A Game of Murder (9 page)

“Wow!” Faith said as they pulled up in front of the structure. “You
have
made a lot of progress.”

Pride filled John’s chest at the words. “Walt and I have been coming out every Friday to work on the house. A few times we even got some of the younger men in the congregation to help out. I’m hoping we’ll be able to hold our first retreat next spring.”

Faith scanned the length of the building, stared up toward the roof, then at the roughly staked out plot of land in front of her, obviously skeptical at the target date.

“I did say ‘hoping’,” John said.

Faith turned to him with a grin. “Always the optimist. That’s my John.”

John liked the way she so naturally called him hers. There had been a long spell when he’d doubted that would ever happen. He liked her reaffirmation that he was hers and she was his. He’d known from the first day they met they belonged together, but it had been a rough road convincing Faith of the fact. Almost as rough as the road to the tire house. “Let me give you the grand tour.”

He hopped out of the aging Ford Ranger and hurried around to help Faith out. As usual, she didn’t wait for him. She opened the door and was sliding off the seat before he could help her navigate the long step down. One advantage to this was the amount of thigh she exposed when her shorts slid up her legs as her feet pointed toward the ground. John tried not to stare too long, but it was long enough for Faith to notice if the sly smile on her face was any indication. She grabbed the hem of her shorts first on one side, then the other, and jerked, covering the exposed flesh.

He felt the heat in his cheeks and quickly turned to address Walt and Hope, who had parked behind him and were now making their way toward John and Faith. “I’m going to give Faith a tour of our handiwork. Want to come along?”

Hope shook her head. “I think we’d better unload the plants and tools and get going before the day gets too hot.”

Faith and Hope planned to get the vegetable garden started while John and Walt installed the toilet. There were plusses and minuses to planting the garden. On the plus side, they’d have fresh greens to eat. The minus side involved regular trips to the tire house’s remote location to keep the garden from drying out in the sun. John and Walt had managed to get cisterns installed to capture rainwater from the roof before the end of monsoon season, but without electricity there was no way to hook up a timer to an irrigation system. At least, not this year. Hopefully, they’d have some solar panels on the roof next year and be able to rig some kind of automatic watering system before another dry season. John sighed. He hadn’t realized how much work the tire house would be when he started construction. Pounding dirt into the tires and stacking them into walls had been the easy part.

“We’ll be quick,” Faith said.

Hope raised her eyebrows and Faith laughed. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t get carried away.”

Okay, he did have a habit of talking too long when he was enthusiastic about something, but John doubted he was quite as bad as Hope and Faith thought. “Shall we begin?”

As soon as Hope and Walt headed toward the back of Walt’s truck, John extended his hand to Faith.

Faith reached her hand towards his with an exaggerated sense of formality. “Lead on, oh master builder.”

He escorted her the ten feet to the house. The lower half of the outside wall was made from tires filled with dirt, the upper half was covered in plywood. He opened the door. She stepped through, then paused. “You don’t keep the door locked?”

“I haven’t so far. But I suppose I’ll need to lock up the house tonight. Wouldn’t want someone stealing our brand new toilet.” He stepped inside, inhaled the scent of warm wood and rubber. He gestured at the dim space that ran the length of the building. “This will eventually be a greenhouse where we can grow plants and flowers year round. This much glass is expensive, which is why we put up temporary plywood panels, except for the far end.” He pointed toward an area where the sun shone through a large window. “I don’t want to put the rest of it in too soon. There’s too much chance of vandals or the odd hail storm breaking the panes.”

“Won’t that be an ongoing problem?” Faith asked. “It’s not like you’re going to live here.”

John reached up and scratched the stubble he had decided wasn’t worth shaving off this morning. “Uh, not at first.”

Her head jerked up. “What do you mean?”

He hadn’t told her about his long-term plans, thinking it was a little early in their relationship to go into that kind of detail, but he’d better talk about them now that she’d asked. “Well, I kind of thought I would live here.” Noting the look of alarm on her face, he hurried to add, “Not right away. I’m thinking of retirement, which is a number of years down the road, and maybe spending some of my time off here once the tire house is finished. The quiet and isolation is a welcome change from the city.”

Doubt shadowed Faith’s face. Apparently she wasn’t as fond of the idea as he was. Something they’d need to discuss in the future. “Anyway, let’s go inside and see what
is
finished.”

He led her into the main room of the tire house, a combination living, kitchen, dining, and meeting area. Colored light played across a section of the polished cement floor.

“How pretty!” Faith exclaimed. She turned toward the front of the building to see where the effect came from.

John smiled as he motioned at the wall overlooking the dining area, where he’d embedded glass bottles in as many colors as he could collect. “The bottle wall was one reason to put in that section of greenhouse glass—to let the light shine through. I saw this done on one of the Earthship websites and thought it would be something you’d like.”

“I’d like?” Her voice held a teasing note.

“Well, I like it, too,” John admitted. “I thought it would be pretty to look at while eating.”

“As least there’s a table.”

“And chairs,” John said. He’d managed to find a round table and four chairs made of rough-hewn oak in not too bad condition at the Habistore when he went looking for building supplies. “Furniture is one of the last things on my list, but we need somewhere to sit when we take a break from working. This will be the dining room. The living room will be on the other side of the entrance.”

Faith turned and evaluated the empty space. “A sleeping bag?”

John was so used to it, he hadn’t even noticed the sleeping bag stretched out in the living room area. “On occasion, I spend the night. It’s easier than going back into town. That’s also why I keep a battery-powered lantern here.”

John continued on and pointed out the kitchen counter built into the L-shaped walls opposite the dining area. “We’ve roughed out the sink and a space for the refrigerator and stove, but those will have to wait until there’s electricity and running water.”

“What’s through there?” Faith pointed at a doorway leading off the dining area.

John felt his face redden again. There were times he cursed his fair complexion and its inability to hide his emotions. “The master bedroom.” The words emerged as more of a mumble than a declaration.

“Oooohhh, let me see!”

Faith was exaggerating to add to his embarrassment. It was tempting to counter her teasing with some of his own, but he was too flustered to come up with something clever.

* * *

Faith had to work hard to keep from laughing out loud. John was such an innocent. Or maybe it was his Southern gentleman background. She wondered if men from Alabama refrained from discussing anything alluding to bedrooms and sex when around women. Especially women they weren’t married to. Regardless of the cause, she took a mischievous delight in teasing him.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” She strode through the doorless frame and took a look around. Faith felt the warmth of his body, smelled the scent of him, as he stepped up beside her.

“It’s not quite finished yet.”
 

That had to be the understatement of the century. Tire treads poked out from the rough dirt walls, not yet finished with plaster or tile or any other covering. The earthy aroma of the soil mingled with a faint trace of rubber. Under foot, the cement floor lay as rough as sandpaper, not yet having been polished and coated to the high sheen of the main living area. “Kind of large for a bedroom, isn’t it?”

“It’s not just a bedroom.”

“Oh?” Faith turned so she could see his face. His eyes avoided hers. Surely the half-built bedroom couldn’t be causing him embarrassment. The way the space looked now, it could have been a library or meeting room.

He took a deep breath. “It’s kind of a suite.”

He spread his arms to take in the left-hand wall. “I plan on building a master bath with separate toilet and tub areas in this part. Back there”—he pointed to the rear wall—“will be a walk-in closet with plenty of room.”

The extravagance of the room was so unlike John. From what Faith had observed, he was a simple person, not impressed with material things. Whatever had possessed him to plan a master bedroom suite worthy of the Ritz Carlton? It reminded her of a penthouse suite. Or a honeymoon suite.

Alarm loosed a surge of adrenalin, sent blood coursing through her arteries, as she grasped what might be in John’s mind. “Let’s see the rest of the house.” She spun around and sprinted through the door, trying to ease the pounding in her head.

John followed right behind her. Perhaps he was just as glad as she was to avoid confronting what the room implied. He pointed toward the opposite side of the great room. “Let’s look at the guest wing.”

They crossed the living area and entered a hallway. The clatter of something rattling to the floor in the room to the left greeted them. Glancing inside, they saw Walt pull an instruction sheet from a rear pocket and start reading it.

“Hi, Walt,” Faith said.

Walt nodded at Faith, then said to John, “Any time you’re done with the tour, we can get to work. I figured we’d attach the pipe to the bottom of the toilet before we lowered it into place.”

“Good idea. I’ll be with you in a minute.” He put his hand in the small of Faith’s back, his touch electric with new meaning, and guided her to the doorway on the other side of the hall. “This is one of the guest bedrooms. There are four more like it farther down the hall.”

The guest room occupied about half the space of the master, and was about just as finished. John had opted for adobe bricks for the interior walls here rather than more tires or more expensive wood framing. At least the floor had been polished in this one.

“We’ll skip the other rooms, if you don’t mind,” John said. “I’d better hurry and help Walt as soon as I can. But there is another thing I’d like to show you.”

Faith couldn’t imagine what that might be, but she followed John back toward the great room. This time he turned into a nook at the back of the house. A door led to the outside. He opened it, and they stepped out onto a tiny terrace made of paving stones, no bigger than ten by ten, with earthen berms towering over their heads. To their right, a shed-like structure clung to the rear wall.

“Small back yard,” Faith said dryly.

“It’s not really meant to be a yard,” John said. “More of an escape hatch in case of fire. Not much is flammable, but, according to code, you need a second way out of a dwelling.”

“You can’t escape far.” Faith estimated the top of the berms rose roughly fifteen feet over their heads.

John followed her gaze. “Eventually I’m going to build a staircase along the far wall to rectify that. But there’s another reason we need this space.” He took her hand. “Come with me.”

John led her to the rear of the bumped out section, revealing a set of steps that led down about four feet. A door stood in the back of the shed, which John opened. He stepped inside. Faith followed him into the dark.

“This is where the composting unit for the toilet will go.” There was a note of pride in his voice.

Faith wasn’t sure she needed to know about the composting unit, or why John thought he needed to show off this achievement. A born city girl, the workings of a house were somewhat of a mystery to her. When something needed attention in her own home, she called in a plumber or an electrician or a handyman, then proceeded to go about her business while a professional did whatever was necessary to rectify the problem.

Faith sniffed. “Glad I won’t need to come here. I can’t imagine what it will smell like.”

John looked surprised. “It shouldn’t smell at all. First of all, there’s a venting system that keeps fresh air flowing through the unit and up through a pipe above the roofline of the house. Secondly, the bacteria inside the drum decompose the waste without generating any odors.”

Faith was skeptical. She’d been in the subways of New York, including sections redolent with urine. The breeze that blew through the tunnels hadn’t improved the air quality. Good thing she didn’t intend on spending a whole lot of time at the tire house. A three-day weekend would probably be her limit.

Her thoughts skittered away from contemplating longer stays. She liked the desert areas of Arizona, but she preferred the conveniences of civilization. Like electricity and Wi-Fi. And plumbing that used water. And sewers.

There was plenty of time for that discussion. After all, she and John had only been dating for a couple of months. Yes, they had been intense months, but it was much too early to be contemplating anything long term. Despite the honeymoon suite.

The next day, Faith sat at the small table at the rear of the Prickly Pear Café, waiting for Hope to have a free minute to discuss next month’s performance schedule and any other changes she might need to her website. After opening her laptop and loading the Excel spreadsheet where she kept track of her consulting work, Faith took a sip of her vanilla latte, savoring the combination of earthy coffee and sweet syrup on her tongue. To pass the time, she perused the new exhibit of children’s artwork tacked to the bulletin board on the wall. Hope encouraged children from the nearby elementary school to bring in their pictures and, in return, displayed them for the community to admire. A picture of a dog on which an adult had lettered “Luke” in one corner made Faith smile.