The Murder Pit (11 page)

TWENTY ONE

“Why are we going to Jake’s work?” Will asked from the back seat.

It was the next morning and I was focusing on my mom duties rather than my amateur detective duties. I’d pulled all three of the younger kids out of bed earlier than they were used to and they were still a little sleepy-eyed as I loaded them into the car.

“We’re touring the recycling plant,” I said, glancing in the rearview mirror. “Remember?”

He shrugged and looked out the window.

“I like Daddy’s work,” Sophie said, then yawning. “There’s always cool stuff there.”

“Oh yeah!” Grace said, squirming in her car seat. “Remember when he brought home that headless doll?”

“Yeah!” Sophie said. “And that teddy bear with no legs!”

“Those are so cool,” Grace said. “I hope we find something cool like that today.”

I just hoped I wouldn’t lose any of them on a conveyor belt or to one of the massive trash pickers.

We’d been to Jake’s plant before and the truth was, just calling it a recycling plant didn’t really do it justice. It was funded by the state and what it really did was sort people’s trash in an attempt to recycle as much of it as possible. So they started with large piles and continued sorting it down until they were down to what was truly waste. The plant itself was a maze of conveyors and robots and there tons of places to view the process. Fun and educational and helping to save the planet.

Like, three of my favorite things.

We saw one familiar car in the parking lot and the kids hurried out of the SUV to go look for their friends the conference room. Jake was there, waiting for us, when we walked in.

He kissed me on the cheek. “Hey.”

“Hi,” I said, peering into the room.

Brenda Witt was seated at the table with her five kids. The youngest, baby Mary, was snuggled in a baby carrier against her chest.

Brenda grinned when she saw me. “Hey, Killer.”

I smiled. “Knock it off or you’re next.”

Brenda and I had been friends since Thornton and I moved to Minnesota. Actually, we’d been friends before—I’d visited a few online homeschool groups before the move, trying to figure out co-ops and what the local homeschool culture might be like. Brenda had responded right away and a friendship was born.

“You’re gonna have to fill me in on what happened,” she said. Mary squirmed and a cry tore from her. Brenda fumbled for the pacifier attached to the carrier and gave it back to the baby, who sucked it furiously, eyes closed, her brow furrowed.

“Let’s just say I would have much rather been in Florida with you guys this last week,” I said.

She nodded sympathetically, her short brown bob bouncing up and down. “And not just because of the weather, right?”

“Exactly.”

I set my purse down on the table and glanced out the window that faced the parking lot. No one else had arrived yet for the tour. I shifted my gaze to the clock mounted on the wall. Our tour was supposed to have started five minutes ago.

Brenda read my mind. “Where is everyone?” she asked.

“Probably hiding from the murderer,” I said bitterly.

She frowned. “What?”

“Oh, everyone apparently thinks that since Olaf was found in my house, I’m suspect number one. Even though we didn’t know we had a coal chute. Even though I’d only met Olaf one time. For a total of two hours. You know, completely logical.”

Brenda rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I hate people.”

I stifled a smile. “Me, too.”

I didn’t hate all people and neither did Brenda. But what we did hate were judgmental, narrow-minded people. Well, and people who walked slow and people who tail-gated us and people who cut in line at McDonald’s. Homeschooling might have been the foundation of our friendship but it was our kindred spirit-ness that was the glue that bound us together.

Jake walked back into the conference room and looked around. “Is this everyone?”

I’d checked the sign-up document online right before we’d left. There had been six families signed up. A total of eighteen kids. With Brenda’s five and my four, we were only at nine.

I sighed.“Apparently so.”

“Okay,” he said. He hesitated, and I knew he wanted to ask questions. But the kids had all stopped talking and were watching us with eagle eyes, wondering what was going on. Jake cleared his throat. “We’ll get started in just a few. And just to warn you ahead of time. We have another group coming today, too. A bigger group.” He leaned into my ear. “A public school group.”

I made a face. “That’s fine.”

“Well, you usually talk about school groups like they carry the bubonic plague,” he said, grinning. “Just wanted to prepare you for the invasion.”

As homeschoolers, we were spoiled. We never waited in lines at amusement parks or museums or zoos because we went during the day, when most kids were in school. Anytime we saw the yellow buses roll up, I’d cringe a little. Not because I disliked public school kids—Jake and I both went to brick and mortar schools and we had one kid currently enrolled—but because it usually signaled the arrival of a crowd we weren’t ready for and lines we hadn’t anticipated.

“We’ll handle the invasion just fine,” I said. “No turf wars or anything. I promise.”

He winked at me. “Excellent. Give me a minute and I’ll be back and we’ll get started.” He trotted off down the hall.

I settled into the seat next to Brenda and, in a low voice, filled her in on what had happened. The 4-H meeting. The sign-ups at co-op. The crazy sister and ex-wife. She sat and listened, even while Derek, her two-year old, attached himself to her pant leg and Drew, her five year old, babbled loudly about Mario Brothers. She didn’t judge and didn’t offer advice; she just listened. And it was exactly what I needed.

Jake finally came back with another employee at the plant. It was someone I didn’t recognize, an older, grizzled man wearing a flannel shirt, jeans and worn work boots. He greeted us with a grim smile and he and Jake went through the basics of the place—how it worked, where the trash came from, what they did with the materials they collected and recycled. He played a short video that showed everything he’d just explained in action. When the video ended, Jake and Gus, the other employee, herded us into the hallway and distributed hard hats to everyone. After some persuading, Brenda convinced Gus that a hard hat would not, in fact, fit on Mary’s head and that she would do her best to shield the baby with her body instead.

“It doesn’t smell as bad as it usually does,” Will said as we walked.

“That’s because it’s winter and it’s not as hot, so the garbage isn’t ripe,” I said.

“Ripe? Like a piece of fruit?” Grace yelled, trying to be heard above the whir of the machines.

“Something like that,” I called back.

Will wrinkled his nose. “You mean gross.”

“Right. Gross.”

“Good,” Will said. He shoved his hands in his pockets and made a face. “Normally, I want to vomit when we go out there in the big recycling room.”

“Well, let’s hope for no vomiting today,” I said.

“I hope for that every day.”

I rolled my eyes.

Jake took us through a series of doors that led to a massive storage building where the garbage was dumped. It was roughly the size of an airplane hangar. Trucks drove in through a large door, dumped their haulers into a massive pile of trash and then drove out another door. There were mountains and mountains of trash. Bulldozers then dug into the mounds, lifting trash and moving it onto the conveyor belts, where men in little booths used mechanical arms to sort through it as it rode past them. Whatever they chose to remove from the belts was then put in another bin for the next level of sorting. It was all incredibly efficient and made my heart flutter to actually witness something that was truly helping to make the planet a better place.

It was what Jake called my “hippie vibe.”

Whatever it was, it was in full force as we walked into the storage building.

Jake spoke to the kids about what they collected and where it all went after it was sorted and the kids were starting to ask questions about the weird things they found when the next school group was brought into the observation room.

The group was roughly five times the size of ours and the kids looked like they were Grace’s age, either 2
nd
or 3
rd
graders. They crowded toward us, squealing with excitement, awed both by the size of the room and the mountains of trash. One kid started to wander off from the group toward one of the trash piles, but was quickly herded back to the group by one of the adults with the group, a woman who looked oddly familiar. Long brown hair. Thick-heeled shoes that looked more appropriate for a fashion show than a field trip.

Helen Stunderson.

She wore a thick black sweater and a crème colored corduroy skirt over black tights. Big silver earrings jangled from her ears as she rushed the boy back to the pack, her face contorted in anger as she chastised him.

I stared at her. Olaf hadn’t mentioned that they had a child. Why was she there? Was she stalking me again? That didn’t seem plausible, given that she was with the group from the school.

She took a deep breath, adjusted one of her earrings and did a double take when she saw me. She froze for a moment and her cheeks bloomed pink. Then she blinked, lifted her chin and looked back at the employee who was leading their group. 

Seeing her completely unnerved me. I was already confused about her lying to me at the library and because Olga had given me a completely different story than what Helen had. Now she was showing up on the same field trip as me?

Jake had said it himself. Too many coincidences.

Helen glanced my way again, then quickly looked back to their guide. She did that two more times before Jake ushered our group up the stairs and into one of the picker booths.

The kids packed themselves next to one of windows and watched the conveyor belt as the guy at the booth controls used the long metal arms to sort, move and pick through the trash riding up the belt. They giggled and pointed. I glanced out the window.

Helen’s group was no longer in sight.

I tried to focus on why we were there to begin with.

Grace stuck her finger on the window. “I see a doll! Can we get the doll, Mommy?”

“Probably not.”

“Awwww.” Grace’s face fell. “I don’t want her to die in the trash.”

“There’s another one!” Sophie yelled. “They are probably sister dolls!”

Jake made his way around the crowd of kids to me. “Are you alright?”

I looked at him. “Of course.”

“You look…I don’t know. Kind of weirded out.”

“Just all these dead dolls,” I said, motioning to the conveyor belt.

He eyed me dubiously.

“I’m fine,” I said, touching his elbow. “Really.”

He raised an eyebrow like he wasn’t buying the explanation. He never bought my fake explanations, which was really annoying. He knew me too well and could see right through me when I was trying to avoid telling him something. There was something really wonderful about being that connected to another human being but sometimes I hated not being able to hide anything from him.

He moved away from me and announced to the kids that we were going to go back downstairs and take a closer look in the bins that the picking machine was dropping things into. Our small group of kids cheered and moved for the door to the stairs. I held the door, making sure they all got out and that we didn’t leave Derek behind to drive the controls of the picking robot. Because, at two years old, it was absolutely something he would do. The guy at the controls waved at me as I said goodbye.

Jake and Brenda and the kids were already down the stairs by the time I stepped out of the booth, their excitement hurrying their steps so they could see what kind of treasures were in the bins. I held onto the metal railing next to the steep stairs and reached the bottom.

Just as Helen Stunderson came out from behind the stairs and blocked my path.

TWENTY TWO

Helen folded her arms across her expensive-looking sweater and glared at me. “Well, well, well. Fancy meeting you here.”

I was surprised by her aggressive tone. It was the exact opposite of how she’d come across in the library.

“I was a little surprised to see you here, too,” I said.

“Oh. Were you?” she said, tilting her head to the side, studying me. “I’m not sure I believe that.”

“Excuse me?”

“I think it’s become pretty clear that you are stalking me,” Helen declared.

“What are you talking about?”

“Running into me at the library the other day?” she said, raising an eyebrow at me. “Now here? At the recycling plant of all places. Did you think I wouldn’t see you?” She shook her head. “Please.”

I started to say something, stopped, took a deep breath, then started again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “You came up to me at the library. And today I’m here with my kids. And my husband works here.”

She smirked. “Sure he does.”

“He does,” I insisted, preparing to launch his full CV at her. But then I stopped myself. I didn’t need to defend anything to the woman standing in front of me. “Besides, if anyone around here is lying, it’s you. You lied about working at the library.”

Her mouth twitched and she averted her gaze, examining her nails instead. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh really?” I asked. I moved closer to her. “I went to the desk after you disappeared. I asked them to find you. And they told me you didn’t work there.”

She was still focused on her nails. “You must be mistaken.”

“I’m not,” I said. “So
you
must be lying.”

She moved her gaze from the lacquered nails to my eyes. “Takes one to know one.”

“That doesn’t even make sense.”

“Nor does you following me to a trash plant.”

I bristled. “It’s a recycling plant.”

“Whatever,” she said. Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Why are you here bothering me?”

I pressed my lips together and clenched my hands into tight fists to keep myself from strangling this nutjob. “I’m here with my kids and their friends because my husband—who
works
here—invited us to come tour the plant. I’ve now explained that to you twice. Why exactly are
you
here?”

She considered my words, then shrugged. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I work part-time at the elementary school, They needed a chaperone for today.”

That was the first thing that had come out of her mouth that made any sense at all.

“Hey, Mom!” Grace yelled, popping her head around the corner. “Come here!”

“Hang on,” I said to her. I turned back to Helen. “What do you do at the school?”

“I help in the attendance office,” she said, lifting her chin as if she was royalty. “Again, not that it’s any of your business.”

“I wasn’t aware you worked,” I said.

“You probably aren’t aware of a lot of things,” she said, glaring at me.

It was like she had become her evil twin from our library meeting. She’d been overly kind and friendly there. Now, she was looking at me like she wanted to push me into one of the bins. Emily was reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for her lit class and I wished she were there so she could see a real-life reenactment of someone with dual personalities. Because I was pretty sure that was what I was witnessing.

“Mom!” Grace yelled again. “Come here!”

“Hang
on
!” I called. I stared at Helen. “I know that you didn’t really want a divorce from Olaf.”

Her eyes morphed into daggers. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the fact that not only did you lie to me about working in the library, you also lied to me about Olaf not wanting the divorce,” I said, returning her glare. “
You
were the one who didn’t want the divorce.”

“Daisy!” Sophie yelled.

“You better take that back,” Helen growled.

“I don’t think I will,” I said.

“Olaf loved me,” she said, her voice low and thick. “Loved me. He was devastated when I told him I wanted a divorce. He begged me to take him back. Begged me.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Well, that’s not what I heard.”

“Oh, I’m sure that fat cow Olga had a lot of great things to say,” she spat. “I’ll bet everything she told you was a big fat lie because she’s a big, fat, lying cow.”

“Mom!” Will’s voice chimed in with the others and I could hear the urgency in his voice. “You better come!”

I ignored him. “You followed me to Olga’s,” I said, pointing a finger at her.

Helen’s face colored. “What? No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did,” I said. “How else would you have known I spoke to her? You really are stalking me.”

“You’re wrong,” she said primly. “But you better know one thing. I asked for the divorce. Plain and simple. Olaf loved me and begged me to stay.” She leaned toward me and her eyes were so wide, they practically bugged out of her head. “
Begged me
.”

Grace appeared by my side, just visible in my peripheral vision. “Mom, can I keep him?”

Helen glanced at her like she was a piece of trash that had drifted off the pile. She sniffed and turned back to me. “And you better stop following me or you’ll be sorry.”

“You’re insane,” I said. “I’m not following
—”

“Mom,” Grace said, tugging at the back of my coat. “I want to keep him.”

I whirled around, completely out of sorts by the conversation with Helen and by the kids all screaming at me.

Grace held up her hands, her face beaming. Something small and dirty squirmed in her clutches. “Can I keep him?”

It looked like a mouse.

“Dear God,” I muttered. “Hold on.”

I whirled back around to let Helen know I wasn’t going take any more of her crap and that if I caught her around me again, I was going to call the police.

But she was long gone.