Night of the Living Deed (13 page)

“You’ve been thinking about this a lot,” the mayor said.

It was time to cut and run. “Yes, but I really wanted to ask you about the development plan,” I said. “I know you didn’t vote on the proposal.”

“That’s right. If it doesn’t pass the planning board, we don’t get to consider the question at all.” Bridget seemed proud to show off her knowledge of governmental procedure.

“But I’m told you spoke in favor of the development plan before the vote, but you accepted the decision afterward.”

“Yes, I did.” The mayor beamed. “I always abide by decisions I don’t have to make. And after all, it was obvious the board was moved by the voice of a citizen who deserved her right to speak.” Vote for me: the hidden message behind everything any elected official ever says.

“I appreciate that.” I looked down and saw that the appetizer, which I hadn’t touched, was almost gone. Mayor Bostero must have worked out ten hours a day to be able to eat like that—she had a terrific figure. I started to hate her. “But I’m wondering about the future of my guesthouse. It’s zoned properly for what I want to do, but will I have problems with parking, beach access or sewer systems? With fuel prices going up and an ancient heating system, will I be able to have guests during the winter?” That reminded me: I had to do something about my furnace. Really.

“Madeline and David were always working to keep the house going,” Bridget said. “The outside, the inside . . . with a structure as old as that one, there’s always something.”

“Madeline and David?” I asked.

“The Prestons. The people who used to own the house. Lovely couple, you know. I still see them socially every once in a while. They contributed to the campaign.”

“The house,” I reminded her.

“You think you’re in over your head?” Bridget asked, picking up exactly as Paul and I had hoped she would.

“It’s possible. I haven’t decided yet; I’m still making repairs. But if I were going to sell it, would the town be interested in reconsidering the development plan Mr. Morris had proposed?”

Bridget Bostero took a long moment and looked off into the distance, obviously thinking deep thoughts. “Oh good,” she finally said. “Here’s our lunch.” Rudolfo/ Ralphie appeared out of nowhere with a large tray and a stand and started serving the entrees. “I’m starving,” Mayor Bostero went on.

The woman must have had a tapeworm.

Once Rudolfo withdrew, I had to ask my question again; Bridget either didn’t remember what I’d asked or was hoping I’d forget.

“That development deal is dead,” she finally said. “The planning board won’t reconsider unless it’s drastically overhauled, and Adam Morris doesn’t want to do that. There’s no chance for it.”

She considered very carefully, and then twirled some fettuccine onto her fork. “You should have ordered the veal,” the mayor said. “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

Talking to Bridget Bostero and Adam Morris had yielded little, which Paul informed me was “about par” for a new investigation. But he wasn’t the one getting threatening e-mails, and couldn’t lose his own life
again
, so I think I felt a slightly more acute sense of urgency.

This was not helped by the fact that my mother still called me every day to ask if my head still hurt (which it hadn’t since the day after I’d gotten out of the hospital) and to try to invent more reasons to come over to the house. So far, she’d come only once, and found me engaged in heavy lifting, moving a toilet. She’d quickly remembered an errand she had to run. But I’m sure she thought I’d moved it brilliantly.

I’d also had phone conversations (on speaker, so Paul could hear) with three of the four planning board members, all lovely old gentlemen who recalled that Mayor Bostero had spoken first for the development plan, and then against it, once it was obvious Maxie had persuaded the board. While they couldn’t recall exactly what it was Maxie had said that was so powerful, each mentioned unprompted that she’d looked good while saying it.

The interrogations were taking up a lot of my days while Melissa was in school, but there was still a house to restore before Halloween, now just over a week away. The local houses done up with orange-and-yellow Halloween lights were becoming an unwelcome reminder. Lights are for Christmas, people. That’s all I’m saying.

When I told Paul I’d be concentrating on renovations for a while, he got huffy (in a polite, Canadian way) and vanished to other parts of the house when I was working. It took me the better part of the next three days to get the bathroom tiled, but when I was finished, it was a sight to behold. Glistening off-white tile with coral-colored grout gave it just the right seaside touch without making it overly adorable.

Tony and Jeannie stopped by that afternoon to check on my progress, and since Melissa was at Wendy’s house, I’d actually been very productive. Tony nodded at the tiling job.

“It’s really getting there,” he said, admiring the work. “Are you going to tile the floor, as well?”

“I think so, but something a little less plain. A recurring pattern, maybe. I haven’t decided.”

Jeannie leaned on the bathroom doorjamb and smiled. “You do nice work, Alison,” she said. “Do you hire out?”

“If I don’t get this house done in time to attract some guests for the summer, I might take you up on that,” I told her.

“Come on,” Tony said. “Let’s take another look at that hole in your living room wall.”

We went downstairs and stood, once again, in front of the Delaware Water Gap in my beautiful plaster wall. As ever, it made me want to cry. Tony took on his professional-contractor face and, for the umpteenth time, examined the edges of the gap as if trying to determine how to make the plaster grow back.

“Why can’t you just patch it?” Jeannie asked, and again, I explained about the lack of available plaster craftsmen.

“It looks like a regular hole,” she said. “I don’t see why it’s so hard.”

Tony picked up a trowel I’d left lying on the floor and offered it to her. “If you’d like to take a shot . . .” he said.

Jeannie just grinned. “Why did I marry you, again?”

“As I recall, at the time you said it was for the sex,” I told her. Jeannie blushed. So did Tony.

Maxie appeared through the living room ceiling and, as before, her gaze fixated on Tony. She licked her lips.

“Let’s go to the kitchen,” I said.

“Why? The hole’s here,” Tony answered, wrinkling his brow. I think that only made Maxie more ravenous. I didn’t know if she had plans for him, but if so, I certainly didn’t want to know what they were. “Can we get some more light in here, Alison?” he asked, looking into the cavern.

Maxie swooped down and hit the light switch before I could reach it. Luckily, neither Tony nor Jeannie was looking, because I have no idea how I would have explained that. But Jeannie did shiver a little as Maxie passed by her, as if she’d felt a sudden, cold wind.

Tony could stick his head all the way inside the hole; that was how big it was. With a flashlight in his hand, he looked around the damage. “I don’t get how this happened,” he said. “There’s no sign of weakness around the gap. And look here.” He beckoned to me, so I stood close to the hole and looked in. “There’s plaster on the floor
inside
the wall. The only way that happens is if something hits it from
outside
.”

“Or some
one
,” Maxie trilled from up near the ceiling again. If only I could have reached her . . . I still wouldn’t have been able to do anything.
Damn!

“Maybe something
evil
hit it,” I said, and Maxie stuck her tongue out at me.

“Yeah,” Tony laughed. “Something evil.” He thought some more. “Maybe we could build a mold of some sort—take the dimensions of the gap, or better, square it off with a saw, maybe—and then make a mold of the thickness. Then we could just drop the finished plaster mold in, spackle in around the corners and consider ourselves lucky.” He looked at me. “What do you think?”

“I think it’s better than looking at a hole in the wall,” I said. “Let’s try it.”

“Get me a level, a pencil and a drywall saw,” Tony said. He looked positively gleeful. “We’ll beat this sucker yet.”

“I realize this is fascinating,” Jeannie said as I headed for the kitchen, where the tools were, “but I’m going to go out and get some pizza. We could be here awhile. Alison, do you need anything?”

“Can you pick up Melissa from Wendy’s? I’ll call her mom so she’ll know it’s not me picking her up.”

“Sure.” I gave Jeannie Wendy’s address, and she was off, ordering extra garlic on her cell phone as she left.

I brought Tony the tools. When he’s working, I’m reduced to the role of assistant, and I’m happy to cede my authority. He’s the contractor; I’m someone who’s good with tools. It’s a whole other level. Like the Jonas Brothers should shut up and listen when Stevie Wonder sings. I’m just saying.

Plus, as I hand him tools, I take note of how he does things. So then next time, when he’s not around, I might be able to do it myself. Not as well, but well enough.

Tony began by making marks around the hole, using the T-square on the level to assure the lines were straight. He set out to make a square just large enough to touch the studs on either side (to make installing the patch easier) out of what was a jagged oval hole. I didn’t say anything while Tony worked.

“Okay, so what’s bothering you?” he asked after a minute.

“What do you mean, what’s bothering me? I don’t want a gigantic hole in my living room wall.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it,” Tony answered. And it wasn’t, and I did.

“Nothing’s bothering me,” I said, not even convincing myself.

Tony’s head was inside the wall again, so his voice had an interesting echo to it. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” he asked.

“Go ahead, tell him,” Maxie sneered. “Tell the beefcake that you’re seeing ghosts. And make sure you tell him what I look like.”

“Why?” I asked her. I had to stop doing that.

“Because I know you well enough to tell when something’s eating at you,” Tony answered.

“Tell him,” Maxie repeated. “He’s your friend. If you can’t tell him, who
can
you tell?” Now she was beginning to sound rational, and I knew
that
couldn’t be good.

“Did you know that the woman who owned this house before me died here?” I said. At least I’d be able to talk to Tony about the murders, I figured.

“Yeah, you told me about that,” he answered. He picked up the saw. “Hold that level right there, okay? I don’t want to go over the lines at all if I can help it.” I did as he asked. “Is that what’s bothering you? Do you think the house is haunted or something? Are you still seeing things?”

“You should be so haunted, big guy,” Maxie murmured.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said in her direction. “It just bothers me that I’m coming into a place—you know, a place I’m staking a lot of my life on—and it has bad karma.”

Tony began to saw, carefully and slowly, on the line he’d drawn. That he can maintain that concentration and hold a conversation at the same time has always astonished me. “Bad karma? If I recall, the woman and her boyfriend killed themselves with sleeping pills or something, right?”

“Boyfriend!” Maxie said. “Tell him I don’t have a boyfriend—at the moment.”

“That’s the thing,” I told Tony. “It wasn’t her boyfriend; he was a private investigator she’d hired to look into some threatening messages she’s gotten. And they didn’t commit suicide—somebody killed them.”

Tony had made it all the way down the left side and was starting on the right. “How do you know?” he asked. “They pop out of the walls one night, rattle their chains and tell you their sad story?”

“I found her laptop and saw the e-mails. I’ve been getting the threatening messages, too,” I said.

He almost cut outside the line. Almost. “What?” Tony stopped sawing. “Someone’s threatening you? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I’ve been getting crank e-mails,” I said. “I didn’t think it was serious until I found the messages that had been left for Maxie.”

“Maxie? That the private dick?”

Maxie’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in disappointment. She actually stammered. I have to admit to a certain enjoyment.

“No, that was the woman. Maxie Malone. The PI was Paul Harrison.”

“Some great PI if they both got killed on his watch.”

“I don’t think she told him enough to help,” I answered. Maxie sneered. As usual.

“You really have been looking into this, haven’t you?” Tony asked.

“Sure. If somebody told you that you were going to die if you didn’t leave your brand-new house-slash-business, wouldn’t you look into it?”

Tony had been lining up the saw again, but now stopped cold. “You got an e-mail saying you’d die if you don’t get out of the house?”

“I believe I just said that.”