HAMMERED (Mrs. Fix It Mysteries Book 1)

by Belle Knudson

  “I’m supposed to make a statement about the thing he’s at.”

  The woman nodded. “I’ll see if someone else is here that can do that. Just have a seat.”

  Kate sat on furniture as comfortable as being stretched on a rack. Despite the bench looking like wood, she was sure it was made out of concrete. It held the chill of the air conditioning. She had her work overalls on, but they weren’t thick at all, so she felt the coolness on her butt. She was tempted to stand, but she’d been ordered to sit.

  Not that she couldn’t be a rebel, but she was off her game today. Discovering a dead body will do that.

  “Miss?” the woman said finally.

  Kate stood and moved to the glass. “Yes?”

  “Detective Johnson will see you. When you hear the buzzing, push the door to your right open.”

  Something made an anemic buzzing sound. Kate pushed the door open. Inside, the noise was even louder. How did anyone work here? She was usually alone in her tasks, so she didn’t have office mates to shoot the breeze with. If there was noise, she made it with a power tool.

  She enjoyed the solitude. After years of two boys in the house, she liked the peace and quiet of working alone. This environment would never do and had more than once convinced her that she hadn’t been cut out for an office job.

  Detective Johnson, or Ken as she knew him, loped toward her. He was a long man. Long limbs, long neck, long body. Making the transition from Mr. Johnson to Ken had taken her years because she and his daughter, Carly, had been best friends since high school.

  He had brown hair and dull, brown eyes, which belied a quick mind. More than once, Kate and Carly thought they could get something past her father, but it hadn’t happened once. Most people underestimated him.

  Kate wondered if he was close to retirement, or did he never plan to leave the job? He’d been up for the chief of police job, but Scott had been given that. Did he hold any resentment? She hoped not.

  “Hi, Ken.”

  He didn’t hug or kiss her. He was obviously in cop mode. “Hello, Kate. Follow me.”

  She did as he led her past a maze of desks. She hadn’t realized that the Rock Ridge Police Department was that big. There were at least eight desks in the small room. All with at least one inhabitant.

  Ken led her to the back of the room to a smaller room. Probably for interrogation purposes since there was a mirror on one wall just like in the cop shows.

  “Have a seat. You need coffee?”

  “Yes.”

  She could drink coffee all day. Even right before bed. Though she didn’t hold out hope that this one would have much taste. Might have been in the pot all morning. Ken grunted then left her in the room.

  She sat, a chill going up her spine. Did she need a lawyer? She hoped not. She couldn’t afford one. If her business had been doing better, she might have been able to, but she’d only started in six months ago.

  It had taken her two months after the boys had left for college for her to figure out what she was good at.

  Ken came back in with the coffee.

  “Thank you. Do I need a lawyer?”

  “If you want one, we can wait.”

  “No, I’ll answer your questions. I’m not a suspect.”

  “Everyone’s a suspect until we know time of death. Can you account for your time before you found the deceased?”

  “Part of it. The rest of it I was at Scott’s house fixing the hole in his wall.”

  “We’ll worry about that when the ME tells us the time of death.”

  That reassured Kate. She was in the hardware store prior to that. The woman would have had to have been killed before she arrived at the chief’s house. She hadn’t heard anyone else in the house.

  “Tell me about finding Jackie York.”

  Kate told him everything she could remember up to and including finding Scott’s ex-wife on his kitchen floor. She wondered how long they’d been married. Jackie York was probably a beautiful woman in her day. The kind that turned heads.

  Opposite of tomboyish Kate. She’d long ago learned to be comfortable with herself in most situations, but once in a while a gorgeous woman did intimidate her. She’d bet that Scott’s ex-wife would have been one of those women.

  She would have sported the latest in clothing with some person’s name on the tag that Kate had never heard of. If LL Bean or Carhardt didn’t make it, then Kate had no idea what it was.

  “So you fixed the hole, used the restroom, then Chief York called you. Do you often wander around your clients’ houses?”

  “I’m not going to answer that. It’s none of your business what I do on a job. I’m not a suspect and don’t have to explain myself.”

  Scott took that moment to stop in the room. “Are you antagonizing Mrs. Flaherty?”

  He looked a little better than he had at the house. He’d straightened his tie and rolled down his sleeves.

  “I’m just doing my job,” Ken said.

  “Well wrap it up. She’s not a suspect.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She didn’t even know my ex-wife. Right, Kate?”

  Kate shook her head. That was the truth. “Never met her.”

  Ken frowned. “Okay. I’ll print this out and you need to sign it.”

  “Fine,” Kate said.

  She was ready to move on to her next job. She turned to Scott. “Will I be able to get back into your house tomorrow? I need to sand and paint.”

  “No. I can’t even get into my house at this point.”

  Even though it was none of her business, she asked anyway. “Where will you stay?”

  “I have a couch in my office.”

  “Comfy.”

  He shrugged. “I’m hoping it’s only one night.”

  Ken left then came back with a piece of paper. Kate read it and it was exactly what she’d said. She signed it.

  “You’re free to go.”

  As she was leaving the interrogation room, she heard her name. She looked up to see Larry Stadt, chief of the Rock Ridge Fire Department. And a guy who had been interested in her for years.

  ***

  Kate wanted the floor to swallow her up as Larry strode across the room. This was not going to be good. Two alpha males in one room. Both mistakenly vying for her attention.

  Larry had taken it upon himself to be Kate’s protector. She suspected he had ulterior motives, but she’d made it clear that she wouldn’t date. Him or anyone else.

  She didn’t like her life being in limbo, but until there was a definitive answer about the whereabouts of her husband, she was still married.

  Larry always skated the edge of understanding that. He stopped in front of her and put his hands on her arms. Marking his territory much?

  She didn’t want to embarrass him, but she gently stepped away from him.

  Larry had brown hair, parted on the side, and soft, puppy-brown eyes. He was one of the sweetest men that Kate had ever known.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine, Larry. I just needed to make a statement.”

  “You aren’t being charged, are you? I can call a lawyer for you.”

  His taking over rankled her. She was an independent woman, and she didn’t need him to do that. “No, I’m fine. I’m on my way home.”

  Scott stepped closer to them. Of course. There was so much testosterone in the room that she’d bet she could pee standing up next time.

  He held out his hand. “I’m Scott York, the new chief of police.”

  Larry looked at the man’s hand then up at his face. He clasped Scott’s hand. “I’m Larry Stadt, chief of Rock Ridge Fire Department.”

  Kate wanted to laugh. Or break out a ruler, so they could all see once and for all whose was bigger. Instead she walked away. Let them have their male games.

  She had work to do.

  Larry caught up with her at her truck. “There something going on between you and that cop?”

  He spit out the last words
as if they hurt him to say them. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

  “Not that it is any of your business, but no. We knew each other in high school.”

  Larry’s face relaxed. “You free for lunch?”

  “No, sorry. I have to fix someone’s steps this afternoon. I’m late, but I’m sure they’ve heard that I was at the police station.”

  “Nothing goes unnoticed in a small town.”

  “That’s for sure,” Kate said. “I really have to go.”

  She looked past Larry. Ken was putting Scott in the back of a squad car. He was handcuffed. “What’s going on?”

  Larry turned in the direction she was looking. “Guess the chief is getting arrested.”

  She didn’t like the glee in his voice. She brushed past Larry to talk to Scott before the back door closed. “Scott? What’s going on?”

  “ME gave us a preliminary time of death. I have no alibi for my location, so Ken here arrested me.”

  Ken nudged Kate out of the way. “I’m taking him to the county jail. Out on twenty-two.”

  Kate knew the place. It was a fortress right next to the county college her husband had been a professor at. She hadn’t been out that way since the school had asked her to clean out her husband’s office. The trip had taken a lot out of her, and she still hadn’t looked in the box she’d packed.

  “But he didn’t kill her. He’d divorced her already. Ken, this doesn’t make any sense.”

  Larry came up behind her. “Best let the cops deal with this, Kate.”

  He might as well have patted her on the head and told her not to worry her pretty little head. If she could have, she might have jabbed him in the ribs. Not in front of two police officers.

  “I’ll be out when my lawyer springs me, Kate. Couple of hours tops.”

  He didn’t look worried, but Kate couldn’t say the same. How could they accuse Scott of killing his ex-wife? If he’d wanted to do that, being a cop, he could have covered his tracks much better than this. Besides, unless he’d changed in the last decades, she knew he’d never hurt anyone intentionally.

  From what the Rock Ridge Town Council had said when hiring him, he had a spotless law enforcement record. He’d come highly recommended. Even so, the mayor had wanted to hire from within, but he’d been outvoted.

  If Scott had not originally been from Rock Ridge, Kate suspected that Ken would be chief of police. Scott had that hometown connection on top of his exemplary record.

  Scott’s gaze bore into her. His light brown eyes darkened for a moment. He seemed to be making sure that she looked at him. “I didn’t kill her, Kate.”

  She would have touched his shoulder, but there was a barrier in the patrol car. Of course she believed him. “I know, but what was she doing here?”

  Larry tugged her away. He was beginning to get on her nerves. He wasn’t her keeper. As much as she appreciated that he’d taken her boys under his wing as their scoutmaster, she didn’t think she owed him anything else.

  “I think this is none of our business, Kate.”

  She shrugged off his hands. Why was Ken so sure that Scott did it? Couldn’t he extend a professional courtesy to Scott? Didn’t cops do that? Or was a murder too serious? “Call me when you get out. There’s something not right here.”

  “Katydid, leave this to the cops. They’ll sort it out,” Scott said before Ken pulled away.

  Katydid? No one else had ever called her that. For a moment, she was back in high school. She remembered being young and in love when world had been laid out in front of her.

  Until her mother died and she’d stayed in Rock Ridge instead of going away to college. Scott had left for university and never seemed to make it back. His parents had moved to Florida not long after his departure, and she hadn’t been reason enough for him to return.

  The anticipation of his return to town after all these years had set her nerves on edge. Now he was being charged with murder? She couldn’t stand by. Even though they had no future, she couldn’t just let him go to jail for a murder he didn’t commit.

  That didn’t sit right with her.

  She knew he was not a killer. She’d have to make sure that she found whoever was. Being a handywoman, she had access to all sorts of people. She could talk to them. Maybe they knew something.

  He’d called her Katydid. She’d let no one else, thinking it was too babyish. Now it sounded like music to her ears.

  Chapter Three

  Kate’s next job was a house three down from the chief’s. She’d postponed the Evans project. She had to repair steps on Marla Zook’s house. Marla was a single mother whose husband had died in Iraq. Everyone pitched in when they could, and Kate would only charge her for materials.

  She surveyed the steps. Marla worked from home while taking care of her two daughters. Maybe she’d seen something. Not that a single mother of two kids had much time to stare out the window, but a single mom at home might be more aware of her surroundings than say a man. Women had to do more to protect themselves, and part of that was being cognizant of what was going on around them. She may have seen something that she didn’t think significant.

  The sun was high in the sky and warm. Marla came around from the front of the house. It was a one-story cottage, painted sky blue. The shutters were yellow. Not Kate’s style but cute, nonetheless.

  Marla’s two daughters moved closer to her when they saw Kate. She smiled at them, but knew from past work she’d done on the house that they were shy. Their lives had been turned upside down by the loss of their father.

  Marla had two glasses of lemonade in her hands. Kate hoped one was for her.

  “I brought you a drink,” Marla said.

  She was still young, probably in her late twenties. She’d married young from what Kate remembered and had left Rock Ridge to follow her husband’s military career. She’d come back here when he died to be close to her mother.

  Her mother had died last year. Marla had never known her father.

  “Go play, girls,” Marla said.

  The two girls went to the swing set at the end of the yard. It sat in the shade of the neighbor’s oak tree. Marla set Kate’s glass down on the picnic table situated by the house. Kate sipped it then put it back down.

  Marla sat. Guess she wanted to talk, which was perfect. Kate wanted to talk. She tore up the existing steps as they chatted.

  “So freaked out about that murder. In this neighborhood,” Marla said. “You must be also, since you found the body.”

  “It wasn’t the highlight of my day. Did you see anyone suspicious?”

  “No one suspicious. Only the usual.”

  “I don’t live in this neighborhood. Who are the usuals?”

  “I saw the chief’s truck.”

  “He does inspections. Not odd. There are a few houses for sale here, and they need a certificate that says their smoke detectors work,” Kate said.

  She stacked the boards she pulled off the risers. She’d haul them away. There wasn’t anything wrong with them. The steps were being replaced because someone hadn’t built them properly. The rise and run ratio wasn’t right, and Marla’s oldest daughter had tripped down them.

  Kate had put Marla’s job on the top of her priority list. The only reason she’d been at Scott’s house was because he’d begged her. And she was curious about where he was living. She shouldn’t have been. Sniffing around an old boyfriend was not acceptable.

  “I never knew what he did, but had seen his truck here often. Not surprisingly, in front of houses for sale or recently sold,” Marla said.

  She gazed over at her children for a moment.

  “Who else?”

  “Jessica Stuart was out planting some flowers.”

  “You can see their house from here?”

  The mayor and his wife lived in a big house, larger than any other in the neighborhood. Being mayor was a part-time position, and he ran a trucking company for his full-time job. He’d done well and had added on to his house
as his company grew.

  Kate always thought that they’d never get the right resale on it, because it was too big compared to the rest of the houses nearby. There would be no comps to figure out the correct price.

  Not that she expected them to sell anytime soon. The mayor had held his position for the last five years. She didn’t suspect anyone would run against him.

  “I can out my side window.”

  She’d have to talk to Jessica to see if she saw anything suspicious.

  “I’m going to make some noise. Will that bother the girls?”

  “No, they just are shy around people.”

  Kate used a sawzall to disconnect the risers from the house. She had a prefabricated one to replace it and new boards for the treads. She hadn’t had to do much building on this project, and she’d negotiated the price down from Grayson’s because it was for Marla.

  Dropping the risers on top of the used boards, she unplugged her tool. She stretched after she put it aside, then she sipped more lemonade. The day wasn’t scorching, but working in the sun made her sweat.

  She sat for a moment drinking some more. The sweet and tart liquid cooled her thirst.

  “Who else did you see?” she said finally.

  Marla tapped her chin. “I did see Celia out on her walk.”

  Of course Celia would be out. Since retiring from Hershey Medical Center, she walked the town every day. Not that Rock Ridge was large, but the woman probably covered a few miles in her trek. She only walked the populated part of the town, not the country lanes.

  Celia might need to be her next stop. She saw everything. She was her best friend’s mother, but she was the town gossip. If anything untoward was going on in the town, she would know. Her eagle eyes didn’t miss anything.

  “Will you be able to finish these today?” Marla asked.

  “I’ll be done in half an hour, including cleanup,” Kate said.

  “Good. The kids keep forgetting and going out this door.”

  “Next time they do, it will be safe.”

  Kate could hear the kids next door splashing around in a pool. Not summer yet, but they were enjoying a day off because the schools hadn’t used all of their snow days.

  “I heard that Scott was arrested,” Marla said. “Do you think he did it?”