Лори Касс - Wrong Side Of The Paw

I thanked her for the information and slid the phone into my backpack. “Do you want to go out there?” I asked my feline companion. When there was no reply, I leaned forward to look into the front of the cat carrier, which was buckled into my sedan’s passenger seat. Eddie was sound asleep and snoring the slightest bit. All the adoration from his fans must have tuckered him out.

“Well,” I said out loud, but quietly so I didn’t disturb his beauty rest. “Looks like this decision is up to me. And I say there’s no time like the present to talk to Dale’s employees.” Detective Inwood and Ash would no doubt have talked to them already, but since I wasn’t law enforcement it was possible I might get different responses.

I started the car, aimed it in the direction of Valley Street, and soon found that Carmen’s sense of distance was not the same as mine. When she’d said “a mile or so,” I’d expected to drive roughly a mile before I’d see signs of a home under construction. At five miles, I was sure I’d missed it and was making ready to turn around when I saw a piece of plywood two feet square stuck on a post at the end of a rutted driveway and covered with the fluttering documents that were the various permits needed for construction.

“Are you ready?” I asked Eddie, but either he didn’t have an opinion or he was still sleeping, because there was no reply.

I guided the car on a strategic path to avoid the worst of the ruts, which was impossible because the ruts had been created by vehicles much larger than my little car: pickups, delivery trucks, forklifts, bulldozers, and front-end loaders, for all I knew. As I neared the two-story house, I counted four pickup trucks. I also noted that the exterior looked close to completion.

This was good, considering it was early October and the weather could turn to winter any minute. What was bad was the fact that no landscaping whatsoever was in place. And if, as Carmen said, they were trying to get the house completed before Thanksgiving, and if the exterior wasn’t done, it seemed unlikely that the interior had progressed very far. None of that boded well for the owners.

For me, it all combined to firm up a conclusion I’d come to a couple of years ago, when Rafe had dealt with a brand-new and really expensive furnace that didn’t work: I never wanted to build a house. Some people loved the experience, but I was quite sure I wasn’t one of them.

With that firmly in mind, I parked next to a white pickup that had the Tonedagana County seal on the driver’s door, checked to make sure Eddie was still sleeping, and got out.

“I don’t care what Dale told you,” a man in khaki pants, work boots, and a nylon jacket was saying loudly. “I’m telling you that you can’t do anything else on this house until I approve the mechanical inspection, and I won’t do that until the water heater is working.”

Three other men, all dressed in brown Carhartt jackets in various stages of age and grime, faced the man. “You got to be kidding me,” said one of them.

“This doesn’t make any dang sense,” said the second guy.

“Yeah,” said the guy standing next to him. “What does the mechanical have to do with plumbing? Running the pipes is all we want to work on.”

“Take it up with the state,” the first man said, who I was now certain was one of the county’s inspectors, out on a Saturday, no less. “I can provide contact information for the officials who write the building code.” The builders muttered darkly, but didn’t ask for names and phone numbers. “Right,” the inspector said. “As soon as that water heater is functional, give me a call and I’ll come out.”

He nodded, received none in return, and headed my way.

“Hi,” I said, smiling brightly. “Do you work for the county?”

After a pointed look at the door of his pickup, he said, “Yes, I do. Ron Driskell, building official and mechanical inspector for Tonedagana County.”

“Is there a problem with the house?” I asked. To explain, I hurried on with, “I’m considering building and I’m trying to learn what to avoid.”

He made a rude noise. “I’d say avoid getting your place built by Dale Lacombe, but since he’s dead, that won’t be a problem.”

I wanted to say, Gee, tell me what you really think, but instead asked, “Do you mean his houses weren’t built well? Or was he just hard to deal with?”

“Both.” Driskell spat on the ground. “Lacombe didn’t build a single house that didn’t have some sort of permitting issue. It was either the foundation or the electrical or the plumbing or”—he turned and gave the house a hard glance— “mechanical. The guy just couldn’t see it was easier to do it right the first time and save us all a lot of grief.”

“Is that why he was so difficult, because his houses weren’t built well?”

Driskell snorted. “He was hard to work with because he was a class A jerk. I’m no huge fan of that politically correct crap, but it’s wrong to laugh at a guy in a wheelchair when he says he can’t reach the bathroom faucet on the custom cabinet you built him.”

I blinked and couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“Piece of advice.” Driskell opened the door of his truck. “Buy a house. Don’t build one. It’ll take five years off your life and make you wish you’d never been born.” He climbed into his truck, shut the door hard, and started the engine with a roar.

Hmm , I thought as I watched him go. Driskell didn’t appear to have a solid grasp on his temper. Could he and Dale have had a confrontation? One that had turned Driskell’s temper into murderous anger?

Dale’s workers, after incurious glances at me, piled into their own vehicles and trundled out the driveway, leaving me standing there, wondering.

As I drove Eddie back to the houseboat, I gave Leese a call and asked about the clients of her father’s that we’d dug out the other day.

“Hang on,” she said, and I heard the clicking of a computer keyboard. “I sent an e-mail to Detective Inwood . . . okay, here.” She read off the names, Daphne Raab and Gail and Ray Boggs.

“Are they local?” I asked, not remembering the details.

“Daphne Raab lives here year round, out on Dawkins Road. I think the Boggses are seasonal. I’m not sure where their winter place is. Why?”

I hesitated, then said, “I know that Detective Inwood and Ash must be talking to them, but as a private citizen, I might get some different responses. You never know what might turn up.”

“Minnie, I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but you don’t have to do this.”

“It’s Saturday,” I said, “and my boyfriend is starting a twelve-hour shift in two hours. It’s either this or start wondering if I’ve made a dreadful mistake with my life choices.”

Leese laughed. “Well, since you put it that way, I’m glad of your help. It makes me feel a little less like I’m just sitting around waiting to go bankrupt.” She laughed again, though this time it sounded forced. “I’d come with you, but considering my last name, I’d probably be a hindrance.”

She was right, but the idea saddened me. “I’ll let you know everything I find out,” I promised, having full intentions on keeping that promise. However, half an hour later, when I was standing on a front porch that was sagging at one corner, I knew I wouldn’t be telling even half of what I was hearing.

“Dale Lacombe?” Daphne Raab’s face, which had up until that moment been one of polite curiosity about the stranger at her door, screwed up into a furious grimace. “I was raised not to speak ill of the dead, but there wasn’t anyone more deserving of murder than that . . . that . . .”

“Jerk?” I supplied.