Authors: Heather Webber

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

Digging Up Trouble (20 page)

BOOK: Digging Up Trouble

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The second message was from Tam. She'd been sprung from the hospital and was at home at Ian's farm in Lebanon if anyone needed her.

The third message, another from Bobby, simply said, "I miss you already."

I sighed and dropped the phone into my pocket.

For a few minutes I sat there staring at Bill's letters, wondering why I'd taken them.

I told myself that it was none of my business, but then my sense returned. It
was
my business. Absolutely my business. Bill and Lindsey duping me had made it that way. And the lawsuit and possible murder charges had cemented it.

Not that I had to worry about the lawsuit anymore. Unless there were family members eager to pick up where Greta had left off.

There was Noreen—would she pursue the lawsuit?

Both letters had been opened—by Bill, I assumed. I pulled a single piece of paper out of each envelope and stared at them long and hard.

The first thing I noticed was the font. Every little
i
was raised slightly above the rest of the text.

The first letter read:

I know what you are doing. It will cost to not tell. I will
contact you again soon.

The second curled my toes.

You will call Taken by Surprise Garden Design and
arrange to have the backyard of Russ and Greta Grabinsky
landscaped at your cost.

I stared at the letters for a long time.

Bill was being blackmailed.

By whom?

What kind of oddball blackmailed for landscaping?

And what did the blackmailer know about Bill that he'd so readily do it?

Something with the accounting books? I could easily see them sitting on the table in the Grabinsky house . . .

Right near the typewriter.

I studied the font on the letters and envelopes. That's why it had been so unusual. It had been made by a typewriter. An old-fashioned one.

One just like Greta and Russ's.

And since I knew Russ's penchant for blackmail, I had to wonder if Bill had been blackmailed by Russ himself.

Twenty-One

Tuesday morning I sat at my desk, trying to massage the crick out of my neck. So far, no luck.

True to her word, the night before Ana had come over with some desperately needed ice cream. I'd stayed up too late fielding her morbid questions about Greta Grabinsky, and gotten a lousy night's sleep on my sleeper sofa.

With all the construction in the bathroom, my room was currently unusable.

Tuesday was normally my day off, but the thought of the bathroom demo had driven me from my house and into my office.

The choice between Brickhouse and remodeling was a close one, but I had work to catch up on, namely a hummingbird garden I was designing as a mini for the Alonzos. Rich Alonzo was a novice birdwatcher, and his wife Lena wanted to surprise him.

No matter how hard I tried, or how much I threw myself into my work, I couldn't help but think of Bill Lockhart.

With my theory about Bill and Lindsey purposely plotting Russ's heart attack shot to pieces thanks to those letters, I didn't know what to think.

They hadn't planned for him to have a heart attack. Hadn't wanted him dead.

Maybe my Clue-playing skills weren't as good as I'd thought.

Yet, someone was blackmailing Bill. Which meant he was doing something he wanted to keep secret . . .

Had it been Russ blackmailing Bill?

He'd been blackmailing Dale Hathaway. Why not expand?

I played with different scenarios.

Russ, with a lawsuit looming, needed to have his backyard cleaned up, cleared out.

Maybe he'd heard Riley talk about TBS at work?

Being as cheap as he was, he certainly wouldn't want to pay my lofty fees himself, so he blackmails Bill into paying them for him.

Brilliant, actually.

And Bill, desperate to keep his secret, has Lindsey call me, setting the whole thing into motion.

Grabbing a red-colored pencil from the mason jar on my desk, I shaded blooms on a carnival weigela—a red, white, and pink flowering shrub hummingbirds loved—as one thought continued to nag at me.

Why then had Russ seemed so surprised to find my crew and me at his house if he'd planned the whole thing?

I chewed on the end of the pencil. Had his reaction been orchestrated too? Part of the grand scheme?

The pencil fell from my fingers.

It fit!

Russ finds us there, pitches a fit, and a lawsuit follows.

Not only is his yard done free of charge, but he also possibly gets money from me, in addition to Bill and Lindsey, to settle a lawsuit.

Except he went and died, ruining everything.

Almost everything. Greta still threatened to sue. Almost immediately, as if it had been on her mind all along.

Which left me to believe that Greta had been in on it all.

I finished coloring the weigela and reached for the purple pencil for the perennial salvia.

Russ and Greta had been in it together. And if Greta knew about Russ blackmailing Bill, she must have known about Russ blackmailing Dale.

Had someone else figured this out? And decided to end the scheming for good by killing Greta since Russ had already conveniently died?

Had Dale killed Greta? Had Bill?

Setting the pencil down, I remembered that Bill's blackmail letters hadn't been signed. Did he even know who had sent them?

If not, then there was no link between him and Greta's death except for the accounting books.

But Dale Hathaway was a different story. I'd heard him threaten Greta myself. And it made me wonder how he'd found out Russ was his blackmailer. Had he confronted Russ?

The phone rang. Brickhouse answered.

I went back to coloring.

I loved designing bird gardens of all kinds, but especially hummingbird habitats. There was just something so special about them.

The habitat itself was going to be an island in the middle of the Alonzos' backyard. I listed materials on a separate piece of paper as I created.

The intercom on my desk crackled. "Call on line one."

"Who is it?" There were certain people I was actively avoiding today. My mother, for one. I couldn't take one more construction disaster. My sister, for another. Her plans had included so much froufrou-ness, my bathroom had ended up looking like a high-priced French spa.

I was not a froufrou kind of girl.

Kevin was someone else I didn't particularly want to talk to. I needed some space to decide how I really felt about him. Plus, since I found those letters, I felt like an idiot for suggesting that the Lockharts might have purposely planned Russ's heart attack.

"It's Noreen Pugh."

I only knew one Noreen. "I'll take it." After a second, I picked up the phone, hit the number one on the console. "Nina Quinn."

"Nina, this is Noreen, Greta's sister?"

"I'm so sorry about her death."

I heard a sniffle, followed by a watery "Me too."

"Do the police have any ideas what happened?"

It was wrong to pry, but I couldn't help myself.

"No, not yet."

"I'm sorry," is all I could say.

She blew her nose, then said, "The police had me go through her things, but I couldn't see anything missing. I spent quite a lot of time there so I know the place well."

I didn't mention the accounting books.

"I'm calling because while I was there, going through the house, a neighbor stopped by."

"Oh?"

Had it been Dale?

"Kate Hathaway."

"Oh?" Had Kate known Dale was being blackmailed by Russ?

"She informed me about the lawsuit, how it was still in effect. That's why I'm calling. Did you know Russ and Greta have a daughter?"

Conversation from the day Russ died came back to me.
Hasn't seen his kid in ten years.

I caught myself twirling the purple pencil. I was picking up bad habits from Deanna. Back in the jar it went. "I didn't know, no."

"Well, it was always Greta's dream to leave this house to Francie. That's why she took such good care of it. The yard . . . it always embarrassed her, but Russ . . . he was cheap."

Just reinforcement that Russ had been the one to blackmail Bill. And that Greta might have known about it.

"I'd like you to come finish the yard."

I leaned forward. "Really?"

"As soon as possible. I don't want Francie to lose the one thing her mother had wanted her to have. And Greta really wanted her yard done right. Pretty." She sniffled. "You'd have made it pretty, right? Lots of color? Trees?"

"Yes. It would have been beautiful. Will be beautiful. Of course I can finish the job."

Even if Greta had known about the blackmail, I'd been paid for the job. And Noreen's grief more than made me want to help any way I could. Beyond that, I thought of a mother's love for her estranged daughter, of the gift she wanted to leave her.

And I thought of my mother, who had given me the gift of my bedroom while I could still thank her.

I wasn't so mad about the bathroom anymore.

We talked about dates and settled on Thursday. I'd somehow make it work with everyone's schedules, including Ignacio's.

"Would you like to see the plans? For the yard?"

"I'd love to, but I'm at Greta's cleaning things up."

Perfect. "I can stop by. I don't mind the trip out there."

"Really?"

"Really."

I felt a little bad because I had ulterior motives, but there wasn't enough guilt to change my mind.

I needed to talk to Dale Hathaway.

Hanging up, I took a long look at my design. It had a ways to go, but I already adored it.

Woof!

I jumped up, ran to my door, flung it open.

Woof, woof!

"I swear she smells you," Kit said, holding a straining BeBe by a short leash.

"I do not have a B.O. problem."

"Never said you did."

"But—"

"Dogs have a great sense of smell. She just knows yours."

"Oh." I looked around. "Where's Mrs. Krauss?"

"Who?"

"Brickhouse Krauss?"

His eyes widened. "What's she doing here?" Kit had worked on Mrs. Krauss's mini. I remembered how he'd slunk away when Mrs. Krauss starting yelling, leaving me to deal with her alone, the yellowbelly. I swear his scary image was all a facade.

"Working."

He paled. "Here?"

"Tam hired her."

BeBe whimpered. Giving in, I moved closer and let her slobber my hand.

"Nina, I don't know—"

"She's actually been . . . okay. It'll be fine. And it's just for a few months, until Tam is back."

The phone rang and BeBe went crazy. Brickhouse came hurrying in the side door, carrying a trash can. BeBe worked herself into a frenzy.

Brickhouse glared at BeBe, pointed a finger.
"Anschlag!"

BeBe stopped barking, cocked her head.

"Sitzen Sie!"

BeBe sat.

My jaw dropped.

Brickhouse answered the phone. "This is Taken by Sur prise, Garden Designs, Ursula speaking . . . Do you think that's wise? Well, I don't. You, young man, need to get your life in order. Prioritize. Make some hard decisions and stick to them."

Kit's mouth dropped open.

"See that you do," Brickhouse said, then hung up. "What?" she asked when she looked at us.

"Who was that?"

"Jean-Claude's not going to be able to make it in today. He apologizes."

"You need to fire him, Nina," Kit said.

Mrs. Krauss clucked again, jabbed Kit in his chest. "Have you never had troubles? Have you never needed help? Have you?"

Kit didn't back down. "Of course."

"Right now that boy has no help. He has troubles and he's trying to do it his way. Soon enough he will see that all he has to do is ask, and he will see who his true friends are."

"Did he tell you what kind of trouble he's in?" I asked. All I could see was Jean-Claude on the corner in the Blue Zone doing God knows what.

"He did."

I prodded. "Well?"

"I'm not at liberty to discuss it."

I blinked. She stared.

I wasn't going to win this battle, so I said, "I'm going out

for a while. Kit, I need you to organize everyone, including Jean-Claude. We're going to be finishing the Grabinsky yard on Thursday." At his look, I added, "I'll explain later."

BeBe sidled up to Mrs. Krauss, sat obediently at her feet.

"We'll also discuss BeBe later."

I grabbed my backpack and headed for the door. As the chimes rang out, I heard Kit say, "How'd you do that? With BeBe?"

Mrs. Krauss said, "It's all in the tone. Did those tattoos hurt? I'm thinking about getting one on my—"

I covered my ears and ran for my truck. I didn't want to know.

Deep purple-blue circles lurked under Noreen's Sally Jesse glasses, and I swear she'd lost weight because she didn't look as potato as before.

The pansies had perked up at least.

I followed Noreen into the house. "I can't stop crying," she said. "Who could have done this to her?"

"Maybe," I broached, setting my backpack down on the recliner, "it was a natural death. A broken heart, maybe?"

One eyebrow arched and the other dipped. "You're kidding, right?"

"That bad?"

"Worse. Know why she took such good care of this house? Because it was the only thing she had. It had been a wedding gift from our parents to Greta and Russ. The deed was in her name. Russ controlled everything else."

"What about when he died? Didn't he have savings? Life insurance?"

She sighed with disgust. "He left everything to a male heir. A distant cousin." She must have seen the horror on my face. "Exactly."

BOOK: Digging Up Trouble

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