The Murder Pit (22 page)

FORTY THREE

I got the younger three kids up early the next day so that they were eating breakfast at the same time Emily was leaving for school. They sat at the table, slumped, wiping sleep from their eyes, forcing food into their mouths like zombies.

“Why are we up so early?” Will asked, his eyes barely open.

“Because you’re going down to the science museum,” I reminded him. “With the Witts.”

That didn’t perk him up. “Oh. Right.”

“Why aren’t you coming?” Grace asked.

“It’s Trade Day,” I reminded her.

Trade Day was something Brenda and I had come up with a couple of years ago. As much as we loved hanging out together and spending time with each other and our kids, we also never seemed to get much time on our own, a solo day without the kids in tow. So, once a month, we dropped off our kids with each other. There were no rules about how we spent our day—we could run errands or sit at home and watch soaps or go out to lunch with a different friend. It didn’t matter. What mattered was our kids got to spend some time together and we got a much-needed day off.

They finished breakfast, got dressed, yelled at each other while they were upstairs and were just getting their shoes on when the Witt’s passenger van pulled up in the driveway. I was pretty sure the only reason they’d bought a vehicle so large was to accommodate my kids on Trade Day. I waved to Brenda out the kitchen door and hustled them the kids outside. I watched as they loaded themselves into the van, waving at them as they pulled back out on the street. Brenda lowered the passenger window.

“I’ll have them home before dinner,” she called.

I nodded and smiled and closed the door.

It was amazingly quiet when I was the only one home and, all of a sudden, I had a million things I wanted to do before the kids got home. Reorganize the kitchen and bake cookies and paint the three-season room attached to our bedroom and sand and stain the dining room table and…the list went on and on.

I sighed. I knew none of those things were going to happen. Because I needed to use my Trade Day for something much more mundane: errands. Things like grocery shopping and a trip to the post office and a stop at the auto shop to get the oil changed since it had been six months and Jake was convinced the car was going to picket in protest at having dirty oil circulating through its engine for so long.

So I drained my coffee and put on my winter gear and, grocery list in hand, headed out the door.

It took me a little over an hour to load up on groceries for the next week, drop bills in the mail and stop for the 15-minute oil change. I’d just pulled into the driveway and was opening the trunk when a bright red Ford Taurus pulled in behind me.

I shaded my eyes, the sunlight blinding off the snow.

Helen Stunderson got out of the sedan and removed her sunglasses. She shook out her long hair, shut the driver’s door and walked toward me.

I was totally caught off guard. Why was she at my house?

I glanced toward the darkened house, quickly remembering that I was all alone at my own home. At least we were visible to anyone driving by.

She must’ve sensed my uneasiness because she slowed and said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to just pull up on you like that.”

“What do you want?” I asked, fixing my keys so that they were in between my fingers in case I needed a weapon.

“I need to ask you a question.” Her eyelids fluttered and she hugged herself to keep warm. “Did you kill Olaf?”

I frowned at her. “No.”

“Then why did they find him here?” she asked.

I shook my head and sighed. “I have no idea.”

Her mouth puckered into a tight ball and she looked down at the ground.

“Did
you
kill him?” I asked before I could bite the words back into my mouth.

She didn’t get angry and she didn’t stiffen in defense. She just stared at the ground for another moment before she looked up. “No. I didn’t.”

I didn’t say anything because everything I’d learned told me that was probably a lie.

“I got a call last night,” Helen said, her voice soft. I had to take a step closer to hear her. “From an insurance company. I was still the beneficiary on Olaf’s policies. He didn’t take me off after the divorce.”

I wasn’t sure why she was telling me this. “Okay.”

“Even after everything I did, he didn’t take me off,” she said. “I didn’t want the divorce and I made his life miserable and he still left everything to me.” She shook her head, a puzzled expression on her face. “So very Olaf.”

It was the first time I’d heard those words out of her mouth. That she hadn’t wanted the divorce. During our previous encounters, she’d spent all of her time trying to convince me and anyone who would listen that she’d wanted the divorce and that Olaf had clung to her like a lovesick puppy. Now, she was admitting it had all been a lie.

She leaned against her car. “I was embarrassed. I didn’t want him to leave me. So I told everyone that I wanted the divorce.” She brushed at a stray strand of hair near her ear. “I just didn’t want to be alone.”

I sat down on the bumper of my car.

“You were the only person he went on a date with,” she said, glancing at me. “At least that I know of.  As soon as I heard that, I felt like I had to compete.” She paused, digging the toe of her boot into the snow. “So I joined that stupid dating website and started telling everyone I had men lined up at my door.”

I felt a little guilty at that point for having broken into her Around The Corner account.

“But I didn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I didn’t. Which just made it all the worse.”

“So you aren’t dating anyone?” I asked. “What about Elliott Cornelius?”

Her cheeks flushed. “I was stupid. It was one night and it backfired on me.”

“Backfired how?”

She looked pained by the question. “I wanted to make Olaf jealous. It didn’t work. And I upset Elliott. Just…bad all the way around.”

I nodded. At least she owned up to it. Part of me distrusted the fact that she was in my driveway, spilling her guts after our last couple of encounters. But the other part of was choosing to believe that hearing she was Olaf’s beneficiary had somehow unlocked something in Helen.

“So there was no one else that you were involved with?” I asked.

She made a face and waved a hand in the air. “Not that matters and not in the way I’ve told everyone.” She paused, squinted at me. “I was just being…me.”

I shifted on the bumper, still unsure of why she was there. “Why are you telling me this?”

She brushed at the stray strand of hair again with her gloved-hand. “Because when the insurance person called last night, I felt guilty. Like, I’ve been lying to everyone and Olaf apparently left me all of this money and I…I don’t know. It just bothered me that I was trying to make him look like the bad guy. Not that anyone believed me. But it just made me feel terrible.”

I was still leery, but she was coming off less like a nut case and more like a confused woman.

“So, yes, I did follow you to the library,” Helen admitted. “After I heard he’d been found here, I followed you to the library. I pretended to work there. I don’t really know why, which isn’t a good excuse. I wondered if you had killed him, but I realized that was absurd.” She pursed her lips. “Running into you at the plant was a coincidence, believe it or not. I know I reacted rudely and I apologize. If anything, I was jealous.”

“Jealous?”

She hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. Because you went out with him.”

“Nothing happened,” I said. “It was a one time thing and there was nothing to it.”

“I believe you,” she said. “I do. But you’re the woman he chose to go out with when he told me he was leaving me. I haven’t forgotten that.”

If she was truly as hung up on Olaf as she claimed, then I could understand that. It didn’t excuse her behavior, but it might explain it. Women were awful when it came to jealousy, so if she thought I was some sort of threat or that I was interested in her husband, I could see where the ridiculous behavior might have come from. If any woman looked at Jake with a smile that was more flirtatious than friendly, my nails immediately turned into claws.

“So I guess I’m just here to apologize,” she said, pushing herself upright from the car. “I got that call last night and I didn’t sleep. It was like it was Olaf’s way of chastising me for the way I’ve behaved.” She lifted her chin. “So I’m sorry for any grief I’ve caused you.”

I stood from the bumper. “Thank you. For apologizing.”

We both stood there awkwardly for a moment.

“Can I ask you a question?” I said.

She lifted her chin again. “Yes.”

“The thing with you and Olga,” I said. “It seems like—”

“Yes,” she interrupted. “We really hate each other. That wasn’t an act in any way. She’s a fat cow.”

“Alrighty then,” I said, getting my answer. “And I don’t suppose you’d have any idea who’d want to hurt Olaf? Or why?”

She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No, I really don’t. Everyone liked him. I genuinely thought it was you because I couldn’t think of anyone else who might have something against him.” She shook her head. “So now I don’t have any idea.”

That made two of us.

FORTY FOUR

Helen left and I lugged my groceries inside. I got them put away and was just pulling out the vacuum when there was a knock at the kitchen door. I dropped the plug near the wall, hoping it was just a delivery person dropping off a package or asking me to sign for something.

It wasn’t, though.

It was Rex the inspector.

He held up a hand in greeting. “Hi, Daisy. I was gonna get started on those vents if that’s okay.”

It wasn’t—I didn’t want to be tied to the house on Trade Day just in case I decided to go out and do something fun and spontaneous—but I had told him he could come by without calling. I ran a hand through my hair. “Sure, of course.”

He nodded. “Okay. Gonna get a couple things set up in my truck and then I’ll head downstairs.”

“I’ll be cleaning,” I told him. “Just come and go as you need to.”

He held up a hand in acknowledgement and hopped down the stairs, back toward his truck.

I plugged in the vacuum and sucked up all the dust on the rugs as he hustled back and forth from his truck, carrying tools downstairs. I finished with the vacuum and slapped together a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. I downed it while standing in the kitchen, contemplating what home project I should do now that I was stuck there while Rex worked. I stared at the closed kitchen cabinets. I could reorganize them, I thought. Tear everything apart and pile stuff up on the dining room table and figure out a way to use the cupboards better so that the plates were next to the cups and the baking supplies were actually in the cupboard we used for a food pantry. I rinsed off my plate and opened the fridge to grab a can of soda. And found none.

“Emily,” I muttered. She was always taking the last of the sodas—and she always conveniently forgot to restock them from the stash in the basement refrigerator.

I headed down the stairs, intent on grabbing a soda quickly so that I wouldn’t disturb Rex and his work. I’d discovered the other day that he liked to chat and the last thing I wanted to do was waste the day hanging out in the basement, talking to him while he worked.

Rex had an assortment of tools spread out on the floor, along with several power cords and measuring tapes.

He was taking a drink from his coffee and cinching up his jeans at the waist when he saw me approach the refrigerator.

“Don’t mind me,” I said, smiling. “Just grabbing a drink.”

He chuckled and set the large coffee cup from the local coffee shop on the table in the middle of the low-ceilinged basement. “Yeah? You keep a coffee pot down here, too?”

I held up a can of soda. “I move on to this kind of caffeine in the middle of the day,” I told him.

“Not me,” he said, shaking his head. “I drink the java juice all day long.”

I stifled a giggle. Java juice? Who in their right mind called coffee ‘java juice?’

“I’ve gotta run out to the van and grab a saw,” he said, heading for the stairs. “I’ll be right back.”

I was about to follow him upstairs when I spied a box piled up with a few others in the corner next to the washing machine. I’d thought they were all boxes of books but I stared at the writing on one of them and saw the word KITCHEN. All of the hundreds of missing things I swore we’d lost when we moved came rushing into my head. What was in that box? The bin of missing cookie cutters? The ice cream machine I was sure I hadn’t given away? The waffle maker?

I moved the two boxes stacked on top of it and grabbed it. It wasn’t terribly heavy and I could have carried it upstairs to see what was inside. But I was impatient. I brought it over to the table in the middle of the basement and set it down on top of it. The table was covered in Rex’s tools and I gently pushed them aside to make room for the box.

I glanced up at the ceiling. It looked like he’d already taped off several areas in the ceiling where the vents were going to be cut. Several long orange cords ran from his power tools, past the furnace and up and into the crawl space.

I stepped around to the other side of the table, trying to remember where Jake had put his own stash of tools. I needed a box cutter to get through the packing tape sealing the box shut. My eyes scanned the basement, trying to remember, and, for some reason, I locked in on Rex’s orange cords. 

Because they went through the crawl space. I craned my neck to get a better look. Sure enough, a tiny sliver of light shot through the crawl space. Sunlight was streaming in to the basement.

Through the secret entry.

I walked toward the crawl space to get a closer look. Maybe he just had a work light up there, I told myself. Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me.

I stood on my tiptoes and looked.

No. The cords ran through an opening in the wall to the outside world.

My stomach knotted.

It had to have been someone who knew about the opening.

Like the guy who inspected the house and spent four hours exploring it when we bought it.

My heart hammered in my chest. What was Rex’s connection to Olaf? Did he have one? Or was it just a coincidence that he’d known about the opening and was using it to run cords out to his truck?

My mind was spinning as I heard him coming back down the stairs.

I tried to steady my nerves but was afraid I looked more like a deer in the headlights.

He gave me a funny look as I stood there and stared at him. He glanced at the cords, then back at me. “Oh, I’m running those outside to my portable generator. I was afraid we might trip the breakers in here if I was running too many different things.” He grinned. “Don’t know how much this old wiring in here can take.”

I looked again at the cords. “Right.”

“Did you, um, know you could reach the outside like that?” he asked. “Through the wall?”

“
Not until yesterday,” I said. “And Jake and I sealed up the cinder blocks after…we found it.”

“
Looks like you missed a few,” he said. He shuffled his boots against the ground. “I just pulled one out to run the cords through. The mortar should have set if you did it yesterday.”

“
Yeah, we were going to do the rest today,” I mumbled.

He nodded. “I probably have some stuff out in the truck. I can do it for you when I’m done. No charge.”

“How did you know it was there? The opening?”

He blinked several times, the color rising in his cheeks. “Oh, I, um, saw it when I did the initial inspection, I guess.”

“You did?”

He picked up his coffee from the table and took a long drink. “Yeah. Kind of a weird spot. Probably something to do with your coal chute. I guess I should’ve known about the coal chute, then, right?”

“Mmhmm.”

He started to say something, then spun the cup in his hands and lifted it to his lips.

And that’s when I saw it.