“I don’t think we’ve met,” he said. “I’m Barry Hickey, Hickey & Hickey Plumbing. We’re just doing some work on the house.”
“I knew your father,” the woman replied. “He was a good man. Honest as the day is long.”
There was a pause, and I wondered what was going on. I wanted to peek out and see, but Barry’s meaning had been clear: he wanted me out of the way.
“Janis Breckweth,” the woman continued. “I’ve lived here the last six years, taking care of Martha. I was her cook and housekeeper, and I thought I was her friend. Doesn’t seem like it now, though.”
The control slipped for just a second, and bitterness colored her last sentence.
“I’m only taking what’s mine, Mr. Hickey. You have my word of honor. You can escort me to the door, if you wish, to make sure I don’t abscond with anything else.”
Barry chose to ignore the barb in her tone and kept his voice low and soothing. “I’d be glad to see you to the door, Miss Breckweth. Would you like me to carry one of those?”
A moment later the two of them passed the bathroom doorway, Barry following the stiff back of Janis Breckweth. They each had an overstuffed pillowcase; Ms. Breckweth clutched hers tightly to her chest while Barry carried his at arm’s length, as though he was reluctant to touch the contents.
That made me grin. Barry was too much of a gentleman not to offer to help, but he was obviously uncomfortable carrying a stranger’s clothes. Especially a woman’s.
He returned a minute later, minus the pillowcase.
“Do you really think we should have let her take those things?” I asked. “I mean, how do we really know they’re hers?”
Barry shrugged. “Sure didn’t look like the kind of stuff Martha Tepper wears. Don’t ask me to explain that,” he added hastily. “I don’t know anything about women’s clothing. I just know that those things didn’t look like Martha Tepper.”
He peered under the sink and tugged at the new valves. “Looks good, Georgie. Let’s test these things, shall we?”
“That’s it? You’re just going back to work?”
Barry pushed himself upright, leaning against the vanity. “Paula said something a while back about Miss Tepper’s housekeeper having to move out of her house. She said it wasn’t like the Martha she knew to leave this woman homeless and out of a job, but she had to move out of the house when it was put up for sale.
“So, this woman shows up, says she’s the housekeeper, and all she wants are some beat-up old clothes? I don’t think it’s worth worrying about.”
Barry might think it was nothing to worry about, but I didn’t agree. I was beginning to feel that there was a lot to worry about at the Tepper house. And Janis Breckweth was only a small part of it.
I didn’t really want to argue with my boss, though. I was still trying to figure out how to tell Barry I thought there was something very wrong here, when he headed for the stairs.
“Let’s test those valves, Neverall, and see what kind of a plumber you are.”
From the bottom of the stairs, Barry called up to me. “Do you see an adjustable wrench up there? I thought it was down here, but I can’t find it.”
I checked around the areas Barry had been.
No wrench.
“The housekeeper didn’t take it, did she?” I called back down. “I don’t see it up here.”
Barry laughed. The man knew how to take a joke. “I carried the bags myself, remember? There weren’t any wrenches in them.”
“Hang on, then. I’ll grab you one from my toolbox.”
I carried the wrench to the top of the stairs and Barry climbed up to meet me, shaking his head.
“I have no idea where that dang thing is,” he said. His brow furrowed in concentration. “I know I had it somewhere, but I can’t find it for the life of me.”
“Do you think somebody might have taken it?” As far as I was concerned, this was another reason to worry. Too many weird things had happened so far on this job, and missing tools were a bad sign.
“Naw.” Barry shook his head. “Just got a lot on my mind right now. I must have put it somewhere and forgotten about it.”
I still thought there was plenty to worry about, but Barry was already heading back down the stairs.
I kept my comments to myself.
chapter 11
“He just let her walk out?” Sue stopped walking and stared at me. “Just like that?”
Daisy strained at her leash, pulling me along. I yanked back, and she slowed. Sue trotted a couple steps to catch up, Buddha at her heel in perfect position. Like his name-sake, he was the calm one of the pair.
Daisy had never really got the hang of “heel,” or “sit.” She especially didn’t get “stay.” Never name a dog after a flighty fictional heroine. She will live up—or down—to her name, guaranteed.
They were from the same litter, had attended the same obedience classes, and had the same parent, namely me. But Buddha knew all his commands, walked at heel without reminding, and stayed calm, even with strangers.
Daisy had decided the rules were for other, lesser, dogs. She was sometimes snappish with strangers, though she was easily distracted by the offer of her favorite green treats. She was a sweet dog, but discipline wasn’t one of her best qualities. In that, I suppose, she reflected her owner.
Sue moved a few steps to the side, so she wasn’t blocking the narrow shoulder. My part of town hadn’t seen any development yet, and there weren’t any sidewalks.
“Sit.” Buddha plopped his rear onto the damp grass, and looked expectantly at Sue. She slipped him a small treat, and patted his head. “Good Buddha.”
Daisy fretted at the end of her leash, ignoring me. Sue watched, her mouth twisting with suppressed laughter, as I tried all the tricks I knew. Finally, desperate, I reached over and pushed down on Daisy’s hindquarters.
I got an Airedale glare, but she finally planted herself next to Buddha. Her body language let me know she was choosing to humor me.
I’d take what I could get.
“Nice dog you got there.”
“I let you walk the good one, Gibbons. If you think you can make her behave, we can always trade.”
She bounced the handle of the leash in her hand, as though considering my offer, then held it tight. “Don’t think so. Buddha and I are a good team, aren’t we, big boy?”
At the mention of his name, Buddha’s tail swept the tall grass, sending a fine spray of dew into the air. I swear, that dog smiled at Sue.
For someone who loved dogs as much as Sue did, and who spent her entire life caring for other people’s dogs, she didn’t have any of her own.
I’d asked her about it when I moved back to Pine Ridge, but she just said she was “between dogs” right now. It was a sore subject, and I didn’t push. She let me have my off-limits topics, and I returned the favor.
I knew she would tell me eventually—Sue was never any good at keeping her own secrets—and lately I had noticed a couple of copies of Great Dane World in the shop. I thought she might be getting close to having another dog of her own.
“So tell me about this housekeeper woman.”
Sue’s roller-coaster conversation had veered back on track. “Barry just let her take the stuff she claimed was hers, and walk out with it?”
“Actually, he helped her carry it out.”
She leaned forward, her eyes wide. “Are you kidding me? He helped her carry it out? What was he thinking?”
I let out a long sigh. “Sue, you know Barry. He says ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ more than any man I know, and I bet Paula hasn’t opened her own car door in twenty years. He can’t help himself, he really can’t. I wish he’d asked a few more questions, but it was his call. He is my boss, after all.”
I tugged at Daisy’s leash, and she sprang up like a child’s jack-in-the-box. She had way too much energy, and I was pretty sure which one of the dogs was responsible for the barking serenades when I left them alone.
“Let’s keep walking,” I said, taking the lead. “We promised ourselves at least a mile every day, remember? We won’t get it standing around here flapping our jaws.”
Sue groaned. “Slave driver.” She clicked her tongue at Buddha, and he immediately stood up and assumed the perfect “heel” position.
I was tempted to remind Sue of the Dane magazines. If my guess was right, she was going to have some serious walking in her future, and it wouldn’t be because of me.
“Traitor,” I muttered at Buddha. He behaved fine for me, but I had never been able to get that clicking noise to work, and Sue knew it.
“So what did she take?”
I shrugged. “I didn’t see it all. She had a couple of old pillowcases off the bed, and she stuffed them full of clothes. Barry said they were things that ‘didn’t look like the kind of stuff Martha Tepper wears,’ but he couldn’t explain what he meant by that. Swore he didn’t know anything about women’s clothing, and changed the subject.
“He also said Paula told him something about Miss Tepper’s housekeeper having to move out because the house was for sale.”
We crossed the street, hurrying in the growing dusk. Walking the dogs after work had a few drawbacks, chief among them being the unlighted streets. It wouldn’t be really dark for another hour, but we were still careful.
“The worst part, though, was that she kept talking about ‘that woman’ who made her move out.” My heart raced a little at the memory, and I felt my face redden. I hoped it was dark enough that Sue wouldn’t notice.
“Why was that so bad?”
“She said the woman threw her out, and wouldn’t even let her take her things. She told me she saw her drive away, and that was when she came in the house, because she knew it was unlocked.”
I stopped and fiddled with the leash. It was twisted, though not badly. I was stalling, and I knew it. Worse, Sue knew it and she called me on it.
“And? Get to the point, Neverall!”
“It was my mother.” There, I’d said it.
“Your mother? You said she was there, but what did she have to do with any of this?”
“She was ‘that woman.’ I know she was. She and Gregory had just left, and this Janis person said she saw her leave. It would be just like them to throw her out of her house the minute they signed the deal with the Gladstones. Besides”—the misery I felt when I considered my mother’s heartless behavior crept into my voice—“Barry said it wouldn’t be like Miss Tepper to leave Janis without a job or a place to live. The Gladstones were supposed to be acting on Miss Tepper’s behalf. It had to be Sandra and Gregory.”
I sneered the last name, my animosity toward Mr. Too-Smooth Gregory Whitlock growing by an order of magnitude. My mother’s attitude regarding charity was lousy, but I blamed Gregory for this one. He had made the deal, and I was sure it was his idea to throw Janis out.
“She sounds really angry, maybe even a little unhinged, from the way you describe her.”
We reached my house and crossed the damp lawn to the front door. Daisy strained at the leash as I fished the house key from my pocket.
There was a faint whiff of expensive perfume. I recognized it as Joy, my mother’s favorite. That was when I noticed the small, cream-colored envelope stuck in the door.
Sandra had been here.
I sighed with relief, and thanked my lucky stars that Sue and I had taken the long way back. Since I could still smell her perfume, I had probably missed her by only a couple minutes.
I wondered how I had missed seeing the Escalade.
I grabbed the envelope and pushed the door open.
Once inside, the dogs were anxious to get to their water dishes. Sue and I quickly unclipped their leashes and let them go.
They ran into the kitchen. Their trimmed nails made only the tiniest sound against the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor, quickly replaced by the slurping and lapping as they drank greedily from their dishes.
“What’s that?” Sue asked, pointing to the envelope in my hand. She took Daisy’s leash from me and hung it on the hook behind the front door, along with Buddha’s.
“I don’t know. Something from my mother, I think.” I put the envelope to my nose, and sniffed. “It smells of her perfume. I think all her stationery does.”
It was the envelope I had smelled. So maybe I had missed her by more than a few minutes.
Either way, I was relieved. I wasn’t quite ready to talk to “that woman” yet.
“You can’t read it with your nose, Georgie.” Sue rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you try, oh, I don’t know, opening it?”
Sue plopped onto my secondhand sofa. The floral cushions sagged slightly, and she sank back. The sofa was cheap and a bit ugly, like most of my mismatched furniture, but comfortable. It had cost less to buy it at the Salvation Army than it would have to ship the leather sectional I never used from my San Francisco apartment.
The dogs finished their slurping and trotted back into the living room, muzzles damp. Buddha curled into the doggy bed in the corner and Daisy spread out on the braided rug in front of the fireplace.
I didn’t often have an actual fire, but Daisy had adopted that as her spot the minute we walked into our new home, and she was eternally optimistic that I might light a fire someday. I wasn’t sure how she knew about fireplaces, but she did.
“I’m wait-ting,” Sue singsonged.
“It’s addressed to me,” I replied. “Not you.”
“Ah, but a note from your mother. Not a phone call, or an e-mail, or a message on your machine. A real, handwritten note. That’s got to be pretty important.”
She snickered. “Maybe it’s a wedding invitation. Something personal and subdued. Just right for a second marriage.”
“We aren’t talking about that, remember?” I glared at Sue.
“I’m not talking about her ‘love life,’ as you so delicately put it. I am talking about Gregory making an honest woman of her.” She sighed dramatically. “Imagine how romantic. Lonely widow falls for her rich boss.”
I stomped across the room and dropped heavily into the club chair next to the sofa. “There are so many things wrong with that, I don’t know where to start.
“First off, my mother isn’t a lonely widow. She’s got tons of friends, and she’s busy all the time. Second, Whitlock might have money, but he doesn’t fit my mother’s definition of rich. And third, I don’t think she needs his money, anyway.”
“Aha! But you don’t know that, do you? She just might need his money. You don’t talk about finances and business with her, do you, any more than you do with me?”
I bit my lip. She was right, I didn’t talk to my mother about money anymore. Not since the disastrous time when I had offered, too late, to help her out.
“It’s complicated,” I muttered.
“I know it is,” Sue said, one finger tapping against her closed lips.
“Your mom is a stubborn woman. I know that. She didn’t want to admit she needed help when your dad died, and she refused what was offered. I know she told a couple people she wouldn’t take ‘charity,’ no matter how they tried.”
That I understood. Mom had barely admitted how deeply in debt she was and I hadn’t pried. That first six months, when things were the worst, I was pouring every penny into my business, sleeping in my tiny office to save paying for a San Francisco apartment, and showering at the Y.
Weeks later, my first fat contract in my hand, and a large check in the bank, I called to ask if Mom needed anything. She’d been quick to let me know she was doing ‘just fine,’ and didn’t need anything from me.
Her new job, she said, was going very well, and she could take care of herself. She said she had money of her own, and she didn’t need to take charity from her daughter.
As surprising as it was, I found out it was true. Who would have suspected that Sandra Myers Neverall, who only ever wanted to be a wife and mother, would have an incredible talent for business? She seemed to be abl
e to match buyer and property with pinpoint accuracy, and her career had taken off.
No, whatever else there was between them, she didn’t need Gregory Whitlock’s money.
“Hello? Earth to Georgie? Are you in there?”
I gave myself a little shake, throwing off the memories. How much my life had changed in the last few months!
“So, are you going to open that, or not?” She gestured at the envelope I still held in my hand. “Or do I have to do it for you?”
I pulled the envelope back against my chest. “I’ll open it, if it’ll get you to stop yelling at me. Okay?”
Sue nodded and sat back, propping her sneakers on the edge of the ancient steamer trunk that served as a coffee table. “So? Open it already!”
Reluctantly, I slid one finger under the flap of the envelope. Inside there was a single sheet of my mother’s monogrammed note paper, folded in half.
I pulled the note out of the envelope and scanned the stick-straight lines of my mother’s precise handwriting.
At first, I couldn’t believe it. Then I laughed out loud. “What’s so funny?” Sue sprang across the table, reaching for the note I held in my hand.
I pulled it away, refusing to let her see the message. “You are not going to believe this!” I choked out, still laughing.
“What?!” Sue tried again to grab the note, but I wouldn’t let go.
“All that, that whole conversation.” I gasped. “Over this!”
I finally handed over the note, which read:Gregory and I are headed for Tiny’s for a quick bite. Thought you might want to join us, but you weren’t home. If you’re back before 8, please meet us there.
Love,
Mom
Sue glanced at her watch, and jumped off the sofa. Buddha looked up from his bed, alerted by her sudden motion. “I better run then,” she said. “It’s already a quarter ’til.”
“Why?” I lounged back against the well-worn leather of the chair. It had been my dad’s, the one he kept in his den at home. I had talked my mother out of it when I moved to Pine Ridge, and it was my favorite.
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