Free Fatal Fixer-Upper by Jennie Bentley

heart beating so hard in my chest I could hear it.
    Shards of broken pottery, a sea of porcelain pieces, were strewn across the floor, as if an earthquake had hit Waterfield while I'd been away, knocking all the flatware, glasses, and utensils out of the drawers and off the shelves onto the cracked vinyl, breaking whatever could break on impact. There were even some broken jars from the refrigerator among the mix, and the sour smell of pickles permeated the air.
    I stood frozen for a second, in shock, before I backed slowly out the door. In the hallway, I turned tail and walked briskly to the front door, ears straining. I knew there hadn't been an earthquake in this part of the country in the past few days. Someone had lifted the plates, cups, and glasses off the shelves and flung them against the floor and walls to break them. Someone who had been in Aunt Inga's house while I was away. Someone who might still be here. It took an eternity for my shaking hands to undo the lock on the front door, and every moment I stood there fumbling, I expected to hear footsteps behind me. But whoever had been here—kids, maybe?—was long gone. Still, I didn't draw a deep breath until I was outside on the sidewalk, well away from the house. Once I could breathe normally again, I pulled out my cell phone.
    After I had introduced myself to the 911 operator and explained the situation, I settled down on the curb to wait for someone to arrive. Given the fact that it wasn't actually an emergency, I figured it would be a while, but less than ten minutes later a squad car came quietly rolling up the street. It parked a few feet away, and Police Chief Wayne Rasmussen unfolded his lanky length from behind the wheel. 'Evening, Miss Baker.'
    'Avery,' I said, 'please. Nice to see you again, Chief Rasmussen. Quite an honor, having the chief of police answering my call.'
    Wayne Rasmussen's lips quirked. 'Recognized the address. Figured it was you.' He looked around at the dark and overgrown yard and the light spilling out of the open front door, before turning his attention back to me. 'Wanna tell me what happened?'
    I nodded, still a little shaky. 'Well, you know I've spent the past week in New York. Settling my affairs, as Mr. Rod gers put it.' A little sinister, that expression. That's what people do before they die, isn't it? What Aunt Inga had been trying to do, when she asked me to visit. 'The flight was delayed, or I would have been here hours ago. When I walked in, I discovered that someone had been in the house. There's broken china all over the kitchen floor. And after that letter . . .'
    'Maybe Mr. Rodgers dropped a stack of plates?' Wayne suggested.
    I shook my head. 'Every plate, glass, and bowl in the house is broken. It looks like someone opened the cabinet doors and dumped everything.'
    Wayne Rasmussen glanced at the house. 'I'll just take a look. You can wait right here.'
    'Don't mind if I do,' I said, turning to watch as his long legs ate up the distance between the sidewalk and the porch. Just before he disappeared inside, he unholstered his gun, and I went back to chewing on my bottom lip. He came back a few minutes later and stopped in front of me, rocking back on his heels, thumbs hooked under his belt. I squinted up at him. He nodded. 'Sure doesn't look like any accident I ever saw. I'll get somebody out tomorrow to look things over. Maybe we can pick up some fingerprints or something. Or at least figure out how they got in. You take the key to New York with you?'
    I shook my head. 'Mr. Rodgers kept it. Just in case he needed to get in while I was gone, I guess.' Not that I was accusing Mr. Rodgers of running amok in Aunt Inga's kitchen. 'And because the house wasn't actually mine until now. The waiting period, remember?'
    'How'd you get in, then, if Mr. Rodgers had the key?'
    'I called him a few days ago,' I explained, 'to find out how things were going. When I told him I was coming back, we arranged that he would leave it under