Bran New Death(33)

And so my day started.

By now, the kitchen almost felt like home, despite its size. Shi and I had dragged some overstuffed wing chairs in and created a cozy nook by the fireplace, which would be lovely on cool, autumn evenings if I ever had the nerve to try to light a fire. New York apartments with real, working fireplaces were well beyond my standard of living, though if you want me to bleed a radiator, I can do that. But the working end of the kitchen was just as it had been. I couldn’t wait until I got all my old baking stuff out of storage and could liven the dull place up a bit.

I mixed up the carrot and apple muffin batters, then began baking. Soon enough I had my four dozen muffins ready to go in the cheap plastic wear I had bought in town, and Shi and I munched a couple of the extras. They were so good; surprising, since I was just estimating the ingredients.

Shilo was going to go into Autumn Vale with me later in the day, but first, despite the tragedy we had witnessed in the night, I wanted to begin evaluating the castle, and figure out what needed to be done. My warm feeling the day before about getting to know my lost family had dissipated; I suppose a dead body in a hole on your property has a tendency to dampen enthusiasm. I now just wanted to sell the darn place and move back to civilization. I know that sounds snobby, but you try being woken up at three am by a lunatic on an excavator who then has the bad sense and worse taste to get murdered.

I felt horrible about Tom Turner, but I hadn’t done anything to him, nor did I know who did. I was nervous, frightened, and worried. And all of that emotion was punctuated by anger. I hadn’t asked for any of this. All I knew was, I needed to get on with the business of getting rid of Wynter Castle.

We stood in the main hall, our voices echoing in the cavernous space as we talked about how to best show the place off to make it saleable. It needed to be warmed up considerably, but I didn’t want to get in the way of its natural beauty. We fell silent as the sun ascended and beamed through the rose window, sending blades of colored light streaming, piercing the gray shadows of the hall.

“Wow,” Shilo said.

I wanted to weep, because that simple ray of light had reminded me of how amazing an experience this was turning out to be. So much beauty and I couldn’t keep it, could never afford to live in this gorgeous place. “I guess I should enjoy it while it lasts,” I said quietly. “It’ll be even better once the rose window is cleaned up.” I made a note to find someone to do that task—there was no way I was going to try cleaning a window twenty feet off the floor—and also to see if I could hire someone cheap to do the yard work. I wondered how much this was all going to cost. Gogi, had been right: if I was going to stay any length of time at all, I needed to get a flow of income going.

We worked for a few hours removing Holland covers, rearranging furniture and assessing the castle’s strong and weak points. The biggest task was finding a way to get the Holland cover off the chandelier, but at long last we managed it with minimal damage to ourselves and the long-handled pruning shears I discovered in the pantry. As the fabric cover floated down to the hall below, we stood for a long moment, looking down on the chandelier from the gallery. It was amazing, hundreds of crystal shards dangling from gilt-coated brass. I’d have loved to turn it on, but thought I should get an electrician to look it over first.

Then I went to my uncle’s desk, which was in the smallest extra room on the second floor. He had a cluttered, dusty, old rolltop desk with an array of nubby pencils, inkless pens, stained erasers, and rulers from a variety of commercial sources, including “Autumn Vale Community Bank; Where Your Hard-Earned Dollar is Safe and Secure!” It looked to me as if someone had rustled through it lately, and I thought that this was probably one spot the police had checked.

I was going to have to go through all the junk piece by piece, but not today. I idly sifted through, noticing Autumn Vale Community Bank check records and account books, bills from local utilities, an unopened envelope addressed to Turner Wynter Global Enterprise, and one curious little torn memo in scrawled handwriting . . . someone had written “Call Rusty about mobi . . .” and the rest was illegible. It had to be my uncle’s handwriting . . . who else would leave a handwritten note in his desk?

I couldn’t do any more though. Time was flying.

Shilo and I got into her rattletrap—the miles were adding up too quickly on my rental, especially for someone who didn’t have an income—with the four dozen muffins for Golden Acres. As Shilo drove, I pointed out the by now well-known way into town. The castle was above the town, to some extent, and when we rounded a curve I told her to pull off to the side for a minute.