Death at a Fixer-Upper (8 page)

“The Sifting Sands Golden Age Community for Mature Adults,” he said. “We're hoping to break ground this summer. Permits are filed and we've completed our site tests. Beautiful piece of land in Martin's Crossing, with hiking trails to the ocean.”

“This is really something.” I examined the model, built from cardboard and thin sheets of rigid foam, with long, low buildings forming a triangle around a central common. There were paths and benches and lots of miniature greenery: fuzzy grass, flowering shrubs, even a little plastic tree growing in each corner of the common. Tiny plastic people wandered the grounds, some sitting on the benches; others, dressed in pale blue jogging outfits, trotted along the trails.

“Isn't it? This project is a quantum leap for our company, the one that brings it all together. Green building, materials locally sourced, little to no dependence on grid power. I'm considering experimenting with straw bales for some of the structural elements. Or hemp, the local alternative.” He winked.

“That should keep the residents happy.”

“You got that right. Not just happy but healthy as well. There'll be a lap pool, weight room, and sauna. Cooking classes. Tai chi. Pilates. A community garden. You name it. It's not gonna be your grandma's retirement living, for damn sure.”

I stole a glance at a shelf behind Fletcher's desk and saw an eight-by-ten portrait of the developer with a statuesque blonde at his side and two children, a boy and a girl, seated in front of them. “These are your kids?”

“Emma and Brice,” he said, his face lighting up. “Awesome kids. Thirteen and ten, and smart as whips. They don't get that from me. That's Barbara, my wife. You married?”

“Not anymore.” A couple of lines of text, framed and attached to the wall above the desk, caught my eye. I leaned forward and read aloud, “ ‘What's the use of a fine house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on?' ”

“Our mission statement,” Fletcher said.

“That's perfect. Thoreau, right?”

He blinked. “Who?”

“This quotation. What's the source?”

He tapped his head. “Right here. It just came to me.”

“Ah.” I'd run out of things to say, so I began to edge toward the door. “I'd better get a move on. Thanks for the tour.”

“It was really great seeing you.” His eyes met mine and I shivered involuntarily. “Sam, tell me. Are you a homeowner?”

“I will be. As of Wednesday.”

He took a card from a rack on his desk and pressed it into my hand. “Because we don't just build; we remodel as well. I'll knock thirty percent right off the top, any work we do. For old times' sake. Not including materials, of course.”

“Of course. Thanks. I really have to go.”

“I'll walk you out.” He ushered me to the top of the stairs. Betsy was watching us, her expression blank.

“Fletcher, those bids on the McFarlan property came in,” she said. “I have them here on the screen.”

“Oh, good. Sam, it's been a pleasure.” I dodged left before he could hug me again and gave him a little finger wave as I started down the stairs, pausing to tuck his card in my wallet. I glanced back. Fletcher had positioned himself behind Betsy's chair and was staring at the computer monitor. His left hand rested on her shoulder; her fingers came up and brushed his, an intimate gesture of possession. Well, well. I smiled grimly to myself as I trotted down the stairs. For all his newfound enlightenment, Fletcher Smith hadn't changed much at all.

I returned to the office to find Gail at our desk.

“Hey,” I said. “I'm sorry about yesterday.”

“I'm the one who should be apologizing. I can't believe I screamed like a little girl. Must have been the nitrous. Usually I'm prepared for these things to happen when I'm with you, and I can steel myself beforehand.”

“ ‘These things'?”

“You know. Bodies and such. But I've released my inner tension and restored my equilibrium. Plus Jim mixed me up a couple of hot buttered rums last night and I'm a new woman.”

“I wish you'd had a chance to see the house.”

She shrugged. “Another time. By the way, my cousin Chet says the preliminary ruling is death by misadventure. The little alcove where the statue sat, right above the eaves? The wood was rotted through. Just a matter of time before it fell.” Her cousin was a volunteer with Arlinda Fire.

“It could have been one of us standing in the critical spot,” I pointed out. “Good thing I was late, eh?”

“You're always late. You pick up any more clients this morning?”

“Nope. I was at SmithBuilt on race business.” I explained about the waiver and the deadline. “I got a quick tour of the new headquarters. They're really embracing the green building trend.”

“Maybe so.” Gail frowned over a torn fingernail and dug a pair of clippers out of her handbag. “But back when I was with RealtyWorld it was understood you never wanted to advertise your listing as a SmithBuilt home. They look nice, but things happen. Paint peels, siding rots, plumbing joints come apart. One agent told me her clients bought a place that looked okay, but whenever they ran the disposal the heat cycled on. Who needs that kind of headache?”

“Seems to me they've turned over a new leaf.”

“Sure they have.” Gail completed her clipping and examined her work. “What do you have going today?”

“Real estate stuff. Touch base with Lois Hartshorne. Do a little legwork for my living clients. But first, a trip to the bakery. Want to come along?”

She shook her head. “Let's not tempt fate just yet.”

I walked all the way to Ramona's for a couple—okay, four—of her double-chocolate walnut cookies, and bought a Diet Coke to balance things out. The skies had brightened and the temperature was pleasantly warm, so I took my purchases outside and sat on a low brick wall at the far end of the parking lot, my back resting against the chain-link fence.

I was at a bit of a loss as to my next move. Richard Ravello had seemed pleased with my intelligence-gathering efforts. Certainly his manner on the phone had been a few degrees warmer. But where to go from here?

The cookies were warm and fudgy. I broke one in half and took a bite, nearly moaning aloud. A psychologist would call this displacement, the substitution of one object of desire for another. I blamed Bernie Aguilar. He'd been showing up in my dreams lately, warm, dark, and delicious. And naked? Hard to say. I took another bite.

A dark-bearded man in a hemp beanie made his way up the street, pausing when he saw me. He wore a loose robe of dingy yellow wool that fell almost to his knees. An army-green scarf draped around his shoulders gave him the appearance of a preacher in his vestments. I'd seen him before, proselytizing from makeshift pulpits in front of businesses around town, with occasional potty breaks in the alley behind the movie theater.

He extended one arm and said, “Supplicate not unto the rich and powerful, for theirs are the souls that will burn forever in eternity.” His voice was unexpectedly rich in timbre, the volume sufficient to carry all the way to the north of town.

“Okay,” I said.

He pointed a long finger right at me. “The whores and the harlots are abed with the jackbooted fascists of a police state, grinding underfoot what is the good medicine of Mother Earth.”

“Now just a damn minute,” I said. “Nothing's happened.”

A city sweeper rumbled up the street behind him, raising a maelstrom of dust. His eyes lit up with fervor. “Seek out the rule-makers, the automatons of a soulless government whose desire is to crush the hopes and dreams of the righteous proletariat!”

I sat up straighter. Of course! Draining my soda, I crushed the can and slipped it into my bag in order to recoup the five-cent redemption fee. “Thanks,” I said, hopping off the wall. I was on my way to City Hall.

I entered through a glass door and strolled past the water billing department and the mayor's office, navigating an expanse of polished linoleum until I reached the Building Department. No one was behind the service counter, so I pressed a buzzer as instructed by a little sign and waited. After a few minutes, a trim man with sandy hair and glasses emerged from a back office. “Something I can do for you?”

“I hope so,” I said. “I'd like to get some information about a certain property in town. The zoning and such. Can you check that for me?”

“Address or parcel number?” His manner was brisk, even impatient; perhaps I'd interrupted his midday session of hope-and-dream-crushing.

“Thirteen Aster Lane.”

His brows went up. “Aster Lane? I don't even have to look it up.”

“Why's that?”

“Let's just say you're not the first to inquire. It's highly unusual to have developable acreage within the city limits. Lots of possibilities there, no pun intended.”

“I was under the impression it couldn't be developed.”

“Not from our point of view,” he said. “It's zoned residential high-density. Let me pull up the plat map.” He tapped at the computer until the printer in the corner coughed out a sheet of paper, which he retrieved and dropped on the counter between us. Using a felt-tipped marker, he traced a shape that looked like a slightly squashed brownie with a bite taken out of it.

“This is the entire two-point-six-acre property,” he said, pointing with the marker. “A full city block. You can see the shape is irregular due to Jennings Creek here, which cuts in at the northwest corner. Aster Lane is currently a private drive, but I imagine any developer would extend it all the way through the property as the chief access road into the subdivision.”

“So you're saying—”

“Once the paperwork is correctly filed with our office and approved and the permits are acquired, the land could potentially be subdivided into roughly two dozen building lots. That's dependent, of course, on any physical characteristics of the land that might necessitate irregular lot shapes, not to mention the required easements for utilities and public services and a percentage of multifamily units to meet the city's low-income requirement. Let's say twenty sites, just to be on the safe side.”

The thought of the rose garden and its wild profusion of color being replaced by twenty cheaply built houses made me a little sick to my stomach. “You make it sound pretty simple.”

He smiled thinly. “It
is
simple. Word around town is our office gets a bad rap. That's entirely unjustified. We try to make the process as smooth as possible for everyone involved.”

“Really.”

He waved a hand. “Of course there's paperwork to fill out. Permit fees and site inspections. Riparian surveys and wetlands remediation. Committee meetings. Occasionally public hearings, plan revisions, and additional fees. But that's one of the burdens of living in an organized society. We get the job done.”

“Eventually.”

“Was there anything else?” He glanced at his watch.

I thought hard. “What if, after all you've told me, someone suggested the land couldn't be developed?”

“They'd be mistaken. Oh. Hang on. If it's not the zoning that's at issue, it's likely the existing structure. Rumor has it the Historical Preservation Committee has taken an interest in the old house and plans to designate it a historically significant building.”

“But it's in terrible shape.”

“Doesn't matter. I suggest you talk to Fenton Ziegler. He's the committee chair. His office is in the annex by the public library, but you won't find him there today. He's probably at his shop between I and J working on his kinetic sculpture. About halfway down the alley, garage with a big blue door. Fenton's one of the original racers. Been doing it for decades.”

I gave him a big smile. “You've been a huge help. I appreciate it.”

“We're here to serve,” he said.

I hit the streets and decided I had a good chance of catching Fenton Ziegler at his shop. I was infused with restless energy from Ramona's cookies, so I decided to walk the six blocks, a trek that took me back across the Plaza and up a short steep hill to Twelfth Street. The weather was undergoing a shift; I felt a surge of optimism as a high-pressure front burned away the ambient humidity, bringing the promise of blue skies for tomorrow's race kickoff. Come to think of it, I'd never known the race to start on a rainy day. Perhaps the weather gods were amused by such human frivolity.

I made my way down the alley between I and J Streets, circumventing a couple of broken beer bottles and a black plastic garbage sack that had burst open, spilling potting soil across the cracked cement. The terrain rose and fell as it followed the contours of the hillside, passing between freestanding shops and garages that had been pressed into use as substandard living space. I passed an old Dodge Dart in the midst of a low-budget restoration, its chassis spackled with globs of gooey-looking fiberglass patch. The next building down had big blue doors set on rollers. I'd found Ziegler's shop.

He was working inside. Sparks flew in the dimly lit interior and I heard the hiss of an arc welder, spitting like an angry cat. Ziegler was bent over a jig, his face shielded by a dark lens set in a plastic helmet. I waited until he'd finished his bead before moving into his line of vision.

He took a moment to close the valve on the tank before pulling off his protective headgear. My eyes roamed around the shop. A big sheet of painter's canvas covered something as long as the Dart I'd passed and twice as high. I saw a gleam of silver through a gap in the canvas. Ziegler followed my eyes and took a few short steps across the floor, adjusting the tarp to effectively cut off my view. “What can I do for you?” he said curtly.

“You're Fenton Ziegler, right?”

“That's what they tell me. And you are—”

“Sam Turner, Home Sweet Home Realty.” I offered my hand. For a moment I thought he wouldn't take it; then he peeled off an insulated glove and we shook briefly. He was lean and fit, with dark hair transitioning to silver and a complexion burnished from sun and metalwork. His hands were artist's hands: short nails stained with grease and paint, strong fingers, every sinew and ligament taut from knuckle to wrist.

“If you're here to sell me something, you're wasting your time,” he said, leaning back to rest against the workbench.

“Actually, I'm not. I just have a few questions about the Historical Preservation Committee. You're the chairman, right?”

“Can your questions wait? I'm working under a time constraint.”

“I'll be quick. I swear.”

He glanced at his watch. “Hell. Might as well break for lunch.” He pushed himself off the bench and rummaged through a beat-up refrigerator in the corner, coming up with a lump wrapped in white deli paper and a bottle of Arlinda Brewery's Nutty Brown Ale. He used a screwdriver to pry the cap off and took a swig. My eyes had wandered back to the canvas tarp.

Ziegler set his sandwich on the bench and took my arm. “Let's step outside where it's light. The better to see you with.”

I hung back a little. “Is that your entry for this year's race? I'd love to get a peek.”

He stopped, his stance aggressive. “You're working for Wagstaffe, aren't you? You tell that son of a bitch I'm onto his little scheme. He can—”

“Jeez, lighten up, would you? I'm not working for Wagstaffe, whoever he is.”

He peered at me. “You're not connected to the race?”

“No. Well, sort of. My son is piloting for Team SmithBuilt this year.”

His shoulders relaxed. “First-timers. Got a good man in Josh Boyle. Okay, sorry. I guess I jumped the gun. Who are you again?”

“Sam Turner. The Harrington estate?”

“That's right. Helluva place. It was a showpiece when it was built in 1881. They knew how to build houses back then. Not like today's gimcrack construction, slapped together with pressboard and Tyvek. What's your interest in the estate? I hear it's on the market.”

“That's right. I talked to the Building Department and they told me to talk to you. I have a client who's interested in the property.”

“Let me guess. Your client wants to put a subdivision there.”

“No, not at all. Well—sort of.”

“Ye gods and little fishes. You know what I think?” He didn't wait for me to guess. “I think real estate training programs turn out conscienceless drones whose worldview doesn't extend beyond their commissions. The very thought that a grand old home that's stood through some of this nation's richest history, two world wars, and countless presidents could be churned into landfill fodder and replaced by…by…” He swallowed hard, glaring at me. “ ‘Little boxes made of ticky-tacky…and they all look just the same.' You're unfamiliar with the works of Pete Seeger, I imagine. Small wonder the world's in such a mess. His was a wisdom that transcended generations.”

“I know who Pete Seeger is. Was. And I'm not a drone.”

“Saying it doesn't make it so. The Harrington estate is a slice of Arlinda history, and by God I'm going to see that it's preserved. The matter comes up for a vote next week. I have a solid majority, and I'll use my last breath to keep developers' hands off it.” His face was the red of new bricks and his neck was starting to swell.

There didn't seem to be anything more I could do except retire from the scene as gracefully as possible. “I appreciate your time. I'll just be—”

He glanced over my shoulder and made a disgusted noise in his throat. I turned and saw a stout middle-aged man picking his way down the alley, accompanied by a small white terrier on an extendable lead. The terrier rushed at me, stiff-legged, and barked sharply.

“Now, Hamish, don't be a silly boy,” his owner said, looking me over with disfavor. He was rather foppishly dressed in a tweed smoking jacket and corduroy trousers, with an old-fashioned cycling cap on his head. A pipe was clenched in his teeth; clouds of aromatic smoke issued from the bowl. The terrier stopped barking, but his bright eyes never left me.

Fenton casually reached out and pulled one of the rolling doors shut, blocking the view into the shop. “ 'Morning, Walter,” he said. “What brings you down my humble alley?”

His visitor took a few puffs from his pipe before replying, his eyes roaming past Ziegler into the dark interior of the shop. “Surprised to find you here, Fenton,” he said. “Making some final adjustments? Bit of technical trouble?”

“In your dreams. I suppose you're here for a few last-minute pointers.”

“Maybe it's slipped your memory, but I took second place last year. That's second overall, mind you. Not—
ahem
—second to last.”

Ziegler's face went from brick to mahogany. He started to speak, then seemed to recall my presence. “Walter Wagstaffe, Sam Turner,” he said shortly. “Walter's the pilot for Team Wagstaffe.”

“Top five finisher the last four years,” Walter put in helpfully.

I stepped forward, extending my hand. Hamish's back hair stood up and he emitted a low growl.

“Hamish!” his master barked. The dog sat back on his heels. Walter took my hand in a damp clasp and almost immediately released it, as if he'd been forced by manners to touch a freshly caught eel. Hamish looked ready to burst out of his skin but didn't budge. His level stare said he wasn't done with me yet. I tried sending him warm doggy thoughts, but images of me out in a skiff off Agate Beach, trolling for great whites with the little dog on his flexi-lead, kept intruding.

Walter leaned back in his loafers, all set for a nice chat. He had a round face with bright red cheeks; his upper lip was decorated with a bristly mustache and he smelled of hair pomade. He peered at me through wire-rimmed bifocals.

“What team are you with, Sam?” he said.

“Team?”

“Sam's not a driver,” Fenton said shortly. “She's here on another matter. The Harrington estate.”

“Ah, yes,” Walter said. “Quite a place. You don't see a lot of genuine Eastlake Stick around Arlinda.”

“Eastlake Stick? Nonsense. It's authentic Gothic Revival.”

“I do beg your pardon, Fenton, but Victorian architecture is a bit of a passion of mine. Perhaps you neglected to observe the millwork of the eaves, specifically the spindle accents that exemplify the transitional stick-built Victorian. Conclusive, in my opinion.”

Fenton snorted. “You're talking out your flying buttress. Throw in a spindle or two and every ignoramus west of Redding calls it an Eastlake.”

“It's at least two decades too early for Gothic Revival, as anyone with a modicum of knowledge on the subject can attest. That tower is a pure late-nineteenth-century Victorian flight of fancy.”

Hamish moved to a collection of bicycle wheels stacked just inside the shop door, gave them a sniff, then lifted his leg against them. The two men were too intent to notice.

“Don't even start with your ‘flights of fancy,' ” Fenton snapped. “Unless you're referring to that rolling scrap heap you entered in the race last year. You're lucky you had enough hired muscle on your team to push that junk pile across the finish line.”

Walter drew himself up. “In second place. That really chaps your hide, doesn't it? By the way, I do hope you managed to get your little brake problem sorted out this year. All style and no substance—that seems to be your particular cross to bear.”

Fenton poked a finger into Walter's chest. “Listen, you sanctimonious little prig, my machine could have knocked yours into a cocked hat if you hadn't cut us off at the straights in Martin's Crossing, and you damn well know it. I pray to God you took a welding class this year. My six-year-old niece could lay a better bead with her Pretty Princess hot-glue gun. Want her number?”

“This coming from a fellow whose machine ended up at the bottom of Salmon Bay two years ago. I trust you packed extra flotation devices, my dear fellow.”

While the two men were almost nose to nose, Hamish wandered casually in a half circle defined by the slack in his lead. Suddenly he rushed forward and nipped my ankle. I yelped, more from surprise than pain. Walter stopped arguing and was immediately solicitous.

“What is it, precious?” he cooed. “Did she step on your paw?”

“He
bit
me!”

“Nonsense. Westies don't bite. They're gentle as kittens.” He fondled Hamish's head affectionately. The dog shot me a triumphant look, rolled back on his haunches, and began to lick his pink thing.

I decided to leave the men to their discussion and retire with as much dignity as I could muster, which was none. As I limped my way down the alley, the two men resumed their bickering. Hamish stared after me, his tail fanning the air.