LITMIR.BIZ

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would make cooking more appealing.

      In the hallway next to the kitchen, Nina put her hand on a doorknob. “What’s in here?” She opened the door. “Oh! A cute little powder room with a huge window. You can sit on the throne and look out at the lake.”

      The powder room had obviously been redone recently, but the dark red ceiling and navy blue walls above white tiles were a little oppressive. We agreed that the powder room didn’t need anything besides paler hues on the walls and ceiling. And maybe white plantation shutters for at least the bottom half of the window.

      At the top of the stairs, we found a full bathroom, complete with a tub fitted with a shower. Again, the fixtures and tile were new, but the colors of the walls and ceiling were suitable for a nine-year-old Pats fan.

      Two bedrooms, one with a queen-size bed and the other with a pair of twin beds, flanked the bathroom. The ceilings at the front and back of the cottage sloped down to walls that were only about five feet high. Taller people would be able to walk in the centers of the rooms and into the dormers. The hardwood floors needed only refinishing. Bedside rugs would be comfy for toes on cool mornings, and curtains and bedlinens could be modernized.

      Nina suggested, “We could recommend a nautical theme and colors.”

      “Not Packers colors?” I asked.

      “If he didn’t use anybody’s team colors, he could rent to people from all over the country or the world, no matter what team they rooted for or didn’t root for.” She bent to look at a photo on a dresser. “Who is this woman whose photos are all over the place?”

      “She must be Rich’s late wife. He admitted that displaying lots of her pictures probably wasn’t a great idea for a rental cottage.”

      “Or for bringing a new girlfriend to stay. This must be the wife that Tom said drowned in Lake Fleekom twenty years ago. None of the pictures look newer than that. They’ve kind of faded, and the fashions are that old and older.” Nina bent forward and studied an arrangement of photos on the bedroom wall. “She was pretty, wasn’t she?”

      I agreed. “Good bones, like her cottage.” In the oldest photos, Rich’s late wife was barely out of her teens. She’d been blond and blue-eyed with clear skin and a great figure, and she’d stayed classically lovely as she aged. In the newest photos, she looked about fifty years old, which meant that she and her husband had been close in age. Many of the pictures from approximately the final ten years of her life had been taken in and around this cottage. In one of them she was in an aluminum canoe like the one we’d seen on the dock. She was smiling and waving her paddle at the person taking the photo.

      Feeling sorry for the woman who appeared to have loved life but hadn’t made it past middle age, I followed Nina downstairs to the combined living and dining room. Nina made a note about refinishing the hardwood floors and retaining the wood-burning fireplace. Like the walls, the mantel was due for a new coat of paint. I pointed at the blank space above it. “That’s where he would like one of your paintings.”

      Nina cocked her head. “I don’t know if I could paint anything that would look right in a Cape Cod, unless we gutted the building and did away with the second story. I suspect he would prefer to keep his bedrooms and full bathroom, though. I would. I love this place!”

      “Even though your paintings don’t suit it?”

      “I paint them, but they’re for colder, harder, bigger spaces.”

      “Like art galleries and museums.”

      “You’ve got it. I paint the pictures, but I wouldn’t necessarily want to live in the sort of place where they’d look best. Cape Cods are about the coziest homes around.” She rubbed her palms together. “Let’s ask if he’ll let us choose new furniture.” She pointed at a corner next to one of the two front windows. “It looks like he’s already started decluttering.”

      Books had obviously been removed from a bookshelf and heaped on a colonial-style maple table. “Or something,” I muttered. Maybe Derek and his buddies had emptied the shelves.

      Nina pushed the books into a neater pile. “Why leave them in a mess when he could have stacked them? Oh!” She pulled four stapled-together packets of paper out from underneath books. She scanned them. “Emily.” Her voice was rough, as if a pine cone had become lodged in her throat.

      I peeked around her arm. “Wills?”

      “Two of them, two copies each. Richmond P. Royalson the Third and a woman named Terri Estable are making each other their sole beneficiaries. Wasn’t his date this afternoon named Terri?”

      “Yep.”

      “Fast work. Rich had a date with Cheryl this morning and one with Terri this afternoon.”

      I told Nina that Rich had explained to Cheryl and her date that he’d reconnected with Terri after he’d arranged his date with Cheryl. “And he also yelled at Derek that Terri was the love of his life.”

      “I heard that. So, his drowned wife was . . . what?”

      “A different love of a different life?” I turned to the last pages of the wills. “How odd. The wills aren’t dated and signed.”

      Nina shoved the wills back where she’d found them. “It’s strange, but if he likes my paintings or finds me a buyer or two, I’m not going to complain.”

      Near the other front window, the writing surface of a slant-front desk was folded up in its closed position. Below that sloping expanse of maple, one corner of a small maroon book stuck out of the top drawer, preventing the drawer from closing. I opened the drawer, pulled out the book, and was about to put it back neatly. A slightly yellowed last will and testament was underneath where the book had been.

      I called to Nina. Together, we paged through the will. It was nineteen years old, probably signed and dated shortly after Rich’s wife’s death. The beneficiaries were Richmond P. Royalson Junior and Alma Ruth Royalson. “Rich’s father,” I concluded. “And his mother? Or his sister?”

      I put the will where I’d found it. The maroon book was a hard-bound notebook filled with blue-lined white pages. One word was printed in heavy black marker on the first page. RENTALS.

      I flipped toward the back of the book and found the most recent entries, also printed in heavy black marker. I summarized, “A man named Derek Bengsen rented the cottage starting the Saturday before last, and he and his friends were kicked out on Thursday, five days into their week, like the Derek who came into Deputy Donut claimed.”

      “Does it mention Terri?”

      “No, but this must be the same Derek who accused her of wanting him to rent this place and encouraging him to throw a party here so she could get Rich to rescue her.”

      Nina added, “And feel sorry for her, reconnect with her, and discover that she was the love of his life.”

      Rich’s estimate of the damages caused by the partyers included a hefty amount of lost rental income while the cottage was being cleaned and repaired. Derek Bengsen’s address was near my friend Samantha Andersen’s town house. I closed the book, laid it on top of the old will, and closed the drawer.

      Nina looked up at splatters on the ceiling. “I wonder if Derek and his buddies did that, along with the holes in the kitchen walls.”

      “Probably, or Rich would have had it cleaned and repaired before they came.”

      Nina planted her fists on her hips. “Maybe. Some landlords charge renters for damage that was already there. If renters don’t point out the damage when they first encounter the rental property, they let the landlord keep the deposit, you know? Like the amount had already been charged to the renters, so they feel like they’ve already spent it, although they haven’t.”

      “Where were you when I was trying to figure out who had committed murders in Fallingbrook?”

      “In my studio, wrestling with canvases. But I heard

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