Heather Webber - Digging Up Trouble

Digging Up Trouble

45

Everyone stood in silence, just watching.

After twenty minutes of futile effort one of the paramedics made a phone call. After he hung up, he and his partner started putting away their gear.

Out of nowhere a sheet appeared, and they draped it over the man’s face and shoulders, leaving his arms and legs sticking out, like some sort of off-kilter stick figure.

I turned away.

Several officers now swarmed the yard, clearing people out. Kit had disappeared. I assumed he was off coddling BeBe. Marty, Coby, and Stanley Mack had moved to the shade under the eaves of the house.

People began speaking as they walked away, softly at first, but then more loudly. I was able to pick out pieces of conversation.

I didn’t like him, but I’d never wish this on him.

Hasn’t seen his kid in ten years.

A bastard to work with too.

The way he treated Greta . . . the man should have been in jail.

Neighborhood will be better now that he’s gone.

I heard his wife was hoping he’d have a heart attack when he saw the yard. That’s why she hired these people.

Rumors flew. I wanted to yell that this man’s wife hadn’t hired me at all. Lindsey Lockhart had. To surprise her husband Bill.

But the man on the ground wasn’t Bill. And this yard apparently wasn’t the Lockharts’.

Lindsey had lied to me.

I tapped someone on the shoulder. The man turned, his light blue eyes narrowing. I said, “Do you happen to know this man’s name?”

“Russ Grabinsky,” he said. “The lowest form of scum that ever lived.”

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Heather Webber

Ohh-kay. “And he lived here?” I asked, double-checking.

“For over thirty years.”

“Where, ah, do the Lockharts live?”

The man hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the house next door, the one with the cute picket fence and greenhouse.

“There. Why?”

“No reason.”

We both looked back at the covered body.

“I’m glad he’s dead,” he said, then stalked off, stopping to speak with Kate Hathaway for a brief moment before storm-ing down the hill.

I forced my mouth closed. It’s one thing not to like a man, but another to say you’re glad he’s dead.

My gaze went back to the body on the ground.

Russ Grabinsky. Grabinsky. I’d heard the name before, but I couldn’t place it. It had been recent too.

I cursed getting older just as a uniformed officer came over to me. “Hello, Nina.”

“Hey, Davis.” The Freedom Police Department was very close-knit. Everyone knew everyone. I wondered how long it would take for this incident to get back to Kevin.

“Bad day, huh?” Davis asked, tapping his small notebook.

I bit back any sarcastic comments. No need to antagonize.

“I’ve had better.”

“Just need to ask a few questions.”

I nodded.

“Who hired you?”

“Lindsey Lockhart.”

“She here?”

I looked around, didn’t see her traitorous self anywhere.

I’d known something was off about this job. Dammit. When was I going to listen to my instincts? “No.”

“She live here?”

Digging Up Trouble

47

“I guess not,” I said, unable to completely cover my sarcasm.

“Did you have the homeowner’s permission to work this land?”

“Apparently not.” I eyed my fingernails, in need of biting one, but they were just too dirty. I crossed my arms instead.

Davis whistled low.

Just then a woman came waddling quickly up the hill, her face flushed with exertion. She was older, maybe mid-sixties, with an old-fashioned beehive hairdo. She wore an old housecoat with faux pearl buttons. “Russell!” she cried when she spotted the sheet-covered body on the ground.

“Greta!” Kate Hathaway rushed over to her, put an arm around the woman’s broad shoulders.

Davis said, “I’ll be right back.”

So this was Greta. Not a dog after all. I looked around for Lindsey Lockhart, thinking there might be two deaths today.

I moseyed over to stand with the guys while the police and the homeowners’ association welcome wagon filled Mrs.

Grabinsky in.

I recalled what one of the passersby had said about her wanting to kill her husband and wondered why people would think so. Had their marriage been bad? Had he been abusive? Was she glad he was gone?

She certainly wasn’t acting glad. Tears flowed.

Crocodile tears?

“No, no, no!” she cried as one of the paramedics asked her which mortuary to call. “I want an autopsy done!”

Why? I wondered.

“Why?” the paramedic asked, bless him.

“Because I want to know why he died. My Russell was a healthy man. This just does not happen to healthy men!”

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Heather Webber

“You know that’s not true, Greta,” a voice from behind me said.

Lindsey. When had she shown up? Had she been hiding nearby all along? I glared at her, but she wouldn’t look at me, so I supposed it had little effect.

“What’s not true?” Davis asked, stepping into the conversation.

Lindsey clasped her hands together. “Russell wasn’t that healthy.”

Mrs. Grabinsky’s eyes narrowed.

“You know he wasn’t, Greta. He was taking high blood pressure medication. You told me so yourself.”

Russ Grabinsky. Ebenezer! Of course. That’s where I’d heard the name. Yesterday at the hospital. Russ Grabinsky was the Growl co-owner Riley despised.

Greta put her meaty hands on her meatier hips. “Nothing that would cause this!”

“Actually,” the paramedic said, “high blood pressure could cause a heart infarction.”

The vicious glare turned to him. He looked at Davis.

“If there’s any suspicion at all, an autopsy must be done.”

The paramedic looked like he wanted to argue, but said,

“We’ll transport the body to the coroner’s office, then.”

Davis nodded, jotted something in his notebook.

Everyone watched silently as Russ Grabinsky was loaded onto a gurney, the white sheet still covering him, and rolled down the hill into a waiting van.

Wild-eyed, Greta backed away from us, her hands shaking. She pointed to Lindsey. “This is your fault! You had no right, not at all, to do this.”

Lindsey pleaded, “Greta, be reasonable. I was trying to help you.”

“Help? Ha! By sending my husband to an early grave?”

“Greta—”

Digging Up Trouble

49

“You’ll be hearing from my lawyer!” Greta cried.

Hmmph. I had a visit to my lawyers in mind as well, to deal with Lindsey.

“And you!” A craggy finger shook at me.

“Me?”

“You will pay too.”

I gasped. “What did I do?”

“You murdered my husband.”

Murmurs rippled through the yard.

“As far as I’m concerned it was your unauthorized work here that caused his heart attack. You will pay, little lady.”

The use of “little lady” barely even registered. All I could think of was how I was going to deal with this. Because Greta Grabinsky actually had a good case against me.

Not about the murder, of course. That was ridiculous. But about the unauthorized work. Technically, I’d destroyed her property. She could sue me for everything I had.

I could lose everything.

Six

An hour later I stood staring at the mess in the backyard. Most of the clearing had been done, at least.

“You know, you need to finish this job ASAP.”

Meredith Adams’s voice worked my last nerve. “Why’s that?”

“You cannot leave this yard in the state it’s in. It’s an eyesore. A blight on the neighborhood.”

“Is it?”