Hello, Mr. Rock. Meet Mr. Hardplace.
In a reaction that was quite out of character, Jim stared out the back door and uttered a string of curse words. While I understood the sentiment, I had yet to see a situation change for the better as a result of having been cursed at. He tempered his language when Karen and Nathan joined us.
“Wow,” Nathan said. “Maybe Martin is a magician after all and made our deck disappear.”
“Or maybe Chester Walker would like the choice between rebuilding our deck and getting sued for all he’s worth!” Jim retorted.
“How’s Betty going to get out?” Karen asked. “She might hurt herself if she jumps down that far.”
Nathan took a graceful leap out the door and said, “Come on, Karen. Let’s get the slide!”
She hopped down and cried, “What a great idea!”
BC easily jumped down after them as they raced across the yard, despite the darkness, in search of the slide.
“At least the kids are happy,” I said.
Jim reverted to unrepeatable language.
I grabbed the phone with the intention of dialing Chester. There was a message on the recorder, so I hit the playback button. In a cheerful voice a man said: “Hello, Molly, Jim. This is Chester. It’s a little after seven p.m. I promised you that I’d get my men out there working today, and I never break a promise to a customer. We got a bit backed up today, but I told my B crew you were personal friends and to put in some overtime. They reported that the preliminary work is done, at least. Hope you’re pleased.”
“Save that!” Jim said, pointing at the recorder. “That might prove useful if we have to take Chester to court. He said he never breaks a promise to his customers. I’ll bet that’s considered a legal contract.”
“I don’t think he ever promised not to hire idiots,” I replied. “All I know is, if this is the work of his B crew, I hope we never meet his C crew.”
“This was the work of his F crew, and we both know what the F stands for.”
The kids returned triumphant from having removed the stepladder and the slide from their swing set. They propped both into the opening of the door and set about trying to train BC to go down the slide by herself. Karen called to me, “This is way more fun than the deck, Mom. You should try it.”
“No thanks. My rear end always sticks to the surface of the slide.” I dialed Chester’s house. His teenage son answered. At least I’m guessing that’s who he was, because he kept saying “Yeah” and making a noise that sounded like the cracking of chewing gum. Chester wasn’t home, and I had the feeling that his son was only pretending to write down my message, when all he really wanted was for me to get off the phone.
Despite yet another fitful night of sleep, I’d hoped to get some work done the next morning. However, just when I’d settled into my big chair in the living room to doodle until an idea for a card emerged, a radio suddenly blared from the backyard. This set off Betty Cocker’s furious barking, reminiscent of my husband’s reaction the night before. The volume was so loud that I could feel the vibrations through my slippers, but the words were still the indistinguishable, “Ya diddy dah diddy diddy DAH.” I slid open the back door and spotted four young men who looked barely old enough to shave, all wearing backward-facing baseball caps.
“Hello there,” I called, but my words were swallowed by the diddy dahs of the rapper’s actual words. I wished I had the vocal ability to belt out a stanza from The Sound of Music to get their attention. From a safe position just slightly behind my legs, BC continued to bark at them. I eased myself down to ground level between the slide and its stepladder, then promptly hit the power button on the radio.
They all froze and looked at me as if by turning off the radio I’d disconnected their own power sources. A nice-looking Hispanic man said, “Morning, ma’am, We’re here to install your sunroom. Why’d you decide to have your whole deck removed?”
“We didn’t. Your B crew did that all on their own, and we want it back. Are you guys the A crew?”
He glanced at his coworkers and said with a smile, “Sure.”
BC had hopped down after me and took a post right next to my feet, where she resumed barking at the top of her lungs. The men glared at her. “Is Chester coming out to supervise?” I asked.
“Yeah. He should be out sometime today.”
“When he gets here, I need to speak to him about the deck. And if you’ll keep the volume down on the radio, I’ll keep my dog in the house. Deal?”
He shrugged. “Sure.”
Incredibly, by noon the crew had already passed a building-code inspection of the cement footers or sub-ground pillars—whatever those things are called, which, unbeknownst to me, had been installed at some point last night while the deck was being removed. They had also installed the plywood subflooring. This I learned when I entered my kitchen and discovered one of the men using the ledge of the former window as temporary storage for his soda cans. He also told me that they’d “have the walls up in no time.” No mention was made of the roof, but I assumed that was implied.
I peered past him. It was cold outside, and, with an enormous hole instead of window, so was the kitchen. “What about the deck?”
“The deck?”
“The fact that it’s missing, yes. When are you going to rebuild it?”
“We just remove people’s decks. You’ll have to talk to some deck builders about putting one on.”
“Wait a minute. When you say ‘we’ remove decks, does that mean the four of you?”
I got my answer from their suddenly averted eyes.
“You’re the B crew? You’re the ones who removed my lower deck by mistake?”
The worker with the darkest backward baseball cap stepped beside the other man and set his own soda down. “Chester just told us to take the deck off, and that’s what we did.”
“I’m not paying anything until Chester convinces me that the deck is going to get rebuilt to our satisfaction.”
“Suit yourself, lady. You might want to move.”
“Move? I’m going to need a ‘new house by the time you’re done!?”
“I just meant Billy’s going to cut a hole for the door. It’s gonna get real dusty where you’re standing.”
True to his word, a moment later a cloud of dust arose, along with the considerable racket of an electric tool, and I left the room. A loud bang followed, which I took to be the Sheetrock falling from where the new door would be. Moments later came one of the worst four-letter words in the English language for circumstances such as this: “Oops.”
“What just happened?” I asked as I returned to the kitchen and caught sight of the “oops” guy, a gangly young man now standing in the even larger gaping hole in the wall.
“Guess I cut through a wire,” he replied. “Good thing I had the circuit breaker off or I might’ve electrocuted myself.”
“That is lucky. When are you going to repair the wire?”
“We don’t do electrical,” a paunchy man behind him said. “You’ll have to get an electrician out here.”
“Just be careful to check their rates first, ma’am,” said the Hispanic man, who appeared to be in charge of the crew. “Some of ‘em will cost you an arm and a leg.”
“You mean some of them will cost you an arm and a leg. This is your mistake.”
“Says in your contract that you’ll cover the electrical. You can take it up with Chester, though.”
“Hope it don’t get too cold tonight,” the paunchy young man said We just got a piece of plywood to put in the doorway, but it’s gonna leave some gaps.” On that note, he and Mr. Oops put a huge piece of plywood up to block the irregularly shaped doorway—a fat cross where the would-be door crossed paths with the once-was-window. With the plywood in place, the kitchen was instantly dark and depressing. Not to mention chilly.
To continue the argument, I had to either shout through the wood or go outside. I hopped down from the house and managed to slide the door shu
t before the ever-barking BC could join me. Opening the door again from this angle would be a bigger challenge. Oops and Pauncho were now fastening the plywood into place with long screws. The other two workers were packing up their tools.
“Why did you take out my window and cut the wall for the door before you had the roof and walls in place? Wouldn’t it have made more sense to make the entranceway to the room the last thing you do?”
No one answered. I silently answered for myself: Only if you care about the people living in the house. Meanwhile, the crew chief brushed his hands in a gesture that was alarmingly reminiscent of someone who thought his work here was done. Indeed, he hopped down from the subflooring and said, “Have a good day, ma’am.”
“You’re leaving?”
His coworkers hopped down as well, Pauncho, the last to leave, started to round the house, carrying his toolbox in one hand and his boom box in the other. “We worked late last night,” he said by way of explanation.
I trudged after them. “Oh, that’s right. That was when you were removing our deck by mistake! You must be really tuckered out!”
“Have a nice weekend.”
“It’s Wednesday!” I shrieked. “You’re not planning on leaving me with a hole in my wall for four days, are you?”
“We can only keep working if Chester tells us to.” He was loading up his truck as he spoke.
I darted past them to stand in front of their vehicle, a truck with a king cab, and put both palms on their hood. “Now listen up. Before any of you leave my property, I want you to find Chester Walker. Until I see him face-to-face, I’m going to sit on the hood of your truck.”
Oops glanced back at his coworkers, then stuck his hands in his pockets. “Gee, ma’am. I don’t know if I can get him out here or not.” I studied him, trying to memorize his features underneath his baseball cap in case I had to identify him in a lineup. Were the baseball caps there for a reason? Were the caps hiding their dodo logos?
I said evenly, “Then you’re going to have an irate forty-year-old woman as a hood ornament.”
Their Hispanic leader said soothingly, “I’ll see if I can find him. Can I use your phone?”
I sized him up and decided that I was angry enough to take him in a fistfight, if it came to that. As long as he would stay inside my house as a hostage, it’d be more comfortable than sitting on his truck. I accompanied him inside.
He went to the phone and murmured something about putting a message on Chester’s pager. In less than a minute the phone rang and he answered. He spoke in Spanish, but I recognized the word loco, and had the distinct feeling that I was being referred to as crazy. He hung up, grinned, and said, “He was already on his way over. Should be here any minute. Mind if I use your bathroom?”
I hesitated, calculating the odds of his escaping through the window, but decided to give my consent.
The doorbell rang just as my hostage returned. I opened the door and saw that it was Chester Walker, wearing a broad smile that I instantly desired to slap off his face. “Good afternoon, Molly. Did I tell you, or did I tell you?”
“Did you tell me what?”
“See ya later, Ches,” my would-be hostage said to his boss as he left.
Chester gave him a slap on the back, then said to me, “See how fast my team works?”
“They’re fast, all right. Right up there with hurricanes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters. I now have no electricity in my kitchen, a gaping hole in my wall, a broken window-well cover, and no deck!”
He, too, was now wearing a baseball cap over his bald head. “You’re failing to look at the big picture, Molly. You also have a half-completed room in a mere twenty-four hours.”
“But I no longer have a completed kitchen. And did I mention …Gee, now what was that concern I expressed to your son last night? Oh, yes. Our deck is gone!”
“I have good news on that front. After I got your phone message last night, I got right on it. I was able to find the dump truck and get your lumber back. We’ll be able to put your deck on again, good as new.”
“What about the screw holes?”
“Pardon?”
“Are you just going to screw everything back down the way it was or drill us new holes, or what?”
“Sure. It’ll work fine. It might be a little creakier than it was.” He gestured as he caught the fury in my eyes. “Looser boards, you know what I mean. But to compensate and so that there are no hard feelings, we’ll pick up the entire tab for the electrical and get an electrician out here first thing in the morning. Your husband won’t have to lift a finger.”
“There wouldn’t be a tab for the electrical if one of your workers hadn’t carelessly cut a wire! I think I can speak for my husband when I assure you that he will be more than happy to lift a finger to you. His middle finger!”
“Look at the bright side. Dinner at a restaurant tonight is guaranteed. And I’ll get someone out here in the morning. ‘Guess I’m going to need another check to cover the second third of the construction, as we agreed.”
“Chester, you’re swindling me!”
“I’m deeply hurt by that remark, Molly. All construction projects have their difficult periods. But once the room’s complete, you’re going to be so glad you agreed to this project you’ll want to French-kiss me.”
If memory served, he’d stolen that line from a TV commercial. “It would be difficult to put into words how very unlikely that is.”
“Be that as it may, no check, no electrician tomorrow, and no deck.” He gave me a shrug and a sheepish smile. “Sorry to play hardball, but a contract is a contract.”
“If I don’t pay, what happens?”
“Nothing, of course. We stop construction right this minute.”
“That’s tempting.”
“You realize it would cost you two to three times our price if you were to hire somebody else at this point.”
“As in somebody reputable? Somebody who knows what they’re doing?”
“You’re angry now. You won’t be by the end of next week when you’re sitting in your new sunroom.”
I gritted my teeth, trying to think if I could use my predicament in a greeting card. At the moment all I could envision was me standing between two enormous ugly men who looked set to kill each other as I introduced them: Mr. Rock, meet Mr. Hardplace. But, hey, don’t make me stand between you.
Feeling totally trapped, I got my checkbook and started writing.
“Thanks, Molly. This goes right into my savings for my son’s tuition.”
“That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about. Why on earth is it so important that your son be the valedictorian? Isn’t it enough that he’s one of the top three or four students in his class?”
His jaw tightened and he narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t ever go to college. Some people in this town have never let me forget it. I vowed to myself long ago that one fine day, my son would be valedictorian over their precious children. That’s an honor we both deserve.”
I was still fuming by the time my children got home from school, but my anger subsided somewhat when Lauren came over to ask about my shoulder. Just having my likable, sane friend there to commiserate with made me feel better, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t even spoken with her about the bomb in my backseat. I asked how much Tommy had told her.
“Just about the pipe bomb and that you needed stitches. I was going to call you, but he said that your hearing had been affected. Nadine was curious about how you were doing, too, by the way.”
“How did she know?”
“Tommy questioned her. The night it happened.”
“Does he think she did it?”
“He isn’t saying. He hasn’t arrested her.”
“My shoulder and ears are fine, but my house has seen better days.” The children and dog were happily engaged in sliding out the back door as I showed her the damage.
“At least the house itself is still standing.”
“T
hey only started work last night. Give them time.” I sighed. “All of this happened under the supervision of the man who built the contraption that protected my head while someone poked swords at me.”
“Pardon?”
“I took Stephanie’s place in Martin’s act last night.” Running my hands through my hair, I checked my skull for damage that might have escaped previous notice. As I did so it occurred to me that all of my life I’ve been under the illusion that I was a reasonably intelligent person. And yet I’d recently made some of the most blatantly stupid decisions I could imagine. I had erroneously assumed that the judge in the Garretts’ case had made the wrong decision. I’d hired a contractor without checking his credentials. Not to mention that I’d failed to prevent a murder and had gotten bit by a bunny rabbit and a pair of doves.
“I honestly think that Chester Walker has decided to do me in by getting me so angry that my head explodes.”
Later that evening Karen reminded me that she had a rescheduled piano lesson that day to make up for one that Elsbeth had been forced to cancel.
When we arrived at her house, Elsbeth’s car was missing from its usual spot just outside of her garage, which didn’t bode well. This usually meant that she wasn’t home, But in its place was a different car, a minivan, which I didn’t recognize, so maybe she’d changed vehicles recently.
Just as we reached her door she started to pull into the driveway. She gestured for us to let ourselves in. I opened the door and stood still, waiting for Elsbeth and not wanting to risk interrupting the beautiful music emanating from around the corner.
Elsbeth approached, and I smiled at her and walked in just as the music stopped. “Oh, my gosh, Elsbeth. I had no idea your daughter could play so—” I stopped abruptly at the sight of the pianist. It was Brian Underwood. Elsbeth’s daughter was seated on the couch, next to Brian’s mother.
“Hey, Mrs. Young. Mrs. Masters,” Brian said.”I was just here doing some homework with Tamara, and she asked to hear some Chopin.”
“Danielle? What are you doing here?” Elsbeth asked. “I came over to pick up Brian, that’s all. I had some errands to run, and they had a joint written report to complete this afternoon.”
Death at a Talent Show (Book 6 Molly Masters Mysteries) Page 13
