“Sounds reasonable.”

“I don’t mean to sound stupid. I guess a therapist would say that we have a lot of unresolved stuff between us.”

Sam seemed to be thinking for a moment. “You didn’t change your name, did you? I mean, you grew up as Josie Pigeon.”

“My family called me Josephine, but everyone else always knew me as Josie. Why?”

“Just wondering. What did she say to you?”

“About what?”

“About the past. What did she say about you two meeting again after all these years?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.”

ELEVEN

"NOW WAIT A second. How was Island Contracting chosen to be on Courtney Castle’s Castles?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who contacted you?”

“Bobby Valentine.”

“How?”

“He called on the phone. Why?”

Sam ignored her question and asked another of his own. “When?”

“About a month ago.”

“Did you take the call?”

She had to think to answer that question. “The answering machine actually picked up the call. I called him back.”

“And what did he say?”

“He asked if Island Contracting would be on the show. What else?”

“Josie, try to remember exactly what he said and when he said it. On the tape and during your first conversation.”

“I’m not sure I can,” she admitted.

“Try. It might turn out to be important.”

“Okay. I think he just introduced himself. You know, I’m Bobby Valentine and I’m a television producer and I need to speak with Josie Pigeon immediately. In fact, I’m sure that’s what he said because I remember Dottie was listening and she said he would be a difficult client since he was so snotty that he thought I should know right away what he did for a living. Of course, that was before we knew what he wanted. We thought he was calling about a normal remodeling job at first.”

“Of course. But you called him back, right?”

“Yes, immediately. And he explained that he didn’t want to hire us. He wanted Island Contracting for a television show. I… I’m not sure if he said the name of the show then. But he did say that he wanted to feature the remodeling project we were going to start this month, the one we’re doing now.”

“How did he refer to it? I mean, you usually say things like the Richardson project or the Jones project, right?”

“Sure. We refer to it by the owner’s name. This one we’ve been calling the PBS house though. Um… I think he may have called it the house on the bay.”

“How did he know about it?”

“Oh, that’s easy. He said that someone who worked on the show had told him about it and that they were always looking for interesting projects, which made a lot of sense at the time. Do you think he was lying?”

“I have no idea. But I sure would like to know which staff member knows the owners of that house. Who are the owners, by the way? Do they live on the island?”

“I doubt it. I’ve never met them.”

“What? Doesn’t that worry you?”

Josie laughed. “Are you kidding? You’ve been around long enough to know that homeowners frequently are big pains in the ass, always in a panic that the job won’t get done on time while making extensive and time-consuming changes. This job would be the easiest ever if that television show wasn’t involved.”

“So how did you get the remodeling job?”

“It just dropped in our laps. Like the TV show, come to think of it. The house is owned by a company called Island Homes. My contact has been through some lawyer. He called a few days before Bobby Valentine did and asked if I would look at an architect’s plan and submit a bid for the job. I did, and it was accepted.”

“That simple?” Sam, who had been around for more than one of Josie’s projects, was surprised.

“It was. I couldn’t believe it. The bid was accepted in a day. Amazing.”

“Have you ever had that happen before?”

“Yeah, once or twice. But usually with repeat clients. What happens is we do a job and the clients are happy with our work, so when they need something else done, they think of us. But everyone wants a bargain and there are a lot of contracting companies, so they ask for a few bids. But once the bids come in, they discover that our bid, if not the lowest, is in the ballpark and since they know our work, they really don’t have to think about it. They hire us right away.”

“But this is the first time it has happened with a new client?”

“I guess. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But so what? What could it have to do with Courtney’s disappearance?”

“Probably nothing. It’s just interesting.” He frowned.

“Didn’t you tell me that you had two big jobs this summer and the first was on one of those Cape Cods at the foot of the dunes? Did that job disappear?”

“Oh, no. It’s still on. We’re going to start that the third week of July. But you’re right. We were going to do them in reverse order. But things changed suddenly…”

“And Bobby Valentine just happened to want to tape the bay job for the show at the beginning of the summer?”

“How did you know?”

“Just a good guess. Seems to me there are a few too many coincidences here, Josie. Who made the change? The lawyer for Island Homes?”

“No. It was the other job. The family who owns that house had a change in plans. They were going to spend the second half of the summer in the house and I’d remodel the kitchen and add on a breakfast slash family room before then, but they decided to do it the other way and asked if Island Contracting could accommodate them.”

“But you had the Island Homes job by that time, right?”

“Yes, but I called their lawyer-he has an office in New York City-and asked him if we could make a change in the schedule. I didn’t think he’d go along with it, but he agreed and…”

“Why were you surprised that he agreed?”

“Well, usually the people who hire us have many things to consider when they schedule a job. Like getting the money to pay for the work. I mean, getting a bank loan can take quite a while. And then, of course, people have to adjust their lives- move out of the house, or the kitchen, or whatever. But apparently Island Homes doesn’t have to worry about any of that. The lawyer was quite happy with the change when we spoke on the phone and he sent back an annotated contract right away.”

“So apparently his client wasn’t planning on spending the first part of the summer in the house.”

“I haven’t the foggiest. I don’t get the impression that the owner is terribly attached to the house, to tell you the truth. I mean, when I’ve called about changes in the architect’s plans or brands or anything, the lawyer leaves most of the decisions up to me.”

“And that’s unusual.”

“Damn right. I sure wish we had more clients like him. The house will probably be put on the market at the end of summer, at least that’s my guess.”

“Why?”

“The lawyer wants the best-and recognizable brand names-which is what high-end developers usually insist on. And he hasn’t conveyed a single personal preference from anyone except for taking care of that damn sculpture in the living room. Most people are very vocal about their likes and dislikes.”

“But the sculpture is different?”

“It’s ugly as hell, but apparently, to some people, it would be a selling point.”

“But no one has specifically mentioned selling?”

“Why? Are you interested in buying a second home on the island?”

“No, just curious. Not that a second home wouldn’t be an excellent investment.”

Josie wasn’t interested. She couldn’t afford to buy a first home; a second home was just too far out of her frame of reference to discuss. “Well, Island Homes may be planning to use it as a rental property instead.”

“So things just happened to work out for Courtney Castle’s show. Did you ever ask Bobby Valentine for more specific information about how they found out about this project and why they thought it would be interesting enough to put on television?”