Better Homes and Corpses Read Online Free PDF Page B

hairspray.
    “Whoa, what’s going on, you two?” The Mr. Coffee carafe smelled like road tar. I was happy I’d brought my own.
    “I’m trying to spend time with my old man. Until all his clients’ taxes are filed, I have to take advantage of our time together.” Barb wrapped her arms around Jack and gave him a big, wet smacker. “Married thirty years and still madly in love.”
    Barb and Jack had come to Montauk on their honeymoon and never left.
    “I wanted to give you back an extra key I found at the Kittinger cottage,” I said.
    “Are you almost done? I can’t wait to take a peek.” Barb took the key and put it in a cabinet behind the desk.
    “I think one last trip should do it.”
    “Have you recovered from your ordeal at the Spenser estate?”
    “Elle wants me to help her inventory the house for the insurance company. What are your thoughts?”
    “That you’re crazy.” Barb glanced at Jack.
    “Whose estate?” A pencil rested on Jack’s huge ear. With his red hair and freckles, he looked like the
MAD
magazine mascot, Alfred E. Neuman.
    “She’s thinking of going to work at the Spenser estate—Seacliff. Pay attention!” Barb slapped the top of his head. “Maybe you should tell the story?”
    “It was a long time ago,” he moaned.
    “Tell her!”
    “I don’t like to gossip.”
    “It’s not gossip. It’s fact.”
    “I wasn’t there,” he said.
    “No, but you know people who were, and you’re friends with Paul.”
    “Who’s Paul?” I asked.
    “He’s Mickey’s son. You know, from Mickey’s Chowder Shack,” Jack said.
    “Paul is also the father of Tara, your archnemesis at garage sales.”
    Barb had introduced me to Tara the previous summer during the Fourth of July fireworks on Umbrella Beach. After that, I started noticing Tara at local garage sales and flea markets. Once, at a sale in Southampton, I put down four panels of vintage bark cloth curtains in order to look through a box of books. Tara swooped in, grabbed the curtains, then continued on to the cashier without a backward glance. When I protested to the woman running the sale, Tara handed me a business card with a single word printed on it—
ChampagneAndCaviar
. “That’s my seller ID online. You can buy them there. That’s if you’re lucky enough to win top bid.” She gave me a vulturous grin. A month later, Tara was at a yard sale in Water Mill. While she was busy haggling with the home owner over the price of a two-dollar candlestick, I swiped an English mantel clock from a box near her feet and hid it behind the garage. After Tara zoomed away in anger, I placed the clock on the table and the home owner said, “That woman was going nuts looking for this. Where’d you find it?” Five dollars later I’d exacted my revenge. Afterward, I checked Tara’s rating online and was happy to find she had four recent negative feedbacks. Apparently she sold items that were “not as described.” The bark cloth curtains, however, sold for $162.
Darn.
    “Tell her, Jack!” Barb moved across the room to her desk.
    “Okay. Here’s the story. Around fifteen or so years ago,Caroline Spenser was having one of her grand parties. Apparently, Cole got into a screaming match with his mother on the terrace. The windows were open and all the guests overheard. No one could make out their words, but it was ugly. Cole was angry and left with Tara on the back of his motorcycle. Later, the two of them ended up in a ditch. Tara’s father, Paul, told me he called Caroline Spenser from the hospital, but it was Cole’s father, Charles Spenser, who showed up—not Caroline. Soon afterward, Cole left East Hampton for good. He came back only once, for his father’s funeral.”
    Barb cut in. “You are leaving out one part. The day before the party, Jillian and Cole got into a boating accident. Caroline throws a big soiree the next evening while her daughter lies in a hospital room. Apparently, the show must go on.”
    It did sound a