Sink Trap (17 page)

The problem with “borrowing” something, I realized, was that you had to return it without getting caught. I’d been lucky once, when Angie was distracted.

This time was proving a bit more difficult.

I stood near the schedule board, my left hand shoved in the pocket of my jeans where I clutched the key. Angie had decided she wanted to be more than just a receptionist, and she had been asking questions about my job for nearly ten minutes.

I answered in sound bites, designed more for brevity than clarity, and silently prayed for the phone to ring. I was back working the McComb site with Sean—Barry was still gone—and I had to leave soon.

Sean and I had reached a wary truce over the last couple days. I did my job and more, showed up on time, and kept my mouth shut. More than he could say for most of the men on the site, and he knew it.

“Are the classes really hard?” Angie asked. That was her biggest concern, was it “too hard” for her.

“No, as long as you’re committed to doing your best,” I answered.

“But you’re still going to school! Even though you already went to college, and you have a job, and everything!”

“It takes four years, Angie. You take the classes, then you get an apprenticeship while you take more classes, and you take tests to be sure you know what you’re doing. That’s what all the guys did, and that’s what I have to do.”

I moved a step closer to the key hooks, waiting for my chance. If nothing happened in another couple minutes, I would have to give up and try tomorrow.

If Barry didn’t show up in the meantime, and miss the key.

The phone rang, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

I pulled the key out the instant her back was turned, and reached for the hook. Behind me, I heard Angie bang the phone down, with a curse.

“Salesmen!” she said. “They just—you found it!” Her voice rose at least an octave, the shriek threatening my eardrums.

“You have totally saved my life, I swear.” She was practically babbling, relief clear in her expression.

“That key has been missing since Barry left, and I was so afraid it was lost! I mean, at first I thought maybe he took it with him, but he would never do that, and then I was pretty sure I had seen it after he left, anyway. But the hook was empty, and I just knew Barry was gonna be so pissed when he found out I lost it, and—”

Angie stopped to draw a long shuddering breath, and I took advantage of the interruption. “It was right there on the floor.” I waved vaguely at the gray, industrial-grade carpet. “Maybe a little under the edge of that bookcase, I think.”

I hooked the Tepper key in place, and fished the Beetle key from my other pocket. “Glad to help, but I gotta go. Don’t want to be late getting to the site.”

I was halfway to the McComb site when the shakes hit
me. I seriously was not cut out for a life of crime. Just getting that key back on its hook was too much stress.

Not to mention the guilt. Not over taking the key, but the upset and worry I caused Angie. There was fallout from my actions that I hadn’t even considered, and I wasn’t liking it.

Not that I was going to give up my search for clues. But I would change my tactics a little. I would have to be patient until Barry came back, and I had a reason to be in the house.

In the meantime, I hadn’t promised not to look around the warehouse. Besides, it wasn’t in a residential area, where I was going to be noticed.

At least, that’s what I thought.

But when I just happened to drive past the warehouse after work, there were tape and stakes dotting the unpaved parking area. Spray-painted markings showed where various utility lines ran in and out of the building.

Gregory and Sandra were moving ahead with their development plans at the warehouse site. That answered the question about whether Gregory would benefit from Martha Tepper’s leaving.

Of course he would. And quickly, if the work at the site was any indication.

I was leery of visiting the warehouse in the dark, and there was too much activity during the day.

Fortunately for my impatience, Barry and Paula returned that evening. Barry called to tell me we were back to work on the Tepper house the next day.

I asked about his trip, and he answered, “Crisis averted,” in a relieved tone.

“I imagine you’ll be glad to give up digging that moat,” he continued with a chuckle.

“It’s not so bad,” I answered. “I think Sean has decided I’m not completely useless. But I’ll be glad to get back to work on the house so Sandra will stop calling three times a day, asking when we’ll be through.”

Barry’s tone grew serious. “Tell her to call me, Georgie. She needs to remember the chain of command around
here. Your job assignments, and all the other schedule issues, are my problem, not yours.

“She may be your mother, but I’m still the boss.

“Just don’t repeat that to Paula.”

I laughed. “I won’t, but now that you mention it, I do need to talk to her. Is she there?”

Barry turned the phone over to Paula, and we arranged to meet after work the next day.

“Come on, guys,” I called to the dogs after I hung up. “We all need some exercise.”

And I needed to think. I locked the door behind us, tugging at the knob to make sure it was secure, and headed out.

Spring was giving way to summer, daylight lingering later each day. The weather still held a cool dampness, but there was a promise of warmer weather to come.

Pine Ridge often had a few dry weeks in the height of summer, but for most of the year it still held a hint of the rain and snow that gave the Great North-wet its nickname.

We walked along the shoulder, Daisy and Buddha exploring the damp grass and salal thickets along the side of the road as I considered what I knew about Martha Tepper’s disappearance.

We were just a block from Main Street. On impulse, I tugged the dogs toward the closed shops that made up the commercial center of Pine Ridge.

I found myself standing in front of the empty storefront, peering through the gaps in the brown paper taped over the windows.

I wondered if Pine Ridge could support a dojo. Not that I had any money to spend, or any idea what to do, but I knew I couldn’t be the only one in town who could use a little stress relief.

 

 

When I reached the Tepper house the next morning, I was surprised to see Sean’s battered pickup truck parked behind Barry’s behemoth.

Barry greeted me at the door. “Good to see you again, Georgie.” I suppressed a grin. Even on the work site, he couldn’t break the habit of holding doors.

“Sean’s here for a couple days,” he continued, leading me through the house to the kitchen. “The McComb site is shut down again; more permit issues. They’re going to end up spending as much on lawyers and permits as they pay us to build the blasted thing.”

I followed him into the kitchen. Sean stood waiting, three steaming cups of coffee on the counter next to him. He didn’t actually smile—but at least he didn’t growl—as he handed me a cup. “Morning, Neverall,” he said.

I nodded back at him, took the cup, and said, “Thanks.”

Barry motioned to the stained and chipped kitchen sink. “This is going,” he said between sips of the scalding coffee. “We need to replace the feed lines and the valves, and get it ready for the new sink and faucets.

“The moving crew is supposed to clear this place day after tomorrow, and then we’ll be able to work in the basement. There are a couple places where they replaced galvanized pipe with copper, and there’s some serious problems at the joints.”

I nodded my understanding. Galvanized pipe and copper pipe did not play well together. If they were directly connected, galvanic corrosion would eat away at the steel pipe. I allowed myself a moment of self-congratulation for remembering the classroom lesson, then turned my attention to the problem at hand: how to look for clues with both Sean and Barry around.

And Barry had just said the movers would be taking everything away in two days, so I had to work fast, if I was going to find anything before it all disappeared.

Barry assigned Sean to the bathroom, since he could work alone. Barry and I would tackle the kitchen.

I wrestled with the shut-off valves under the kitchen sink for several minutes, without success. They were in
worse shape than the bathroom valves, and I finally admitted defeat, sliding out from the cramped undersink cabinet.

“Sorry, Barry. I can’t get those suckers to budge. Maybe we should just shut off the water at the street.”

Barry, however, had a large dose of stubborn, and was not about to give up. He grabbed a long-handled wrench for more leverage, and wiggled into the tight space under the sink.

He grunted and groaned as he tried to close the valves, finally asking for a shorter wrench. There wasn’t room to use the long wrench he had initially chosen.

As he struggled with the wrench, I glanced around the kitchen. Sue and I had searched it before, but we could have missed something. I slipped off my heavy work gloves and opened cupboard doors and pulled out drawers, confirming our fruitless search of a few days earlier.

“What are you doing up there?” Barry’s muffled voice came from under the sink, followed by a grunt of effort.

“Nothing,” I answered, trying to close the drawer I had opened without making any more noise.

“Well, how about going out to the street and finding the shutoff?” Barry said.

I smiled as I went out the door. He hadn’t actually said to turn the water off—that would be admitting defeat, after all—but I knew that was what he expected me to do.

Easier said than done. The front yard had benefited from the soft spring rain, and I guessed it hadn’t been cut since Miss Tepper left. I tromped through the thick, ankle-high grass, and dug beneath the fresh foliage of the bushes that defined the property line, looking for the shutoff.

I finally found the concrete cover a few feet west of the mailbox, obscured by the grass and a stand of calla lilies that had spread around the concrete vault that held the valve.

I passed Barry coming out of the house as I was going back in. “Need to check the truck for replacement parts,” he said. “Back in a minute.”

I took advantage of the time, hurrying to the dining room. I wanted a chance to look in the drawers of the built-in china hutch, where Sue and I had been interrupted on our previous visit.

I opened the bottom drawer, which I hadn’t had time to search before, and peered inside. It looked empty, but there was a scrap of paper, caught in the back of the drawer, as though a corner had ripped off something larger.

I grabbed the piece, but it was stuck between the back of the drawer and the bottom of the drawer above. At least I understood how it had ripped off. I tugged, but it didn’t move.

I heard Barry open the front door. I had only a few seconds. Taking the drawer pull in my other hand, I wiggled the drawer while pulling gently on the scrap. It slid free, and I stuffed it in my pocket.

I pushed the drawer shut, praying it wouldn’t make noise, and walked back into the kitchen a couple seconds before Barry returned.

He looked disgusted. “I was afraid of this. It’s an old house, and I don’t have the right size replacement on the truck.”

He pulled out his cell phone and hit the speed dial. His suppliers were all on speed dial. He talked for a minute with Frank at All-Ways, then flipped the phone closed.

“Frank has the valves, but no one to deliver them today. I’m going to go pick them up, and you can help Sean with the bathroom while I’m gone.”

Not what I wanted to hear, but at least I got to stay in the house. Maybe I could look around a little more.

“I’ll tell Sean,” he said, heading down the hall.

I looked longingly at the china hutch, tempted to look in one more drawer before following him down the hall.
But he was already curious, and I didn’t want to arouse any suspicion.

Barry roared off in his truck and I was left with Sean, and a bathroom that needed the fixtures removed.

“Let’s do this, Neverall.” Sean nodded at the toilet. “This has got to go before the floor guys can come in.”

Sean already had the supply lines disconnected. He motioned to the tank. “You want to get the tank bolts?”

It wasn’t really a question. Besides, there wasn’t much room around the toilet, and I was a lot smaller than Sean.

I pulled on my gloves, crouched down next to the tank, and fitted a wrench to the nut under the ledge of the toilet. Sean reached inside the empty tank and immobilized the bolt. I pushed hard against the wrench handle, but the nut didn’t budge. I pushed again, without result.

Above me, I thought I heard a self-satisfied “Um hmm” from Sean. I was proving his point that women were unfit for this work, and I wasn’t going to give him that satisfaction. I concentrated on the wrench and the nut, focusing my energy.

I pushed again, beads of sweat popping out of my forehead and running toward my eyes. I kept up the pressure, my arms straining with the effort.

Metal screeched against metal, accumulated years of corrosion grinding in the threads of the nut, but it moved slightly.

I instantly reset the wrench, and put all my effort into it. The nut moved, easier this time. A couple more pushes, and it twisted easily off the bolt.

As I stood up to move to the other side, I forced myself to keep a straight face when I glanced at Sean. He was doing the same, and we nodded curtly as we positioned ourselves to extract the other bolt.

We repeated the procedure on the other side, and we soon had the tank loose from the bowl. Now we had to lift off the tank and take it outside.

There wasn’t room for both of us, so I waved Sean
aside. Tanks are heavy, a job for two people whenever possible. But it wasn’t possible, and I was determined to prove myself.