Page 5

CHAPTER 5

Sometimes the mist overhangs my path,

And blackening clouds about me cling;

But, oh, I have a magic way

To turn the gloom to cheerful day—

I softly sing.

And if the way grows darker still,

Shadowed by Sorrow’s somber wing,

With glad defiance in my throat,

I pierce the darkness with a note,

And sing, and sing.

I brood not over the broken past,

Nor dread whatever time may bring;

No nights are dark, no days are long,

While in my heart there swells a song,

And I can sing.

—James Weldon Johnson, “The Gift to Sing”

WHITNEY

The first thing I did when I arrived home late that afternoon was log into my computer and search the internet for information about the Finsters’ tragic deaths. Because the incident happened before the internet existed and the case had gone cold, with no suspect being arrested or tried, there was precious little online. All that came up were links to two short articles in which fellow faculty expressed shock and sorrow at the loss of the school’s headmaster and his wife.

In one piece, a physics and advanced math teacher named Adam Joule lamented their demise. “Irving did his best,” Joule was quoted as saying, “but he was dealing with a lot of problems. It must have become too much for him to handle.” Unfortunately, the article didn’t detail what problems, exactly, had been weighing on the headmaster.

In the other link, a theater teacher named Carole Tiller was referred to as Rosalyn “Rosie” Finster’s close friend. “The entire school is heartbroken. Rosie was one of the kindest and most talented people you’d ever meet. We’ll miss her, but she’s singing with the angels now.”

Both articles noted the date of their deaths as Friday, March 12. One article included a photo of the Victorian house as it stood at that time. The place was gorgeous, with thick tendrils of ivy encircling the porch posts and climbing up the brick walls. The article also included separate black-and-white photographs of Irving and Rosalyn Finster. Mrs. Finster had light-colored, wavy hair that billowed around her head like a cloud, wide-set eyes behind oversized plastic-framed glasses, and a button nose. Irving appeared to be her polar opposite. What little hair he had sat in a narrow, dark gray strip just above his ears. His eyes were small and dark, bordering on beady, and his nose was long and narrow. His lips were a thin, straight line. He didn’t look happy, exactly, but he nonetheless appeared harmless. Nerdy, even. Staring at his photo, I found it hard to believe that such an unremarkable man could be guilty of such a heinous crime, killing his wife in their own home.

The articles noted that Dr. Finster had been born in 1940, and was forty-two years old at the time of his death. Rosie Finster had been a year younger, just forty-one. What a sad, sad shame.

When I’d read all I could find online about the deaths, I shifted my focus to the purchase of the property. To determine what a fair offer would be, I researched comparable properties to the rural Victorian fixer-upper. The fact that violent deaths had taken place on the property would reduce its value some and could also affect our resale value, but since the deaths happened long ago and weren’t current news, they’d have less impact on our profit margin than if the incident were more recent. Moreover, the structure’s violent past would have even less effect on the resale price if I changed the character of the property from a residence to a business property.

I had some ideas in that regard, assuming Loflin and I could come to an agreement on price. Some small businesses such as law firms and CPA firms found that residential properties were well-suited to their needs. Bedrooms served as spacious offices, and the buildings were already equipped with bathrooms and a kitchen where staff could make their morning coffee, take breaks, and eat lunch.

Alternatively, the Victorian could be reborn as a bed-and-breakfast or as a boutique hotel if the attic space was remodeled to provide additional guestrooms. Large chain hotels were great for crowds attending conferences, but many travelers opted for smaller, unique properties when vacationing these days. They considered their lodging to be part of their vacation experience rather than simply a place to clean up and lay their head. The popularity of unique rental properties on vacation rental sites evidenced this trend. Themed properties were all the rage. People were renting rehabbed lighthouses, treehouses, and homes designed to look like castles. Some even specifically sought out haunted properties. Not that I thought the headmaster’s house was haunted. I mean, that would be ridiculous, right? But it did give off an eerie vibe.

Despite my best efforts, I found very few properties that were comparable to the headmaster’s house. Most properties that old had either already been condemned and torn down or had been rehabbed years ago. I finally decided to make an offer based on the estimated value of the two-acre parcel I’d propose carving out of the bigger property, plus the cost of razing the house as they’d planned. House demolition costs ranged from a low of around four dollars per square foot to a high of around eighteen—if hazardous materials such as asbestos or lead paint were involved. The measurements I’d taken after meeting with Loflin put the house at thirty-six-hundred square feet. I averaged things out at eleven bucks per square foot for a demo estimate of just under forty grand.

Nearby lots varied quite a bit in price depending on their particular attributes. Those with views and road access demanded more than uncleared properties. I drafted a spreadsheet and came up with an average value per acre of thirty-five thousand dollars. I doubled it for the two-acre lot, added the demo costs, and rounded up to one hundred ten thousand dollars. Not exactly chump change, but with the profits we’d earned on our recent fire station remodel, an easily affordable sum for Buck and me.

I emailed my computations to Buck, suggesting we go as high as two hundred thousand if necessary to seal the deal. Commercial properties were generally more valuable than residential properties, and I felt sure we could make a good profit even after the cost of the materials we’d need to fix the place up.

As my email made its merry trip through cyberspace to Buck’s inbox, I traded my notepad for graph paper to sketch some designs. Pencil poised, I mulled things over for a moment. While the property could make a nice office space, I was more excited by the idea of turning it into a boutique hotel. I also thought the hotel concept was the better of the two ideas. Surely, people from afar would be glad to have lodging close by when they came to visit loved ones living in the retirement community. I’d bet dollars to donuts a charming inn would do a booming business out there.

My pencil scratched across the paper, moving seemingly on its own, as if divinely inspired. Bathrooms would need to be added to two of the second-story bedrooms and access to the existing bath would have to be provided from one of the adjacent bedrooms. After speaking with Loflin, I’d returned to the house, pried the plywood off the attic hatch, and climbed up to measure the space. Six additional guestrooms could easily be added in the attic while still leaving room for storage. We’d add dormer windows to provide light to those newly formed rooms, including window seats where hotel guests could look out over the pretty grounds.

I was doodling away when Collin finally arrived home from work. He’d caught a break in a homicide he was working. A fingerprint found on a mailbox matched a man already being held on burglary charges. Per the text Collin had sent me earlier, he’d gone to the county jail to question the guy.

I stood to greet him. “How’d the interview go?”

“For me or for the suspect? Because it went really well for one of us and really bad for the other.” His grin told me which of the two had benefited from the exchange.

I applied a kiss to his lips and pulled out a chair for him. “Sit. I’ll get you a beer and you can tell me all about it.” Should I get a wife-of-the-year award or what?

Collin proceeded to tell me that the suspect thought he was smarter than law enforcement. It wasn’t unusual for criminals to overestimate their own intelligence, to think they could pull one over on professional investigators. They were rarely successful. “Before I mentioned the fingerprint, he insisted he’d never been to the victim’s neighborhood, let alone his house. Once I told him where we’d found the print, he said he was mistaken about not having been to the neighborhood, and claimed he must have left the print when he’d been distributing business cards for his gutter-cleaning business. Most likely, he’d checked the mail to make sure he had the right place before he went in and confronted the victim.”

I knew from earlier conversations with Collin that the victim and the suspect had gotten into a fistfight over a woman at a party a few days earlier. Some other partygoers had broken up the fight, but the suspect evidently couldn’t let the matter go.

Collin continued to fill me in. “He looked pretty smug and happy with himself until I started grilling him about the business cards. What did they look like? How many had he ordered? Where had he ordered them from? He claimed he couldn’t remember which local printer he’d bought them from, and said he’d paid cash. He also said he’d thrown away the receipt, which makes no sense. Small business owners know to keep receipts for their tax records. I asked where the remaining cards were. He said he’d passed them all out, so I asked him what they looked like.”

“But you’d already asked him that last question.”

“I sure had. He’d gotten cocky and given me too many details he couldn’t remember. The first time I asked the question, he told me the business cards had an image of a yellow house with green shutters and a gray ladder leaning against it. The second time, he told me the cards featured a green house with yellow shutters and a gray ladder leaning against it. When I brought up the cards a half hour later, the house had somehow turned blue with white shutters. A minor point, but it was obvious he wasn’t telling the truth. When I pointed out the discrepancy, his public defender shut things down real quick, wouldn’t let him answer any more questions. I expect they’ll try to make a plea. The victim wasn’t exactly a saint, either. He had multiple drug and assault convictions. They’ll try to use the victim’s record to their advantage.”

Knowing Collin spent his work hours in a dark and dangerous world unseen by most of us, I normally tried to keep things light when he got home. But tonight, I couldn’t do that. After he’d warmed a plate of leftover pasta in the microwave and sat back down, I pulled the bullet from my pocket and set it on the table.

He looked up from his plate, his expression curious but wary. “Where’d you get that?”

“I found it on the porch of the headmaster’s house at Ridgetop Preparatory Academy. One of the support posts gave way and the roof partially collapsed. The bullet was lodged in the broken post. There was so much ivy wrapped around everything I almost didn’t see it. It might not have been visible when the post was still standing.” I proceeded to tell him about the Finsters and the tragic events that had happened in the first-floor study. “The case is officially unresolved, but Loflin told me that most people associated with the school assumed the deaths were a murder-suicide.”

“It doesn’t surprise me that there was no official determination,” Collin said. “If there’s any ambiguity at all, law enforcement can be hesitant to deem a death a suicide. The investigators don’t want to be seen as lazy or accused of jumping to conclusions. A determination of suicide can be very upsetting to the family, in all sorts of ways. There’s still a stigma to it, and things were much worse back then. A suicide can also affect inheritance rights or the family’s ability to collect life insurance. A detective wants to be absolutely certain before reaching that particular conclusion.”

Collin had given me a lot to think about, as well as several reasons why the case might have been left open. He’d also stoked my curiosity. Had the investigator truly believed the Finsters might have been murdered by a third party? Or had the investigator simply decided to err on the side of caution by withholding an official determination of murder-suicide? I had to find out.

With fresh determination, I went on. “When I first found the bullet, I thought maybe someone had taken potshots at the house, but I didn’t see any other bullets. It was the only one. Do you think it could have something to do with the deaths at the house?”

He picked up the bullet and rolled it between his fingers as he studied it. “This might date back to the early eighties. Hard to say.” He returned the bullet to the table.

I pressed him. “But it could mean something, right?”

His eyes narrowed. “Like what?”

I shrugged. “Like things didn’t play out how people assume they did. The Finsters were both shot in the study, presumably at point-blank range—assuming Irving Finster was the person wielding the gun. It’s unlikely he would miss in that scenario, right?”

“You’d be surprised,” Collin said. “Most people’s aim isn’t great under the best of circumstances, and if they’re under stress it’s even worse. Even well-trained police officers have a low accuracy rate when returning fire in an active shooter situation.”

He made good points, of course, but I was still undeterred. “Do you think the Robertson County Sheriff’s Department would be interested to know I found the bullet?”

Collin sat back, crossed his arms over his chest, and cocked his head. But while his body language might be reticent, there was a playful gleam in his eyes. “Are you butting into another investigation?”

“Maybe.” Definitely. “I just want to help, to figure out the truth, to see justice done.” Even if it might be years delayed.

Collin shrugged. “Can’t hurt to take the bullet by the sheriff’s department, see what they say. There’s no guarantee they’ll want to see it, or that it would make a difference even if they do. Irving Finster might have been waving his gun around, threatening his wife before he shot her. Maybe he fired accidentally, or missed her with his first shot. She might have been moving, trying to get away.”

My mind went back again to the furniture and boards blocking the windows. Had Mr. Finster been trying to keep his wife trapped? It seemed to be a possible—even likely—scenario, and Collin could be right. The bullet I’d found, even if fired from Finster’s gun, didn’t mean the incident was anything other than a murder-suicide. Still, there was no harm in contacting the sheriff’s department. “Thanks for the advice, Collin.”

He tapped his cheek with a finger. “Thank me with a kiss.”

When I went to kiss his cheek, he turned his head so that my kiss ended up on his mouth instead. I didn’t mind at all.

The following morning, I found a response from Buck in my email inbox, agreeing to the amount I’d suggested we offer for the headmaster’s house. As much as I wanted to head directly to the sheriff’s office and show them the bullet I’d found, it would have to wait. Making sure the Victorian wasn’t lost forever was my first priority.

After giving Sawdust a kiss on the nose and scratching both Copernicus and Galileo under their chins, I headed out to the school property. Once there, I set out on foot to find Loflin. I discovered him overseeing the demolition work in the academic building. I handed him my spreadsheet and my sketch of the proposed boundaries of the two-acre parcel around the house, and told him how much we were willing to pay for the property.

While I’d expected there to be some haggling, maybe even a spirited back and forth, he immediately accepted. “Done.” He rolled the papers up like blueprints, tucked them under his arm, and extended his hand to seal the deal with a shake. “I’ll have my attorney draw up the necessary papers.”

“Great!” I said. Then, narrowing my gaze, “You would have accepted much less, wouldn’t you?”

He grinned and slid me some side eye. “You’ll never know.”

I stomped a foot. “Rats!”

His grin disappeared. “Honestly? I struggled deciding what to do with the house. I had qualms about destroying it even before my wife and you pressured me to save it. Mrs. Finster often invited students to spend time there, and I have fond memories of singing show tunes around her piano in the parlor while she played. Tearing the house down felt like erasing her memory, but I didn’t think residents of the retirement community would be happy to see a constant reminder of the tragedy. They’ll be old enough to remember when the incident took place. I’m glad you took the decision out of my hands. My wife says it’s fate you came along.”

I felt the same, that fate was at work here, using me as an instrument to do her will. “I’m happy I could relieve your concerns,” I said, “though I’m not happy I overbid.” I gave him a smile to let him know I was only teasing. My offer price had been fair to everyone.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll throw in the furnishings at no additional cost if you’re interested. It’ll be one less thing on my plate, and the antiques would look nice in a boutique hotel. You could offer it furnished.”

A turnkey business would be much easier to sell and would get us a higher price, too. “Thanks! That’s very generous of you. I’m definitely interested.” Colette would love the antique pie safe, and the piano could be moved to the Joyful Noise Playhouse, a country church Buck and I had transformed into a performance venue a while back. The instrument would come in handy there as it could be used in performances. The remaining furniture would stay in the inn. “What about the personal items?”

“All yours, too,” Loflin said. “Keep what you want, and toss the rest or donate it to charity.”

“Should Buck and I wait for the paperwork to be finalized before we start work on the house?”

“No need. Start as soon as you’d like.” He pulled the big ring of keys from his pocket and fingered through them before removing one and handing it to me. “Here you go. That’ll open the deadbolts on the front and back doors.”

I’d used a screwdriver to unlock the deadbolt the other times I’d entered the Victorian, and I planned to replace the locks at some point, but the key would make accessing the house easier in the meantime. “Thanks.”

Loflin dipped his head in goodbye. “Best of luck to you.”

I returned to my SUV, where I promptly texted Buck to give him the good news. We got the house! Meet me there.

I drove back out onto the county road, turned toward the house, and pulled off when I reached what would be soon transformed into a large front lawn for the Victorian. I drove as far as I could before the thick, overgrown woods prevented me from going any farther in my vehicle. As I continued on foot, I glanced around, attempting to figure out the best course for a driveway. There were a few dead trees that could be removed to enable a gently curving drive to be paved through the woods. I had a spool of bright orange flagging tape in my tool belt, and pulled it out to mark the trees. Though I could have used the scissors I kept in my belt to cut the tape, it was quicker to simply use my teeth to sever the lengths before tying them around the trees. My dentist would definitely not approve.

Finally, I emerged onto the cleared area directly in front of the Victorian. I stood there and gazed up at it for a moment, visualizing various options for paint, shutters, and gingerbread accents. I couldn’t decide which mental image I liked best. But it didn’t matter. There would be plenty of time for me to work out these smaller details later.

I used the key in the door, though the knob fell apart once again. A new knob would be the first thing on my shopping list for the builder’s supply store. A shiny brass kickplate would look nice, too.

Once inside, I sat down in the parlor, got on my phone, and made arrangements for a large metal dumpster to be brought out for the demolition debris.

I’d just completed my call when Buck arrived. I met him in the foyer, where he held a box out to me. “Here. Got you an early Christmas present.”

I took it from him and looked it over. It was a brand-new laser level. “Thanks, Buck.”

As much as I appreciated the device and would certainly use it, I’d never get rid of the cat’s eye marble I’d used to test the house’s floors earlier. The marble was too pretty, too much like my sweet Sawdust’s eyes.

I retrieved two double-A batteries from my toolbox and inserted them in the level to test out the device. As expected, it worked perfectly, emitting crisp green lines so bright the thing could be used at a rock and roll laser light show.

It was early in the day, partly cloudy, and thus relatively cool, so we decided to take advantage of the milder weather to complete some of the outside work. We dismantled the collapsed porch covering and piled the damaged materials in front of the house for the time being. Though the Victorian looked naked without the skirting of the porch, we were able to get a better picture of its condition without the sagging roof distracting our eye. More bricks were missing than we’d realized, and many more were cracked. The masonry work was going to be much more involved than we’d planned on.

Buck looked up at the house and summed things up with a snort. “I think we made a big mistake.”

Part of me agreed with him and wondered if we should back out of the deal now, while there was still time. No papers had been signed yet and no money had changed hands. All we had was a handshake agreement. Loflin seemed like a reasonable sort, and wasn’t likely to hold us to it. Still, I didn’t like to renege on a promise. What’s more, it felt as if the windows were looking down on me, watching to see what I would do. I can’t let the house down, can I?

“Don’t be such a party pooper,” I told Buck. “We’re up to the challenge.”

“Those bricks date back to the eighteen hundreds. We’ll never be able to match them.”

“We won’t have to,” I said. “If we smear a little mortar around, it’ll make the new bricks look old and hide the fact that they don’t exactly match.” I’d learned the trick from a brick mason who’d posted a video to YouTube. What did we ever do without the internet?

“Fake it, you mean?”

“Yeah. If that doesn’t work, we can paint over the brick. We’ve got options.”

Buck turned back to the house, his expression less skeptical now. “All right. You’ve convinced me.”

The porch demo took us until noon. Though we kept an eye out for additional bullets, we found none.

After a quick lunch of sandwiches we’d brought from home, we went to the broom closet, where I retrieved several rags and a feather duster. The remodeling work would produce more dust and debris, but we wanted to dust off the furniture and cover it with cloth tarps beforehand to protect it from further damage.

“While we’re at it, let’s move the furniture away from the windows,” I suggested. “That will make it easier to measure the cracked windows to order replacements.”

We retrieved our felt-covered furniture sliders from our toolboxes. After donning our dust masks and goggles, Buck and I parted ways. While I remained downstairs, he took the staircase up to the second floor to tackle the bedrooms.

I started in the parlor, inadvertently playing a discordant tune on the piano as I moved the cloth across the keys to remove the dust. I pictured Rosie Finster sitting on the bench, surrounded by smiling students as they belted out show tunes. A teenaged Troy Loflin appeared in my mind’s eye. He was lucky to have had such a wonderful teacher who’d given him both confidence and a love of learning. I’d had many great teachers myself. I decided then and there that we should call this place Rosie’s Inn in the woman’s honor. Of course, whoever bought the place from us might change it, but even if the place bore the name for just a short while, it felt like the right thing to do.

Once I’d cleaned all the dust from the piano, I went to move it away from the windows. The feet had casters, but I couldn’t get the enormous instrument to budge, even when I wedged myself between it and the wall and used my legs for leverage. Buck would have to help me. I left the piano in place for now, and moved on.

When I finished in the parlor, I proceeded across the foyer to the study, carefully circling around the stain on the floor. It would feel disrespectful to step on it. As I worked, I heard creaks from above, like the day before. Again, I did my best to ignore them, telling myself that it was Buck causing the noises even though he was currently working in the bedrooms situated over the parlor, not in the master directly overhead. Shadows and light danced in my peripheral vision, too, but I knew that’s all they were. Shadows and light. Not the ghosts of the home’s former inhabitants roaming the house in search of forgiveness, justice, or retribution. I only wish my pounding heart could be convinced of this fact.

To make the bookcases easier to move, I removed the books and stacked them on the desk. I tucked one of the paperback copies of A Dark Day for Justice into my toolbox so I could take it home to read. The lone hardcover of The Solution went into my toolbox, too. I wanted to understand what could make a man murder his wife. Maybe there’d be some insights in Irving Finster’s writing. After all, a writer couldn’t help but put some of themselves into their work, right?

After moving the shelves away from the front-facing windows, I turned my attention to the windows on the side of the room, behind the desk. Once I’d emptied the bookcase, I knelt down to place sliders under it. As I carefully lifted the back corner of the shelving unit, my knee bumped the long curtain, pushing it aside. A knothole in the paneling caught my eye. It was positioned right up against the window frame. It was small and perfectly round. I would’ve chalked the size and shape up to chance if not for the fact that, at precisely that moment, the sun burst from behind a cloud. With the sagging porch roof removed, a tiny shaft of sunlight was visible through the knothole, which I now realized was an actual hole that angled through the window frame and continued all the way through the siding to the outside. Could the bullet have made this hole?

I pushed the curtain aside to get a better look out onto the porch. Though the post from which I’d retrieved the bullet was now languishing in the debris pile outside, it had been in a direct trajectory when it had been standing. The bullet I found in the post was definitely fired from inside this study. I was a little surprised that the force of the bullet going through the frame didn’t shatter the window. Then again, I’d seen images where a bullet penetrated tempered glass and only damaged the immediately surrounding area, the rest of the window remaining intact.

“Buck!” I hollered. “Come here! I need to show you something!”

He tramped down the stairs and came into the study. “What it is?”

“Remember the bullet I found yesterday?”

“Yeah?”

“It was fired from this room.” I showed him the bullet hole I’d found.

He grimaced. “The headmaster wasn’t much of a gunslinger, was he?”

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and snapped several pics of the hole from various angles and distances. Then I went out into the yard and snapped a photo of the hole from the outside.

Turning back to the task at hand, I motioned for him to follow me. “I need your help moving the piano.”

Buck trailed me to the parlor. It took every muscle the two of us had to move the grand piano.

Buck groaned as we inched it toward the center of the room. “This thing weighs a ton!”

He wasn’t too far off. I’d googled it. Depending on the make and model, a grand piano could weigh up to nine hundred pounds or more.

As we pushed both the piano and our personal limits, one of my favorite show tunes from Annie Get Your Gun came to mind. I belted the first line out loud in what, due to the exertion, sounded more like an elongated grunt than a singing voice. “Anything you can do I can do better. I can do anything better than you.”

Buck responded on cue. “No, you can’t!”

“Yes, I can!”

“No, you can’t!”

I took my hands from the piano and pumped my fists over my head. “Yes, I can! Yes, I can! Yes, I can!”