She made her way down the hall to the study, which proved equally unremarkable. When she returned to the hall, she was able to hear the agent’s voice more clearly. They were approaching the stairway and Rory still needed time to check out the master suite. Then Helene’s voice rose above the others, rattling off questions about the burner and the boiler and requesting a tour of the heating system before they went upstairs. She’d left no stone unturned when it came to preparing for this little adventure. Rory sent her a silent “thank you.”
In the master bedroom, with its soaring twelve-foot ceiling, the king-size bed was like a small island adrift on a vast sea of dove gray carpeting. The master bath, which was larger than the room Rory had grown up in, was papered in a subtle flower motif that tied in perfectly with the bed linens. If anything was not as it should be, Rory couldn’t find it.
As she was about to exit the bathroom through the double doors that led back into the bedroom, she stopped short. A section of the wall that was behind the door on her left had not been papered. She hadn’t noticed it at first because the area was largely hidden by the door. She checked the wall behind the door on her right and found it papered like the rest of the room.
Although this could hardly be classified as a great discovery, in deference to Zeke she would ask the agent about it before she left. There was bound to be a simple, logical explanation. Either the wallpaper hanger hadn’t had time to finish working on it, or he’d run out of the paper and was waiting for another shipment to arrive. Rory took photos of the bedroom, bathroom and a walk-in closet that was larger than some studio apartments in Manhattan.
The voices of the family team were once again growing louder. Having finished touring the boiler room, they were on their way back to the stairs. Helene’s voice rose several decibels above the others, as if she were trying to warn Rory that they were coming. By now the agent was probably thinking that Helene was deaf as well as annoying.
Rory slipped out of the suite and fled down the back stairs into the kitchen. The architect who’d first thought to build an additional set of stairs deserved an award of some kind.
She completed a circuit of the rooms on the main level without finding anything more of note. When the agent escorted her family back to the entryway, Rory was waiting for them. At this point it didn’t really matter if someone slipped and indicated that they knew one another. Still, Arlene gave her husband another discreet jab with her elbow as a reminder to behave. Rory decided it was a good thing she didn’t need their help on a regular basis or her father would be black-and-blue.
The agent asked them to sign the guest book before leaving. Then, with an unmistakable look of relief, he turned his attention to Rory.
“Hi, I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting.” He offered his hand and a flash of white teeth. “I’m Don Stuart.”
“Susan Porter,” Rory said, shaking his hand. She’d thought up the name on the drive there when she realized she probably shouldn’t use the same name as her parents.
“Great to meet you, Susan. May I show you around?”
“Thanks, but I already did the grand tour while you were with those other folks.”
“Oh,” Don said, his smile vanishing. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
To Rory he sounded more perturbed than the situation warranted. “I didn’t mind showing myself around,” she assured him.
“That’s fine, it’s just that I can point out things along the way that you might not notice on your own.”
“I have a pretty good eye for detail,” she said. The agent seemed so unsettled that she was beginning to feel a little guilty about circumventing his usual routine.
Having signed the guest book, Rory’s family headed to the door. Her father risked a little wink in her direction as he passed. Rory pretended not to notice.
Don produced another brilliant smile and thanked them for coming. Then he turned back to Rory. “So, if I can’t show you around, can I at least answer any questions you might have?” He seemed to have regained his composure. “I feel like I’m not earning my keep.”
“Actually I do have a question,” she said. “I noticed that some of the wallpaper in the master bath was missing.”
“Someone probably miscalculated. You know how that is.” He laughed. “Anything that can go wrong, will. Not to worry, though, we’re taking care of it.” He paused to consult his watch. “In fact, our wallpaper guy should be here anytime now to figure out how much more to order.”
Then a young couple with a little boy came in, and Rory was spared any further conversation. When she walked outside, her parents’ car was gone, replaced by a beige SUV that had presumably brought the new arrivals.
As she was about to get into her own car, she spotted her parent’s car turning onto the street again. Rory couldn’t imagine why they’d returned. Had they left something behind? She watched as they parked close to the corner. This was getting stranger and stranger. Then her father flashed his headlights. Was he signaling her? She started walking toward their car. As she came up alongside it, the back door flew open.
“Get in,” her aunt Helene whispered urgently, scooting over to leave room for her.
“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
Her father rolled down his window. “It’ll be easier if you just get in the car, Rory,” he said in the tone of one whose patience was being sorely tested.
“Okay then,” she said, sliding into the backseat.
“Close the door. Close the door,” Helene ordered as soon as she was inside. “You don’t want the real estate agent to see us together, do you?”
Rory pulled the door shut. “He’s in the house. Besides, it doesn’t really matter anymore.”
“Well, it might if you need us in the future,” Helene said, looking hopeful. “How did we do?”
“You did fine. You did great. Thank you all. But why did you come back?”
“Debriefing,” she said, “although I’m not sure if you should be debriefing us or we should be debriefing you.” Rory was having a hard time keeping a straight face. Helene had always been a little out there in a sweet and loveable sort of way, but this was over-the-top even for her.
“Your aunt has really gotten into the whole cloak-and-dagger bit,” Rory’s mom said from the front passenger seat. Her father just shook his head in silence.
“I think I may have missed my true calling,” Helene announced. “If I were twenty years younger, I’d sign up at Langley first thing in the morning.”
“Well, I’ll be sure to keep you in mind the next time I need someone to run cover for me,” Rory promised, trying to sound sincere.
“If these two are in, you can count me out,” her dad grumbled good-naturedly. “Between James Bond back there and your mother’s pointy elbows, once was enough.”
Rory thanked them again, doing her best not to laugh until she was back in her own car.
She was driving out of the development when she passed a white commercial van with blue lettering on its side that read, “Paper Mates, Your Wallpaper Experts.” Beneath it was a picture of a kangaroo with rolls of wallpaper sticking out of its pouch. There was a good chance this was the wallpaper guy the real estate agent was expecting. If so, he might have a definitive explanation for the missing paper. In deference to Zeke, Rory decided to stop and see what she could find out, even though the day was feeling more and more like a wild-goose chase without the goose.
When she stepped out of the car, she saw that the side panel of the van was open and a man was leaning inside.
“Hi there,” Rory said as she came up behind him. He made a point of carefully stepping back from the van before straightening to his full height, no doubt a reaction to some painful encounters with low ceilings and roofs in the past. He was thin as well as tall, with ears that protruded through fine brown hair, and a prominent Adam’s apple, all of which reminded Rory of the cartoon about Ichabod Crane she remembered from childhood.
“G’day,” he said with an unmistakably Australian accent. He was wearing jeans and a tee shirt with the same kangaroo logo that was painted on the van.
Rory introduced herself.
“Gordon Weatherbee,” he said, offering his hand. “What can I do for you?”
She explained that she’d just been to the open house on Pheasant Lane and was wondering if his company had also done the wallpaper there.
“That we did. In fact, I’m on my way there next. It seems we came up a roll short in the master bath. The order was for eight, but only seven were delivered, don’t you know.”
“That happened to me,” Rory sighed sympathetically, “but the manufacturer swore up and down that they’d sent the right amount. Unfortunately I didn’t count the rolls when I signed for them, so I had to eat the cost of ordering another roll.”
Gordon was nodding. “More than likely what happened here, except it was the decorator who placed the order, may she rest in peace. I suppose she’s past worrying about such things in any case,” he added soberly.
“Oh my God, was she the one who fell down the stairs?” Rory gasped as if she’d just made the connection. “I read about that, but I didn’t realize that was the house where it happened.”
“A terrible thing. Just tragic.” Gordon appeared genuinely upset.
Apparently Jeremy wasn’t the only one on the planet who had not taken joy in Gail Oberlin’s sudden demise.
“May I have your card?” she asked. “You never know when the wallpapering bug will bite, and my one attempt to do it myself convinced me that I shouldn’t.”
“That’s what we count on.” Gordon smiled, plucking a business card from the front pocket of his jeans.
Rory thanked him and was about to walk away when another question occurred to her. “Would you happen to know the name of the store where the bathroom paper was purchased? It’s so pretty.”
“That I do. Gail always worked with Anderson and Shor over in Huntington.”
O
n her drive home, Rory tried to decide if there was any point in pursuing the trail of the missing wallpaper. Either the wrong amount had been ordered, or the wrong amount had been shipped. It seemed more the wrong amount had been shipped. It seemed more like a job for an accountant than for a private investigator. And even if she did resolve the issue, there was no reason to believe that it had any connection to the case.
Still, with no other, more pressing clues to track down, it was probably worth a phone call or two. For starters she needed to see a copy of the original order form. Although Gail was sure to have had one, it was now the property of her almost ex and his fiancée, along with everything else from Gail’s estate. The easier route would be through the store where she’d placed the order.
Chapter 19
T
he black Jeep was several cars behind Rory on the expressway. It had been behind her since she left the gas station near police headquarters. If she was being followed again, her stalker had chosen a strange vehicle for his mission. Having a higher profile than a car, the Jeep was easier to spot in her rearview mirror.a car, the Jeep was easier to spot in her rearview mirror. On the other hand, the driver of the SUV had a more elevated seat and could keep tabs on his prey from a greater distance.
“Okay, McCain,” she chastised herself out loud. “If that Jeep is following you, maybe the silver Acura on your right flank is too. Or how about the little Smart Car over there? Even a thug might be economy minded or worried about the melting of the polar ice caps.” Her mouth tilted up in a crooked little smile. She was letting Zeke mess with her brain. While it was true that she’d probably been followed once before and that Mac’s office had been ransacked, she couldn’t reasonably believe that every car on the road and every person she passed in the office building was after her. She simply wasn’t that important or that interesting, which was just fine. She had no intentions of crying wolf to her colleagues. In spite of all the crime in the headlines, in reality “wolves” made up a very small segment of the population.
Distraction was what her renegade brain needed. She tugged her thoughts back to the meeting she’d had earlier in the week with Bonnie Anderson of Anderson and Shor Textiles. Rory had presented herself as a family friend of the late Gail Oberlin who was checking out some matters for the heirs of the estate.
“Of course I remember the order,” Bonnie had bristled with indignation. “I worked with Gail forever. She was my best customer. I don’t think it’s even sunk in yet that she’s really gone. She was such a presence.”
Although Bonnie seemed to be at least superficially saddened by the designer’s death, Rory had the impression that “inconvenienced” might be a better description. Words like “best customer” and “a presence” hardly spoke of a fond or intimate relationship.
Rory murmured a few generic words of understanding about how painful the loss of Gail was to family and friends.
Having exhibited what she apparently considered the proper amount of grief, Bonnie quickly slipped back into full business mode.
“I’ll pull that order up for you,” she said, swiveling her chair so that she was facing the computer on the side of her wraparound desk. Her fingers flew over the keyboard.
“Ah, here it is.” She turned the monitor so that Rory could see the screen. “The order was clearly for eight rolls.”
“May I have a copy of that for our files?”
“Not a problem.” The printer was spitting out the page before she finished speaking. She handed it to Rory, who squinted at it. One of these days she was going to have to suck it up and have her eyes checked before she turned into Mr. Magoo. In any case, the number eight was written boldly in the column marked “quantity.” It certainly looked as though the mistake had been made by the manufacturer.
“So,” Rory remarked casually as she folded the sheet and slid it into her handbag, “I guess you never had any problems dealing with Gail.”