The Murder Pit (20 page)

THIRTY NINE

“Rex quoted me two grand,” Jake muttered.

We were standing in the basement, staring at the pipes.

He’d come home shortly after my conversation with Emily and he was in a bad mood. When I questioned why, he just made a noncommittal grunt and went upstairs to change his clothes. I gave him his space and then followed him downstairs when he motioned for me to follow him to the basement. I wasn’t sure if it was because he had serious news he didn’t want the kids to hear or because he wanted a quickie.

It wasn’t the quickie.

“They’ll have to cut two vents and two returns,” he explained. “One in the crawl space that’ll go to the kitchen and then another right over there that’ll be in the living room.”

I stared up at the ceiling, pretending I knew what I was looking at. “And tell me why again?”

“We need the warm air to warm the pipes,” he said, frowning. “The walls down here don’t offer enough insulation and there isn’t enough natural heat down here to keep them unfrozen. When we hit the nine-month season that is winter, the air temps dip low enough to freeze the water in them. The only way to keep them warm is to circulate warm air down here from the furnace. So we need the vents to feed the air to the trouble spots. Hence, the two friggin’ grand.”

“And I assume this is not something we can do ourselves?” I asked hopefully.

He grunted. “No. This is something we have to overpay for.”

“We could get a saw and just cut some holes in the floor.”

“No.”

“Buy some space heaters?”

“No.”

“So then we just overpay.”

He sighed. “Yes.” He rubbed at his jaw. “We overpay.”

We had the money. I knew that. But I also knew how much he hated to overpay for anything. It drove him nuts. When we had contractors come to give us bids after we first bought the house, he’d stood there and negotiated after they gave us a price. I’d get uncomfortable because he wouldn’t budge and I would usually end up leaving the room. But every single time, he’d gotten the price reduced more to his liking.

“I’m going to have them start right away,” he said, sounding tired and resigned. “I looked at the forecast. We’re going to get super cold again next week and I don’t want to worry about them freezing again. Or bursting.”

I hugged him. “Okay.”

“Sorry,” he said, hugging me back. “Didn’t mean to be an ogre when I walked in.”

“It’s okay.”

“He called me a couple hours after he came by and I’ve been stewing on it all day. Just put me in a bad mood.”

“Understandable,” I said. “But do you know what would put you in a worse mood?”

“What?”

“A frozen pipe that burst while we were gone.”

He sighed again. “I suppose.” He rested his chin on top of my head. “So Rex and some other guys will probably be here over the next couple of days.”

“He told me he’d probably be back soon when I saw him this morning,” I said. “But answer me this. Is there any sort of conflict of interest in the house inspector doing contract work on our house?”

Jake shrugged. “I don’t know. But our options are limited here in town. He knows how to do the work and he can do it right away. Beats having to get bids and then trying to get on someone’s schedule. I’m fine with it.”

“Okay,” I said. “Well, I told him he could just come over whenever.”

“Okay,” he said. “And Will said if I needed to borrow any money, he had cash. Do I want to know why?”

“No,” I answered quickly.

“Which means I absolutely want to know why.”

“He just…did a little work for me this morning,” I said carefully. “I needed some help.”

“And you paid him enough so that he’s now offering loans?”

“He probably heard you grumbling about money,” I said. “And was feeling generous.”

“Daisy. Tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell,” I said, stepping away from him. “I needed some help. He helped me. I paid him.”

Jake narrowed his eyes. “What kind of help?”

“Computer help.”

“Be more specific.”

“Just computer stuff,” I said, smiling at him. “I’d be more specific if I could, but I didn’t understand it. That’s why I needed his help.”

“Maybe I’ll just ask Will.”

“He won’t talk. He was paid well.”

“I’ve got cash.”

“You wouldn’t.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t I?”

He totally would.

Dammit.

“I needed information,” I said. “So I asked him to help me.”

“Information about what?”

I paused. “Helen Stunderson.”

He rolled his eyes in much the same way Emily had, so similar in fact that it was surprising he wasn’t her biological father. “I thought you were going to leave that alone.”

“I am,” I said. “I mean, I am
now
. I’m giving up.”

He raised the eyebrow again. “I’ve heard that before.”

“But I mean it this time,” I said. “It’s been a waste of time and I’m not helping in any way. More frustrating than anything.”

“What did you learn?”

“You mean about being a private investigator?”

“No, about Olaf.”

“Oh.” I thought for a minute. “I know he was very unhappy with his marriage. I know that he was the one who wanted his divorce. I know that his ex-wife is semi-insane. I know that his sister loved him.” I paused. “But I have no idea who killed him or how he ended up in our coal chute.”

He leaned against a post. “Those are the kind of things you usually feel compelled to know about.”

“I feel like you’re accusing me of being nosy.”

“I’m not accusing you,” he said. “I
know
you’re nosy.”

“Hmm. Whatever. But I’m telling you, I’m done. I’ve asked all the questions I can think of. There’s nowhere else to go and I just keep hitting dead ends.” I held my hand up. “So I swear. I’m done playing Magnum P.I.”

He stared at me for a long time.

“Magnum P.I. was a really good show,” he finally said. “I’m kind of surprised you know it.”

“Magnum was hot.”

He frowned. “Not what I meant.”

“I know.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Alright. As long as you promise you’re done, I’ll stop asking questions.”

“I promise,” I said. “I’m done.”

“Good,” he said. He glanced up at the ceiling. “Because after we pay for the new vents, we won’t have any money left to bail you out of jail.”

FORTY

I drove Emily to school the next morning.

“Why do you need to come in?” she asked.

“I have to turn in your lunch money and your forms for next year.”

She fiddled with the radio, turning the volume up. “I can drop them by the office.”

“I know,” I said. “But I have a question about the fees for the photography class.”

“That you can’t ask on the phone?”

“I’m getting the distinct impression that you don’t want me to come into your school.”

She bit her lip and said nothing.

“I’ll pretend I don’t know you,” I assured her. “Jake and I will save all of the embarrassing stuff for when we chaperone your dances.”

She whirled to face me. “You will not!”

I just laughed and shrugged. “Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

She vaulted out of the car the minute we pulled into a parking space, mumbling a quick goodbye. I thought about running after her to give her a big hug and kiss goodbye, but reined myself in.

I pushed through the double glass doors into a wide, open room. The building itself was only a few years old and most everything that I’d seen inside still looked close to brand new. The front office was no exception. The desks were neat, the tiled floor immaculate, and all of the ladies behind the desks were still smiling. They hadn’t been plagued by the cynicism and fatigue that normally overtook school staffs.

It would get them, too, eventually.

“Haven’t seen you in forever, Daisy,” Eileen Varhuus said from behind the first desk. “How are you?”

We’d known Eileen and her family long before Emily had enrolled at the high school. Short and stout, with a wide face but eager smile, she’d homeschooled her two kids for several years before they’d gone the same route as Emily. When we started looking at schools for Em, we’d been pleasantly surprised to run into Eileen, who’d taken a part-time job manning the front desk of the high school. We’d picked her brain a little bit before enrolling Emily and she’d been a great resource for us.

“I’m good,” I said. “Just have some forms and money to turn in.” I found the form for the photography class. “Do I need to pay the lab fee now or wait until next year?”

“Next year,” she told me. “We just need parents to know that there are fees associated with it.”

I handed over the forms and she peered at them over the reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. “Emily’s had a good first semester, I take it, since you’re re-enrolling?”

I nodded. “Very much so.”

“She’s such a sweet girl,” Eileen said. “A pleasure to see around here.”

“She’s a good kid,” I said. I smiled and added, “
Most
of the time.”

She sorted the paperwork into several different trays, then dropped the check into a small box to her left. She folded her hands on her desk and smiled at me. “So. Guess you’ve had a wild week.”

I tried to laugh. “Yes, been a little…hectic.”

She nodded. “We were driving past the day the police were there. The kids nearly broke their necks trying to look out the window.”

“So did mine,” I said. “It was like a long lesson in crime scene forensics.”

“Do they know any more about what happened?”

“If they do, they aren’t sharing it with us.”

She made a sympathetic face. “That must be frustrating. But I guess the bright side is they don’t think you did anything.”

“Yeah, pretty sure they’ve crossed us off the list.” I took a step back from the counter, intending to leave.

She adjusted the glasses on her nose. “I would hope they are looking at his ex-wife.”

I froze. Slowly, I turned around. “Do you know Helen?”

“Oh yes,” she said, pursing her lips for a moment. “She used to play in a monthly bunco group I belong to.”

I’d never been invited to a bunco group and I’d never played the game. I wore it like a badge of honor.

“We finally asked her to leave about a month or so ago,” she said. “It was…uncomfortable.”

“Why did you ask her to leave?”

She glanced over her shoulder. The other women in the office were deep in conversation, their gazes fixated on a book opened in front of them. “I was never what you’d call friends with her,” Eileen said in a soft voice. “She was always a bit too in your face for me. Telling you all about herself and that kind of thing, like she wanted to show off. I could tune her out most of the time, but I tried to make sure I never sat at her table.”

I nodded. One more person was describing the Helen I’d gotten to know over the previous week.

“But it got to the point where all she’d talk about was this man she was supposedly dating,” she continued. “And none of us really cared. I mean, it was fine that she seemed happy, but a lot of us were still friends with Olaf, so it was just sort of awkward.” She frowned. “But she just wouldn’t stop. She wouldn’t play the game. She’d just keep talking about him. We really didn’t understand why she was there.”

“Did she say who he was?” I asked.

Eileen thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No, I don’t believe she ever mentioned his name. She just went on and on about how sexy he was, how good looking he was.”

Sexy
. There was that word again. But it just felt like a choice of word being used to impress rather than tell the truth. Of course I thought my husband was sexy, but I didn’t go around using it to describe him to other people.

“I know he came one time to pick her up,” Eileen said. “From bunco, I mean. Her car wasn’t working or something like that, but she made a big to do about him coming to get her.”

I set my hands on the counter, my curiosity piqued. “So did you meet him?”

“No.” Eileen shook her head again and the tiny flare of hope I’d felt extinguished itself. “He didn’t come in. He texted her when he got there and she made sure we all knew he was there to pick her up.” She chuckled. “So we all ran to the window to get a look at Mr. Sexy before they left. I think half of us thought she was making him up and expected to see a taxi outside. But he was there.”

“So you saw him then?”

“Not really,” Eileen said. “It was dark because it was late. So we really just saw his shadow.”

I tried to hide my disappointment. “Ah, okay.”

“But there was one funny thing,” Eileen said, leaning forward, lowering her voice yo a whisper. “And it makes me sound like a terrible person for saying it, but we all just laughed because of how she’d gone on and on about how sexy he was.”

I wasn’t following. “What do you mean?”

She tried not to laugh. “Helen’s a tall woman, you know?”

“Sure.”

“I did not expect Mr. Sexy to be shorter than her,” she said. “The image was just funny when he opened the car door for her.”

“Shorter?” I asked, disappointed that it wasn’t something more significant.

Eileen nodded. “He barely came up to her shoulder.” She shook her head, her eyes twinkling. “I just expected that Mr. Sexy would, at the very least, be able to look Helen in the eye.”