Читать книгу Boston Scream Murder - Ginger Bolton - Страница 10

Chapter 4

Terri wasn’t the only one who didn’t finish a donut. Steve ate his jack-o’-lantern donut, but after he and Cheryl left, I discovered that the two pieces of candy corn that Nina had used as eyes on his jack-o’-lantern donut were underneath his plate’s rim.

We closed for the afternoon at four thirty as usual and made the yeast dough we would need the next morning, including enough for Rich’s Boston cream donuts. I told Nina and Tom that Rich had said he’d talked to a former client who had contacts in the art world.

Nina glanced at me and away again. “Sweet,” she said softly.

Tom asked, “Did Royalson give you a name?”

“No, why? Did you ever arrest any Fallingbrook art connoisseurs?”

Tom studied the ceiling as if Fallingbrook had large numbers of criminal art connoisseurs and their names were written up there. “I can’t think of any at the moment.”

Nina wasn’t afraid to tease him back. “Don’t worry. I won’t spend the millions I expect from my paintings like, oh, about next week.”

“You’re irreplaceable here,” Tom told her. “But by about your second million, we’ll understand if you want to devote all of your time to painting.”

Nina smiled. “As if. But thanks.”

We placed the yeast dough we’d made into our proofing cabinet and set the temperature and humidity to allow the dough to rise perfectly overnight.

Nina walked home with Dep and me. Dep wore a halter and leash and was good at keeping the pace—her pace. Falling leaves tempted her to practice her hunting skills, which weren’t very good at the best of times. She did catch one leaf. After it landed.

We all trotted up the stairs to the porch of Dep’s and my sweet yellow brick Victorian cottage. Just inside the front door, I took off the wiggly cat’s halter and leash, gave her a quick hug, and set her down on the pine planks of the living room floor. She scampered toward the back of the house where she could, if she wanted, find her food, water, toys, and litter tray. Or she could relax on a wide, cushioned windowsill above a radiator cover in the sunroom and watch squirrels bury acorns.

I locked the house, and Nina and I headed to the driveway. Pointing at the kayak on top of my car, she teased, “You know that the reds of your kayak and your car clash?”

“Yes, and that a kayak on the roof of a fast car makes it look like a slow car. And act more like one, too.”

“You’re never going to drive top speed, anyway.”

I backed carefully out of the driveway. “Don’t count on it.”

“Are you expecting a flood? Or were you planning to paddle to this guy’s cottage?”

I pulled out onto the street. “Good idea. I’ve never gone kayaking on Lake Fleekom. You can balance on the back of the boat with your feet in the water.” More seriously, I added, “I’ve been keeping my kayak on top of the car since midsummer, when I bought it. That way, I can race off for some last-minute kayaking whenever I want to.”

She eyed me slyly. “With your handsome detective.”

“Or by myself. And Brent is not mine. I’ll probably get him to help me put the kayak away for the winter, though. He said I could store it in his garage.” Someday, I hoped to have a garage built beside my own house. “That would be better than trying to heave it over the wall around my yard.”

“You could open a gate.”

“There aren’t any. I have to go through the house to get from the front yard to the back. It’s inconvenient, but nicely safe for both Dep and me.” I turned onto the main road and told Nina that Rich wanted her to pay attention to his cottage’s interior to figure out if any of her paintings would go with the new décor we would plan for his cottage.

“How high are the ceilings?”

“I don’t know, but he said that your painting in Deputy Donut is too big for his cottage but might fit in his house.”

“The one in Deputy Donut is one of my smaller ones. I don’t know if I could paint a canvas that didn’t require a ladder to reach the top. And I’m saving for an even taller ladder.”

She read Rich’s instructions aloud. I turned off the main road and drove down a hill. Lake Fleekom, shimmering in the early evening haze and mostly surrounded by trees, was below us. Even if Rich hadn’t said that his house was the first one we would come to on this road, I probably would have guessed that the imposing two-story stone mini-château with lots of roof angles and chimneys was his.

Nina leaned forward. “That house probably has a few rooms with nice, high ceilings. Look how tall the windows are.”

Sturdy stone posts supported a wrought-iron fence. Ornate gates at both ends of the circular driveway were closed. They were also almost useless—anyone could drive around the ends of the fence, which didn’t extend far beyond the gates. A white party tent was set up near the back of one side of the house, but the grounds sloped down toward the lake, and I could see only the two top peaks of the tent.

But I wasn’t going to Rich’s home until morning. Tonight, we were exploring his cottage.

Nina read aloud, “ ‘Turn right.’ ” She laughed. “Good call. That’s the only direction you can go.”

I had expected the road to divide into two branches in front of Rich’s place, with one branch going left around the lake, and the other going right, but there were only woods to the left. We passed another house, a timber frame one with no fencing in front, and then the road curved left. Not far beyond that, we entered thick woods with boulders approximately the size of commercial fridges and freezers.

Imitating Rich’s boisterous voice and attitude, Nina read, “ ‘At this point, you have to slow down. The pavement ends and the county doesn’t keep the road perfectly maintained.’ ”

We bumped along a gravel road for a half mile before we came to a clearing beside the lake. I read the sign aloud, LAKE FLEEKOM COUNTY PARK. About two dozen cars might fit in the small park’s gravel lot. In a grassy area, an open pavilion featured a stone fireplace and sheltered about ten picnic tables and benches. An old-fashioned water pump was nearby, and I caught a glimpse of outhouses tucked near trees surrounding the lawn. Pointing at the gently sloping sand beach, I said with satisfaction, “There’s a place to launch my kayak.”

Nina offered, “I’ll wait in the picnic shelter.”

With pretend reluctance, I agreed to drive the rest of the way to Rich’s cottage. It couldn’t have been far. From what I’d seen, Lake Fleekom was big enough for a kayaker to enjoy exploring, especially if the kayaker liked to nose around every cove, but it wasn’t huge. We passed what appeared to be someone’s driveway, two ruts with grass between them that disappeared into the woods between the road and the lake. More woods formed a canopy over the road. Rich’s cottage was nestled in the forest on the lake side of the road.

The cottage was cute, if a little unexpected, with its white siding, blue shutters, and dormers in the pitched roof. Nina laughed. “We should have guessed it would be a Cape Cod. Unless there’s no second floor and those dormers are the fake kind perched on the roof above a cathedral ceiling, the walls can’t possibly be tall enough for my paintings.”

“Let’s go see. He told me the key is for the back door.” I pointed toward a charming flagstone path that wound between tall pines toward the right side of the cottage. Unlike the grounds of Rich’s house, which almost shouted “estate home,” this property was like other northern recreational properties with pines, poplars, and white-barked birches that would provide a shady haven on warm days. The air smelled fresh and crisp. Crows cawed and blue jays scolded. At the rear of the cottage and beyond a treed and rocky slope, the lake reflected the pale tangerine sky. I could barely make out the gleaming party tent on the far shore. Closer, a grayish aluminum canoe was upside down on a weathered wooden dock.

A large screened porch spanned half the back of the cottage. The door to the porch was unlocked. We stepped into a summer retreat where four dining chairs surrounded a table and comfy lawn chairs invited guests to relax.

Nina ran her hand down the side of a glass-fronted wooden cabinet next to the door leading into the cottage. “Look. A custom-made cabinet containing handcrafted canoe paddles.” The name ROYALSON had been wood-burned into the shaft of each paddle.

Agreeing that the cabinet and paddles were beautiful, I fit the key into the lock. After jiggling the key and shoving at the door’s upper corner, we managed to enter the kitchen. The cottage had that smoky, damp-linoleum smell of closed-up cottages with wood-burning fireplaces. Except for a couple of holes punched or kicked into walls—possibly the damage that Rich had accused Derek of doing—the interior appeared to be well maintained.

Nina burst out laughing. “If Richmond P. Royalson the Third wants Wisconsinites to feel at home renting here, he should consider decorating with the Packers’ green, gold, and white, not the red, white, and blue of the New England Patriots.”

She took a notebook out of her shoulder bag and started a list. The kitchen was serviceable, but we both would have preferred hardwood or tile to the worn Patriots-red linoleum on the floor. We agreed that new solid-surface counters would be prettier and easier to clean. Rich had said not to worry about cost. Nina added sleek new cabinets to her list. The work triangle was fine, but new appliances and a shiny sink would make cooking more appealing.

In the hallway next to the kitchen, Nina put her hand on a doorknob. “What’s in here?” She opened the door. “Oh! A cute little powder room with a huge window. You can sit on the throne and look out at the lake.”

The powder room had obviously been redone recently, but the dark red ceiling and navy blue walls above white tiles were a little oppressive. We agreed that the powder room didn’t need anything besides paler hues on the walls and ceiling. And maybe white plantation shutters for at least the bottom half of the window.

At the top of the stairs, we found a full bathroom, complete with a tub fitted with a shower. Again, the fixtures and tile were new, but the colors of the walls and ceiling were suitable for a nine-year-old Pats fan.

Two bedrooms, one with a queen-size bed and the other with a pair of twin beds, flanked the bathroom. The ceilings at the front and back of the cottage sloped down to walls that were only about five feet high. Taller people would be able to walk in the centers of the rooms and into the dormers. The hardwood floors needed only refinishing. Bedside rugs would be comfy for toes on cool mornings, and curtains and bedlinens could be modernized.

Nina suggested, “We could recommend a nautical theme and colors.”

“Not Packers colors?” I asked.

“If he didn’t use anybody’s team colors, he could rent to people from all over the country or the world, no matter what team they rooted for or didn’t root for.” She bent to look at a photo on a dresser. “Who is this woman whose photos are all over the place?”

“She must be Rich’s late wife. He admitted that displaying lots of her pictures probably wasn’t a great idea for a rental cottage.”

“Or for bringing a new girlfriend to stay. This must be the wife that Tom said drowned in Lake Fleekom twenty years ago. None of the pictures look newer than that. They’ve kind of faded, and the fashions are that old and older.” Nina bent forward and studied an arrangement of photos on the bedroom wall. “She was pretty, wasn’t she?”

I agreed. “Good bones, like her cottage.” In the oldest photos, Rich’s late wife was barely out of her teens. She’d been blond and blue-eyed with clear skin and a great figure, and she’d stayed classically lovely as she aged. In the newest photos, she looked about fifty years old, which meant that she and her husband had been close in age. Many of the pictures from approximately the final ten years of her life had been taken in and around this cottage. In one of them she was in an aluminum canoe like the one we’d seen on the dock. She was smiling and waving her paddle at the person taking the photo.

Feeling sorry for the woman who appeared to have loved life but hadn’t made it past middle age, I followed Nina downstairs to the combined living and dining room. Nina made a note about refinishing the hardwood floors and retaining the wood-burning fireplace. Like the walls, the mantel was due for a new coat of paint. I pointed at the blank space above it. “That’s where he would like one of your paintings.”

Nina cocked her head. “I don’t know if I could paint anything that would look right in a Cape Cod, unless we gutted the building and did away with the second story. I suspect he would prefer to keep his bedrooms and full bathroom, though. I would. I love this place!”

“Even though your paintings don’t suit it?”

“I paint them, but they’re for colder, harder, bigger spaces.”

“Like art galleries and museums.”

“You’ve got it. I paint the pictures, but I wouldn’t necessarily want to live in the sort of place where they’d look best. Cape Cods are about the coziest homes around.” She rubbed her palms together. “Let’s ask if he’ll let us choose new furniture.” She pointed at a corner next to one of the two front windows. “It looks like he’s already started decluttering.”

Books had obviously been removed from a bookshelf and heaped on a colonial-style maple table. “Or something,” I muttered. Maybe Derek and his buddies had emptied the shelves.

Nina pushed the books into a neater pile. “Why leave them in a mess when he could have stacked them? Oh!” She pulled four stapled-together packets of paper out from underneath books. She scanned them. “Emily.” Her voice was rough, as if a pine cone had become lodged in her throat.

I peeked around her arm. “Wills?”

“Two of them, two copies each. Richmond P. Royalson the Third and a woman named Terri Estable are making each other their sole beneficiaries. Wasn’t his date this afternoon named Terri?”

“Yep.”

“Fast work. Rich had a date with Cheryl this morning and one with Terri this afternoon.”

I told Nina that Rich had explained to Cheryl and her date that he’d reconnected with Terri after he’d arranged his date with Cheryl. “And he also yelled at Derek that Terri was the love of his life.”

“I heard that. So, his drowned wife was . . . what?”

“A different love of a different life?” I turned to the last pages of the wills. “How odd. The wills aren’t dated and signed.”

Nina shoved the wills back where she’d found them. “It’s strange, but if he likes my paintings or finds me a buyer or two, I’m not going to complain.”

Near the other front window, the writing surface of a slant-front desk was folded up in its closed position. Below that sloping expanse of maple, one corner of a small maroon book stuck out of the top drawer, preventing the drawer from closing. I opened the drawer, pulled out the book, and was about to put it back neatly. A slightly yellowed last will and testament was underneath where the book had been.

I called to Nina. Together, we paged through the will. It was nineteen years old, probably signed and dated shortly after Rich’s wife’s death. The beneficiaries were Richmond P. Royalson Junior and Alma Ruth Royalson. “Rich’s father,” I concluded. “And his mother? Or his sister?”

I put the will where I’d found it. The maroon book was a hard-bound notebook filled with blue-lined white pages. One word was printed in heavy black marker on the first page. RENTALS.

I flipped toward the back of the book and found the most recent entries, also printed in heavy black marker. I summarized, “A man named Derek Bengsen rented the cottage starting the Saturday before last, and he and his friends were kicked out on Thursday, five days into their week, like the Derek who came into Deputy Donut claimed.”

“Does it mention Terri?”

“No, but this must be the same Derek who accused her of wanting him to rent this place and encouraging him to throw a party here so she could get Rich to rescue her.”

Nina added, “And feel sorry for her, reconnect with her, and discover that she was the love of his life.”

Rich’s estimate of the damages caused by the partyers included a hefty amount of lost rental income while the cottage was being cleaned and repaired. Derek Bengsen’s address was near my friend Samantha Andersen’s town house. I closed the book, laid it on top of the old will, and closed the drawer.

Nina looked up at splatters on the ceiling. “I wonder if Derek and his buddies did that, along with the holes in the kitchen walls.”

“Probably, or Rich would have had it cleaned and repaired before they came.”

Nina planted her fists on her hips. “Maybe. Some landlords charge renters for damage that was already there. If renters don’t point out the damage when they first encounter the rental property, they let the landlord keep the deposit, you know? Like the amount had already been charged to the renters, so they feel like they’ve already spent it, although they haven’t.”

“Where were you when I was trying to figure out who had committed murders in Fallingbrook?”

“In my studio, wrestling with canvases. But I heard about those cases. That’s why I wanted to work at Deputy Donut. Well, in addition to the donuts and coffee . . . I knew that whatever happened, I’d be safe around you and Tom.”

“Ha. Good luck.”

“Safe from everything except calories.”

“The way you run around the shop, that will never be a problem.” Her donut-eating was like Tom’s and mine. We had to taste our creations, but we seldom ate entire donuts. I turned toward the kitchen. “Speaking of large quantities of donuts, I guess we should go look for the platter Rich wants me to bring to his party.”

In the kitchen, I opened doors on the left side of the upper cabinets while Nina checked the cabinets on the right.

She yelped, “Ow!”