Knockdown: A Home Repair Is Homicide Mystery (14 page)

After all
, he recited to himself once his stomach settled enough so he could think again,
it’s the thought that counts
.

And now it was past two o’clock. Time to get a move on; luckily, he was already undressed. Also fortunate was the fact that there were hardly any raw, bloody places on his skin, though he stung all over as if he’d been dipped in acid.

The wipes, he’d gathered from the writing on the container of them, were intended for counters and stovetops, not humans.
But hey
, he told himself, feeling lighthearted after the rub-a-dub session,
we do what we can with what we have
.

Thinking this, he began putting on the garments he’d brought along for the next phase of the operation:

His mother’s second-best dress, the deep purple one with the long sleeves and plain, not-quite-straight skirt. He’d chosen it because he could walk in the shoes that went with it, dyed, low-heeled purple pumps in soft, flexible Italian leather.

Fortunately, his mother’s feet had been quite large. Like her hands.
The better to swat you with, you little
 …

He shut off the thought—it was always a lot easier to do that after a good scrubbing, he’d found—then returned to the task of costume assembly.

Under the dress, he’d put on an old undershirt of his own, the cotton thinned and softened by frequent washings until it was like silk. It didn’t show through the bodice of the outfit, and the skirt was lined so he needn’t bother about that, either.

Stockings, though. He’d bought a pair of pantyhose in the supermarket at home, tossing them casually into his cart as if he bought them all the time, when in reality his heart had pounded.

What if somebody notices?
he’d thought as he waited in line. A man buying pantyhose … maybe he wanted them for a disguise. Or so the cashier might think, and she might mention it to a friend.

Or the friend of a friend, and one of them might be a cop. A
suspicious
cop, who might even have followed Steven all the way here to Eastport, and right now …

Shut up, shut up
, he ordered himself fiercely as he yanked and tugged at the pantyhose. He was sweating now, and it was hard to get these things on, the mesh pulling the hairs on his legs the wrong way and the pants part seeming to stop mid-thigh. He didn’t need some crazy person in his head providing a running commentary.

A
paranoid
running commentary, because no one knew he was here. No one but
her
—and her few friends and relations, none of whom were any match for him—and that only made it better.

More rewarding, because the knowledge frightened her. But it didn’t help her. Nothing could, now.

Nothing at all. Working the stretchy fabric inch by inch, he got the stockings’ waistband up around his middle at last, and by tugging repeatedly at the foot and leg parts got them arranged so that it might actually stay there.

Finally he bent to his pack to retrieve the one item that made the rest of the disguise work. No need to glue his ears back this time. And not much makeup needed, either; his beard was so skimpy, he could go for days without shaving.

Carefully he lifted the thing, pulled the tissue paper from inside it. The sharp scent of mothballs mingled with a whiff of Shalimar made his eyes water and his gut clench suddenly.

Her scent … as if summoned by an evil spell, his mother rose before him.
Boy! Answer me! What are you doing in there? Are you getting into my things?

Then came the clipped, sharp rap of her steps in the hall, a sound he’d learned to dread; just thinking of it now brought the taste of a bar of Lifebuoy back into his mouth, gaggingly.

Oh, you’d better not be
. She’d grate it out at him, drink in hand. The ice would tinkle as she marched toward him.

You bad, bad, boy
.

“Shut up,” he whispered, dropping the thing he’d held.

Or had it squirmed from his hands? The nearly overwhelming impulse to begin washing again flooded him, to scrub and scrub until …

“Just shut up, now. Or … I’ll tell Dad.”

The vicious monologue cut off abruptly. Her ghostly presence shrank to a wink and vanished. Threatening to tell his father had always worked back when she was alive, too.

And when his father was alive. Afterwards, though …

Swallowing a sob, he straightened himself in the dress and stockings, picked up the purse that went with the outfit. He had not imagined that of all the tasks in his plan, this was the one that would be so …

Hard
. But he was fine, he told himself; ordered himself to be, really. He could work with this, walk in the shoes, manage to keep the pantyhose from sliding off his middle, somehow.

So that the only thing left now for him to put on was …

Try it, boy. Just try it, and see what happens. You little loser, you little worm—

All snarled at him in a drunken slur. But for now, the spell was broken.

“Shut up, Ma.” He lifted the thing he’d dropped.

She couldn’t stop him. Couldn’t do anything to him. He moved the thing toward his face, breathed again the old, mingled smells of mothballs and Shalimar.

He couldn’t decide which fragrance he found more evocative, the sweet or the deathlike. Could not in fact decide with any real precision which was which. With trembling hands, he placed the thing he held very carefully onto his own head.

It was a gray, professionally styled wig, made from his mother’s own hair, which she’d cut for the first time in her life on the day the men came to tell her that Steven’s father was dead.

After they’d departed, she’d gone straight to the utility drawer in the kitchen and gotten out the sharp scissors. Steven recalled feeling relieved even through his grief when he saw what she was doing.

Half relieved, anyway, he thought as, placing a small hat atop the wig and pinning it there with a hatpin, then tucking the camera into the purse he carried, he stepped out of the abandoned house on Washington Street. That mass of his mother’s long, wavy gray hair falling to the floor, her wild, incoherent weeping as she’d hacked at it …

Still, at least she hadn’t been going for the scissors to use on him. His childish relief hadn’t lasted very long, though. Because with his dad dead, young Steven had been alone with her, no one around to intervene. And then the real horror had begun.…

Squelching the thought, he stopped at the door. What was he forgetting? Then he remembered; quickly he drew out the camera again, popped the card from its slot and then into his laptop’s card reader. After uploading the photograph he’d taken from his perch in the backyard tree house to his computer, he revisited the local library’s website once more.

With just a couple of taps on the keyboard, he emailed the photograph to the library, specifying by marking a check box that he would visit the library to print it out himself, so prying eyes would be less likely to view it.

Amazing, what you could do with technology nowadays … He grinned, thinking this. Now, though, he must hurry. This part was a bit tricky, and the timing was tight.

But he loved it, he absolutely … Outside, the sunlight was bright even through the thin fog covering the island. Wincing, he put his sunglasses back on.

Touching the wig to make sure it was straight, he began walking in the general direction he’d seen Jacobia Tiptree headed. The pantyhose chafed uncomfortably and the shoes pinched his feet like torture devices; still, he smiled as he proceeded, barely able to hide his euphoric glee.

She wanted to find something. He was about to make sure that she would. And when she did, he wanted to be there.

Watching, until his waiting was over at last.

“HEY.” JAKE STOPPED DEAD IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SIDEWALK
. She had remembered something, and now she couldn’t
un
remember it.

“That concrete we said we’d mix.” Overhead, the sky grew steadily milkier; to the south, a cloud bank lay on the horizon.

Motionless, or so it seemed from here. But out on the chilly ocean, things were lively indeed, she knew: warm air rolling east off the sun-heated land, an offshore summer breeze in full force skimming the cold wave tops.

When that happened, the air cooled. The water vapor quickly condensed. The result:

“Fog,” said Ellie, following Jake’s gesture. “Oh, darn,” she added. “I hope it doesn’t …”

“Rain,” Jake finished grimly. “If it doesn’t hold off, it’ll drown out the fireworks tonight. But from the look of it …”

As they watched, the cloud bank seemed to thicken and grow taller, like a muscle bulking up. Right now, it was still far out over what Sam liked to call the briny deep.

But it wouldn’t be for much longer, and they’d left all the cement, sand, tools, and the mixing trough, too, uncovered in the backyard; annoyed with herself, Jake pointed this out.

“Drat,” said Ellie, looking reluctant. There was no help for it, though; that cement mix couldn’t be allowed to get wet, and a tarp over the whole project wouldn’t help matters at all.

“Double drat,” Jake agreed as they turned back toward the house. “How inconvenient is this?”

Rain or even just a thick fog wouldn’t only ruin the cement bag they’d opened; in addition, it would turn the remaining bags to solid, utterly unusable objects that were also so heavy, it would take a block and tackle—or several large men, none of whom they’d wanted to enlist any further in the project—to move the ruined bags to the bed of the pickup truck.

And thereafter, to the dump. “Oh, let’s just mix the stuff,” said Ellie resignedly when they reached the yard. Which did make some sense; even the hose was still turned on, not even leaking.

Which was the saving grace of the whole operation, thought Jake. But just then a tiny fountain began spurting near the hose nozzle, its spray creating a tiny rainbow.

She stifled a curse. “All right,” she allowed grouchily. “I should
have my amateur home-repair license taken away, you know that? What was I thinking of, leaving all this—”

Because the absolute first rule of home fix-up was Finish What You Start, and the second rule was Put Stuff Away.

Behind the fountain, a wisp of breeze caught the corner of the open bag, sending a gray-white puff swirling up. The hose leak’s spray caught it and spattered the result onto the grass.

“I guess we’d better just do it,” she went on, “before the weather decides to mix this stuff up for us and then the rain comes and slops it all over the tarp.”

At least the firs and the low, red-fruited barberry bushes around the edges of the yard lent privacy. But as she shoveled sand from the garden cart into the mixing trough, Jake glanced uneasily up at the pointed trees.

“Oh, come on,” said Ellie, understanding Jake’s unease. “You don’t really think …”

“That he’s up there? No.” Jake ran water into the trough. This was the tricky part, adding enough water but not too much.

“Not in the trees, anyway. But I still feel … 
watched.
”

Using a trowel, she stirred the water, sand, and cement mix experimentally in the trough, then added a little more water.

“Nerves,” Ellie diagnosed. “You know he’s around here, and not knowing exactly where makes you feel he could be anywhere.”

“Or everywhere,” Jake agreed, looking up once more. The only things in the trees were a couple of accidentally released small balloons and a flock of enthusiastically cheeping purple finches.

From downtown came a blare of patriotic music played through a loudspeaker, followed by the revving of engines that signaled the imminent start of the parade. Jake stirred harder.

“Maybe one of the others will find Steven Garner while we’re doing this,” Ellie said hopefully. But then, “Um. Jake?”

Never a good sign. “What?” Jake snapped a little more tartly than she’d intended; her mood was deteriorating rapidly.

“Well,” Ellie responded mildly, “not to be nitpicky. The thing is,
though, we’re mixing concrete
here
. But the forms”—she pointed at the wooden boxes that the concrete was to be poured into—“are over
there
.”

Oh, blast and damnation
.

“And we can’t just pick the forms up and move them,” Ellie went on, her forehead furrowing as she worked it out in her head, “because …”

Because the forms had to be level. Otherwise, as Jake had figured out and carefully allowed for earlier by placing a level on them, the blocks that came out of them wouldn’t be square.

And now … now the concrete had been mixed and was already beginning to set. Much longer and it would be too thick to pour.

Or in this case, shovel; the trough was too heavy to lift. So it was too late to move the forms now. Or … was it?

“Okay, just wait here a minute,” said Jake, crossing the yard hastily.

Grabbing up the forms, the shingle pieces they’d used for shims beneath them, the eyebolts she meant to set into the concrete, and the bolt brackets that held the eyebolts, she stalked back to the mixing trough and dropped them all.

Then, while Ellie waited bemusedly, she sprinted across the lawn to the corner where the compost heap loomed behind a screen of forsythia. There in the cool gloom, she took deep breaths, clenched her fists, and uttered the very same swear words that Bella had used a little earlier, one after the other.

Finally she strode back to the mixing area, refreshed—and freshly unnerved. Because while she’d stood by the pile of coffee grounds, lawn clippings, and eggshells, relying on the power of bad language to flush fury from her system, she’d seen … what?

“A flash,” she told Ellie as she set up the concrete forms again, working fast so they could actually fill the forms without the concrete turning to hardened lumps on the shovels.

She hoped. “Like … from binoculars,” she added unhappily as she replaced the shims.

“Really. From where?”

Jake laid the level across one corner of the first form and then across the opposite corner. “The top floor of the old meetinghouse,” she replied. “Where you
would
go, if …”

If you wanted to spy down into the backyard of my place
, she didn’t finish. But Ellie understood.