Free A Line To Murder (A Puget Sound Mystery) by Karla Stover Page B

window. On the foyer’s left, a single step down led to the living room. An arched wall separated it from the dining room beyond.
    “Looks like you have good bones here to work with.”
    “I did it backwards. Sanded and painted the outside first. Dominic and I used sleeping bags on air mattresses while I worked, but I got the outside done before the rain started.”
    “I don’t know if that’s backwards as much as practical.” I looked at the refinished floors. “Especially in Tacoma. Look how nice it’s been this spring and yet I have some vivid memories of July camping trips in the rain when I was a kid—in tents, too. My mother was one heck of a good sport.”
    Andy’s living room was sparsely furnished but comfortable looking. There were built-in bookcases on each side of a fireplace. In front of the fireplace was a large area rug on a wood floor. A couple of easy chairs flanked the hearth. Each of them had a handy end table with a reading light. Except for an old stereo and a tape player, that was it. No wall art, plants or any kind of bric-a-brac. The music equipment sat on the floor near the dining room. Piles of records surrounded it. Old 78s juxtaposed with 45s plus some 33 1/3s and new albums. Tapes filled two boxes. A fifty-year history of the music world.
    “What a great room.” I followed him through an empty dining room and into a kitchen with refurbished cupboards and old appliances.
    The far end of the kitchen had another set of stairs that servants would have used. He gestured me toward them, and I climbed with reluctance, conscious of how close he was behind me. Dominic’s room was thoroughly modern with bright colors and lots of shelves. Model airplanes hung from the ceiling on fishing line. They reminded me of the plants in Isca’s room.
    A miniature basketball hoop hung over a wastepaper basket. Next to that was a poster of some player in a Seattle Sonic’s uniform. There were a lot of books, both paperback and comic. An old copy of Gene Stratton Porter’s Freckles lay on a desk.
    “It sucks that no one reads her books anymore.” I thumbed idly through the pages, stopping at an occasional picture. “When I was a kid, my folks couldn’t afford a lot of new books for my brother and me, so we read their old ones.”
    “Melody gave it to me. Her mother gave it to her.”
    “Melody?”
    “My mother. It’s an old book, but Dominic likes bugs so I thought he’d find the stuff about the Limberlost interesting. For a school project we researched what happened to the area in the twentieth century and how people are trying to resurrect the land. Teaching conservation is big in school right now.”
    The book was old both in the sense of its publication date and its condition. Before I put it down, an inscription on the flyleaf caught my attention. “To Pacifist Andrew Clay, With Love From Mother.” Melody had used a fountain pen and written in swirling copperplate; the ink was smudged on the date. I looked up. Andy stared so intently at the spidery writing I felt a twinge of unease again. The upstairs was very quiet. Old homes were built so noises didn’t carry—either in or out.
    “Where’s Dominic?” I put the book down and moved toward the door and into the hall.
    “At the neighbor’s.” Andy bit the words off, stepped in front of me and opened the door to a newly remodeled bathroom. I looked in. He’d done a great job of keeping its nineteenth century look but updating it at the same time. A door in one wall door opened into Dominic’s bedroom. We continued down the hall. Andy hadn’t done any work in his own room yet. Faded old wallpaper covered the walls. The floor was unfinished.
    “Your room shows how much work the others must have been.” I was beginning to fidget. The paper had water stains and spots where pictures had been removed. The woodwork was scuffed. A large desk in one corner of the room held a computer. I hoped someday, when computers had been around a