Remodeled to Death

by Valerie Wolzien

  “So there weren’t any problems with the inspector’s of fice during the work?”

  “Well, he did some pretty irritating things.”

  “Like?”

  “Well, you know how work has to stop periodically for inspections—like electrical inspections—that have to take place before the next step can begin. So that walls can be closed up and things like that.”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, he never showed up on time or there was always some sort of complication. It really held up the work. I was sure glad that there were two other functioning bathrooms in the house.”

  Susan grimaced but didn’t speak.

  “But those things weren’t that big a deal and they irritated me more than Ken. At least there didn’t seem to be enough to make Ken so mad—or that’s the way it seemed to me.”

  “And he was really mad?”

  “Furious.”

  “What did he say exactly?”

  “Well, we … we were in bed together, just like I told you. Ken had been antsy all day.”

  “You were together at your house?”

  “Yes. Ken would just come over to check out the day’s work and hang around after his crew left.”

  “Then the men working on your house didn’t know that you and Ken were involved?”

  “I’m not sure. The young plumber with the crinkled blond hair—”

  “Frankie?”

  “That may have been his name. Well, he walked in on Ken and me kissing once, but I don’t know if he said anything to anyone else.

  “Anyway, it had been a bad day for Ken and I had opened a bottle of champagne, hoping it would calm him down, but the more he drank, the madder he became. I don’t remember everything exactly. I guess he wasn’t the only one who drank a lot that evening. But he kept talking about how Simon Fairweather hated him, that Simon Fairweather had always hated him, and that now, if he wasn’t careful, Simon Fairweather would take away his business. I said something like, Oh, surely that isn’t so. And he answered that he … he would kill Simon Fairweather if he thought he could get away with it.”

  “ ‘If he thought he could get away with it.’ You’re sure that’s what he said?”

  “Pretty sure. It sounded creepy to me. You know, people say things like ‘I sure would like to kill so-and-so’ and it doesn’t mean too much. But saying that about getting away with it struck me as very strange. Like he had thought about it or something.”

  “He didn’t happen to say just how he would kill him, did he?” Susan asked.

  Natalie opened her eyes wide, giving Susan a chance to admire her new sapphire-blue contact lenses. “That’s the other thing that’s so creepy. He said he would nail him. And the paper said that Simon Fairweather was … was shot with a nail gun, wasn’t he?”

  Susan nodded grimly. It sounded more and more like she had hired a murderer.

  TWELVE

  In fact, her husband had just given Ken Cory a check for seventeen thousand dollars.

  “And there are a lot of decisions that have to be made as quickly as possible,” Jed reminded her before she had a chance to drop her purse on the hall table—assuming she could have found the hall table.

  “Where … ?” she began, looking around.

  “Everything has been moved out of the hallway. They’ve been carrying stuff up and down the stairs for hours. Both bathrooms are pretty much cleaned out—even the third floor is almost back to the eaves. Susan, we need to figure out exactly what you want in each room.”

  “I …” She reminded herself that they were talking about decorating, nothing life-threatening, nothing to panic over.

  “It’s going to cost more if we have to make changes. And orders for appliances have to go in, hon.”

  “I thought there was time. Which room do we have to decide about first? The third floor is going to be pretty easy. I already know which sink and toilet. I even marked them in the American Standard catalog.”

  “I think Ken was planning on doing all the bathrooms at once.”

  “Jed, I can’t do that.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that big a deal. And I don’t see what was wrong with the bathrooms before. Why don’t we just replace everything and you can paint the walls the colors that you were talking about on the way home from the airport,” Jed suggested again.

  “Jed, those bathrooms were decorated in the fifties. You can’t even get the same bathtubs and toilets anymore! And why would anyone want to reproduce those hideous cabinets under the sinks?”

  “I always liked them.”

  The phone rang as Susan began to wonder if a divorce decree was going to precede new toilets to her house. Jed answered and then handed the receiver to Susan. “I’m going to go upstairs and check things out with Ken. Maybe they can work on the third floor first. That would give you time to make your selections, right?”

  Susan just nodded and took the receiver from him. “Hi.”

  It was Kathleen, and after being assured that the baby was content to remain in utero, Susan explained what she had learned talking with Patricia Fairweather and the women down at the field club.

  “You didn’t mention the fact that Ken Cory was young and good-looking” was Kathleen’s first comment.

  “Yes. Sort of an intellectual-looking hunk—like the guys in the Bloomingdale’s catalog. But that’s not relevant here,” Susan insisted. “After all, he could also be a murderer.”

  “So maybe you should find another contractor,” Kathleen suggested. “Unless you’re looking for an affair?”

  “Just as soon as I pick out three new toilets,” Susan answered rather sarcastically.

  “But, Susan …”

  “Look. Jed is so happy with them that he gave them a deposit and they’ve already started to work. Besides, I don’t know where I would find another company.”

  “But, Susan, what if one of them actually is a murderer? And what if that person discovers that you’re looking into Fairweather’s death? You could be putting yourself in danger.”

  “I’ll be safe enough. You have to be alone with someone for them to kill you. You can’t believe how many people have walked in and out of this house over the last two days.”

  “Well, just be careful.”

  “I will.” Susan continued to chat until her husband stepped into the room, a large bathroom-fixtures catalog under his arm. “You’ll call me if you begin labor?” she asked before saying goodbye.

  “It’s a small town. You’ll hear the cheering without a phone,” Kathleen assured her, and hung up.

  “Good news,” Jed announced. “Ken agreed that there was no reason not to do the third floor first. And he marked the toilets and sinks that are in stock at his supplier’s in this catalog. If you can agree on one of them and if we can pick out tiles for the floor up there tonight, he’ll start rebuilding as soon as the permits are approved.”

  “That will be easy,” Susan enthused. “There’s a wonderful tile store over in Stamford and I’ll bet it’s open tonight. They have the most beautiful hand-painted tiles.”

  “Ken said he has a good working relationship with Tile City—it’s out on the highway. He said Tile City has most of the standard tiles in stock.” He gave his wife a stern look. “Susan, we’re talking about the attic. I can understand if you want to add some charm to the second-floor bathrooms. That might even add substantially to the value of the house. But there isn’t even a bedroom in the attic. Let’s try to keep it simple.”

  “Of course,” Susan agreed, taking the catalog from his hand. “Just give me a few minutes and I’ll look at the sinks.”

  “Ken said nothing acrylic. Only cast iron. Or maybe he was talking about bathtubs,” Jed muttered.

  Susan just kept looking through the glossy pages, wondering how they had managed to photograph so many naked men and women in tubs and showers without displaying any sexual attitudes. Even the couple sharing the bubble bath in a large square tub looked as though they were casual acq
uaintances who just happened to be in the same place at the same time. “What do you think about these?” she asked finally, showing him a page.

  “Nice. Plain, white. Did Ken mark this page?”

  Susan pointed to the check mark in the right-hand corner.

  “Great! Why don’t I show him right now and he can call in an order. He was up in the attic doing some last-minute measuring.”

  “I’ll do it,” Susan said, leaping to her feet. “Could you take Clue on a walk? Then we can leave immediately for Tile City. I think plain tiles would be nice on the floor up there, but it should be a color. White is too difficult to keep clean.”

  “Okay,” Jed agreed, and they headed off in opposite directions.

  Fifteen minutes later they were in the car following Ken’s directions to the store he had recommended. “Tomorrow is Sunday,” Susan muttered, leafing through the Andersen windows catalog. “They won’t be working in the house.”

  “Actually they will be. Ken’s already spoken to me about it,” Jed said. “The town frowns on working Sundays—in fact, there’s an ordinance against all but emergency work being done. But he thought that the fact that we’re living without water qualified as an emergency. And besides—”

  “Simon Fairweather isn’t around to check up on him anymore,” Susan finished his sentence.

  “Exactly.”

  “No one on the crew—or Ken—seems to be distraught about Simon’s death,” Susan said, trying to keep her voice casual. “They must have known him fairly well.”

  “That’s true.” Jed chuckled. “That carpenter … What’s his name? The one who wants to be on Jeopardy!?”

  “George?”

  “No, that doesn’t sound right.”

  “Art Something.”

  “Art Young. That’s it. Well, the only time he takes off his headset is to ask for a measuring tape or some other tool—or to tell anti-Simon Fairweather stories.”

  “Like what?” Susan asked as casually as possible.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t see much point in listening to that type of thing. People bitching are just blowing off steam; I don’t like to get involved.”

  Susan knew what he meant. She’d listened to friends complain for hours and ended up feeling used. But, on the other hand, she sure would like to know what Art Young was saying about the building inspector. She’d have to get that headset off the man and get him talking. If Jed could do it, she could. People were always sharing their life histories with her whether she wanted to hear them or not.

  “Jed, you are happy with Cory Construction, aren’t you?” Susan asked the question that was nagging at her.

  “Ken seems very well organized and his crew seems to be nice people. Is something about them worrying you?”

  “No.”

  “Because I’ll be in the city working and you’re going to be the person that they’re going to be driving crazy at home.”

  “How much time do you think I’ll actually have to spend here?” Susan remembered what Natalie McPherson had said down at the club.

  “Well, at first you might want to be home most of the time. There are going to be a lot of questions until everything is planned completely.”

  “Of course. The planning doesn’t worry me a lot. I’d rather have more time, but I can do it. I just wondered how much you think I should check out the technical aspects of the job.”

  “You mean because Simon Fairweather is dead? I wouldn’t worry about that. The town will appoint another building inspector as soon as possible and his work will be taken over by someone in the office right away.”

  Susan hadn’t been talking about that, but it gave her something to think about. “So it was the man that everyone hated, not the job. I mean, someone is going to do all the inspections and everything like that whether Simon is around or not.”

  “True.”

  “So killing him would make no difference to anyone with any of the contracting companies at all,” Susan said.

  “Oh, that’s not true. Everyone brings their own personality to a job. One man is more particular, more likely to follow the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law. One person is prompt and friendly; another is always late and abrupt. Whoever replaces Simon Fairweather might well be liked better than he was. But, you know, that might be a problem here.”

  “What?”

  “Well, Simon Fairweather was known to be tough, but that also means that the projects he inspected were done to the letter of the law, and that means they were safe. I was pretty mad when we got turned down for the workshop over the garage because he could have granted a variance if he’d wanted to. But, on the other hand, you didn’t have to worry about an incompetent electrician doing something that might catch on fire when Simon Fairweather was around.”

  “Do we have to worry about it now?”

  “No, I’m sure the town council will appoint someone who’s competent. They must have had someone doing the work while Simon was on vacation or when he was ill. Don’t worry about it.”

  Susan ignored her husband and worried all the way to Tile City.

  And Tile City gave her more to worry about.

  “This is it? This is where Ken sent us?” Susan asked, peering through the windshield at a small, square building made of concrete blocks that had last been painted many, many years before by someone who liked the color of Pepto-Bismol.

  “We shouldn’t judge by the outside.” But Jed didn’t sound all that sure of his statement.

  “There couldn’t be a very big selection,” Susan said, getting out of the car.

  “We’re here for something basic, remember? And if we can’t find something you like, we can always go somewhere else.”

  But Tile City, though not a very large metropolis, was crammed full of tiles, and Susan had no trouble choosing the type she wanted. The color, however, was a different story.

  “Didn’t you say something about apricot?” Jed asked tentatively after Susan had spent over twenty minutes arranging and rearranging various shades of green and blue tiles on the floor.

  Susan glanced at the box of tiles her husband’s hand rested on. “When have you ever seen an apricot that color? That’s hot pink, Jed. What do you think about this pattern?”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Not that one, this one over here next to the shelf,” Susan directed him.

  “You folks need any help?” A cheerful middle-aged man appeared behind them.

  “Well, we—” Jed began.

  “Are these blue tiles appropriate for use on floors?”

  “In an entryway, bathroom, or kitchen?”

  “What’s the difference?” Jed asked, feeling that asking an intelligent question was one step up from being a complete moron.

  “Well, they’re all graded and numbered, see …”

  What followed was one of the longest, most complicated systems of grading that Susan had ever heard. After listening for a few minutes she began to understand that the store didn’t want to discourage any purchase. So instead of a system that divided tiles into those hard enough to be walked on and those that would scratch easily, tiles had been divided into a series of grades that implied that some floors were not walked on, or at least walked on rarely and then presumably only by barefoot children incapable of dragging their tiny feet.

  Jed listened, nodding sagely. Susan felt a headache coming on. “But these tiles … the green and blue ones.” Susan insisted on returning the salesman’s attention to her original question.

  “Oh, they’re the hardest finish there is. Fine for anything. But that pattern …”

  “Yes?” Susan was feeling proud for choosing the diagonal design.

  “It’s going to look a little strange unless the walls are exactly plumb. I don’t want to discourage you, but we’ve had customers complain that we didn’t tell them things before they’d ordered.”

  “Oh.”

  “Why not just the standard tile pattern?” Jed suggested.
“You know,” he responded to his wife’s curious look, “with the little diamonds at the corners of the larger ones.”

  “Sure. One of my favorites,” the salesman agreed with what Susan assumed was false heartiness. How could anyone be so enthusiastic about such an unoriginal idea?

  “Well …” Susan began.

  “Or look at this,” the salesman urged, rearranging the design Susan had worked over for so long. She was about to protest when the pattern emerged.

  “That’s wonderful!”

  “And it will work in any room, no matter how many corners or whether or not they’re square.”

  “You like it?” Jed asked.

  “Yes!”

  “Let’s figure out how many we need then. I have Ken’s measurements here.” Jed fumbled in the pockets of his chinos.

  “I’ll look around. I may get some ideas for the other two rooms,” Susan muttered, moving toward the rear of the store.

  Fifteen minutes later the Henshaws were back in Jed’s Mercedes, a box of sample tiles tucked in the trunk.

  “That place was better than you thought it was going to be, wasn’t it?” Jed said, frowning at a Jeep full of teenagers that was swerving into their lane.

  “Um. Can’t judge a book by its cover,” Susan muttered.

  “You like the ones we picked out, don’t you?” Jed asked, sensing her mood. “We can go back and change the order if you want to. Ken won’t pick those up until tomorrow morning at the earliest.”

  “No. I think they’ll be just fine,” Susan said. “I was thinking of something else.”

  “Anything I can help with?”

  “I just happened to look back in the stockroom,” Susan began slowly.

  “You’ve just happened to look in stranger places than that,” Jed kidded her. “What did you see?”

  “Well, they have this bulletin board with schedules for employees and OSHA notices—that type of normal stuff. And in the middle of it all was one of those fake wanted-dead-or-alive posters that you can have made on the boardwalk or in some stores, you know?”