Part 11 (2/2)

I continued up the curving staircase to the top floor, open to the ceiling, giving drama to the great hall three stories below. The rooms on the top floor were much smaller than those in the rest of the house, with lower ceilings and small dormered windows. It was the territory of the servants.

As I had on the other floors, I opened each door and stood in the doorway or entered the room. At the midpoint of the hallway, across from the open landing, I turned a k.n.o.b, but the door stuck. It was a perennial problem in a house that was always damp. I put my shoulder against the door and pushed as hard as I could. Nothing.

I felt something whoosh past my feet and jumped a mile. ”Le Roi!”

The Maine c.o.o.n cat sat by the door frame, looking at me, fully aware that he'd scared the bejesus out of me. Morrow was his island. He merely suffered our presence.

”How did you get in here?” I'd closed the front door behind me, and he couldn't have pa.s.sed through the burned French doors in the dining room.

”Julia? What are you doing?”

I looked over the railing. Gabrielle was in the great hall below. I must have been so focused, I hadn't heard her enter the house.

”Up here. I can't seem to get one of the doors opened.”

Gabrielle ran up the stairs, wiping her hands on her ap.r.o.n. ”That happens always. You know-the damp. Etienne just radioed from the town dock. He and Sonny are on their way. They'll need your aid unloading when they get here.”

”Sure. Help me open this door?”

Gabrielle shook her head. ”Leave it be, Julia.” She surprised me by taking me in her arms and giving me a fierce hug, which I returned. When she released me, she said softly, ”What do you do here, Julia? Etienne told me what happened yesterday, how you broke down right in this hallway.”

”I'm fine. Really I am.” How could I explain I was exorcising my fear of a house I'd known all my life? ”I'll be right down.”

”Okay, but I don't like to leave you.” Gabrielle left reluctantly.

When she was gone, I worked my way down the hall to the other end, opening every door. I went back to the door across from the landing and tried it again. It didn't budge.

By the time Sonny and Etienne arrived, the fog had burned off and the island was bathed in sunlight.

Demolis.h.i.+ng the porch was a delicate operation. The last bit of roof had to come down without killing us, then the remaining pillars and rails, and finally the last of the burnt decking had to be pried off. The great stone footings would remain, a sort of ghost porch until it could be rebuilt. We aimed to get the area as cleaned up as possible so our guests wouldn't look at Windsholme and ask, ”What happened?” That was the last thing we wanted to revisit at every clambake.

Etienne, who actually understood construction, mostly directed. Sonny, of course, argued with him, because Sonny was the greatest living expert on everything. I could sense Etienne losing his patience.

”When we finish this, we should take down as much of that damaged plaster inside as possible so I can haul it out on my dad's boat,” Sonny said.

”Let's just get this porch job done so we can open up the clambake,” Etienne warned.

”But while we have the boat-”

Etienne lost his temper. ”We have enough to do! We only have your father's boat for a few hours.”

Both of them looked at me, the tiebreaker. That had been our dynamic all spring. Once again, I had to side with Etienne. I had no way to tell if the porch part of the job would take the rest of our time, but any work required to get the clambake open had to take priority.

”Let's just take care of this porch.”

”Figures,” Sonny grunted and walked away, hauling some boards toward the fire pit.

I didn't tell Sonny and Etienne about my desensitizing walk through Windsholme. When the time came to nail the plywood over the s.p.a.ce where we'd removed the destroyed French doors, I simply went into the house and braced the boards from the inside. n.o.body said anything about it.

While Sonny carried another load down to the fire pit, I approached Etienne. ”When we were here with the building inspector, you said you'd met Ray Wilson before.”

”Yes. He came to the island. He said his best friend was getting married here and he wanted to play a trick, so he needed to take a look around.”

”A trick?”

”You can't very well tie old shoes and cans to the groom's car out here, so he said he was looking for something 'more creative.'”

”And you let him look around?” Knowing what I knew about what Ray and Tony did for a living, I had my own suspicions about why Ray wanted to see the island.

”Sure. Why not? You said you wanted to do whatever we could to accommodate these private events people,” Etienne reminded me.

I hate having my own words come back at me. But that triggered a happier thought. ”How did Ray get to the island?”

Etienne looked at me like I was crazy. ”On the freeway.”

”No, I mean did he get himself over or did someone bring him?”

”Came by himself.”

”Did he rent a boat or borrow it or what?” Etienne raised his shoulders and turned up his palms, the universal symbol for ”who knows?”

Ray could have come out to the island the night of the murder on his own to set up his trick on Tony. If there even was a trick. If it wasn't just a pretense to see the island. But could he have made it, drunk as he was? Chris said he seemed more sober after he threw up.

Even if Ray could have navigated on his own, that didn't answer the question of who might have met him. And killed him. And hung up his body from the staircase.

When the porch was demolished Sonny and I took his dad's lobster boat filled with debris back to the harbor. As soon as we got within cell range, I called and left a message for Binder, thanking him for allowing us take down the porch and begging him to let us open tomorrow. When I ended the call, there was a message from Michaela providing directions to Ray's funeral that afternoon. And urging me to come. Poor Michaela. She was friendless at such a stressful time and stuck with that gargoyle of a mother-in-law.

Chapter 31.

After Sonny and I loaded the remains of the porch into his truck so he could make a run to the dump, I hurried home. I was so intent on getting changed for the funeral, I nearly tripped over Fiona Snuggs, who knelt on the winding walk outside my mother's house, pulling weeds. ”Sorry, Miss, er, Fee.”

”Just tidying up.”

When my father died, Sonny had taken over the tasks of mowing the Snugg sisters' lawn and shoveling snow off their walks. The sisters had gone on caring for the gardens at my mother's house, just as they always had. Over the spring, I'd gotten used to finding a seventy-five-year-old woman crouching in our garden. Though it made me feel awkward, I knew Fee would refuse all offers of help. My sister did a little better with her. Instead of asking, Livvie just jumped in. Fee had decided that of the two of us, Livvie was the potential gardener, probably a reasonable perception, and had started mentoring her in the art of flowers and shrubs.

I helped Fiona to her feet.

”I was thinking about our conversation the other day,” she said, brus.h.i.+ng dirt from her denim skirt. ”About the night of the murder. I think I've remembered something more.”

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