A Dollhouse to Die For (A Deadly Notions Mystery)

by Cate Price

  As a teacher on a limited budget, I’d had to scrimp and save to buy school supplies for the kids out of my own pocket. Renting this home out as a vacation place for years and finally having enough to pay it off were a testament to my thriftiness.

  “Don’t worry, Daisy,” he said, as if reading my mind. “Things will work out. They always do.”

  Things worked out because I made them happen.

  Jeez, I sounded like Chip Rosenthal now.

  I forced a smile. “Well, I still need a dining table and chairs for Claire’s dollhouse if you want to practice.”

  He clinked his glass with mine. “All right! My first customer!”

  • • •

  The oppressive humidity from August was gone, and the brisk mornings were literally a breath of fresh air. The coolness caught in my throat, and I shivered in delight. Fall was my favorite time of year, but it was always so short. A rush of garden cleanup, preparing for Halloween and Thanksgiving, and before you knew it, it was winter, with its dark mornings, darker evenings, and treacherous roads.

  As I put food into the bird feeder in the garden, I heard the call go out. A rising, chattering chorus from the birds scattered high in the branches of the oak trees.

  Breakfast is served! Come and get it!

  I fed Jasper and then hurried upstairs to get ready. Marybeth was picking me up at the store, and I needed to go over a few things with Laura before she arrived.

  When I came back downstairs, Jasper was hunched on the ground, staring out of the screen door. He could lie there for hours, entranced, watching the little sparrows fluttering around. It must be like television for dogs, tuned to the Bird Channel.

  Half an hour later, Marybeth Skelton arrived outside Sometimes a Great Notion in a creamy white Mercedes sedan. As much as Harriet had let herself go, Marybeth was perfectly groomed. Not a gray hair to be found threading its way through the short honey blond, and her eye makeup was simply a work of art. She wore a silky zebra-patterned shirt, a scarf knotted smartly at her throat, camel-colored pants, and black flats with gold buckles.

  I’d seen her face enough times staring at me from advertisements on shopping carts and on real estate FOR SALE signs that I’d recognize her anywhere. Admittedly the picture was a few years old, and she was probably in her early fifties now, but she still looked good.

  “Thanks for coming, Marybeth, and for setting up these appointments so quickly,” I said as I slid onto the leather passenger seat. “I honestly didn’t expect you to answer the phone yesterday. I mean, um, you know, under the circumstances and all . . .”

  “My sister and I weren’t that close. It’s just another day to me,” she said abruptly, in a way that didn’t invite further conversation. She stepped on the accelerator and the car lunged forward.

  But one of my faults, or qualities, depending on which way you looked at it, was that I could never give up on something once I’d taken an interest. Like the crossword puzzle I was compelled to finish every day. Eleanor said I was like a one-eyed dog in a meat factory when I set my mind to something.

  And the murder of Harriet Kunes was still a puzzle that needed solving.

  Marybeth turned the car up Grist Mill toward River Road. “The bad news is that nothing is available here in Millbury, so it will probably mean moving to Sheepville,” she said. “The only street that’s zoned commercial is Main Street and it’s fully leased.”

  “I thought as much.” I struggled to sit upright on the cushy seat. “So, had you seen your sister Harriet recently?”

  Marybeth looked at me and gripped the steering wheel with crimson fingernails. “No. We haven’t spoken in years.”

  She sucked in a breath as she maneuvered the large sedan around a sharp curve. “The first place we’re going to see is in a nice shopping center near the movie theater. It’s available immediately, and in the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that I’m the listing agent on this one. It’s also the cheapest one we’ll see today.”

  When we arrived in Sheepville, I trailed after Marybeth to a vacant retail space that was actually near Jeanne’s store, in the same strip mall. It was modern, one level, and quite a good value for the square footage, but with none of the charm of the nineteenth-century Victorian I currently occupied. It was only about five hundred dollars more a month than I was paying now.

  Knowing that commercial real estate agents made their money on commissions that were calculated as a percentage of the rent, I appreciated that she was showing me properties in my price range. She hadn’t bought that fancy car outside by doing dinky deals like this.

  “Carlos!” She snapped her fingers at a worker in paint-stained overalls. “Come here. See these spots? They need another touch-up.”

  Carlos and I both peered at the wall. It looked fine to me, but Marybeth tapped on it with a long red fingernail, and he obediently applied his paintbrush. The store was one big open space, and I half listened as Marybeth talked about vanilla boxes and the landlord being willing to absorb some of the cost of the buildout.

  I couldn’t seem to work up any enthusiasm though. Maybe my malaise was due to a lack of caffeine. I would have had several jolts with my compadres by now, but didn’t dare suggest bringing a cup of coffee into the pristine white vehicle.

  “So. Do you have any idea who might have borne a grudge against Harriet?” I prompted once we were back in the car, heading east on River Road again toward New Hope.

  Marybeth sighed. “Oh, Daisy, it could have been any number of people. After all, if she’d screw her own sister out of her rightful . . .”

  Her voice trailed off, and her mouth tightened.

  “Rightful what? Inheritance?”

  She slanted a glance at me from under those perfectly shaded green and gold eyelids. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”

  I shook my head and smiled a fraction. “Nope.”

  There was a brief silence. To our left was the river and on the right was a towering slope of rock and ferns and rampant wild vegetation. Here and there huge logs lay where they had fallen, like a pile of giant matchsticks. River Road was a two-lane road with a double yellow line, edged in places by a low metal barrier. Sometimes the trees on either side cut out so much of the daylight it felt like we were heading for a shaft of light at the end of a long green tunnel.

  “When my mother died, her will said that everything should be shared equally between me and my sister. Harriet took the lead in splitting up the estate. She insisted that I take my mother’s little house in Point Pleasant and she would have the jewelry. There was nothing much of value there, mainly costume stuff, apart from her wedding ring.”

  We passed a weathered barn, a house with pieces of white stucco fallen off in places to reveal brown fieldstone underneath, and a tavern in a three-story Colonial situated on a corner. Black-eyed Susans tumbled over a low rock wall in front. It even had outside seating, if that’s what you could call the ramshackle collection of faded green plastic chairs.

  “Harriet also got sixty-five acres in the Ohio River Valley that she said were next to worthless. I took her at her word. I knew it was a depressed area, hit hard by the downturn in industrial activity. My mother’s house was worth about a hundred thousand back then, so I thought I was getting the better end of the deal. After all, I trusted her. She was my older sister.”

  I bit my lip as I looked over at Marybeth. Even with my limited experience with Harriet, I had a bad feeling I knew how this story would go, and it wouldn’t have a happy ending.

  Her lips thinned. “But underneath that worthless land was a thick layer of shale, and six thousand feet below that was a mother lode of oil-and-gas-bearing rock. The energy companies paid three thousand an acre and a twenty percent royalty on production. A windfall for the people in that valley who are getting huge leasing checks now. Harriet received over two hundred grand in th
e first check alone. I only found out when I received a letter from one of my mother’s old neighbors who didn’t realize Mom had passed away.”

  I gasped. “But maybe Harriet didn’t know that when she divvied everything up.”

  “Oh, she knew all right. Turns out Harriet was the one who contacted the lawyer in the first place to put together the association of the landowners.”

  We came to a one-lane bridge with a stop sign. Marybeth barely slowed down, and I gripped the armrest as the sedan swooped over the bridge. I closed my eyes briefly and prayed for no oncoming traffic. The road bent back on itself in a sharp S-curve and there were only inches to spare between the low stone wall and the side of the car.

  “I put myself through school, and now I’ve made a success of my career. No thanks to my bitch of a sister. It taught me a lesson though. Now I find out everything there possibly is to know about a neighborhood before I sell there. I read the local papers front to back, and I maintain friendships with zoning board members and local developers. I won’t let my clients be caught by surprise.” She glared at me.

  I swallowed. “Great. Good to know.”

  “Oh, yes. That was the first and last deal where I ever lost money. You expect clients to screw you over, not family. And that, Daisy Buchanan, is why I didn’t speak to my sister.”

  I blew out a breath and glanced out of the window. We passed a nursery and a farm stand, and the trees thinned to reveal acres of open land. There was the occasional house, but for a while there was nothing but grass and utility poles, until the two-lane road opened up into four lanes.

  The road straightened and the powerful sedan started to cruise at higher speed, carrying me farther and farther away from where I wanted to be.

  More homes were clustered together now, with actual yards carved out of the wilderness. It was a curious mix of farmhouses, ranchers, and well-maintained substantial properties. Bales of hay were rolled up next to the road in front of one old white farmstead, plain except for its decorative porch columns. A red barn sat next to it, the wooden slats rotted where they met the ground. Down the gravel-covered side roads were wide potholes full of rainwater.

  The only sound in the car was the subtle hum of the climate-controlled airflow and the occasional click of Marybeth’s fingers against the steering wheel.

  While it was obvious she was bitter toward Harriet, why kill her now, years later? And whoever the guest was that Harriet was expecting that night, it certainly wasn’t her sister.

  We cut off River Road onto Lower York Road, passing more signs of civilization—a Dairy Queen, a gas station, an Italian restaurant, traffic lights, and shopping centers, until we came to our next destination, just past Peddler’s Village.

  A nice cluster of one-story white buildings with black shutters and plenty of parking in front.

  “Here’s the one I wanted to show you,” Marybeth said as she swung into the lot and parked in front of a freestanding building. “It’s a former antiques store, and the other shops are an art gallery and a saddle and tack shop. This is a great location, Daisy. You’ll capture the tourists coming from New Hope and Lahaska.”

  She was right, but the busy thoroughfare didn’t quite have the small-town charm of Millbury.

  “This one’s not even on the MLS yet. The owner is listing with me for thirty days first.”

  The store had large, open rooms and nice display windows, and I could see how it would be a good possibility. I tried hard to seem interested, and not like a spoilt child who there was no pleasing.

  Next we headed to Doylestown, and a shop on West State Street. Doylestown was a beautiful town of tree-lined streets, with a mix of Victorian, Italianate, Greek Revival, and Federal buildings, some with gloriously ornate architecture.

  Streetlights were adorned with hanging baskets of flowers. It was the county seat, so there were lots of lawyers’ offices, and also upscale gift shops, fashion boutiques, and chic restaurants.

  The shop was about eight hundred square feet, and the rent was double what I was paying now. It was very pleasant, but it didn’t have the soul of my current Victorian either.

  “The price includes water, sewer, and common-area maintenance,” Marybeth said.

  I took a deep breath. “Well, I can see that parking might be an issue, although there’s lots of foot traffic.”

  “Increased traffic means increased business.”

  On our way through town, we passed the Starbucks at the corner of North Main and West State Streets, and I begged for coffee. It was situated in the Fountain House tavern, an enormous whitewashed three-and-a-half-story building that was over two hundred and fifty years old.

  We sat inside and enjoyed our lattes, and I relaxed a little as I felt the caffeine surge through my veins. This was more like it.

  “What did you think of that last place?” Marybeth carefully licked the froth off her expertly lined lips.

  “It was very pretty, but a bit small.”

  “But how much room do you really need? Is there any wasted space in your current location?”

  I thought about all the stuff upstairs in my shop that I could consolidate.

  She tapped a nail on the table. “In my opinion this is where you should be. It’s a lovely town, with lots of visitors, and you’d do well here.”

  I had to admit Marybeth knew her stuff. I hadn’t given her much notice yet she’d found several places that would have been great for me.

  If I wasn’t so in love with Millbury, that is.

  This would mean a half hour commute each way. Driving to Doylestown would be like entering the workforce again and going to a real job. I wondered how long before I’d resent the trip. The farthest I drove now was the five miles to Sheepville, and that was only once a week for major grocery shopping.

  The few yards’ walk down the street from our house to Sometimes a Great Notion was a pleasure, not a commute.

  I felt like crying and told myself to stop being such a baby. It was business, after all.

  “The rent is also higher than I’m paying now,” I mumbled.

  “Everything’s going to be more than you’re paying now. Face the facts, Daisy. You’ve been paying well below—”

  “Market rent. Yes, yes, I know.” I tried to wash the irritation out of my voice. “Thanks for taking me out today, Marybeth. I just need to think things over a bit.”

  “Don’t take too long. The good places don’t last. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  After she dropped me back in Millbury, I hesitated on the street, unsure of what to do next. I should probably go into the store, but seeing as I was paying Laura for the day anyway, I decided not to inflict my foul mood on her. I’d go see the one person who wouldn’t care because he was usually in the same frame of mind.

  A quick stop inside the house for my bag of dollhouse supplies and I was off to Cyril Mackey’s place.

  Past one yard where the homeowner was pushing a lawnmower behind his white picket fence, making one of the last cuts of the season. The tang of random onion stalks mixed with the scent of freshly mown grass. Impatiens, tall and straggly, and basil leaves turned spotted brown all signaled the final last gasp of summer. A white hydrangea bush boasted glorious pointed puffs of blooms, bigger than snowballs and tinged with a blush of pink at the tips.

  I trudged along Main Street, glancing in the store windows.

  Damn all these new tenants. If not for them, I could have given Chip Rosenthal the finger and moved into another space.

  The five stages of grief were denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I’d done the anger part, but now I was stuck on depression, and definitely a long way from acceptance.

  I went into the Last Stop Diner and picked up a couple of BLTs for me and Cyril. The diner operated out of an ancient trolley car sitting on the corner of Main Street and Grist Mill Road. A real ol
d-fashioned diner with sky-high pies, endless coffee, and abusive waitresses.

  Cyril seemed almost cheery as he unpacked the sandwiches, stuffed with thick crispy rashers of bacon. The Last Stop got most of its produce from the local farms, and my mouth watered in anticipation.

  “So, Cyril, how did you like the ballet?”

  He rolled his eyes. “It were all right if you like watching a bunch of blokes poncing about in their knickers.”

  We sat at his kitchen table, and I gave him the lowdown on the exorbitant new rent for my store and how I might have to move.

  “Aye, well, that’s why I bought this land outright. I’ll never be in debt to no one.”

  “You sound like Eleanor now.” I knew he stubbornly insisted on paying for everything when he took Martha out for the evening, even though she was a very wealthy widow. It exasperated her to no end, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  I rubbed my forehead. I had a splitting headache, whether from worry or hunger, I couldn’t tell.

  “Here. Make yerself useful. Finish this puzzle.” He threw the newspaper in front of me.

  I looked up at him, openmouthed. Cyril never even let me see the crossword, let alone ask for my help. I wrestled with the clue while we munched on our sandwiches.

  Furniture for some squirrels? Nine letters.

  What the heck could that be? Tree house? The letters would fit, but a tree house wasn’t really furniture. Perhaps something to do with hoarding? Cup hoard?

  Oh, jeez, Daisy. Not enough letters anyway.

  I frowned as I picked up the last bacon crumb. I’d finished my lunch and still hadn’t figured it out. And my headache was even worse.

  “All right. Enough o’ that.” Cyril whisked the newspaper away. “You’re mekking yerself barmy o’er it.”