Do-It-Yourself - Spackled And Spooked Part 15

"I was on my way home," I said, explaining that I'd come from Cortino's auto shop, "and I thought maybe you'd be up for taking a drive down to Barnham with me. You'd get to see Shannon, and maybe we'd discover whether they've made any headway in identifying the skeleton. She seems to be the center of it all, poor thing."

"Sure," Kate said readily. "Just let me put away the aerator."

She wandered off across the lawn, taking the opportunity to get in a few more digs on the way. Two minutes later she was back, minus the spiky shoes, and behind the wheel of her tan Volvo station wagon. I clambered into the pa.s.senger seat, and off we went, back the same way I'd driven earlier. As the road started climbing toward Devon Highlands, I felt my stomach lurch.

"This is where my brakes gave out," I said when we crested the hill. The development was spread out on our right, the sound of hammering muted through the car windows. Kate pressed her own brakes, which responded beautifully. "See"-I pointed to the impression the front of the truck had made in the soil-"that's where I steered the truck into the ditch."

"Good thing you managed to get off the road," Kate answered. "You could easily have been up to sixty or seventy by the time you got to the bottom of the hill, and that would have made it tough to turn the car. You might have smashed right into the gates down at the bottom."

"Or Melissa's face on that ostentatious billboard." That might have had a certain kind of poetic justice, actually. Almost satisfying, if I hadn't been dead by then. "She was here, you know. Along with Ray Stenham and some of the workers. They were actually pretty nice. Ray had the truck towed to Cortino's while Melissa drove me out to Becklea. Of course she took the opportunity to tell me how happy she is that Derek and I are together, since he was just devastated after she dumped him."

"Right," Kate said, rolling her eyes. I glanced at her.

"It did take him rather a long time to get involved with someone else-me-after Melissa."

"Well, can you blame him? If I'd spent five years with her, I'd want some peace and quiet, too. Wouldn't you?"

She steered the car around the curve at the bottom of the hill, easily skirting the gates and the billboard of Melissa.

"I guess," I said. Kate shot me a look.

"You have nothing to worry about, Avery. Derek is over Melissa. He was over Melissa long before they divorced. If you don't believe me, ask Jill."

"Jill who? Cortino? Peter's wife?"

She nodded.

"How would she know?"

The Volvo whizzed past Primrose Drive on the way to Barnham. "Derek and Jill were high school sweet-hearts," Kate said. "Until he left for medical school and met Melissa."

The invisible lightbulb above my head flickered on. "So that's where I've seen her before."

"Excuse me?"

"I thought she looked familiar. I saw her picture in the newspaper archives yesterday. With Derek. Prom picture."

Kate nodded. "While Derek went away and hooked up with Melissa, Jill studied bookkeeping at Barnham. She never did marry anyone, and I guess everyone thought she was still carrying a torch for him. Until Peter Cortino came to town."

"When was that?"

Kate thought back. "Must be about five years ago now. Or six. Right before Melissa and Derek split up."

"About the same time you and Shannon moved here?"

She nodded. "I didn't know any of them at the time, except for Melissa, but Derek told me what happened later. He and Jill used to hang out sometimes while Melissa was busy showing properties. She didn't seem to see Jill as any kind of threat, so she didn't mind the two of them spending time together."

"Does Melissa see anyone as a threat?"

Kate grinned. "Now that you mention it, probably not. She didn't mind Derek hanging out with Jill, anyway. Not that anything happened between them; Jill's too nice to try to seduce someone else's husband, even when the marriage is as rocky as Derek's and Melissa's was. Although people were whispering, of course. Derek and Melissa were on the skids, and Jill was getting into position, biding her time until he was free."

"Of course." People are always whispering, aren't they? "Then what?"

"Then Peter Cortino moved to town and opened Cortino's Auto Repair."

"And Jill took one look at him and fell?"

Kate smiled. "You've seen him, right? Of course she did. Along with all the other single women in town. And a few of the married ones, as well."

"Let me guess," I said. "Melissa?"

"She wasn't above flirting a bit. But Peter's too decent to poach on someone else's turf, and Melissa was working her magic on Ray Stenham by then, anyway. Peter's just an auto mechanic, after all. n.o.body important. Melissa wanted money and status. That's why she married Derek in the first place."

"And why she divorced him when he decided he wasn't cut out to be a doctor," I nodded. "I know. So what happened?"

"Melissa kicked Derek out and started seeing Ray instead. Peter could have his pick of women and surprised everyone when he chose Jill. Not that she isn't wonderful; she's just not . . ."

"Pretty," I said when she hesitated.

Kate shrugged. "Well, yes. She's nice, intelligent, very capable, and did I mention nice?"

"Twice. And you're right, she seems nice. And if she's a friend of Derek's, that's saying a lot right there. So Jill and Peter got married and Derek and Melissa got divorced?"

"That's pretty much the long and short of it, yes. Derek didn't seem upset, if that's what you're worried about. I think he and Jill had realized long ago that whatever they had when they were teenagers was long gone. But they managed to stay friends through it all, and Peter and Jill were very supportive of Derek when Melissa kicked him out. In fact, when Peter and Jill got married, Derek bought Peter's apartment."

"I didn't know that," I said. "So they've been married for about as long as Derek's been divorced. Five years or so?"

"About that, yes. Started having kids right away, too. There are three of them. Peter, Paul, and . . ."

"Mary?"

She shook her head. "Pamela. Peter's four, Paul three, and Pammy just over a year old."

"That's a lot of kids," I said.

"Depends on what you compare it to. My mother was one of seven and my father one of five. I'm one of four."

"I'm an only child. Like Shannon. Did you ever think about having more?"

She laughed. "Lord, no. At the time-nineteen-I had more than enough trouble with the one I had, especially with Gerard being who he was. Raising a kid on your own is no picnic. And now I'm too old."

"So you and Wayne don't plan on having any together?"

Wayne and Kate were discussing marriage. He hadn't officially proposed, but they were talking about it. Weighing the pros and cons, trying to decide whether they wanted to upset the status quo when the status quo worked quite well for them.

"Are you nuts?" Kate said. "I'm almost forty. Wayne's forty-six."

"These days, women have children later in life. And Wayne's age doesn't matter."

"That's true. But I'm old enough to be a grandmother. If Shannon had gotten pregnant when I did-and thank G.o.d she had more sense than I had at her age!-I'd have had a grandchild already. Could you imagine Shannon's and Josh's faces if we came and told them they're getting a little brother or sister?"

"It would almost be worth it just for that," I said. Kate smiled and turned the station wagon into the parking lot at Barnham College.

Barnham looks like one of those picture-perfect colleges you see in the movies, especially at this time of year, surrounded by blus.h.i.+ng trees and the clear blue autumn sky. The buildings are brick, with gothic arches above windows and doors, and brooding gargoyles squatting on the corners of the roof. They're ranged around a central quad, and Kate, who was more familiar with the place than I, headed for a building on the far side.

"Labs," she explained when I asked. "Science, anthropology, computer, even home ec. I figure we'll find Josh first-I saw his car in the lot, so I'm sure he's here-and then we'll get him to take us to everyone else."

She led the way to the computer lab, where we found Josh hunched over a desk. On the screen in front of him, a face was slowly taking shape. At the moment it was halfway between skeletal and finished: still very thin, but with olive skin covering the bones, and a nondescript nose and brown eyes.

"Why brown?" I asked. "Derek told me there was nothing left of the eyes."

Josh glanced at me over his shoulder while his fingers continued to move on the keyboard. "More Americans have brown eyes than blue, green, or gray. And her hair was long and dark."

His fingers flickered, and a two-dimensional wig appeared on the screen, cupping the skeletal face. Long, brown hair, similar in color to Josh's own, but straight, without his cl.u.s.tering curls. "And she was young, so she probably had some fullness to her face, here and here . . ."

The cheeks plumped, and so did the lips, which he tinted pale pink. We all contemplated the result, our heads c.o.c.ked. "There's something there . . ." I said. Josh nodded. Kate looked from one to the other of us, rolling her eyes.

"Get real, you two. Whoever she is, this woman has been in the ground for years. There's no way you could have seen her, Avery."

"That's true," I admitted. "She looks a little like someone I've seen, though. I don't know where or when-or who-but she looks familiar."

"It's difficult when you don't know much," Josh said. "Her eyes could have been hazel, or gray, or blue, instead of brown." As he spoke, the image changed eye color rapidly. "Just because brown is the most common, doesn't mean everyone has brown eyes. Yours and Derek's are blue, and so are Ricky's and Paige's. Her skin could have been lighter or darker. And she could have been overweight enough that it changed her face." He added fifty pounds or so to the image, which bloated up to something unrecognizable before slimming down again. "And she could have had a hook nose, or a ski jump, or a flat nose, or a pointy chin, or a square chin with a dimple. . . ."

While he spoke his fingers danced over the keyboard, and with every keystroke the image changed, flickering from green-eyed with a pointy chin and a Roman nose, to blue-eyed with a dimpled chin and a pert nose. It was amazing how different the face looked in its various permutations. "She could have had freckles, a mole, a dimple, heavy eyebrows, narrow eyebrows, no eyebrows. . . ."

"Wayne said this was unreliable," I said sympathetically. Josh blew out an exasperated breath.

"He wasn't kidding. I don't even know how old she was, and let's face it: There's a big difference between what someone looks like at eighteen and twenty-eight. So what can I do for you two? You coming to check progress?"

I shrugged. "It's something to do. I can't go back to work at the house on Becklea, and although there are still things I need to do to Aunt Inga's house-I want to paint the porch ceiling blue, and attach some stars, and I found a great porch swing at a flea market a couple of weeks ago, but that needs painting, too-anyway, I can't seem to concentrate on it. I want to know who this woman is. Was."

"Maybe some food'll make you feel better," Josh said, getting up. "Shannon's at the cafeteria, working on her history project, and I'm not making much progress here. Let's go."

He headed for the door, with Kate and me trailing behind. I glanced over my shoulder once and met the brown eyes of the girl on the screen. It was probably just me, but they looked compelling.

15.

We found Shannon sucking down a cup of bad coffee and working. I was relieved to see that what she was doing had nothing to do with the skeleton in the crawls.p.a.ce or the murder of Venetia Rudolph; she was simply working on her history report about the settling of Maine in 1607. It was a nice change.

"Popham was the first American settlement," she explained without looking up.

"I thought Jamestown, Virginia, was the first," I answered. I don't know much about history, except as it relates to textiles, but a few of the better-known facts have stayed with me.

Shannon shook her head. "Popham, Maine, was earlier. But the colony didn't survive the winter. So Jamestown became the first permanent settlement."

"Interesting," I said, taking a seat across the table from her. "It gets pretty cold here in the winter, doesn't it?"

"Depends on what you mean by cold," Josh said with a shrug. He had grown up here, so the cold obviously didn't worry him. Kate grinned.

"You've heard what they say, haven't you, Avery? There are only two seasons in Maine: winter and the fourth of July."

"I hadn't heard that, actually. And it's not true, either. It's pretty nice out there right now." I glanced out the window at the yellowing birch trees and bright, blue sky. The temperature hovered in the midsixties, so it was nice and crisp, just the way a fall day ought to be.

"Wait a couple of months," Kate said, as Josh grinned. "And lay in a supply of long-johns. Not to mention fire-wood. How's the house?"

"Aunt Inga's house? Fine."

"Have Derek look it over," Kate advised. Josh nodded. "Make sure it's well insulated. Have him put weather-stripping around the doors and caulk around the windows to keep the wind out. Put storm windows and storm doors everywhere if you don't have them already. Insulate your pipes so they don't freeze. And buy an electric blanket."

I felt myself pale. "It's going to be that cold?"

Shannon was still bent over her work, but Kate and Josh exchanged a glance. "It gets pretty cold here, yes."

"Colder than in New York?"

Kate shrugged. "The average lows are in the low teens. And then there are the ocean breezes."

"It can get windy in New York, too," I said, desperately trying to get them to tell me that it wouldn't be much worse than what I was used to. Temperatures in New York City rarely dip into the teens, though. "When the cold air goes screaming down the streets, between the buildings . . ."

"I'm sure it can get freezing in New York," Kate said kindly. "It's colder here, though. And a lot more snow, too. You'd better prepare yourself."

I s.h.i.+vered miserably, just thinking about it.

"So what are you guys doing here?" Shannon wanted to know, finally looking up. Josh explained that Kate and I had come to see what progress he'd made with his forensic facial approximation software.

"And?"

Josh's voice turned frustrated. "And nothing. Dad's right, a lot of it is guesswork, and the results are often less than accurate. Still, both Avery and I thought we had something there for a second." He glanced at me. I nodded.

"How could you have something?" Shannon wanted to know, with the same logic her mother had displayed earlier. "Avery's only been in town for a few months. The skeleton's been in the ground for years. Avery can't possibly have seen her before she died."

"That's true," I admitted. "But maybe I've seen a picture of her? In the newspaper or on TV? Or even on the back of a milk carton? It could be a long time ago. She could have been a runaway, maybe. A teenager. The TV stations in New York could have shown her photo when she disappeared, and it's still stuck in the back of my head somewhere. Or she could have been featured on one of those Unsolved Mysteries programs. I watch them once in a while."

"That's not a bad idea," Josh said. "You should suggest it to my dad. If the dental records don't help, maybe he can have someone look through databases of runaways and missing teens. I'll volunteer."

"That's very nice of you," Kate said, "but I don't think your dad would want you to take time away from your school work to work on his case."

"So I'll do it on my own time," Josh said with a shrug. "Or maybe I can spin it into an extra credit a.s.signment of some kind. Like this reconstruction thing. Professor Alexander is good that way." He grinned.

We ended up staying in the cafeteria and eating lunch before heading back to the lab. On our way across the quad, we ran into Brandon Thomas on the same errand.