Licensed for Trouble

by Susan May Warren

  Max held a cup of coffee in his yellow-gloved hands, looking ready for work in a padded vest, which he wore over a flannel shirt. “I’ve been sitting outside for two hours, waiting for you to open the door. I was getting worried.”

  “You’ve been here since 7 a.m.?”

  “I usually start work at six, but I thought I’d let you sleep in.”

  “What kind of crazy person starts work at six?”

  “The kind that is going to fix your plumbing?” He grinned at her. Dog ran around behind him, sniffing. Frost licked the grass, and the morning sun reflected off glassy, frozen dips in the driveway.

  No wonder she was shivering. “I don’t suppose you could get the heat working, could you?”

  “One problem at a time, missy. Besides, it’s a beautiful day.”

  “You’d better be saying that with coffee for me in your hand.”

  He lifted a cup toward her. “I’ll share.”

  “I’ll let you in the front—just give me a second.”

  She shut the window on him, reaching for her discarded sweatshirt. However, Jeremy’s warning simmered inside her as she slipped her bare feet into her Converse and scuffed to the front door. She still wore her sleeping bag like a cape around her shoulders.

  “Who are you, Supergirl?” Max asked, moving inside when she opened the door. Dog ran in, nearly taking her feet out from under her.

  “Hey there, Speedy!”

  Dog didn’t brake.

  “I attempted Duke this morning. Not even an eyebrow twitch.”

  “Were you serious about sharing?”

  Max lifted his cup, something cheap he’d gotten at a nearby convenience store. She recognized the label. “Hazelnut cappuccino. I’m willing to share if you’d like, but FYI, it’s cold.”

  She didn’t care if it was glacial. “People actually pay for cold coffee, you know. But that’s okay. Jeremy said he’d be by this morning. He’ll bring me my fix of the good stuff.” In fact, she could hardly believe he wasn’t camped out on her front lawn after his tirade last night.

  She didn’t exactly know why she added that little tidbit about Jeremy—just, well, a guy should know that they were onto him, should he have something nefarious in mind. She pulled the sleeping bag around her shoulders and followed Max as he tapped on the wall as if reorienting himself to yesterday’s find.

  “I have bad news.”

  “You’re out of coffee?”

  Max sipped his cup and smiled at her. “Not that bad. We need to find the source of your leak. Which means getting into the room upstairs.”

  “The room where Agatha Kellogg died? the locked room?”

  He gave her a slow nod. “If there is a leak, then it could be coming down the walls. Which would account for why they’re still soggy.”

  Max opened his toolbox, producing a screwdriver and a hammer.

  “What’s that for?”

  “We may have to take the door off the hinges.”

  “Hold on there, handyman. I think I have an easier way.”

  She left him there and returned to her room, grabbed her jeans, caught her hair into a ponytail, then brushed the Velcro off her teeth. Finally she grabbed her bottomless purse, hauling it over her shoulder as she fished around in the depths.

  Max was sitting on the stairs, one hand scratching Dog’s head. She plopped down next to him and opened the bag. Ah, a bottle of vitamins. She opened it and pocketed one to take later (in hopes Jeremy might deliver promised coffee). Then she unearthed a pair of socks she’d taken off to walk the beach with Boone—how long ago had that been? She slipped off her Converse and pulled them on. She cleaned out a half-crushed bag of peanut butter crackers and a slightly bruised apple she’d swiped from Connie’s, set those together on the step, then—

  “I hate to interrupt, but are we making camp for the night?”

  “Listen, I do have a point.” She dove back in, opening her bag to the light. There, on the bottom, where Jeremy had tossed it after breaking into her mother’s house—

  “Is that a lock pick set?”

  “Yep.” She piled the food into her bag. At least she had breakfast. But oh, she could use more coffee. Like a couple gallons. And really, they were in no hurry to get into that room, right?

  “Why are we still sitting here?”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “It’s creepy. She died in there.”

  Max gave her a long, slow smile. “Are you afraid there’s a ghost?”

  “No, of course not. I just . . . It feels like we’re invading her privacy.”

  “She’s not there anymore. She doesn’t care.”

  PJ turned the lock pick set over in her hand, running her thumb over the smooth case. “But she did care, because she left me this house. Who leaves a house, their entire legacy, to a complete stranger?”

  Max rubbed Dog behind his ears and said nothing for a moment. “She must’ve known something about you—something that apparently you haven’t figured out for yourself.”

  PJ glanced at him. “Now who’s the detective?”

  “Just learning from the master.”

  “Right.” PJ got up and climbed the stairs. Stopping briefly at the library, she let her imagination linger over the shelves, picturing a lazy morning in an overstuffed chair. Someday.

  “Now you’re just procrastinating.” Max braced his hand on the doorframe above her. “Do you want me to do it?”

  “Can you pick a lock?”

  He didn’t answer, and she turned to study his face. His gaze seemed to land not on her, or even beyond her, but inside, to a place known only to himself.

  “Max?”

  “Actually . . . I think maybe I can.”

  She handed him the lock pick kit. “Knock yourself out.”

  He took it and pulled out the pins. Then, to her astonishment, he had the lock on the door picked in less than twenty seconds.

  Okay, that freaked her out. And made her just a smidge jealous.

  The ease with which he’d picked the lock seemed to unnerve Max, too, because he turned and handed her the lock pick set without a word and with a paler cast to his face.

  So maybe he had been a burglar . . . and thus, a murderer?

  She took the kit and dropped it into her bag.

  “Ladies first,” Max said, stepping back from the door.

  “Oh no, you picked the lock; you go in first.”

  Max pressed his lips together. Took a breath. Put his hand on the doorknob and turned it.

  PJ peeked over his shoulder as he eased the heavy oak door open.

  The room smelled of years passing, only revered years instead of the kind covered in dust and grime. It seemed that the entire room had held its breath, trapping the air inside, like one might hold time in a bottle. Two grand windows overlooked the backyard, a magnificent view of the lake, and a front window looked down on the ivy twining along the cedar roof.

  A pink and brown wool rug, worn along the edges, held stacks of boxes leading up to a grand mahogany four-poster, flanked by books and books and more dusty books. A picture of a family hung over the bed, sepia toned, solemn except for the sparkle of a smile from the young daughter seated on the lap of the mother, dressed in a low-waisted dress of the 1920s. PJ guessed it might be Aggie Kellogg smirking at the camera.

  She was probably smirking right now, too, at the ghosts PJ had conjured inside her head.

  Not that she’d admit that to Max. Or Jeremy.

  PJ moved into the room, drawn inside by some magic to trail her finger over the boxes, to pick up a book, blow off the dust—Moby Dick? She set it aside when her gaze landed on a floral box on the floor beside the bed.

  No, it couldn’t be. . . .

  She knelt in front of it, staring at the lid. Max had moved into the bathroom off the bedroom, the one done up in pink tile, inspecting the damage. Now he came out, probably startled by her sudden intake of breath.

  “What? There’s nothing dead out here, is there?”

&nb
sp; PJ couldn’t answer. Just ran her fingers over the box, over the nine padded letters cut out from pink flannel. Tiny red beads outlined the first two letters, each glued precisely to the next to form two huge, triumphant initials. Initials that identified the box as belonging to . . . PJ Kellogg.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Whatya got there, Princess?”

  PJ looked up at the voice, and warmth slicked through her at the sight of Jeremy, holding a cup of coffee from the Kellogg Koffee Hut. Mr. Dangerous at her service in his black Converse shoes, a pair of jeans, and a dark leather jacket. He sauntered through the main room, where she sprawled in the middle of the floor unloading the box of goodies of one PJ Kellogg.

  He crouched in front of her, handed her the coffee. Leveled her a sweet smile.

  “I’m not sure whether to fight for you or let you go.” She took a sip. “Vanilla latte.”

  “Of course.” He picked up a small notebook with the word Diary cut out of pink felt and glued to the front. “What’s all this?”

  Around her lay two Wheaton College yearbooks; a John Denver album cover, in which she’d discovered a Doobie Brothers record; a well-worn copy of Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret; and a pair of fluffy blue pom-poms with bells. A fat blue envelope held a stack of photos, which she still had to go through.

  “It’s the personal effects of someone named PJ Kellogg.” PJ reached for a yearbook, paged to about the middle, and held it out to Jeremy. “Third row down, right-hand side.”

  “Carl Sugar?”

  “It’s my dad. He knew PJ.” She flipped the book to the back. “Here’s his inscription to his friend, PJ. Signed, Carl Sugar.”

  Jeremy read it, but PJ already knew it by heart. “All the best to my wild friend.”

  “This was PJ’s freshman year at college. My father was a junior.” She turned over a couple pages. “And here’s my mother.” She pointed to a black-and-white picture. “My parents were already dating then. But I did find an inscription in her yearbook. Look: ‘To PJ, from Lizzy, may you find your dreams.’ My mother has a note in her yearbook. It’s from PJ, something about them being best friends.” She leaned back on her hands, her stomach growling. “Here’s the strange part. I’ve been through this entire yearbook. There is no PJ Kellogg listed. Not even a mention of a Kellogg.”

  “No Kellogg at all?”

  She shook her head.

  “Then who is PJ Kellogg?”

  PJ began to pile the loot together. “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”

  Jeremy picked up the blue envelope and started pulling out pictures. He handed them one by one to PJ.

  “This house is in a few of these.” She flipped over a square black-and-white snapshot of a group of people in shorts holding tented drinks. No names, no date. Another with a shot of a snowman in the front yard of the mushroom house. A few larger color shots of what looked like the backyard.

  “Check this one out.” Jeremy handed it to her. A woman in a printed green one-piece bathing suit and cap lounged on the beach, her hand on the back of a little girl who sat with a bucket, her shovel in the sand. PJ couldn’t make out the adult’s face, but the little girl looked at the camera, beaming.

  “Turn it over, babe.”

  PJ read the scrawled print. Blinked. Read it again. “Prudence Joy and Sunny, Kellogg Beach, 1966.”

  Jeremy touched her arm. “Seems like a coincidence, doesn’t it? Prudence Joy?”

  PJ cupped her hand over his. “You’re right—Joy Kellogg. That was the woman who drowned in the lagoon. Prudence Joy Kellogg . . . oh, wait, no: Prudence Joy Barton. Barton—that was Clay’s last name. Barton Dock Works—the sailboat place. Of course! This is her.”

  Jeremy was staring at her, a frown on his face.

  “That’s why I got together with Boone last night—he summarized the facts for me. She had a fight with her husband, and then the next morning, she showed up dead in the lagoon.” She started to get up, but Jeremy stopped her, tightening his grip on her arm.

  “That’s not the coincidence I was talking about here. Prudence Joy. PJ. You don’t see the connection?”

  PJ looked at his hand, looked up at him, and sank back down. “Uh, I . . . It’s a bigger coincidence than you know, Jer. Because . . . well . . .” She took a breath, wrinkled her nose. “I really didn’t want to tell you this, but Prudence is my first name.”

  “Prudence? Your name is Prudence?”

  “If I hear one nasty joke—”

  He held up his hands. “I much prefer PJ.”

  “Hence, why I changed it. At age six.”

  “And what about Joy?”

  “No. J does not stand for Joy.”

  He seemed to be waiting for more, judging by his eyebrows-up expression.

  “I’m not telling you what the J stands for.”

  “Jessica? Jasmine? Just Joking?”

  “Stop.”

  “Maybe I will call you Prudy—”

  “Don’t do that. Really. Don’t do that. PJ. That’s my name.”

  He tapped the box. “You’re not the only one.”

  “Wait—in my mother’s yearbook, there is a Sunny Barton. This toddler is the same Sunny! And Joy is her mom.”

  “Then who is PJ? Because this box contains memorabilia from the seventies—when Sunny would have been a teenager. But is it Sunny’s or her mother’s?” He tapped the box.

  PJ ran her thumb over the picture. She looked closer at it, able to make out the Kellogg pier, the lifeguard buoy floating beyond the high-dive platform. “I think the box is PJ’s—Joy’s—but maybe Sunny kept it after her mother died.”

  Outside, Dog barked, chasing ducks probably. Upstairs, Max had begun some sort of ominous pounding.

  Jeremy took the picture from her and placed it back in the envelope. “Let’s solve one mystery at a time.” He pointed toward the banging overhead. “Has he behaved himself today?”

  “If you’re asking if he’s tried to murder me and steal my money and assault me, well, just that one time, but I gave him the old PJ flip, and he learned his lesson.”

  He shook his head, caught between a grin and a glare. “Of course you did. That’s my girl.”

  As soon as the words left his mouth, his smile dimmed. He made a face as if wishing to take back his words.

  PJ sorta wanted to reach out and grab them, pull them close.

  He held out his hand to pull her to her feet. “Actually, I have a surprise for you.”

  “Other than coffee.”

  “A thousand times better than coffee.” He put his hand on the small of her back, led her to the front door, and opened it. “Ta-da!”

  “My Bug!” Sitting in the driveway, shined up as bright as the blue October sky, sat her vintage 1960s Bug with a convertible moonroof. “When did Sammy finish it?”

  “He left a message on my machine. He brought it over this morning. I thought you’d enjoy having it back.”

  PJ turned to him and laid her hand on his cheek, patting it. “You’re a good boss.”

  “Yeah, well, the Vic gives me the creeps. Give it back to Boris. He needs the wheels.”

  “What about you? You said it was the perfect stakeout car.”

  “It is. But I have my own wheels.”

  “Your Harley? C’mon—it’s getting colder out.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Princess. Let’s grab your plumber–slash–former soldier–slash–could-be murderer and take a field trip over to Hopkins, see if we can’t jog his memory about that night he ended up in the drink.”

  “Who’s in Hopkins?”

  “It’s the last known address of Lyle Fisher—the speed racer the cops picked up that night. I’m hoping if we start showing Max’s face around, we’ll get a hit.”

  “Did you know Max can pick a lock?”

  Jeremy’s mouth tightened into a grim line. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  PJ stopped in the doorway to the upstairs bathroom and pressed a hand to her stom
ach. “This I didn’t need to see.”

  Max stood over the bathtub, pulling a long metal drain snake from the pipe. His flannel shirt lay over the pedestal sink, his phoenix tattoo visible on his bare arm. Years—maybe centuries—of disgusting black goo lay in dribbles and soggy piles on the pink subway tile floor.

  “I think I’m going to be sick.”

  “Welcome to your relic. This tub was probably installed in the forties, at best. But the plumbing dates to the early 1900s. The pipe in the tub is plugged, and that’s why the overflow didn’t work. My theory of old Aggie Kellogg falling asleep waiting for her tub to fill may have been correct because the floor was completely flooded, as evidenced by the water damage along the baseboards. The pool found the edges of the bathroom and ran down inside the wall, which is why the wall downstairs is destroyed. There’s major cosmetic damage—all your plaster has to be replaced. And in this house, it’s lath and plaster, so we’ll have to rip it all out and put up Sheetrock.”

  PJ braced her hand on the doorframe, waiting for her knees to buckle. Anytime now . . . “How much is that going to cost me?”

  “Labor? Nothing. Sheetrock runs about $10 a sheet. But you might have some structural damage. I won’t be sure until I get in there. But that’s not your biggest problem.”

  Of course not.

  “I need to get into the wall and replace the entire drainpipe.” He was winding the snake back up. “It’s an old house; the plumbing is probably rusted through. I was snaking it out, and I’m pretty sure I poked a hole in the drainpipe.”

  “When you say drainpipe—”

  “The one that runs from the tub through the wall to the drain in the basement. I have to rip down the wall on the first floor to get to the pipe. Otherwise you’ll have a swamp in the basement. Sorry.”

  “I’ll give you sorry.” Jeremy said it so softly, it seemed that Max hadn’t heard it, the way he bent over, putting his tools away.

  PJ glanced at him. “It’s not Max’s fault the place is a wreck.”