Bran New Death(24)

Silvio shrugged. “You’re his niece.”

“I know, but my mom had been estranged from him for well over thirty years. I’m just surprised that he still wanted me to have it.” I watched his face as his gaze shifted away.

He leaned back in his chair and plaited his fingers over his paunch. “One thing you may not know about Melvyn: the family name was important to him. He had me do research. He was pleased that despite your marriage, you kept the name Wynter.”

“But I didn’t. Not really. I took my husband’s name, but when he died I went back to Wynter.” I would have kept his name—I had loved being Mrs. Merry Paradiso—but I went back to my maiden name at the request of his family, who had never been fond of me. His mother blamed me for his staying in the States and dying here.

He shrugged. “Same thing.”

“If he had you do research on me, why didn’t he contact me? I don’t get it.”

The lawyer gazed at me for a long minute. “You know, death catches us all unaware, even an eighty-something-year-old man. I think he planned to contact you once he got a few things sorted out.”

“A few . . . what, like the lawsuits between him and Rusty Turner?”

“You’ve heard about that, huh?”

“Did you represent one of the men? Which one?”

“I was not able to represent either gentleman, since it would have been a conflict of interest in this particular case,” he said, threading his fingers together, the heavy ring on his wedding finger tripping up the action.

“Why?”

“I drew up the partnership papers, so it would have been deemed that I had special knowledge of Rusty’s business that would not necessarily be the case in the general run of things.”

“Who did my uncle use?”

“He retained a lawyer from Ridley Ridge, a very competent fellow . . . can’t recall his name right now.”

“Okay,” I said, disappointed. I had hoped for some information on the state of the lawsuits. Well, I had yet to go through my uncle’s papers; maybe I’d find more information there. “What was the nature of my uncle and Rusty Turner’s partnership?”

“Pretty simple, kind of an exploratory company to figure out if it was worthwhile to develop your uncle’s land for a condo neighborhood. That’s all I know,” he said firmly.

Given his desperate plans to try to monetize the Wynter estate, probably so he could keep the castle running, I wondered how Uncle Melvyn would feel about my plan to sell it. Nothing I could do about that, though. I couldn’t keep it. “I’m curious about Wynter Castle. If I’m going to sell it, it might help to write up a little history, you know, of anything important or interesting that happened there. Do you know anything about it?”

“Not a thing. I married into Autumn Vale; my wife is from around here, but I’m not. If you want to know more, maybe you should go to the library. The girl who runs it is a local.”

Now to broach a more delicate subject. “Mr. Silvio, I have heard some local talk that Melvyn was responsible for Rusty Turner’s death, or at least his disappearance.”

“Pfah!” he said, with a wave of one broad, ringed hand. “Gossip. People like to speculate, you know? Melvyn would never have done something like that.”

Okay, now for the even touchier part. “It has been suggested, too, that maybe Melvyn was murdered by the same person responsible for Mr. Turner’s disappearance.”

He sat up straight and glared at me across the desk. “Miss Wynter, I think you’ve been listening to a lot of small-town folk who are bored and find that speculating about murder makes their day more interesting. End of story. Poor old Melvyn was heading to Rochester. He told me he was going to go one day, and I told him to wait until the weather got better, but he was a stubborn old bird and his eyesight wasn’t so good.”

He could be right about bored locals speculating. Even Gogi Grace, as levelheaded as she seemed, could just be in it for the titillation. How much did I truly know about anyone in Autumn Vale? I stood and stuck my hand out. “Thank you for your time today, Mr. Silvio. May I come back if I have further questions about the estate?”

“Sure!” he said, reaching across and taking my hand. “Come back any time. I always like to see a pretty face.”

I smiled automatically at the intended compliment and showed myself to the door. I walked out of the house slash office building and looked up and down the street. I was just steps away from Abenaki Avenue, so I strolled toward it, getting my bearings as I went. Autumn Vale was indeed a “vale,” located in a valley between two rocky prominences. Maybe that was why cell phones did not seem to work, nor did the GPS in my rental.