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  Of course, they were also keeping the price down for their own homes, but I assumed that at some point they would decide to bring River Bend back to its previous glory, and then prices would rise accordingly, and they could make a killing, property by property.

  In the background I heard the roofers retracting the bucket lift they had used to access the high roof on the chapel. I was glad that the money to pay them came out of Joey’s budget and not my own. I had enough to handle with advertising and paying people to support the conferences, like maids and caterers. Which reminded me that I needed to focus on my job for a while.

  Though it was hard, I pushed away my research and focused on the job that paid my bills. Since real estate prices were on my mind, I wondered if I could bring in one or more of the Realtors who had spoken at the recent lunch. Real estate trends? Real estate as an investment? I brainstormed a bunch of ideas and then let them percolate for a while as I returned to my review of the data from River Bend’s HOA.

  A man named Jose Villanueva owned eight properties, and I realized that he lived across the street from Earl Garner. All of them were in joint tenancy with his wife, Daniela. On one, though, she had used her full name—Daniela Garner Villanueva.

  That couldn’t be a coincidence. She had to be a relative of Earl’s. The remaining properties were all owned by individuals who either lived in the house or showed a personal address elsewhere.

  Earl Garner was clearly taking advantage of the reduction in property values in River Bend to swoop up houses at bargain prices, and sharing that with his family member, and with Kimberly Eccles and Oscar Panaccio. It wasn’t against the law to be a good businessman.

  But as the president of the homeowner’s association, Garner had a fiduciary duty to the community to keep up the property values. He, and the rest of the board, had the authority to maintain common areas, like our streets, our clubhouse and the pool. They also hired outside firms like the landscaping contractor.

  Rochester was antsy, wandering around the office unable to settle, so I grabbed his leash and took him out. For the first time since early spring, I had to button up my jacket. Cold winds swept past Friar Lake’s hilltop location, shaking the few remaining leaves from the deciduous trees.

  Rochester didn’t mind the weather; the golden retriever’s double coat acted as an insulator, keeping him cool in the summer and warm in the winter. As we threaded our way along the sidewalks of Friar Lake, past the former monks’ housing, renovated as modern dormitory rooms, I kept thinking about Earl Garner.

  What if he, and other board members like Oscar Panaccio, were deliberately sabotaging our community to drive prices down and purchase neighborhood houses at a deep discount? Mortgage loans were at historically low rates, while rental rates were still high, so these buyers could probably make enough income to cover their mortgage debt and hold the properties for a few years. Then, when they were ready to sell, they could double down on improvements to River Bend, and voila, prices would shoot up.

  Rochester spotted a pair of squirrels chasing each other up and down an oak tree, and he tugged forward because he wanted to play. While I held tight to his leash, I realized it was a clever scheme. Was it illegal? Hard to say, but Earl Garner was an attorney, so he might have found loopholes in the law that would prevent him and his cronies from being prosecuted.

  What if Todd Chatzky knew about it, and with the new regulations that Pennsylvania Properties was going to institute, he was trying to combat the practice? Was that why his personality had changed from friendly to gruff?

  Could that be a motive for one of the board members to kill him?

  That was an idea I couldn’t keep to myself. I led Rochester back to my office and called Rick. I got his voice mail, so left a message. “I have an idea I need to talk to you about. Call me as soon as you can.”

  My hand was shaking when I put down the phone. Was I living among murderers? And was my knowledge putting me and Lili at risk?

  When we walked back into the gatehouse, Rochester sat on the floor, looking up at me. I got down on the floor with him, and he sprawled out beside me, his head in my lap. I stroked the soft down of his head and ears and willed myself to relax. As both Lili and Rick had warned me, I was jumping ahead of myself, imagining terrible scenarios based on the flimsiest of evidence.

  After a few minutes of doggy love, I was ready to face the world again, and I jumped back into Friar Lake work, filling out yet another in a long line of requisition forms.

  Rick called back an hour later. “I hope you have good news, because I’ve had a crappy day. More vandalism over the weekend – this time they hit the old mill, with graffiti and broken windows.”

  “Just the kind of thing your chief hates,” I said. “I need to talk to you as soon as possible about the material I’ve been researching on Hi Neighbor, and some other stuff I’ve found out, because it’s freaking me out. Can you meet me on my way home at the Chocolate Ear?”

  “How about in an hour?” Rick asked. “I have a meeting with the chief of police in a couple of minutes. Probably have my ass handed to me, so I’ll need some caffeine to recover.”

  I agreed and ended the call. I had investigated a number of crimes with Rochester in the past, but rarely had they hit as close to home as this one. I worried that one of my neighbors might be a murderer, and others crooks, and that Rochester and I weren’t safe on our daily roams around the neighborhood. I had to figure this out, and soon.

  22: Bucket Brigade

  After a quick run through my email and outstanding issues, I locked up my office and headed for downtown Stewart’s Crossing. A year earlier, Gail had expanded The Chocolate Ear into the space next door. She didn’t offer table service there, so there were no restrictions against bringing your pet in with you. It was a great way to have Rochester accompany me and not have to sit outside.

  When I got there, Rick was already inside at a table with a cup of coffee. “Been a long day,” he said. “I’ll watch Rochester while you get your coffee. Get me a piece of pastry while you’re at it. Coffee’s not enough, so I need some sugar, too.”

  I picked up a café mocha for myself, a pair of chocolate croissants, and one of Gail’s dog biscuits, and brought them all back to the table. “So what’s up?” Rick asked. “I hope it’s good news, because I’ve had enough bad today.”

  “Well, I don’t know if my news is good or bad for you, though it sounds bad for me.” The volunteer fire alarm sounded, a high-low whoop that called our local residents to an emergency somewhere. As kids, we had learned the history of the department when a couple of volunteers came to our elementary school. We had heard about fighting fires, and been able to climb on the truck and try on helmets that were way too big for us.

  “Can you imagine what it was like back in the day?” I asked Rick, when the alarm subsided. “When you had to bring your own bucket to the fire and they set up a chain of men to make a bucket brigade?”

  That was a time when neighbors helped neighbors, I thought. Unlike today, when so many of my River Bend neighbors were complaining about each other and fighting, often to the detriment of the community.

  “You remember that stuff, too?” Rick asked. “I’m surprised we still get by with a volunteer department, given how big the town has grown. Jerry Vickers belongs, you know. He’s tried to get me to join a couple of times, but if I’m going to risk my life for a job I’d rather get paid for it.”

  Neither of us mentioned it, but there was the additional baggage of the fact that his ex-wife had left him for a firefighter. She’d left that guy, too, and a host of others, and though Rick was glad to be rid of her, he still had a soft spot in his heart for her.

  He sipped his coffee. “So, what have you found?”

  I reminded him that he’d noticed the number of complaints about renters at River Bend. “I got a list of all the rental properties from the association and started tracking ownership,” I said, finessing how I’d gotten the list, or how I did the
tracking.

  “What did you find?”

  “A couple of the board members have been snapping up houses and townhouses at bargain basement prices. I heard via a Realtor that prices are low compared to other areas because of all the maintenance problems at River Bend.”

  The fire truck zoomed past us on Main Street, siren going and lights flashing, and we had to wait for it to pass to talk again. Rochester squirmed under my chair, clearly bothered by the siren. There were only a couple of customers around us, including a woman with a rat terrier on her lap, but I didn’t want to broadcast my business to everyone.

  “What does that mean when it comes to murder of the property manager?”

  “I don’t know. But this could be a pretty profitable scheme, and it involves at least three of the board members, and a woman who I think is related to the board president. That doesn’t sound right.”

  “I’d have to ask the district attorney if it’s illegal, though,” Rick said. “And that’s a whole other crime than the one I’m investigating.”

  I reached down to pet Rochester, who had relaxed once the fire engine was gone. “Maybe not,” I said. “At the design committee meeting the night he was killed, Todd Chatzky announced that there were changes coming to the way that Pennsylvania Properties managed the community. What if Todd figured out what was going on, and was trying to institute new rules that would prevent these guys from buying more properties?”

  Rick looked skeptical.

  “You always tell me there are four motives for murder. Love, lust, lucre and loathing. This operation sounds pretty lucrative, and if Todd threatened to stop it that could be a motive for getting him off the scene.”

  “Getting him fired or transferred, yeah,” Rick said. “But knifing him in the gut seems over the top.”

  “I agree. But people act on impulse, too. Arguments get out of hand.”

  “They do, though not many people carry such a big knife around with them in case of an argument. I need a lot more evidence before I can make an arrest.”

  “Did you get anything more out of Todd’s widow?”

  “She remembered that she spoke with the security guard on duty as she was pulling out. I checked with him, and he verifies that it was around eight-thirty, because he had just come back from his break.”

  “How does that fit your timeline?”

  “She insists that Todd was alive in the management office when she left. She says she saw a couple of men talking outside as she got into her car, but she didn’t know who they were so there’s no way to see if anyone saw her leave. The timeline is short—yes, she could have gotten her husband to take a walk with her, and stabbed him by the bench, but it’s at the very opening of the window the ME came up with.”

  “How does she seem? Upset?”

  “Steve. Her husband was just murdered. Of course she’s upset. And it seems real to me, not something manufactured. I can’t see her as viable suspect anymore, though I’m not clearing anyone at the present time.”

  “What about those men she saw? They were probably board members, hanging around after the design committee meeting. You could interview each of them, ask them if they were there after the meeting, if they saw her.”

  “You seem to forget I have some training and experience in this field,” Rick said. “I’ve already done that. Oscar Panaccio and Earl Garner both confirmed they stayed in the parking lot after the meeting to talk about board business. Both say they went right home after that and didn’t see Chatzky leave. Garner suggested that maybe Chatzky went out to look over one or more of the properties that were discussed at the meeting, and that someone, maybe a random mugger, approached him and killed him.”

  “A random mugger? In River Bend?” Could my disturbed dreams have been a prophecy?

  “I don’t give that much credence. He still had his wallet and keys on him. Despite the complaints I’ve heard River Bend has pretty good security, and it’s doubtful someone with criminal intent could have managed to get in and be roaming around looking for a victim. Despite all the petty vandalism going on around town, we haven’t had a crime against person like that for a long, long time.”

  He left soon after that, and I drove home with Rochester. I walked and fed him, and Lili and I were just finishing dinner when the doorbell rang. Rochester began barking madly.

  “Delivery?” Lili asked. “Seems kind of late.”

  I looked at my watch. “Oh, crap, I asked this guy from the board to come over and look at the house.” It was tough to talk over Rochester’s barking. “I’ll tell you about it after he leaves. But I’m pretending that I might want to sell the house.”

  “You come up with the craziest schemes,” she said, shaking her head. “You go, I’ll clean up.”

  I grabbed Rochester by the collar as I opened the door to Oscar Panaccio. He looked a lot less formal than he had when I first met him at River Bend, in a Hawaiian shirt and board shorts, an outfit that looked way too young on a guy who had to be long past retirement.

  “Thanks for coming over,” I said, as I reached out to shake his hand. “This is Rochester. Don’t worry, he’s very friendly.”

  “The bigger question is how destructive he is,” Oscar said. “He doesn’t scratch the walls or stain the carpet, does he?”

  I was insulted on Rochester’s behalf, but I had to admit I knew people who complained about those problems from their dogs. “No, he’s very good in that regard. Very well trained, and he goes to work with me most days, so he’s not home alone much.”

  “You work at Eastern, don’t you? You can bring a dog with you?”

  “I’ve always had permission direct from President Babson,” I said. “And at Friar Lake it’s not an issue, because he stays inside whenever we have programming.”

  He nodded and looked around the living room. Lili stepped out of the kitchen then, and she stopped in surprise. “Dr. Panaccio,” she said.

  He looked over at her. “Dr. Weinstock. I didn’t know you lived here in River Bend, too.”

  “I’m a fairly recent transplant. I moved in with Steve a couple of years ago.” She smiled. “But we’re both thinking of moving closer to Leighville to cut down on the commute. Traffic seems to get worse every year.”

  “I agree with that, but I’m committed to River Bend.”

  Rochester didn’t seem to mind Oscar Panaccio; he sprawled on the living room floor as I showed Oscar the dining room, the breakfast nook and the kitchen. “Original cabinets and appliances,” Oscar said. “They’ll need to be replaced eventually.”

  Looking through his eyes, I noticed a couple of places where the white fiberboard had chipped on the corners and remembered the drawer beside the stove that you had to be careful with because it kept running off its track. “I did replace the garbage disposal last year.”

  “Hardly matters in terms of the price of the house,” Oscar said. “Can I see the upstairs?”

  Lili stayed downstairs with Rochester, and I led Oscar upstairs. Lili had hung pieces from her extensive collection of photographs along the stairway and in the upstairs hall. “Going to have to repaint after you take down all these pictures,” Oscar said.

  Like, duh, I wanted to say, but I resisted.

  “Wallpaper in the bathrooms,” he said, shaking his head. “I can see where the edges are curling. That’s a pain to pull down.”

  I knew what his game was. He was picking out all the small problems so that he could come up with a low ball offer. But he didn’t know I had no intention of selling.

  After he’d finished criticizing the chips on the corner molding in the master bedroom and the original toilets in both bathrooms, he asked, “Whose name is on the deed? Yours alone?”

  “Actually it’s in the name of a trust my father created. I’m the beneficiary of the trust and I haven’t changed the deed yet.”

  “You’ll have to do that when you’re ready to sell. How soon are you looking to get out of here?”

  “Not sure. Like
Lili said, the traffic is getting worse, and with all these problems in River Bend—the bad landscaping, the poor maintenance of the roads, and now Todd Chatzky’s murder—well, it seems like the right time to leave.”

  “I’m prepared to make you an offer today,” Oscar said. “Contingent on an inspection, of course. There could be a lot of hidden problems. How does two-fifty sound?”

  I was surprised—first that a college professor had the kind of available resources to make a cash offer, and second because it was even lower than I had expected. “It sounds very low,” I said. “Zillow says the property is worth at least three twenty-five.”

  “Zillow doesn’t know what ‘s going on in this neighborhood,” he said. “Like you said, there are a lot of problems unique to River Bend, and using comparables from outside the neighborhood won’t work.” He glared at me. “You’re not trying to get a quote from Earl Garner, are you? Because I guarantee you he won’t come close to my number.”

  “I hadn’t thought of asking him. Is he buying houses too?”

  “He has a nasty habit of snapping up properties before anyone else gets a chance,” Oscar said. “Personally, I think he’s using his position as board president to see which homeowners are in financial trouble, behind on their maintenance or racking up fines, and then swooping in on them like a vulture in a wheelchair.”

  An interesting image, for sure.

  “Well, I don’t think we’re desperate enough to sell at such a discount,” I said. “Maybe with a new property manager we’ll see some improvements in the problems here and values will go back up. We’ll hold on for a while, but I appreciate your coming over.”

  “Nothing’s going to change as long as Garner is president,” Oscar said. “Mark my words, property values are going to keep going down.”

  “Then why are you eager to buy?”

  “Right now rental prices are holding steady, which means there’s a good spread between mortgage payments and rental income.”