by Laurie Cass
“Really?” she asked doubtfully. “I’ve never seen him get so excited about a toy. A treat, yes. A toy, no.”
I looked out the window. “New explanation,” I said, nodding. “See?”
Julia and Mr. Zonne caught the direction of my glance, which was aimed at the lot on the far side of the church, where a house was being built. Pickup trucks filled the driveway and men wearing tool belts were hammering away. More to the point, one of the workers was throwing a ball for a golden retriever, who was happily tumbling after it.
“Such a plebeian response,” Julia said, sighing. “I thought better of you, Eddie.”
“Mrr!”
“I think you could be a little more understanding,” Mr. Zonne said, not very seriously. “Not responding to an instinctive response is difficult.”
“You hear that?” I leaned over the console and scooped up my cat. “We need to be more understanding.”
“Mrr!”
He squirmed around, trying to get down. “How about a treat?” I reached for the cabinet that held the canister.
“Mrr,” he said more quietly.
“Okay, how about two treats?” I asked, but before I completed the sentence, he started purring, giving me little choice but to snuggle him close and kiss the top of his head.
Cats. The world’s best manipulators.
• • •
The rest of the bookmobile day went past quickly, as most bookmobile days did. We checked out books to toddlers and to grandpas. We assisted homeschooled youngsters with finding books that would help them write reports and we helped middle-aged folks find everything from a book on the history of Bolivia (“That’s at the main library, but I’ll bring it next time”) to fiction that would help them while away the hours in a surgical waiting room.
“Another fine day,” Julia said, yawning and stretching as we pulled away from the day’s last stop, at a convenience store. The owner kindly allowed us to use his restroom and I, in return, purchased more cat treats. “The husband and I are headed to Petoskey for dinner. How about you?”
“Not sure,” I said, which was mostly true, but not entirely, because all afternoon I’d been thinking about Dale Lacombe and how he’d died and some of the possibilities for why he’d died. I’d come to the conclusion that I needed to call Carmen, and did so the moment after I shut the door to the bookmobile garage.
“Dale’s last job?” Carmen asked. “It’s on Valley Street, a mile or so outside of town. The guys are trying to finish up before Thanksgiving. Why?”
I thanked her for the information and slid the phone into my backpack. “Do you want to go out there?” I asked my feline companion. When there was no reply, I leaned forward to look into the front of the cat carrier, which was buckled into my sedan’s passenger seat. Eddie was sound asleep and snoring the slightest bit. All the adoration from his fans must have tuckered him out.
“Well,” I said out loud, but quietly so I didn’t disturb his beauty rest. “Looks like this decision is up to me. And I say there’s no time like the present to talk to Dale’s employees.” Detective Inwood and Ash would no doubt have talked to them already, but since I wasn’t law enforcement it was possible I might get different responses.
I started the car, aimed it in the direction of Valley Street, and soon found that Carmen’s sense of distance was not the same as mine. When she’d said “a mile or so,” I’d expected to drive roughly a mile before I’d see signs of a home under construction. At five miles, I was sure I’d missed it and was making ready to turn around when I saw a piece of plywood two feet square stuck on a post at the end of a rutted driveway and covered with the fluttering documents that were the various permits needed for construction.
“Are you ready?” I asked Eddie, but either he didn’t have an opinion or he was still sleeping, because there was no reply.
I guided the car on a strategic path to avoid the worst of the ruts, which was impossible because the ruts had been created by vehicles much larger than my little car: pickups, delivery trucks, forklifts, bulldozers, and front-end loaders, for all I knew. As I neared the two-story house, I counted four pickup trucks. I also noted that the exterior looked close to completion.
This was good, considering it was early October and the weather could turn to winter any minute. What was bad was the fact that no landscaping whatsoever was in place. And if, as Carmen said, they were trying to get the house completed before Thanksgiving, and if the exterior wasn’t done, it seemed unlikely that the interior had progressed very far. None of that boded well for the owners.
For me, it all combined to firm up a conclusion I’d come to a couple of years ago, when Rafe had dealt with a brand-new and really expensive furnace that didn’t work: I never wanted to build a house. Some people loved the experience, but I was quite sure I wasn’t one of them.
With that firmly in mind, I parked next to a white pickup that had the Tonedagana County seal on the driver’s door, checked to make sure Eddie was still sleeping, and got out.
“I don’t care what Dale told you,” a man in khaki pants, work boots, and a nylon jacket was saying loudly. “I’m telling you that you can’t do anything else on this house until I approve the mechanical inspection, and I won’t do that until the water heater is working.”
Three other men, all dressed in brown Carhartt jackets in various stages of age and grime, faced the man. “You got to be kidding me,” said one of them.
“This doesn’t make any dang sense,” said the second guy.
“Yeah,” said the guy standing next to him. “What does the mechanical have to do with plumbing? Running the pipes is all we want to work on.”
“Take it up with the state,” the first man said, who I was now certain was one of the county’s inspectors, out on a Saturday, no less. “I can provide contact information for the officials who write the building code.” The builders muttered darkly, but didn’t ask for names and phone numbers. “Right,” the inspector said. “As soon as that water heater is functional, give me a call and I’ll come out.”
He nodded, received none in return, and headed my way.
“Hi,” I said, smiling brightly. “Do you work for the county?”
After a pointed look at the door of his pickup, he said, “Yes, I do. Ron Driskell, building official and mechanical inspector for Tonedagana County.”
“Is there a problem with the house?” I asked. To explain, I hurried on with, “I’m considering building and I’m trying to learn what to avoid.”
He made a rude noise. “I’d say avoid getting your place built by Dale Lacombe, but since he’s dead, that won’t be a problem.”
I wanted to say, Gee, tell me what you really think, but instead asked, “Do you mean his houses weren’t built well? Or was he just hard to deal with?”
“Both.” Driskell spat on the ground. “Lacombe didn’t build a single house that didn’t have some sort of permitting issue. It was either the foundation or the electrical or the plumbing or”—he turned and gave the house a hard glance— “mechanical. The guy just couldn’t see it was easier to do it right the first time and save us all a lot of grief.”
“Is that why he was so difficult, because his houses weren’t built well?”
Driskell snorted. “He was hard to work with because he was a class A jerk. I’m no huge fan of that politically correct crap, but it’s wrong to laugh at a guy in a wheelchair when he says he can’t reach the bathroom faucet on the custom cabinet you built him.”
I blinked and couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“Piece of advice.” Driskell opened the door of his truck. “Buy a house. Don’t build one. It’ll take five years off your life and make you wish you’d never been born.” He climbed into his truck, shut the door hard, and started the engine with a roar.
Hmm, I thought as I watched him go. Driskell didn’t appear to have a sol
id grasp on his temper. Could he and Dale have had a confrontation? One that had turned Driskell’s temper into murderous anger?
Dale’s workers, after incurious glances at me, piled into their own vehicles and trundled out the driveway, leaving me standing there, wondering.
As I drove Eddie back to the houseboat, I gave Leese a call and asked about the clients of her father’s that we’d dug out the other day.
“Hang on,” she said, and I heard the clicking of a computer keyboard. “I sent an e-mail to Detective Inwood . . . okay, here.” She read off the names, Daphne Raab and Gail and Ray Boggs.
“Are they local?” I asked, not remembering the details.
“Daphne Raab lives here year round, out on Dawkins Road. I think the Boggses are seasonal. I’m not sure where their winter place is. Why?”
I hesitated, then said, “I know that Detective Inwood and Ash must be talking to them, but as a private citizen, I might get some different responses. You never know what might turn up.”
“Minnie, I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but you don’t have to do this.”
“It’s Saturday,” I said, “and my boyfriend is starting a twelve-hour shift in two hours. It’s either this or start wondering if I’ve made a dreadful mistake with my life choices.”
Leese laughed. “Well, since you put it that way, I’m glad of your help. It makes me feel a little less like I’m just sitting around waiting to go bankrupt.” She laughed again, though this time it sounded forced. “I’d come with you, but considering my last name, I’d probably be a hindrance.”
She was right, but the idea saddened me. “I’ll let you know everything I find out,” I promised, having full intentions on keeping that promise. However, half an hour later, when I was standing on a front porch that was sagging at one corner, I knew I wouldn’t be telling even half of what I was hearing.
“Dale Lacombe?” Daphne Raab’s face, which had up until that moment been one of polite curiosity about the stranger at her door, screwed up into a furious grimace. “I was raised not to speak ill of the dead, but there wasn’t anyone more deserving of murder than that . . . that . . .”
“Jerk?” I supplied.
“Too mild,” she said, staring at me fiercely. “I suppose I’m sorry for his kids, but that’s as far as I’ll go.”
“His oldest daughter, Leese, is a friend of mine.”
Daphne nodded. “My younger sister went to school with her. Nice enough, in spite of her dad.”
I’d introduced myself as I had to Rob Driskell, saying that I was considering having a house built, and that I’d been told she’d had some troubles with her construction. It was an odd introduction, but it wasn’t too far outside the realm of possibility.
“She’s trying to start a law practice up here,” I said.
“Another lawyer,” Daphne muttered. “Just what we need.”
“This is a little different,” I told her. “She’s specializing in cases for the elderly. Elder law, they call it.”
Daphne sniffed. “Putting a fancy label on an attorney just means they charge more.”
Ever so slowly, I was cottoning on to the fact that Daphne Raab was not a person filled with positive energy and general goodwill toward her fellow human beings. Moving away from the attorney issue, I said, “Is there anything you can tell me about Dale Lacombe that would help me make a decision about building?”
“Not much point now in telling you not to hire him,” she said, almost smirking, “but that’s what I would have said if you’d asked me a couple of weeks ago.”
Maybe Leese’s father hadn’t been an exemplary person, but enjoying the fact of his death was out of line. I tucked my irritation into a dark corner because, after all, I was the one who’d come to her. “He was murdered,” I reminded her. “Have you thought about who might have killed him?”
“No idea.” She laughed. “The police are going to have a heckuva time sorting this one out. It’ll be easier for them to go at it from the other way around, to figure out who didn’t want that . . . who didn’t want him dead.” She barked a short laugh. “Bet it was the wife. I don’t see how anyone could have put up with him for more than half an hour without wanting to smack the living daylights out of him.”
Her expression changed to polite blandness. “Really, though, I shouldn’t say anything. I don’t want to be the kind of person who says horrible things about people behind their backs.”
Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything, but she had, and had appeared to be enjoying herself immensely up until the last two sentences. Passive aggressive, thy name is Daphne Raab. “You know Carmen Lacombe?” I asked.
Daphne shrugged. “I know who she is. It wasn’t long ago they were separated. I heard she was going to ask him for a divorce. At least she doesn’t have to do that now.”
I asked a few more questions about the construction of her house then thanked her for her help and drove away, my mind whirling with the new information.
Carmen and Dale had been separated? Why hadn’t anyone told me that particular piece of very critical information?
Which led to an even more uncomfortable question: What else hadn’t I been told?
• • •
“That’s just not true,” Carmen said. “I don’t know how that story got around and it’s just so annoying that Daphne Raab of all people—Daphne Raab!—thinks she knows anything about my marriage. I can’t believe she would say that to you! No wonder Dale had to sue her to get paid for that job. Do you know what she said about him in the deposition?”
I did not, actually, not in the least, but Carmen was in full spate and there was no stopping her. On the plus side, we were talking on the phone and I was back home in the houseboat with Eddie on my lap, so at least I had some comforting purrs to soften Carmen’s ranting.
“That woman,” Carmen practically spat, “said my husband had the morals of a snake and the ethics of pond scum. Pond scum! The next time I saw her, you can believe that I told her exactly what I thought of her.”
I did believe it, all too easily. “Do you know how the rumor started that you and Dale were separated?”
She heaved a tremendous sigh. “It got blown all out of proportion. You’d think people would have better things to do than talk about other people, but they don’t. If we could harness the power of gossip, we’d have energy enough to light the world.”
That was probably true, but I didn’t want her to get off topic. “What was blown out of proportion?”
“Oh, it was just one of those silly things that happen in a marriage,” she said airily. “It was nothing, and he was back in the house in less than a week.”
“He moved out?”
“Of course he didn’t. All he packed was a suitcase. You can’t move out on a single suitcase.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, but let it go. “What had you been fighting about?”
She hesitated. “You know, I don’t remember. I really don’t. Isn’t that funny? You’d think I’d remember our last big fight. But we don’t get to pick what we remember, do we?”
We did not, and more than once I’d wished to forget certain things that were ingrained into my psyche. Being picked last for a kickball team in elementary school, for one. For another, tripping on the top step of the stage as I walked through high school graduation and falling flat on my face in front of hundreds of people. Still, I’d survived both episodes and the experiences had made me a more compassionate person. Or so I hoped.
“Do you know where he stayed for that week?” I asked.
“With Mia,” she said, then laughed. “Maybe that’s why Dale came back so fast this time. He was tired of eating Mia’s cooking. Boiling water is about as much as she can do.”
I latched on to the first part of what she’d said. “This wasn’t the first time Dale left for a few days?”
&nb
sp; “Well, I didn’t keep score.” Carmen sniffed. “Sometimes it was Dale and sometimes it was me. Every couple needs time away from each other.”
I wasn’t so sure about that, either. My parents had slept in the same bed every night of their marriage except for the hospital stays when my brother and I had been born. But every marriage was different, and if time apart was what had helped keep the Lacombes’ union intact, who was I to say it wasn’t a successful marriage?
“What do you think, Minnie?” Carmen asked. “Do you think that Raab woman killed my husband? I wouldn’t put it past her, she’s just a ball of hate.”
The phrase was an odd one to apply to a human being, but somehow it was apt. “She did come across as a negative person,” I said. “But here’s the thing. If she was angry enough at Dale to kill him, it seems as if she would have done it when the lawsuit was under way. Why would she do it now, when everything has been resolved?”
“The legal issues might be over,” Carmen said, “but there are things that the suit didn’t settle. The woman only had to pay us seventy cents for every dollar we were owed. Where’s the justice in that?”
Daphne’s side of the story was different, of course. She’d told me she’d had to pay another contractor to finish her house because Dale never came back to finish the interior trim work and the final coats of paint, inside and out. If I asked Carmen for details, which I wasn’t about to do, I was sure she would say that Dale would have eventually gone back to finish Daphne’s job, but she had been too impatient.
Eddie bumped my elbow with his head and I started petting his sleek coat.
Where was the justice? The judge in the lawsuit had probably had a better grasp on it than anyone involved, and it was time to move the conversation on. “I’ve heard that your husband had a number of employees that he didn’t get along with very well. Do you think any of them could have killed Dale?”
“The police asked me the same thing,” Carmen said, “and I don’t know why people are saying that. Dale was a great boss. Sure, he had turnover, but this is the construction business. It’s hard work and lots of people can’t handle it. That’s all Dale wanted, was his guys to put in a good day of work. That’s not too much to ask, is it?”
