Digging Up Trouble (13 page)

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Authors: Heather Webber

Tags: #Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Mystery & Detective, #General

BOOK: Digging Up Trouble
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"You're all tense," my mother said, looking back at me as we climbed the stairs. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine." I didn't want to worry her with the whole Grabinsky thing. Not until there was something to worry about. "Late night," I said.
When my mother broke into a smile, I realized it had been the wrong thing to say. I fully expected another maternal interrogation, and was surprised when she didn't ask any questions. She simply said, "I'm happy for you,
chérie
."
I swallowed over a sudden lump in my throat and fought off tears. She, at times, could say just the right thing.
She patted my hand. "You can have all day to rest."
I wished I could. I needed to speak with Greta Grabinsky. I also had work to do. TBS was open on Sundays for a half day. Usually it was time to meet with clients, catch up on paperwork, but today there was a mini going on. Deanna's first, planned solo.
She had the confidence and know-how to pull it off, but I wanted to at least pop in at the site and give her encouragement and support.
I also needed to call Bobby to plan when we could get together. To talk.
"Come, come," my mother said. "I cannot wait for you to see your room."
Worried, I held my breath as she pushed open my door.
"Ta-da!"
All I could do was stare. And stare some more.
Gone was my standard, no muss no fuss bed. Gone were the two dressers, one still empty in Kevin's absence. The paint had gone from a bland white to a creamy yellow.
No orange!
My inner self did a happy dance.
I walked in, absorbing.
A queen-size canopy bed angled in the corner took up most of the space. The canopy was made of white flowing gauze material. The bed looked heavenly with a mile high feather bed, thick ivory down comforter, and tons of pillows. Hints of cranberry color popped up here and there. In the pillows on the bed, on the lamp on the bedside table, in the throw rugs on my new hardwood floor.
I blinked.
Hardwood?
"Did you do all this yourselves?"
My mother winked. "We had help."
"It's so beautiful."
She clapped, reminding me again of Maria. "We knew you'd like it!"
I never would have thought I'd like something so feminine, but it appealed to a side of me I rarely indulged. This was so perfect. For so many reasons. The biggest being that it helped to erase the memories of Kevin from this room.
"I don't know what to say."
"There's no need to say anything. You do for so many,
chérie.
It was time someone did for you."
"Thank you, Mom, it's beautiful."
And I couldn't help but think I wanted to show it to Bobby as soon as possible.
As I spun, taking in the little details, the touches of wrought iron, the new crown molding, I caught a glimpse of my adjoining bathroom and noticed that the seventies era flowered wallpaper wasn't up anymore.
"Did you do the bathroom too?" I asked, amazed. I started forward to get a better look.
My mother dashed in front of me, blocked the entrance.
I hadn't known she could move so fast. Usually she walked with a slow casualness that drove me nuts.
"Um, well—" My mother rarely stuttered. "We thought it needed updating also."
I tried to peer over her shoulder. "Anything is better than Aunt Chi-Chi's old wallpaper."
It had truly been hideous, teal and navy flowers.
"Yes, well . . ."
I stood on tiptoes, suddenly suspicious. "What's wrong?"
"Wrong? What could be wrong?"
"I don't know. You're the one who won't let me see."
She brushed a lock of blonde hair off her forehead, swept it back with a practiced grace. "It's simply not done yet."
I made a move to peek over her shoulder, but ducked at the last minute under her rigid arm and pushed my way into my bathroom.
Or what was left of my bathroom.
"Oh. My."
"It's not so bad, c
hérie."
I looked around at the big gaping holes in my walls. Everything was . . .
Worthy of a state of emergency declaration.
The tub was pulled away from the wall, the showerhead and tiles gone. My vanity sat in the middle of the floor, which no longer had any linoleum on it. The sink was filled with dust, and the plumbing, the pipes, and doodads I didn't know the names of stuck out of the wall.
"What happened?" I asked.
"It all started with the wallpaper. It tore the plaster from the wall when we took it off. The plasterer we called told us it wasn't worth restoring and suggested we gut it and replace it with drywall. The demo crew will be here tomorrow."
The demo crew. Here. Tomorrow.
"When will they be done?"
"Good things are worth waiting for, c
hérie."
Ugh!
Absently, I wondered who was paying for all this, and de cided I'd jump that hurdle later.
For now, my thoughts of a hot relaxing shower vanished faster than Riley when I'd brought up the topic of safe sex.
"Don't look so forlorn. There is another bathroom in the house."
Riley's.
I shuddered.
Forcing myself to remember that my mother had only been trying to do something nice for me, I mustered up a smile. "I'm sure it will look really nice."
She kissed both my cheeks, yawned and said, "I'm going home now."
To see my father. Who'd undoubtedly fill her in on my nighttime adventure.
I saw her off, called Maria and left a thank-you message on her voice mail, and quickly took a shower in Riley's bathroom, trying not to feel displaced.
The phone rang as I was slipping into a clean pair of shorts.
"Hey," Bobby said.
I sighed. I couldn't help myself. His voice did that to me. It was a totally feminine reaction I hated, but it wasn't to be helped. And it almost—almost—made me forget all about my legal problems and construction woes.
"Hi," I said.
"Sleep well?"
Well enough considering Ana hogged covers and tended to throw elbows while she slept.
But he didn't need to know all that right now. I'd fill him in later. "Good. You?"
"I was lonely," he said in a way that heated my blood.
For some reason, I kept hearing faint strains of "Are You Lonesome Tonight" in my head. "Oh?"
"Is that all I get? An 'oh'?"
I should maybe tell him how I'd had to sit down because my knees had gone weak at the thoughts of me and him, him and me in my new bed. "It's a good oh," I said.
"Is there such a thing?"
"Definitely."
I heard a smile in his voice as he said, "I'll keep that in mind. How's your schedule?" he asked. "Is lunch a possibility?"
I've got something important to ask you.
I chewed a fingernail.
"Nina?"
I'd have to deal with it sooner or later. Might as well be sooner. Right?
I eyed my fingernails, looking for a jagged edge. Sooner just wasn't working for me. I needed a little more time. "I've actually got to work this afternoon." Which was true, so I didn't feel the least bit guilty.
Okay, a little guilty.
"How about dinner?"
Dinner sometimes led to dessert. And nightcaps. And big fluffy beds. "Sounds good."
We agreed to a time, and I hung up, feeling slightly queasy yet excited at the same time. I knew I had to head into work, but if I was to be using Riley's bathroom for the foreseeable future, it needed to be cleaned. Scrubbed, actually.
As I gathered up supplies, I couldn't help but remember that cleaning the bathrooms had been Kevin's household chore. I'd loved that about him.
Loved.
Love?
Don't think about it,
I told myself. Over and over.
I threw myself into scrubbing, trying to figure out what to do about Greta Grabinsky.
Did she want me to finish the yard or not? In her current state of mind, I'd have to say no. But if a foreclosure lawsuit was pending, did she have a choice?
Had the lawsuit been dropped as the man in her kitchen insinuated? I wondered how I could find out, and decided to check with Kate Hathaway, the Fallow Falls HOA president. She'd know one way or another.
Thank goodness I'd already been paid for the job.
No refunds.
Not that I could see Bill and Lindsey asking for one. Not after all they put me through.
I'd decided not to sue them unless I was sued by Greta. Unlike the Fallow Falls community, I wasn't lawsuit happy.
But I could hold a grudge. And I did against the Lockharts. They'd out and out used me.
But hadn't you used them?
my inner voice asked.
No.
Maybe.
Kinda-sorta.
Okay, so I'd wanted to know about Kevin's first wife . . . That wasn't a crime. I'd still planned to do a good job for them.
And look where it'd landed me. With a pending lawsuit, possible murder charges, and no information—nada, zip, nothing—on Leah Quinn.
I finished the bathroom, tidied up, locked the house. As I backed out of my driveway on my way to work, I saw Mr. Cabrera watering his flower beds. Boom-Boom sat on his front step, keeping him company.
She apparently hadn't heard about Mr. Cabrera's curse yet.
Brickhouse would be thrilled to pieces.

Speaking of Brickhouse, I needed to mentally prepare myself for her gloating. I'd planned to visit Tam sometime during the day. I couldn't imagine it was any fun being in the hospital all day with nothing to do. And though she and Ian were now living together, she didn't have any family in the area. Thankfully, I had plenty to spare, and I made a quick call to my mother, who would have Tam surrounded by lasagnas and bear hugs before sunset.

TBS was locked tight when I got there. The chimes still hung from the door, but they didn't sound as harmonious as before. I plucked a boxwood stem from one of the pipes and went to check my messages.
There were six from Deanna, who apparently was having a panic attack over her solo job today. Thankfully, Kit would be there to keep her sane.
As I popped open a Dr Pepper, I wondered if Deanna really had a crush on Kit or if she was just playing with him. I hoped it was the latter, because Deanna was young and sweet and I didn't want her to have a broken heart.
I sat at my desk, answered relevant e-mails, deleted spam, except for the ad for hair growth, which I forwarded to Kit's e-mail. He'd appreciate the joke, I was sure.
For an hour I returned phone calls from clients and potential clients. Apparently the dead guy on the news hadn't hurt business too much, but I had to wonder what the fallout would be from Greta's potential lawsuit and the murder charges.
On a whim, I picked up the phone and called Lindsey Lockhart to see if she'd had any luck convincing Greta not to sue. She seemed surprised to hear from me, though I couldn't imagine why.
It wasn't every day someone tricked me into doing a backyard makeover for someone else.
"Nina, I'm so sorry about everything that happened. Greta's just grief-stricken. When she comes to her senses she'll understand."
"Have you talked with her?"
"Well, no. I tried, but she wouldn't open the door."
I drew my thumb along the edge of my desk.
Would
Greta change her mind? She'd seemed more angry than grief-stricken to me, and I wondered again what kind of marriage she and Russ had had. And asked.
"They'd been married a long time, Nina. Everyone has problems when you've been married forty years."
"Forty years? Really?"
A daddy longlegs crawled along the windowsill. I rolled my chair over to the window, opened it, and helped Daddy outside. He didn't make it, but instead started crawling up the screen.
"She was eighteen when they married. She'd been an apprentice bookkeeper at a shoe shop and he was her boss. Love at first sight, Greta told me."
"How much older was he than her?"
I heard faint music playing in the background. "Ten years."
That was a big gap when one of them was only eighteen. She'd probably just gotten out of school. Gone from her parents' house to Russ's.
"I keep hearing how unkind he was. Was he unkind to Greta too?"
"She never said."
"But you suspected, right? Isn't that why you and Bill did the makeover? To help her because Russ wouldn't?"
Lindsey sighed. "He treated her like a possession. Very controlling. Whenever she did something for herself, he criticized and belittled. The homeowners' association, for example."
"Oh?"
"Greta wanted to join because she figured it would spur Russ to do something about the yard. Only he thought it was ridiculous and refused to pay the dues or listen to the notices. On principle, he'd said. I think it was because he was cheap."
"Why didn't she leave him?" I asked.
"Simple. She loved him."
Over and over again I kept replaying the rumor I'd heard the day Russ died.
I heard his wife was hoping he'd have a heart attack when
he saw the yard. That's why she hired these people.
Was there any truth to it?
No, simply because Greta hadn't planned the makeover. Bill and Lindsey had.
As the daddy longlegs scampered up the screen, looking for a way out, I thought about that.
Had
they
wanted Russ dead? Could
that
have been the true motive behind the makeover? Not the lawsuit, which was the line Bill and Lindsey had fed me, but something much more sinister?
After all, Lindsey and Bill had known about Russ's bad heart. Had they planned the makeover hoping he'd have a heart attack from the surprise?
They'd known how he felt about the HOA. They'd had to have known his reaction to a total backyard makeover.

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