“These are old houses around here. The wiring isn’t color coded. You could electrocute yourself pretty easily with a simple project.”
“So..?” Mr. Goatee smiled.
Jess decided it was condescending. “Look. My tools are not pink, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
He held up his hands and took a step back. “I’m guessing we’re both a little tired today. How about we start over.” His brows arched into question marks over bright blue eyes.
Bright blue eyes that Jess found damn hard to resist. “Okay.”
“I’m Beckett. How do you do?”
“Beckett the potter?”
“I go by Beckett Hanley, but I guess Beckett the potter works, too. You’ve heard of me?”
“Your reputation precedes you.”
“Good, I hope.”
“I promised not to say. So, you work in the hardware store, too?”
“I own the hardware store, too.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.” She looked around. The well-stocked shelves appeared compulsively organized with signage everywhere. “Nice place.”
“Thanks. Well, that’s thanks to my employee, Dave. He’s OCD. Really OCD. His compulsion is my gain.”
“Wow. Can I borrow him to help me organize my kitchen?”
Beckett held out his hand and Jess gave him her project list. He guided her down one aisle after another, tossing things she would need into a basket, while explaining to her the perils of old houses. “Make sure you turn off the power. Do you know what kind of fuses you have?”
“What? No. I don’t even know where my fuse box is. I assume it’s in the basement.”
He smiled the same smile as before, but this time it didn’t feel condescending, more like sympathetic with a touch of amusement. “You need this.” He put a heavy-duty flashlight in the basket and a set of batteries. “Get familiar with your basement before a storm knocks out the power. And if you don’t have a box of fuses down there from a past owner, you’ll want to get some. Bring in a fuse from your box and I can tell you what it is.
“Now. After you turn off the power, you still need to check the wires for juice.” He held up the voltage meter he had already put in her basket. “You never know. And then if all goes well, when you turn the light back on it won’t explode.”
“This is a scare tactic, right? So I’ll hire you to install my light fixtures?”
“Hell, no. I don’t touch those old wires.”
Some of Jess’s enthusiasm drained away. She glanced down as Shakti decided to lick her ankle.
“I’m just saying to be careful.”
“Okay. How about we deal with something that’s not scary. Shelf liner. Do you have shelf liner?”
By the time Shakti had learned to take the stairs without tumbling back down like a soft, blonde Nerf ball, landing with a whump, then uncurling legs and ears and tail into a jumble of puppy, Jess had sorted out most her belongings. She was beginning to feel at home in the old farmhouse.
This morning, she was only half-done with her coffee when the bell rang. She greeted the phone guy. He struck Jess as larger than seemed reasonable for any human being, and she backed out of the vestibule between the front door and hallway so that he could fit inside. She let him pass and cringed as the corner of his metal toolbox bumped the interior door’s panel of etched glass. Jess ran a hand over her door, checking for damage. “Where should we start?” she said, looking around the hall where they were confronted by a choice of three rooms and two staircases. The tradesman pulled paper boot covers out of his jacket pocket and slipped them on before answering.
Jess led him down to the basement, and he showed her where her phone line came into the house.
To the right of the front door sat the music room, a small room with a single, front-facing window. Jess had set it up as her office, but already found it cramped. Perhaps it would become a reading or yoga room. Her office would be better situated in the front bedroom above the music room, which meant moving her desk and bookcases, something she could never do alone. Things like this made her miss Mitch. Or at least the idea of Mitch. Being married meant she had someone around to help with the heavy lifting. Home projects were one of the few things they were good at. They had remodeled their kitchen, doing everything themselves but the electrical. Much smaller tasks around this place seemed daunting if only because Jess was facing them alone. She explained all of this to the phone guy before coming around to asking if he could install a new phone jack upstairs where her office might go.
He turned around, his bovine face almost rising to a look of impatience. “I can add a jack wherever you want it, lady.”
Lady? She blinked at him. “Okay. Great. Upstairs, then.” She led the way.
In the front bedroom—future office—the phone guy knelt beside his toolbox with a soft grunt. The blue paper booties covering his work boots seemed ridiculous attached to his sturdy frame, like gluing cotton balls on the ends of two-by-fours. Shakti kept close to Jess’s feet, watching this man intently, occasionally wagging her tail like a cautious offer of peace. Jess decided to leave him alone with his wires and jacks. Shakti followed her. She pulled her bedroom door shut before going downstairs and through a wide arch into the living room.
She paused in front of the two windows looking out onto the porch. The other exterior wall featured a fireplace framed with a lovely burgundy tile and dark wood mantle. Built-in bookcases flanked it. The walls were last painted a mint green, and who knew how many colors lay under that. Jess planned to paint this room before anything else. Shakti sniffed her way into a corner and sneezed, her little body convulsing. Jess smiled. “Snoutful of dust?” Shakti trotted over and pushed her head against Jess’s leg. She picked up the puppy and carried her through another arched doorway into the dining room.
The dining room had two windows on each exterior wall to maximize the southern exposure. A chair rail separated the wainscoting from the poppy-covered wallpaper above it. Jess guessed the wallpaper was hung when the house was built, and was glad it had never been removed. What had surely been unseemly during one or more of the intervening decades was again appealing, having aged to vintage status. An equally old gilt chandelier with bell-shaped glass orbs hung at the center of the room, and a built-in buffet sat recessed in one interior wall, its glass-front cabinets enticing Jess to collect the sort of china and knick-knacks that would suit the house’s 1920s craftsmanship.
Jess sighed, listless with a stranger in her home. She wasn’t the sort to stand beside him and chat, so that left keeping out of his way while maintaining a certain availability. She carried Shakti through a pocket door into the pantry, which passed through to the kitchen. A small window high in the wall let in natural light above a service counter. Behind the counter stretched the narrow walk-in pantry with cabinets and drawers offering abundant storage, something Jess had never had before.
The windows here were smaller and the floorboards wider. An ugly cluster of bulbs tucked behind a frosted glass plate marked the center of the ceiling. The fridge and stove were nothing remarkable, but serviceable. A large farm table of scarred pine sat at the center of the room. Jess set Shakti down and ran her hand over the kitchen table. How many families had used this sturdy old thing to prepare their meals? She pictured women and their daughters at work, laughing together, shelling beans or chopping carrots. She gazed out the window over the old enameled sink and into the back yard. Here the yard was at its most shallow, the forest seeming to loom over the house at night when the shadows grew thick. “We should put a bird feeder out there,” Jess said. Shakti was too busy lapping at her water bowl to comment. Jess picked up her coffee cup and took a sip, considered making fresh and wondered if she would then have to offer the phone guy a cup. She decided against it just as he called out to her.
“Miss?”
Jess rattled the door to the right of the sink, checking the lock, before leaving the kitchen. “Yes?” She found the phone guy i
n the hall.
He handed Jess her receipt and picked up his tools. Jess thanked him, though he had not impressed her as interested in pleasant courtesies. Still, she was relieved to have Wi-Fi again, and a landline. She had survived with spotty cell phone coverage and no internet for almost two weeks and was feeling like a recluse. Jess and Shakti followed him outside. They watched the phone guy turn his truck around from the porch, and Jess gave a little wave. She dropped her hand as he rolled off the concrete parking pad in front of the garage and came very close to hitting her birch trees. Jess scowled as he bounced down her long driveway past the barn.
The sun shone above the barn, throwing long shadows across the yard. Where sunlight did fall, it was summer bright and promised heat later in the day. Something in the tire track under the birch trees caught the sun and glinted. Jess left the porch and Shakti followed, tripping her way down the steps into the yard. There was something there. Jess rubbed at the spot with the toe of her sneaker. Probably an old screw or washer, but she bent anyway and unearthed the object. It was much better than an old screw.
A lead cowboy, about an inch and a half tall, stood with his feet spread, six-shooters drawn, hat squarely on his head. Jess turned the little man over on her palm. He had been painted once. Flecks of blue and brown still clung to his jeans and hat, though most of the metal was worn naked by decades in the ground. “Poor little guy.”
She set the cowboy on the mantle over the fireplace and went through the dining room into the kitchen. “Time to get real, woman,” she told herself. Jess retrieved her coffee cup. “Okay, when did I start talking to myself so much?” Another reason to miss being married: there was always someone around to talk to, even if the last couple of years had been spent mostly yelling. “And I have got to set up a workable office. Upstairs.” In Minneapolis, she had friends close at hand. She could have counted on five people to pop over and help her set up her bookcases or move her couch. “This is what you wanted,” she told herself, carrying her coffee upstairs. “Chandra offered to help you move, but no.” Jess affected a nasally whine and chastised herself, “I want to do this myself. I need to start over. I’ll invite you down once I’m settled. You’ll be the first to see my new life!”
Shakti pulled herself up the steps one at a time. Jess stopped at the landing between floors to wait for her. “Come on, Bear.” A window seat looked out over the west yard and into the trees beyond it. Jess imagined a cushion and some sheers turning the space into a cozy reading nook. A rat-a-tat-tat startled her out of her reverie. By the time she located the large red-crested woodpecker having at one of her trees, Shakti had made it onto the landing. Jess carried her up the second half-flight.
Jess wandered through the rooms, imagining how they would look when she was finally settled. Originally four-bedrooms, the last owner had done some remodeling before the bank foreclosed, reducing the number of rooms, but creating a master bedroom that spanned the east side of the house with a walk-in closet and dressing area. The small, back bedroom was a mess of boxes and things Jess didn’t have a space for, things she suddenly wished she had left behind in Minneapolis. The front bedroom—future office—currently housed her television and random pieces of furniture. She inspected the new phone jack and modem the phone guy had set up. All the lights blinked go. Jess figured she might as well head downstairs and get online for the first time in weeks.
She would send her best friend, Chandra, an email now, including a slice of humble pie with a request to help her finish settling in. Jess didn’t feel like she could write until she was settled, and the time had come to get writing.
She’d calculated how many months she could live off her divorce settlement before she would need a new job. She had been optimistic about the low cost of living in Skoghall, not fully realizing how far she’d have to travel to pick up anything. And she had planned to spend some money on home maintenance and repairs, but things were adding up quicker than she’d expected. Jess had been naive and optimistic when she sunk her entire divorce settlement into this house, leaving her without any real financial cushion. And now, confronted by the reality of her situation, she had to maintain a naive and optimistic outlook about writing and publishing a book that would sell enough to support her and a growing dog.
Shakti ran into the room full speed, ears flapping, and didn’t stop until she crashed into Jess’s legs. “What’s that about?” Jess set the trembling puppy on her lap. “Hey now. It’s all right, Bear.” She kissed Shakti’s head and smoothed her fur over her shoulders. Shakti stopped shaking and lifted her chin to lick Jess. “Thank you. Mama needs a kiss.” She looked into the hallway, then mentally walked through the house—doors were locked, windows were closed. She hadn’t heard anything strange. Shakti probably tripped over her own shadow. Jess let Shakti curl up on her lap and opened her mail. “Dear Chandra,” she typed.
While Jess tapped away, detailing her life so far, Shakti snored, occasionally whimpering and paddling her little feet. At about fifteen pounds, Jess’s legs ached under Shakti’s weight by the time she finished the email. She put her hand on her mouse and just as she was about to click send, her screen went black.
“What the hell?” She pushed her mouse around. Nothing. She pushed the power button on her computer. Still nothing. The limits of Jess’s technical expertise had been reached. She closed her computer to see if it would reset itself and looked out the window. The treetops surrounding her property were dense with spring’s canopy. Stands of birch, striking an elegant contrast with their white and black bark, stood interposed with the dark trunks of maple, ash, and oak. Among the ground cover was a plentitude of green berries, unfurling fiddleheads, and sun-hungry new leaves. The color at the edge of the forest quickly vanished in dense shadows and recessed pathways long fallen into disuse, except by the critters native to the woods. It seemed to Jess that the woods were encroaching on her yard, willfully closing in on her.
She shook her head and shifted her attention to the smokehouse beyond the sugar maple. The high sun practically bleached the brick-face, the only shadow a black swath under the conical roof’s overhang. Jess shivered, though she wasn’t cold. She set the groggy puppy down and watched as Shakti stretched herself into the down dog yoga pose with her forearms on the floor and her butt up in the air. She yawned and lowered her rump, content to continue her nap. Jess stepped over her and stretched herself, reaching for the ceiling as she walked to the front door. Shakti roused herself to follow.
The screen door slapped shut before Shakti made it outside and she barked, a throaty woof. “You do have a bark!” Jess exclaimed. She was starting to wonder if Shakti would ever find her voice, if maybe barking was learned from other dogs. Jess opened the door, beaming as though her baby had just said mama. They walked out into the yard, and Jess wandered over to the smokehouse. The wood-slat door had an old, rusted latch and ring for use with a padlock. She scratched at the rust with a fingernail, then pulled the door open.
The inside was streaked black with smoke residue. Jess had never been inside, opting only to peer briefly through the door when her realtor gave her the tour of the property. She stepped over the doorsill, which was a good six inches above the ground. Unbeknownst to her, the floor of the smokehouse was dug down another six inches into the earth. As Jess’s front foot plummeted, her back foot tripped over the brick sill and she landed on her knees and palms inside the smokehouse. She gasped in pain as her right knee struck something sharp. Jess rolled back to sit on the dirt floor, gripping her knee and rocking as she cursed through gritted teeth. Shakti yipped and Jess looked back to see her standing, front paws up on the bricks, her ears held out, those fuzzy caterpillar eyebrows raised in concern. “I’m all right,” she said, forcing a cheerful tone of voice. She grabbed the broken corner of a brick and threw it against the wall before inspecting her knee. The brick had pushed back some of her skin and she could tell the bruise under the bloody scrape was going to be deep. She grunted as she stood up, and her kn
ee buckled. Jess cursed again, then looked at Shakti, feeling a little guilty. She shook her head as she reached over to scratch the puppy’s ears and further reassure her everything was all right. “Oh, my God. I need some human company.”
Since she was there, Jess paused to examine her smokehouse. The structure was nine or ten feet in diameter with wooden beams overhead where the roof and wall met. The parlor stove, designed to heat a smaller room in a house, was set on a hearth of loose bricks to keep it level and off the ground. The walls were scorched as black as the door, especially behind the stove where the short pipe opened onto the bricks. All it took to make a smokehouse, it seemed, was smoke in an enclosed space. Jess wanted a closer look at the stove. It might serve her well inside the house. She reached out to open its iron door, and as she stooped forward, the image of a raw, pink torso hanging from the wooden beams flashed before her. Jess gasped and reeled backwards. Trying to keep her weight off her injured knee, she stumbled and found herself with both palms pressed to the sooty wall for support. Jess put a hand to her heart and felt it thumping wildly. Regaining control of herself, she turned and used the door frame to haul herself over the high sill, gasping again when pain shot through her knee.
Jess limped back to the house, glad Shakti could make it up the porch steps on her own. Having gone vegetarian when she was a teenager, the image of the pink torso—a hog, she assumed—struck her as particularly gruesome. It was well and good for other people, but she didn’t want any part of it. Jess wondered if the energy of the slaughter was stuck to the smokehouse, like some ghostly imprint, and she had second thoughts about moving the stove into her office.
Second thoughts, perhaps, but not third. She really wanted the stove.
The first aid kit was under the bathroom sink upstairs. When Jess straightened up, kit in hand, she caught sight of her reflection. Her shirt bore a smudged black hand print right over her heart. Jess grumbled as she peeled it off and put on a fresh t-shirt. For the first time since moving, she also put on some mascara and lip gloss.
The Murder in Skoghall (Illustrated) (The Skoghall Mystery Series Book 1) Page 3
