Stan Beamish huffed his way up the steps from the dock, and wondered about the pile of sawn lumber that he saw under a tarpaulin. It had been carefully and neatly stacked. He shrugged and carried on. It was when he got near the house that he stopped again. The scrub and tangled bramble were gone, and the earth that it had covered was freshly turned and he could see bags of peat moss off to the side, ready for the next section to be dug. The mess which had once been the way to the house was in the process of being turned into rock gardens of considerable size. The man doing the work was bent over in work pants and a T-shirt, but before Stan could say a word to him, the gardener was gone around the corner of the house with a wheelbarrow.
Stan walked up the steps and Helen met him at the door with a grin, "Stan! Come on in. Don't worry about tracking dirt in, I never let the broom get far from my hand today."
Beamish sat at the table where she'd indicated, and he offered Helen the bottle of Merlot that he'd picked up. She took it happily and put it in the refrigerator. "I must say that you're not wasting any time in getting the beautification program underway. Those rock gardens will be pretty big, I can see. Who's doing the work for you? I know most of the landscapers around, but obviously not all of their workers. I can't say as I've seen that fellow before. Come to think of it," he said, "I didn't see another boat tied up at your dock."
Helen set a coffee mug in front of Stan and sat down opposite to him, "That's my boyfriend," she smiled, "Once he gets something into his head, he's off and running. How long do you think it would have taken to clear the weeds that were there and turn all of that soil? He ripped out the mess yesterday afternoon, and did everything that you see in the last three hours. He hasn't stopped, except to pee, I guess."
Stan stared out the window, watching Ion work. As he turned back, he was about to ask if she'd met him in town or knew him from the city, but he found himself looking at a copy of his book.
Helen smiled warmly, "I picked this up last week. I've got to say that I really enjoyed it. You've done a wonderful job and I found that when I was done, I wanted so much to read more. It gave me an idea," she said, pushing a small stack of books over to him, "These are mine. I was wondering if you'd like to collaborate on a book with me."
Stan looked at the author's name and then back at Helen blankly, "My wife loves this writer, but, ..."
Helen's smile grew wider, "Well now you can tell her that you know the writer. It's a pen name, Stan. Check the photo and the bio in the back of them. He did and set the books down in wonder, "Well, that's you in the photos, for sure. I'd have never guessed, Helen. How many have you written?"
"Just those three. There are two more, but not under that name," she said.
Pointing at his book on the table, she said, "This isn't a criticism in any way, but though you write superbly, the subject matter and the area have a limited appeal to mostly people around here. I think you might have done it that way on purpose, right?"
Yes," he nodded, "I wanted to document some of the area's quirky history, and doing it that way seemed the best way to get a few sales as well as maybe educate some folks around here that the area does have a rich history, if only they'd take the time to look. Also, I didn't want that history to grow moldier and even more forgotten. You're right, though, sales from that book have mostly been through strictly local vendors, touristy places around here and such."
Helen leaned forward, "Let me tell you what I have in mind, Stan. I was thinking that if you and I worked together on something of a historical romance - the tragedy of this island, set to the way these tales sell as fantasy romances, such as I write, I think we could both pull off one hell of a hit. There is another benefit to you in this. I'm not huge by any means, but I am already fairly widely published, and I can't see how a working association with me could do anything but help your reputation as a writer as well as obviously bring you to the attention of my publisher. I was thinking of an even split on the royalties."
The realtor was grinning, "I'm all ears, Helen. What have you got?"
She stood up, "For that, I can see that we'll need refills on our coffee."
As they went through what he'd brought, Ion finished up and walked up to the house. Stan watched idly as Ion turned on the hose and took off his shirt. He was a bit sideways to Stan's point of view, but Stan marveled at the man's physique. "He's washing under the hose, Helen. That water is pumped right out of the lake, and he doesn't look like he minds the coldness a bit. I'd already be blue trying to get done as fast as I could. Better yet, I'd be using the shower. I wouldn't be using the hose at all."
She smiled, "He doesn't mind it. He's used to hard work. That's the way that he likes it. He doesn't care what kind of work a man does, as long as it's honest, and that there's a component of real physical work at least some of the time. He says that without that a man slowly stops being a man. Like he'd respect you for how you like to tromp around and gather history in addition to your real occupation. That's just his way. If he ran Microsoft, he'd still be wanting to do hard work sometime." She chuckled, "A hot shower to him is something to scrub out any stubborn dirt with soap and then relax under."
"Anyway," Helen said, to pull Stan's attention away from Ion for the moment, "Your research here is after the fact - after the murder was committed and the investigation had long gone cold. What if I could offer you the view before the fact, the things and scenes that led up to it? What if I could give you cause to doubt the foregone conclusion of the investigators?"
Stan smiled, "Where does the fantasy in this begin, or has it already begun, Helen?"
Helen shrugged, "Do you know the identity of the victim other than a name you found in the letters? By the way, there are a lot more letters than what you knew about, and I have translated transcripts. I have both sides of the conversation. The investigators were such idiots that all they had was a well-burned female body with some anomalies which they couldn't explain. No proper autopsy was ever done. They didn't even know who she was."
Helen continued, "They didn't bother to try hard to find out. Remember that this was a very different place then and they had their own prejudices. To them, it was just one dumb immigrant killing somebody that they figured had to be another immigrant, since there was nobody missing from around here at the time. They were only in it for something to break up the boredom and hey, they got to investigate a real murder for once."
Stan was a little doubtful, "And I suppose that you do know her identity?"
Helen smiled, "As you already knew, her name was Danaya Sorescu. At the time of her death, she was twenty-five years and six days old, and was a recent immigrant here from Romania - specifically, the part of Romania once known as Transylvania. I have the name of the place where she was born. It's in the middle of the Carpathian Mountains, but neither of us could pronounce it, trust me. There were no photographs taken here from before her death, and the ones after don't tell you that she was petite and a very light blonde with light blue eyes. There is only one small black and white photograph of her taken for her passport. It obviously doesn't show her eye color, but I know that too. I have her passport and immigration papers. I even know that her people were from the German-speaking minority in that part of the world where her husband was not. They could converse in Romanian between them, and it was the only language that he knew before he picked up English when he was here alone before she came three years after him."
Stan's jaw fell open, "How did you find that out?"
"I'll tell you in a few minutes," Helen smiled, "but I've got more to show you," she said as she reached for her point and shoot camera. Turning it on, she began to step through the photos on the memory card as she continued, "You know how you're always asking me if I've seen anything odd or unusual? Ah, here he is."
She turned the screen of the camera to face the older man, "I think this guy is an old almost-acquaintance of yours."
He put on his glasses, and then almost fell over as he stared at the image there.
"That's him," he blurted, "That's what I thought I saw from the boat the day that I was sure that I was being chased." He looked at the datestamp there on the little screen. "This - this was taken yesterday! How did you get this?"
