Mortar and Murder (19 page)

Derek shook his head. “Great minds, I guess. I figured it was just a matter of time before he got here. If Irina isn’t answering her phone, this is the logical place to start.”

I nodded. Wayne had gotten out of the car and was scowling. I braced myself.

“That went rather well, I thought,” Derek said judiciously thirty minutes later, after Wayne had finished chewing both of us out for interfering with his investigation. Never mind the fact that we hadn’t done anything wrong, and if it hadn’t been for us talking to Arthur, and Arthur saying that Irina had gone camping, we’d have no idea what had happened to her. Wayne was still upset that we’d beaten him here.

“I thought you were headed for Rowanberry Island!”

“We changed our minds,” I said.

“Avery was worried about Irina,” Derek added, throwing me to the wolves. I shot him a betrayed glance. He shrugged, and not apologetically.

“And so she should be,” Wayne snarled. “You realize how this looks, don’t you?”

I made a face. Of course we did: like Irina had met with Lori Trent, had been spooked by something the ICE agent had said or done, and had bashed her over the head with something—like the missing
pysanka
. And then she had dumped it, and the body, in the water in the harbor.

Except . . . the backpack may have been big, but was it big enough to hide the body? Probably not. Or—if they’d met near the harbor, as Derek had suggested—why would Irina be carrying the paperweight? Unless she had brought it specifically to bash in the head of Agent Trent. But that would make it premeditated murder....

“Yes, Wayne,” Derek said, watching the thoughts chase each other across my face, “we realize exactly how it looks. Unfortunately.”

Wayne snarled something before turning to Arthur. “We have to talk.”

Arthur nodded.

“What about us?” I asked, a little diffidently.

Wayne scowled at me. “You two can go. I know where to find you. And no more interfering with my investigation!”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I said.

Wayne growled and waved us away, as if we were annoying midges buzzing around his head.

And that was what prompted Derek’s remark when we were back in the truck and on our way back to Waterfield proper.

“You mean, because he didn’t arrest us for impeding his investigation?”

“We’re not impeding his investigation. It’s not like we held anything back.”

“There was nothing to hold back,” I pointed out.

“That, too. But we wouldn’t have held anything back even if we’d learned something interesting.”

I didn’t answer. “I don’t think he wants us to keep looking for Irina, though. Did you get that impression?”

Derek glanced at me. “Are you thinking of looking for Irina? Because I’m not sure I want you to do that, either.”

“Why not? You don’t really think she killed Lori Trent, do you?”

Derek didn’t respond. My voice rose and became shrill.

“Are you crazy? Can you imagine Irina bashing someone over the head with a paperweight and pushing them into the harbor? Irina!”

“Paperweight?” Derek repeated, without actually answering my questions.

I squirmed. “She had this big, egg-shaped paperweight in her living room the other day, when I was there with Wayne. A
pysanka
. Ukrainian Easter egg. Painted in bright colors. I picked it up, and it weighted a ton.”

“Really?” Derek said.

I nodded. “I looked for it through the living room window earlier, but I couldn’t see it. Wayne will probably go inside, don’t you think? And see if it’s still there?”

“I’m sure he will,” Derek said. “Do you want me to call and remind him?”

I shook my head. “He was there the other day, too. We talked about it. The
pysanka
. He’ll remember.” And if he didn’t, and it wasn’t there, it wasn’t my job to remind him.

“Right,” Derek said, but he didn’t say anything else. He knows me well, though, so I’m sure he knew what I was thinking.

“So what now?” he asked instead.

I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. “Almost lunch-time. I guess we should find some food and something useful to do for the rest of the day.”

“Want to run up to Boothbay Harbor and see what Ian has come up with for us?”

“Your friend at the salvage store?”

Derek nodded. “I called him a couple of days ago and told him to gather doorknobs and old fireplace tiles and anything else he has that might be Colonial or Federal.”

“You think he’s had time to put anything together?”

“He’d better,” Derek said, turning the truck onto the ocean road. “He knows every piece of junk in the place, so I don’t see why he won’t have. And there’s a little clam shack up that way where we can have lunch, too.” He took his hands off the wheel for a second to rub them together in anticipation.

“With Ian?”

Hands back on the wheel now, Derek glanced over at me. “If he wants to. Though I don’t think he will.”

“Why not? Can’t he leave the business in the middle of the day?”

“That’s part of it. It’s just him since his dad retired, so he usually eats his meals at the counter and sleeps under it. Good man, knows a lot about a lot of things. But he isn’t real comfortable around women.”

“How come?”

“No idea. We’ve never talked about it. But I took Melissa up to the salvage yard once, and it wasn’t pretty.”

“What happened?”

Derek rolled his eyes. “You know what she’s like.”

I did, indeed. Gorgeous, elegant, confident, and condescending. I couldn’t imagine she’d have enjoyed waiting while her husband crawled around a dirty, dusty junkyard full of other people’s castoffs. Especially since she’d thought she’d be married to a doctor and not a glorified handyman. “She probably wasn’t very nice, was she?”

“No,” Derek said, “she wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong; Ian’s a nice guy. But you should probably just ignore him. Pretend he isn’t there unless he talks to you.”

“I can do that,” I said, and sat back to enjoy the drive and the occasional glimpses of the waters of the Atlantic through the window. After almost a year in Maine, I still hadn’t gotten tired of looking at the ocean.

Boothbay Harbor is about the same distance from Waterfield as Portland, but in the other direction, up the ocean road to the northeast. We got there a little before one and stopped for lunch at the clam shack Derek had mentioned, where the food was every bit as good as he’d intimated. By the time we got to Ian’s place, on the north side of town, it was closer to two.

Boothbay Harbor is another gorgeous little Maine town. Like Waterfield, it started life as a shipbuilding and fishing village, and those industries are still alive and well, but during the tourist season, tourism trumps everything. At the moment, it was still too early in the year for many out-of-towners, and the streets were mostly quiet, while many of the tourist traps were closed for the winter.

“What do these people do all winter?” I asked Derek as we passed another little souvenir shop with a sign in the window: Back at Half Past April.

Derek grinned, reading it. “Snowbirds,” he said, “most likely. Folks who spend the summers working around the clock, and who take the winters off and go to warmer climates.”

“Florida?” Like Gert Heyerdahl and Arthur Mattson’s friend Lon Wilson and Derek’s paw-paw Willie.

He nodded. “Mostly Florida. Although some go to Arizona or Alabama or Texas, too.”

“Do they all go away? Everyone whose store is closed?” If so, the permanent population of this place must halve in the winter.

He shook his head. “Some just close up shop and do other things. Sometimes the tourism businesses are sidelines, and they have other jobs as well. Sometimes they take temporary jobs over the winter to keep money coming in until they can open the business again. Some make enough during the season that they just sit back and wait it out.”

I nodded. “Is that Ian’s place?”

It looked like a junkyard: a big, ramshackle, shedlike building with a smaller building next to it; the smaller building actually had both walls, windows, and a door, as opposed to the bigger structure, which had a wall in the front and the back, but nothing on the sides. The whole thing was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Beyond the chain link, I could see an ocean of toilets, sinks, and old-fashioned claw-footed and pedestal bathtubs. Under the roof of the shed were stacks and rows of windows and doors, sidelights and shutters, with light fixtures suspended from the ceiling beams above. The sign on the front said Burns Salvage.

Derek nodded. “This is it. Ian’s last name is Burns.”

His eyes had turned soft and dreamy, the way they always do when he sees something appealing. And I’m not talking about when he’s looking at me. No, this is the look Derek reserves for architectural elements that get his blood pumping. The first time I saw it, he was looking at my aunt Inga’s kitchen, with its peeling linoleum floor, rusty half-circular wall sink, and driftwood cabinets. I’ve seen it many times since, in every house we’ve ever renovated. Now I saw it again, as Derek took in the many possibilities inherent in the cast-off bathroom fixtures, old wooden doors, and many-paned windows stretched out before him.

“Are you ready?” I nudged him.

His eyes came back in focus and he grinned. “Sure.”

“Then let’s go. You can turn the place upside down after we see what Ian has found for us.”

Derek nodded, and I could see that he did, indeed, plan to do just that.

He held the door into the office open for me. I passed through first and looked around.

The space was small and old. The walls were paneled—not nicely paneled, like our Colonial, but paneled in ugly 1970s sheet paneling, speckled green—and there was an old counter taking up most of the room, with two ratty office chairs up against the wall under the window. They were orange and dirty, and the stuffing was coming out in places where years of wear had worn away the fabric. Behind the counter hung a dog-eared calendar with pictures of lighthouses, and a notice saying, “I can only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow doesn’t look good, either.” I wondered whether this was Ian’s philosophy or whether it was a joke. It could be taken either way, I thought.

The man behind the counter, reading a copy of
Hunting & Fishing
, must be Ian.

Now, Derek is no shrimp, height-wise or in any other way. He’s six feet tall, give or take an inch, and there’s nothing wrong with the rest of him, either. A guy doesn’t haul lumber and heavy tools around all day and fail to build some muscle. But next to Ian, he looked downright puny.

Ian looked like Paul Bunyan, in a black and red checkered flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. And his lower arms were as big around as my thighs, furry with dark hair. He had shoulder-length, black hair, a big beard, ruddy cheeks—what I could see of them behind the growth—and different-colored eyes under bushy brows. One bright blue, one hazel, like an Australian shepherd. Although it was hard to tell with all the hair, I placed him at a few years older than Derek; maybe forty, maybe a year or two over or under. He blushed when he saw me, but the beard split in a grin when he spied Derek behind me.

“Hey, man!” His voice was raspy, as if he had a pack-a-day habit, or laryngitis. The smile made him look younger. Getting up made him look bigger; he towered over me as he leaned across the counter to clasp Derek’s hand. If he didn’t exactly tower over Derek, it was a near thing. Ian must stand almost seven feet tall, and correspondingly broad.

I stood politely aside as the two of them exchanged pleasantries. Eventually, Derek turned to introduce me. “This is Avery. We’re in business together.” The look he gave me was a reminder to be nice to poor, delicate Ian. I made a face.

Ian’s dual-colored eyes wandered over me. “Just business?”

Derek shrugged, smiling. Ian smiled, too. He didn’t offer to shake my hand. I didn’t mind. He looked like he could break a few of my bones without even trying.

“I like her better than the other one,” Ian said. I wasn’t sure that I liked being talked about like I wasn’t here and couldn’t hear every word they said, but on the other hand, he liked me better than Melissa, so that had to be a good thing.

“I do, too.” Derek winked at me.

Ian grinned. “I got something to show you, too.” He turned away, then bellowed, loud enough that I was worried the windows would break, “Angie!”

“Angie?” Derek repeated, giving his head a shake. He was probably trying to stop his ears from ringing. I know mine were.

Ian nodded. “Just wait.”

We waited. After a minute, a door opened somewhere, and we heard light footsteps in the back room, somewhere behind the office. A figure appeared in the doorway. “Yes?”

Derek straightened up. I blinked. And Ian’s beard broke open in a beaming, adoring smile.