“You did what?”
“Oh, they were just stairs,” she said defensively.
“Well, certain exertion could be problematic,” said Dr. Willard. “If you take your time up the stairs, it’s fine. If you run up them—”
“I didn’t run up the stairs,” she objected. “Let’s face it. I waddle and I’m not particularly fast.”
“Okay,” said Dr. Willard, eyeing the monitor, which to Kate had always looked like snow. “Your baby’s heart is beating just fine. I’d like to run some tests, but so far it looks like he or she is in good health.”
Sighing with relief, Kate smiled at Scott, who looked distrustful.
“She should be on bed rest, shouldn’t she?” he asked the doctor.
“For two months?” Kate blurted out. “Don’t be insane!”
But Dr. Willard didn’t seem to think it was such an insane idea. “The more bed rest the better,” she allowed. Before Kate could fly into more objections, she added, “Ordinarily I tell mothers to stay active, but in your case we really can’t afford to bring on contractions this early.”
“So the baby was trying to come?” asked Scott.
“Well, not necessarily. False contractions are common, but I think in your case”—she was looking at Kate, as she continued—“and at your age, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“I got it, no more stairs,” she said quickly.
But Scott was quick to correct her. “No more exertion.”
“I’m not exerting. Maxwell exerts. I drink tea and watch him from wherever I’m sitting.”
Dr. Willard was rolling the ultrasound toward the corner and asked them to give her a few minutes as she left the room.
As soon as they were alone, Kate launched into making her case. “I cannot sit at home doing nothing. I’ll go crazy.”
“Think about the baby. We’re getting on by the skin of our teeth if you think about it. This is a very complicated pregnancy. I don’t have to tell you that. God forbid you go into labor months early.”
Kate considered his point, because it was a good one. It would be detrimental to give birth so soon. The financial implications alone could very well bankrupt them; having a premature baby who would need around the clock hospital care would be a nightmare. But that didn’t concern Kate even a fraction as much as the emotional toll she would take in such an instance.
“There has to be some compromise,” she told Scott.
“Like a wheelchair?”
She snorted a laugh. “I doubt I’d be able to manage with all the slush and ice outside. No, I mean, I can work half-days, avoid stairs, and keep my heart rate down.” It looked like he might argue against her. “It’s not that I exerted myself too much. I went to the Victorian and got really annoyed that I couldn’t find Maxwell. See, it’s just that I shouldn’t let myself get mad.”
He didn’t seem convinced, but soon his expression shifted. “Where was he?”
“I have no idea. He hasn’t responded to my text or answered my call.”
As if mere mention of Maxwell had conjured him into existence, Kate became distracted by the faint sound of her cell phone vibrating in her overalls that were folded on the chair. Scott was quick to fish her cell out and when he looked at the screen, he mentioned, “It’s Maxwell.”
“Give it here,” she said and answered as soon as he did. “Where the heck have you been?”
Scott said, “Keep calm, Kate.”
She made herself breathe, as her assistant told her, “Someone tried to kill me.”
“What?” she blurted out and Scott angled his ear to the phone. “Who tried to kill you?”
“I have no idea. I’m at the house.”
“You’re at the Victorian?” she asked for her husband’s benefit. He seemed to be struggling to hear.
“I was here when you were. I was in one of the kids rooms up the hallway, fighting for my life.”
“I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Let me speak with him,” Scott demanded, but she wouldn’t give up the phone.
Maxwell was explaining, “I never saw the guy. He must have snuck up behind me, and the next thing I knew, I was being strangled. I couldn’t get any air.”
“Oh, my God.” She noticed Scott was rushing toward the door. “Scott’s on his way. Just stay where you are. How did you escape?”
“I didn’t. I knew the killer wouldn’t give up unless I was dead, so I dropped. I played dead. They held the cord around my neck for a few extra seconds and then he jumped out the window. I was too weak to even turn my head.”
“Thank God you’re okay. I’ll stay on with you until Scott gets there.”
“Who would do this?” he asked.
“I have no idea, but you’re not the first.”
“What?”
“Someone killed Mrs. Briar this afternoon in the exact same manner.”
Chapter Five
The next morning, Kate was in a mixed state of relief and dread. According to the tests that Dr. Willard had run, her baby was doing great. Maxwell, on the other hand, was not. And when Scott finally returned to the hospital to take her home, she hadn’t been able to get a straight answer out of him. He didn’t want to upset her, but what he didn’t realize was that being in the dark was more upsetting than anything he could’ve said.
The teakettle on the stove began whistling. Kate hoisted herself out of the kitchen chair, found a mug in the cabinet along with a box of Orange Zinger tea, and doctored her tea with cream and sugar as Scott lumbered into the kitchen and put on a pot of coffee.
“Are you and your team going to be at the old Victorian today?” she asked, since he hadn’t updated her on his investigation. Now that Maxwell had been attacked by the same assailant as Mrs. Briar, she assumed the police would want to dust every inch of the house for fingerprints.
“We did everything we could yesterday,” he said, adding milk to his coffee before settling into a chair at the kitchen table. “But that doesn’t mean you should go back to work on the house.”
“It’s nearly done, and I’ve told you a million times that Maxwell is doing all the real work.”
He held her gaze for a long moment. Scott knew when to press his point and when to keep his mouth shut because doing anything else would only incite her, and this was one of those times. “As long as you take it easy.”
“Thank you,” she said in an exasperated tone as Scott rose to his feet, slurping down his coffee.
“I’ve got to head out,” he said and gave her a kiss on the top of her head.
She listened to him walk through the living room and into the bedroom. As he knocked around getting dressed, she found her cellphone on the coffee table in the living room and composed a brief text message to Maxwell so that he would know to meet her at the mayor’s office. Insulating Dean’s windows wouldn’t take long and they might as well tend to the job before finishing up at the old Victorian.
Maxwell texted back right away that he would meet her there, so she joined Scott in the bedroom to get dressed herself.
Like ships passing in the night, he was out the door, but mentioned over his shoulder, “The hospital threw a wrench in our dinner plans last night so why don’t we head to Daisy’s around six?”
“Sounds good,” she told him, and then quickly added, “Could we invite Carly and Larry? We’ve been seeing less and less of them, and I’d like to spend as much quality time as possible with friends before the baby comes.”
Scott considered it for a moment. He was social in terms of keeping up with his band, The Law, and enjoyed attending big, summer barbeques, but when it came to conversing in small groups, he’d always felt awkward and on the spot. Surprising her, he said, “Sure, that sounds nice,” and then made his way through the house.
She didn’t exactly have many options when it came to what to wear, so she threw on the same oversized overalls she had basically lived in the past four weeks along with a thick sweater and woolen socks, and made her w
ay back into the kitchen to clean her mug.
As soon as she turned the faucet on, the doorbell chimed. Did Scott forget his keys and lock himself out?
Quickly—not that she was able to move very fast—she rounded through to the door and opened it, but Scott wasn’t on the other side.
Rather, it was a woman she had never seen before. Appearing in her mid-thirties, though her face had a few deep creases indicating a smoking habit, the woman was dressed in jeans and a puffy winter parka. Her mousy-brown hair was in a ponytail, though Kate could tell it was curly, and her nose and the tips of her ears were red from the cold.
“Can I help you?” asked Kate when the woman hadn’t said anything.
“Yeah,” she said gruffly, her tone deep and raspy. “I hear you’ve got a business, a fix-it business. I’m good with a hammer.”
Larry had warned her about this, and Kate didn’t have to ask to know she was speaking with Holly Griffin.
Keeping her tone even so as not to provoke the woman, whom Kate was sure had a volatile personality, she explained, “I already have all the help I need.”
“If you have more hands you can get more jobs,” Holly argued.
Larry was right. She was pushy.
“Well the fact of the matter is that business slows down a great deal during the winter months and not just for me. Most of the stores around here aren’t looking to take anyone on.”
“Do all you guys have something against outsiders?”
It was as though Holly hadn’t even heard her.
“This is discrimination,” she went on.
“It really isn’t. Have you been down Main Street? It’s a ghost town. There’s nothing I can do for you. I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Kate began closing the door, but Holly slapped her palm against it. “You’re going to be on maternity leave soon. I can take over.”
Appalled, words wouldn’t form as Kate stared at the woman. Finally, she said, “I have an assistant and if anyone takes over, it’ll be him, not some stranger who had the audacity to show up on my doorstep and make demands. Now if you’ll excuse me.”
“I thought your assistant was dead.”
“What?” The realization hit Kate like a pail of ice water to her face. Holly had heard about the attack on Maxwell, but she’d gotten her facts all wrong.
“Didn’t someone kill him?”
“Where did you hear that?”
“You’d rather lie about some dead kid working for you than hire me?”
“First of all, Maxwell Stone isn’t dead, and second of all if you don’t leave right now, I’m going to call the police.”
Holly snorted a laugh of disgust, but turned for the walkway. After watching her round through the sidewalk and climb into a brown Saab that looked at least ten years old, she shut the door.
Shaking off how bizarre their exchange had been, Kate padded into the kitchen where she filled the teakettle under the sink faucet and cranked the burner. She needed to get to the mayor’s office, but didn’t feel like diving into her day until she had a thermos of creamy tea. As she waited for the kettle to whistle, her cellphone vibrated from the coffee table in the living room.
It was Hazel.
“Good morning,” she said.
She sounded downtrodden as she explained, “I just had the most bizarre confrontation.”
“Holly Griffin?” she asked, hitting the nail on the head.
“How did you know?”
“She was just at my house.”
Hazel launched into a tirade. “She came here demanding a job. Her whole argument was that Mrs. Briar was dead, and therefore I needed to hire her. It was insane. She didn’t even have a resume or references, and she was so aggressive. I could tell she didn’t care a woman had been murdered.”
Listening to Hazel, Kate suddenly wondered about Holly. Though word traveled extremely fast in Rock Ridge, she knew Maxwell enough to trust he hadn’t told anyone but Scott and the police about the attack. So how did Holly know about it?
Was Holly running around Rock Ridge murdering people in order to take their jobs? It sounded insane, but she reasoned that anyone who had it in them to take a life had to be at least a little insane.
“Can you ban her from the library?” Kate asked.
“I’m not sure what good it would do.”
“I’d like for you to tell Scott,” she said.
But it only confused Hazel. “Why?”
“What if Holly somehow got into that office and demanded that Mrs. Briar hire her? Knowing Mrs. Briar, she probably said some very rude things to Holly. What if by doing so, Holly was provoked into killing her?”
“You think that’s possible?”
“I think you need to stay around other people at all times. If I’m right, then you aren’t safe since you sent her on her way.”
“Kate, that means you aren’t safe either.”
“I know.” After a moment, she added, “Give Scott a call.”
But Hazel didn’t confirm that she would. She only told Kate to be careful and then ended the call.
After bundling up in the foyer, Kate stalked through the snow. It looked fresh and powdery and made her wonder if perhaps there had been another snowstorm last night while she was sleeping.
The windshield of her truck was crusted over with a jagged sheet of ice so she grabbed the scraper from the glove compartment, slammed the passenger-side door closed, and began scraping the ice off. The effort made her warm and she felt her heart rate climb so she paused, taking some deep breaths until her pounding heart subsided into a relaxed rhythm. As soon as it did, she started scraping again. Soon the front windshield was clear, but the back one was still frosted over. She didn’t do as thorough a job on it, only scraping a little circle on the glass where she would need to see through if she looked in the rearview mirror.
Eight minutes later, she climbed in behind the steering wheel and cursed that she should’ve gotten her truck idling. It would’ve been warm already if she had.
Nevertheless, she pulled out into the street, driving toward the center of town and hoping the vents would soon blow warm air.
It wasn’t until she was pulling into the parking lot of the Municipal Building that she realized she had forgotten her thermos of tea. She gasped. Had she remembered to shut the burner off? Oh God. She racked her brain, but couldn’t recall doing so.
Quickly, she called Maxwell, whose beat-up Volvo was parked near the entrance.
When he picked up after the first ring, she exclaimed, “I think I left the stove on at my house!”
“What? Where are you?” he asked.
“In the parking lot.”
“Well, drive back and check—”
“Is Dean there? Is he waiting?”
His lack of an immediate response was confirmation enough.
“I’ll come up and give you my keys.”
“You want me to drive back and check?” he asked even though they both knew it was obvious that Kate had implied as much. “Fine.”
She made her way toward the entrance, and for the first time she didn’t cross through the lobby for the stairwell but pressed the call button for the elevator as soon as she reached it.
After a few moments the doors swooshed open and she stepped inside, ascended swiftly, and then crossed down the hallway to the mayor’s office.
Dean was hunched over his desk, a woolen hat on his head and gloves on his hands.
“Arg,” she groaned. “The insulation kit.”
Maxwell asked, “It’s at the house?”
“No, it’s in my truck.” Why am I forgetting things? She wondered. Is it stress? She handed Maxwell her key ring.
“I’ll be back in a second,” he told her, jogging off to retrieve the kit.
“You’re right,” she said, now that the air was hitting her. “It is drafty in here.”
“Drafty? It’s freezing,” he corrected.
Kate neared the windows behind his desk a
nd placed her hand less than an inch from the pane. She could feel a subtle breeze. Eyeing the metal frame more closely and running her hand along it, she realized where the cold air was seeping in.
“Well, it’s not going to look pretty, but I can seal the windows,” she explained.
“How?”
“The kit is airtight plastic. I’ll seal the frame with a sheet of plastic with some insulation behind it. The real issue is your heater.” When she reached it, she placed her hand near the metal radiator. No heat was coming off it so she touched it. “This is stone cold.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Dean, you can’t work in here. You’ll catch your death.”
He said nothing so she fiddled with the radiator valve, and when she turned it, a whoosh of steam spit out and then the thing clanged to life. Not a second later, she felt heat coming off the metal and stared at Dean.
“I’m trying to save money,” he explained.
“By keeping your heater off in the dead of winter?”
“The amusement park is a financial failure.”
“So you’re freezing in order to save a hundred bucks a month?”
He shrugged, sliding onto his chair.
Maxwell jogged back into the office, the window insulation kit in his hands.
“Arg,” she groaned.
“What now?” asked Maxwell.
“I need a hair dryer.”
Dean quickly mentioned, “You could try the ladies room up the hallway.”
Kate looked at Maxwell, but her assistant blurted out, “I’m not going to go into the ladies room.”
Grumbling, Kate strode off. The ladies room proved more bountiful than she could’ve ever imagined. Not only did she find a hair dryer, but also there was also a curling iron, a flat iron, a wealth of deodorant, and more feminine products than she’d ever seen in one place with the exception of aisle fifteen at the supermarket.
When she returned to Dean’s office, Maxwell was using a box cutter to open the kit for her.
“Max! My house could be burning down as we speak!”
“I’m on it!” he said, jumping up and rushing out.
“Forgetful?” asked Dean.
“But it can’t be related to the pregnancy, can it?”
Mrs. Fix It Mysteries: The Complete 15-Books Cozy Mystery Series Page 107
