by Diane Kelly
Over the next fifteen minutes or so, the men carried materials into the house. Wood flooring. Black-and-white tile. Black granite countertops. The jetted garden tub. A shower door and floor pan, along with a showerhead and faucets. Before long, this outdated interior would begin its transformation. I could hardly wait to get started!
As the deliverymen drove off, Sawdust peeked out the open door. I scooped him up in my arms and planted a kiss on his furry cheek, his whiskers tickling my face as he twitched them. As I slid my cat back into his carrier, my phone pinged with an incoming text. I pulled the device from my pocket to find a message from Detective Flynn. Keep kissing that cat and you’ll come down with kitty cooties.
My cheeks burst into flame as my eyes locked on the security camera we’d installed on the front porch. I’d forgotten we’d given the detective the login information to watch the feeds. I wondered what else he might have seen through the camera. I raised my hand and gave him a quick wave.
Things were moving along. In a few short weeks, the house would be ready to sell. But for now, I’d better run home and clean myself up for tonight’s babysitting gig.
CHAPTER 22
PLAYING HOUSE
WHITNEY
Sawdust came with me to Owen’s house that evening. It would give him a chance to reconnect with his brother, who had been adopted by Owen and his wife, Melissa. Their oldest daughter had named the cat Fuzzy Britches, though his moniker was often shortened to just Britches. Unlike Sawdust, who’d been the runt of the litter, Britches had a wide backside when he sat and a flabby belly that swung side to side when he trotted across the room. The cat had definitely not been working on his core.
“Hey, Whitney!” Melissa let me in the door, and I set Sawdust down on the floor and released him from his harness.
“Hey, yourself.” I gave my pretty cousin-in-law a hug. I took a step back and admired her cute sweaterdress. “You look great. Where are you and Owen headed?”
“Dinner and a movie,” she replied. “It’ll be nice to see something that’s not rated G for a change.”
After Sawdust and Britches sniffed each other to get reacquainted, Sawdust scampered down the hall to see what new territories he could conquer. His presence alerted my second cousins to mine, and they came stampeding out of their bedrooms, running my way for hugs and kisses. “Hi, girls!”
Owen emerged a moment later and came to the living room, helping Melissa into her coat and addressing his daughters over his shoulder. “You girls behave for Whitney, okay? Mommy and I want a good report when we get home.”
“Whitney always gives us a good report!” cried their oldest, who was four and a half. Heaven help you if you forgot that half year. “Even when we’re bad!”
I chuckled and shot her a wink. The worst thing these girls had ever done while I’d been babysitting was hide their uneaten broccoli in their pockets.
Lest we have a repeat of the broccoli incident, I ordered a pizza for dinner. The girls, the cats, and I spent the evening lounging about watching cartoons and playing with the elaborate dollhouses I’d made for each of them after they were born. The dollhouses were custom designs I’d come up with myself, three stories tall with gingerbread accents, wraparound porches, and six hundred tiny wooden shingles I’d painstakingly glued to each of the roofs. The things we do for love. Maybe I should’ve put a secret compartment in the dollhouse staircases. The girls would’ve loved that.
I’d filled the houses with miniature antique furniture and bought each of the girls a set of dolls, extended Victorian families that included a pair of grandparents, parents, an adolescent son and daughter, and a baby in a white gown. Not to be left out of our playtime, Sawdust and Britches each claimed a dollhouse attic for themselves, climbing up and squishing their bodies into the too-small spaces, their furry feet hanging out of the dormer windows as if monsters resided there.
The youngest, who was barely past infancy, was more interested in teething on a plastic ring than in playing with dolls. Meanwhile, the two-year-old marched her grandmother up the stairs. With her fine motor skills still in development, she had trouble easing the doll through the second-floor doorway. The doll fell from her chubby fingers and tumbled down the staircase, landing at the bottom much as Nelda Dolan had at the flip house.
“Hey!” cried her older sister. “That grammy belongs in my house, not yours!” She reached over, grabbed the doll from the floor of her sister’s dollhouse, and returned it to her own, putting the elderly woman to work at the miniature wood-burning stove in the kitchen.
When my younger cousin’s eyes brimmed with tears and her lip began to quiver, her sister handed her the doll that belonged to her set. “This grammy’s yours.”
Appeased, thankfully, the younger one blinked back her tears and attempted a second ascent up the stairs with her own doll.
The girls’ exchange got me wondering. The doll had easily been moved from the floor of one dollhouse to the other. Could a similar situation have occurred with Nelda Dolan? Might she have been killed at another location, fallen on top of something there, then been moved to the flip house hours later, after she’d become stiff and her blood had settled? The scenario would explain why Dakota hadn’t heard Nelda fall. It could also explain why the item under Nelda could not be readily identified. Maybe it had never been in the flip house to begin with. The killer or killers could have moved Nelda’s body to the flip house to throw suspicions off themselves, or to try to frame Dakota Walsh or even me and Buck.
Gayle, Roxanne, and Mary Sue had keys to Lillian’s house and could have used their keys to open the front door and dump Nelda’s body. Still, Nelda wasn’t a small woman, and any of them would have had trouble moving her alone. Bertram could have helped Gayle, or maybe two or three of the ladies could have worked together to move Nelda. Gayle had joked at the poker party about being rolled home in Mary Sue’s wheelbarrow. Maybe that wheelbarrow had been used not long before to roll Nelda Dolan to the flip house. Or maybe Becky or Carl had killed Nelda at their home, and then moved her to the flip house hours later. Either of them might be able to manage Nelda’s body on their own. Of course it would be even easier if they worked together. If Becky had been telling the truth at the poker game, they wouldn’t have had their own key to Lillian’s house. But maybe one of them had seen Dakota put his key in the frog’s mouth, either on the night Nelda was killed or on an earlier occasion. Maybe they knew Dakota’s key would be easily accessible.
At bedtime, I helped the girls change into their pajamas and brush their teeth. I read them three bedtime stories, allowing each to pick their favorite book. After tucking them in, I settled on the sofa and sent a text to Detective Flynn to find out whether my new theory could have any validity. Could Nelda have been killed somewhere else and then moved to the flip house early Saturday morning?
I’d expected Collin to text me in return, and anticipated that his response might not come until much later. It was Saturday night, after all, and he was an attractive, single man. He should be out on a date, or at least doing something fun with friends. To my surprise, he called my cell phone.
“It’s Saturday night,” he said. “Why aren’t you out having fun instead of thinking about Nelda Dolan’s murder?”
“I promised my cousin Owen I’d babysit tonight in return for his help at the flip house. What’s your excuse?”
“I am out having fun.”
“You are?”
“I’m at Bell’s Bend Park. It’s the best place for stargazing near the city. Venus and Neptune are both making a close approach tonight. I’m out here with my telescope.”
And who else? I was tempted to ask. Instead, I told Collin how my young cousins and their dolls had provided me with a new theory about the investigation: that Nelda could have been killed elsewhere and later moved to the flip house.
“It’s something to consider,” he agreed. “If Nelda’s body was moved Saturday morning, it would point to someone in the circle as the killer
. I can’t imagine she’d have been transported far.”
I told him that Lillian had given all of the ladies on Songbird Circle keys to her house, except Nelda.
“The fact that Dakota’s key was wiped clean tells me the killer used it,” he said.
“So Carl and Becky are looking guiltier than ever, aren’t they?” After all, they were the only ones on the cul-de-sac who’d have to borrow Dakota’s key to get inside. Anyone else could have used the key Lillian had given them.
“They are,” he said, “but don’t put too much trust in anyone just yet.”
Sawdust hopped up onto the couch and settled on my lap. I ran my hand down his back. “Becky mentioned hearing the Garners’ dog barking during the night and Mary Sue’s alarm going off early in the morning. Mary Sue said she’d forgotten to disarm her security system before going outside to get her newspaper. But maybe Mosey got riled up when Gayle and Bertram were handling Nelda’s body. Or maybe he heard something going on in the circle, or smelled a stranger, and that’s why he raised a ruckus.”
“Could be,” Collin said. “Then again, Becky might have been trying to implicate her neighbors.”
It seemed every new theory led to multiple interpretations. Solving a murder wasn’t easy, that’s for sure.
We ended our call and I tuckered out on the couch. I was awakened by the sound of Owen and Melissa returning at a quarter to midnight.
I stood to meet them as they came in the door. “How was the movie?”
“Who knows?” Owen slipped out of his coat. “We fell asleep before the previews were over.”
His wife turned to him. “Remember when we used to go dancing until all hours of the night? What happened to us?”
They shared a knowing smile. I suspected that even though they’d slept through the movie, they’d enjoyed having some time together as a couple, without the kids.
“The girls were perfect,” I said. “The cats, on the other hand, discovered that they could climb the dining room curtains and play with the tassel tiebacks.”
Owen turned to Britches and pointed a finger at him. “That’s it, cat. You’re grounded for two weeks.”
After farewells hugs were exchanged, I bid my cousin and his wife good night, and Sawdust and I headed home.
* * *
After a long night’s sleep, I woke Sunday morning feeling refreshed and re-energized. I rolled out of bed and aimed for the kitchen. My nose told me one or both of my roommates were already up, and someone had made coffee.
I traipsed into the kitchen. “Buck?”
To my surprise, my cousin sat on one of the barstools. Colette sat on another. The two were angled toward each other, talking.
Buck looked over at me. “You are a downright scary sight, nitwit.”
While Colette had already cleaned herself up, my hair looked like a tumbleweed, and no doubt my face was splotchy from sleep. But I wasn’t about to make any apologies for my appearance. “You come by before I’ve had my coffee, this is what you get.” I shuffled over to the pot, grabbed the biggest mug I could find from the shelf, and filled it to the brim. Turning around and leaning back against the counter, I said, “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I brought some wood to build a raised-bed garden out back.” Buck went on to say he’d come up with the plan while he and Colette had waited for me in his van at the flip house on Tuesday evening. “Colette mentioned a new farm-to-table restaurant that opened up in town.”
While I had no objections to a vegetable garden, I reminded Buck that he’d chastised me for my plans to run by the probate court. “I thought you wanted to get the flip house done as soon as possible.”
“I do,” he shot back. “But even the Big Man Upstairs rested on the seventh day.”
Was it my imagination, or did he look a little sheepish? Besides, what he said wasn’t logical. Here he was debating rest when he planned to spend the day building a garden.
Before I could call my cousin out on his inconsistency, Colette chimed in. “It’s a great idea. We can grow vegetables right in our yard. They always taste best when they’ve just been picked.”
Fresh, free produce sounded great. The only question now was whose domain a vegetable garden fell under. “Would I be responsible for tending to the garden as part of my lawn-care duties, or would it be your job since it would replace grocery shopping?”
Buck solved the riddle for us. “Whitney, you would water and weed it. Colette would do the harvesting.”
“Works for me.” I walked to the back window and looked outside. A number of four-by-fours and three tall stacks of boards lay on the lawn, enough to enclose nearly the entire backyard. “Just how big is this garden going to be?”
Buck raised a noncommittal shoulder. “As big as y’all want it.”
Colette took a sip of her coffee. “We might want to think of planting some fruit trees, too. They’re not just for food. They’re also pretty when they flower.”
“Speaking of fruit,” I said to my roommate, “I found Lillian Walsh’s peach-pie recipe yesterday. She had a whole ’nother box with all of her blue-ribbon recipes in it hidden under a stair.” I raised a finger to let her and Buck know I’d return in just a moment. I ambled to my room, retrieved the recipe box, and moseyed back to the kitchen, setting it down on the counter in front of Colette. “Any chance you’d be willing to bake some peach pies for me on Friday? I’d love to surprise the ladies at poker.”
“Sure.” My roommate opened the lid and flipped through the cards. She pulled out the one for peach pie and read it over. “Lillian got creative with this recipe. This calls for fresh ginger, Mexican vanilla, lemon extract, and six tablespoons of maple syrup. Dark brown sugar inside the pie, with coarse white sugar crystals sprinkled across the top. She used nectarines rather than regular peaches.”
“Sneaky.”
“Nectarines are technically a type of peach,” Colette clarified, “so she wasn’t a liar.”
Buck raised his mug in salute. “Leave it to a chef to know the ins and outs of fruit.”
“Speaking of nectarines,” Colette said, “they’re not in season here yet. Won’t be for months. I could substitute canned peaches, but it would change the flavor. Want me to check with the restaurant suppliers? Surely one of them can find me some imported nectarines by Friday. It’ll cost you, though.”
I didn’t mind paying a premium for the peaches if it meant I could surprise the gang. “Thanks, Colette. You’re the best.”
The three of us spent the late morning and early afternoon building a twelve-foot-by-six-foot enclosed bed in the backyard. Fortunately, Old Man Winter seemed to be taking a coffee break, and the outdoor temperature was in the midfifties, perfect for working on a project outside. We could work without either working up a sweat or risking frostbite. It was fun to have some time with Colette, too. With both of us being so busy with work, we didn’t get nearly enough time together these days.
While my roommate was a wiz with kitchen tools, her skills with power tools were another matter entirely. After she botched her third attempt to use an electronic screwdriver, Buck stepped into place behind her, wrapping his hand around hers to guide it. “Like this,” he said, speaking over her shoulder. “Don’t force it. Let the tool do the work for you.”
She cried out in glee when the screw hit its mark this time. “I did it!”
By two o’clock, the enclosure was complete. As Buck packed up his tools and gathered the unused wood, he promised to fill the bed for us once the home improvement stores put out their spring gardening supplies in another month or two. “They make a type of soil specifically for raised beds. It’s got a lot of compost and fiber mixed in, retains moisture well.”
I picked up the final four-by-four to carry back to his van. “How do you know all that?”
“Looked into it online.”
“You sure put a lot of effort into this project.” I slid him some side-eye. “You got an ulterior motive?”
&nbs
p; His gaze cut to Colette for an instant, so quickly I might not have noticed if I hadn’t been watching so closely.
“Now I get it.” I stood the four-by-four on its end and held it with one hand while I put the other on my hip. “You’re hoping if you build this garden for Colette, she’ll let you drop in for free meals.”
A mischievous grin tugged at his mouth. “You got me. It’s all about the food.”
When his focus went Colette again, I had to wonder if there just might be more to it.
CHAPTER 23
WHERE THERE’S A WILL, THERE’S A WAY
WHITNEY
Monday morning, I performed a walk-through at one of Home & Hearth’s rental houses. Fortunately, the two men who’d rented the place had been model tenants. Always paid their rent on time. Maintained the place well. Never made unreasonable demands. If only every tenant could be so easy to work with. “You’ll be getting your full deposit back, guys.”
They were glad to hear it. They’d bought a townhouse and planned to use the deposit for a new big-screen TV.
After I’d wrapped things up at the rental house, I swung by the county tax office to drop off a check for property taxes on one of Home & Hearth’s listings that was scheduled to close in a few days. The bank and the buyer wanted proof the taxes had been paid, which required the assessment to be paid in person given the short time frame that remained before closing.
As I waited for the receipt to print, my eyes spotted a pamphlet in a display on the counter. Bright red letters across the top read TAX SALES. I finagled one of the brochures out of the display and looked it over. The pamphlet detailed the process for bidding on properties that had been foreclosed on by the government for delinquent taxes. Although I felt sorry for anyone who lost their property to foreclosure, I also realized a tax sale could pose an opportunity for me and Buck to buy a property at a discounted price. Once we sold the house on Songbird Circle, we’d be in the market for another house to flip. Perhaps we should give a tax sale a try.
