FIFTEEN
“Body’s not still here, is it?” Rex the Inspector asked the next morning, chuckling. “Never found one of those during an inspection and I’d like to keep my record intact.”
I’d woken early, sleep coming in fits and starts as I thought about Olaf and Helen. I couldn’t clear my head and the minute it was six o’clock, I stumbled downstairs for coffee. Emily’s alarm went off a half hour later and I visited with her while she bustled in the kitchen, getting her breakfast and making her lunch before darting out the door for school. I’d hopped in the shower shortly afterward so that I’d be ready for my day and for our early morning meeting with Rex Freeman.
He’d shown up promptly at eight and, after shaking hands with Jake, immediately started making dead body jokes that weren’t very funny.
“It’s gone,” Jake assured him.
He held up his to-go mug in my direction. “Hello, Daisy.”
I nodded at him.
“Yeah, I drove by yesterday and saw all the commotion,” Rex said, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I’d heard about it the day before.” He took a sip from the coffee and then wiped at his bristly mustache. “You all are pretty popular in town right about now, don’t you know.”
“Oh, we know,” Jake said, glancing at me. “We know.”
Rex shrugged off his heavy work jacket and stood on the toes of his work boots to hang it on the coat rack. He was a short, compact man with coppery colored hair and a mustache that was big enough to sweep the kitchen floor. And I’d never seen him without coffee.
“They tell you anything about the guy they found?” Rex asked, raising a bushy eyebrow.
Jake shook his head. “Nothing, really. I think they were just as stumped as we were.”
Rex glanced in my direction. I thought he was going to say something, but he seemed to bite off his words. Maybe it was because of the death glare I shot at him. I don’t know.
“Can’t wait to take a look at that chute,” he said, downing another mouthful of coffee. “It’s a chute, right? That’s what I heard.”
Jake nodded. “Yep.”
Rex’s mouth twisted. “Can’t believe I missed that.” He shook his head in disbelief.
“Me, either,” I mumbled.
“It was hard to see,” Jake said, cutting his eyes in my direction, a silent signal to tell me to behave.
“How big is it?” Rex asked.
Jake described it for him.
Rex’s mouth twisted a little more and his mustache quivered. “I just normally look for areas that might be a problem and that crawl space…I remember shining my light in there, but there was no electrical or anything to be concerned about. If I’d seen anything like that or moisture from the outside wall, I’d have gone up in there.”
I wanted to ask about the pipe located up there, the one that had frozen and been the catalyst for finding the coal chute and the body stuffed inside of it. Why hadn’t he looked at that? He’d been pretty thorough in the other areas of the house. Or at least I thought he had, considering the length of the inspection report.
“Anyway, I was more worried about your attic, which is why I went up there.” He shook his head. “I’m real sorry about that.”
And now I felt bad for my comment. He’d heard some squeaking noises on the day of the inspection and had lifted the access panel to the attic to investigate. He’d hoisted himself up there and had found a massive squirrel’s nest tucked in the corner of the eaves. But he’d also put his foot through the ceiling, raining down a mess of plaster and dust into the girls’ bedroom and spraining his ankle. Jake had practically carried him to his truck afterward.
“Don’t sweat it,” Jake said, shrugging. “We didn’t know it was there, either. But I am worried about the pipes down there. Can we take a look?”
Rex nodded and followed Jake down the narrow stairs into the basement. I thought for a moment about following them, but decided against it. I needed to get my mind off Olaf, the coal chute and all of the havoc it had brought to our lives over the last few days.
So I roused the kids from bed, made them a quick breakfast and sent them back upstairs to make their beds and get dressed when Jake and Rex returned to the kitchen.
“And what do we know now?” I asked, sticking the dishes in the sink.
“Well, it’s gonna be hard to get heat in that space,” Rex said, scratching his head. “And that’s what you need to keep those pipes from freezing. That outside wall?” He let out a low whistle. “Cold as ice. Told your husband, about the only way to keep that area warm is to install some ductwork.”
“Okay,” I said.
Jake sighed. “Which is expensive.”
“Like college-for-all-four-kids expensive?”
“Not quite,” he said, a small smile forming on his lips. “But close.”
“Ah.”
Rex nodded in agreement. “It is. Unfortunately, it would probably mean some structural work, too. Would be fairly involved. But I’m not sure how else to warm that space. Other fixes are only gonna be temporary.”
I turned the tap on and adjusted it so the water ran hot. “So I guess the hairdryer is out?”
Rex laughed. “Well, it’ll work in a pinch, but, no, I’m afraid you might need to do something else to permanently fix it.” He set his coffee down and pulled his phone out of the pocket of his jeans. “Told Jake I’d give you the name of an HVAC guy I know who can help you out if you decide to go that route. He and I work together quite a bit.” He tapped the screen on his phone. “Text it to you?”
Jake nodded. “Sure.”
Rex tapped a couple more times, then nodded and put the phone back in his pocket. “Sent. Sorry I don’t have better news. And maybe he’ll tell you something different or have a better idea.”
Jake waved a hand in the air. “Not your fault. I appreciate you coming out.”
“Anytime,” he said. He reached for his coat and shrugged it on to his shoulders. “And I just want to apologize again about the chute. I should’ve spotted that the first time I was here. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Jake said, offering his hand.
“Just feel like maybe I could’ve saved you some of this trouble,” he said, shaking Jake’s hand.
I wanted to ask how. Like, if we’d known about the chute, maybe a dead body wouldn’t have mysteriously appeared in it?
We said goodbye and I watched him trudge out into the snow.
“It’s not his fault,” Jake said. He grabbed his travel mug out of the cupboard and poured creamer into it.
“What part? The not knowing about the coal chute or the dead body?”
“Both.”
“Jake, he was supposed to inspect the house. How does a home inspector miss the fact that we have an 8x15 foot coal chute in our basement?”
His eyebrows were raised as he poured coffee into his mug. “8x15? You know the exact measurements?”
I positioned the strainer in the sink and filled it with hot water. “You know what I mean.”
“I know, I know. Maybe his inspection was limited to fifty pages or something. Like we’d reached our maximum with everything else he’d already found. Or maybe after he nearly died in the attic, he just decided to call it quits for the day.”
“He sprained his ankle, Jake.” I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t like he got electrocuted or something.”
“Oh, right,” he said, nodding. “That’s what happened to me when I changed a lightbulb.”
I squirted dish soap in the sink. “You did not get electrocuted. You got…shocked.”
His mouth twisted into a frown. “I couldn’t feel my arm for a week.”
“Shocked,” I repeated.
He sighed. “I gotta get to work.”
“I was hoping you might stay home until lunch.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I need to work. So we can put some heating ducts downstairs.” He set his coffee down and reached for his boots. “Into our murder pit.”
“I thought we weren’t going to call it that.”
He grabbed his jacket and planted a quick kiss on my cheek. “I call it like I see it. Our money pit is a murder pit. No doubt about either one.”
SIXTEEN
“How long are we gonna be here, Mom?” Grace asked as she ripped off her seat belt.
“Probably an hour or so,” I said. “Make sure you get your name on three classes. All of you.”
All three of them mumbled something about agreeing to do so as they climbed out of the car.
We were back at the 4-H church but not for a meeting and not for church. It was sign-up day for the newest session of our homeschool co-op. We didn’t do traditional school, but for the previous couple of years, we’d participated in a once a week co-op, where parents offered up different classes for the kids in a half-day, semi school-like environment. The church was kind enough to let us use the Sunday school classrooms tucked away in their basement and this was the day where families perused the course offerings and signed up for classes they were interested in.
And I was teaching again. Which I liked. It could be a pain at times, but for the most part, I liked teaching things that I thought were of interest to the kids. Not rote subjects like math and history, but fun things like Medieval Times and How To Visit All 50 States Before You Turn 21. We all tried to make the classes relevant and fun. Some parents succeeded and some failed. I was pretty sure I fell in the success camp since my classes were usually wait-listed by the end of the sign-up period.
However, as I walked around the foyer of the church, surveying the sign-up sheets taped to the tabletops, I realized that something was wrong.
The sign-up sheet for my writing class – Write A Novel Based On Your Parents’ Life – was completely bare. There wasn’t a single name on the list.
I set my bag down next to the table and looked around the room. I saw all of the usual faces, the kids I normally saw in my classes. They were milling around, checking out the offerings and giggling with the other kids.
Maybe it was just early and they hadn’t gotten to my table yet.
So I walked around and did the same thing they were doing, investigating what was going to be offered this session. I had a general idea, since the moms had gotten together a few weeks before to brainstorm class ideas. A kitchen chemistry class. Learn how to knit. Car mechanics for dummies. The history of Chinese Dynasties. Classical music. None of them sounded like classes my kids would want to take. There was an art class being offered that I knew they’d like and a Legos-based architecture class but, beyond that, the pickings seemed to be slim.
So when I returned to my table and saw the mostly blank sign-up sheet, I was surprised. Shocked, actually. Because the only names on the list were Will, Sophie and Grace.
My own kids.
I looked around the room, frowning. Carol Vinford was sitting at a corner table and I made my way over to her.
She looked up and the smile took a fraction longer than it should’ve to reach her face. “Hi, Daisy.”
“Hi,” I said, mustering a smile. I glanced around the room. “Lots of kids. That’s good.”
She nodded. “Absolutely. We’ve got several new families and I think everyone from last session is returning, too.”
“Yeah, I saw that,” I said. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Which makes it even weirder that no one is signed up for my class.”
Carol’s smile flickered. “No one?”
I shook my head. “No one but my own kids.”
“Well, that’s nice that they want to be with you,” she said, her voice flavored with a little too much enthusiasm.
I pulled my hands out of my pockets and folded my arms across my chest. “What’s going on, Carol?”
“Going on?”
“Spill it. You should’ve already been asking me to teach another class by now, begging me to take a second hour,” I said. “The last time that didn’t happen was never.”
The pen in her right hand tapped against the table. “Well, um, maybe the class just isn’t, um, of interest this time around…”
I stared down at her. “Carol. What’s going on?”
The pen tapped quicker against the table top and Carol glanced to her left, then her right before leaning forward of the table. “People are afraid, Daisy.”
“Afraid their parents will be mad?” I asked, not understanding. It wasn’t like I was going to teach the kids how to write tabloid articles. We were going to write stories based on their parents’ lives growing up. They’d learn interview skills, how to write a basic narrative, and hopefully understand how important it was to maintain a connection the past…and record it.
“No,” she said, lowering her voice. “They’re afraid of the Olaf thing.”
I tilted my head, not sure I heard her correctly. “What?”
“They’re all freaked out,” she said. “They know about…the thing…at your house.”
“You mean the body?” I asked dryly. It wasn’t like everyone didn’t already know exactly what ‘thing’ had been recovered from the coal chute. “What the hell does that have to do with taking my class?”
She wrinkled her nose at my choice of words and glanced toward the ceiling, as if the Lord himself might be frowning down on us. “I don’t know. I just know that’s what I’m hearing.”
“From who?” I looked around the room. If people knew what we were discussing, they didn’t indicate it. In fact, no one was even looking in our direction. Which just made everything weirder. I knew I didn’t have a ton of real friends, but most of the moms in the co-op were surface-nice, always ready with a smile or some polite, trivial conversation.
I tried again. “Who did you hear that from?”
Her face colored. “Well, you know, just…everyone. It’s just out there. I know. It’s silly. But you know how people are.”
I set my hands on my hips. “Your kids didn’t sign up.”
The red in her cheeks flushed brighter. “Well, um, they aren’t really writers.”
“
You
asked me to teach the class,” I reminded her. “And Megan sells her homemade comic books at the fair.”
Her cheeks went to DefCon Red. “I, uh, well, I guess I was wrong about it being popular. And Megan’s more interested in graphic novels.The drawing part.”
I wanted to point out that I’d seen her graphic novels and that the ratio of writing to drawings was about equal. I knew that kid. She liked to write almost as much as she liked to read.
“What exactly do you all think is going to happen?” I asked, resting my hands on the table, more to steady myself than for any other reason. “That I’m going to bring the body in for show and tell? Somehow incorporate a murder into everyone’s story?”
Carol paled just a little. “Well, no, of course not,” she said, shaking her head.
“So then you’re worried that I’m going to what?” I asked, my shoulders tense, my temples beginning to throb. “Kill somebody here?”
She started to say something, then closed her mouth and cast her eyes downward at the table. I swallowed hard. Because I realized then that most people didn’t think it was simply a coincidence that Olaf Stunderson’s body was found in my coal chute. It was beginning to look like they thought I’d put it there.
I pinched the bridge of my nose for a moment, shutting my eyes tightly. “Oh my God. You do think I’m going to kill someone.”
“No, no, no,” Carol insisted. She reached out a hand to touch mine but I pulled away. “We don’t think that at all.”
“Yet everyone’s afraid to put their kids in my class.”
“Daisy, it’s just strange,” she said, trying to give me some sort of sympathetic look. “That’s all. And you know that people talk. They get worked up over something that isn’t there.” She paused and chewed on a fingernail for a second. “But you have to admit, it’s hard to figure out how Olaf got inside your house. If you didn’t let him in.”
“I didn’t,” I said through my locked jaw. “I didn’t let him in and I didn’t do anything to him.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” she said, her brow furrowed, her voice oozing sympathy and understanding. I just wasn’t sure if it was authentic or not.
I looked around. My kids were still scanning the tables, whispering to one another and their friends, trying to figure out where to place their names. Sophie had Grace by the arm, pulling her back to the Lego table. I knew she would try to talk her into signing up with her. Will was talking to Matt Walters, one of his buddies, pointing at the Chinese dynasty class. I could tell by the expression on his face that he was trying to convince Matt to take something else. Knowing him, probably the class I had signed up to teach.
Part of me wanted to march up to the kids and thrust their coats back into their hands and herd them out of the building. I didn’t want them surrounded by narrow-minded, righteous people who had no problem bestowing judgment based on such skimpy ‘facts.’
But there was another part of me that felt guilty, that didn’t want to take the co-op experience away from them. They genuinely enjoyed their time with their friends, learning in a relaxed classroom environment, a motley group of mixed ages coming together to learn and to share. And I loved that they got a chance to explore new topics, things that we may have never thought about learning at home.
I sighed. I didn’t know if architecture with Legos would balance out being in the middle of a group of people who thought I was capable of murder.
I turned back to Carol. “So, should I just cancel the class, then?’
“You don’t have to do that,” she said quickly.
“No one has signed up.”
She didn’t say anything, just went back to tapping her pen against the table.
“I’ll go pull the sheet,” I told her. “But I’m not paying for my kids. I offered the class, which should cover their enrollment. Not my fault you’re all afraid of me.”
“Oh, of course,” Carol said, relief flooding her face. I knew she was thrilled that I wasn’t going to push the issue any further. “And, don’t worry. We’ll get it figured out.”
As I walked to rip my sheet off the table, I wondered if she was agreeing to that because it was the right thing to do or if she was lying.
Because I was pretty sure it was more than just the other people in the room who thought I’d offed Olaf.
I was pretty sure Carol Vinford believed it, too.