Sarah Graves - Crawlspace (Home Repair Is Homicide Series #13)  

SARAH GRAVES lives with her husband in Eastport, Maine, in the 1823 Federal-style house that helped inspire her books. This series and the authors real-life experience have been featured in House & Garden and USA Today. She is currently at work on the newest Home Repair Is Homicide mystery, which Bantam will publish in 2011.

Y OURE AWFULLY QUIET, CAROLYN RATHBONE COMPLAINED as Chip Hahn pulled the Volvo sedan into the empty parking lot and turned the ignition off at last.

He looked down at his hands. Hed had a bad feeling about this trip all along. Still did.

She tried again: Dont you like these people youre going to see tomorrow, or what?

It was just past eight in the evening. Hed been driving all day to reach Eastport, Maine, before nightfall and had missed by about four hours. God, it got dark early here in November.

I like them. Its been ten years since Ive seen them, is all. More than ten, actually, so long ago that he hadnt even called to let any of them know he was coming.

He just meant to stop in and say hello if they were at home. And anyway, his silence had nothing to do with his old friends, but Carolyn had stopped listening and got out of the car before he could finish saying so.

Sighing, he hauled the heavy satchel containing her laptop, BlackBerry, iPod, and vodka bottle plus six hardcover copies of her latest book, Young Savages: Bad Drugs, Sick Sex, and Bloody Murder in the Richest Town in America, out of the Volvos back seat. The parking lot overlooked a wooden pier sticking out into Passamaquoddy Bay, he knew from his map. The long, narrow body of salt water divided Moose Island, which the little bayside town of Eastport perched on, from the Canadian island of Campobello.

Tonight the bay was inky black, with thin, silvery crescents shining atop the waves, reflections of dock lights illuminating a long concrete breakwater about a hundred yards distant. The salt air smelled of seaweed, creosote, and wood smoke.

Come on, Chip, Carolyn called petulantly from across the street. Hurry up.

The cold wind off the water cut through his jacket, adding another complaint to his already full list of them. He was tired, hungry, and unaccountably nervous, and the sharp tang of sea salt in the night air somehow made him feel worse.

As he shouldered Carolyns satchel another unpleasant shiver went through him, as if he not only wanted to be home in his own small, familiar Manhattan apartment, but that he should be. That something bad might happen because he wasnt.

And so far, nothing about Eastport was doing much to change that. Old two-story brick commercial buildings lined the main street. All were dark now except the one open restaurant on the corner, a half-dozen cars clustered in front of it.

Other than that, this end of the street was dead. A few of the storefronts had plywood sheets nailed over their windows. Kids hung out near the benches at the far end of the parking lot, laughing and cursing, showing off for one another.

A police car cruised past, slowing to give the kids a long looking over. Other than that, hardly anyone was around.

Well, but it was nearly winter, Chip reminded himself. Any tourists this remote, thinly settled coastal area got in summer had gone home weeks ago. He felt another pang of homesickness for the city, where sirens and garbage trucks and the low, constant thrum of human activity at least reassured him that someone was alive 24/7.

Come on, Chipper, Carolyn whined from in front of the restaurant. With the satchel digging what felt like a trench into his neck, he hurried to catch up with her, looking both ways unnecessarily before he crossed the street.

So, does this place meet with Madames approval? he asked her when he reached the other side.

Hed have been happy to get a sandwich and fries at a burger joint on the mainland. But Carolyn had vetoed those, supposedly on the grounds that she wanted to eat authentic Maine seafood.

Why that could be gotten only on an island she didnt bother explaining, and anyway he wouldnt have believed it. He knew the real reason was that none of the places they had passed served drinks, and because they were way out here in the boonies, she was saving the rest of the vodka in the satchel for later.

Listen, about tomorrow he began hesitantly. Hed been thinking all day about how to tell her. Might as well get it over with. But she brushed him away with an impatient flutter of red-tipped fingers, while diners inside the restaurants large plate-glass windows observed her with interest.

No surprise there; in her late twenties, Carolyn was still girlishly striking, with long, glossy black hair, enormous blue eyes, and expert makeup he knew shed paid a mint to learn to apply. Tonight she wore skinny black jeans with a white silk shirt, heeled leather boots, and a black leather jacket that made her tiny frame look even slimmer than it was.

But then, Carolyns outfits always looked good, too, even after a long drive or a hellish transcontinental flight or a mob-scene book signing, because no matter the difficulty of the task, she always made sure someone else did the heavy lifting.

A beat-up old Ford pickup went by with a low rumble of bad muffler, one fender hanging on by a glob of Bondo and the other heavily patched with duct tape. All Chip could hear of the music coming from the truck was the bass line: boomp, boomp, boomp. When the kid behind the wheel spotted Carolyn, his jaw dropped and the truck slowed suddenly, as if the mere sight of her had taken the strength from the drivers body.

Chip rolled his eyes. Makeup lessons or not, he personally thought that her eyeliner was way too heavy, and that the blood-colored lipstick Carolyn wore made her mouth resemble a wound.

Oh, tomorrow, she mimicked him, ignoring the kid who now revved his trucks engine show-offily and had to rescue it from a stall before roaring away.

Weve been through that already, Chip, okay? Carolyn said. Spend all day with these friends of yours if you want to, but I have other plans. I mean, I didnt come this far just to chicken out at the last minute.

Fine. Whatever you say. It wasnt what hed wanted to talk about. But when she got like this, there was no point arguing with her. He held the restaurant door for her, then abruptly forgot his troubles at the aromas greeting him inside.

Grilled vegetables, garlicky shrimp in some kind of wine sauce, and a heap of rice pilaf went by on a platter. He felt as if all the delicious smells were seizing him by the nose, floating him through the air like a cartoon character.

A hostess swiftly seated them at a table near the window, brought glasses of wine, and recommended a combination plate containing samples of the days specials. A short time laterCarolyn hadnt even finished her wine before the food began arriving, a first for her, in Chips experienceecstasy ensued.

Smoked-salmon pizza slid down like ambrosia, the lobster in spinach sauce tasted like heaven, and the duck with a conserve of ginger and passion fruit absolute bliss. After half an hour Chip sighed, relaxing into the pleasure of a decent meal after a long days drive, then looked up to find Carolyn eyeing him sourly.