HAMMERED (Mrs. Fix It Mysteries Book 1) (3 page)

“I’ll be out when my lawyer springs me, Kate. Couple of hours tops.”

He didn’t look worried, but Kate couldn’t say the same. How could they accuse Scott of killing his ex-wife? If he’d wanted to do that, being a cop, he could have covered his tracks much better than this. Besides, unless he’d changed in the last decades, she knew he’d never hurt anyone intentionally.

From what the Rock Ridge Town Council had said when hiring him, he had a spotless law enforcement record. He’d come highly recommended. Even so, the mayor had wanted to hire from within, but he’d been outvoted.

If Scott had not originally been from Rock Ridge, Kate suspected that Ken would be chief of police. Scott had that hometown connection on top of his exemplary record.

Scott’s gaze bore into her. His light brown eyes darkened for a moment. He seemed to be making sure that she looked at him. “I didn’t kill her, Kate.”

She would have touched his shoulder, but there was a barrier in the patrol car.  Of course she believed him. “I know, but what was she doing here?”

Larry tugged her away. He was beginning to get on her nerves. He wasn’t her keeper. As much as she appreciated that he’d taken her boys under his wing as their scoutmaster, she didn’t think she owed him anything else.

“I think this is none of our business, Kate.”

She shrugged off his hands. Why was Ken so sure that Scott did it? Couldn’t he extend a professional courtesy to Scott? Didn’t cops do that? Or was a murder too serious? “Call me when you get out. There’s something not right here.”

“Katydid, leave this to the cops. They’ll sort it out,” Scott said before Ken pulled away.

Katydid? No one else had ever called her that. For a moment, she was back in high school. She remembered being young and in love when world had been laid out in front of her.

Until her mother died and she’d stayed in Rock Ridge instead of going away to college. Scott had left for university and never seemed to make it back. His parents had moved to Florida not long after his departure, and she hadn’t been reason enough for him to return.

The anticipation of his return to town after all these years had set her nerves on edge. Now he was being charged with murder? She couldn’t stand by. Even though they had no future, she couldn’t just let him go to jail for a murder he didn’t commit.

That didn’t sit right with her.

She knew he was not a killer. She’d have to make sure that she found whoever was. Being a handywoman, she had access to all sorts of people. She could talk to them. Maybe they knew something.

He’d called her Katydid. She’d let no one else, thinking it was too babyish. Now it sounded like music to her ears.

Chapter Three

Kate’s next job was a house three down from the chief’s. She’d postponed the Evans project. She had to repair steps on Marla Zook’s house. Marla was a single mother whose husband had died in Iraq. Everyone pitched in when they could, and Kate would only charge her for materials.

She surveyed the steps. Marla worked from home while taking care of her two daughters. Maybe she’d seen something. Not that a single mother of two kids had much time to stare out the window, but a single mom at home might be more aware of her surroundings than say a man. Women had to do more to protect themselves, and part of that was being cognizant of what was going on around them. She may have seen something that she didn’t think significant.

The sun was high in the sky and warm. Marla came around from the front of the house. It was a one-story cottage, painted sky blue. The shutters were yellow. Not Kate’s style but cute, nonetheless.

Marla’s two daughters moved closer to her when they saw Kate. She smiled at them, but knew from past work she’d done on the house that they were shy. Their lives had been turned upside down by the loss of their father.

Marla had two glasses of lemonade in her hands. Kate hoped one was for her.

“I brought you a drink,” Marla said.

She was still young, probably in her late twenties. She’d married young from what Kate remembered and had left Rock Ridge to follow her husband’s military career. She’d come back here when he died to be close to her mother.

Her mother had died last year. Marla had never known her father.

“Go play, girls,” Marla said.

The two girls went to the swing set at the end of the yard. It sat in the shade of the neighbor’s oak tree. Marla set Kate’s glass down on the picnic table situated by the house. Kate sipped it then put it back down.

Marla sat. Guess she wanted to talk, which was perfect. Kate wanted to talk. She tore up the existing steps as they chatted.

“So freaked out about that murder. In this neighborhood,” Marla said. “You must be also, since you found the body.”

“It wasn’t the highlight of my day. Did you see anyone suspicious?”

“No one suspicious. Only the usual.”

“I don’t live in this neighborhood. Who are the usuals?”

“I saw the chief’s truck.”

“He does inspections. Not odd. There are a few houses for sale here, and they need a certificate that says their smoke detectors work,” Kate said.

She stacked the boards she pulled off the risers. She’d haul them away. There wasn’t anything wrong with them. The steps were being replaced because someone hadn’t built them properly. The rise and run ratio wasn’t right, and Marla’s oldest daughter had tripped down them.

Kate had put Marla’s job on the top of her priority list. The only reason she’d been at Scott’s house was because he’d begged her. And she was curious about where he was living. She shouldn’t have been. Sniffing around an old boyfriend was not acceptable.

“I never knew what he did, but had seen his truck here often. Not surprisingly, in front of houses for sale or recently sold,” Marla said.

She gazed over at her children for a moment.

“Who else?”

“Jessica Stuart was out planting some flowers.”

“You can see their house from here?”

The mayor and his wife lived in a big house, larger than any other in the neighborhood.  Being mayor was a part-time position, and he ran a trucking company for his full-time job. He’d done well and had added on to his house as his company grew.

Kate always thought that they’d never get the right resale on it, because it was too big compared to the rest of the houses nearby. There would be no comps to figure out the correct price.

Not that she expected them to sell anytime soon. The mayor had held his position for the last five years. She didn’t suspect anyone would run against him.

“I can out my side window.”

She’d have to talk to Jessica to see if she saw anything suspicious.

“I’m going to make some noise. Will that bother the girls?”

“No, they just are shy around people.”

Kate used a sawzall to disconnect the risers from the house. She had a prefabricated one to replace it and new boards for the treads. She hadn’t had to do much building on this project, and she’d negotiated the price down from Grayson’s because it was for Marla.

Dropping the risers on top of the used boards, she unplugged her tool. She stretched after she put it aside, then she sipped more lemonade. The day wasn’t scorching, but working in the sun made her sweat.

She sat for a moment drinking some more. The sweet and tart liquid cooled her thirst.

“Who else did you see?” she said finally.

Marla tapped her chin. “I did see Celia out on her walk.”

Of course Celia would be out. Since retiring from Hershey Medical Center, she walked the town every day. Not that Rock Ridge was large, but the woman probably covered a few miles in her trek. She only walked the populated part of the town, not the country lanes.

Celia might need to be her next stop. She saw everything. She was her best friend’s mother, but she was the town gossip. If anything untoward was going on in the town, she would know. Her eagle eyes didn’t miss anything.

“Will you be able to finish these today?” Marla asked.

“I’ll be done in half an hour, including cleanup,” Kate said.

“Good. The kids keep forgetting and going out this door.”

“Next time they do, it will be safe.”

Kate could hear the kids next door splashing around in a pool. Not summer yet, but they were enjoying a day off because the schools hadn’t used all of their snow days.

“I heard that Scott was arrested,” Marla said. “Do you think he did it?”

She had to get used to that. Everyone was going to ask her if she thought Scott did it. As if they’d kept in touch or something all of these years. She wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone thought that they were already an item. “I don’t think he did it, but I haven’t talked to Scott in years other than when he came back.”

“He was a cop in Philly? I heard he was shot and quit.”

That’s what Kate had heard, but she hadn’t brought it up with Scott. One of the stories, at least. There’d been more that hadn’t been so complimentary. Maybe he’d tell her, but ultimately it was no her business. “I heard the same thing, but we haven’t talked about it. Really, none of my business.”

“Someone told me you two dated?”

“In high school. A lifetime ago.”

Though seeing him again brought it all back. The good and the bad. She’d agreed to do the job at his house only because she refused to give into her desire to isolate herself from him. She was a married woman and needed to act that way.

No matter that her heart said something different.

She attached the risers and then screwed the boards onto them. “You need me to paint them?”

Marla waved her hand. “No, I’ll do it. Gives me a project.”

“I would think you have one big project with your two daughters.”

Having raised two boys, Kate knew how much time and energy children took. She hadn’t remembered being too productive when the twins were little. Later on she’d been able to include them in projects despite Greg’s hesitance. He’d insisted that they could afford to pay someone. She didn’t know where he thought the money was going to come from.

“They certainly keep me busy.”

After she finished up, Marla wrote her a check for the supplies. Then Kate left to talk to Celia.

***

Celia Johnson lived in a brick two-story home on the other side of town from Marla’s neighborhood. Having no other pressing jobs, Kate drove to her place. The day was getting behind her, and she was just about ready for dinner.

A teenage boy mowed Celia’s lawn. He looked bored with his shirt off and tucked into the back pocket of his jeans and his ear buds on. His phone was tucked into the other back pocket. She didn’t recognize him, but everyone waved to everyone else in Rock Ridge. So she waved.

He gave her a look that said he couldn’t be bothered waving back. Nice. If one of her boys acted like that, she’d have words with them. For a moment, she found herself missing them.

Both were freshman and she was still getting used to the empty nest even though this was the end of the school year. At least she had her business to keep her busy. With the economy getting stronger, more people were selling houses. That meant more people doing renovations or fixing things they had previously let fall by the wayside.

That meant more money for her business. Which she found good because tuition for two was expensive, even with the money her husband had put away. He’d gone missing, but he hadn’t taken any money with him.

The forensic accountants hadn’t found any irregularities in her account, so she had no idea what he was living on. If he was alive. She gulped. “Don’t think of him as dead.”

She climbed out of her truck then walked up to Celia’s front door. She rang the doorbell and heard the notes reminiscent of a classical song. Kate didn’t listen to much classical, so she wasn’t sure.

The front door had been painted red and a lion knocker stared back at her. A little pretentious for a small town, but whatever floated her boat. Celia liked to pretend she was royalty, but the woman had been a caring person when Kate’s mother had died, so she couldn’t be too critical of her.

The Johnson household had been a refuge when she was overwhelmed with taking care of her mother. Celia and Ken had also been good to her right after Greg had disappeared. They’d been the only ones.

A few minutes later, Celia appeared in the doorway.

“Hello, Kate. What brings you here?”

Celia had over a decade on Kate, but looked the same age. She’d had her daughter Carly at a young age. Kate had heard the rumors that she and her husband had to get married, then after they did, lost that baby.

She guessed they were in love since they had Carly a few years later.

“I wanted to ask you a few questions about what you might have seen out on your walk this morning.”

She pushed open the screen door. “Come in. Is this about Scott’s wife’s death?”

The grapevine in Rock Ridge had a speed that rivaled social media. Of course Celia would know about the murder.

“Ex-wife,” Kate said when she settled on Celia’s couch. She wasn’t sure why she’d needed to clarify that. Scott’s relationships were none of her business.

“Why are you asking questions? Didn’t Ken arrest Scott?”

“Yes, but Scott didn’t do it.”

“Is that your brain speaking or your heart? Good thing we found out he was a killer now before he was entrenched in the community. That would have been a harder blow.”

Kate had forgotten that Celia didn’t like Scott. Never had since high school. Carly had had a crush on Scott, and he hadn’t asked her out. Instead, he’d asked out Kate who had no idea that Carly liked Scott. That was a million years ago.

Kate was pretty sure that Carly was over it. Her mother should be, too.

“I don’t believe that he did it. He’d already divorced her. He had no reason to kill her,” Kate said. “What I was wondering was if you saw anything suspicious on your walk this morning.”

Celia pondered that for a moment. “No. I saw the usual people out and about.”

Yes, got that. “Who is that?”

“Well, the chief’s truck and Carly’s were there. I guess she had some flowers to deliver. I didn’t see her, otherwise I would have chatted with my daughter,” Celia said. “You’d think we saw each other all the time. We live in the same town.”