Skeleton in a Dead Space (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery) (3 page)

Em nodded and repeated. “Skel-e-ton.”

“Good girl. Let’s go find Miss Emily so you can tell her you’re sorry.”

“Okay.” Em hopped off the couch, hooked her backpack over her shoulders, and took my hand.

Over Em’s head, I silently asked the aide if Sarah was already gone and was relieved that the answer was an affirmative nod of the head. I stuck my head in Em’s classroom and said, “Miss Emily? Em would like to talk to you a minute.”

The teacher came to the door and sent the aide into the room. “Em? Are you feeling better?”

Em nodded. “I didn’t understand. I thought Sarah said something bad about Mommy. But Mommy’s going to ’splain it to me. And I’m sorry I caused trouble.”

Miss Emily hugged her. “I know you didn’t mean too. And I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay? We’ll start all over again.”

“Okay,” Em said, clutching my hand.

In the car, I said, “Em, I have to drive by two houses. Can you help me decide if I should look at the insides or not?”

Em nodded, silent with responsibility.

The first was a two-story clapboard house with an uncertain shingle roof. Years of neglect showed in peeling paint, shutters that hung askew, a wood pillar that showed rot at the base. I detected cracks in the masonry of the exterior chimney, a sign of structural problems, though that wasn’t unusual on the shifting earth of the neighborhood. Still, the house sat neglected too long. And it didn’t have much basic charm to begin with. A plain-Jane house with evenly matched windows, plain pillars on a small front porch.

“What do you think, Em?” I already knew it wasn’t a possibility.

“I don’t like it, Mommy. It looks like lazy people live there. They don’t even trim their bushes.”

“You’re right, Em. Thanks. I’ll take it off my list.”

“I’m glad I can help you, Mommy.”

The next house was a craftsman-style bungalow, quintessential WWI period. The bushes weren’t trimmed here either, but deliberately left to grow free. The house was brick, and someone apparently painted the trim within five years. The square pillars with decorative braces, wide porch, gabled dormer, low-pitched roof, and stone chimney hinted at the probability inside of wainscoting, beamed ceilings, a built-in buffet, and double doorways with visible braces. I didn’t see any telltale rot at the base of the pillars, and the roof looked pretty good. Anthony could work wonders with this one.
Please, God, no skeletons in the closet.

“Em?”

“I don’t know, Mommy. The bushes aren’t trimmed…..” That must be her criterion for judging houses.

“But don’t you think the house looks more interesting?”

Solemn agreement. “Yes, I think so.”

“Okay. I’ll make an appointment to look at it tomorrow. Now, you know what I think?”

“No, Mommy, what do you think?”

“I think you need a cone from Curley’s Custard.”

A smile lit up Em’s face. “I think that’s a good idea, Mommy. I’d like chocolate.”

“Chocolate it is, and we’ll bring some home for Maggie, so she doesn’t feel left out.”

That was just what we did, and the extra cone turned the trick. Maggie was the caring, loving, protective big sister, giving Em advice on avoiding children who were unpleasant, hugging her a lot, and telling her that she was proud of her. “I’d have done just what you did, Em,” she said.

“Really?” Em asked, her tone somewhat awed.

“Really,” Maggie confirmed.

The mood was marred by a call from Sarah’s mother, who launched into a “your-child-hit-my-child for no reason” tirade.

I tried to stay calm, saying it was all a misunderstanding. “Em thought Sarah was saying something bad about me. You said something about a skeleton in my closet?”

“Well,” an impatient tone, “that was just a joke. Everyone knows that.”

“Four-year-olds don’t,” I said and hung up the phone. Then I gathered the girls together and explained about the skeleton.

“Oh, Mom, was it gross?” Maggie asked.

“No, Maggie. It didn’t look like a person. But it was scary—and sad to think about.”

“Now what do you do?”

With my fingers crossed behind me, I said, “The police will have to find out who that person was and how he or she got there. It’s not up to me.”

I fixed chopped steaks with brown gravy for dinner, one of the girls’ favorites, and green beans and green chili rice.
Okay, Keisha, the rice is instant, but the rest of it is fresh and wholesome.

The girls were tucked in for the night, Em worn out by her day and Maggie reading a book. I told Maggie she could read for fifteen minutes, but I knew she would stretch that out, and I would forget to check on her. The pattern of our lives.

When the doorbell rang at five minutes to eight, I wondered who it could be—but then I remembered. What with Em’s “fight” and all, I had forgotten all about Joanie. Joanie and I often laughed that she shared a name with 1950s movie star Joan Bennett. Joanie said that was where she got her glamour, and I never reminded her that Joan Bennett’s hair was dark, her look seductive. Joanie was blonde, with shoulder-length hair, and, no matter how hard she tried, she gave an impression of eager instead of seductive. She had blue eyes—friendly, open, inviting—and I swear she never met a man she didn’t like. Since, at thirty-seven, she was five foot five inches and still shapely, all those men liked her equally well.

Joanie flourished a bottle of pretty good chardonnay.

“You eat dinner?” I asked.

Making a grand gesture, Joanie almost dropped the wine and said, “I couldn’t eat. Not a bite.”

If you drink much of that wine, you’d better eat
. I went to the kitchen to trot out some cheese and crackers. Then I curled up in the big overstuffed chair, wine glass on the table beside me, but Joanie perched on the edge of the couch, clutching the wine glass as though she might splinter it in her hands any minute. I didn’t have to wait long.

“I think I’m pregnant.”

I didn’t know what I’d been expecting but not that. I asked the logical question, “Are you sure?”

Joanie nodded. “I took one of those home tests this morning, and it was positive. That’s when I called you.”

“Gosh, Joanie, I’m sorry I wasn’t more help right at the time.” And then, remembering my own pregnancies, I said, “You can’t drink that wine.”

“Yeah, I can,” Joanie said.

I thought I knew what she meant, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Instead, I asked the obvious, “Who’s the father?”

“Nobody.”

“Impossible.”

“Nobody that matters. A fling. Not someone I even want to tell about this.”

I said the next slowly, hesitantly, “You don’t want to keep the pregnancy, do you?”

To my relief she set the wine glass down. Joanie buried her head in her hands. “How can I?” she said, and now she was crying. “My folks would disown me. I’d lose my job. What kind of a future would I have? What kind of a future would the baby have?”

I took a deep breath. “You know your folks wouldn’t disown you. They might be disappointed, but in this day and age I doubt they think you’re saving yourself for marriage. This is just one of those things that aren’t supposed to happen. I don’t know about your job right now, but lots of single moms have good careers, Joanie.”

I looked at her, head still buried in her hands. “Joanie, this calls for chocolate.” I keep a hidden stash of exotic chocolate bars—milk chocolate with ground peanuts and jalapeño. They’re addictive, and I have to watch myself or I’d be going all the way to our upscale store, Central Market, to buy them every day. Joanie knows that if I offer to share my chocolate, it’s a big deal.

In the kitchen, I remembered how elated I was each time I discovered I was pregnant. What would it be like to have pregnancy as a threat? When I handed her the chocolate—she seemed to have an appetite for that and ate half of the big bar—I said, “I can’t say one decision or the other is right for you, but I want you to think about it so you don’t do something you regret later.”

Joanie raised her tear-streaked face. “If I have an abortion, will you go with me?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”
Even if you don’t agree, you support a friend in her decision.
I poured more wine. “Want something more than chocolate to eat now?”

Joanie nodded.

Just then the phone rang. Who could be calling at nine-thirty at night?

It was Anthony, and for the second time in as many days, I heard panic in his voice. “Miss Kelly, you come quick. The house on Fairmount—it’s on fire. Mother of God!”

“I’ll be right there.” I slammed down the phone. “Joanie, I’ve got to go. My Fairmount house is on fire. Stay with the girls for me, will you?”

Joanie looked panicky. “What if they wake up? I…I don’t know anything about kids. I’m no good with them.”

As I grabbed my purse, I said, “If Em wakes up, wake Maggie—she’ll take care of her. If Maggie wakes up, just tell her where I’ve gone. She’ll be fine. Thanks, Joanie. I need you right now.”

And I was out the door.

The curious had already gathered in a knot across the street from the house. I parked at the other end of the block and threaded my way between fire trucks. Lights flashed, walkie-talkies crackled, and shouts rang out. Confusion at its worst, though I clung to the hope that it was more organized than it seemed.

“Hey, lady, you can’t come in here. Get across the street with the others.” An angry voice was followed by a strong hand grabbing my arm.

I pulled away indignantly. It was a policeman I didn’t know. “I own this property. Where’s the fire captain in charge?”

His attitude modified but only a little. “I’ll take you,” he said, reclaiming his grip on my arm.

I jerked away again. He wasn’t going to drag me anywhere. “I’ll follow you,” I said, my voice as strong as I could make it. But then I saw an ambulance and, sitting at the open back door, Anthony, his head wrapped in a bandage. I ignored the policeman and ran toward the ambulance; the policeman stood there bellowing, “Hey!”

“Anthony, what happened to you?”

A rueful smile and a tentative gesture to his head. “I got a goose egg, Miss Kelly. Somebody decked me from behind. Felt like tire iron or something like that. Maybe a blackjack.” Out of his coveralls, Anthony was wearing a plaid shirt and jeans that revealed more belly than the coveralls did, especially as he sat hunched over in the ambulance. He looked like somebody’s kindly grandfather.

“Decked you? Why? Who?”

As Anthony shook his head, another voice said, “You tell us.”

The fire captain. “He doesn’t have any idea. Do you?”

“No,” I said and then turned to Anthony. “Start from the beginning. What were you doing here at nine o’clock at night?”

“I left yesterday without my tools. Wasn’t thinking. Today, I went fishing. Tomorrow, you don’t need me, I work for a friend. I came back for my tools.”

“And?”

Now a sheepish look. “I knew I shouldn’t cross that yellow tape, but I snuck under it. In the back, by the kitchen. I keep a key hidden back there. Got the key, unlocked the door, and then—wham! Next thing I know I’m in the kitchen, on the floor, and I smell smoke. I ran outside hollering ‘Fire, fire,’ and somebody called the fire department.”

“It’s definitely arson,” the fire captain said.

“Arson? Who would set the house on fire? Why?”

The fire captain remembered his manners. “I’m Captain Coconauer. Kelly Coconauer. And you’re?”

“Kelly O’Connell. I own the house.”

A grin on his Irish face, complete with wrinkles indicating too many years of fighting fires. “Same first name.” Then the grin disappeared back into the wrinkles “You find a skeleton here yesterday?”

“Yes, sir.” Yes, I was a bit intimidated.

“Seems like too much of a coincidence.”

I agreed. “But what? Who?”

“Not my job,” he said. “We got the fire put out. Now the police have to figure out who and why. But sounds to me like there’s something someone didn’t want found.”

My three-in-the-morning caller didn’t waste any time.
I considered that for a moment, then switched gears. “How bad is it?”

“Thanks to Anthony here, we got to the fire early. Kitchen’s pretty much gone—he tells me he can start over pretty easily. Rest of the house is untouched. But there’s smoke and soot everywhere. ’Course we pulled the wiring first thing, and we pulled out some of the ceiling. Make sure it didn’t spread in the attic. You wait a while; I can take you through it with a flashlight.”

“I’ll wait,” I said. I fingered the cell phone in my pocket. The girls must be all right or Joanie would have called.

“I’ll wait too,” Anthony said. “Theresa’s home with the boys.”

As I turned toward the house, I found myself facing bright lights. Microphones were thrust into my face, and the questions came fast. Every TV station in the area must have sent someone.

“What happened?”

“What do you know about this?”

“Is this the skeleton house?”

“I own the house,” I said, struggling to keep my voice steady and trying to avoid looking at the lights, “but I know nothing about this. I…I don’t have anything to say.”

“How about you, sir?” One bold reporter thrust a mike in Anthony’s face, but he brushed it away, got up, and stalked off. I followed him, and the surly policeman held the reporters at bay.

About an hour later, Captain Coconauer took Anthony and me through the house. We’d spent that hour sitting on the curb, in silence, because there wasn’t anything to say. In my confusion, I forgot about the middle-of-the-night phone call I’d received.

The captain led us through the now-open front door because the steps to the back were destroyed. Coconauer assured me that “his people” would secure the property before they left.

“Great. All we need is some homeless people to drift in and start another fire.”

“Yeah. It could happen.” His voice was rueful.

I never saw a house that had burnt before, and I was almost more dumbstruck by this than I was about the skeleton. The once-white walls were covered with black soot, and the stench was unbearable. We tracked soot around, picking it up on our shoes.

“Oh, yeah,” Coconauer said. “Take your shoes off before you even get in your cars.”

With a tentative finger, I touched touch the wall and left a smear; when I drew it away, my finger was stained black. The soot covered the woodwork as well, and I thought of the refinishing we were going to do and how much more difficult it would be now.

The ceiling was torn out, and large bits of insulation hung down.

I didn’t know where Anthony would begin to restore the house, but the other Kelly seemed to sense that. “It was mine,” he said, “I’d call Black Brothers, the disaster people. Matter of fact, they probably got a guy outside already. They’re great fire chasers.”

Black Brothers was a company that cleaned rugs and furniture but specialized in cleaning up after disasters—fires, floods, and the like. So it was no surprise a few minutes later when a man stopped me as I came down the front steps.

“Ms. O’Connell? Mark Anderson of Black Brothers.” He thrust a card at me. “At your service.”

“What do you do?”

“First thing, we’ll tear out the walls…”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “They’re the original pulled plaster.”

“But, ma’am, they’re covered with soot. That plaster’s gonna smell bad.”

“Find a way to fix it, and I’ll hire you,” I said and turned away. I was too tired to argue.

“You be in the office early, Miss Kelly?” It was Anthony. “I…I want to talk to you.”

Surprised, I said, “Sure, Anthony.”

“And I bet we can bleach those walls and maybe paint Kilz on them—or I’ll look for something else that will do,” he said. “Don’t let them be tearing out those good plaster walls.”

“Thanks, Anthony.” I felt tears creeping down my cheeks and brushed them away.

The street was empty of curiosity seekers. When a man stopped me by touching my arm—why did everyone grab my arm tonight?—I almost screamed for Kelly Coconauer.

“Ma’am, I’m an insurance negotiator.” He thrust a business card at me. “I can help you get a better deal from your insurance company. You know,”—he almost snickered as if it were a joke we shared—“fudge a little on the damage and repair cost.”

“No thanks,” I said, walking away. But the man reminded me that in the morning my first call would be to the insurance company.

****

The lights still burned brightly in my living room, and Joanie’s car was parked in front. I eased the front door open. Joanie lay on the couch, sound asleep, her arms tight around Em, who was curled up next to her, snoring gently as only four-year-olds can. Both the snack tray and the wine bottle—a one-and-a-half liter one—were empty. No wonder Joanie slept. She didn’t budge when I eased Em out of her arms and, whispering to my child, carried her upstairs.

“I had a dream, Mommy, and I wanted you.”

“I’m sorry, baby. I had to go. It was an emergency.”

More awake now, Em said, “Maggie told me that you would be home soon, and I shouldn’t worry. But I was lonely, so I sat with Joanie. I guess we both fell asleep.”

“I guess you did.” I tucked her back into her bed. “Go back to sleep now, Em. I’m right here.” I sat, stroking the child’s hair until I heard that regular breathing again.

Gathering a pillow, sheet and blanket, I went back downstairs. “Joanie,” I whispered, “you spend the night right there.” I spread the sheet and blanket over her and tried to slide the pillow under her head.

“Kelly?” Joanie said, raising her head groggily. “Em woke up and cried for you, but Maggie helped me. And then we both fell asleep. She’s so adorable, Kelly. I loved holding her.”

Yeah, and you’d love holding your own baby.

****

No short mention in “Local Briefs” this time. The fire earned a picture on the front of the local section, complete with an 18-point. headline proclaiming, “House Where Skeleton Found Burns; Police Suspect Arson.” Grateful that the picture only showed the massed fire trucks, I began reading. Fairly straightforward, the article suggested that the fire department claimed it was arson because of the coincidence of a skeleton found in the house the day before. They referred to the smell of kerosene in the kitchen, so that must have been where it had begun. Thank God Anthony got out all right.

When I flipped on the local TV news, things got a lot worse. The cameras caught me looking bewildered, scared, absolutely out of control. The way I remembered the moment, I was calm and collected and answered straightforwardly. That’s not the way it came across on camera.

“Is that you, Mom?” Maggie padded into the kitchen in her PJs.

“Yeah, darlin’, that’s me.”

“You look funny,” she said. “Were you scared or something?”

“I didn’t think so,” I said, “but now I guess maybe I was.”

The phone would ring all day, I knew that, but I didn’t expect a call at home. It was Dave Shirley, my insurance agent and a longtime friend. “Kelly, we’re gonna have to get an adjustor in that house first thing. When can you be there?”

“Whenever you say, Dave. After I get the girls to school. I’ll be there by nine-thirty. Is this okay with the police?” There went the day, sitting in a burned-out house waiting for an insurance adjustor.

“Yeah. They said we could go in, but we got to leave the crime scene tape up.”

Darn. That house is jinxed. I’ll never sell it even if I get it fixed. And it will cost me an arm and a leg. Even if I sell it, I’ll lose money.

Joanie came out of the downstairs bathroom, where she’d gone to “put on her face,” a much more elaborate procedure for her than me. “Thanks, Kelly, for the talk…and the couch. I don’t think you helped at all.” She gave me sad smile.

“Sorry, Joanie.”
Nobody can help. You’ll have to figure this one out for yourself.
“Come back anytime.”

I got the girls to school, on time for once, and then ran by the office to tell Keisha where I’d be and grab a handful of papers that I could work on. I forgot about Anthony and my promised nine o’clock meeting with him in the office. He came to the house just before nine-thirty. I was sitting on the porch on the collapsible chair I always kept in the car, staring off into space, enjoying the cool October breeze and being thankful it wasn’t cool enough to drive me inside that smelly house.

“Miss Kelly? I got something to show you.” He fished in the pocket of his coveralls and handed me a gold locket, with a delicate monogram: M.W.M., scrolled in elaborate letters. The points of the letters were heightened by diamond chips. The gold felt good in my hands. This was a valuable piece.

“What’s this?”

“Found it in the kitchen. I didn’t quite tell the truth last night. I rooted around in that kitchen, searched the corners of that dead space. Figured you were so intent what was in that box, we never looked any more. And this is what I found. Stuck it down in my pocket just before I got hit.”

I opened the locket and found a picture of a woman on one side and a man on the other. The pictures were black and white, but I could tell that the woman was young, quite young, maybe early twenties. She was smiling slightly, and expertly used makeup made her eyes look large and mysterious—the whole effect was that she knew a secret. Her dark hair hung just below the chin, turning up in a pert flip while the top of it seemed teased slightly. I took a deep breath—the ’60s. The hair was the ’60s—not the rebellious side of the ’60s but not everybody was a hippie in those years. I remembered pictures of my own mother, who was born in 1945 and came of age during that decade.

The man was older—thirty-five, perhaps—and wearing a business suit, white shirt, and tie. His eyes looked intently at the camera but I could tell nothing from looking at him—I saw no joy, no intensity, just a dark look. He was handsome, if you liked the almost perfect, wavy dark hair kind of good looks. I never trusted men like that—especially after Tim.

“It’s evidence,” I said, looking at Anthony. “Maybe important evidence.”

“Yeah. You gonna give it to the police?”