Death at a Fixer-Upper Page 8

  I wondered if I should tell him there’d been a gruesome death on the property. Probably that could wait. “Nope. That’s it.”

  “Keep up the great work. I’ll be in touch.” He hung up.

  I slumped on the couch, hating my job.

  A door slammed, and footsteps thundered up the stairs. Harley launched himself from my lap as Max burst through the door, then slipped between his feet and raced down the stairwell. Max dropped his pack on the floor and went after him. A minute later he was back, with a squirming bundle of irate cat under his arm.

  “Sorry, dude,” he said, dumping Harley on the floor. “Maybe you can go outside at our new place.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I wouldn’t want him catching birds.”

  “He could wear a little bell.” He stared at me. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. Just one of those days.” My guard was down, battered by the horrors of the past few hours. “Um. Listen. Your father’s in town.”

  He was silent. I checked his body language, trying to gauge his reaction.

  “You’ve talked to him?” he said at last.

  “No. I—” I’d have felt like a fool telling my son I chased his father up the street as he rode a city bus.

  Max picked up his backpack and set it on a chair. “You want me to make dinner?”

  “That’s all right. I grabbed a couple of cans of chili at the store. Just heat and serve. My specialty.”

  “I have some homework to knock out.” He moved toward his room.

  “Max.”

  Long pause. “I’d like to see him.”

  There were so many things I wanted to say. In the end, all I said was “I’ll set it up.”

  He nodded and went into his room, shutting the door. Something else nagged at my memory, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was.

  Chapter 9

  By the time I was up and about the next morning, Max had left for school. I shuffled about in a somnambulant state, gnawing on something brown and crusty from the cupboard before I splashed some water on my face and headed in to the office.

  The old man was on the back porch reading a paperback book when I arrived. I nodded, then went inside and put on a pot of coffee. When it was done brewing, I filled a mug and stepped out onto the back deck. “You want coffee?”

  He looked up. “Yes, ma’am. That would hit the spot.”

  “Black okay?”

  “Two sugars, if you got ’em.”

  “Sure.” I set the mug in front of him and returned to the kitchen, where I sloshed some liquid caffeine into a cup for myself, adding plenty of questionable milk from the mini-fridge. I grabbed a handful of sugar packets and made my way back outside, handing him two while I emptied three into my own cup, jostling the contents a little to blend everything. I tasted it and added a fourth. My morning needed a jump start.

  He set the book on his pack and used a pen from his shirt pocket to stir sugar into his coffee. He took a sip and gave a deep sigh. “What’s your name, young lady?” he said.

  “Sam. Sam Turner.”

  “Well, Sam Turner, you make a decent cup of coffee.”

  “Guess it’s my one skill in the kitchen.”

  He held out a hand. “Curly Jorgensen.”

  “Curly?”

  “On account of my hair, though you wouldn’t know to see it now.”

  We shook. His palm was rough and dry, his grip firm. His eyes were clear as a mountain lake; the skin stretched over his face was a collection of fine lines and sun spots, like a road map of his travels. I glanced at the book he’d been reading, which was a dog-eared copy of McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove.

  Curly followed my glance and smiled. “Always been a sucker for a good western.”

  “Same here.” I drained my cup. “Well. I guess I’ll get back to work.”

  He waved, and I slipped inside. By the time I’d finished my coffee and rinsed my mug under the tap, he was gone.

  I made busywork until what I judged was a decent hour to call Lois Hartshorne. Her voicemail picked up, and I listened to her gruff admonition to leave a message. The words “or else” were unspoken but implied.

  “This is Sam Turner, Home Sweet Home,” I began. “I, uh, just wanted to follow up on my offers. Offer, I mean. About that…never mind, I’ll try you later. Or call me.”

  I hung up and groaned. Could I have sounded like more of an idiot? I was fairly certain my client’s death retracted his offer, but Everett Sweet’s voice seemed to echo in my ears: “Verify, verify, verify.” Maybe I needed to dust off my old real estate textbooks and refresh my memory.

  I put in a call to Loretta Sacchi and left another message. Apparently, no one wanted to talk to me today. I dusted the foliage of my plastic plant and raided the mini-fridge for edibles. Pickings were slim.

  The Grovedale Dispatch had been stuffed through the front-door mail slot and was lying on the floor, all rolled up and pristine. I pulled off the rubber band and hijacked the Entertainment section to do the crossword, knowing that would irritate my employer no end. The cover story caught my eye, a half-page feature on the Kinetic Sculpture Race.

  Memory prodded me. Max’s form! It was still languishing in my bag—yesterday’s events had put it right out of my head. What if I was too late? My son would never forgive me.

  I grabbed my bag and went out the back, locking the door behind me and using the short drive to brush up on my charm, such as it was.

  SmithBuilt Construction was a sprawling structure of cedar shingles and glass on Salmon Bay Boulevard, with a roof made up almost entirely of solar panels angled toward the south. The western edge of the property was defined by the rusted rails of the old Union Pacific/Northwest line, which crossed two lanes and rolled across a plain of withered grass before plunging into the tangled brush of the Arlinda Waste Treatment Plant and Wildlife Sanctuary. I caught a glimpse of the sludge ponds behind the building. The air was richly scented with eau de Porta-Potty magnified a thousand times.

  I entered an open lobby that was filled with light and space. The walls were finished in rough weathered planks, interspersed with plate-glass windows of inconsistent sizes. Instead of the usual carpet, the floor was stained concrete inlaid with a spiral pattern of aquamarine tiles. A staircase curved up to the second floor. I took a closer look and saw that the balusters were formed from twisted rebar, with driftwood as the handrail. I’d gone to high school with Fletcher Smith, and was impressed in spite of myself by the indisputable mark of success stamped all over his headquarters. He hadn’t seemed all that bright to me, to tell the truth.

  A handful of people toiled right out in the open, no cubicles in sight. I made my way toward the nearest desk, occupied by an older man with a crown of gray curls on his head. He looked up inquiringly. “May I help you?”

  I held out the waiver. “Can I leave this with you?”

  He felt around his head and from his mop of hair extracted a pair of reading glasses. Slipping them on, he peered at the form. “Oh, I see. The race. This is our first year as sponsors. Is this your son?”

  “Yes. It’s his first year, too.”

  He handed it back to me. “It might be best to take this right to Fletcher. His office is at the top of the stairs.”

  I thanked him and made my way to the second story. The railing was a little hard to grip, truth be told, and I didn’t want to think what might happen if someone tried to slide down it. Not that I would ever do that myself, of course.

  The stairs deposited me onto a wide-open landing. A woman was seated at a workstation just off to the left, tapping away at a keyboard.

  “Fletcher Smith’s office?” I said.

  “Door on your right,” she said. “But he’s out. Maybe I can help you.” Her tone was flat, her eyes still on the computer screen.

  “You know when he’ll be back?”

  “He didn’t say.” She rattled off a line of typing, then looked up. “You want to write him a note?” She had the wholesome g
ood looks of a 4-H heifer at the county fair: glossy dark hair worn shoulder length, straight white teeth, rosy cheeks, good posture. She wore a teal polo shirt with “SmithBuilt” stitched over the right breast.

  Just then the first story began to hum with sudden industry. A man had entered the lower lobby through a side door, breezing between workstations like a warm front before a storm. He started up the stairs, then paused with his hand on the rail.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said, leveling a finger at me. “Sam. Sam Turner, as I live and breathe.” He bounded up the last few steps and enveloped me in a big squeeze before I could dodge out of reach. Releasing me, he turned to the woman at the desk. “Sam was my physics lab partner at Arlinda High a few long years back. Have you two met? Betsy Sullivan, my right-hand man.”

  “Project manager,” she amended. We shook hands perfunctorily, but her eyes stayed on Fletcher.

  “You were a peach,” he said to me. “It would have really messed up my senior year if I’d had to take physics a third time. Remember that day we split a molecule?”

  “Measured, not split.” I rolled my eyes.

  He grinned. He still had the boyish good looks I remembered from high school: dark hair only a little thin on top, light blue eyes, that friendly smile that even now made my heart flutter a tad. Like all the girls, I’d been smitten with Fletcher in high school, sucked into the gravitational pull of his soulful gaze as we studied Archimedes’ principle, though I’d never held out any real hope. Okay, so maybe I’d secretly looked into a boob job, but that was just a passing phase.

  “You see why I depended on her?” he said to Betsy. She gave him a frosty little smile.

  I offered the waiver to Fletcher. “It’s nice to see you. I promised my son I’d deliver this, but I—I forgot. Am I too late?”

  “What’s this?” His eyes lit up. “Max is your son? Great kid, from what I hear. Hard worker. You must be so proud of him.”

  “I’m giddy. It’s okay, then?”

  He waved a hand. “Totally fine. The lawyers insisted we have these on file, but between you and me I’m not sure they’re even legally binding.”

  “That’s great. Whew! Have you seen what they’re working on? Max won’t tell me a thing.”

  “I’m sworn to secrecy. But come on. Let me show you around.”

  “I really don’t—”

  “I’m not letting you leave without the ten-cent tour. Betsy, grab us a couple of coffees, would you?”

  The look she gave him would have felled a more sensitive man, but he was already ushering me toward his office. “I’m fine,” I said hastily.

  She lowered her head and began typing again, stabbing the keys so viciously the keyboard jumped on the desktop. Fletcher propelled me through a wide doorway into a cavernous space with a solid wall of windows facing south. I took a quick look around. High angled ceilings, clean white walls, a double-sized desk covered in blueprints. There was an open door to the left of the desk, through which I caught a glimpse of the executive toilet. Centered in the room was a small freestanding table displaying a bright green sledgehammer with gold lettering etched into its head.

  “Exhibit A,” he said, patting the display. “The Green Hammer Award for Innovation in Building Design. We brought this baby home from the industry trade show in Sacramento last year. Shows the world just because you choose to work in a small town doesn’t mean you can’t compete with the big boys.”

  “No kidding. Congratulations.” I picked up the hammer for a closer look. It must have weighed at least four pounds; the wooden handle was about a foot and a half long. “How’d you end up as a race sponsor, by the way?”

  “Josh Boyle is one of the subcontractors we use for metal fabrication. He did that stair railing, as a matter of fact. When he mentioned he was putting a team together, I offered to foot the expenses.”

  “That was generous.”

  “Yes and no,” he said. “Everyone wants to be a part of the race in some capacity. It’s funky, crazy, unique. Pure Arlinda. People come from all over the country to watch. You couldn’t ask for a better marketing platform.”

  “Ah.”

  He beamed at me. “Hey, I’m also running a business here.” His glance turned appraising. “I’m surprised you’re not part of the team. Looks like you’re in pretty good shape.”

  Oh, my God, was I blushing? “Thanks,” I said, trying not to assess his body in turn.

  His smile widened as he tugged me toward the window. “Take a look at this.”

  The view stretched from the brackish ponds of the wildlife sanctuary to the gleaming water of Salmon Bay and the horizon beyond. Below me, I saw the SmithBuilt equipment yard and its collection of earthmoving machinery, enclosed by a chain-link fence topped with coiled razor wire. As I gazed across the marsh, a bird of prey wheeled into view, hovering over the grasslands like a helicopter before plunging down and out of sight.

  “Pretty frickin’ awesome, isn’t it?” Fletcher was right at my side, his shoulder touching mine.

  “Amazing. This building, too. For some reason I thought you just built subdivisions and shopping centers.”

  “We still do,” he said. “But there’s a green revolution happening in the industry, Sam, and we’re at the forefront of it. It’s not just about energy efficiency and the bottom line anymore. It’s resource efficiency. Buying local. Reducing our carbon footprint. You know how much we spend to heat this place?”

  I shook my head.

  “Zip. Passive solar does sixty percent of the job. Our solar array does the rest. Most days our electric meter runs backward and we’re building a credit for when the clouds roll in. We constructed our exterior walls offsite, pre-wired and pre-insulated. LED lighting, zero VOC finishes, the works. We salvaged boards from the old Halvorsen barn after it collapsed a few years back and used those for a nice, rustic look on the interior walls. That cut our need for drywall and other new materials in half. One of my staff members did the mosaic in the lobby with fragments of bathroom tile she picked up at the scrap yard. And check this out.” He gave my sleeve a friendly tug and pointed down, indicating a long ell that extended the length of the building south. “See those shingles? You’d swear they were solid wood, right?”

  “I guess.”

  “Sure you would. But they’re not. They’re a composite made from fifty-percent post-consumer recycled materials.”

  I didn’t want to spoil the moment by pointing out that several shingles had fallen off, so I made some murmurs of approbation and he nodded.

  “Cutting-edge stuff. We used repurposed or recycled wherever possible. The initial cost is higher, but when a leading developer like us does it others follow, and that puts pressure on the manufacturer to bring the price down. It’s one of the ways we demonstrate that global and community health is more important to us than the bottom line.”

  I’d tried to maintain an expression of intelligent comprehension throughout his spiel but gave up after a tic started in my left eye. “You kinda lost me at VOC or thereabouts, but I’m impressed. Very worthy.”

  He grinned. “Sorry. Volatile organic compounds. I feel so passionately about these things I tend to get carried away.”

  “You’ve come a long way since high school.” Especially for a guy who almost flunked physics twice.

  “My dad taught me the value of hard work and of giving back to the community. He gave me my first job fixing up used appliances at his store. I’m dedicating my next project to him. Take a look at this.” He cupped a hand under my elbow and steered me to a brightly lit corner, where I saw a mock-up of what looked like an entire village laid out on a worktable. It measured at least four feet square.

  “The Sifting Sands Golden Age Community for Mature Adults,” he said. “We’re hoping to break ground this summer. Permits are filed and we’ve completed our site tests. Beautiful piece of land in Martin’s Crossing, with hiking trails to the ocean.”

  “This is really something.” I examined the mo
del, built from cardboard and thin sheets of rigid foam, with long, low buildings forming a triangle around a central common. There were paths and benches and lots of miniature greenery: fuzzy grass, flowering shrubs, even a little plastic tree growing in each corner of the common. Tiny plastic people wandered the grounds, some sitting on the benches; others, dressed in pale blue jogging outfits, trotted along the trails.

  “Isn’t it? This project is a quantum leap for our company, the one that brings it all together. Green building, materials locally sourced, little to no dependence on grid power. I’m considering experimenting with straw bales for some of the structural elements. Or hemp, the local alternative.” He winked.

  “That should keep the residents happy.”

  “You got that right. Not just happy but healthy as well. There’ll be a lap pool, weight room, and sauna. Cooking classes. Tai chi. Pilates. A community garden. You name it. It’s not gonna be your grandma’s retirement living, for damn sure.”

  I stole a glance at a shelf behind Fletcher’s desk and saw an eight-by-ten portrait of the developer with a statuesque blonde at his side and two children, a boy and a girl, seated in front of them. “These are your kids?”

  “Emma and Brice,” he said, his face lighting up. “Awesome kids. Thirteen and ten, and smart as whips. They don’t get that from me. That’s Barbara, my wife. You married?”

  “Not anymore.” A couple of lines of text, framed and attached to the wall above the desk, caught my eye. I leaned forward and read aloud, “ ‘What’s the use of a fine house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?’ ”

  “Our mission statement,” Fletcher said.

  “That’s perfect. Thoreau, right?”

  He blinked. “Who?”

  “This quotation. What’s the source?”

  He tapped his head. “Right here. It just came to me.”

  “Ah.” I’d run out of things to say, so I began to edge toward the door. “I’d better get a move on. Thanks for the tour.”

  “It was really great seeing you.” His eyes met mine and I shivered involuntarily. “Sam, tell me. Are you a homeowner?”