Remodeled to Death

by Valerie Wolzien

  “Sure. And their peace may be bought at this woman’s … What did you say her name was?”

  “Josie.”

  “At Josie’s expense.”

  “I appreciate the thought. I really do. But I can handle this myself.”

  The Henshaws turned and looked at the woman standing in their kitchen doorway.

  “Hi. I’m Josie Pigeon.” A bright smile appeared amid the freckles on her face. Burnished red curly hair was struggling to free itself from an elastic band, and her clothing, a white T-shirt and denim overalls, barely contained her chubby but curvaceous body. She had such bright green eyes that Susan felt they could only be the result of colored contact lenses. She didn’t seem to mind Clue drooling on her work boot.

  “You’re a carpenter?” Jed blurted out. “You look so young,” he added quickly before his wife could accuse him of an attitude similar to that of the men upstairs.

  “You’ve never seen a thirty-two-year-old carpenter before? You’ve got men upstairs younger than I am!” But Josie’s remarkable eyes were sparkling and her smile became a grin. “I am,” she added, “a very good carpenter. And I’m much more likely to realize that you’re hanging your towel racks in an inconvenient place than a male carpenter. Men don’t notice those things.” She grinned again. “See, we’re all a little sexist, so I have to accept the shit that I get. Until it gets out of hand.”

  “Then this is going to work out?” Jed asked quietly.

  “Don’t worry about it. Every business has its own conventions. In mine the men have to make a big stink, complain and complain and complain, and force me to prove that I’m competent. Then we all work together and get the job done. And sometime during the last week on the job, the men begin making cracks about how they’re sure glad I didn’t live up to their worst expectations.” She shrugged. “I like what I do, so I deal with it.”

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you,” Jed said politely.

  “Nice meeting you, too. I know that most of these guys just wander into your house and get down to work and an entire job can be finished without the owners connecting the faces and the names. I like to introduce myself. It will make us all feel more comfortable when we run into each other and one of us isn’t dressed.”

  Susan glanced over at her husband and smiled at the foolish grin on his face. She had a feeling that Josie Pigeon was going to be a great addition to the crew. And the comment about towel racks reminded her that she hadn’t included such details in her diagrams. “I suppose towel racks won’t matter until the job is almost finished,” she muttered.

  “We’ll want to know where they’re going to go before the wallboard is put up,” Josie corrected her. “That way we can build in support. Otherwise they’re going to pull right out of the walls when you drape a pile of wet terrycloth over them.”

  “I think I have some work to do,” Susan muttered, picking up the diagrams.

  “I’ve got to get back upstairs, but if you need any help with those towel racks—or anything else—just give me a yell.” Josie gave Clue’s head one last scratch, grinned, and hurried back into the house.

  “Well, isn’t she charming?” Jed commented.

  “Hmm. How many towel racks do you think we need in the bathroom?” Susan asked, shuffling through the papers.

  “How many did we have?” he asked.

  “Jed, you’ve been using that room for almost twenty years! How could you ask a question like that?”

  “Susan, this is your specialty. You plan the bathroom you’ve always wanted and I’ll be thrilled with it—whatever it is.”

  “Are you going out?”

  “I was thinking about going over to the club for lunch and seeing if I can pick up a game of tennis this afternoon. Want to come?”

  “I think I’ll stay here and work on all of this. I can find something to munch on in the refrigerator.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Definitely.” As if to demonstrate her point, she shook the sheets of paper on her lap, shifting a few of them to the ground. “I’ll get them,” she insisted as her husband stooped down. “I need to do some sorting.”

  And she really did, she realized as she heard Jed’s car start up. Her notes about Simon Fairweather’s murder were mixed in with lighting options. She knelt on the patio and made two piles on the lounge on which she had been sitting. The larger one was bathroom plans. The other listed the suspects in Simon Fairweather’s murder. Right now that included Patricia Fairweather and Cory Construction. But, of course, that didn’t make sense. If the motive was professional rather than personal, it was just as likely to be someone on another construction crew, after all.

  She got up, then sat down and closed her eyes. She really liked to sleep late on Sunday.…

  A while later she opened her eyes and found Brett Fortesque sitting on a chair at the edge of the patio.

  “Oh, wow, how long have I been asleep?” she asked, brushing the hair from her eyes and sitting up straight.

  “I don’t know. I’ve just been here for a few minutes. I was looking at your diagrams. Are you sure you’ve got this right?” he asked, pointing to a sheet of paper. “It looks like you have your perspective wrong. This bathtub is awfully long.”

  “It’s made in Europe,” Susan answered as if that explained everything.

  Brett raised an eyebrow but didn’t comment. “Actually, I was interested in this list more than plumbing plans.” He held up her notes on the murder.

  “I was thinking about that before I drifted off,” Susan said, grabbing an American Standard catalog from Clue’s mouth and replacing it with a dog biscuit from her pocket. “But I don’t believe Patricia murdered him, I really don’t. And I don’t understand why I should accept the fact that someone from Cory Construction is more likely to be a murderer than someone from a different company.”

  “Actually, there are a couple of reasons,” Brett said, looking at her seriously.

  “Something’s happened.”

  “A few things,” Brett admitted, glancing around. “Could we go someplace where we won’t be overheard?”

  “Sure, we could go for a drive. Or take Clue for a walk.”

  The dog leaped to her feet, tail wagging energetically.

  Brett glanced down at the animal. “It’s hard to deny such enthusiasm. Besides, maybe her name will inspire us.”

  “There’s a leash on the gatepost,” Susan muttered, getting up and stretching. “I’d better get a plastic bag.”

  “A plastic bag?” Brett looked confused.

  “Surely the chief of police knows that there’s a pooper-scooper law in Hancock.”

  “So why don’t you bring a pooper-scooper?”

  “A plastic bag’s easier. I have them right inside the back door. It just takes a second to get one.” Susan ran in and was back out five minutes later, returning to Brett’s side as she tucked a bag that bore the Pepperidge Farm trademark into her shorts pocket.

  “That took a while. Are you ready?” Brett had the leash attached to Clue’s collar.

  “I stopped to call Kathleen’s mom to see if there was any news from the hospital—there wasn’t,” she added. “But I’m ready now.” She opened the gate and slid back out of the way as the dog pulled Brett through. They were down to the street in record time.

  “Does she always pull like this?”

  “Until we get off the property. She loves her walks. You can just give the collar a good jerk and she’ll slow down.”

  Hancock was a town of lovely tree-lined streets that wrapped around houses with large yards. The bluestone sidewalks, which were easy to trip over at night, were set far enough away from the homes that Susan and Brett had relative privacy. As Clue sniffed a towering Norway maple, Brett got right to the point.

  “The preliminary report came from the coroner’s office.”

  “I didn’t think there was any doubt about the method of death. I mean, a nail gun …” Susan bit her lip and tried not to think about it t
oo closely.

  “It’s where the gun came from,” Brett added quickly.

  Susan looked at him questioningly.

  “It was marked with heavy black ink. The mark was C.C.”

  “Cory Construction?”

  “It’s very likely. I actually was on the way over here to check that out when a strange phone call came through.”

  “What sort of phone call?”

  “It had to do with the murder and the caller claimed to be a member of Cory Construction’s crew. The call was made from your house.”

  FIFTEEN

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No, we checked our caller ID. It was your number. The call came from your house.”

  Susan thought about that for a moment.

  “When?”

  “About fifteen minutes before I arrived there. I left right away. And Jed said—”

  “You saw Jed?”

  “He was backing out of the driveway as I got here.”

  “Then I must have been asleep for only a few minutes,” Susan said.

  “He said that, as far as he knew, the entire crew was working this morning. As well as some new female carpenter.”

  “And Ken Cory is here, too,” Susan mused. “But if the call was made from the house fifteen minutes before you arrived, it probably wouldn’t have been Josie Pigeon.”

  “That’s the woman carpenter?”

  “Yes, but she was talking to Jed and myself around that time. Besides, she just got here. She probably wouldn’t even know about the murder.”

  “Well, that might eliminate her. How many does it leave?” Brett asked, stopping for the dog to do what dogs do.

  Susan knelt down with the plastic bag covering her hand and picked up the resulting mess. “Let me think,” she said, slightly embarrassed by her part in this natural occurrence. “There’s Ken, of course. And Art Young and Kyle—he’s a carpenter, too, but I can’t remember his last name. And there’s Frankie. He’s a plumber; he has dreadlocks and I don’t think I’ve even heard his last name. And there’s Buns, the other plumber.” She started to giggle. “I don’t even know his real name. And also the electrician. I don’t remember his name.” She tied a knot in the open end of the bag.

  “What about the tile men?”

  “The Joes? That’s what everyone calls them, apparently,” she added, seeing the surprised look on Brett’s face. “I’ve never met them and I didn’t know they were here. Surely no one is even thinking of laying tile. There aren’t any walls or floors anywhere yet.”

  “There’s a tile company truck parked in your driveway,” Brett said.

  Susan sighed. “I hadn’t noticed. People come and go, and there’s so much noise and mess. It’s difficult to keep track of everyone. If their truck is here, I suppose one or all of them could have been in the house when the call was made.”

  “How many phone extensions do you have?”

  Susan thought for a moment. “An absurd number, really. There’s one in the kitchen. One in the study. One in our bedroom. And one in the laundry room in the basement as well as one on the wall hanging near the pool table down there. There’s also a cellular in the upstairs hallway that can be removed from its base and carried around. The kids have their own phones and their own lines, too.”

  “Then they don’t count. This call was made on the number listed for you and Jed. For heaven’s sake, why do you have so many phones?”

  Susan shook her head. “I have no idea. Each one seemed like a necessity when it was bought, but I really don’t know. I suppose that’s one of the reasons Jed plays all these sports and I started to run—to get the exercise we used to get dashing to answer the phone. But it’s not going to be easy to find out who called the station, is it?”

  “No.”

  “You didn’t tell me what he said. It was a man, wasn’t it?”

  “Sounds like you and this Pigeon person were the only women in the house and you don’t think she did it. So it was probably a man,” Brett conceded.

  “What did he say?”

  “He said that we had better keep an eye on Cory Construction. That someone on the crew killed Simon Fairweather.”

  Susan stopped dead. “You’re kidding.”

  “No. I don’t kid about murder. What we need to do right now is see if anyone knows who made that call from your house.”

  “Are you going to question everyone?” Susan asked, wondering if she would be allowed to watch.

  “I was hoping you would do that.”

  “What?” Susan shrieked so loudly that a neighbor, setting out on a power walk and busily adjusting ankle-weights, jumped up and asked if anyone needed help.

  “We’re fine!” Brett called out, waving genially at the other man.

  “No, I’m not!” Susan muttered. “I’m not a policeman. I can’t just walk up to people and interrogate them about phone calls that they may or may not have made.”

  “But you’re the homeowner and you have a right to ask questions about who is using your phone. Just make up some story and ask questions. And it would be best if you could do it in a way so that no one knows why you’re asking.”

  “Brett …”

  “Susan, I don’t want anyone to know that we’re investigating this. It’s obviously what the caller wants us to do and I don’t like anyone thinking they can manipulate the police department with anonymous calls. And you are good at this,” he said.

  “Flattery will get you everywhere. Okay, I’ll do it.” Actually, she had already thought up an excuse to ask the men working in her home some questions.

  Brett tugged on the dog’s leash and turned back toward the house.

  “You want me to call you right away with anything I find out?” Susan asked, trotting behind.

  “Good idea. But, Susan,” he added, becoming even more serious, “there could be a murderer in your house. There is no reason in the world to believe that you’re at risk. But if you get too close to the truth …”

  “I know. A person who kills once finds it easier to kill a second time.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been reading old English mystery novels,” Brett said with a chuckle. “I don’t actually know if that is true. In my experience, murderers are as varied as most groups. But if you put a murderer at risk, you very well could be risking your own life. That’s one of the reasons I decided to talk to you in person.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “Your family’s connection to the police department could help protect you. Everyone in town knows that you’ve been involved in murder investigations. I just thought that my presence at your house might send a message, an important message, to someone.”

  Susan frowned. “It’s hard to imagine that anyone on that crew is a murderer. Of course, I really don’t know them that well.”

  “Then this is your opportunity to get to know them better,” Brett answered, turning up her driveway.

  Clue felt a compulsion to sniff the tires of each van and pickup truck parked there so Susan had plenty of time to read all of the logos after Brett had driven off. As he had said, the tile layers’ van was parked at the end of the line. Peeking inside, Susan saw a few boxes of beige tiles.

  “Pretty color, aren’t they?”

  People always seemed to be sneaking up behind her these days. Susan turned and found herself looking up at a large middle-aged man with deeply tanned skin and thick, wavy salt-and-pepper hair.

  “Uh, yes,” she said, although she didn’t actually think so. “You must be … uh, Joe.”

  “Sure am. Always like to meet the missus at the beginning of a job. And those are certainly nice tiles you picked out for that upstairs room.”

  Susan glanced into the back of the van. “Those aren’t the tiles I ordered.”

  “They just look different through the window.” Joe grabbed the door with a large, hairy arm and swung it open. “Take a closer look.”

  She did. “They’re not the tiles I picked out. They may be the s
ame design, although I don’t think so, but I know that I ordered white.”

  “They’re not white?”

  “They’re beige. Maybe off-white. Maybe cream. But the tiles I picked out are perfectly white. With little diamond-shaped tiles in green and blue between them. I’m absolutely sure of that.”

  “Junior!”

  Susan jumped as the man beside her shouted in her ear.

  “Junior, get down here this minute. Ya picked up the wrong tiles again. Them kids. Can’t trust them for a minute,” he groused, smacking down a meaty hand on one of the cardboard boxes.

  Susan turned as she heard someone running up behind her. She had expected a teenager, but the man who appeared around the side of the van was in his mid-twenties at the very least.

  “You called me, Uncle Joe?” he asked politely.

  “Look at them tiles. Do they look white?”

  “Definitely not. I think the company calls them ‘Peach Breath.’ They’re for the job over on Cedar Lane. That tiny little half-bath off the dining room. Should they be white?” he asked politely.

  “What happened to the white tiles for the Henshaw job? You and your brother were sent out to pick up white tiles for the Henshaw job.”

  “We did. They’re stashed in the corner of the attic. Out of the way until needed.”

  That didn’t stop Uncle Joe for a moment. “How many times have I told you and that brother of yours that nothing should go into the house until I’ve checked it over? You guys never listen. Now I’m going to have to go all the way back up those stairs and look at those tiles myself.” He slammed the van’s door and turned to Susan. “Pardon me, ma’am. You want a job done right, you do it yourself.”

  “Of course. It was nice meeting you. I guess I’ll be seeing you around.”

  “That you will. And you want something real nice for those other two bathrooms you go see Giuseppe over in Norwich. He does tiles himself. Tell him I sent you. He’ll give you a good price.” He started back to the house. “Junior, give the lady Giuseppe’s card!” he yelled back over his shoulder.