Spackled and Spooked (3 page)

This long, low ranch was as different as could be from Aunt Inga’s cottage, the last—the only—house we’d worked on together, but I could already see the finished product in my head. And there would be no pink walls or daisies. What there would be were gleaming hardwood floors instead of stained, tan carpets, walls painted in bright yet neutral colors—cocoa, gray, taupe—and some to-die-for retro accessories. Light fixtures, rugs, maybe some wallpaper or tile in the bathrooms. Something to really set the tone and the mood without turning potential buyers off. The kitchen would have to be gutted and modernized. Formica counters would be nice. Formica was huge in the ’60s, and these days, the new solid surface Formica is fabulous. And maybe we could put in some of those sleek, Scandinavian cabinets Derek had in his loft, along with some ultramodern stainless steel appliances. . . .

“These appliances are hideous,” I said, reaching out a hand to touch the brick red stove next to us. “They’ll definitely have to go. And someone didn’t do a very good job cleaning up, either. There’s a big spill of something down the front of this thing. From the corner here, see? They probably didn’t notice, against the red. Looks like spaghetti sauce or ketchup or something.”

Derek’s arm stiffened around my shoulders, and when I looked up, I saw that he had a funny look on his face. “Oh,” I said, and snatched my hand away. Maybe not ketchup after all. We took a couple of synchronized steps away from the stove. “Um . . . where exactly did the shootings take place?”

“Bedrooms,” Derek said.

“Maybe someone came through the kitchen at some point. Trying to get to the back door, or something.”

The little boy . . . no, he wouldn’t have been in contact with any blood. One of the in-laws, maybe, fatally wounded, trying to make it to safety: staggering toward the back door, holding on to the stove for support. They would have cleaned up though, wouldn’t they? My stomach clenched.

“Let’s get out of here,” Derek said. “Have you seen enough?” It was a rhetorical question; he was already on his way out of the kitchen toward the front door, pulling me along with him.

“More than enough,” I answered, hustling to keep up. His legs are a lot longer than mine. “We’ll have to clean it up, you know.”

He glanced at me without slowing his stride. “Like hell we will. I’ll put on a pair of gloves and haul it out to the truck, but that’s the most I’ll do. Let the people at the dump deal with it.”

“Works for me. Like I said, the appliances will have to be replaced anyway.”

He nodded, yanking open the front door and shooing me toward it. “After you.”

I took a step forward and stopped on the threshold with a squeak, face-to-face with a menacing figure, one arm lifted and ending in a closed fist.

A second or two passed while I rocked back on my heels, trying to catch my breath, and while Derek peered around the doorframe to figure out why I wasn’t moving. “Who the hell are you?” he said.

The young man outside lowered his arm, and I realized he wasn’t near as menacing as I had thought. We had yanked the door open just as he was about to knock, and he looked as rattled as I felt.

I placed him somewhere around twenty, with a freckled face, pale blue eyes, and a prominent Adam’s apple, which suddenly bounced as he swallowed.

“Who are you?” Derek asked again, more calmly this time, and the young man shifted his attention from me to him.

“My name’s Lionel Kenefick. I live down the road apiece.”

His voice was a lot deeper and more resonant than I had expected, considering his small stature and narrow chest. He gestured with his thumb over his shoulder. Derek nodded. I knew from experience that in Maine,
down the road apiece
could mean anywhere from three doors down to three miles out of town.

“Where the van’s parked out front,” Lionel clarified. Derek looked over Lionel’s shoulder. Being much shorter, I snuck a peek around Lionel’s far-from-imposing frame and spied a dirty paneled van in a driveway halfway down the block. A couple of ladders and some other paraphernalia were attached to the roof rack.

“Carpenter?” Derek inquired.

Lionel shook his head, causing strands of reddish hair to fall into his eyes. “Electrician.”

“Who are you working for? Yourself?”

“Subcontractor. I’m working in Devon Highlands.” He sounded proud, as well he should, considering that Devon Highlands was the biggest, most expensive development going into Waterfield at the moment, and the Stenhams were the biggest construction contractors in town. Poor guy, he couldn’t have known that mentioning the Stenhams and their development to either one of us was like waving a red flag in the face of a bull. Derek scowled but didn’t take the bait.

“What can we do for you, Lionel?” he asked instead, bluntly.

“Oh,” Lionel said. His blue eyes flicked back and forth. “I . . . um . . . saw the truck. Was wondering what was going on. Are you guys gonna be renovating the place?”

Derek nodded. “We’re buying it.”

“Oh,” Lionel said again. “Um . . . I thought maybe Pat was back . . . ?” His inflection made it sound like a question.

“Apparently not,” Derek said. “He’s selling the house to us.”

“Did you know Patrick?” I interjected.

“Best friends when we were little. Till he left.”

“Did you stay in touch with him afterwards?”

Lionel shrugged narrow shoulders. “Tried. I haven’t heard anything from him for years now, though. But when I saw the truck, I thought maybe he was coming home.”

“Guess maybe he feels there’s nothing to come home to,” Derek said lightly. I nodded. I certainly wouldn’t want to move back into the house where my father had killed my mother and my grandparents. I’d do exactly what Patrick had done and off-load it tout de suite.

Lionel looked from one to the other of us. “Are you guys gonna be moving in?”

Derek shook his head. “We’re just planning to renovate it and put it back on the market. Make some money.”

“Derek lives in downtown,” I added. “I own a house on Bayberry.”

Lionel nodded. “Let me know if you need an electrician. I can always use some extra money.”

Derek told him we would, and Lionel stood for another second, shuffling his feet. “Place is haunted, you know,” he said at last, without looking at either of us. Derek quirked an eyebrow.

“Have you seen anything spooky?” I wanted to know. Lionel shrugged.

“Not much to see. Lights go on and off sometimes, is all. Shadows moving. I’ve heard ’em, though. Late at night. Screaming.”

I felt a chill go down my spine. “Screaming?”

Lionel nodded, his pale eyes catching mine for a second then sliding away. “He shot ’em in their sleep, you know, so they didn’t have time to scream. Guess they’re making up for it now.”

He stood for a moment while the blood drained out of my head, then he walked away, across the grass to the gravel edging the road. I kept my eye on him while Derek inserted the key in the lock and made sure the house was secure.

“That was interesting,” he said when he turned back to me, his voice deliberately light. I nodded with a last look at Lionel, who was just turning into his driveway. The house he lived in was another brick ranch, like all the houses on the street. This one was a dull gray in color, with overgrown bushes in the front yard. Just before he disappeared, Lionel turned around once and stared at us.

“I’m not sure if interesting is the word I’d choose, but yes, I guess it was. Do you think it’s true?”

Derek shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care. He’s probably just yanking our chains.”

“But what if it’s true?”

He answered my question with one of his own. “Are you planning to spend the night out here, Tinkerbell? No? Then I don’t think you have anything to worry about. If the screaming comes at night, we’ll just make sure we’re gone by sundown. Ready?” He put an arm around my shoulders and guided me down the steps toward the car.

2

Two weeks later, the house was ours. By nine o’clock the morning after closing, we were hard at work. I was stripping the ketchup-bottle-patterned paper from the kitchen walls, wielding my handheld scorer expertly, while Derek was putting his muscles to good use yanking up the soiled wall-to-wall carpeting and carpet pad in the common rooms. I’d catch occasional glimpses of him through the doorway and stop for a moment to enjoy the show. The muscles in his upper arms bunched as he hauled on the stubborn carpet, and every time he bent to grab another piece, his faded jeans stretched tight across his behind. I smiled appreciatively. The blinds were off the windows, allowing sharp autumn sunshine to flood in, and the light gilded his hair and outlined all those lovely muscles.

That same sunshine didn’t do so flattering a job on the house itself. There were cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling, faded and peeling paint, legions of dead flies littering every windowsill, and even a mummified mouse on the floor in the smallest bedroom. Derek removed it, along with the soiled stove and ancient refrigerator in the kitchen.

“If Jemmy and Inky happen to stop in at Aunt Inga’s house tonight,” he said when he came back from depositing the unfortunate rodent in the oversized Dumpster we had rented, “try to make them stick around so they can come with us tomorrow. Just in case there are more rodents.”

I nodded, although my chances of holding on to Jemmy and Inky if they didn’t want to be held—and they usually didn’t—were practically nil.

Jemmy and Inky were cats. Specifically, Maine coon cats. The biggest breed there is. Jemmy topped twenty pounds, and Inky was close to fifteen. They had belonged to my aunt, and I had inherited them along with her house. Or they had inherited me, for those rare times when they needed something. Jemmy and Inky don’t cuddle, they don’t care whether I’m there or not, and they search me out only when they want something, usually food. They come and go as they please, through a cat flap in the back door, and as long as there’s food and water in their bowls, I rarely see them. Still, I could try to keep them around if they surfaced this evening. By locking the cat flap after they were inside, for instance, so they couldn’t leave again. Derek would be putting them in the truck in the morning, though. After being kept inside all night, they’d be seriously annoyed, and I wasn’t about to risk my skin. If Derek wanted to bring them, Derek could handle getting them here.

Despite the dead mouse, and the thought that there might be more where that one came from, I was still psyched about renovating the house. It was such a promising place. All it needed was some tender, loving care to come into its own after being ignored and neglected for so many years. It was a friendly house, in spite of what had happened here. I didn’t get any creepy vibes, and if there was screaming going on, we didn’t hear it. Nothing untoward had happened, and so far, we hadn’t come across anything too horrible in the structural department, either. No major wood rot, no evidence of termites or carpenter ants. The plumbing needed work, of course, as did the electrical system, but we’d been expecting that.

“Are you planning to call Lionel Kenefick?” I asked. The young man had, after all, offered.

“I’ll do the electrical work myself,” Derek answered. “If he works for the Stenhams, he probably doesn’t know what he’s doing anyway.”

“That’s a little harsh, isn’t it? He could be a great electrician.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Derek said, and of course he’d never see it, because he was going to do the work himself. I didn’t say anything.

So structurally, at least, the place seemed sound. Or so we thought, until midafternoon, when Derek, now ripping up the vinyl floor in the kitchen for a change of pace, came into the second bathroom, where I was once again wielding my scorer to great effect, stripping wallpaper blossoming with twining vines of roses and thorns.

“Problem,” he said, succinctly.

“What kind of problem?” I climbed off the step stool I’d been standing on and out of the tub, where the step stool was positioned.

“Weak floor in the kitchen. Under the refrigerator and the bank of cabinets where the dishwasher was. There’s probably been a leak at some point, and now the floor’s soft.”

“Can you fix it?”

Derek snorted. “Of course I can fix it. It’s just going to take a day or two. I’m going to have to go into the crawlspace and do it from below. I thought you might want to come out there with me and see what’s going on.”