Skeleton in a Dead Space (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery) (5 page)

The idea of Tim taking the girls to California sent cold fear into my heart. They were
my
girls, and I wouldn’t be separated from them. Besides, Tim could hardly be called an ideal father. No, there was no way that would happen. I’d make sure of it. If he once got them to California, I might never get them back.

“No, Tim, they’re safe. And they’re in school. They can’t just leave. You don’t need to come. Believe me, they’re safe.”
And it’s not our front door, it’s mine.

His voice turned cold. All the charm was gone. “Kelly, they’re my kids too, and I don’t want them in danger. I don’t know what stupidity you’re in the middle of, but I won’t have the girls involved. I’ll go to court and get an order.”

That ripped it. “Go on and go to court, Tim. It will cost you money. Money that you should be sending to your children. No judge in Tarrant County will give you custody, even partial custody. You left. You haven’t called or anything for six months, and you haven’t paid child support.” The strength of my voice surprised me, but I was angry, really angry.

Dimly I was aware that Maggie crept out of the kitchen, as though she didn’t want to hear. I cursed myself for talking so loudly—and Tim for causing me to.

He slipped back into his charming role. “Kelly, Kelly, I’m just trying to help.”

“Don’t try,” I said. “You will make things worse for me.”

“I’m coming to Fort Worth,” he said and hung up.

How do I tell the girls that he’s coming? What do I do?
My thoughts were almost desperate, and there was no one I could turn to for advice. I could have called Joanie, but she had her own problems—and she was preoccupied with them. Well, I guess that wasn’t fair—an unexpected pregnancy is a major problem. Besides, her advice usually wasn’t practical. But still I had no one to call.

Somehow I managed to hide the anger and the fear as I got the girls ready for the day and off to school. Maggie was subdued, casting looks at me as though she were wary of something, but at the school, she kissed me lightly on the cheek and said, “Have a good day, Mom.” When I walked Em into pre-school, the child said, “Mommy, something’s bothering you. Can I kiss it and make it better?”

I smiled. “Yes, Em, you can kiss it right here,” and I pointed to my right temple. “It’s a thought in my brain that I don’t like, and a kiss will make it disappear.”

“Okay,” Em said, standing on tiptoe as I bent down. She planted a big smack on my forehead.

“Thanks, Em. I know it will be a good day now.”

As I drove away from the pre-school, I wished I believed that.

When I walked into the office, Keisha took one look at me and turned back to her desk. But when I muttered, “Morning,” she turned and asked, “You want a doughnut? Might do you good.”

I considered. “No, I want a Starbucks latte and a Danish.”

“You got it,” Keisha said, picking up her purse. “You look like you need it.”

I nodded. “Take some money out of petty cash.”

At my desk, I tried to marshal my thoughts. I made a “to do” list, topped with replacing the door. Replacing the door. Of course, I had to find Anthony. One glance at my watch, and I knew that if he had a job today, he’d be long gone
.
I dialed his home, not expecting an answer.

To my surprise, Theresa answered.

“Theresa? What are you doing home? Why aren’t you in school?” Then I recovered a bit of common sense. “This is Kelly.”

“Yes, ma’am, Miss Kelly. I recognize your voice. I wasn’t feeling well today, and Dad said I could stay home.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, relieved at the simple explanation. “Has your dad left?”

“Yes, ma’am. He went on a job for a friend, about eight this morning.”

“Do you know where the job is?”

“Yes, ma’am. He always tells me in case we need him. This is another house in Fairmount—1916 Sixth Avenue.”

“Thanks, Theresa. I’ll find him.”

Action, I decided, was better than waiting around. I went to Sixth Avenue. The house was one of the wood ones so common in the area. Right now, windows boarded, front porch sagging, it looked pretty hopeless. I wouldn’t have bought it, and I wondered about Anthony’s friend.

“Anthony?” I stood outside and called. After three shouts, Anthony appeared around the side of the house.

“Miss Kelly, what you doing here?”

“I need a new front door, Anthony. Someone shot mine up last night.”

“Mother of God!” His hand flew to his head and started raking his hair, though I doubted he realized he was doing that. “Shot?”

I nodded. “What do I need to do to get a new one?”

“I’ll go now and measure and then you go pick out the door. You know where you want to go?”

“Yeah. Old Home Supply on College. I want one that fits the house.” Old Home Supply was a wonderful store where you picked your way through everything to find the treasures. Want some old French doors? They have them to fit hundreds of openings. Old sinks, faucets, chandeliers, glass doorknobs—all of it in a jumble that leaves you bewildered unless you have patience. I once walked by an antique metal couch in front of the store that had a Texas star in the middle of the back and a running horse on either side. I chewed on the thought all afternoon and then called back and asked them to deliver it. It was wonderful on the patio, though I did add a cushion. Old Home Supply was where you found almost whatever you needed for an old house.

He smiled. “Of course. Let’s go.”

We climbed into my Camry—a good serviceable car for driving clients around, though I would much have preferred a Volkswagen bug convertible. “Can you leave your job?”

He shrugged. “It’s a friend. He bought the house for himself. I told him it wasn’t worth fixing, but he’s determined. I’ll work for him when there’s nothing more important.” Clearly, I was more important.

We were at the house in three minutes. Anthony tsk-tsk-ed over the shattered door, now covered by plywood, and took measurements that he wrote on a piece of paper. He handed it to me.

“Want to go with me to pick the door?”

“Yeah, I’d like to do that. I trust you, but I gotta see that it would work.”

On the way to College Avenue, a short drive, I said, “Tim called.”

“The husband? Don’t mess with him, Miss Kelly. He’s no good.”

“He’s heard about what’s going on—the skeleton, the fire, the front door—and he wants to take the girls to protect them.”

“No,” Anthony said vehemently. “You must not let him. Does he care about the girls?”

I shrugged and thought a minute. “Yes, I suppose he does, but only as long as they don’t interfere with what he wants to do. Would he use them to get at me? Yeah, I think he would.”

“Your children,” he said, “are God’s blessing. You got to protect them. How did he know about all that so quick?”

I looked at him. “I’ve been puzzling on that this morning. I don’t have any idea. There are a few people that might have called him—and they might have seen the pieces in the paper about the skeleton and the fire, but they wouldn’t have known about the front door.” Florence Dodson? I doubted that. Mrs. Dodson didn’t much like men. Dave Shirley, the insurance agent? I hadn’t even called him about the door yet. One of Tim’s old drinking buddies might have seen the skeleton and fire in the newspaper, but the front door….

He made a fist and rubbed it. “You need me to talk to him, I will.”

I smiled. “Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind. But you don’t think I’m putting the girls in danger, do you?”

Anthony shook his head. “About that, I don’t know. I’m afraid for you, and if you’re in danger, then those precious girls are also. Why don’t you talk to that cop—Mike what’s-his-name? I think he’s sweet on you.”

“Anthony, just because we’re both single and about the same age, don’t go matchmaking. Mike’s posted a guard at the house….”

“Guard? I didn’t see no guard just now.”

“That’s by design. They don’t want to be noticed.”

“Oh, okay. But you talk to him anyway. Tell him about Tim. You never know if your ex-husband will do something crazy. I didn’t like him. I got a bad feeling from him.”

“Me, too,” I said.
But I used to feel so good about him. How do people change so much? And which one of us changed?
I switched the subject. Just talking to Anthony strengthened me. He was, I decided, one of the most rooted and stable people in my world—and the other might just be Keisha. They were the ones I should have called last night instead of feeling sorry for myself alone.

“I’m sorry Theresa isn’t feeling well today. I was surprised when she answered the phone a bit ago.”

“Theresa at home?” There was no denying the surprise in his voice. “She went to school this morning, like she should.”

My heart stopped for a second. I owed Anthony the truth. “She told me she didn’t feel well, and you told her to stay home.”

He put his head in his hands. “Miss Kelly, I don’t know what to do with her. She’s…she’s running with some friends I don’t like, maybe even gangers, and she don’t listen to me anymore. I’ll take a strap to her when I get home.”

No one ever took a strap to me in my life, nor could I imagine doing it to the girls, let alone a seventeen-year-old. “No, Anthony, don’t do that. Talk to her. Find out what’s going on. I’ll help any way I can. Maybe she’d come stay at the house a few days, think things through.” I realized that was a lame offer—if Tim didn’t’ think my home was safe enough for the girls, why would Anthony let his daughter stay there?

He shook his head. “Okay, no strap. I’ll talk. I’ll let you know what happens.”

We picked a classic door, twelve panes, beveled glass, good and thick.

“This will look great when I get it painted,” Anthony said. “What color you want?”

The old door was brown, to blend with the cream brick of the house. “Turquoise,” I said. “Beautiful, bright turquoise.”

Anthony smiled. “You got it. I’ll get paint today.”

Temporarily, both of us put the troubles of the day aside.

I went back to my office.

“Your latte is cold, and your doughnut is hard,” Keisha said without looking up. “Don’t send me on a fool’s errand again.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. “I had to find Anthony in a hurry.”

“He fix that door?”

“He’s fixing…Keisha, how did you know about the door?”

“Mr. Spencer called.” She waved a phone message at me.

I wondered again how Tim knew about everything—the skeleton, the fire, the door? I read the brief message, “Arriving 9:00 flight. Will come straight to the house.”

“What’s that sorry excuse coming back here for?” Keisha asked scornfully.

Boy, there was a side to Tim I didn’t see when he was in the office
. The people who worked for him didn’t like him. Aloud I said, with some irony, “He’s going to protect me and the girls.”

“Yeah? You best get yourself a gun—and use it on him first.”

I called Dave, the insurance agent, who said, “What? Again? Kelly, this has got to stop.”

His voice told me he didn’t know about the door, so he wasn’t the one who called Tim.

“Someone’s trying to scare me, Dave. I can’t help it if they do property damage.”

“They do too much,” he predicted, “and the powers that be will pull your insurance. It isn’t my call. Meantime, I’ll take care of this one. Send me the bill. The deductible applies, of course.”

I knew he didn’t mean to frighten me, but he had.

I made some other calls and then called for an appointment to see the Craftsman house Em and I checked out before.

“You want to come now? It’s not very clean, but I can tidy up before you get here.” The owners were Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Hunt, and Mrs. Hunt sounded both pleasant and anxious to please.

“How about thirty minutes? Would that give you time to tidy up?”

“Yes. That would be fine. I’ll see you then.”

I went to Nonna Tata, a nearby small and intimate Italian kitchen, ate pasta with pesto, and wished for a good glass of wine to wash it down. Then I appeared right on time at the house for sale—and was immediately charmed. When Em and I made our curbside inspection, I didn’t see the curved brick path that led to the front door—no concrete here—nor the antique rose bushes that lined the path. The landscaping was low key, not showy but natural. That explained what Em saw as untrimmed bushes. The main creed of Craftsman architects was to live in harmony with the natural woodwork and landscaping.

Inside, the house was amazing, preserved almost intact. The oak woodwork was still natural—-paneling, pocket doors, mullions between long narrow window panes topped with small austere squares of leaded glass. Built-in cupboards in the dining room and the external brackets on doorways gleamed with polish and care. The walls were bare of artwork, which emphasized the beauty of the wood. A tiled living room fireplace was flanked by bookshelves with small leaded glass windows over them; the tile was a rust color that blended with the walls. But decorative, multi-colored floral tiles were inset on either side of the fireplace opening. The hearth was also rust-colored tile. Anthony wouldn’t have to do anything to this house. I could sell it as is.