A Bookmarked Death by Judi Culbertson

get a more professional-looking business card but I was too attached to mine to do so. It showed Raj sniffing at a stack of leather-bound books with my “Got Books?” slogan. My information was on the other side.
    Mairee unlocked the door and brought me into a living room that overlooked the ocean. We sat side by side on a pale cream leather sofa. The furniture was understated, neutrals and glass tables, a stone fireplace built into a wall to work from both sides. I saw from the plastered walls and some of the woodwork that the house was older than I’d first thought.
    “We haven’t had a fatal fire out here in years ,” Mairee announced. “An artist died recently in a house fire in Sagaponack, but that’s miles away. You think Elisa will rebuild?”
    “I never thought about it. It’s hard to imagine she’d want to be out here by herself.”
    “It’s a great location.”
    “The house may need to come down.”
    Mairee nodded, but she seemed to be listening for the crunch of vehicles arriving on gravel at the same time. “That house was in the family forever.”
    “When did the Crosleys let you know they were coming?”
    “They didn’t! That’s what’s so weird.” She put her head back on the leather and closed her eyes as if she had already put in a long day. “The first I knew they were even out here was when I heard about the fire.”
    “Was it unusual that you wouldn’t get things ready for them?”
    “Unheard of.” She considered, straightening up. “At least, let’s say it never happened before. But they’ve never come out this early before either.”
    I hesitated. Did she have scruples about talking about dead clients? I decided to find out. “You got along with them okay?”
    Mairee sprawled back against the sofa and closed her eyes again, red curls against cream. “I thought so. Ethan was a doll. Sheila was . . . difficult. I never saw where she got off being so fussy, wanting everything up to these impossible magazine standards. It was an older house and had the problems you’d expect. Unless you ripped out the bathrooms, which Ethan refused to do, you’re going to have off-color grout. It’s a fact of life. But she blamed the cleaning service for not getting it snow white.”
    I thought of Lady Macbeth, obsessively trying to whiten her hands, haunted by bloodstains no one else could see. “Out, out, damn spot,” I murmured.
    “Exactly! She was hipped on everything looking perfect. Here her father was a construction worker. Ethan was the one with the background.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. “I’ve said too much.”
    “What kind of marriage did they have?”
    “Not my kind. I mean, he was away a lot, totally focused on his career. When he was home they were never alone, the guys who worked for him stayed here too. Craig, he was a few years older than Elisa, and I forget the other one’s name. But Sheila was the one who kept the home fires burning . Oof . My bad.”
    She looked at me and I laughed. “How long were they your clients?”
    “Probably ten years?”
    “What did you think of Will?”
    Mairee was off and running again, a colt that refused to be confined in the paddock. “That poor kid? He tried, he really did. But it was tough to be a Crosley. Ethan was disappointed that he wasn’t a better student and Sheila was always comparing him to their friends’ kids. And not in a good way. Elisa was the one they thought was perfect. Yet even with her—Sheila wasn’t exactly the affectionate type. All she cared about was how things looked to other people.”
    “Do you think Will was into drugs?”
    “I wouldn’t be surprised. What else was there for him? He was good at making things, but nobody cared about that.”
    We heard the rumble of the truck at the same time. Mairee jumped up. “Speaking of perfect, we have until Memorial Day to get everything in shape here. We still have to install the scent diffusers.”
    “The what?”
    She laughed at my