The Book of Old Houses

by Sarah Graves

  Horace used to say Bert Merkle had a nose for news, especially bad news.

  Merkle paid the clerk. He lifted the two white plastic bags containing his groceries. Then to Dave’s surprise, he turned and spoke: “Don’t put it in the microwave.”

  Merkle gestured at Dave’s own purchases, now being totaled by the cashier. They consisted of a roll of aluminum foil, an apple, some cookies, and two slices of already-baked pizza from the delicatessen.

  “The aluminum foil,” Bert warned. “Don’t microwave it.”

  “Oh.” Belatedly Dave realized: Merkle either knew or assumed Dave was staying at the Motel East. Also, that Merkle must be familiar with the rooms there, and the furnishings in them.

  With the microwaves in the kitchenettes, specifically. The appliances were not allowed in the residences at the school; they drew too much power from the old wiring, some of which had not been updated in a long time.

  A very long time, and Merkle would know that, too. Being a virtual outcast in his student days hadn’t lessened his later interest in the place, as his infrequent but always well-informed notes to the alumni magazine made clear.

  So Merkle might’ve reasoned Dave might not be familiar with the “no-metal” rule pertaining to microwaves.

  Thus Merkle’s remark made sense. It also gave Dave another hint that perhaps all might not quite be as he’d believed with regard to Merkle.

  But it was what Merkle said next that astonished Dave. “Not to interrupt your vendetta,” Bert continued matter-of-factly, “but there’s a kid here in town you might want to meet.”

  Dave blinked. What new mischief was this?

  “Difficult past, unpromising on the surface,” Merkle went on. “But he has possibilities. Interests. In my humble opinion,” he added.

  He mentioned a name; then with an ironic little bow in Dave’s direction as Dave paid for his things, Merkle proceeded to the parking lot, where he transferred his bags’ contents to the rusty wire baskets mounted saddlebag-style on his bicycle.

  It was an old red balloon-tired Schwinn with a flashlight taped to the front fender and a reflector tied with string to the seat-back. Merkle swung a leg over the bike, then paused again.

  “How’s the book hunt going?”

  “What?” But of course Bert would know about that, too. Back at school Bert had always understood other people’s motives, sometimes even before they fully understood them, themselves.

  Now without waiting for a reply he finished mounting the bicycle and pedaled away slowly, his front wheel wobbling precariously. Dave got into his car and followed.

  Bank, post office, library, gas station—the balloon tires had taken a squirt of air front and rear, Dave noted. Now, with his errands seemingly done, Merkle aimed the bike toward his home.

  Driving behind, Dave stayed well back, slowing when Merkle approached an intersection, careful not to give any excuse for complaint. For now he just wanted to know more about Merkle’s routine.

  If Merkle still had the old book—and Dave felt certain that Merkle did, that whatever his odd remarks might have meant, the book had been the reason for Horace’s death—there would be time to find out.

  That Bert might have winkled Dave’s gun out of Jacobia Tiptree’s cellar somehow was at least possible, Dave decided. More probable was the notion that she didn’t want him to have the gun, and had come up with a story—however unbelievable—simply to avoid having to give it back to him. But whatever the reason, Dave now regarded his weaponless status as a stroke of luck.

  With the gun in his possession, Dave might have done something hasty. Better to wait. To get, as Horace would’ve put it, the lay of the land.

  Abruptly, Dave turned back toward the Motel East. Let Merkle wonder for a while where he might’ve gone, Dave thought.

  In his room he arranged his groceries in the kitchenette, which besides the microwave contained a small refrigerator and a coffee-maker. A writing desk, color television, upholstered chairs, and a round kitchen-style dining table with two straight chairs completed the room’s furnishings.

  Dave ran a glass of water, took off his shoes, and lay down on the bed, letting his head fall back onto the pillow. Horace used to say you should take your comforts where you found them, however mundane. There would be slings and arrows to contend with eventually; no sense adding to them or hurrying them.

  Turning his head toward the kitchenette area, Dave realized he’d begun to feel hungry and considered making a meal of the pizza. It was an idea that Horace, with his passion for good food, would surely have vetoed. But Horace was dead, and so could not be relied upon to object very strenuously.

  Dave had another moment to think about this before the phone on the credenza rang. Wondering superstitiously whether his good old friend might be playing some sort of very Horace-like trick on him, he got up and answered.

  Chapter 12

  * * *

  I should have known right from the start the identity of the sole possible culprit. She was, after all, the only one who could have gotten away with it.

  Or if she didn’t, she was the only one who could be certain of being forgiven. At first, though, there wasn’t even any evidence that anything had been done.

  It was a little over an hour after I’d completed my washtub experience. The party was in full swing, ladies laughing and chatting in my dining room and in the front parlor. The curtains Bella had lavished so much care on hung gorgeously in the freshly polished windows, asters and chrysanthemums from Ellie’s garden bedecked the mantel and tables, and trays of scrumptious finger foods with delicate white paper doilies peeping from under them were on their way to being demolished.

  There was even a selection of Mimi’s pastries, or had been. I took the last one, a combination of crisp phyllo, ricotta, and raisins that could’ve lured cherubs down off the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, then peeked anxiously into the kitchen.

  But there I needn’t have worried, either. Bella and the Dawtons had the party’s life-support system running like a fine machine: out with old coffee grounds, in with the new; napkins fresh where napkins used had briefly languished; and finger bowls.

  They had actually put out finger bowls. Not only that, but Ellie had stitched up a floor-length banner whose appliqued blue-and-gold letters spelled out CONGRATULATIONS MERRIE FARGEORGE.

  Once we managed to duct-tape its top edge to the top of the door frame, the banner even hid the hole the bathtub had made. We’d cobbled the banister back together well enough to camouflage that mess, too. A bouquet of tattered ostrich feathers nabbed from the lobby of the Eastport Hotel Museum blocked the stairs and hid the plaster disaster.

  And to my vast relief, the ladies loved it. “Jacobia, how clever of you to keep this dining room the way it was in the old days,” said Hermione Flamme.

  Hermione was sixtyish, with short white hair curled in a tight permanent wave and a red-lipsticked smile over a gold front tooth. “So many people buy an old house and the first thing they do is something wrongheaded,” she lamented.

  “Add some utterly wrong modern element like a sunroom. Can you imagine? But you’ve kept it pure,” she added enthusiastically.

  “Thank you,” I said, swallowing the last of my pastry, then looking around for a napkin and finding one practically at my fingertips; Gracias, Dawtons. “I’m glad you like it.”

  It did look good, I realized with a tingle of pride; the heavy green draperies with cream shades, the reddish-brown paint, and the cream trim formed a fitting backdrop for the cranberry-glass table lamps, cherry-veneer corner hutches, and half-round marquetry tables with tatted doilies on them that I’d found over the years at tag sales.

  The restored tiled fireplace and carefully repaired maple floor looked decent, too, and for a wonder the discount-store Oriental rug I’d put down didn’t shout discount, or not very loudly.

  The effect overall was supposed to be that Thomas Jefferson or Abigail Adams might’ve dined here without feeling too out of p
lace; well, except for the electric lights, of course. And as I looked at it now with people in it happily eating, drinking, and socializing, it seemed to me that after all I hadn’t missed the mark too widely.

  So I didn’t tell Hermione that a couple of months from now, when winter days grew so short that they went by like lightning flashes and sun-deprivation put me in such a foul mood that I mostly just wanted to murder everyone, if somebody offered me a sunroom I’d be delighted to drive a bulldozer through the dining-room wall myself.

  Instead, I wandered over to the mahogany breakfront where Izzy Hill and Bridey O’dell, elderly twin sisters who’d taught driver’s education to Eastport fifteen-year-olds for forty years, were finishing off the last shrimp puffs.

  “Oh! Jacobia. Such a triumph,” said Bridey, munching. She and Izzy had brought oatmeal lace cookies, crisp, buttery-gold confections so light and tasty, they floated into your mouth. “You’ve positively outdone yourself,” she added.

  “And Merrie is delighted,” agreed Isabelle, waving her teacup at the guest of honor, who caught her gesture and smiled at all three of us, dignified as a queen.

  She’d arrived late for her own party, as royalty is wont to do. But she was making up for it now and clearly she was pleased. “And this is Key Street in the old days—” Her voice carried over the chatter. She’d brought along a shoebox full of snapshots and was showing them around.

  “Oh, my,” Ellie marveled, head bent over the photographs. “Look at all the elm trees! It’s so sad most of them are gone. And—look at that one! It’s right outside this very window.”

  The ladies turned as one to reflect upon the absence of the massive old elms, one of which I gathered had been practically in my dining room.

  “I never realized . . .” Ellie began; then her voice dissolved again in the pleasant general murmur.

  She had, I thought, been right to make me do this. “And, Jacobia, we were just remarking on how well your household help has worked out, too,” said Bridey.

  As if to prove it, Jericho Dawton strode through the room gathering up used plates, dispensing fresh cream pitchers, and replenishing trays of goodies which by now looked as if locusts had been at them.

  “Not,” Izzy added with a meaningful glance at her sister, “like some.”

  But I didn’t know what her meaningfulness meant, or even if I was supposed to. “Ones so bad people still talk about them?” I asked.

  Bridey swallowed the shrimp puff. “You hadn’t heard?”

  Her tone suggested I must be the only one. “About the awful servant girl who came here, cast her spell on the oldest son, and the next thing anyone knew, everyone else in the family was—”

  “Bridey,” said Merrie Fargeorge, appearing at my elbow. Her tone was perhaps crisper than she’d intended; Izzy gasped.

  “Now, dear,” Merrie continued. Dee-yah, the Maine way of saying it. “You know perfectly well nobody needs to hear that foolish old story again.”

  Bridey coughed startledly and sipped tea as Merrie went on, “I’m right, aren’t I?”

  Her lips pressed together as she smiled at Isabelle, who I thought had actually gone a shade pale, and then at Bridey again.

  “Besides, it’s not fair you two girls spinning such romantic tales about that old house of yours. Not everyone’s has such an interesting history, you know.”

  Isabelle blinked. Bridey looked mystified and a little put out. “But, Merrie, we weren’t—”

  “Never mind,” Merrie interrupted. She placed a confiding hand on Bridey’s arm. “And anyway you must let me express my gratitude to Jacobia, now, for her hospitality.”

  Then, turning to me: “My dear,” she enthused, “it’s positively splendid, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

  “You’re welcome,” I replied. “It’s been a real pleasure,” I added, although in truth the emotion washing over me was more like relief. Meanwhile, Isabelle O’dell’s parchment cheeks had developed pink spots, and her eyes were like a couple of agates.

  “So nice to see you again, Merrie,” she uttered flatly, then turned away quickly with her sister, leaving me with the impression that although appearances must be kept up, there was no love lost between the twins and Merrie Fargeorge.

  Some snub or insult long ago, I imagined, had never been healed, and after that I thought very little more of it as the party began winding down. Eventually I spotted Ellie by the punch bowl and made my way through the thinning crowd to her.

  “Congratulations,” she said, looking tired but happy. “You pulled it off.”

  “Not me. You, and everyone else.” Because as she’d promised, when it came right down to it, I’d hardly had to do anything.

  Besides, the ladies seemed remarkably ready to be pleased, if not when they first walked in, then very soon thereafter. Even now bursts of laughter, some of it quite raucous, came from the small groups lingering in the parlor and out in the hall.

  Their faces, I decided, were quite naturally flushed with the pleasure of an old-fashioned afternoon social in one of the big old houses they all remembered from their childhoods.

  “Maybe I’ll even do it again,” I said. “Because really, with enough help it wasn’t even all that—”

  “Mm-hmm. You should have some of this,” said Ellie, raising her punch cup. The stuff looked even less appetizing now that all the sherbet had melted to pastel foam.

  “Here, try some.” She held the cup out to me.

  I knew from experience that it would be like drinking cotton candy. “No, that’s okay.”

  She pressed the cup into my hands. An odd smile curved her lips. “Try it,” she insisted.

  I sipped reluctantly. “There, are you—?”

  Satisfied, I’d meant to finish. But instead I took another, larger sip of the punch, which was strangely tasty. In fact, I was sure I’d had the same thing once in a New York City bar, while waiting for a client who never showed up for our appointment.

  Or for any other appointment ever again, for that matter, but that’s another story.

  Anyway, the punch was heavily spiked. White wine, I thought, or Champagne . . . Anxiety pierced me. “Sam’s not here anywhere, is he?”

  It would be just like him to glug down a whole glassful of the stuff without realizing what was in it.

  Ellie shook her head. “George asked Sam to ride along with him today, to help amuse Lee while George buys tires.”

  By now most of the ladies had departed. But across the room the guest of honor, Merrie Fargeorge, still stood watching me.

  When she had my attention, she dropped her gaze to the punch cup in her own hands, then raised it minutely in a toast.

  And winked.

  As it turned out, Dave DiMaio hadn’t been at the motel when Ellie stopped by, so I ended up calling him myself and he agreed to come out for dinner with us that night.

  “Did you tell him? About the other ones?” Ellie slid onto a stool beside me, in the downstairs cocktail lounge at the Lime Tree restaurant.

  Other suspects besides Merkle, she meant. It was 6:05; Ellie had left the party a little early once she saw no further disaster arising, and the last lingering ladies had toddled home tipsily soon thereafter.

  Dinner wasn’t scheduled until 7:30. But by 5:25 I’d been on the phone with Ellie again, asking her to meet me early.

  “Yes, I told him,” I said.

  The restaurant was on a wharf with a dock extending over the water behind it. From where I sat I could see all the way to the end of the dock, where Ellie’s husband, George, was helping to load crates of explosives onto a barge.

  Fireworks tonight; the Fourth of July had been too foggy. I took another sip of my dry martini, which the way I felt now I’d have preferred to have injected.

  Into my brain. “I told DiMaio that if Horace was murdered, there are at least two other people besides Merkle who might’ve had a reason to do it,” I said.

  I ate my olive. “But now there’s a new wrinkle.�
�

  Ellie ordered a Jameson on the rocks, sipped delicately. “And the wrinkle would be?”

  “That Jason Riverton is dead,” I uttered, and just barely resisted the strong impulse to order another drink.

  Instead I thought about the sullen, black-clad kid who had been so unrewarding when we’d visited him, remembering his tiny room with its many books, his violent video games, and all the newspaper clippings about Horace Robotham’s death.

  And his poor mother, of course, blind and a little addled. I wondered what would happen to her, now. I wondered what Jason might’ve grown up into, what kind of man he might’ve been once the storms of adolescence had passed.

  As now they never would. From the somber look on Ellie’s face, I knew her thoughts were like mine.

  “Bob Arnold phoned just after you left my house,” I told her finally. “He wants us to meet him over there at the Rivertons’ place in a few minutes.”

  That’s why I’d called her and asked her to join me, so we could put our heads together in relative privacy before going to a murder scene.

  Or I assumed it was one. So much for bathrooms, parties, marriage plans, or the lack of them. Or anything else that might possibly be on my own personal agenda, such as a few minutes’ worth of peace and quiet, for heaven’s sake.

  “Everything all right with that?” I asked Ellie, nodding at the dock, where George was just now hefting the final crate of explosives. My dad was down there, too; he liked being around the bright stuff, as he called it, for old times’ sake.

  “Mmm,” Ellie said, swallowing more Jamesons, turning what I’d said over in her mind. Because whatever was going on around here, it was clearly even worse than we’d thought.

  Way worse. She finished her drink and got up; I followed. “So what happened?” she asked as we stepped outside. “To Jason?”

  The parking lot was filling up fast as people gathered for the last big public event of the summer season. I spotted several of the women from the party being let off at the eatery’s door, Merrie Fargeorge among them.