Mortar and Murder (11 page)

“I guess everything’s all right, then?”

Melissa’s delicate ears, with diamond studs in them, were almost visibly vibrating.

“Everything is wonderful,” I said firmly. “I’m meeting her again at six. Is there any reason we can’t be back in Waterfield by then?”

“None I can think of,” Derek said.

Melissa sounded peeved. It was probably the mention of Irina. A competing Realtor, and the one we gave our business to. “Are you buying something new?” she wanted to know.

Derek didn’t answer.

“Not right now,” I said. “We’re plenty busy with this house at the moment. And for the next several months.”

Melissa looked around, her perfect nose wrinkled. “It’s rather rough,” she said, in what was clearly the understatement of the year.

I looked around, too. Worm-eaten paneling, dull wood floors, stains on the ceiling from water intrusion. And I saw Gert Heyerdahl’s gleaming white paint, polished floors, and perfect front door in my mind. “It’ll be OK. We specialize in rough.”

Derek sent me another grin. “If you say so,” Melissa said, sounding doubtful. She could easily have turned the comment into a snide comparison between herself and me, so I should probably be grateful that she didn’t.

We did end up being stuck with her for the rest of the day, and that may be why Derek agreed to leave the island earlier than usual. He just couldn’t stand the company any longer. She was getting on my nerves, too; it wasn’t like we could put her to work—not dressed in cashmere and silk—so she just stood there, arms folded under her breasts, watching what we did over our shoulders all afternoon. Occasionally she’d look at her watch, a dainty thing beset with diamonds, and sort of fidget.

By just after four o’clock Derek had had enough. If it had been just the two of us, I’m sure he would have insisted we get going on something else for a couple hours after the fireplace was finished and drying, but today he just straightened his back, stretched out the kinks, and said, “Ready to go home?”

Melissa nodded.

“Avery?”

I thought about giving him a hard time but decided against it. “Ready when you are.”

“C’mere.” He slung an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to him, totally disregarding the fact that Melissa was standing right there. “I didn’t get a chance to say hello earlier.”

“Hello,” I said breathlessly, the smell of Ivory soap and shampoo, sawdust and paint thinner flooding my nose.

“I missed you this morning.” He bent to drop a quick kiss on my mouth, his eyes warm.

“I missed you, too,” I said when I’d gotten my breath back. Melissa rolled her eyes.

Derek glanced at her and grinned. “Let’s get home,” he said and steered me toward the door. Melissa brought up the rear, the clicking of her high heels sounding annoyed. Just as she stepped off the porch and onto the grass, a gray streak of fur shot across the grass directly in front of her. Melissa squealed and stumbled back, sitting down with a splat and an unladylike grunt.

“It’s a kitten!” I told Derek excitedly. “A little gray blue kitten.”

Lips twitching, he went to help Melissa up. “No kidding.”

“I’m not. That’s what it is. A kitten.”

Melissa sent me a dirty look. She had a dirty spot on the back of her lovely, taupe-covered butt, too.

She managed to keep up through the pasture down to the boat, though, and got into the rocking vessel more easily than I did, in spite of her high heels and my clogs.

“Remember that boat trip we took just after we got here, Derek?” she asked when she had plunked her elegant—but dirty—posterior on one of the seats. “And that sweet little cabin we rented for the weekend.”

Derek nodded. “Monhegan. It’s another island,” he explained for my benefit, “farther out into the ocean from here. Ten miles from the mainland.”

“I’ve heard of Monhegan. Artist’s colony, right? I wouldn’t have thought it would be your kind of place, Melissa.”

From what I knew, Monhegan was beautiful but wild. No cars or paved roads, and with a year-round population smaller even than Rowanberry’s. And way out to sea.

Melissa smiled. Or showed teeth. “I’m not sure we left the cabin that whole weekend, Avery.”

“Oh,” I said, sinking my teeth into my lip, my cheeks flushing. Derek glanced at me and then at Melissa.

“Lay off her, Melly. She doesn’t want to know about our sex life.”

“Did I say anything about our sex life?” Melissa answered innocently.

“You said enough.” He cranked the key in the engine and cut off anything else she might be thinking about saying. Melissa smiled, her expression that of a cat contemplating a big bowl of heavy cream as she looked at me under her lashes.

There’s nothing wrong with the physical end of Derek’s and my relationship. Or the other end, for that matter. I smiled back, a big toothy grin. She looked away.

We spent the boat ride in silence. The motor was humming loudly, the wind was blowing, and the water was misting. Derek and I exchanged the occasional smile, but other than that, no one spoke. I kept looking at the water to avoid looking at Melissa, but without seeing anything of interest.

“Here we are,” Derek said when he had pulled the boat into the slip in Waterfield harbor and had tied off. He jumped up on the dock and extended a hand down. “Melissa?”

“Thank you.” She held on to his hand a second or two longer than strictly necessary. “I’ll see you later?”

If the flirtatious tone registered with Derek, he didn’t show it. “As soon as Avery’s settled. I have to put another coat of mud on that drywall patch in the wall.” He turned to me. “Tink?”

“Thank you.” I grabbed his hand and clambered out of the boat. “You don’t have to wait for me. The sooner you finish the drywall, the sooner I’ll see you.”

“Right,” Derek said, with a ghost of a grin.

“Plus, I left the Beetle right there.” I pointed. The rounded, green top poked out of the sea of other cars a half block away in the harbor parking lot. “I’ll give you a ride if you want.”

“I forgot you drove yourself this morning. And no, we can walk. It’s just two or three blocks. I’ll finish the drywall repair and then I’ll call you.” He kissed me. Softly. For a long time. And then he winked. It was probably at least partly for Melissa’s benefit, but I wasn’t complaining.

“OK,” I managed. Melissa rolled her eyes. Her suede boot was tapping impatiently on the pavement.

“Keep your hair on,” Derek told her. “Big date tonight?”

Melissa’s voice was stiff. “I’m meeting Tony for dinner at the Waymouth Tavern at eight.”

We’ll be sure not to go there,
I thought.

“Don’t worry,” Derek said, “I’ll be out of your apartment long before then. You can bring him home afterward with no worries that your ex-husband will still be hanging around.”

“Jerk.” Melissa sniffed.

I hid a smile. “Call me when you’re finished. I’ll go meet Irina now, and then we can hook up later.”

Derek nodded and gave me a sort of salute. They headed off toward Main Street, while I veered right, toward the parking lot and the Beetle. When I turned to look at them over my shoulder, Melissa had hooked on to Derek’s arm and was holding on as she minced up the street. Her butt was still dirty, too.

From what I’ve been told, the Waterfield PD used to be housed in one of the historic houses close to downtown. That was before my time, of course. About fifteen years ago or so, the town—and more importantly, nearby Portland—had grown big enough that the police in Waterfield needed more space for more officers, for parking, for technology; and at that point, they built a new police station on the west side of town, off the Portland Highway.

It’s a typically utilitarian building, one-story tall and built of red brick, with a parking lot out front for a dozen cruisers and more visitors. I slotted the Beetle in between a parked black-and-white and a red truck with a gun rack in the back.

Inside in the lobby, behind a counter to the right, a middle-aged woman was fielding phone calls, a hands-free headset clamped over her gray-streaked black curls, and a tiny microphone arching in front of her mouth. ”. . . will give Chief Rasmussen the message,” she was saying into it when I walked in, “and we’ll see what happens. Yes, ma’am, you’re very welcome.”

The call disconnected itself, and she looked up at me. “Can I help you?”

I introduced myself. “I’m here to see Wayne. Police Chief Rasmussen. About that body in the water.”

“He told me you’d be coming.” She ticked my name off on a list. “Have a seat on the couch there, and I’ll tell him you’re here.”

“You must be Ramona Estrada,” I said. The police secretary.

“That’s right.” She didn’t ask me how I knew her name, just got on the horn with Wayne. Good thing, too, because I would have had to tell her that my boyfriend once strung me along for quite a while, making me believe that Ramona Estrada was some kind of super-hot Jennifer Lopez look-alike in a tight police uniform, instead of this fifty-something happily married grandmother in a flowered blouse and old-lady polyester pants.

I took my seat on the couch, and no sooner had I gotten comfortable than Wayne opened a door on the left. “C’mon down, Avery.”

I jumped up again and hurried toward him. “Is Irina here?”

“She just arrived. Come into my office.” He held the door open for me. I ducked under his arm—Wayne is six foot four—and inside.

The office wasn’t any bigger than Aunt Inga’s front parlor; nothing impressive for a chief of police. Most of it was taken up by a long row of filing cabinets against the back wall, with maps of Waterfield, of the rest of Maine, and of the islands off the coast tacked up above them. Irina was sitting in a straight-backed chair in front of the desk. Wayne waved me to a matching chair next to it and walked around the desk. I curled up on the gray fabric and nodded to Irina, who looked like she’d spent a rough day in the trenches. She nodded back and forced a smile that looked more like a grimace.

“Tough day?” Wayne inquired, stretching his long legs out under the desk. He looked from Irina to me. When Irina didn’t answer, I felt I had to.

“When I got to Rowanberry Island this afternoon, Melissa was there. Hanging over Derek’s shoulder. We were stuck with her for the rest of the day.”

Wayne tried to suppress a smile but couldn’t quite do it. “Where are they now?”

“Derek and Melissa?” And wasn’t that weird, having to lump them together like that in the same sentence? “At her place. He’s still working on her stupid bathroom. The leak is fixed, but he has to finish repairing the drywall. I’m meeting him for dinner when I’m finished here.”

Wayne nodded. “Guess we’d better get on with it, then.” He leaned down to open a cabinet in the desk and pull out the wrapped package Dr. Lawrence had given him that morning. Except now the paper was open, just lightly tucked around the contents. Wayne shoved a couple of things aside on his desk to make room for the package there. As we watched, he folded the waxed paper back.

A pitiful little collection of clothes lay there. A pair of blue jeans with frayed bottoms. A cropped top. A pair of underwear, plain cotton. A bra, ditto.

Wayne held them up, one at a time. “Either of you recognize these, or know where she might have bought them?”

Irina and I both shook our heads.

“All the tags are cut out. Even on the bra. Might mean that someone was afraid we’d be able to trace her that way. Avery, you said you recognized the brand of jeans?”

I nodded. “They’re Gloria Jeans. I thought they were, and now I’m sure of it. I recognize the stitching, and the pattern on the pockets.”

“Irina?” Wayne turned to her. “Gloria is a Russian brand, is that right?”

“Yes.” She hardly moved her lips to utter the single syllable.

“Are these popular in the Ukraine? Are they for sale there?”

Irina nodded stiffly.

“What about the rest of the clothes? Feel free to touch them; any evidence has been collected already.”

Irina and I both reached out. I toward the top, she toward the bra. The shirt was stiff from the salt water. After fingering it for a minute, I swapped it for Irina’s bra. Neither of us made a move toward the pair of panties. There’s just something icky about other people’s underwear, even when the person who used to wear it is dead. Perhaps
especially
when the person who used to wear it is dead.

“Honestly,” I told Wayne when we had both finished our inspections and the clothes were back on the desk, “it’s hard to tell. The jeans are clearly foreign. I recognize the brand. But like I told you, you can find them for sale in New York. As for the rest of it, like Dr. Lawrence said, even American-made clothes are made abroad these days, so there’s not going to be much difference in the construction of American and foreign. Not if they’re all made in the same place anyway.”