Sink Trap (27 page)

The dogs settled into their beds, having wolfed down
their treats, and I wandered around the house. I loaded the dishwasher and started it running. I stripped the bed and remade it with clean sheets.

After all that had happened, I kept thinking about how much my life had changed in the few months I’d been back in Pine Ridge.

Once again, I pulled out my gi. The routines calmed me as I moved through them. I thought about the empty storefront on Main Street.

I wasn’t ready to give up my martial arts training, but I didn’t think I wanted to be a teacher.

Besides, I had discovered plumbing, and as silly as it sounded, I really enjoyed my job. When I left high tech, I had wanted something as far removed as I could find, and plumbing seemed to fit the bill. Yet in some ways, it was a lot like computer programming. Except you moved water instead of data.

It was hard work and you got dirty—a lot—and it was too hot in the summer and way too cold in the winter. But there was something about it that gave me a sense of accomplishment. The longer I worked with Barry, the more I realized it was where I belonged.

I reached the end of my workout and dragged myself to the shower. I tumbled into bed. Tired, still worried about Martha Tepper, but at least I had a plan.

It was good to be home.

 

 

In the morning, Barry was waiting by his pickup when I arrived. He looked at his watch, then back at me. I shook my head and tapped the face of my watch. According to my beat-up drugstore timepiece, I was right on time.

Barry watched me climb out of the Beetle. Whatever he was planning to say was short-circuited when I handed him a steaming mocha from the espresso place a few blocks away.

Barry sipped, and flinched when the scalding liquid hit his tongue. “Mmmm,” he hummed. “Tell me this is sugar-free,
please. Paula is all over my case about sugar, so I promised to drink sugar-free mochas.”

I screwed up my face in an expression of disgust. A lot of things were okay in their sugar-free versions, but chocolate wasn’t one of them.

“Of course it is,” I lied. “Wouldn’t want you crossing Paula—she’d take you apart.”

Barry chuckled and took another careful sip. “She could.”

“Lucky for you, she’s crazy about you. So you’re safe, at least for now.”

We carried our coffee inside the echoing space of the warehouse. There hadn’t been any work done inside since the day we’d discovered Martha Tepper’s brooch in the drain pipe of the utility sink.

I realized with a start that it had only been a couple weeks, although it felt a lot longer.

I looked around. The drain for the utility sink was still disassembled, a rag stuffed in the end of the pipe to block any sewer gas from getting into the building.

“Where do you want to start?” I asked.

Barry thought for a minute, then said, “The bathroom. If we can get that working, it would be a good thing. Customers are always happier if the toilet’s working.”

I nearly answered with a slang expression, but I stopped myself just in time. Even a bad pun wasn’t justification for breaking Barry’s cursing rule. And bringing him his favorite mocha didn’t earn me a free pass, either.

“Me, too.”

Barry chuckled. He was learning about having a woman on the job site, just as I was learning to work with an all-male crew.

True, my crew at Samurai Security had been nearly all male, but a computer security company was a far cry from a construction site. There were certain amenities that you took for granted in an office.

The toilet was a challenge, but we finally got it working properly and started in on the trough sink that ran along one wall. The urinals could wait until later.

We had replaced the valve seats on two of the faucets, and had four more to go, when I heard the ominous tapping that signaled the appearance of Sandra Neverall.

The tapping drew closer, and she called out to us.

“Mr. Hickey? Georgiana? Where are you?”

“Working in the bathroom, Ms. Neverall,” Barry answered. “Hang on a minute, we’ll be right out.”

“Please don’t interrupt yourselves on my account,” she said. “I just wanted to talk to you for a—Oh!”

Sandra stopped just inside the bathroom door, staring at the row of urinals that lined the opposite wall. Her face colored, and I expected her to beat a hasty retreat.

But once again, I underestimated Sandra Neverall. She stood her ground, and in a few seconds she had her expression, and her color, under tight control.

“So, Mr. Hickey. Can you give me some idea when you’ll be able to finish up the house? We really need to keep that project moving, and I know you’re the one to ask.” She smiled sweetly, an expression so clearly fake I nearly choked.

I had to give Barry points for cool, though. He didn’t rise to her bait. “Well, in this case,” he said, “I’m afraid I don’t have much say over when we can get back to work. That will be up to the sheriff. As soon as he lets us back in, we’ll make that our top priority.”

“So, I need to talk to the sheriff, then. I see.”

“Yep.” Barry turned his attention back to the faucet he was disassembling. “Once he gives us the go-ahead, we should be able to wrap up the job in a day. Maybe two, if we don’t find any surprises.” He paused. “I sincerely hope we’ve had all the surprises we’re going to have on that job.”

“I do, too,” Sandra said tartly.

She finally turned to me. “Are you all right, Georgiana? I heard the sheriff made you come to the station, or whatever it is. Gregory said he questioned my daughter like a common criminal!”

I wasn’t sure whether her outrage was for me, or for the damage it might do to her reputation.

“I was actually an
uncommon
criminal, Mother. I was innocent.”

Her sour expression told me my flip attitude wasn’t making things any better.

“Really, Mom, it wasn’t like that. The sheriff asked me to come down to his office and talk to him about what I found. All I did was answer some questions and tell him what happened. Then he sent me home. End of excitement.”

“But you went back!”

“Yes. I told him about Martha Tepper’s brooch and he asked if I would bring it in. I went back, gave it to the deputy, and that was the end of it.”

Something was bothering me. “Did you say Gregory told you all this?”

“Yes. Over dinner last night. We met the Gladstones at the steak house. They hadn’t heard what happened, so that was the major topic of conversation, as you can well imagine. Anyway, Gregory heard about it from an associate in his office, who has a friend in the sheriff’s office. I believe what the young man actually said was, ‘I didn’t know they made pretty plumbers.’ Or something like that.” She waved dismissively. “At any rate, Gregory told us everything he had heard. Which, by the way”—she raised one eyebrow, an expression she knew made me crazy—“was much more than I heard from my own daughter.”

“Well, Mother, I didn’t have a friend in the sheriff’s department to give me inside information. All I knew was that the sheriff asked me questions and I answered them.”

“Excuse me, Ms. Neverall,” Barry broke in.

Mother and I both turned to him.

“Yes?”

“Yes?”

She spoke a fraction of a second before me, the effect like the echo of an audio delay loop.

“We need to get back to work here, Georgie,” Barry said. “If you’ll excuse us, Ms. Neverall.” There was a glint of amusement in his eyes. He carefully avoided looking
directly at my mother. “We’ll get back to work on the house just as soon as Sheriff Mitchell allows us.”

Sandra clicked back into business mode. She could sure take a hint. “Naturally, Mr. Hickey. I’ll check with the sheriff’s office and see if he has any timetable on when that might be.”

She opened the door and stepped into the hall as her cell phone rang. She tapped her Bluetooth headset and answered crisply, “Sandra Neverall, Whitlock Associates. What can I do to help you?”

She waved over her shoulder without looking back. I listened as her heels clicked across the warehouse floor, echoing in the empty space, until the outside door closed behind her.

“Thanks, Barry.”

He shrugged. “We did need to get back to work. And there wasn’t anything I could tell her that would help. Like I said, nothing we can do until the sheriff releases the house.”

We worked through the morning, finishing the faucets. By the time we broke for lunch, every tap along the sink was working perfectly and sealing tight. Like I said, a feeling of accomplishment.

Barry lowered the tailgate of his truck and grabbed his lunch sack out of the front seat. I left him sitting in the sun and made a quick drive through the local sandwich shop. I told myself turkey on rye would make up for the burger and fries last night, and I almost believed it.

I drove home to let the dogs out and stood at the kitchen counter to eat my sandwich. If I couldn’t talk Janis into giving the diary to the sheriff, there had to be some other way to prove it existed. I just had to find the proof.

Too bad I hadn’t been able to search all of Miss Tepper’s things before they were loaded on the truck. If that darned toilet hadn’t fallen on my leg, things would have been better. I could have looked in—

I
had
looked in the china hutch! I thought back. I’d
pulled open the drawers, and there had been something in the back of one of them.

A scrap of paper.

I remembered sticking it in my pocket when I heard Sean coming back in the house, but I didn’t remember seeing it after that. What had I done with it?

Nothing. I’d gone to the clinic and then come home, dumping my work clothes into the hamper in the garage.

My dirty laundry was spilling over the top of the hamper onto the floor. For once I was grateful I’d neglected to wash it. The paper might still be in the pocket of those jeans.

I rooted through the pile one-handed, the turkey sandwich still clutched in my other hand. Halfway down, I found the jeans. I dug in the pocket and felt something stiff and scratchy.

I had it!

It was the corner of a sheet of heavy paper, more like parchment. Like the paper in a fancy diary.

There were only a few words on the scrap I held, but the handwriting looked like Martha Tepper’s precise pen manship. It might be the proof I needed.

The word
Gladstone
was clearly written there, but the paper was torn next to the name. There was no way to know which Gladstone she was referring to, though from what I’d seen, they were practically inseparable. To think, I’d had a bit of Martha’s diary the entire time—and now it was part of an important piece of evidence.

Combined with what Janis had told me, it might be enough to give the sheriff a starting point. Now if I could just get the diary from her.

Wade had defended the Gladstones, but there had to be something he didn’t know. I was certain he was wrong.

From the backyard, I heard frantic barking and the scrabbling sound of eight canine feet dashing up the back steps. I ran into the kitchen, just in time to see Daisy and Buddha race back into the house, dripping wet. They stopped in the middle of the floor to shake themselves, then ran back outside.

My sandwich was covered with drops of what I hoped was water, and I suddenly lost my appetite. I dropped my food on the counter and ran out the door after the dogs.

Running under the fence from my neighbor’s yard was a stream of dark brown water. I stood on tiptoe and peered over the fence. The neighbor’s hose snaked through the rows of his garden, with a steady flow of water coming from the end.

The water had soaked the garden and begun to run off down the slope that led to my yard, where Daisy and Buddha were now rolling merrily in the newly created mud.

I tried not to think about what they had just splattered all over my kitchen. Especially since there was no time to clean it up before I went back to work.

The dogs grinned up at me, pleased with their new-found game. They were both a mess of mud and matted hair, and they desperately needed baths. But I needed to get back to the warehouse.

I ran next door and pounded on the door. I hurriedly yelled at Mr. Stevens, who was rather hard of hearing, that his garden was overwatered, and he needed to shut the hose off.

He apologized and said he’d fallen asleep, but I was halfway back to my front door by the time he finished his sentence.

Once inside again, I grabbed the phone and hit the speed dial for Doggy Day Spa. When Sue answered, I blurted out, “Airedale emergency, girl. They’re covered in mud and I need to get back to work ASAP. Have you got time for a couple shampoos this afternoon?”

“Sure. But you have to promise a full explanation when you pick them up.” She laughed. “And it better be good.”

“You bet,” I answered. “Be there in five.”

I hung up without saying good-bye, dragged the dogs into the garage, and wiped them down with some old towels I kept for rainy days. This was close enough.

Buddha accepted his hasty scrubbing with his usual
calm manner, but Daisy was highly offended that I had interrupted her playtime. It was, she implied, a perfectly reasonable occupation for an Airedale, and I was just being mean.

“Stop pouting,” I told her as I bundled them into the car. “You’re the one that insisted on rolling in the mud. Now you need to go see Sue.”

At the name
Sue
, both dogs scrambled for the backseat. “Traitors,” I muttered, slamming the door behind them and moving around to the driver’s door.

I dropped them at Sue’s, enduring her amusement at their muddy coats, and jumped back in the car. I was pushing it, and after this morning I didn’t want to be late again. Especially without a mocha peace offering.

I pulled into the warehouse parking lot with several minutes to spare and parked next to Barry’s pickup. At first I thought he must be back in the building, but the tailgate of the truck was still down.