A Dollhouse to Die For (A Deadly Notions Mystery) (6 page)

I didn’t know what happened to the brooch, but the scarf was sitting on top of my Welsh dresser. I picked it up now, a hint of the expensive floral scent she’d worn still clinging to the material.

I was still standing there gripping the scarf, when Martha breezed in carrying the pink metal cake container. She was wearing a wrap dress in a leopard print, stretched to the limit of its elasticity across her generous curves, and an amber necklace and earrings that complemented her fiery hair.

“Good God, I have the most splitting headache, here you go, I made a Madeira cake, do you know a remedy for migraines, I
have
to feel better by tonight, I’m taking Cyril to the Pennsylvania Ballet at the Merriam Theater and—”

Her gaze narrowed on me. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s the store, Martha.” I explained about Chip and the new lease and the hideous increase in rent.

“What are you going to do?”

I shook my head, numb with worry.

“Where’s Eleanor?” she demanded.

“I haven’t seen her yet.”

“Do you think the little creep owns her building, too? Come on. Let’s go see if we can catch him in the act.”

I hung a
BE RIGHT BACK
sign on the door and Martha banged the cake tin down on the counter. Eleanor didn’t allow food in her immaculate establishment.

We hurried across the street to A Stitch Back in Time. But when we entered, the place was empty. No sign of Chip Rosenthal.

Or of Eleanor either, for that matter.

Her building had taller ceilings than mine, probably twelve feet high. The walls were painted an eggshell shade, and she’d added some Ionic fluted columns for drama throughout, with strategically placed mannequins wearing antique wedding gowns. One wore a dress that had been cut in half with one side cleaned and restored to show the “before and after” effect.

The only decoration was a vase of white roses and fragile greenery adorning the gargantuan mahogany table that served as a place for Eleanor to consult with her clients and inspect the merchandise. On the right was a massive mirror and in front of it, a step stool.

“Hellooo?” Martha yelled.

“I’m back here,” came a faint cry.

Martha and I knew enough to take off our shoes before we took another step. We’d been through this routine before. There was also a brusque sign at the entrance demanding compliance and a wicker basket full of crisply laundered white gloves.

We dutifully slipped on the gloves and followed the paper runner as it crunched beneath us, me in my socks and Martha in her bare manicured feet, past the dressing rooms until we found Eleanor. While the front of the store was airy and Spartan in its elegance, the back room was jam-packed, although still impeccably clean.

The walls of shelving held spools of thread, glass jars full of various sizes of pearls and beading, and a plethora of salvaged pieces of fabric, silk, lace, and other trims to repair old garments. Over to the right were four worktables. Some dresses hung on forms near the center of the room, and on one table a silk quilt was awaiting repair.

To the left was a deep double sink, and Eleanor was standing over it, stirring some kind of bath of steaming liquid with a long wooden handle.

“What the hell are you doing?” Martha exploded. “You look like one of Macbeth’s witches.”

She grinned at us. “Double, double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble . . .”

In spite of
my
troubles, I had to smile back. Dressed in black, with her white hair and sharp features, boiling up her signature concoction to safely take stains out of yellowing antique fabrics, she did slightly resemble one of Shakespeare’s ancient hags.

One of the things I’d learned from Eleanor when buying a bolt of fabric was to unroll the whole thing. Brown stains might be lurking inside that aren’t visible in the first pristine layer. She’d rescued several items for me with her secret recipe that had something to do with Borax and hot water.

“Eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog—”

Martha waved a hand impatiently. “Yes, yes, never mind all that nonsense right now. Look here. Daisy has a serious problem.”

“What is it? What’s going on?” Eleanor let go of the handle in the milky brew.

I found that not only was I incapable of standing upright, I’d lost the power of speech. Shaky, and more than a tad dizzy, I sat down at a worktable that held an old Singer sewing machine and a gooseneck desk lamp.

Martha waited a couple of seconds, and then answered for me. “She just found out she has a new landlord who’s tripled her rent!”

“What? Who is it?”

“Sophie’s nephew. Chip Rosenthal.” Martha flipped her red mane of hair over one shoulder. “God, it’s hot back here. He says she has to sign a new lease or has thirty days to get out. Do you believe that crap?”

Eleanor swiped a hand across her brow, her cheeks flushed from the heat of the water. “I never met him, but I always heard he was a twit.”

“How about you? Do you rent this store, Eleanor?” Martha asked.

“Hell, no, I bought the building when I moved here. Paid cash for my house
and
the store. I don’t have a big home like you guys, but there’s no one holding a mortgage or a lease over my head. All done and paid for.” She smacked her hands together like a baker brushing off flour. Eleanor had been a former costume designer, and in fact had worked on some of the same film sets as my daughter. She’d made a lot of money and obviously invested it wisely.

I slumped even farther down on my seat. “That’s because you’re a proper businesswoman. Not like yours truly.”

“Maybe you can find another store to rent,” Martha suggested.

“Look at this street.” I waved an arm in the general direction of Main Street. “It’s fully occupied now. There’s nothing available.”

Sometimes a Great Notion was more than just a store. It was my peace, my sanctuary, my passion. It represented something I had finally done for myself, after years of scrimping, saving, and thinking of others.

Eleanor unlatched a door in the four-door Moroccan storage cabinet in the corner of the back room. “Brandy?”

“Eleanor, it’s ten thirty in the morning!” I protested.

“So? Your heart doesn’t care what time it is. It just wants to stop racing.”

I blew out a breath. Now that the shock and anger had worn off, I could indeed feel the thready race of my heartbeat, together with the peculiar sensation that my body was simply an empty shell. Nothing seemingly substantial inside. None of the usual stuff, like, oh, flesh and bones, for instance.

“Okay,” I murmured.

She poured brandy into three snifters, pressed one into my hands, and gave another one to Martha, who raised her eyebrows, but shrugged and accepted it anyway.

“Don’t worry, Daisy, we’ll think of something,” Martha said. “You can’t leave Millbury. You’re a fixture here now.”

“Hey, I have a tidbit of news for you,” Eleanor said, as she slugged down a good portion of her drink and then began pounding a piece of cotton backing into submission with something that looked like a medieval torture device. “Birch Kunes and Bettina Waters are getting married next month. She’s asked me to restore and restyle her grandmother’s gown for the wedding.”

I choked on a mouthful of brandy. “Jeez. They’re not wasting any time, are they?”

Eleanor smiled, a slow eye-slitted smile that made me think of a cat rather than a witch. “That’s because she’s
enceinte
.” Eleanor liked to drop French phrases into her speech. It impressed the clients.

“On
what
?” Martha frowned at her.

“Pregnant,” I said. “Wow, is she really?”

Eleanor nodded and drained the contents of her snifter. “I noticed when I measured her for the alterations. She’s not very far along, but
I
could tell.”

I sipped some more of my brandy. That was why Bettina hadn’t stayed too long at the wine club. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen her drink a drop. That also meant Birch and Bettina had been carrying on their affair for a while—a few months at least.

I gritted my teeth, suddenly sorry for the temperamental Harriet. Even though she had been a difficult character, to put it mildly, nobody deserved to be cheated on.

Especially not with a younger and more attractive woman. No wonder she’d retreated into her safe, familiar world of miniatures and dollhouses.

“Birch,” Martha said with disdain. “What a weird name.”

“Let me guess, they’ll call the kid
Sapling
?” Eleanor snickered.

“Yup. He’ll be a real sap.” They both roared with laughter.

I stood up to test the waters, and feeling woozy still, leaned back against something that stabbed me painfully in the palm of my hand. “Ow! What the heck’s that?”

“Oh, sorry, it’s my needle board,” Eleanor said. “To iron velvet. You put the fabric nap side down and—”

“Aargh!” I’d stepped forward in my agony and stubbed my toe on something else. “What’s
that
?”

“Oh, sorry, it’s my sad iron.” Eleanor picked up an ancient-looking iron implement with a thick wooden handle.

Martha raised an eyebrow. “Aptly named. It’s like a little shop of horrors in here.”

I rubbed my sore hands. “Thanks for the drink, Eleanor, but I’ve got to get back.” I hugged them both, left my half-empty snifter on the table, and stumbled back across the street.

Somehow I got through the rest of the day at the store, trying to ignore the queasiness in my stomach, and the malevolent package stuffed beneath the counter. I ate a piece of Madeira cake to soak up the alcohol and took out my calculator. In spite of how well the business was doing, I could only last another six months at that rate.

I called Laura and asked if she could work tomorrow, and after she readily agreed, I called the only real estate agent I knew. Marybeth Skelton. Harriet Kunes’s sister.

J
oe enfolded me in his big arms when I got home that night, listening patiently as I blurted out the bad news. “Do you want me to talk to this guy for you, Daisy?”

I sighed. “No, it’s okay. I can handle it.”

“Maybe when you see him again, you’ll get him to see reason.” Before we retired, Joe had been the head negotiator for his electricians’ union, and he’d never met anyone who didn’t warm to him instantly.

“I’m not sure. It was strange, Joe. Like he just didn’t care.” I thought back to the scene this morning with Chip Rosenthal, and the seeming lack of human emotion, as if he were missing some necessary gene. “He says I need to come up to market rent like everyone else.”

“What
is
the going rate?”

“I’m not sure,” I mumbled. “I’m seeing a few places with Marybeth Skelton tomorrow for a plan B.”

“Well, if you look at other places, you’ll know what’s reasonable. Do you
have
to have a brick-and-mortar shop? A lot of your business is online now, right?”

“Yes, but . . .”

It wasn’t just that. It was the camaraderie, the coffee, Martha’s treats, all of it, that I cherished. Walking into the store each morning was a pleasure that never got old.

As a teacher, I’d spent years working on other people’s schedules, on someone else’s lesson plans, hours that I wasn’t paid for. Now the hours I put in were for myself, and it would rip my heart out to have to let it go.

Joe maneuvered me gently down the wide hallway toward the kitchen. “Come and have some wine, and look at the fantastic stuff I bought for making miniatures.”

On the kitchen counter, a mound of translucent sea scallops sat drying on a tea towel, ready to sear in the pan. Joe cooked a gourmet meal for me every night. I recognized his famous potato–celery root purée prepped in a baking dish next to a bundle of bright green asparagus. My stomach rumbled, seeing as it contained nothing but brandy and a slice of Martha’s cake.

I poured half a glass of wine and tried not to think about how much the scallops cost.

Joe pointed at the butcher-block table. “See this, Daisy? It’s a Dremel Moto-Shop jigsaw-workshop combination. I was talking to that girl Mac at the show, and she recommended I start with this.”

I stared at the appliance that was about the size of a portable sewing machine.

“It’s five power tools in one. Isn’t it great?” Joe was nearly bouncing up and down in his excitement. “And check out this X-Acto Deluxe Hobby Tool Set. There’s three knives, eight blades, a coping saw, pin vise, routers, you name it.”

I sipped my wine, glad that he’d found something he was so passionate about. The timing wasn’t great, seeing as it looked as though money would be tight now, but I didn’t know how to begrudge him his dream when he had always been so supportive of mine.

He grinned at me. “Think I still need a soldering iron and some C-clamps though.”

Joe was the same way whenever he did a project at the house. Instead of looking in the toolbox for the three nails he needed for the job, he’d go to the hardware store and buy a brand-new pound. If he was painting, he’d buy another paint roller even though the one we had was perfectly fine. Heck, even the roller covers could have been reused if he’d washed and dried them carefully from the job before.

As a teacher on a limited budget, I’d had to scrimp and save to buy school supplies for the kids out of my own pocket. Renting this home out as a vacation place for years and finally having enough to pay it off were a testament to my thriftiness.

“Don’t worry, Daisy,” he said, as if reading my mind. “Things will work out. They always do.”

Things worked out because I made them happen
.

Jeez, I sounded like Chip Rosenthal now.

I forced a smile. “Well, I still need a dining table and chairs for Claire’s dollhouse if you want to practice.”

He clinked his glass with mine. “All right! My first customer!”

• • •

T
he oppressive humidity from August was gone, and the brisk mornings were literally a breath of fresh air. The coolness caught in my throat, and I shivered in delight. Fall was my favorite time of year, but it was always so short. A rush of garden cleanup, preparing for Halloween and Thanksgiving, and before you knew it, it was winter, with its dark mornings, darker evenings, and treacherous roads.

As I put food into the bird feeder in the garden, I heard the call go out. A rising, chattering chorus from the birds scattered high in the branches of the oak trees.

Breakfast is served! Come and get it!

I fed Jasper and then hurried upstairs to get ready. Marybeth was picking me up at the store, and I needed to go over a few things with Laura before she arrived.

When I came back downstairs, Jasper was hunched on the ground, staring out of the screen door. He could lie there for hours, entranced, watching the little sparrows fluttering around. It must be like television for dogs, tuned to the Bird Channel.

Half an hour later, Marybeth Skelton arrived outside Sometimes a Great Notion in a creamy white Mercedes sedan. As much as Harriet had let herself go, Marybeth was perfectly groomed. Not a gray hair to be found threading its way through the short honey blond, and her eye makeup was simply a work of art. She wore a silky zebra-patterned shirt, a scarf knotted smartly at her throat, camel-colored pants, and black flats with gold buckles.

I’d seen her face enough times staring at me from advertisements on shopping carts and on real estate
FOR SALE
signs that I’d recognize her anywhere. Admittedly the picture was a few years old, and she was probably in her early fifties now, but she still looked good.

“Thanks for coming, Marybeth, and for setting up these appointments so quickly,” I said as I slid onto the leather passenger seat. “I honestly didn’t expect you to answer the phone yesterday. I mean, um, you know, under the circumstances and all . . .”

“My sister and I weren’t that close. It’s just another day to me,” she said abruptly, in a way that didn’t invite further conversation. She stepped on the accelerator and the car lunged forward.

But one of my faults, or qualities, depending on which way you looked at it, was that I could never give up on something once I’d taken an interest. Like the crossword puzzle I was compelled to finish every day. Eleanor said I was like a one-eyed dog in a meat factory when I set my mind to something.

And the murder of Harriet Kunes was still a puzzle that needed solving.

Marybeth turned the car up Grist Mill toward River Road. “The bad news is that nothing is available here in Millbury, so it will probably mean moving to Sheepville,” she said. “The only street that’s zoned commercial is Main Street and it’s fully leased.”

“I thought as much.” I struggled to sit upright on the cushy seat. “So, had you seen your sister Harriet recently?”

Marybeth looked at me and gripped the steering wheel with crimson fingernails. “No. We haven’t spoken in years.”

She sucked in a breath as she maneuvered the large sedan around a sharp curve. “The first place we’re going to see is in a nice shopping center near the movie theater. It’s available immediately, and in the interests of full disclosure, I should tell you that I’m the listing agent on this one. It’s also the cheapest one we’ll see today.”

When we arrived in Sheepville, I trailed after Marybeth to a vacant retail space that was actually near Jeanne’s store, in the same strip mall. It was modern, one level, and quite a good value for the square footage, but with none of the charm of the nineteenth-century Victorian I currently occupied. It was only about five hundred dollars more a month than I was paying now.

Knowing that commercial real estate agents made their money on commissions that were calculated as a percentage of the rent, I appreciated that she was showing me properties in my price range. She hadn’t bought that fancy car outside by doing dinky deals like this.

“Carlos!” She snapped her fingers at a worker in paint-stained overalls. “Come here. See these spots? They need another touch-up.”

Carlos and I both peered at the wall. It looked fine to me, but Marybeth tapped on it with a long red fingernail, and he obediently applied his paintbrush. The store was one big open space, and I half listened as Marybeth talked about vanilla boxes and the landlord being willing to absorb some of the cost of the buildout.

I couldn’t seem to work up any enthusiasm though. Maybe my malaise was due to a lack of caffeine. I would have had several jolts with my compadres by now, but didn’t dare suggest bringing a cup of coffee into the pristine white vehicle.

“So. Do you have any idea who might have borne a grudge against Harriet?” I prompted once we were back in the car, heading east on River Road again toward New Hope.

Marybeth sighed. “Oh, Daisy, it could have been any number of people. After all, if she’d screw her own sister out of her rightful . . .”

Her voice trailed off, and her mouth tightened.

“Rightful what? Inheritance?”

She slanted a glance at me from under those perfectly shaded green and gold eyelids. “You’re not going to give up on this, are you?”

I shook my head and smiled a fraction. “Nope.”

There was a brief silence. To our left was the river and on the right was a towering slope of rock and ferns and rampant wild vegetation. Here and there huge logs lay where they had fallen, like a pile of giant matchsticks. River Road was a two-lane road with a double yellow line, edged in places by a low metal barrier. Sometimes the trees on either side cut out so much of the daylight it felt like we were heading for a shaft of light at the end of a long green tunnel.

“When my mother died, her will said that everything should be shared equally between me and my sister. Harriet took the lead in splitting up the estate. She insisted that I take my mother’s little house in Point Pleasant and she would have the jewelry. There was nothing much of value there, mainly costume stuff, apart from her wedding ring.”

We passed a weathered barn, a house with pieces of white stucco fallen off in places to reveal brown fieldstone underneath, and a tavern in a three-story Colonial situated on a corner. Black-eyed Susans tumbled over a low rock wall in front. It even had outside seating, if that’s what you could call the ramshackle collection of faded green plastic chairs.

“Harriet also got sixty-five acres in the Ohio River Valley that she said were next to worthless. I took her at her word. I knew it was a depressed area, hit hard by the downturn in industrial activity. My mother’s house was worth about a hundred thousand back then, so I thought I was getting the better end of the deal. After all, I trusted her. She was my older sister.”

I bit my lip as I looked over at Marybeth. Even with my limited experience with Harriet, I had a bad feeling I knew how this story would go, and it wouldn’t have a happy ending.

Her lips thinned. “But underneath that worthless land was a thick layer of shale, and six thousand feet below that was a mother lode of oil-and-gas-bearing rock. The energy companies paid three thousand an acre and a twenty percent royalty on production. A windfall for the people in that valley who are getting huge leasing checks now. Harriet received over two hundred grand in the first check alone. I only found out when I received a letter from one of my mother’s old neighbors who didn’t realize Mom had passed away.”

I gasped. “But maybe Harriet didn’t know that when she divvied everything up.”

“Oh, she knew all right. Turns out Harriet was the one who contacted the lawyer in the first place to put together the association of the landowners.”

We came to a one-lane bridge with a stop sign. Marybeth barely slowed down, and I gripped the armrest as the sedan swooped over the bridge. I closed my eyes briefly and prayed for no oncoming traffic. The road bent back on itself in a sharp S-curve and there were only inches to spare between the low stone wall and the side of the car.

“I put myself through school, and now I’ve made a success of my career. No thanks to my bitch of a sister. It taught me a lesson though. Now I find out everything there possibly is to know about a neighborhood before I sell there. I read the local papers front to back, and I maintain friendships with zoning board members and local developers. I won’t let my clients be caught by surprise.” She glared at me.

I swallowed. “Great. Good to know.”

“Oh, yes. That was the first and last deal where I ever lost money. You expect clients to screw you over, not family. And
that
, Daisy Buchanan, is why I didn’t speak to my sister.”

I blew out a breath and glanced out of the window. We passed a nursery and a farm stand, and the trees thinned to reveal acres of open land. There was the occasional house, but for a while there was nothing but grass and utility poles, until the two-lane road opened up into four lanes.

The road straightened and the powerful sedan started to cruise at higher speed, carrying me farther and farther away from where I wanted to be.

More homes were clustered together now, with actual yards carved out of the wilderness. It was a curious mix of farmhouses, ranchers, and well-maintained substantial properties. Bales of hay were rolled up next to the road in front of one old white farmstead, plain except for its decorative porch columns. A red barn sat next to it, the wooden slats rotted where they met the ground. Down the gravel-covered side roads were wide potholes full of rainwater.