Dead as a Door Knocker

by Diane Kelly

  Just before nine, a large white SUV bearing the fire marshal’s logo pulled to the curb, a fortyish, sturdy redhead at the wheel. The inspector climbed out and introduced herself, offering me a handshake and a hard hat.

  I gingerly took the handshake but declined the hard hat. “I’ve got my own,” I said, holding it up.

  “Me, too,” Buck said. “We’re carpenters.”

  “Good.” She lifted her chin in acknowledgment. “Then I don’t have to explain to you two how dangerous a site like this can be.”

  After walking the perimeter of the house outside, she ventured inside ahead of us to check things out. She looked up. “The ceiling in the living room looks stable.” When she looked down again, she asked, “Where’s your furniture?”

  I explained that the house had been vacant. “We just bought the place yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?” She shook her head. “What are the odds a house would burn down the day of a sale?”

  I shrugged. The odds were infinitesimally small, yet we hadn’t beaten them. “I was planning to sleep here to protect our tools and materials. I’d brought an air mattress.”

  She nodded and waved us into the foyer. “Wait here until I take a look at the rest of the place.”

  Buck and I stopped just inside the door. My nose crinkled of its own accord when the lingering smell of smoke hit my olfactory glands.

  Buck snorted. “I haven’t smelled this much smoke since my last Boy Scout campout.”

  While the inspector made her way about, my eyes traveled around the room. The soaked blankets and deflated air mattress lay on the floor. All of the drywall would have to be replaced. So would the floorboards. With all the water that had been sprayed into the house last night, much of it still standing on the uneven surface, they’d already begun to warp. On the bright side, if there was one, the wooden window blinds looked intact, at least in the living room. I tried to remind myself that the house had needed a lot of work anyway. A look ahead told me the kitchen was largely untouched. Ditto for the bathroom. And hey! There’s my cell phone! Surprisingly, it seemed to be working. Looked like those advertisements touting its water-resistant qualities were accurate.

  The investigator came out of the largest bedroom and wandered into the smaller one at the front. A few seconds later, she came out and went into the smallest bedroom at the back. “Judging from the amount of damage to this room,” she called “the fire started here.”

  She poked her head into the hall and gestured for me and Buck to come her way, stopping us at the doorway. The upper part of the walls had burned away, leaving only charred studs against a backdrop of ashy stone. The ceiling and roof were gone, too, only jagged edges of the shingles remaining. It was odd to see sunlight pouring into a room from above. The only other time I’d seen something like this was when my mother dragged a seven-year-old me to see ruins in some foreign country. At that age, I’d been unable to appreciate their sense of history and endurance. I’d only wanted to go back to the hotel so I could watch cartoons, even if I couldn’t understand the words the characters spoke. The comedy of cats chasing mice was universal, breaking any language barrier.

  A trio of birds perched on the edge of the open roof, their heads cocking to and fro as they curiously watched the inspector below. When a garbage truck rattled outside, the three took off in flight, one of them sending a stream of white poop down onto my hat. Plop.

  As if I haven’t been through enough.

  Buck eyed the poop, his lip quirking in disgust.

  The inspector looked up through the hole in the roof, her expression thoughtful. Being a fire investigator must be difficult. The fires probably destroyed a lot of the evidence.

  She pointed upward but turned her gaze on us. “Was there anything in the attic over this room?”

  “No,” I replied. “The attic was empty, but the light in this room was flickering on and off last night.”

  “Flickering, huh?” Her brows arched in interest.

  “I thought maybe the bulb was loose, so I checked it. It seemed fine. I figured it was about to go out, but I didn’t have any replacement bulbs so I left it in and turned the light off.”

  “Hmm.” The woman stepped out into the hallway, whipped a flathead screwdriver from her pocket, and used it to punch through a wet piece of drywall. She reached up with her fingers and pulled the material away, exposing the stud and a couple of ceramic knobs that were attached to its side. Thick wires encircled the knobs and ran up and down the wall, out of sight. She gestured to the knobs with the screwdriver. “You folks know what this is?”

  “Not a clue,” Buck said.

  “Me neither,” I added.

  She filled us in. “This here is what’s called knob-and-tube wiring. It was common in houses like this that were built in the early part of the last century. Don’t hardly see it anymore, though. It’s an outdated system and can become dangerous as it ages. Plus, there’s no ground wire. Most knob-and-tube wiring was replaced years ago. It costs a few thousand dollars to have a house rewired, but that’s a small price to pay compared to losing your life.”

  A small price to most people, but not to a cheapskate like Rick Dunaway. Given that he’d rented the place out rather than living here himself, he hadn’t had to worry. Any life lost would not be his own.

  I knew from researching the chain of title that there had only been two owners before Buck and I had purchased the place. The original owners had stayed in the house for over sixty years. They’d sold it to Dunaway’s firm in the late 1990s. While I could understand how the original owners might never realize their electrical system was deteriorating, the issue should have come up when Dunaway had the house inspected prior to purchasing it.

  The rest of me grew as hot as my infected hand. Dunaway knew the electrical system was a potential problem, didn’t he? Bobby should have caught the issue, too, when he inspected the house for me. He knew, too. He must have!

  I closed my eyes as if doing so could shut out the thought. I didn’t want to think it was possible, that anyone could be so reckless with other people’s lives. Maybe with the wiring being inside the walls the home inspectors hadn’t been able to see it. Maybe I was being too hasty in condemning Dunaway and Bobby. While I didn’t trust Dunaway—he was as ruthless a businessman as they come—Bobby had never given me reason not to trust him.

  Or had he?

  My mind went back to Bobby and Dunaway speaking outside prior to Bobby starting my inspection, and to what Bobby had said to me after completing it. “I’d recommend getting a couple more smoke alarms, too. You can’t ever be too careful.”

  He had certainly seemed concerned. But it could be mere coincidence, right?

  Gulping down the lump of raw emotion in my throat, I pointed to the knobs and posed a question to the woman. “Would a home inspector be able to tell that a house had knob-and-tube wiring?”

  “Any inspector worth his salt could have.”

  If Bobby was anything, he was worth his salt. But even seasoned inspectors like him could make an innocent mistake, couldn’t they? Maybe forget an aspect of an inspection entirely? Perhaps something had distracted him and he’d totally forgotten to take a look at the electrical system.

  Buck caught my eye. “I thought that inspector you hired was experienced.”

  “He is,” I insisted. “He must have missed it.”

  “I don’t see how.” The woman pointed down to the outlet in the hallway. “See that? These outlets can only accommodate plugs with two prongs, not three. That’s a sure sign of knob-and-tube wiring. The only thing you can plug into these outlets is smaller appliances.”

  I hadn’t noticed, probably because I hadn’t plugged anything in. No saw. No shop vac. No electric sander. Another day or two and Buck and I might have noticed the outlets, realized the wiring was deficient.

  As she headed around the house, we followed after her. She glanced down at the outlets on the kitchen walls, as well as the two along the backsplas
h for counter appliances. Buck and I performed a quick visual check, too. All of the plugs in the kitchen had three prongs. On closer inspection, we discovered that there was also a three-prong outlet in the living room, in the wall that divided it from the kitchen. The bathroom also had a three-prong outlet.

  The inspector frowned. “These outlets tell me that the wiring in the bath and the kitchen walls has been replaced, but the rest of the house was left as is. Mixing things up like that is a really bad idea.”

  Looked like buying this house had been a really bad idea, too. The sour expression on Buck’s face told me he was having the same thought. At least he was nice enough not to say it out loud. He could probably tell how upset I was.

  The woman wrapped up her inspection a few minutes later and we walked her back out to her vehicle. “Have your insurance company get in touch with me if they want a copy of the report.” With that, she climbed into her car, closed her door, and drove away.

  “Call Bobby Palmer,” Buck growled. “Now. We need to have a conversation.”

  The conversation would be best done in person. That’s the only way I’d be able to gauge the expression on his face and determine whether Bobby had made an honest mistake—or whether he’d gambled with our lives.

  CHAPTER 15

  THAT JUST BURNS ME UP

  WHITNEY

  Screech!

  The sound of tires coming to a sudden stop drew our attention to the street behind us. Buck and I turned to see Bobby’s pickup at the curb. He’d made it to the house in record time after I’d called him and informed him about the fire.

  Bobby cut the engine, hopped out, and was on the porch in three seconds flat, taking the steps two at a time. His eyes were wide and frantic, his skin red, as if his heart were pumping overtime. As I eyed him, he took a deep breath. Was he trying to calm himself?

  “Hello, Bobby,” I said.

  He removed his ball cap. “How bad is the damage?”

  I exhaled sharply. “It’s bad, all right.”

  Buck stepped aside to let Bobby into the house. “Come in and take a look for yourself.”

  As we stepped inside, the first place Bobby’s eyes went was to the ceiling. He pointed up at one of the newly installed detectors. “Good thing you put those smoke alarms up like I told you to.”

  Was he trying to assuage his guilt, convince himself he’d saved my life rather than risked it? Or was he merely pointing out a fact?

  I led him back to the bedroom with the hole in the roof. “The fire inspector said this is where it started.”

  Bobby looked up at the sky as a plane soared over us thousands of feet above. “Holy moly! The whole roof is gone!”

  “You sure have a keen eye,” Buck muttered, cutting Bobby a scathing look.

  “The fire spread fast,” I said. “I was lucky to get out. I had to crawl through the smoke to find my cat. He bolted when the alarm went off.”

  Bobby grimaced, as if the information personally pained him. Hmm.

  I held up my potato-hand. “My cat bit me when I grabbed him. It’s infected.”

  His brows formed a deep V of concern.

  The three of us backed out of the room and I motioned for Bobby to come stand by me in the hallway. When he did, I pointed to the hole the inspector had made in the drywall, the hole that revealed the knob-and-tube wiring. “That right there? The old wiring? That’s what caused the fire.”

  As Buck and I stared at Bobby, he, in turn, stared at the ceramic knob, a series of expressions contorting his face as he appeared to be struggling with his emotions. Finally, he turned to me. “I feel really bad about this, Whitney. I hope you know that.”

  Good. You should. At best, he’d performed a shoddy inspection and inadvertently failed to check the electrical system. At worst, he’d purposely misled me about a dangerous, potentially deadly condition in the house. Which one was the truth? I figured the best way to find out was to ask.

  “Why, exactly, do you feel bad?” I cocked my head and watched him intently.

  He frowned. “Because I must have missed this in my inspection, that’s why. I looked at the electrical in the kitchen and bath. The garage, too. It’s been updated. I assumed things had been updated throughout the house. I thought everything was fine.”

  Ironically, the level of detail he’d provided made me wonder again if he’d known things were not fine, if he had, in fact, performed a thorough inspection of the electrical system and knew precisely which rooms had been updated and which had not.

  “Is that really why you feel bad?” I asked. “Because you accidentally botched the inspection? Or is it because you and Rick Dunaway were in cahoots and you intentionally hid the electrical problems from us?”

  Rather than crinkling in confusion, his eyes went wide with shock, the kind of look kids get on their face when they were caught with their hand in the cookie jar. Yep, Bobby and Dunaway had cahooted, hadn’t they? I’d only suspected it before, but now I felt much more certain. And there would be only one reason Bobby would be in cahoots with Rick Dunaway. Money.

  My voice came out soft and cracked when I asked, “Why’d you do it, Bobby?”

  Bobby gripped his ball cap in his hands, twisting it to and fro. His gaze darted between me and my cousin. Finally, he looked down at the floor and softly said, “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  It wasn’t an outright admission, but it was darn close. He seemed to realize that he’d made a stupid decision. How could he have thought he’d get away with it? Didn’t he realize that any potential buyer would have had another inspection, and that the second inspector would discover the faults with the wiring? That the buyer would insist we have the system updated before purchasing the house?

  “Look, Bobby,” I said. “I invested every penny I had in this house. Buck’s money is needed for the renovations. Now we’re facing an unexpected five-thousand-dollar insurance deductible. The least you could do is pay our deductible since you defrauded us.”

  “Defrauded you?” On hearing his dirty deed named outright, his face became hard. “I am not a crook!” he snapped. “I don’t like what you’ve insinuated.”

  “And I don’t like what you’ve incinerated.” I pointed to the burned roof. “So? You gonna pay the deductible or not?”

  Buck crossed his arms over his chest, which made his biceps swell.

  Bobby instinctively took a step back. “I don’t have that kind of money just lying around.”

  In other words, he’d already spent what Dunaway had given him.

  “What did you do with the money Dunaway paid you?” I asked. “Bet it on a football game?”

  His face reddened and he turned away. Looked like I’d hit the nail on the head. When he looked back, he found my angry eyes on him.

  “How much did Dunaway pay you?” I demanded. The man had said he liked me, for goodness’ sake! That I reminded him of himself. I wanted to know just how much Rick Dunaway had thought my life was worth.

  Bobby didn’t answer my question. Instead, his face brightened as if a light bulb had illuminated inside his head. “Five grand would be nothing to Rick Dunaway. You should ask him. I’d bet he’d give it to you.”

  Ironically, betting was just the thing that had likely gotten all of us into this mess. Still, Dunaway’s pockets were definitely deeper than Bobby Palmer’s. On the other hand, Rick Dunaway was a penny-pinching cheapskate who wouldn’t spend a cent if he didn’t have to. “Rick Dunaway would be more likely to cough up the five grand if he knew he could get in trouble with the law,” I said. “Will you admit that he bought you off? Would you be a witness against him? Sign a statement?”

  The frown returned and the virtual light bulb flickered off. Bobby put his hat back on his head. “I’m not admitting anything. How stupid do you think I am?”

  Buck snorted. “Do you really want us to answer that question?”

  Bobby cut Buck a final glare and stormed out the door, leaving me madder than a wet hen. A wet hen who’d
been duped by someone she’d trusted. Bobby Palmer and Rick Dunaway had stolen my nest egg. Maybe it was the fever making me bold, but this wet hen wasn’t going to take it lying down.

  Buck wasn’t, either. “We should sue that man for every cent he’s worth.”

  “That’s the problem,” I said. “I don’t think Bobby’s worth much.” Heck, from the conversation I’d overheard through the window before, it sounded like he was in debt to his bookie.

  Buck and I walked back to the bedroom and looked up once again at the gaping, jagged hole.

  Buck grunted. “The fire’s going to set us back more than a few dollars. It’s going to set us back timewise, too. I was hoping we’d have a contract by Christmas.”

  “Me, too.” Instead, it felt like Santa had left coal in our stockings. Still, as angry as I was with Bobby, we wouldn’t be in this situation if Rick Dunaway hadn’t offered him a bribe. “If Rick Dunaway thinks he can get away with treating us like this, he’s sorely mistaken.” My voice rose along with my ire. “He should take out some insurance on his life because I have half a mind to put an end to it!”

  Buck cut me a glance that was both amused and surprised. I wasn’t a pushover, but I’d never had cause before to threaten someone’s life. I hardly recognized myself, either. Being forced to flee a fire and getting only a few minutes’ sleep had made me bold, brash, and brazen. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorched.

  “Take your nail gun,” Buck suggested. “A few framing nails in Dunaway’s foot might help convince him to give you the five grand.”

  “Yep, that tool could do the trick.” Of course this was all bluster on my part. I wasn’t going to physically threaten the guy, though I had to admit the thought was darn tempting. I had to get myself under control before I could get the situation under control.

  Could I even do it?

  First, I had to come up with the insurance deductible. Repairing the fire damage and replacing the electrical system would add another few weeks to our flipping schedule, and that would mean more mortgage payments we weren’t prepared to make. Even if the electrical system was completely updated, would anyone want to buy a house that had recently caught fire? We might have to discount the price to entice someone to take a chance on the place. And if we had to discount the price, that meant we might not make a profit or, worse, that we’d take a loss. Ugh, ugh, ugh.