[To Die For 02] - A Book to Die For (2014)

by Richard Houston

  Fred must have thought I wanted to play. He grabbed the hose out of my hand. “Give me that, you mangy mutt,” I yelled and chased him out to the yard.

  I tried throwing the stick trick. He stood over by the motor home, ignoring it and daring me to come and get the hose. I knew if I tried, he would run away, so I turned around and went back in the cabin. I was just in time to hear my cell phone ringing.

  I ran to the kitchen table, where I had left it, and took a quick look at the caller ID. “Hi, Bonnie, what’s up?”

  “Jake, I just got off the phone with Margot and she is pissed.”

  “Pissed?”

  “She says you kept a couple important pages of the manuscript and is threatening to have you arrested.”

  “Arrested?” I repeated.

  “For stealing. Chuck told her she should call the cops.”

  “Not now, Fred.” He had tired of waiting for me and returned with the hose, dropping it at my feet.

  “Did you hear me, Jake? I can’t remember the last time I saw her so upset. I tried to tell her you wouldn’t do anything like that. Would you?”

  I quickly grabbed the hose, catching Fred off guard, and laughed at beating him at his own game.

  “It’s not funny, Jake. Chuck has connections. You need to take this seriously.”

  “Sorry, Bonnie. I was playing with Fred. That’s why I was laughing.” I avoided answering about the missing pages from her father’s book.

  “Hey, while I’ve got you on the phone, you wouldn’t happen to have Jon’s number, would you?”

  “You think Jon took them?”

  I had to suppress a laugh. Not that it was funny, but I knew Margot wouldn’t turn me in for stealing pages from her book. It had to be Chuck that got her so riled up and it kind of made me feel good to hear it.

  “No. You mentioned he was having a hard time finding help. I thought I’d see if he’d hire me.”

  It took another twenty minutes to convince Bonnie I didn’t steal the missing pages. I never mentioned it was my scanner that took them. The idea of calling her nephew and asking for a job came out of nowhere; it was an epiphany of sorts to get access to where he kept his roofing torches and propane tanks.

  I dropped Fred off at Bonnie’s after calling her nephew and getting directions to his shop. For a guy who was supposedly having trouble finding help, he hadn’t been too receptive to hiring me. It took some talking and eventually he agreed to talk to me if I could make it to his shop before the crews came in for the day.

  The gate to Jonathan’s roofing company was closed when I drove up an hour later. I found a spot half a block down on Santa Fe and walked back to the yard. I could see why he kept the gate closed for gang graffiti was everywhere.

  This section of Santa Fe had always been on the fringe as long as I could remember. There was a time when it was a nice residential neighborhood, being so close to downtown. The few houses that remained were never meant for the rich like the houses further east on the other side of Cherry Creek. They had been built for and by the tradesman who built Denver. Now the few that remained were boarded up and painted with multicolored graffiti designed to mark the territory of the ruling gang. The rest of the neighborhood was fenced-in with razor wire to protect the commercial ventures that dared to stay. Amazingly, parking was hard to find during the day.

  Most of the cars belonged to students from the Auraria campus several blocks up. The rest must have been the employees of local businesses. The contrast was striking. Parked between student’s late model compacts were beat-up pickups and relics from junk yards; my Wagoneer would be right at home. I parked between two late-model imports. If someone wanted to steal or put their colors on a car with a spray can, my Jeep would be safe.

  Jonathan met me at a side gate to his yard. I had called him from my cell phone when the buzzer didn’t work. “Jake, good to see you,” he said, extending his hand.

  He didn’t look at all like I expected. Unlike Alec, his hair was dark as were his eyes, and his build was much stockier.

  “Same here. Hope I’m not putting you out,” I answered, returning his handshake.

  “No, not at all. Work’s been a little slow lately. Otherwise, I’d be out giving estimates and checking on the crews. That’s why I’m glad you called. There’s a trick I learned selling cars. When business slows down, hire more salesmen. You did say you’d work on commission, right?”

  I couldn’t help notice the way he pronounced the word ‘out’ with a Minnesota accent. “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” I answered.

  “Great. Well, come on in and I’ll give you the nickel tour.” Jonathan locked the gate behind us making me feel trapped.

  “Must be a pain when the crews come and go,” I said.

  “Tell me about it. I feel like a warden lately. The guy I bought it from got the business from his father who inherited it from his father. It was a nice Italian neighborhood at one time. I’ve been looking at a place on West Colfax, but it’ll have to wait ‘till business picks up. The rent would kill me now.”

  “That explains the name, Giancoli and Sons. I didn’t think someone of Swedish decent would choose a name like that.”

  Jon’s expression turned suspicious. “How did you know that?” Then the eyes softened and his smile returned. “Oh, that’s right, you’re a friend of my aunt. She must have told you I was raised by my father. Well, here’s some of the equipment you might try to sell for me. I don’t bother with built-up roofing anymore. I’d sure like it if you could find a buyer for those roofing kettles.”

  Part of my sales pitch to get the job was telling Jon about my computer skills, which had led to him quizzing me about Craigslist and eBay. “I could always list them in the antique section,” I said.

  Jon didn’t see the humor in my joke. He looked at me like Alex Trebek does when a contestant misses an easy question. “Why would you do that? Shouldn’t you list them under roofing equipment?”

  “Just kidding. Actually, I’ll list them under multiple categories and in different states. Craigslist doesn’t like it, but I’ve found ways to get around the software they use to check for what they consider spam.”

  Then I noticed sitting in the corner the reason I had come here. “Do those propane bottles go too?”

  Jonathan shrugged his shoulders and began walking again. “You’ll have to ask my foreman which ones. We don’t do a lot of torch-down anymore and there’s some that are so old he won’t use em. I’d be glad to get rid of those.”

  He had told me all I needed to know by the time we reached his office. One of the bottles had to be the one from the barbeque. If I could manage to ‘borrow’ it, I would have all the proof I needed to prove the accident wasn’t my fault.

  “Come on in and I’ll let you do a take-off for me to see how much you know about estimating,” he said when we reached his office door.

  I tried to think of a way to get away before I wasted time on something I had no intention of doing, but I had to wait for his crew so I went along with the charade. Jonathan showed me to an old drafting table with stacks of blueprints. I thought they had gone the way of the T-Rex. I guess CAD systems and computerized estimating programs were too expensive for him, or maybe it was simply the way Giancoli and Sons had done it.

  “This one’s at half-scale. You know what that means?” He asked, pointing to the blueprint on top. Then, before I had a chance to tell him my twelve-year old knew enough to double her measurements, he got a call.

  “Go ahead and calculate how many squares are on the roof, Jake, and I’ll give you the material list and labor costs when I get back,” he said and went to his office.

  He must not have realized his voice carried through the thin walls separating his office suite from the cubicle I’d been assigned. I didn’t hear every word, but it was enough to tell the conversation was about an overdraft. It sounded like an irate employee.

  He acted like nothing had happened when he emerged from his office. “That
was the wife. Looks like I’ve got to leave early. You don’t mind if we pick up where we left off tomorrow, do you?” I realized I’d never be playing poker with him.

  “I was hoping to meet your foreman, so he can tell me which propane bottles to list. I’ll also need to take pictures of the equipment you want to sell.” I answered.

  Jonathan looked me in the eyes for the first time. Had I been caught already? “Don’t put an exact number in the ad. You can be vague about it for now, and Mario will give you a figure tomorrow. You can take your pictures then, and make sure you get here by seven before they leave.”

  I made some more lame comments while he walked me out. He didn’t respond until we got to the gate. “Damn traffic is starting already,” he said as though he’d never heard me speak. “Would you mind closing it after I pull out? You only need to use one of the padlocks. Mario should be here soon enough.”

  “No problem, Boss,” I replied to his back. He hadn’t bothered to wait for my answer. I didn’t have to wait long before I heard the low rumble of a big-block V8. I watched with envy when he pulled out into the street and burned rubber with a sixty-three Stingray. I hadn’t seen one of those split rear-window Corvettes since I was a kid.

  “Tomorrow, my ass,” I said to the cloud of blue smoke and went back inside the yard.

  I went straight for the propane bottles after closing the gate without locking it as I’d been told. Without a key, the only way out would be a climb over razor wires. I didn’t need a shave that badly. There were five or six smaller bottles sitting on a pallet and next to them were the rusted ones without overfill valves I guessed he wanted me to sell. Any one of those could have been the bottle that killed Lonnie. It was too hard to tell. All I remembered was that the paint had peeled away from rust eons ago, just like the pile of bottles in front of me. Then I saw one with a regulator and severed hose still attached.

  I had seen security monitors in Jonathan’s office earlier and noticed they weren’t turned on. I looked around for cameras; not that it mattered. The security company had probably shut him off months ago. Still, it made me feel better when I didn’t see any pointing at me, so I grabbed the bottle and headed for the gate.

  I heard the roofing truck pull up in the driveway before I got ten feet…

  Chapter 5

  I made it back to the stack of propane bottles with my pilfered bottle before the gate opened and a roofing truck pulled in. I had my phone out pretending to take pictures when a tough looking Hispanic walked over to me.

  “What ya doing, Amigo?” he asked. He had a tool belt slung across his shoulder with a menacing looking roofing hatchet within quick reach. Two more Hispanic men stayed back by the truck parked at the gate, watching. They were blocking my exit.

  “You must be Mario,” I said, putting my phone in my pocket and holding out my hand. “I’m Jacob, but my friends call me Jake. Jon wants me to list this old junk on Craigslist for him. You wouldn’t happen to know which ones go and which stay would you?” I said pointing to the bottles.

  Mario took his tool belt off his shoulder so he could free his hand. Then he turned to his crew, saying something to them in Spanish. He must have told them to stand-down, for they lost interest in us and went toward the back of the lot where I could see they parked their cars.

  “Ain’t that where the guy found all those hookers he wasted?”

  I looked at him blanking before it dawned on me he was referring to the Craigslist killer from a few years ago. Craigslist had, or maybe they still do, a section where hookers would advertise their services. The killer arranged to meet them, then kill them.

  “Oh,” I answered now that the light went on. “Yeah, but it’s also a place to sell stuff no one in their right mind would buy.” I was thanking my guardian angel that my story went over. Although Mario was a good six inches shorter than me, he had to be ten years younger and probably a lot stronger. His biceps were twice my size.

  “Sell em all, Amigo. Then that cheap ass will have to buy us new ones. He knows they ain’t safe, but wanted me to use them on the job anyway. The mongolitos would end up blowing us all to hell.”

  “Mongolitos?”

  “The retards who work for me. You can’t smell the propane no more in those tanks. Dumb shits leave the valves open if they can’t smell the gas.”

  Mario’s crew pulled up next to us in a cloud of blue smoke. Mario threw his tool belt in the back of the old pickup and went around to the other door. “Make sure you lock the gate when you leave, Amigo. We don’t want nobody stealing those old tanks.” He laughed when he got into the truck. His crew laughed too, as they drove off, leaving the gate wide open.

  I watched as the truck went down the street. The blue smoke replaced by a puff of white whenever the driver shifted gears. After the third puff, I went back inside the yard and found the tank with the severed hose.

  I stood looking at it for a minute or two. The hose looked like a match to the one Fred found, but what did that prove? The thought of finding the tank had seemed like a good idea when I first called Jonathan, but now I didn’t know if I wanted to pursue my sabotage theory. I had something much better. I turned the valve on the tank and took a deep whiff. Mario was right. There was barely a trace of rotten eggs. It should be all the proof I needed to show I had no idea the tank was leaking.

  Bonnie and Fred were outside waiting for me when I drove into her driveway an hour later. The sun had already set behind Mount Evans. Fred had no problem recognizing me in the dim light and was on me before I could get out my Jeep.

  “Looks like he missed you,” Bonnie said. I bent down to rub his ears and his tail was wagging so violently, his whole rear was swaying back and forth.

  “Thanks for watching him, Bon. I didn’t want to leave him out after you told me about the dog catcher coming by the other day and I had no idea how long I’d be in town. I really appreciate it,” I said while holding the door open so Fred could get in.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Mister? Close that door and come on in for a drink. You can’t take off without telling me what happened down there to get Margot so upset.”

  “Margot called you?” I asked, closing the Jeep’s door. “She can’t be serious about turning me into the cops over a couple pages my scanner ate?”

  “No. She’s over that. Come on in and I’ll get you a cold beer. You’re going to need it.”

  I told Fred to stay and followed Bonnie inside as I was told, which was more than I could say for him. He managed to stick his big nose between the screen door and jamb before it closed and followed us inside.

  Bonnie handed me a beer and then poured herself a glass of her Black Label bourbon. “You’ve been a busy boy today, Jake. Jonathan says you snuck back into his yard after he left and stole one of his propane bottles.”

  My finger slipped on the pull-tab opening the beer and missed self-amputation by millimeters. “I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it so I could get a better picture. He asked me to list some old equipment on Craigslist. You need pictures to do that,” I answered, staring at the blood on the top of my beer.

  She looked at me the way my mother used to when I was caught in a lie. I felt like I was a kid again. “Is it the same tank that killed Lonnie?” she asked.

  “I’m that obvious?”

  “You are to me. I put two and two together the minute Margot mentioned the tank. That’s why you went to see Jonathan. You never wanted a job, did you?”

  I got up and went to the fridge and took another beer, then grabbed her bottle of whiskey. “Let’s go out on your deck and watch the sunset, Bon. I think it’s time I warned you about him.”

  “About who?” she asked, following behind Fred as I headed toward her deck.

  “Jonathan,” I answered while waiting for her to join me at the table so I could read her reaction. The light from the dying sun took years of worry off her face. If for only a moment, she was a beautiful young woman again. I broke my gaze and continued.


  “I think he might have tried to kill you. The hose from the tank to the burners had been cut so it had a slow leak. Jon knew you wouldn’t be able to smell the leak because he gave you a tank filled with old gas.”

  Bonnie looked at me like I’d used a swear word. “You’ve got to be kidding. Jonathan would never hurt me.”

  She leaned back in her chair to flip a switch on the wall next to the table. The amber glow of a bug-light flickered on as the compact fluorescent came to life and I could see she was upset. “People do strange things for money, and from what I see, he could use a lot of that right now.”

  “Really, Jake, I’m telling you, Jonathan would never do anything like that. I think this lawsuit with Shelia has you grasping for straws, and you know all I have is Greg’s Social Security check. If it wasn’t for his veteran benefits, there wouldn’t be enough to bury me.”

  “What about the house? Didn’t you tell me it was the only thing Greg left you that was worth anything? I assume Jon is next in line after Margot. You’ve never mentioned any children other than Diane.”

  Bonnie’s eyes glazed over and her wrinkles became apparent under the now bright-yellow light adding decades to her face. “Diane would have been your age. She was such a beautiful baby.”

  My social skills were next to Himmler’s when it came to saying the right thing when confronted with other people’s grief, so I shut my mouth and waited.

  “Our marriage had never been the same after the so-called accident. Greg turned to God and I turned to booze. Things might have been different if they had found the guy who killed her. People need closure. Twenty-five years and I still want to see him hang by his balls.”

  She paused to wipe her eyes with her hand. I wanted to hug her and tell her it was okay, but Fred beat me to it. He left my side and went over to lie by her feet. It seemed to help and she continued with her story after absentmindedly patting him on the head.

  “There wasn’t anywhere near the traffic on Upper Bear back in eighty-eight that there is now or we never would have let her drive these roads. She was barely sixteen and just got her driver’s license.”