Murder, She Edited Read online

  “Does that line of trees mark the boundary of Tessa’s property?” I asked, pointing.

  Featherstone braced his hands on the coverlet, leaned forward, and squinted through the window. I shifted position so he could see better.

  “That’s right, and Swarthout land extends an equal distance from the other side of the house. As I’m sure you’ve already noticed, it was built on high ground. At the back, the land dips down to a manmade pond. You can’t see that from here, or the hill that rises up behind it, but when you walk in that direction, both gradually come into view. If you were to climb to the top of that hill, you’d have an excellent view of downtown Swan’s Crossing.”

  I twisted my head around to look at him as he straightened. “Have you walked the property?”

  I’m certain I sounded skeptical. I was recalling how short of breath he was after doing no more than crossing the uneven surface of the front lawn and climbing that single step to the porch.

  He squared his shoulders, as if daring me to challenge his ability to make such a trek if he wanted to. “At my request, my young assistant came out to inspect the property last week. He’s very thorough. The back boundary of Swarthout property runs along the top of the hill.”

  I edged out from behind the bed. As I passed the bureau, I stopped to pick up a picture frame. People often keep likenesses of those nearest and dearest to them where they can see them when they first get up in the morning. At least that’s the reason why I have a favorite photo of my late husband in my bedroom. This photograph showed two young girls and an older woman. Tessa, Estelle, and their mother? Since it was not the woman from the portrait in the living room, that seemed likely.

  It was only after I put the picture back where I’d found it that it occurred to me to wonder why Tessa hadn’t taken it with her. Idly, I opened the top drawer of the bureau, expecting to find it empty. Instead, it was filled with neatly folded clothing. The same was true of all the other drawers.

  Everything has been left just as it was on the day Tessa went away.

  Featherstone’s words were suddenly heavy with meaning. Something very peculiar had happened in this house.

  “Why did they leave so much behind?” I asked.

  The lawyer was already moving on toward the back of the house. “Perhaps the diaries will tell you. All I know is that Tessa and Estelle walked out and never came back.”

  I trotted after him. “And where, exactly, are these diaries?”

  A narrow hallway took us past a small bath with a claw-foot tub. We didn’t go in. Instead we continued on, passing through the door at the end of the hall to enter yet another small room crammed with furniture.

  “The diaries are somewhere in the house. That’s all I know.” The admission came with a grimace, making it clear he didn’t like being as much in the dark as I was.

  Looking around, I saw that a single bed was tucked in beneath the room’s only window. A desk and a tall, free-standing wardrobe took up most of the rest of the available space. As my gaze fell on the latter, I realized that there hadn’t been any closet in the other bedroom, either.

  “Where did they hang their clothes?”

  “In wardrobes like that one and on bars and hooks.” Featherstone shrugged. “What else can you expect in a place this old? The original building dates from the early eighteen hundreds. The Swarthouts added a second floor and an addition to the kitchen around the beginning of the last century, in order to take in summer boarders.”

  Another door led from the back bedroom into a closet-size space that contained two more doors. The one to my right was the entrance to the cellar.

  “The furnace, an electric water heater, and the pump that brings water up from the well are all in working order,” Featherstone assured me.

  Since neither of us had any inclination to descend the stairs and explore the dank, dimly lit reaches below, we went on to door number two and found ourselves in a room situated between the living room and the kitchen. The sideboard that took up most of one wall provided a clue to its use. At one time, this must have been the dining room. When Tessa abandoned her home, however, it was clearly in use as a second living room. In addition to the sideboard, the furnishings included a sewing machine tucked into one corner and two overstuffed chairs.

  As yet, I’d seen no sign of any diaries. In fact, I hadn’t noticed books of any sort. That realization made me frown. If Tessa and Estelle had left clothing behind, it stood to reason that they wouldn’t have bothered taking reading material with them, yet there wasn’t so much as an old newspaper or a magazine in evidence.

  Mr. Featherstone cleared his throat. He was waiting, somewhat impatiently, for me to enter the sunlit kitchen ahead of him. When I had done so, I glanced back over my shoulder and caught him giving his surroundings an uneasy look.

  I didn’t think much of it at the time. My attention was diverted by the kitchen appliances. They came from a variety of eras. The stove was built on the same lines as an old-fashioned woodstove, except that it ran on propane. The sink was a deep utility model. Even the refrigerator appeared to predate the 1950s—at least I assumed so, since it was plain white instead of avocado green or some other trendy ’50s shade. I was relieved to see that it had been emptied out, turned off, and left open to prevent mold and mildew from establishing a stronghold.

  The countertops and cabinets were made of pine. One of the latter had a built-in flour sifter. Although I knew what it was, I’d always associated this labor-saving device with the nineteenth century, not the twentieth. A table and four ladderback chairs occupied most of the space at the center of the room. A ceramic bowl filled with plastic fruit sat in the center of a flowered linen tablecloth.

  Tessa’s farmhouse had all the basic amenities.

  Very basic.

  Given the temperature on this particularly steamy July day, I was acutely aware that the place lacked air-conditioning. I sincerely hoped I wouldn’t need to spend a great deal of time on the premises in order to locate the diaries. Once I’d found them, I fully intended to take them home with me and transcribe the contents in comfort.

  The chirp of a cell phone made me jump. I knew it wasn’t mine. I never leave it turned on unless I’m expecting a call. Since I have a landline at the house, my cell sometimes lies forgotten in the bottom of my tote bag for weeks on end.

  Mr. Featherstone, looking faintly apologetic, extracted his phone from an inside pocket and answered with a brusque, “Featherstone here.”

  I have to admit that knowing there was cell service at the farmhouse came as a pleasant surprise. The property could just as easily have been located in a “dead zone.” There are still plenty of those in rural areas, no matter what the phone companies tell their customers.

  To give the lawyer privacy, and because I hadn’t had time on the way through to give it more than a cursory glance, I returned to what I’d mentally dubbed “the middle room.” I smiled when I noticed a vintage telephone sitting on the narrow end table between one of the overstuffed easy chairs and a window. Wanting to take a better look at it, I sat down, but I was immediately distracted by the view.

  From my new vantage point I could see past the driveway where we’d parked our cars and into the field beyond. It must have been a pleasant vista back in the day. Now there was little in sight beyond a mass of weeds and underbrush. The arrangements Tessa had made to maintain the property clearly hadn’t included more than the front lawn, and even that looked as if no one had mowed it for some time.

  Shaking my head, I settled back in what proved to be a remarkably comfortable chair and once again contemplated the telephone. It was even older than I’d thought. Instead of the standard black, rotary-dial model I remembered from my childhood, this one had no dial at all. That dated it to a time when an operator was necessary to place a call. The phone number showing beneath a clear circle on the front of the instrument told me that the Swarthouts had been on a party line. I wondered if Tessa and her sister, and maybe their
stepmother, too, had made a habit of listening in on their neighbors’ conversations.

  My idle speculations were interrupted by Mr. Featherstone’s abrupt appearance in the kitchen doorway. “I do apologize, Ms. Lincoln, but that call was to remind me that I need to be back in Monticello within the hour. That said, I’m sure you can manage on your own here going forward. You have the key to the house and I’ve given you my contact information, should any questions arise.”

  He began to retreat even as he spoke. I followed more slowly. By the time I reached the side door, he had already descended the outside steps and reached the weed-infested dirt driveway. He slid behind the wheel of his BMW without looking back. Within seconds, he was gone, his tires squealing just a bit in his rush to leave the farm behind.

  I am not normally a superstitious person, but in that moment, in spite of the sultry weather, I could swear I felt a chill run up my spine.

  Chapter Five

  When I turned away from the door and glanced at my watch, I was surprised to discover that I’d been at the farm for only a little more than an hour. In that time, I’d taken a cursory look at the downstairs rooms, although I hadn’t investigated any of them very thoroughly, and I hadn’t gone upstairs at all. Now I had a decision to make—start again, give the second floor a once-over, or call it a day and come back in the morning when I’d be fresh, well-rested, and more appropriately dressed for serious searching.

  Dusty, sweaty, and tired as I was, the choice was a no-brainer. The afternoon wasn’t likely to get any cooler or less humid. The interior of the house wasn’t as hot as the great outdoors, but it had been closed up for a long time. The air wasn’t just stifling, it was stagnant.

  I’d seen enough to suspect that the diaries I was supposed to edit were not lying out in plain sight. I wondered if they were still in the house at all. What if they’d been stolen? Anything could have happened to them in the course of sixty-plus years. If it was true that Tessa had never once returned to her old home, she’d never have known they were missing.

  I shook off that depressing thought. I’m an optimist by nature. The diaries had probably been tucked away somewhere safe by the person who’d kept them. If that someone had been worried about other people reading what she’d written, she might even have taken pains to stash them where no one else would think to look.

  “Thanks a bunch, Tessa,” I said out loud. Mom’s BFF seemed the most likely diarist. Would it have killed her to leave behind directions to her hiding place?

  I turned the deadbolt on the kitchen exit and made my way through the house to the front door. Once that was secured, I lost no time getting into my car and driving away.

  I didn’t go straight home. Instead, I went to Darlene’s house.

  I knew she’d be interested to hear how I’d spent my day, but that wasn’t the only reason for the detour. Most of the time, Calpurnia makes a great sounding board, but this was one occasion when I needed to talk to someone who could answer back with something other than “meow.”

  Darlene’s husband, Frank, was out playing golf. He’s almost always out playing golf on summer afternoons. I estimated that we’d have a couple of uninterrupted hours and I meant to take advantage of them.

  “I need your research skills,” I said as we adjourned to her lovely air-conditioned kitchen and I foraged in her refrigerator for the pitcher of lemonade I knew I’d find there.

  Darlene was considerably more mobile than she had been the last time I’d seen her. She loaded a plate with freshly baked homemade chocolate chip cookies while I filled two tall glasses with the sweetened thirst-quencher. Her dog, Simon, of the breed known as “purebred mutt,” sat in the middle of the floor, his shaggy head moving back and forth as he attempted to watch both of us at the same time.

  “Does this have something to do with your meeting with that lawyer?” she asked.

  I sat down at the kitchen table and took a long swallow of lemonade before I answered. “Indeed it does.”

  “What did your mother’s friend leave you?”

  “Would you believe the very same farmhouse I told you I visited as a kid? But there’s a catch. I have to do a small editing job in order to inherit.”

  “That shouldn’t be too hard.”

  “So you’d think . . . except that the diaries I’m supposed to edit haven’t turned up yet. After the meeting in Mr. Featherstone’s office, he took me out to visit to the property. It’s just outside of Swan’s Crossing.” I took another sip of lemonade.

  Darlene made a “hurry up and get to the point” gesture with one hand.

  “Here’s the really weird part. That house looks exactly the way it did on the day Tessa and her sister moved out back in the late nineteen fifties. According to the lawyer, they left everything they owned behind and never went back for any of it. Not once. From what little I saw while I was there today, I believe it. They didn’t even take their clothing.”

  I frowned as I bit into a cookie. Weird didn’t begin to describe the situation. I was about to go on when I caught sight of Darlene’s expression. I’d have expected to see curiosity, or mild surprise, or even amusement in her face. Instead, she looked deadly serious.

  “What am I missing?”

  She shrugged. “I couldn’t help myself. While you were exploring the house, I went web-crawling to see what I could find out about Tessa Swarthout. Fortunately, all the local newspapers from the nineteen fifties have been scanned, and since I can access them from here, I did.”

  “Of course you did.” There were advantages to being a librarian, even a retired one.

  “So sue me,” she joked.

  I held up both hands in mock surrender. “I’m not complaining. Research is your superpower!”

  “You better believe it, but with a name as distinctive as Tessa’s, it wasn’t hard to find information online. The only thing that surprises me is that you haven’t already Googled her for yourself.”

  “Some of us still have to work for a living, you know. And, to be honest, I didn’t think of it. Well? Don’t keep me in suspense. What did you discover?” Responding to a cold-nosed nuzzle, I reached down and absently began to stroke Simon’s silky black fur.

  “I printed out the relevant articles so you can read them for yourself, but I think I can guess why Tessa could never bear to return home. Brace yourself—her stepmother was murdered in the house you just inherited.”

  I doubt my jaw literally dropped, but that would have been an appropriate response to Darlene’s announcement. What I actually did was rear back to stare at her. It’s entirely possible that stare was “goggle-eyed.” Reactions become clichés precisely because they are so common.

  “No way,” I said, my words providing yet another shining example of a trite response.

  “Way.” She forced a smile. “You said you were ten, or maybe younger, when your mother took you to the farm to visit Tessa, right?” At my nod, she continued. “It must have been just a few months later when Rosanna Swarthout was killed.”

  I drained my glass and poured a refill. “Mr. Featherstone did not mention that little detail. He didn’t even give me Rosanna’s name, although he did say that the sisters moved out after their stepmother died. Now that I think about it, he was downright evasive every time I showed an interest in why they left. Can you summarize what you discovered?”

  Without thinking, I reached for another cookie. My appetite was unimpaired by the topic of conversation. Besides, I figured I’d need my strength to withstand any further bombshells Darlene lobbed at me.

  “There were three adult females living in the farmhouse at the time: Tessa; her younger sister, Estelle; and their stepmother. In addition, a young couple named Roth lived in an apartment above a detached garage. The Swarthouts rented it out year-round for extra income.”

  I nodded, calling up a vague mental picture of that particular outbuilding. A flight of outside steps led up to the second story above a one-bay garage. The whole thing was more dilapidated-l
ooking than the farmhouse, but had appeared to be in better repair than the barn. I hadn’t really paid much attention to any of the structures scattered around the property, except to notice that there were quite a few of them.

  “The Roths were at home when the murder took place,” Darlene continued, “but they claimed they didn’t hear or see anything. Tessa and Estelle had gone to a movie. They came home to find Rosanna’s body in one of the downstairs rooms.”

  The penny dropped. “He knew,” I whispered.

  I’d bet money that Rosanna had been killed in that middle room where the phone was. When we reached that part of the house, Featherstone had been quick to find an excuse to leave. I’d thought at the time that there was something odd about his behavior.

  “He who?” Darlene asked. “The lawyer?”

  Simon shifted his attention to her, plunking his bottom down next to her chair and staring up at her with adoring eyes. When she broke off a tiny bit of cookie, one without any chocolate in it, and fed it to him, his tail thumped against the floor in canine delight.

  I was in a far less happy frame of mind. “Who else? From the first, he was reluctant to answer specific questions. He must have known about the murder.”

  Darlene was watching me closely. “He didn’t even hint at what happened there?”

  “He didn’t say a word about it, and I have to wonder why. What else did you find in the newspapers? Did they catch the person who killed her?”

  “Apparently not. The police concluded that Rosanna interrupted a burglary, although it doesn’t appear that they ever made an arrest. I’m sure it would have been a major story if they had, and there would have been follow-up articles about the trial.”

  “Was anything missing from the house?”