Skeleton in a Dead Space (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery) (18 page)

“Yeah,” he said, “they usually are.”

I didn’t know whether or not to worry. Maybe relief was most appropriate.

“Got to go,” he said. “Got a hot date tonight.” He leered at me, sort of laughing, and then left.

****

The girls and I spent Sunday unpacking—no church again, though I sent a quick apology to God and hoped he understood. The girls hung dresses in their closets, folded PJs and shirts and jeans in drawers and by early afternoon had their rooms neat. Struggling with the kitchen things, I wished my part was that simple.

Theresa came in for lunch, and I made everyone grilled cheese sandwiches. Looking around at the still-unpacked boxes and the stacks of dishes, I decided I’d wash them later. Theresa asked, “Miss Kelly, can I help you with this?”

“Don’t you need to unpack your own things?”

“I’ve pretty much done that, but I…I want to talk to you.”

I looked at the girls, but Theresa said, “No, they can stay.” She reached an arm for Em who came for a hug. “I think it’s time for me to go home. My dad, he’ll try. He knows now the strap isn’t the answer. And my brothers, Stefan and Emil, they need me. My dad needs me.” Then in a rush she added, “I wouldn’t want you to think I’m not grateful…it’s just I think it’s time to go home.”

Em began to sob and wail about missing Theresa, and Maggie went to Theresa’s other side and asked solemnly, “Will you come back for a sleepover?”

Laughing, Theresa said, “I sure will.”

I pushed the girls aside so I could hug Theresa. “I think that’s a wonderful decision,” she said. “Have you told your dad?”

“No. But I know he’ll be glad.”

“I know he will too. Let’s invite him and the boys to dinner tonight, and you can tell him and then go home with him. Can you repack your clothes that quickly?”

“I never unpacked them,” Theresa said with a slight smile.

So it was done. A puzzled Anthony accepted the dinner invitation and said they would be there at six. After he talked to Theresa, she handed the phone to me. “He wants to tell you something. About the paint on the house.”

I looked at the phone as though it might bite me. “Anthony?”

“Good news. Well, sort of good news. I wasted your money calling the brick people. Its water-base paint and came off easily. But I don’t know that I could have done it alone in one day. Now you can’t even tell it was ever there. Brick didn’t change color, wood doesn’t need repainting.”

“Oh, Anthony, that’s wonderful.”

“They only there three hours. Not too much cost, I hope.”

I was so relieved I didn’t care. I might even file an insurance claim, now that I could assure Dave Shirley that the vandalism was over.

After I thanked Anthony, probably one too many times, and hung up, I looked at my watch. Too late to do a pot roast. I’d have to do chicken. I left Theresa watching the girls, while I ran to the store and got chicken thighs to roast with lemon and butter and herbs, makings for a salad, and baking potatoes to which I’d add sour cream, butter, and cheese. Then I bought two bottles of wine and a big bottle of Coke—a special treat for the girls who were usually only given 7-Up or Sprite. When Mike Shandy called to ask how the move-in was going, it was no problem to add him to the dinner party—I had plenty of food.

While I was at the grocery, Theresa made huge leaps in unpacking the kitchen, and the girls were drying the dishes she washed.

“Theresa, I don’t know if I can let you go or not,” I said. “This is wonderful.”

“Well, we have to eat dinner tonight, and I didn’t think you wanted to serve on disposables.”

“Not for our first dinner party in the house,” I said.

Dinner was a huge success. With Theresa’s help, Maggie set the table—place mats on the wonderful oak dining table the Hunts left, my best heavy pottery, cut glassware, and the good stainless flatware—okay, it wasn’t my grandmother’s sterling, but that had to be hand-washed. This was a wedding gift, one of the things Tim used to gripe that he should have had in the divorce because it came from someone on his side.
Well, he doesn’t need it now—what an awful thought.

As we sat down to dinner, Mike raised his wineglass and proposed a toast to the new house. After everyone toasted and said, “Here, here!”—with Maggie and Em looking a bit puzzled—I raised my hand for silence. “I think Theresa wants to make an announcement.”

Theresa looked uncertain, then raised her glass and said, “To my dad, the best dad ever.” As everyone clinked glasses and repeated, “Here, here,” she said, “Dad, I’m ready to come home.”

Speechless for a minute, Anthony blinked and looked at her. “You sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“You…”

“Dad, don’t ask. Joe won’t be a problem and neither will his friends. You and Stefan and Emil need me.”

“Ah” he said, “we do.” He got up and walked around the table to hug his daughter, who rose to return his hug. “When?”

“Tonight.”

Nine-year-old Emil said, “Does that mean she can boss me around again?” His father assured him it did.

The meal dissolved into loud chatter and happy laughter. The girls helped clear the table, and everyone cheered when I brought out the frozen ice cream cake I’d kept hidden after my grocery-store trip.

Someone knocked on the door while we were eating the cake, and Mike jumped up with “I’ll get it.” He came back, with a strange look on his face, leading Buck Conroy and Joanie. “Look who dropped in and brought champagne to christen the new house.”

Buck Conroy waved the bottle, while I thought he’d just stirred it up and made popping the cork all the more perilous. Joanie stood with a satisfied smile, but it didn’t escape my notice that she was holding on to Buck’s hand, the one that wasn’t waving the bottle.
Oh, Joanie,
I thought,
what have you done now? No wonder you haven’t called me about morning sickness or other pregnancy problems. You’ve got Buck Conroy.

I got plastic cups for everyone—sorry, no flutes available. I owned maybe two—hmm, Mike and I could have champagne some night. But this night even the girls had tiny sips, and so did Theresa’s brothers. Everyone raised a glass in response to Buck’s almost too-jovial toast for health, happiness, and safety for the occupants of this home. I was amazed at the transformation in him. He seemed…well, less crude, less ready to rub me the wrong way.

While Theresa went to get her things, with her brothers trailing along to help her, we sat and talked about the move, the house, the paint on the old house. “We haven’t solved the murders,” Conroy said, “but it looks like you should be safe now, Kelly. Mike can stop worrying about you and get back to work.”

Mike took the jibe good-naturedly and said, “It’s more fun to worry about Kelly.”

Trying to keep it a light moment, I said, “I didn’t like the vandalism, but it’s kind of nice to have someone watching over me.” Mike was staring at me, and we exchanged a long look. Joanie didn’t miss a thing. She saw the look and smiled, but all the time her hand was on Buck Conroy’s thigh. That was one more thing I couldn’t worry about.

Before Theresa and the boys came back, Anthony pulled me aside. “Miss Kelly, you give me my daughter back. I…I don’t know how to say thank you.”

“You just did,” I said, hugging him. “But send her to visit me often.”

“I will,” he promised.

They left, over Theresa’s protests that she should help with dishes and my assurances that I could handle it.

The girls went off to get ready for bed, and Mike and I sat around talking to Joanie and Buck. I suspected Mike wished they’d leave as much as I did. It wasn’t too long before Joanie said, “Buck, I’ve got to work tomorrow. We should be going.” Buck jumped up, and they left amid profuse thanks for the champagne and hugs all around. I was astounded—I was hugging Buck Conroy?

Mike and I sank back down into the living room chairs, both silent for a long time. After a while he asked, “What do you make of that?”

I shook my head. “Joanie is Joanie. If anyone can turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse, she can do it.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know what the hell you just said, but I think I get the idea.”

When I got up to do the dishes, Mike said, “I’ll help,” and he did, proving efficient at washing dishes. “You going to miss having a dishwasher and disposal?” he asked.

“Probably,” I said, “but I don’t care. I’m too happy in this house.”

“It suits you,” Mike said, “it really does.”

The girls came out in nightgowns, smelling clean from their baths, and demanded goodnight hugs. Mike and I tucked them in together, kissing each girl and wishing her sweet dreams. A thought flickered across my mind that it was like being a family again.

Mike left as soon as the dishes were done. When I walked him to the door, he wrapped his arms around me and whispered, “Kelly, I hope I’m not out of line saying this, but I feel at home in your new house.”

Our kiss was prolonged and anything but platonic.

More tired than I could believe, I took a hot bath, decided I couldn’t read, and fell into bed. But just before I drifted off, I remembered that I had that early appointment with Mrs. North tomorrow and apprehension crept over me.
Why does that woman make me nervous, just on the phone? What will she be like in person?

When I got to the office Monday morning a little after nine, a woman sat in the visitor’s chair opposite my desk. I stopped just outside the glass door to study her, and the hackles rose on my neck for no explainable reason. She wore an expensive, well-tailored pinstripe pant suit—even at a distance I could tell it was a St. Johns—with a cream silk shirt, the whole outfit brightened by a scarf draped around the collar of the jacket. I never could drape a scarf so that it looked anything but silly, and I felt a moment’s jealousy. Her jewelry was large, clunky, and pure gold. She was about fifty, with artful blonde hair, variegated enough to make it look natural, though of course it wasn’t. Her hair was cut just at her chin level and swung about her face when she dropped her head for a moment. I was staring at money and privilege, and I looked with a tinge of regret at the wool flannel pants, corduroy jacket, and practical loafers that I wore.

Mrs. North was tapping the arm of the chair impatiently.

Pushing through the door, I said “Morning” to Keisha, who didn’t reply but just cast her eyes toward my desk as if to say, “Watch out. This one will bite.”
Thanks, Keisha.

Brisk and businesslike as I crossed the office. “Mrs. North?”

She stood and held out her hand. “Good morning, Ms. O’Connell. I know I’m early but I’m anxious to get started. Shall we go in my car?” And she picked up her purse as though ready to leave.

Take control now or lose it forever,
I told myself. “I like to drive clients in my car,” I said as easily as I could. “I know where the different houses are and don’t like sitting there, saying ‘Turn left here,’ and the like. You can understand that makes for an awkward tour around the neighborhood. My car isn’t fancy, but it’s clean.” I’d seen the sleek Hunter green Jaguar in the parking lot.

“Fine,” Mrs. North said. “Let’s go.”

“Whoa,” I held up my hands, trying to make a joke of it. “Let’s sit first and talk about what you want, what you’re looking for. You’ve got to give me some idea of which houses to show you.” As we both sat down, I took in the Louis Vuitton purse and the diamond on her left hand, large but again tasteful.

Mrs. North looked startled, but she settled back into the chair. “Of course. I guess I expected you to read my mind.”

I pulled a new client form out of the drawer and said, “I ask clients to fill this out, but why don’t we do it together. Your full name?” I hoped for a first name, but all I got was, “Mrs. Jerry North.”

“And where are you living now, Mrs. North?”

“In Westover. But that doesn’t matter. The house is for my parents, not me. They’re in the Rivercrest area in a huge house that’s too much for them these days.”

Her foot was tapping in the air, either from impatience or nervousness, but I pushed on. “And what are you looking for? Single story, small yard?”

She nodded. “Most definitely. My mother’s in a wheelchair and unable to care for herself. She has nursing care twenty-four hours a day. My father is fine….It’s just that he’s getting frail. He’s eighty-two this year.”

“I understand,” I said sympathetically. Then, as diplomatically as I could, “Mrs. North, Fairmount is at best a changing neighborhood. Nicely fixed-up homes are next to houses that look like they may fall down. My question is why Fairmount for your parents? Why not a smaller home in the Rivercrest area? Or have you considered Berkeley or Park Hill?” I named adjacent, upscale neighborhoods.

Mrs. North, it seemed, had her answers planned to all questions. “My parents lived in Fairmount when they were first married, and it’s a sentimental thing for them. They’d like to come back.”

Somehow that answer didn’t sit well with me. You didn’t move to Fairmount from Rivercrest. You moved there because you wanted an older, charming house instead of tract housing in the suburbs or wanted to be closer to town. I looked down at the form and saw that I filled in very few of the spaces. Something was off here, but I couldn’t tell what.

“Your phone number,” I said, again trying to be businesslike. She gave me home and cell numbers. “Now, what are your requirements in the house?”

“Requirements?” She seemed puzzled.

“How many bedrooms, baths, etc.? Do you need handicapped facilities for your mother?”

She waved an impatient hand in the air. “We can remodel to suit Mother’s needs. And bedrooms? Why I guess just two—one for the nurses and one for my parents. A modest kitchen will do—the housekeeper cooks for them.”

I began to wonder if the parents even knew that their daughter was considering moving them. “Let me pull a few descriptions from the file,” I said, turning to the cabinet behind me and extracting descriptive sheets of the five houses that came to mind.

“Shall we go?” Mrs. North asked.

Maybe she has another appointment and has only allotted a certain amount of time to this venture
. Just as we headed out the door Keisha took a phone call and held up a hand to Kelly.

“District attorney’s office. You better take it.”

Mrs. North gave an obvious sigh of impatience, but I assured her, “This won’t take a minute. Please have a seat.” I waved a hand at the visitors’ chair by Keisha’s desk, and Keisha gave me a long and not pleasant look. I went back to my desk, picked up the phone, and said, “Kelly O’Connell.”

“Ms. O’Connell, Larry Ashford, D.A.’s office. I want to talk to you about Joe Mendez.” It flashed through my mind that I never knew Joe’s last name. “When do you plan to come in so we can press charges? He’s admitted to the vandalism, and the hearing’s scheduled for tomorrow but if we don’t have anything from you, we’ll have to let him go. Somehow this slipped through the cracks. I should have contacted you right after he was arrested.”

I was quiet so long that Larry Ashford said, “Ms. O’Connell? Are you there?’

“Yes, I’m here. But I don’t know what I want to do. I’m not sure I want to press charges.”

“You’re not sure? How can you not?” His voice was so strained that I pictured a young man in his late twenties, new to the district attorney’s office, who paled even as he heard my words.

“It seems to me the difference between introducing a young man, who’s basically okay but hasn’t been given any guidance in life, into the criminal justice system or offering him a chance for rehabilitation. Does he have a record?”

“No. Just one other minor violation—also for vandalism.”

“What I want for him is probation with community service, but I understand you can’t promise me that. And I want a chance to talk to him privately, before he appears in court.”

Larry Ashford sounded nervous. “I can arrange for you to see him. Hearing’s at two tomorrow. But the sentence—we can speak for you, and you can speak yourself, but it’s up to the judge.”

“Let me know when I can see Joe.”

He sounded a little calmer. “City jail. Ten o’clock tomorrow. That okay?”

“That’s okay.”

“Good, we’ll want to talk to you too.”

As I approached Mrs. North, the other woman stood. “I hope we can go now.” Impatience was clear in her voice.

I didn’t care to parade my personal life before her and didn’t mention that my house had been vandalized and my ex-husband killed. In her scheme of things, since they hadn’t happened to her, they were probably insignificant. I just said, “Yes, of course.”
But do you read the paper, lady? Did you see the piece about the man who was found shot in Trinity Park? Oh, I’m being dumb. She has no reason to connect that with me—different last names and all.

I showed her a charming frame Victorian house with gingerbread trim, a picket fence, and a lovely garden. Inside were well-tended hardwood floors, a modernized kitchen, three bedrooms, and a bath and a half. “No, it just doesn’t look like them.”

So we went to a brick cottage on College Avenue where the street edged down into the more exclusive Ryan Place addition. This one had larger rooms and a more airy, open feel. It also had a St. Charles kitchen that must have dated back to the ’50s but seemed serviceable for anyone who was not a gourmet hostess who wanted a cooking island for friends to gather around. The bathrooms had those tiny tiles that mark older homes, and the master bath had a built-in dressing table with a long mirror over it, flanked on either side by built-in drawers. Many houses in Fairmont had that configuration, and I always loved it.

“I’ll put this on my list as a possible,” Mrs. North said, folding the description and putting it in her purse.

And so it went with the next three houses—two were “just not right” and the third, “a possible.” I couldn’t detect a pattern in the way Mrs. North made her choices, and I was baffled.

As we got in the car, I said, “I’ll try to think of some others. I know you’re in a hurry, but you just can’t always find exactly what you want on the market when you”—I started to say when you are so inflexible but changed it—“when you have such a definite idea what you want.”

Mrs. North laughed. “I realize I’m difficult to please. You know, I drove by a house the other day, on the corner of Fairmount and Allen. It had your sign on it and looked like you’re renovating it. Could we look at that one?”

The skeleton house. I shook my head. “It is being renovated and has had several setbacks”—I saw no need to elaborate—“so it’s not ready to show, won’t be for at least six months.”

“I’d like to see it anyway,” Mrs. North pushed.

I was reluctant. Why would she be so determined to see that particular house? Again, I smelled a rat—or was it a decomposing corpse? Still, I didn’t want to lose a client. “Okay, but I warn you, it’s a mess right now.”

We parked in front, and I led the way up the walk. I opened the door and called, “Anthony?” thinking to give him fair warning, though nothing I could say aloud would do that.

“In the kitchen, Miss Kelly. Working on the skeleton closet.”

Oh, swell. Of all times, why did he have to say that now?
I looked at Mrs. North, but if she’d heard, she gave no sign.

“Anthony, I have a client with me.”

“Oh, Miss Kelly, I’m sorry. I go outside and you can look around.”

“There’s no need for that,” I said, unsure just how to handle the introductions.

“No, no. I need a break. I’ll sit in the sun and warm my bones. It’s cold in here.”

It was cold in the house, the kind of cold that settles in an empty house. I made a mental note to get the heating system worked on so that it could be used. A freeze could come at any time now that it was November, and there was no sense taking a risk on the pipes and plumbing.

Mrs. North headed straight to the kitchen, where lumber was scattered about and cabinets pulled out. If you weren’t used to looking at construction, you would see nothing but a mess. “What do you plan for the kitchen?” she asked.

I explained that the original configuration would stay. “There was a fire—happens too often during remodeling, you know” —that was my attempt to dismiss the fire— “and Anthony, my carpenter, is redoing it yet again.”

“What about that cabinet?” She pointed deliberately to the skeleton cabinet.

“Spice shelves that will swing out and reveal storage behind them,” I said. “It was Anthony’s idea. There was… uh, dead space…behind there before.”

“Very clever,” Mrs. North said. “Is this the house I’ve read about in the paper? The one with the skeleton?”

I stared at nothing. “Yes, it is.”

Mrs. North waved a dismissive hand. “That wouldn’t bother my parents. I want to buy this house.”

I seemed unable to keep my tongue in my head. “You haven’t seen the rest of it.” This was getting stranger by the minute.

“You’re right. Let’s go.” And the client led the realtor through the house. If I hadn’t known it was impossible, I would have thought Mrs. North had been here before. “I’m particularly interested in the fireplace,” she said, adding, “They do enjoy a fire at night.”

As if by rote, I recited, “The fireplace is the original tile, with decorative tiles inserted. It’s flanked by the traditional bookshelves on either side, but this one has a more decorative mantel than most of this era—the mantel is oak and carved, and the bookshelves, as you see, are a matching oak. Usually in these houses, they’re painted pine.”

“Yes, it’s quite attractive.”

“This is not a wood-burning fireplace and can never be,” I cautioned. “It’s not deep enough. But it can hold a gas stove, which is what it did in the old days, or a small set of gas logs. If you don’t want to carry out ashes, that’s an advantage.”

“Certainly.” A slight pause. “Ms. O’Connell, I’d like to buy this house.”

You haven’t even asked the price, and I don’t know what I’m going to ask for it when I’m done.
Aloud, I said, “I can’t sell it in this state. I have to finish the renovation.”
Her imperious manner brought out my stubborn streak.

“I’ll have my people finish it.”

My people.
I hated the phrase. “Mrs. North, I want to sell this house. I want very much to sell it. But I won’t, until I’m satisfied with its appearance. I’m sorry. If you can wait six months….”

“I can’t.”

“Well, then we’ll just have to keep looking for other houses for you.”

Mrs. North gave me a black look, and we rode back to the office in silence. When she left, my client said, “Let me know if you change your mind. I’ll give you $400,000 for it.” And she was gone.