The Murder in Skoghall (Illustrated) (The Skoghall Mystery Series Book 1) (12 page)

Jess looked at Beckett, trying to read his expression. Tyler slipped his arm back around her waist, and Beckett turned away. “I’ll look at the basement,” he shouted over his shoulder as he went inside. Jess watched him disappear into the house, feeling the loss of something small but real.

“Come on, Tyler,” Dave shouted. “Let’s get this baby out in the sun. See what we have to work with.”

Jess knelt in front of the stove, small rocks, clots of dirt, and scraggly blades of grass dug in, imprinting her flesh. When Jess stood up to stretch and crack the joints of her hips, she had to reach down and brush several small pebbles from her knees. The stove had collected layer upon layer of soot and grime after its many years in the smokehouse. Her rubber gloves were mostly black and somehow she’d smeared soot across her tank top. Shakti roused herself from a nap at the base of the sugar maple, stretched, and picked up her ball. She trotted over to Jess and sat, her tail thumping the ground.

Jess put her hand on the blue rubber protruding from Shakti’s mouth. The puppy seemed to be smiling even as she clamped down on the ball. “Give,” Jess said, and Shakti shook her head side to side. Jess had to pry Shakti’s mouth open to release the ball. As soon as she was relieved of the ball, Shakti jumped sideways and back, took a bow, and wagged her tail expectantly. Jess threw it toward the house and Shakti tore after it with remarkable speed for one on such short legs. Jess couldn’t help laughing any time she saw Shakti run, especially from behind. Her rump swung side to side and her tail stuck straight off her back like a fuzzy handle.

Tyler thrust himself onto the porch and let the screen door slam behind him. He lumbered down the steps like something had just given out. Jess meant to yell a warning, but her mouth got it wrong. She gasped and stuttered ineffectually, one hand waving at Tyler and the other at Shakti.

Tyler clutched at his back as he lurched off the bottom step, his foot landing just to the side of Shakti’s head. She scrambled, her hips slapping Tyler’s booted ankle as she tripped over his foot. Tyler stumbled, cursed loudly, and landed on his knees in the dirt. He rose with surprising haste and furiously pushed his hair away from his face.

Jess wanted to scoop Shakti off the ground and check her for wounds or soothe her after a fright or whatever worried parents did, but Shakti was already carrying the ball with a prance and a wiggle in her step. “Are you all right?” she asked Tyler, hoping he hadn’t noticed her impulse to comfort the dog first.

“I’ve got to get back to the café.”

“Oh…all right. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. I guess my brick laying isn’t up to Beckett’s high standards.” He stared at the house, his face constricted.

Jess didn’t know whether it was fury or pain wrenching his features. She touched his cheek and turned his gaze back toward her with a gentle pressure.

“I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.” He pecked at her, a kiss so fast she didn’t have a chance to respond, and went to his truck.

Jess watched him drive away before calling Shakti to her and going inside. She found Beckett and Dave bent over their work in the music room. Dave’s fair skin had flushed a nice red and the back of his shirt showed the damp V of perspiration. He sat back on his haunches and rested his hands on his thighs while Beckett set the mortar between two bricks.

“What happened?” Jess asked.

“Phew!” Dave said. “And people say I have a temper.”

She waited for more, but Dave just sat there, looking between her and Beckett. Beckett finished with the brick and sat back, taking his time to look at Jess. “Tyler didn’t like hearing that his work could be improved.”

“That sounds like half the story. Or less.”

“Tyler was sloppy with the mortar,” Dave said, “and Beckett pointed it out to him. Standard pissing contest, that’s all.”

“Thank you, Dave,” Beckett said. “How concise.”

Dave shrugged. “I thought it was obvious.”

“Jess, I think you should be careful.”

“What does that mean?” She set Shakti down and put her hands on her hips. The puppy sniffed a crooked line over to the hearth and Dave lifted her into a cuddle to keep her out of their work. He scratched her ears and she twisted her head every which way to try to lick some of the brickwork off his hands and wrists. Jess stared at Beckett.

“I think the guy has issues. I don’t know what they are, but I think they run deep. That’s all.”

Jess nodded. “I got it,” she said. “Thanks.” She unplanted her hands and relaxed her posture. “What do you guys need? Water? Iced tea? Coffee?”

“You got a beer?” Dave asked.

It took most of the day and two trips to the Skoghall Hardware and one trip to the liquor store in Bay City, but when they finished, Jess had a beautiful brick hearth in the music room. The stove shone in the yard, the nickel-plated trim and finial blinding. The curved legs ended in balled feet. Typical Victorian scroll work surrounded a sunburst on the potbelly stove’s door. As Jess restored its luster over much of the day, she got excited about her home and all the ways she was claiming her life. Beckett offered Jess some pressed tin ceiling panels salvaged from an old building to shield the walls behind the stove from heat. They needed a coat of paint, which she would apply, and in a few days when the mortar was set and the paint was dry, they would move the stove into its new home. Jess decided to trust Dave with her chimney despite Beckett’s warnings, then bit her lip and crossed her fingers while he cut a hole in her wall. Dave was fearless with hand tools and other people’s houses. 

They sat on the porch and clinked their beer bottles together. “A case of beer isn’t enough after all this work. I still owe you.”

“Write me into one of your books,” Dave said. “Make me a villain.”

“You got it.” Jess grinned.

“Excuse me now,” Dave said. He ambled down the driveway to his truck and reached inside. He bent behind the open door of his cab and when he straightened, a puff of smoke obscured his face from view.

“I didn’t know he smokes,” Jess said.

“Only when he drinks,” Beckett’s face showed a certain degree of disapproval, which he shrugged away.

After spending the day on their knees, scrubbing off soot or laying bricks, it was a relief to stand and gaze out into the yard. The woodpecker sounded his
rat-a-tat-tat
nearby. Shakti rolled in the grass. Jess thought,
this is what I wanted. This is why I came here.

“Beckett, I would like to repay you for all this.”

“You’ll have time.” He pulled the hairband from his ponytail and let the straight blond strands swing toward his face. He looked at Jess with those blue eyes, holding her gaze.

She thought he might kiss her, but like two magnets with the same poles turned toward each other, there was something between them—something like the fact that Beckett had seen Tyler kiss her. What Dave had said about a typical pissing contest rang in her memory. If
that
was why Beckett had offered his help, she was sorry.

“Have you seen your ghost again?”

“Huh? Oh, no. Not since we talked. Maybe it’s over.”

“Talk to Lora in the antique store. She was friends with the last owner of this place.”

Dave came out of the barn and up the drive. “That barn is fantastic,” he said when he reached them. “Solid structure. Needs some maintenance, of course. And you’ve got a regular critter palace in there, but they’ll be easy to clear out.”

“Careful,” Beckett said. “Dave will clear them out with a shotgun.”

“Naw. I only shoot what I want to eat. Clean that thing up, we can have a barn dance in there!” He shuffled and kicked his feet. Jess laughed and Shakti came running to get in the commotion. Dave turned and dipped, surprisingly agile for such a thick-muscled man. Jess laughed again and was aware of Beckett watching her, his expression lightening to the sound of her laughter.

Chapter Seven

Jess sat in her music room, riffling through the box of stereoscopic cards, fitting one after another into the wire holder on the viewer. Many were tourist cards of scenes along the Mississippi, or views from the Twin Cities. Other cards showed Native Americans posing in regal headdresses. She found one of a young man in moccasins and buckskin leggings standing atop Barn Bluff with an eagle draped over his shoulder; its wings spread across his back, their span impressive despite the lifeless languor. Behind that card was one titled “At the Races.” It showed a race track, the white rail shining in midday sun. The racers were not horses and jockeys, but greyhounds. Jess glanced at Shakti. The thought of dog racing seemed cruel, though she didn’t know for a fact if it was any worse than horse races or other forms of animal labor. “At the Races” was a set of cards, it turned out. On one, a proud couple stood in the winner’s circle with their greyhound. She held the dog’s leash, the trophy. From their wardrobe, Jess figured it was the 1920s. She sighed and put away the stereoscopic cards.

She gazed out across the porch at the leafy branches of the sugar maple. A swallow swooped in front of the tree, its chevron-shaped tail folded and spread as it arced in flight. Jess loved watching the sky-dance of swallows. She sighed and opened her Macbook. The old man with the shed full of antiques had caught her attention and stayed with her, often populating her thoughts. She began sketching scenarios, free writing a page or two about his home, then exploring his marriage, then how he had managed to collect so many things over the years. Each scene she wrote opened new possibilities as it explored the character of the old man. She decided he needed an old fashioned name and stuck him with Orel. He was a widower, and estranged from his daughter. Jess wanted to discover why his daughter no longer spoke to him. She turned off her monitor so she could type without seeing the words, eliminating the visual, freeing more of the imagination. She wrote and wrote until Shakti whined to go outside, and she felt better about herself than she had in weeks.

The fresh air inspired her; it would be fun to write about Orel on her 1931 Underwood typewriter. Besides, it was about time she displayed her prized possession. The heavy black case had sat on the floor beside the couch since she moved in, looking rather like it expected to up and leave at any moment. She hefted it upstairs and set the solid little machine on the writing deck of her desk. Jess put her thumb on the latch on the front of the case and looked at the lead cowboy. He faced the room, his six shooters aimed at Jess’s chest. The latch sprung open with a snap that startled her, as though one of the cowboy’s six shooters had gone off.

Jess tried to laugh at herself.

She lifted the cover and ran her hand over the shiny metal frame of an Underwood portable. It looked better here on this antique desk than it had ever looked anywhere, like it finally belonged.

Jess positioned her hands over the Underwood’s keys, allowing the tips of her fingers to caress the rounds of glass over each letter. She took a sheet of paper out of one of the desk drawers and loaded it into the roller. She closed her eyes and struck a key. It took effort to bring the hammer to strike the page, unlike a plastic computer keyboard.

Orel was an ornery old cuss.