Dead as a Door Knocker

by Diane Kelly

  “Sorry, Mr. Gentry. But my answer is no.”

  “Fifteen percent.”

  Even at fifteen percent over my price, Gentry would still be getting the house well below market. “Sorry.”

  “Twenty.”

  “Look, Mr. Gentry. You could offer me ten times what the house is worth and I’d have to decline. It would put my relationship with Mr. Dunaway at risk.” As a businessman, he’d understand that relationships were the key to success and that I couldn’t jeopardize things with Mr. Dunaway for some quick money—even if it was a lot of quick money.

  Gentry was silent for a moment before he spoke again. Unlike the jovial tone he’d used before, his voice now was low and menacing. “You’re making a mistake, Ms. Whitaker. One you’ll live to regret.”

  First Jackson and now Thad Gentry. Why is everyone threatening me lately? “Mr. Gentry, I—”

  There was no point in saying anything else. He’d hung up on me.

  I closed my eyes and heaved a loud sigh. This old house was already causing me trouble. It’s not an omen of things to come, is it?

  My phone buzzed again. This time it was the mortgage lender.

  “You and Buck are approved!” she sang.

  I squealed in delight.

  “Even with your cousin cosigning,” she said, “it took some convincing on my part to win over the underwriter. But when I mentioned all the business Home and Hearth sends our way, he finally got on board.”

  Thank goodness. “I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

  “Happy I could make it happen,” she replied. “The appraiser will be out on Monday.

  Let me know which insurance company you’re going with. We’ll need a quote to determine your escrow and monthly payments.”

  Escrow? This is really happening, isn’t it?!? “I’ll get right on it.”

  * * *

  The appraiser came by Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday the financing had come through without a hitch. Woot-woot! With the great deal Mr. Dunaway was giving me on the house, there was no doubt it would appraise for above the contract price. Buck and I would be on our way to fame and fortune. Well, fortune at least. We’d leave the fame to the Property Brothers and those other folks who hosted home renovation shows on television.

  Buck and I met at the title company at eleven on Friday morning to sign the paperwork. Though I’d attended closings before on behalf of Home & Hearth, this was the first time I’d been a party on the paperwork. By the time I’d signed the stack of documents my hand was cramping and a blister had erupted on the inside of my middle finger. Not that it mattered. Given that I worked part-time as a carpenter, my hands weren’t dainty and delicate. They were covered in scratches and calluses, but it was a small price to pay for the joy of seeing raw wood evolve into a beautiful bookcase or gazebo.

  After making copies of the documentation, the title company’s agent returned to the room, gave me and Buck a smile, and handed me our copy of the paperwork. “Happy homeownership.”

  The deed was right there on top, a formal notice to the world that I, Whitney Whitaker, owned my own little piece of Nashville—along with my cousin, of course. Unable to hide my excitement, I hugged the documents to my chest. “Thanks so much!”

  As Buck and I returned to our cars, he said, “I’m free tomorrow. Want to get started?”

  “Sure! What time should I expect you? Eight? Nine?”

  Buck groaned. “On a Saturday? Are you crazy, Whit-less? It’s the one day I can sleep in. I’ll get there when I get there.”

  Buck might not be a morning person, but he was a hard worker. Despite his smart comeback, I knew I could count on him to put in a full day’s work. We parted with an affectionate fist bump.

  While Buck had a carpentry project he needed to work on that afternoon, I had nothing to do for either Whitaker Woodworking or Home & Hearth. I climbed into my car and headed straight to the hardware store to pick up a few small items. Cleaning supplies. A new pair of work gloves to replace the worn pair I’d been using. Batteries and a couple of new smoke detectors, as Bobby had suggested.

  The sky grew dark as I swung by the pool house to change clothes, pick up some tools, and pack some clothes and bedding. I figured I’d stay at the Sweetbriar house while we were fixing it up. Living there would enable me to put more hours into the project and keep an eye on our tools and materials, which were sometimes stolen during the night from unattended job sites. Sawdust could tag along with me. Given how busy my week had been, I’d been gone from home more than usual and I’d missed the little fella. He’d been extra affectionate when I was home, so I suspected he’d missed me, too. Besides, he’d have fun sniffing around the house and checking things out. The small space we lived in didn’t provide much opportunity for exploration.

  As I gathered up my things, Sawdust climbed into the suitcase I’d left open on the bed and settled in among my shirts and socks and undies. When my robotic vacuum whirred to life, Sawdust howled and hissed and burrowed deeper into the bag until he was hidden from sight.

  “It’s okay, boy,” I told him. “That thing’s not going to hurt you.” No matter how many times I told him that, he never seemed to believe me.

  Rap-rap-rap!

  I turned to see my mother at the door. She poked her head inside. “Getting ready for a date?”

  I fought the urge to howl and hiss and hide in my suitcase myself. I hadn’t had a date in months. Unlike my mother, who thought my life wouldn’t be complete unless it had a man in it, I wasn’t in any rush to get hitched and felt perfectly content living alone, at least for now. Besides, I had Sawdust to keep me company. “Nope,” I replied, doing my best to keep my irritation out of my tone. “No date tonight.”

  Mom spotted my suitcase and came inside, lifting her foot as the robotic vacuum made its way past her, sucking up Sawdust’s fur and stray toast crumbs. “Why’s your suitcase out? Are you finally taking a vacation?”

  “I’m moving into the house on Sweetbriar. Just until the work is done. We’ve left a lot of valuable tools and materials there, and Buck and I figured it was best if I stayed at the place to keep an eye on things. Thieves sometimes hit work sites looking for tools to pawn.”

  My mother’s eyes flashed in alarm. “Thieves? Will you be safe there?”

  “Don’t worry, Mom. Thieves look for quick and easy targets. If a potential burglar sees my car in the driveway, he’ll know someone’s at the house and move on. He won’t risk getting caught.” Or shot. This was Tennessee, after all. Lots of people here owned guns. I did, too, though my arsenal included only a caulk gun and a nail gun, nothing that shot actual bullets.

  “All right,” Mom said on a sigh, clearly not liking my plans but knowing she was powerless to stop her hardheaded, hard-hat-wearing daughter. “Why don’t you have dinner with me and Dad before you go? He picked up Indian.”

  She had my attention now. “Did he get samosas?”

  She gave me a patronizing smile. “You know he did.”

  Dad lured me to dinner with my favorite foods, just like Mom lured her dog and I lured my cat with their favorite treats.

  I reached into my suitcase and wrangled Sawdust out from under my clothes. He snagged a bra with his claw on the way out, and I gently removed it. “Come on, boy. I know you don’t want to be left here alone with the scary vacuum.”

  While my parents and I enjoyed our meal, Sawdust and Yin-Yang played an improvised game of tag, chasing each other around the couch. Sawdust always won because he could fit under the couch and reach out a paw to tag the dog as she galloped by. Of course he kept his claws in. He didn’t want to hurt his best friend.

  When dinner was over, I put Sawdust into his carrier and loaded him into the car, and drove to the Sweetbriar house. I pulled my SUV into the driveway. Without the porch light on, the walkway was dark and I had to make my way carefully as I carried Sawdust up the path in his plastic carrier.

  The woman who’d peeked at me earlier in the week came ou
t her front door. She held a watering can and promptly set about watering the yellow mums on her porch. When she spotted me, she raised a hand to shield her eyes from the glare of her porch light. “Who’s over there?” she demanded.

  “It’s just me!” I called across the dimly lit space. “The property manager.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She lowered her hand. “I noticed you got rid of those pesky boys.”

  “I hope they didn’t cause you too much trouble.”

  “Too much?” she exclaimed, waving her watering can around. “They were nothing but trouble! Always throwing a party, playing their music too loud, cars coming and going at all hours. I called the police on them three times. The big one got into a fistfight with another boy right there in the front yard a while back. Had to turn my hose on them like stray tomcats.”

  “Those days are over,” I assured her. “I bought the house.”

  “We’ll be neighbors, then.”

  “Actually, no,” I told her. “My cousin and I plan to fix the place up and resell it.”

  She wagged a finger at me. “Make sure you sell it to someone quiet.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Given that I’d likely see this woman again over the next few weeks, I figured we might as well get on a first-name basis. “I’m Whitney, by the way.” I lifted the carrier. “This is Sawdust.”

  “Patty,” she replied.

  “Nice to know you, Patty.” With a nod in good-bye, my cat and I went inside, the knocker ring swinging with the motion of the door to issue a soft metallic tap behind me. I promptly turned on the porch light.

  After releasing Sawdust from his carrier, I set up water and kibble bowls in the kitchen, and a litter box in the bathroom. As I situated his things, he puttered around the place, sniffing along the floor and walls and climbing inside the lower cabinets to check them out, performing his own inspection that was nearly as thorough as the inspection Bobby had completed.

  After lugging my things into the house, I retrieved the aluminum WHITAKER WOODWORKING sign from my SUV and rounded up my dead blow hammer from my toolbox. The signs were effective advertising, often generating new jobs from the client’s neighbors, who’d come by to take a look at our work. We Whitakers took great pride in our projects, using only real woods, no fiberboard, and paying great attention to the details. We also guaranteed our work, both materials and craftsmanship. To date, not a single client had needed to put that guarantee to the test.

  Tucking the hammer under my arm, I positioned the sign near the curb, where it would be the most visible. I pushed down, easing the metal legs into the hard-packed soil. I put my foot on the crossbar and used my body weight to force it down a couple more inches. When I’d done as much as I could with my human force, I tapped each end of the sign with the dead blow hammer to better secure it. With any luck, another sign would take its place soon, one that read:

  FOR SALE

  HOME & HEARTH REALTY

  WHITNEY WHITAKER, AGENT

  Back inside, I performed a detailed cleaning. I dusted the windowsills, scrubbed the claw-foot tub and disinfected the bathroom fixtures, wiped down the walls and doors to remove grime and fingerprints. The final task of the day was replacing the battery in the existing smoke alarm and installing the new ones. I positioned the stepstool under the existing smoke detector, reached up to remove the plastic plate, and attached the nine-volt battery to the prongs. After pressing the battery into place, I replaced the cover. The green light came on, indicating the unit was functional. Still it couldn’t hurt to test the device, right? I pressed the button. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

  Sawdust, who’d been snoozing atop a canvas tarp, woke with a howl and took off like a rocket into the back bedroom.

  “Sorry, boy!” I called after him. I should’ve covered his ears. I climbed down from the stool and closed the door to the back bedroom. The alarm had scared the poor cat half to death, but at least he’d be safe in the closet while I installed the new detectors.

  I attached the first of the new detectors to the kitchen ceiling, far enough away from the stove that it wouldn’t be set off by everyday cooking. After inserting a fresh battery, I pushed the button to make sure it was working. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP! I screwed the second device into place in the living room and jabbed the button to give it a quick test. Like the other, it beeped loud and clear. Finished, I hopped down from the stool, folded it up, and leaned it against the wall. Finally, I could get into the tub and take that nice, long soak I’d been looking forward to.

  CHAPTER 9

  FRAIDY-CAT

  SAWDUST

  The cat didn’t think anything could be more frightening than the fur-eating floor demon that terrorized the pool house every afternoon, but that earsplitting sound from the ceiling demon had been even worse because he hadn’t known it was coming. At least the fur-eating demon warned him with a whirr before it set out on its daily search-and-destroy mission.

  Sawdust cowered in the back of the closet with his head down and his paws over his head, hiding from that horrifying, screeching monster. He hoped he’d never, ever hear its screams again.

  CHAPTER 10

  HOT PROPERTY

  WHITNEY

  Now that I’d finished installing the alarms, I opened the back bedroom door and switched on the light. The bulb flickered on and off. Is the bulb loose? I rounded up my stepstool and stood on it to check that the bulb was screwed in tight. It was. Hmm. It must be near the end of its life and making its last gasp. I made a mental note to buy new bulbs. The last thing I wanted was a potential buyer thinking the fixture was defective or the house was haunted.

  I rounded up Sawdust from the closet, and attempted to console the frightened feline with murmurs of reassurance. “It’s okay, boy. That noise was scary, but it could save someone’s life.”

  The cat wasn’t convinced. He tucked his head into my armpit as if to shut out the world. I carried him out of the room, switching off the light as I went. It had been a grueling few days and every muscle in my body ached.

  I set Sawdust down and gathered up my pajamas, a cute set in baby blue with rubber duckies printed on them. They’d come with a pair of bright yellow duck-face slippers and a matching robe, which I hung on the back of the door. I couldn’t resist the set when I’d come across it online. I started the tap and poured a capful of lavender bubble bath into the tub, draping a folded towel across the back of the tub to serve as a pillow. In minutes, I’d settled into the warm, welcoming water, my tired muscles crying Hallelujah! I placed my phone on the floor next to the tub and slid my earbuds into my ears to listen to the latest audiobook I’d downloaded, a lighthearted romantic comedy. Sawdust stood on his hind legs and peeked over the edge of the tub, reaching in to scoop up the scented bubbles and flicking them from his paw.

  I closed my tired eyes, listened as the hero helplessly flubbed his first attempt to woo the heroine, and the next thing I knew, I woke to a pitch-black room, a tepid bath, and a piercing sound. BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

  What is that? my sleep-fuzzy brain wondered. My phone? And hadn’t I left the light on when I’d climbed into the tub? I reached over the side of the tub to feel around for my phone, only to realize that the sound wasn’t coming from the device.

  BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

  Wait. Do I smell smoke?

  I sat bolt upright in the water, splashing some over the edge and onto the floor where it landed with a splat. I leveraged myself up and out of the tub, slipping on the wet floor in the darkness, haphazardly sliding across the bathroom like a klutz learning to ice skate. When a foot found my duck slippers, I dropped to the floor on my bare behind, grabbed the slippers, and yanked them onto my wet feet.

  BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

  My eyes had adjusted to the darkness enough for me to see the door was open a few inches, enough to have allowed Sawdust to escape. I stood, grabbed my robe from the hook on the back of the door, and slid it on as fast as I could.

  I whipped the door open and called for the cat. “Sawdust?” Big m
istake. A cloud of smoke billowed into my face. I gasped in terror, which only sucked the filthy air into my lungs and made things worse. My lungs attempted to reject the bad air, causing me to cough and hack as I desperately called out for my cat. “Sawdust?” Cough-cough. “Where are you? Come to Mommy!”

  BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

  There was a fire in the house, but I couldn’t tell where. Unlike the movies, which show burning buildings lit by bright flames, this fire, wherever it was, was obscured behind a dense cloud of black smoke.

  “Sawdust?” I cried again, again devolving into a hacking cough.

  BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

  Unsatisfied with merely invading my lungs, the smoke claimed my eyes, too. They burned and watered, the involuntary tears no match for the smoke. The fire must be spreading fast. I had to get out of the house right away. But I wasn’t about to leave without my precious cat.

  “Sawdust!” I shrieked, unable to control my tone even though I knew my panicked voice would only frighten him more. “Where are you?”

  BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

  How was I going to find my cat if I couldn’t see?

  My scrambled brain told me to look for him where he’d run the last time the alarm had gone off. Putting my hand on the wall, I felt my way into the small bedroom at the back, the bedroom where the light had been flickering.

  The smoke was even thicker here. I could feel it billowing against my skin, feel my brain begin to fuzz from lack of oxygen. If I passed out, not only would I die, but Sawdust would, too.

  I can’t let that happen!

  As my lungs coughed up smoke, my mind coughed up a tidbit from some long-ago fire safety course in elementary school. Smoke rises. Stay low. I fell to my knees and crawled toward the closet. Had I closed the doors earlier? If so, that meant Sawdust wouldn’t have been able to get into the closet to hide and that he could be anywhere in the house.

  BEEP-BEEP-BEEP!

  I crawled several feet and reached out a hand. The right closet door was closed. Oh, no!