and was determined to stay in the United States. To help her sister, Irina made the ultimate sacrifice and found herself a rich American husband who was willing to sponsor both of them. She and her beard—a famous writer—tied the knot at the Boothbay Harbor courthouse just a week or so after that horrible Sunday on the island.

  Yes, Gert Heyerdahl survived getting shot. He’d lost a bit of blood by the time the Boothbay Harbor police got to the general store to rescue him, but the bullet hadn’t nicked any arteries or hit any vital organs, so the doctors cleaned him up, poured a few pints of blood back into him to make up for what he’d lost, and declared him good to go. He proposed from his hospital bed: ostensibly to keep Irina from being deported back to the Ukraine, but we all knew the truth. Later in the week, when the courthouse clerk said, “You may kiss the bride,” it wasn’t a perfunctory peck on the lips that followed.

  Calvin’s uncle Hal was not as lucky, unfortunately. And I mean that sincerely, since I’d really have liked for him to have survived so we could make him pay for his crimes. But when Gert attacked him in the general store and the rest of us ran for our lives, Uncle Hal had somehow managed to get hold of Gert’s gun. Gert had tackled him, and Uncle Hal had tumbled backward into the still-open basement storage room. He’d cracked his head on the edge of the floor going down, but not before he’d managed to squeeze off the shot that hit Gert in the gut. Gert hadn’t been sure whether Uncle Hal was dead or merely biding his time before rising out of the hole like a phoenix from the ashes, so before I even got back to the store that afternoon, Gert had slammed the trap door shut and lain on it to make sure Uncle Hal couldn’t get out.

  And that was why Calvin hadn’t seen his uncle when he arrived at the general store, and why he thought that Uncle Hal might still be alive.

  As it turned out, the crack on the back of the head had knocked Hal out, and he died the same way Agent Trent had, from a busted cranium. By the time the police got there, he was well and truly gone. Nobody threw him in the water afterward, so he got off pretty easy, in my opinion. A whole lot easier than if he had survived to stand trial. The Portland police found Agent Trent’s car in the parking lot in Portland, by the way, and determined that she’d gotten on the ferry there. When she got to Rowanberry Island and the general store, Uncle Hal had killed her, and then he and Calvin had dumped her in the Waterfield harbor that night.

  Calvin claimed that the idea to smuggle East European women into the country had been his uncle’s from the beginning. He might even have been telling the truth. Hal Spencer, like his sister Glenda—who was in on the trafficking up to her neck—was descended from a long line of smugglers, starting with John van Duren back in the days before the American Revolution. It was in his blood, if you believe in that kind of thing. Of course, if you do, then it was in Calvin’s blood as well, and it wasn’t like Uncle Hal was around to tell anyone that the whole thing was Calvin’s idea, was it? The Russian-bride website was all Calvin’s doing, anyway, and with Ricky and Josh’s help, Wayne was able to prove it. The two guys the Boothbay Harbor police arrested on the dock were happy to implicate him, as well. Calvin and his mother pleaded guilty to a lot of things to avoid going to trial, and at the time Derek and I were sitting there enjoying the coffee and sunrise, both of them had been sentenced to quite a few years in a place where they hopefully wouldn’t get to enjoy either. Or if either of them had coffee, at least they didn’t get to drink it while watching the sun come up over the Atlantic.

  Not that I was in a state to be appreciating the view. We’d been working through the night, and not for the first time. Hence Derek’s declaration of “never again.”

  Renovating the house on Rowanberry Island had turned out to be a much bigger job than even Derek had anticipated. It was a huge undertaking, and it just seemed to go on and on. As soon as we fixed one thing, we realized that there was something else wrong that we hadn’t known about. It didn’t help, either, that we had to move all the tools and materials—everything we needed, including the granite counter for the kitchen, all two tons of it—from the mainland by boat.

  Not that we weren’t having fun, of course. It was tons of fun. It was just a really big job for two people. But the house was turning out gorgeous. The floors were spit and polished, the wide planks shimmering with the pearly sheen of satin polyurethane. The walls were painted in traditional Colonial colors: ochre and dark red, blue and green. Derek had matched and patched the worm-eaten paneling around the fireplace in the living room, while I had had some fun creating fake paneling upstairs with the use of different kinds of decorative moldings. Strips and rosettes and dentil molds, the ones that look like rows of teeth. It’s a nice, easy way to get the look of hand-crafted paneling without the effort or expense. And it looked fantastic.

  I’d painted a poor man’s runner up the stairs to the second floor, but I’d cheated a little; we’d sanded the stairs, and instead of painting them in two different colors—one for the thread and one for the “runner”—I’d kept the outsides of the steps natural wood, and had painted a white stripe in the middle. And then I had added frilly edges that could have come straight off a doily. It was, in fact, a stencil, one I’d drawn myself on a piece of plastic and cut out with a razor blade. It looked pretty good, if I do say so myself.

  And talking about painting, I’d also done a couple of sailcloth rugs: one for the living room and one for the dining room. The one in the living room had black and ochre checkerboard squares, with a little red flower in about every third or fourth yellow square. The one in the dining room was similar, but was green and white inside a black border, and instead of flowers, I’d had some fun and had painted actual checkers in a few of the squares. Red was winning at the moment, but black might pull through in a pinch. And—quite a surprise—a couple of people who had seen them had commissioned sailcloth rugs of their own, so I was starting a little sideline business.

  I knew exactly what Derek was talking about, though. We were both suffering from burnout.

  I nodded. “Next time, I want to renovate a small house. One that won’t take forever. And
one we won’t have to travel halfway across Maine to get to.”

  “Waterfield to Rowanberry Island isn’t exactly halfway across Maine.”

  “You know what I mean. I want a house right in Waterfield. Preferably in the Village. A house I can walk to.”

  “That isn’t gonna be easy,” Derek said judiciously, stretching long legs out in front of him. Mischa the kitten latched onto a jean leg and started climbing. “Houses in Waterfield Village tend to be a little too rich for our blood.”

  I looked at him, and he clarified, “Priced too high to make any profit from renovating. We’d have to get whatever it is at a fire-sale price. And when we get it that cheap, it’s usually something that needs gutting and starting over.”

  Mischa reached a spot where his tiny claws were hitting not just fabric but flesh, and Derek winced and peeled him off. Mischa hung on, complaining, and I had to reach over and gently unhook each of his tiny, needle-sharp claws from Derek’s jeans.

  “If you’re gonna keep this monster, you need to get him declawed,” Derek grumbled.

  “He’ll be all right.” I put him down in my lap and started stroking him. He purred. “And I am keeping him. He’s coming home with me when we’re done here. When will that be?”

  Derek glanced over his shoulder at the house. “Another few days. Just to make sure everything is ready.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we start thinking about our next project.”

  “No rest for the weary.” I stretched my legs out. “Have you come up with a house we can flip for Noel’s TV show yet?”

  Noel is my stepfather, and he’s a TV producer in California. When he was in Waterfield over Christmas, he had run the idea by us of taking part in an episode of a home-renovation show his network produces, and Derek and I had said yes. Now Noel was ready, or at least he would be in the next few weeks. The show was called Flipping Out! and the premise of it was quick-flipping: slapping lipstick on the project, adding surface-gloss and curb appeal, in and out in a week flat. Fresh paint, updated kitchen cabinet hardware, new kitchen counter, new bathroom floor, new light fixtures . . . nothing invasive or time-consuming, just small changes that make a big difference.

  As soon as I heard we’d have to renovate a whole house in just five days, I’d tried to bow out, but Derek had convinced me it would be fun; we just needed the right house.

  Now he nodded. “Melissa has found us something.”

  Melissa. Just what I’d spent the past year trying to avoid: having Melissa James represent me in a real estate deal.

  There was no way around it, though. Now that Irina was married and was accompanying her husband to Florida at the end of the summer, she had decided to quit the business. She didn’t have to work anymore; Gert was making more than enough money to support them both in style. Or if she enjoyed it, maybe she’d get into condo sales in Miami, or something. Something more lucrative and easier than trying to beat out a living on the back roads up here in the frozen-half-the-year north. So Melissa was our only hope, as well as our salvation, it seemed.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Tony Micelli owns a little cottage on Cabot Street,” Derek said. “Eleven hundred square feet, two-one—”

  A two bedroom, one bath.

  “—that he’s been renting out for years. The tenants just moved out—the college semester ended—and now Tony wants to try to sell it. He’s allowing us to go in and make it look good.”

  “Big of him.”

  Derek shrugged. “I’ve seen it, and it’ll be great for what we want. He’s footing the bill for the materials, even paying us a little for the work, and then Melissa will list and sell it once it’s finished. Everyone wins.”

  “And it’s a good candidate for a quick flip?”

  “Oh, sure,” Derek said. “Tony hasn’t done anything to update it, so most of the original features are there. Fireplace, millwork, hardwood floors. The roof’s good, and it’s been sided, so we won’t have to mess with the outside much, and the kitchen cabinets are original. . . .”

  And we both knew how much Derek liked original kitchen cabinets.

  I shrugged. “If it’s good enough for you, it’s good enough for me.”

  “That’s my girl.” He grinned. After a minute he added, “I hear that Judith and Mamie Norton over on Green Street are thinking of selling their house.”

  I rummaged in the files in my mind. “The two old ladies in that big craftsman bungalow on the corner? The one with the lace curtains in all the windows?”

  “That’s the one. Those same curtains have been there for as long as I’ve been alive. I don’t think the house has been renovated or updated since it was built. It’ll have all those original features, untouched for ninety years. And it’s gonna cost a pretty penny, especially if they go ahead and have a Realtor list it. But maybe we could talk to them before they get that far, see what they say. . . .”

  “It’s a big house,” I pointed out. “One of those rambling craftsman bungalows from—what?—the 1920s? It’s a good two thousand square feet, wouldn’t you say? And if it hasn’t been updated since then . . . I thought you didn’t want to take on another big project again so soon.”

  “They won’t be ready to do anything for a couple of months, at least. By then, maybe we’ll have a contract on this, and we’ll have had time to rest up.”

  “Whatever you say.” I leaned back on my elbows, with Mischa still curled into a ball in my lap, vibrating cozily.

  Derek lay back on the porch floor and closed his eyes as the sun rose higher in the sky. “I’m gonna take a nap.”

  “That sounds like a good idea.” I moved the cat off my lap and curled up next to him. “Wake me when it’s time to go home.”

  “No worries,” Derek said, his voice already fading, “I will.”

  I smiled and snuggled in. After a moment, Mischa crawled on top of me and went back to purring.

  Home-Renovation and Design Tips

  Creating an Authentic Canvas Floorcloth

  - A Little History -

  Floorcloths date from fourteenth-century France, but they reached their height of popularity in the sixteen hundreds in England, where they usually replicated the look of expensive marble tile. The earliest floorcloths were the simplest, often displaying a tile design. Some of them look amazingly like 1950s linoleum. As time progressed, the designs expanded, as did the range of colors: from the original black, red, and white to a range of hues. Authentic floorcloths were—and are—constructed from canvas sailcloth made impervious by the application of oil-based paints. They’re hypoallergenic and pet friendly, and they clean easily with soap and water.

  TOOLS AND MATERIALS

  • Sailcloth—big enough for the “rug” plus a one-inch border all around

  • Oil-based primer

  • Oil-based paint in colors of choice for pattern

  • Miter

  • Hide glue or other glue substitute (Dr. Jekyll’s Hyde Glue is supposed to work well)

  • Paintbrushes

  • Pencil

  • Polyurethane

  • Stencil, if desired

  DIRECTIONS

  1. Cut canvas sailcloth to desired size plus one-inch allowance/border.

  2. Cover both sides of canvas sailcloth with two coats of oil-based primer to prevent shrinking.

  3. Fold a one-inch border all around, miter, and bind with glue.

  4. Apply three coats of base color to top of floorcloth, using oil-based paint.

  5. Draw pattern on top of base color, freehand or by use of stencils.

  6. Color pattern using oil-based paint.

  7. Apply many, many coats of polyurethane to seal the design. The professionals use eight.

  8. If desired, you can “antique” the floorcloth after you’re finished, to make it look old, by applying a crackle finish (available in hardware and home-renovation stores) or by distressing paint with a hard brush.

  Using Stencils


  Avery used stencils to enhance the painted poor man’s runner on the stairs in her house as well as to make her Colonial floorcloths. Stencils are great when you need to keep things looking the same across a large surface, like a staircase, a floor, or a wall.

  TOOLS AND MATERIALS

  • Low-tack masking tape or stencil adhesive

  • Stencil brushes or foam brushes

  • Paint (and palette if desired)

  • Level

  • Ruler or tape measure

  • Cloth or paper towels, for cleanup

  DIRECTIONS

  1. For best results, make sure any cracks or holes in the surface have been filled in and smoothed down.

  2. If the surface needs painting, make sure you allow it to dry thoroughly. A flat base paint is best. If your stencil paints are not sticking to the surface, you may need to sand the area lightly.

  3. Determine where you want your stenciled picture to be, using the level and ruler or tape measure. If you are stenciling a wall or very large area, begin in the least noticeable corner.

  4. Tape your stencil to the surface using a piece of low-tack tape across each corner or by applying stencil adhesive to the back of the stencil. If you are working on a flat horizontal surface (like Avery’s stair steps), you may find it easier to use weights instead of tape.

 

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