The Woodpecker Always Pecks Twice Page 9

  Kim cut me off. “But nothing. Like I said, that could have been simply a harmless flirtation. Gus is a good-looking guy. Maybe Lana is coming on to him a little bit. So what? I think it’s already clear from what you told me that Gus wants Moire. And boy, does she sure want him!”

  “But—”

  Kim pressed a finger to my lips. “Butt. Out.”

  I grabbed her wineglass and tossed back the rest of the red. “I suppose. I’m not happy about it though.”

  I made Kim promise to wheedle me a ride out to the dump the next day, or as soon as possible, with Randy, so I could get a look at whatever it was that those young men had been throwing out the window. I’d never been out to the county dump and he had some experience going there, what with his need to occasionally rehab his properties and dispose of the ensuing debris.

  “Now get out of here,” I said with love. “I’ve got a dinner date with the devil.”

  “Not before you shower first,” Kim retorted. She sniffed my side and pinched her nose. “You smell like Popeye the Sailor Man. You show up reeking like that, not even the devil will want to sit next to you.”

  * * *

  I showered and dressed, then drove the minivan out to the McKutcheon house. We’d agreed on eight o’clock—a little late for an early riser like me. Maybe Drummy would let me sleep in tomorrow.

  Chills ran up my spine as I followed the unpaved track past the park and out toward the old farm. It was getting dark. I’d left the lights of town far behind. Only my headlights provided illumination and that wasn’t much. The lenses were cloudy with age and only a dim, yellow light spilled forth.

  A row of dark clouds hung in the distance. A squall was coming up—like the one the other morning. I turned on the CD player. I needed some Broadway tunes to clear my head. After several minutes, I shut it off again. Guys and Dolls was sounding too much like Guys and Ghouls.

  I bounced along the narrow, uneven dirt road. A dense canopy of trees kept the stars from my sight. Finally, after what seemed like hours but was only minutes, and a final blind curve, the track opened onto the wide, ill-kept and weed-infested yard. I pulled up to the house several feet from Gus’s pickup. No other vehicles were present. Where was Ethan Harrow’s car?

  My first thought, and I knew it was crazy, was that they’d murdered him. But that really was crazy, plain and simple. His car would still be here . . . unless . . . unless they moved it from sight afterward.

  Besides, Mr. Harrow might have boated over to this side of the lake and walked up to the house.

  I shook the farfetched thoughts from my brain. If I didn’t stop speculating, I’d never go inside. And I really wanted to learn more about Guster McKutcheon and his boarders.

  I knocked, and a moment later, Dominik Lueger answered the door. He wore jeans and a short-sleeved black turtleneck shirt. His goatee appeared freshly trimmed. “Guten Abend.” He bowed ever so slightly. “Good evening.”

  Dominik invited me inside. Despite it being summertime, the wood fire in the massive fireplace in the living room blazed brilliantly. I followed him to the dining room. Gus McKutcheon and young Jean Rabin sat on opposite sides of an aged cherrywood dining table. Open bottles of beer and wine sat beside a silver platter holding an assortment of cheeses and crackers.

  Gus rose and greeted me. “Welcome, Amy. Come sit next to me. We’re so glad you could join us.”

  “Thanks for having me. I hope Jean didn’t overstep his bounds in inviting me.” Yellow wallpaper peeled off the walls. The same mustiness I’d noticed the first time I was in the McKutcheon house was still present. It would probably never disappear completely.

  “Not at all. I’m thrilled.” Gus pulled out my chair and I sat, nodding my hellos to the others.

  “Where’s Mr. Harrow?” I caught a whiff of musky cologne. Gus wore a rumpled white sweater and dark slacks.

  “I’m afraid he couldn’t make it this evening,” answered my host. The small flames of the two tall ivory candles on the table flickered.

  Jean, seated across from me, added, “A couple of tourists on their honeymoon paid for an evening cruise.”

  “Tonight?” I said. “It looks like rain.”

  Jean merely flapped open his napkin and settled it on his lap.

  “May I?” Gus’s hand reached across my place and scooped up my long-stemmed wineglass. He filled it with a California white wine and returned it to me. “Cheers,” he said, lifting his own glass. “To a pleasant evening and a profitable future.” The others joined in and I followed suit.

  Dominik excused himself to see to the meal. Moments later, the girl Channing, whom I’d met earlier, entered with Dominik and two others—a young blond woman with vermillion nails and a redheaded young man, both casually attired. I was glad I hadn’t dressed up for the occasion, having settled on a simple blue skirt and silver-gray crew-neck sweater.

  Gus rose. He took the shallow casserole dish that Channing had carried in on a silver platter. “Thank you, Channing. Everything smells delicious.” I agreed. He set the stew on the sideboard and turned to me. “Amy Simms, meet Channing Chalmers.”

  “We’ve met,” I said.

  Channing leaned the empty platter against the wall. “The day that—”

  “Of course,” said Gus.

  “Channing is such a lovely name,” I said. “Did your parents name you after Carol?”

  Channing gave me a blank look.

  “Carol Channing. She won a Tony award for best actress in a musical for her portrayal of Dolly in Hello, Dolly!”

  “Sorry, no.” Channing moved over to the sideboard and slid open a drawer containing serving utensils.

  Gus rested his fingers on my elbow. “Do you know Annika and Ross also?”

  I said I didn’t and we exchanged introductions. Annika’s accent was much like Dominik’s, if not identical. Ross said he was from Ireland.

  Gus clapped his hands softly. “Now that the food has arrived and everyone is here—”

  “Everyone except—” Annika started, as she walked languidly toward the table.

  My host shot the girl a nasty look that no one missed and she froze momentarily. Uneasy looks passed among the lodgers.

  “Let’s eat then, shall we?” Gus motioned for everyone to be seated. Channing sat across from me, with Jean to her right.

  Annika plopped into the empty chair beside me. She dropped her face to her plate and picked up her fork, jamming it into the mashed potatoes.

  The meal was simple farm fare, beef stew, mashed potatoes, homemade biscuits, and spiced applesauce. The dinnerware was old but serviceable.

  “Did you prepare the food, Gus?” I asked, between bites of mouthwatering braised beef.

  “The kids took care of everything,” he answered expansively.

  “Lucky you,” I said. “This meal is wonderful. I wish I could get my boarders to cook for me.” Of course, Paul Anderson probably survived on frozen dinners and Esther would probably feed me canned cat food. “This is the most savory beef I’ve ever tasted.”

  “That’s goat.” Channing pointed her fork at the meat on my plate. “We raise them.”

  I froze. Goat? I had a half-masticated mouthful of goat in my mouth? I forced a smile, then forced myself to swallow. I held out my water glass and Jean poured from a porcelain pitcher. “Thanks,” I gasped.

  “The gang has been indispensable. I give them room and board in exchange for helping get the house in shape. I’m afraid I don’t have the money to do it all myself. Nor to pay them.”

  Gus picked up his wineglass and toyed with it. The candle flames, reflected in the glass, danced like spirits. “They work on the side for spending money. Many have jobs around town.”

  “Yes, and we get a free home for the summer,” added Dominik.

  “As Gus said, some of us work part-time in town on the side,” added Ross, who sat at the other end of the table. “For instance, I’ve been helping at the market, bagging the groceries.” He was a good-lookin
g, affable young man with ginger hair and a body he didn’t look like he’d quite grown into yet. I imagined he was the youngest of the group. Through his open shirt collar, I saw he wore a thin gold chain around his neck, bearing a charm.

  I nodded. “Like you, Jean, working on Mr. Harrow’s boat.” It was a nice setup for everyone, it seemed. “How did you all find each other?” I asked. “Ruby Lake, North Carolina, isn’t exactly New York City.”

  Gus answered. “I placed a small ad on several internet sites looking for lodgers in exchange for room and board.”

  The others nodded. I still didn’t understand what had made these young people choose our sleepy little town, but it wasn’t my place to pry. And what did it matter?

  “Are you from Ruby Lake, Amy?” inquired Annika. “What do you do?”

  I explained that I was born and raised here, left for college, then came home. “I wanted to be closer to my family.”

  “Amy owns Birds and Bees across the street from the diner,” added Gus.

  “Oh,” Channing exclaimed. “I adore birds.” She knotted her hands at her chest. “They speak to me.”

  “Maybe you could do me a favor and speak to the woodpecker who’s been waking me up at the crack of dawn every day.”

  Channing laughed. “You don’t mean that. Woodpeckers are adorable. We had many back home in Melbourne.”

  “Australia?”

  She nodded.

  “I thought from your accent that you were English.”

  Channing wiped her lips with the linen napkin from her lap. “I was born in London but my family moved to Melbourne when I was a baby, for my father’s work.”

  “And now you’re here,” I said. “A long way from home.”

  “I wanted to see America.”

  “We all did,” said Jean. “This was the only way we could afford it.”

  “Lucky for me,” Gus said.

  “What made you decide to come back?” I asked Gus.

  He smiled. “I got tired of the cold.”

  “Ruby Lake gets cold, too. But not as cold as I hear Maine can get.”

  Gus looked at me quizzically.

  “I noticed the Maine license plate on your truck.”

  Something unreadable passed across my host’s eyes. “You notice a lot.”

  I looked away for a moment. The others had gotten eerily quiet. “What did you do in Maine, Gus? Were you in the restaurant business?”

  “No. A little of this, a little of that.”

  “A jack-of-all trades, eh?”

  “I prefer to think of myself as an entrepreneur. I see an opportunity and I take it.”

  “You think you can find some opportunities here?”

  “I hope so.”

  He seemed to be making a good go of things so far: a house full of energetic and unpaid young men and women to help him get the farm up and running, managing the Ruby Diner, and dating its owner.

  “Did you grow up here?”

  “Never been here before in my life. But I knew the house had been sitting empty and decided to try to make it a McKutcheon home once more.”

  “Are you familiar with the story of the widow in the lake?”

  Annika dropped her spoon on her plate. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Please,” Gus said, rolling his eyes. “That old story? Sure, I’ve heard it. When you’ve got a family that’s been around a region as long as mine, there are going to be a few stories.” He smiled. “Some good, some bad. What was her name? Mary? My great-great-something-or-other.

  “I mean, may she rest in peace and all that, but I prefer to concern myself with what’s real.” He banged his hand on the table. “The nuts and bolts of life. Not the goblins and ghosts. I’ll leave the otherworld to others.” He reached for the wine. “I prefer my spirits in a bottle.”

  “Have you seen such a thing as a spirit rising from your lake?” asked Jean, leaning forward on his elbows.

  I admitted I hadn’t.

  “Do you still believe you saw something here in this house?” Dominik asked. “Such as you informed the police?”

  Color rose to my cheeks. “I don’t know what I was thinking—”

  “Now, now, Dom,” Gus said. “Let’s not put Amy on the spot. She is our guest. Amy was only doing what she thought was right.”

  “Thank you,” I sputtered. “It was early and it was raining,” I began in my own defense. “And my house is so far away—”

  “Hel-looo!” A woman’s voice called from the kitchen, interrupting my rambling explanation.

  Gus stiffened. “You’ll excuse me.” He threw down his napkin, rose quickly, and disappeared.

  Gus’s lodgers and I eyed each other uncomfortably for several minutes. He returned carrying a sheet cake. “Vanilla cake with orange buttercream.”

  Our host cut generous slices and passed them around the table on ornate dessert plates. I was full but I was also dying for something to cover the taste of that goat on my tongue, so I didn’t refuse my fair share. A good buttercream can cover the taste of just about anything. Even if it doesn’t, who cares? It’s still a mouthful of buttercream.

  No mention was made of the woman who’d shown up at the kitchen door. Who was she? Who shows up out of the blue, at night, in the middle of nowhere?

  Too bad I couldn’t ask Gus those questions. Her voice had seemed vaguely familiar too . . .

  I told myself to relax. Maybe she was the cake delivery person. Something about this house and Gus McKutcheon was getting under my skin and I needed to exorcise it, whatever it was. If I could figure out what had happened to Bessie Hammond and what had happened at this house the other morning—and get rid of Drummy the woodpecker—maybe I could get my life back to normal . . . or, at least, somewhere in that general vicinity.

  And despite how I downplayed things with Mom and Kim, I was anxious and excited to see where my nascent relationship with Derek might lead.

  Gus pushed back his chair and the others took this as their cue to do the same. Like a well-orchestrated troupe, they began lifting items from the dining table and removing everything to the kitchen.

  “Want the tour?”

  “Of course.” I was dying to see the rest of the house. Who knew what secrets it held?

  We started downstairs, but I’d already seen most of the ground floor, so it was the upstairs that interested me most. Once we climbed the steps, my senses came alert. A couple of the bedrooms held two twin beds each, separated by a night table. Another contained a couple of cardboard boxes and a mattress on the bare floor. Gus’s bedroom was nothing special. A high bed with a dark blue comforter, a small television on a chair in the corner, and an open suitcase balanced atop a small chest with a padded top.

  The only item of any interest at all was an antique-looking brass telescope on a mahogany tripod standing in the far corner near the window. It had probably sat there a hundred years.

  “I haven’t had time to really get settled in,” Gus said, as if reading my mind.

  Gus explained that there was one upstairs bathroom that they all shared. Finally, we came to the room I wanted to see the most. I couldn’t help wondering if he’d saved it for last for some purpose of his own. He must have known that this was the room that I had reported seeing the struggle and ensuing murder occur in.

  Gus turned the glass knob and pushed the door open. He bent and flicked on a small lamp next to the door. “Voilà. The scene of the crime.”

  My eyes widened.

  “Sorry,” Gus said. “A lousy joke. Come on in.” I followed him into the bedroom. Sounds of laughter spilled up the stairwell from the kitchen. “I’m thinking of adding several bunks.”

  I nodded. The bedroom was dark, the lamp cast formless shadows. Through the open curtains, I could make out Ruby Lake, glimmering in partially obscured moonlight. I thought of the story of the widow in the lake and wondered what her life must have been like, to have her husband taken away from her at the height of his life, brutally and senselessl
y murdered.

  The room was barren. The hardwood floors bowed ever so slightly as I put my weight on them. Many of the planks appeared water stained. I crossed to the window, resting my hands on the window ledge. The dark form of my house was barely visible in the distance.

  I looked down and shivered. Memories raced toward me. I moved my gaze to the black forest, drawn by the lonely sound of an owl. Bessie Hammond’s life had ended under one of those trees. Who had killed her and why? Her killer might be someone in this house. I bristled. He might be the man standing behind me now.

  A hand gripped my shoulder and I let out a small scream.

  “Are you okay?” Gus eyed me anxiously in the dim light given off by the lamp on the floor.

  I turned and started for the door. “It’s late,” I said. “I’d better be going.”

  Gus led me back downstairs. I called out a goodbye to the others. Jean poked his face around the kitchen door and waved. Channing sat cross-legged in a tall wingback chair in the living room. She lowered her book and smiled. “Good night, Amy.” The fire was nothing more than embers.

  “Thanks for having me.”

  “Before you go.” Channing stood and twisted her foot against the rug. “I was wondering . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “If perhaps you might have some work for me at your store. As you heard the others speak, we are all trying to earn some spending money.”

  “Now, now, Channing,” interjected Gus. “We don’t want to put our guest on the spot.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t mind.” I smiled. “Let me think about it and see what I can come up with. The business is still in its infancy. I couldn’t give you many hours and I couldn’t pay you much.” Not to mention I now had Esther on the payroll and even Cousin Riley, all thanks to Mom.

  Channing gave me a quick hug. “That’s not important. We have everything we need here. I only want a little cash for extras.”

  “I get that. Let me get back to you. Why don’t you stop in the store in a day or two and we can talk some more?”

  Channing agreed and Gus McKutcheon walked me out to my car.

  I watched him return to the front porch and reenter the house. Even after having dinner with the guy, I failed to see what Moire saw in him. I guess that’s what makes love so mystical and mysterious.