Heather Webber - Digging Up Trouble

Thinking of Bobby lightened my mood. It always did.

“All right,” I reluctantly agreed. “Send someone into my office.”

“Mary Hernandez?” Ana said. “You’re first.”

A petite woman with long dark hair and darkly tanned skin stood up, walked hesitantly toward the office. “I’ll be right in,” I said and offered her a drink. She shook her head no.

“So,” Ana said as I walked toward the fridge for a Dr Pepper fix, “the dead guy . . . did you really kill him?”

Heads snapped up, stared at me. “I didn’t kill anyone!” I cried. “He just happened to . . . well, die while I was there.”

Mary hustled out of my office, saying something to Ana in Spanish. She hurried out the door and was followed by three others.

One man stayed, a Better Homes and Gardens magazine forgotten on his lap as he stared at me.

“Really, I didn’t kill him,” I said to him. “He had a heart attack.”

“Did he turn blue?” Ana asked.

Ana had a sick fascination with dead people. She wanted to know all the details.

“Ana,” I warned.

“Purple? Did he get all stiff?”

I thought about Russ lying there, a prostrate stick figure, and shuddered.

62

Heather Webber

“Foaming at the mouth?”

“I am not having this conversation.”

“You,” I said to the man on the couch. “What’s your name?”

“Harry von Barber.”

“Nina, I’m going to head out now.” I jumped as someone came out of the conference room to my left.

“Jeez! A little warning. A slight cough or something! I didn’t even know you were here.”

Jean-Claude apologized, then said, “I was hiding out after . . . well, you know.”

Yeah, I did know. But maybe Kit wouldn’t kill him after what happened with the dead guy and all.

He went on. “I’ve been working on the next job, doing some ordering.”

“Good,” I said, thinking maybe I wouldn’t have to fire him after all.

“Jean-Claude?” Harry asked. “Is that you, man?”

My head snapped to Harry, then to Ana, who shrugged.

Jean-Claude’s cheeks turned a fiery red. “Do I know you?”

I caught a very subtle shake of Jean-Claude’s head as he asked. Hmmm.

Harry cleared his throat. “Guess not. You just look familiar.”

My mouth dropped open. “You knew his name!”

“Lots of people with that name.” Harry shrugged, fussed with his collar.

“Uh-huh. Jean-Claude is at the top of every baby name list. I’ll have to let Tam know.”

“Tam?” Harry asked.

“I better go.” Jean-Claude fairly sprinted out the door.

Obviously Harry knew Jean-Claude and Jean-Claude didn’t want anyone to know that. Why? Did it have something to do with the late night activities he was so hush-hush about?

Had Harry been into the car stealing business too? Maybe Digging Up Trouble

63

a drug dealer? Maybe he’d been arrested on possession charges. Asking him might shed some light on Jean-Claude’s nighttime forays.

“Hey, Harry, why were you arrested?” I asked.

He looked at Ana, his eyes pained. “Do I have to tell her that?”

Ana nodded. “ ’Fraid so.”

“I, um. Shhrohghn,” he said, rubbing his hand over his mouth.

“What?”

He pulled his hand away. “Solicitation, all right?”

I blinked. “You’re a prostitute?”

“I prefer escort. And I’ll have you know I was entrapped.

That’s why I got locked up.”

Harry was, er, an escort. And he knew Jean-Claude.

Oh. My. God. Was Jean-Claude moonlighting as a gigolo?

“I have to go talk to her, right?” I asked. “Try to explain.”

It was early Saturday morning and I should have been helping Kit with a “mini”—a mini makeover reserved for smaller yards or certain problem areas—but I knew the McPhains’ yard was perfectly fine in his capable hands.

Plus, he had Marty and Jean-Claude with him. Despite my determination to fire Jean-Claude, I’d taken pity on him since he had been at the Grabinsky site after all—helping Kit.

I was such a sucker. How many chances was I going to give him?

Kit had plenty of manpower to transform a small nonde-script brick patio into something special. Plus, if he needed help he could always call Deanna or Coby, who were at the office.

Instead of helping out, I’d driven over to see Tam.

“I don’t know,” Tam said. “It might make things worse.”

64

Heather Webber

“Worse than getting sued?” I asked.

The tortuous beltlike contraption around her waist was still there. And it had a friend. I could see two squarish lumps underneath her hot pink silk pajama shirt. She’d explained to me that one monitored contractions, the other the baby’s heart rate. As of right now, everything was normal.

The medication she was taking had stopped the contractions.

But she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Which meant I had to find a temp for her.

But not Harry.

I didn’t dare tell her about Jean-Claude possibly being a gigolo. That might send her into irreversible labor.

A notepad balanced on Tam’s belly. She tapped a pencil on it. “You have a point.”

“For once,” Brickhouse Krauss piped in.

“Don’t you have some oxygen to suck?” I asked in a too sweet voice.

“Oh!” Tam said, clutching her stomach.

“What? Is it the baby?” I glanced at the monitors, but everything looked okay. “Should I get the doctor?”

“No, no,” Tam assured me.

Brickhouse had looked ready to leap out of the bed to be of assistance. Actually, she looked rather healthy to me.

Pink cheeks, softly glowing skin. What was she still doing here?

“The baby just kicked a rib is all.”

I glanced at her stomach in time to see a bump move from one side of her body to the other.

Tam laughed.

“What?” I asked.

“You should see your face.”

“Does it always do that?” I asked, horrified. It was like something out of a horror movie.

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65

Tam nodded. “You get used to it.”

“Oh.” I didn’t believe her for a minute. You get used to swimming in lukewarm water. You get used to doing your hair the same way. You get used to infomercials. You do not get used to someone poking you from the inside out.

“How about the name Jake?” Tam asked, picking up the notepad, pencil poised.

Mrs. Krauss clucked. “Jake Munroe used to pick his nose in my class.”

Tam crossed that name off her list. “Jane?”

I made a face. “Jane Albertson stole my boyfriend in the first grade.”

Tam and Mrs. Krauss stared at me.

“What?” I asked. “I’m not allowed to hold a grudge?”

Tam crossed that name off her list. “Kevin?”

I gave her the Ceceri Evil Eye.

“All right.” She scratched off that name too.

I got to thinking again about Greta Grabinsky. Maybe going to see her, pleading my case, wasn’t the wisest move. Maybe I should give her time. A few days at least. But if she sued . . .

I’d worked too hard to lose it all.

“What could she do, really?” I asked.

“Are we back to that?” Mrs. Krauss asked, flipping through a baby name book.

“Well, I’m sorry to bore you, but I don’t know what to do.”

“The worst she could do is throw you out,” Tam said.

“Michael?”

“Michael Perry cheated on his tenth grade term paper,”

Mrs. Krauss said in a way that made me think he’d paid dearly for it. “Bought one from an upperclassman.”

I thought that was pretty ingenious of him. I’d slaved over mine, “A Socioeconomic Analysis of Romeo and Juliet, ”

and had gotten a D.