Hard Hat Man

by Curry, Edna

  Jan took a step closer, then another, reaching out to touch her aunt. But as Jan’s hand reached her, she disappeared. The chair was empty. Feeling weak and woozy, Jan reached behind her for the sofa.

  Laura quickly took her arm and eased her down onto the upholstered seat. “Here, sit down. I’ll get you some water.” She went back to the dining room and got a bottle of water from the ice chest they’d brought. “Drink this.”

  Jan sipped the water, then insisted, “I saw her, Mom. Esther was crying just like the last time. She looked right at me, as though begging me for help.”

  “I’m sure you thought you saw her, dear,” Laura said, patting her hand. “But there is nothing in that chair. See how dusty it is? If someone had sat in it, the dust would be smudged or gone and it’s not. You’re probably just having an emotional reaction to being in her house and having to deal with all the stuff she left behind.”

  “Twice, Mom?” Jan asked. “I’ve never seen ghosts before. And I’m not an emotional person, normally. I’m basically calm and controlled. And I know what I saw.”

  Laura shuddered and glanced around the room. “Well, whatever it was, it seems to be gone, now. So let’s get back to work. It’ll be dark soon.”

  “Okay.” Jan rose and moved to the built-in cupboards on either side of the fireplace and opened one door. “There are quite a few photo albums in here. How about I just take them home to sort out later?”

  “Good idea. Those will take hours to go through. Will you have enough room in your little car? Maybe you could box them up and ship them to your apartment? We won’t have time to go through them all before I have to leave tomorrow.”

  “All right.” With a sigh, Jan agreed. This project was going to eat up more and more of her summer vacation time.

  They worked for a couple more hours.

  As promised, the garage returned her car, complete with new tires, so, as dusk set in, they went back to town, taking a box of photo albums to examine at their motel. After showering off the dust from their work, they put on clean clothes and went to a different little restaurant for dinner.

  The scents of coffee and French fries met their nose as they walked in. A harried waitress carrying a large tray of food greeted them with a smile and a cheery, “Sit anywhere,” then moved on to deliver her orders to a noisy table full of teenagers.

  They found a table towards the back and perused the menu stuck in a holder. A few minutes later, a waitress came over and took their orders.

  “I can’t believe I’ll be thousands of miles away by dinner time tomorrow,” Laura said. “I’ll miss everyone. But this is my job.”

  “I know, Mom. I’ll miss you, too,” Jan replied, patting her mother’s hand. “You’ll just have to convince your husband to come back for visits more often.”

  Laura pursed her lips and sighed, shaking her head. “Carl doesn’t like to travel. And it’s not easy for me to get time off the set, either. Screws up their shooting schedule, you know.”

  Jan nodded and leaned back for the waitress to set plates in front of them. “Oh, this smells good!”

  Laura eyed the chicken fried steak. “Oh, it does. But goodness, I’ll bet it’s fattening. Why didn’t I just order a salad? I’ll have to diet for a week to make up for eating this.”

  Jan smiled at her mother’s comment. Laura always said things like that, but seldom followed through. “Only eat half, then. But Mom, you know you can eat anything and never gain an ounce.”

  “Hmm,” Laura said with a sniff. “You just never see me dieting. I do it in private.”

  Jan raised a disbelieving brow and cut into her steak. No point in arguing with Laura. You could never win.

  Half-way through the delicious meal, a portly man in a business suit stopped by their table. “Laura, my dear, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

  Laura glanced up and smiled. “Oh, Erick, you silly man, you know my daughter. Jan, you went to school with Erick Andrews the year we lived here, remember? About fifth grade maybe? Now he’s all grown up and was your Uncle Horace’s lawyer.”

  Jan eyed the man, trying for the life of her to find some resemblance to a classmate without success. What was her mother up to now? Why hadn’t she mentioned that Mr. Andrews was her former classmate before? Was she matchmaking again? Honestly, this was too much.

  Erick seemed to be having trouble remembering her, too. “Oh? Then I should remember you. Please, call me Erick. You’ve grown into a lovely lady.”

  “Thanks, uh, Erick.” Jan shook his hand.

  “Would you like to join us?” Laura asked.

  “Oh, no, I’m with another client over there,” he said, waving at a table on the other side of the noisy room. “Maybe we could have dinner tomorrow night?”

  Laura shook her head. “I have to fly to London in the morning. “But maybe Jan could…”

  “No, thank you,” Jan said. “I’m going to be very busy cleaning out the house.”

  “Oh, but you still need to eat,” Erick protested.

  “Thanks anyway, but I’m sure I’ll be too tired to be good company after a long hot day of sorting stuff,” Jan said firmly.

  “Well, if you change your mind,” Erick said, pulling out a business card and handing it to her. “Or call me if any problems come up at the house.”

  He ran a pudgy hand through his thinning blond hair, a diamond ring sparkling in the overhead florescent lighting of the restaurant.

  Jan frowned. “I thought the sale was complete. Why should there be any problems?”

  “Oh,” Erick said nervously, “I’ve been hearing rumors of lawsuits. Seems some of the neighbors aren’t pleased with what is going to be built there.”

  “Why not? What’s wrong with more homes and a shopping center for a small town?”

  Erick shrugged. “Some say it will hurt the little, older shops that have been here a long time. I’d better get back now. If you need me, just give me a call, anytime.” He sidled away.

  Jan frowned at her mother, who was busily eating, pretending not to be concerned. “So you knew there might be more problems with this?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it, dear. I’m sure most of the talk is just that—hot air that won’t amount to a hill of beans.” Laura gave her a wan smile and sipped her hot tea.

  Yeah, right. Jan’s stomach churned with worry and she pushed away her half-eaten meal. “We’d better get back to the motel. You have to pack and we need to get some sleep. Remember, I have to drive you to the airport early in the morning.”

  “All right,” Laura agreed, finishing off her tea.

  Just then Kyle stopped by their table. After exchanging greetings, he said, “I saw you over here and happened to think of something. How are you getting to the airport in the morning?”

  “I’m driving her,” Jan said. “The garage replaced the slashed tires, so I have my car back.”

  “But that’ll take hours, getting through all that metro traffic both ways,” Kyle said. “You’ll waste much of the day driving instead of working on cleaning out the house.”

  Jan frowned at him. Was he going to be a tyrant about getting the house cleaned out? “I’m sorry, but it can’t be helped. Mom doesn’t drive in the city. She hates traffic and got a cab to bring her out here.”

  “I’ll order a cab to take you to the airport,” Kyle said.

  “Oh, but…” Laura said, her eyes opening wide in surprise. “I thought there weren’t any out this far. The cabbie who brought me out here said so. And he charged me an arm and a leg to come out this far.”

  Kyle laughed. “I’ll bet he wanted you to call him for the return trip, too, didn’t he?”

  “Yes, he did,” Laura said, flushing. “He gave me his card, but…”

  “We have a local cab driver who does regular runs into the Twin Cities,” he said. “I’ll call him and have him take you. Call it a bonus on our deal. That way Jan won’t get behind at the house.” He winked at her.

  J
an eyed him and then looked at Laura. “Okay, Mom?”

  “Why, yes, that’ll be lovely. Thank you, Kyle.”

  “What time do you want him to pick you up?”

  “Five o’clock should be fine.”

  “Will do. Goodnight, then.” Kyle strode away.

  “Wasn’t that nice of him?” Laura asked.

  “Yes,” Jan said, admiring Kyle’s athletic stride as he moved back to his table. Was he really that worried about her emptying the house in time for him to tear it down that he was willing to pay the exorbitant taxi fee from one end of the metro area to the other?

  ***

  Jan wasn’t a morning person, so she always traveled with an alarm clock. Now she set it to make sure Laura woke in time for the taxi.

  They’d settled into their beds when Laura asked, “Do you really believe you saw Esther’s ghost today?”

  Jan stared at the dark ceiling. She didn’t want to think about ghosts when she was trying to go to sleep. “I’m not making things up, Mom. I know what I saw.”

  “I’m sure you think you did, but there’s no such thing as ghosts, Jan.”

  “How do you know for sure?”

  Bedding rustled as Laura moved. “Everyone says so.”

  Jan hesitated, then finally said, “Maybe everyone is wrong.”

  “But…”

  “Go to sleep, Mom. Five o’clock will be here before you know it.”

  A long-suffering sigh. “Goodnight, then.”

  Jan lay awake for a long time, wondering. Had she imagined seeing her aunt? What was real and what wasn’t in this world? She believed in life after death, but did she really believe in ghosts?

  Still, she could close her eyes and remember every detail of her aunt sitting in the rocker. Could see the tears rolling down her wan, pale cheeks. The image was so real. How could it have been only her imagination?

  ***

  The next morning, after getting Laura into the taxi, Jan went back to sleep. But by eight, she’d eaten breakfast and stopped at the farm store in town for more pairs of jeans and work shirts. She had no laundry facilities, so it made sense to buy extra pairs and go to the local laundromat when she had enough for a load. She got in her car and drove to the farm.

  Today the sun shone and the temperature had already climbed to the high eighties. Working in the hot, dusty old farmhouse wouldn’t be pleasant, but she had to get it done. Thankfully, the electricity now worked, so she could use the lights to see better and also have some music while she worked. Was there any air conditioning? She couldn’t remember, but doubted Horace would have stood for spending money on that luxury.

  But when she stepped inside, she gasped. The house was a mess. The boxes they’d packed yesterday had been upended and the contents scattered. Glancing down the hall, she saw a similar mess in the living room and through the open door to Horace’s office.

  She backed outside and sank into the chair on the porch, pulling out her cellphone and dialing 9-1-1. She was promised an officer to investigate the break-in and told to stay outside until he got there.

  She stayed on the porch, then decided to call Kyle. After all, it was now his property that had been broken into.

  “Kyle, here.”

  “Kyle, it’s Jan. I just arrived at the farm and found someone broke into the house and searched it. Someone dumped everything out of boxes and drawers.”

  “Damn, not another incident. Did you call the police?”

  “Yes. They said they’d send an officer shortly.”

  “I’m at my office in Blaine. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “Thanks.” She’d barely hung up when a police car drove into the yard. Carol, the same officer who’d investigated her slashed tires the day before, stepped from the car.

  “More trouble?” Carol asked.

  Jan nodded. “Someone broke into the house. It’s a mess.”

  “Wait here while I check it out, in case someone’s still here.” The officer pulled out her gun and went inside.

  In a few minutes she came back to the door, the gun back in its holster. “No one’s here. The house has been empty for months, hasn’t it? Are you sure it wasn’t like this earlier?”

  Jan stepped inside. “No. Mom and I were here yesterday, sorting stuff, remember? Kyle was here, too. We had this stuff neatly packed in those boxes. Now everything is jumbled together all over the floor. I’ll have to sort it all over again.”

  “Did you lock the door when you left?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m from Chicago. We always lock our doors when we leave the house.”

  “Humph. Well, not everyone does, around here. But it does look like someone pried open the door. See this fresh wood beside the lock? Looks like they used a pry bar of one sort or another.”

  “Yeah,” Jan agreed, not at all sure what she meant by a pry bar.

  They walked through the rest of the main floor and found each room in similar condition, Horace’s office the worst. Books were still on the shelves, but everything from the desk and chest of drawers and file cabinets was scattered on the floor.

  “I wonder what they were looking for?” Jan asked.

  “Beats me. Do you have any idea whether things are missing?”

  Jan shrugged. “I can’t think of anything at the moment. But I really don’t know what all was here. Most of what I remember seems to be here.”

  “Well, if you think of anything, let me know. I’ll file a report on this.”

  A few minutes later, Jan heard Kyle drive up to the house and went to the door to meet him. Once again, he wore his yellow hard hat. She’d begun to think of that and his jeans and tool belt as his standard work uniform. He pulled off his gloves and hooked them onto his belt. A smile lit his tanned face as he came across the porch and opened the screen door. Once again, her heart fluttered in response. What was it about this man that made her pulse race?

  “Hi, Jan. More trouble?” He stopped at the door and fingered the splintered wood. “Looks like I’d better put a different lock on here.”

  “We’ll only need it for a few days.”

  “True, but I’d feel safer with a new lock.”

  She nodded. “Come on in. The officer has already been here and left again.”

  “Well that was fast.”

  “Yeah,” Jan grinned. “She sounded irritated at being called. I don’t think she thought it was a high priority case.”

  “Probably not. I think they’re sick of all the nuisance stuff that’s been happening out here. On the other hand, they haven’t done much to find out who is doing it and put a stop to it.”

  “Thanks for getting the power back on for me,” she told him.

  “Is the water working too? It should be if the power’s on.”

  Jan raised an eyebrow, turning to look at him. “I didn’t think to try it.” She stepped into the kitchen and turned on the faucet at the sink. “Yes. It works.”

  “Is the hot water heater electric or gas?”

  She shrugged. “I have no idea.” She turned the faucet to hot and stuck a finger in the stream of water coming from the faucet, then smiled. “The water’s already warm.”

  “Then it must be electric. We’d have had to light the pilot light before it would start if it was gas.”

  “Good. At least the burglar didn’t dump everything out in the kitchen.”

  “Maybe whatever they were looking for wasn’t likely to be in the kitchen.”

  “Yeah,” Jan nodded, thinking. “Since Horace’s office is the worst mess, I wonder if it had something to do with him, rather than Nancy or her disappearance.”

  She opened some drawers, finding them still full of Esther’s dishcloths and towels. She filled the sink, found dish soap and began washing the counters.

  “Hey, you’re not going to start cleaning, are you?” Kyle asked behind her. “I mean, we’re just going to tear everything down anyway.”

  “I’m just going to clean what I need. Right now, I want some
coffee.”

  “Okay. Have you seen the basement yet?”

  “No, we were waiting for lights.”

  “Maybe you’d rather not see it, then.”

  “I think I’ll wait. First, I’m trying to deal with the main floor.” She didn’t mention not wanting to go back upstairs right away either. She hadn’t told Kyle about seeing Esther’s ghost. Would he think she was nuts?

  “Do you mind if I take a quick peek? I’d like an idea of the scope of this job.”

  “Be my guest,” she said.

  “Thanks.” He headed for the basement stairs, snapped on the light and disappeared.

  After a minute, she heard muffled cursing, then nothing. Then Kyle reappeared at the top of the stairs and closed the basement door behind him.

  “I had to shut the water off at the main entrance to the well,” he said. “Sorry, but apparently the pipes froze this past winter. You have water running all over the floor. Lots of boxes of stuff down there now are very wet. Sorry. I should have checked that before having them turn on the power.”

  “Good thing I brought a few gallons of spring water from town, then.”

  She plugged in the coffeemaker and found the filters from a drawer. Thank goodness she’d bought a fresh can of coffee. Who knew how long Horace had had the one in the cupboard open even before he’d passed away?

  While the coffee dripped, she washed a couple of mugs, rinsed them in hot water and then filled them with the fragrant brew.

  “Thanks, I really needed this,” Kyle said, taking his mug and sitting at the table. She took a sip of her coffee and sat opposite him.

  “Oh? Busy morning already? It’s only ten o’clock.”

  He made a face, and lowered his gaze to his coffee. “Yeah, I know. But two of my men quit and I had to find replacements. Luckily, a couple of guys I interviewed a few weeks ago were still available. Who knows what will happen next?” He sighed and sipped his coffee.

  Jan chewed her lip. “Because some people don’t want you to build here?”

  Kyle nodded.

  “Why not? I’d think more homes and businesses would be good for this little town.”

  “I thought so, too. I have no idea why there’s so much opposition. It seems to be mainly the farmer on the next place and Mr. Andrews. But they have the ear of the county commissioners who okayed the project in the first place. Now there’s talk they may change their mind.”