by Jeff Shelby
“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 su
re 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.
SEVENTEEN
Emily was coming in the door from school at the same time we arrived home and she looked as unhappy as I felt.
“Where were you guys?” she snarled as she dropped her backpack on the dining table.
“Co-op,” I said.
“Mom can’t teach,” Will said, brushing past us on his way to the stairs.
“Yeah, they think she did it,” Sophie said. She’d grabbed a cheese stick from the fridge and was in the process of pulling down the wrapper.
“But she didn’t,” Gracie announced. She looked at me. “Right, Mommy? You didn’t?”
“No, I did not,” I said.
The two girls exchanged looks and Sophie shoved half the cheese stick in her mouth. Grace grabbed the other half out of her hand, popped it in her own mouth and they both scurried upstairs.
“What are they talking about?” Emily asked, slouching into one of the chairs at the table.
She’d done her hair in a French braid that morning and, with her hair pulled back from her face, she looked stunning. Of course, I’d never tell her that. A flattering remark from me was a surefire way to ensure she’d never repeat what had initiated the compliment.
“My class was cancelled,” I told her. “No one signed up.”
She squinted at me. “What? Your classes are the only ones people look forward to.”
“That was before dead bodies started turning up in our basement.”
Emily folded her arms across her chest, chewing on her lip. Her brow furrowed and I could tell she was angry. I just wasn’t sure if it was because of what had happened at co-op or if there was some other reason.
I sat down across from her. “How was your day?”
“Terrible,” she said. “Pretty amazingly terrible.”
A knot formed in my stomach. “Why?”
“Remember how I asked about going to the game on Friday?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, you don’t need to worry about it now,” she said. She wouldn’t look at me.
“Why not?”
She cleared her throat. “Just because.”
“Emily. Why not?”
Small tears emerged in the corners of her eyes. “Nathan…he said he’s not going to go now.” She paused and winced. “But I think he really is. He just doesn’t want me to go.”
I took a deep brea
th and exhaled. “What do you mean?”
She wiped at her eyes. “Well, he came up to me in history and he asked if I was still going and I said I thought so. And then he said well, I don’t think I’m going now. I asked why and he said something about his dad needing him to do something. It was totally weird and he was all mumbling and he never mumbles because I hate mumbles, but whatever. So I said okay, thanks for telling me or something lame like that.” She paused and she winced like she was being pinched. “But then after lunch, Bailey told me that she heard he was still going and that he told me that just because he didn’t want me go.”
My hand balled into a fist as my mother hen instincts kicked in and I wanted to punch the face of a teenage boy who was being a butthead to my daughter. I knew that dealing with boys was going to be an ongoing process for her and she needed to deal with butthead boys in order grow up, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to grab the little weasel by the nose and tell him to stop being such a butthead.
“Who did Bailey hear that from?” I asked, trying to poke holes in what was hopefully maybe just a rumor. “And why would he say that?”
She wiped at her eyes again and then folded her hands tightly in her lap. “She heard him talking to Josh in math. And he said it was because of the whole dead body thing and it freaked him out.”
The knot in my stomach retied itself.
“He told Josh that he thought it was creepy and he didn’t want to hang out with some serial killer girl,” she said, wincing again.
I forced myself to breathe and unclenched my fist, stretching out my fingers. “Okay. Two things here. One, you are not some serial killer girl.”
“Well, duh.”
“And, two, if he is basing his decision to hang out with you or like you or whatever on something he knows nothing about, then he is not a boy you want to be wasting your time on,” I said.
She looked at me for a moment. I was pleased with my response. It was reasonable, rational. It made sense. I was able to impart a little life wisdom on my daughter and maybe some day she would look back on this conversation and thank me for helping her wade through the cesspool that is teenage boys.