Chapter Three
The next morning, Willow woke to the mutter of voices outside her window. In a panic, she sat bolt upright—no dozing for her today. Not when there could be thieves outside.
In the darkness, it took Willow a second to gather up her wits enough to look at the time. Six-thirty. The usual starting time for the builders. Or, ‘far too early’ as she preferred to call it.
Willow tiptoed over to the window and gazed down at the front gate. Two men were standing there, wearing the familiar builder’s uniform of beige shirt and trousers atop heavy brown work boots. As well as talking in whispered voices, the man stamped their feet to keep out the cold.
Willow pushed up the sash and stuck her head out. “What are you doing out there? Has Jeff lost the key?”
The two men jumped so high Willow almost giggled. Good to see she scared them as much as they did her.
“Jeff ain’t here,” the first one said. Willow couldn’t remember his name but easily recognized the crop of ginger curls on his head. His friend’s name was Steve or Pete or something like that. He had a good few inches on everyone else in Jeff’s crew, hunching over to walk through doorways.
“Is he running late?”
The man shrugged. “We don’t know. Neither one of us heard any different from we’d be working here again today. I don’t even have a mobile to check.”
“Give me a minute. I need to get dressed, then I’ll let you in to use the phone.” Willow pulled her head indoors and closed the window shut, the shiver running down her back not just from the cold.
She got ready as quick as she could and let the men indoors. “Do you have the number? I’ve got his card somewhere around here, if not.”
“I’ve got it,” the ginger-haired man said, quickly dialing and holding the landline receiver to his ear with a cautious look. After a few minutes, he put it down. “He’s not answering.”
“What about his home phone?”
At that, the man shrugged, and his companion shook his head. “We’re not allowed to call him on at home,” the tall man explained. “Jeff says our only contact is business, so the business line is all we use.”
“How ridiculous,” Willow said, stalking toward the kitchen. “Give me a moment, I’ll grab the phone book and see if he’s listed.”
At her statement, the tall man’s eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline and Willow turned defensive. “What? They still issue them if you ask.” She shook the thin volume in her hand. “I need it. Never got the hang of a computer and I can only use my phone to make a call.”
“Stephen didn’t mean anything by it,” Ginger hair said, giving his friend a glare. “It’ll be worth it if we can find out what’s going on. I’d hate to be docked time just because we turned up at the wrong place.”
“He could be at Shelby’s,” Stephen suggested. “When I was cleaning up here, last night, she dropped by, and I told her where she could find him.” He sighed. “It’d be good if he finally got that sorted.”
“Shelby Causer?” Ginger looked at his companion as though the man had lost his mind. “There’s no way Jeff would dare to go around her place on his own. Unless he called up a police escort at the crack of dawn, I think we can safely rule that out.”
“Who’s Shelby?” Willow asked, fighting to keep Mavis’s claws away from the thin pages of the phone book. When the men didn’t immediately answer, she glanced up in time to see a quick exchange of expressions between them. “What?”
“She’s an old client,” Ginger said.
At the same time, Stephen answered, “Jeff mucked up a building job for her.”
The two men glared at each other so fiercely Willow couldn’t help but smile before turning back to her task.
“Here we go. Jeff Waterman.” This time, Willow dialed, ready to hand the receiver across if he answered. Instead, the phone rang for so long it became obvious no one would pick up. “Another strike-out, I’m afraid.”
“We should go,” Ginger said. “We’ll drive back into town and see if we can spot his van at any of the other building sites.”
“Are you sure?” Although Willow would be grateful to see the back of them right now, it’d be a disaster if they’d moved onto a different building job before they finished with her renovations.
“Sure. We’ll give you a ring when we find Jeff and let you know what’s going on.” Ginger paused halfway to the front door. “You didn’t ask for a new set of builders, did you?”
Willow experienced a pang of guilt because her thoughts have traveled precisely that same path the afternoon before. In the end, she hadn’t costed out the job to any other building firms. One lot was probably as bad as another, she’d reasoned, a position that suited her naturally lazy streak.
“I haven’t discussed anything aside from the original plan,” Willow said. She hesitated for a second, reluctant to bring up what she’d heard the day before, then shook her head. If it were meant to be secret, Jeff wouldn’t have been yelling loud enough for the entire street to hear. “I thought some of your coworkers got fired yesterday, though. Could it be something to do with that?”
“Yeah.” Stephen had a disgusted expression on his face. “The boss fired Charley and Lee just because he pays them so little they had to take on a few extra jobs.”
The stare his friend Ginger was giving him grew increasingly heated.
“Or, it’s nothing to do with that,” Stephen added lamely. “I’m sure other things were involved in the decision.”
“Sorry to have taken up your time, Miss Foxglove,” Ginger said, pushing Stephen toward the exit. “We’ll let you know what’s happening as soon as we find out ourselves.”
When the door shut behind them, Willow felt momentarily lost. Without her morning routine of cursing all the noise from the builders, she couldn’t remember what she was meant to do. Mavis gave a small meow behind her and Willow turned, shooing her toward the kitchen. “Breakfast for you, first, then I’ll sort out something for me.”
As she switched on the kettle and laid out her tea things, Willow thought how nice it was to have the house to herself. It had been so long, she’d quite forgotten what a peaceful morning was like.
* * *
Willow jumped to answer the phone when it rang, realizing she’d been waiting with bated breath for it to go since the builders had left.
The news was neither good nor bad.
“We can’t find Mr. Waterman anywhere,” Erik had relayed to Willow after reminding her that he was the ginger-haired builder. “I guess we could come back to your house and continue on with the work he’d already assigned us. Though, I don’t know how that would work out, what with losing Lee and Charley.”
“Why don’t you take the day off,” Willow suggested as an alternative. Much as she disliked Jeff’s behavior yesterday, he was a man who knew how to organize his employees. She couldn’t imagine things going smoothly without his constant judgment and interference to keep things on track.
“If he’s not back tomorrow, I don’t know what we’ll do,” Erik admitted.
“Jeff won’t stay away for that long, no matter the circumstances,” Willow said boldly. “And if he does, then we go with your plan B. I’ve still got the building plans, you can just follow them as you see fit.”
Not likely, Willow thought as she put the phone down, but she didn’t need to tell them that. The part about being sure Jeff would turn up soon was something she believed. If he didn’t, she’d have to investigate those other building firms and find someone else to complete the task.
“And that’s all I can do,” she explained firmly to Mavis as she took the cat outside, deciding on a leisurely stroll along the river bank for her morning exercise. “If people want to run off halfway through their job, I can’t be held responsible. I have to do what’s best for my business.”
Just saying those words aloud made Willow feel one hundred percent more competent. “Business,” she repeated slowly, walking down to the st
ream. “I’m a business-woman.”
Mavis was unimpressed with the transformation, instead deciding chasing moths was a pastime more likely to yield results. She took off, bouncing and jumping with far too much energy. If Willow hadn’t seen her do the same before, she might have been fooled into thinking the kitten would wear herself out. She now knew that was an impossibility. Mavis had a constant supply of go-juice.
“Probably comes from sleeping half the day,” Willow mused, wondering if the same result would happen if a human woman tried to do that. She reluctantly decided it wouldn’t, just as she reached the bend in the river that signaled she was crossing into her neighbor Phillip’s territory.
All along the stream, the neighbors had a casual agreement the bank was common property, and nobody needed to ask for permission, or worry about crossing boundaries. Nevertheless, Willow came to a halt. Phillip had seemed very perturbed the last time he’d discussed the renovations with her. He was her closest neighbor and the one who bore the brunt of the noisy builders alongside her.
Perhaps she should leave the walk to another day. One when her property hadn’t been a thorn in the side of the noise police for a good few days at least.
“Where’d you get to, Mavis,” Willow called out in a loud whisper. “Let’s go back and walk the length the other way.”
It would lead her to the same problem soon enough, but by then the morning air would have worked its magic. Mavis’s head bobbed up from a bunch of fallen leaves, neatly raked into a pile.
At least, they had been neatly raked. Mavis swapped the joy of a moth hunt for that of tramping into a soft bed of future mulch.
“Oh, no. Come on, kitty. Time to be getting home, I think.”
Willow stepped forward, trying to push some of the leaves back into a semblance of order. Mavis was delighted she’d joined in the same game, and promptly undid her feeble efforts.
“That’s not being a good kitty,” Willow said, her scolding lost amid the usual helping of admiration, so the words sounded closer to praise. “Come on, Mavis.”
As the kitten danced out of reach again, Willow gave one last desperate try. “Fish!”
Mavis ran over and let herself be picked up. As Willow cradled the animal up against her chin, she noticed a very strange branch sticking out of the river. Before, it had been hidden from view behind the large leaf pile. Now, she walked closer, wishing she still had the keen eyesight she’d taken for granted thirty years ago.
“That’s an odd color, isn’t it?” Willow asked Mavis in a high voice, her mind trying to put the branch into a pattern she desperately didn’t want to be true.
Two steps farther forward and it couldn’t be denied any longer. Willow slapped a hand over Mavis’s eyes so the sight wouldn’t haunt the kitten’s memory.
Up ahead, poking out of the river right where the bank dipped down low, was a human arm. As Willow turned and ran up to her neighbor Phillip’s door, screaming all the way, she thought it looked very cold and blue indeed.
Chapter Four
Before Phillip would let Willow inside or phone the police, he insisted on going down to the river’s edge to investigate the matter for himself. Willow chose to stand and wait at his front door. A decision she was pleased she’d made as the man returned, his face so white it seemed a shade of gray.
“Come inside, it’s cold out,” Phillip said in a strangled voice, holding the entrance open for her. Willow gave him a courteous nod and ducked through, wishing she was safely back home, this experience a distant memory. Even with the wait, her heart was still beating in a faster rhythm than it should. Me finding a dead body is just like exercise, she thought, then her knees gave way.
“Take a seat,” Phillip cried, pushing one underneath just in time to stop a tumble to the floor.
“I’m sorry.” Willow put a hand up to her face to cover the tears that had started flowing. “It was such a shock.”
“I can imagine,” Phillip said, his lips pulling down at the corners. “Well, I don’t need to imagine. The next time I insist on seeing something for myself, I’m going to remind myself of this to give me a kick in the pants!”
That made Willow chuckle a little before she remembered there was a person not far from here who deserved more dignity than that.
“I need the sheriff,” Phillip instructed sternly into the phone. “No, I don’t care he’s at breakfast at the moment. This is a matter of great urgency.”
Willow closed her eyes for a moment, holding Mavis up close to her face and listening to the pitter-patter of the kitten’s heart. “You had a shock, too, didn’t you?” she whispered into the soft fur of Mavis’s side. The cat responded with a meow before sleepily closing her lids.
“He’s coming down immediately,” Phillip announced, hanging up the phone. “He said we’re not to go anywhere until he’s secured the scene and had a chat with us.”
Willow nodded, thinking she should definitely have run home to report the incident. The wait would be more pleasant in her kitchen than sitting on a neighbor’s stool.
“I’ll make us a cup of coffee. That’ll warm us up.” Phillip clapped his hands together and set about changing the filter in his machine. “You like it strong?”
“No, thanks. I like my coffee weak. Otherwise, it makes me too jumpy,” Willow admitted. “I’m used to my cups of herbal tea now, so it has a greater effect.”
“Mm.” Phillip set the pot going, then turned to her with a frown. “I don’t hear the usual ruckus from over at your place. Have the builders finished up, then?”
“I haven’t got a clue what’s happening. They’ve certainly not finished the job, but the boss was a no-show this morning.”
“Yeah. Did anybody tell you to have a word with Shelby Causer before you hired him?”
Willow wrinkled her nose, trying to place the name, then she got it. “I only heard of her today. Did Mr. Waterman muck up a building job for her?”
“He did worse than that,” Phillip said, pulling a few cups out of the overhead cupboard. “The man was meant to build an extension onto her property, and not only did he not complete that to an acceptable standard, but he also left her existing house in such a state she’s living out of two rooms!”
“The poor woman!” Willow squeezed Mavis with too much enthusiasm, and she woke with a startled meow. “Sorry, kitty. Go back to sleep.”
“I didn’t know you had a cat.”
“She was a gift,” Willow said. “And she’s only a few months old, now.”
“Big breed, then,” Phillip said, reaching over to take one of Mavis’s paws gently in his hand. “If you judge by the size of these, she’ll grow into a very long cat.”
Willow eased her pet away from his hands and turned the subject back around. “What is Shelby doing about her house? Has she taken Mr. Waterman to court?”
“Not yet. I doubt she could afford to. All her money was invested into the extension, and there’s nothing left. Even if she’s on the right side of the law, it’s hard without the cash to fund a suit.”
“What about pro-bono?”
Phillip shrugged. “I really don’t know enough about it to speak on her behalf. I only got the raw facts at a community meeting a few weeks back.”
“A few weeks?” Willow’s mouth fell open. “Is that all it’s been? He only started working for me around that time!”
“Keep a close eye on him, then, that’s my advice. Did you have a lawyer look over his contract?”
Willow shook her head. “Harmony checked everything for me.”
“Is she the librarian?”
“Pretty much,” Willow said, not wanting to launch into a discussion of her friend’s employment.
“She’ll have steered you okay, I guess. She seems like a smart lady.”
Willow jumped as Sheriff Wender let himself in the front door. “Where’s the body, then?” He tipped his hat to Willow. “Nice to see you’re keeping yourself out of trouble, Miss Foxglove.”
“
It’s nothing to do with me,” Willow said emphatically. “I only found the body because Mavis insisted on playing in the leaf pile nearby.”
The two men walked outside, leaving Willow alone in the house. She walked to the door and stared after them, not wanting to revisit the scene but also not wishing to be left alone. Phillip stopped a short way from the river’s edge, pointing out the position of their find to the sheriff and leaving him to make the rest of the journey solo.
After a few minutes, they both came back inside, Sheriff Wender looking very worried. “I’ll admit, I hoped you were mistaken,” he said to Phillip before giving a long sigh. “I’ll need to call up the pathologist to come out here, then I’ll go back to rope off the scene.”
“How long do I have to stay here?” Willow didn’t want to interfere with the investigation, but she would also prefer if she didn’t hang around the place any longer than necessary.
The sheriff gazed at her for a long moment, his lips pursed. “You can go along home if you want. I know where you live.” He gave her a brief smile. “Just don’t leave town, okay?”
Willow laughed. “I’m lucky to leave the house these days. Give me a ring before you set off, and I’ll brew up a nice cuppa for when you get to my place.”
Sheriff Wender nodded, looking pleased with the suggestion as Willow slipped out the door.
* * *
Expecting to have a few hours to fill in, Willow placed a call through to Harmony. Since the two friends usually just stopped by each other’s houses when they wanted a chat, the conversation was stilted, and Harmony soon suggested that she pop over, instead.
While she was waiting, Willow had a snack on a couple of plain crackers. She needed something to calm her growling stomach but also didn’t want to taste anything while still recovering from the morning’s discovery. The wafers were perfect. Without a spread or topping, they resembled cardboard.
“What on Earth have the builders been up to that’s got you so worried?” Harmony asked the minute she set foot through the door. “They aren’t leaving your conservatory in this state, are they?” She gaped in horror at the half-finished mess.
Tea Shop Cozy Mysteries - Books 1-6 Page 11