The Murder Pit (23 page)

FORTY FIVE

Sexy Rexy.

It was written in black Sharpie, a little heart on either side of the inscription.

Rex noticed me staring at the cup, so he turned it so he could look at himself. Then he laughed. “You like my nickname from Java Jolt?”

Java Jolt was a coffee shop located about five blocks from our house. It had been a huge perk of moving to this side of town, at least for the kids. They loved that they could walk to Java Jolt for smoothies and cookies and other snacks. When friends came over to play when we’d first moved in, one of the things they always asked was if they could walk to Java Jolt. When I said yes, they would start to brainstorm what names they were going to give to the barista.

Because Java Jolt had become somewhat famous in Moose River for the handwritten names on the bottom half of their cups.

You ordered your drink and after you ordered, you told them your name and they wrote in fancy cursive on the bottom so that you’d know it was yours. And sometimes they drew little pictures or wrote down little notes to personalize the experience. It was a very cute way to make their business seem a little personal and unique.

But you didn’t dare just give them your regular name because they’d mock you. They wanted something fun and goofy and if you didn’t give it them, they’d make one up for you. Will regularly went and announced that he was Will The Thrill…unless he chose to make up a name like Winkleburton Sasberger. The younger girls usually gave them Barbie names. And Emily being Emily and a teenager, would just announce herself as Emily, at which point the barista would frown and write something like Emilameteenager on her cup and Emily would then roll her eyes when they called her name. Jake usually got his coffee as Jake The Snake and after one-time being called out as Crazy Daisy, I generally gave them the name Not Lazy Daisy so as not to sound like some coffee-loving lunatic.

All in good fun.

“Sexy Rexy,” I said out loud, the words sticking in my throat.

“
I couldn’t think of anything the first time I went in there. They threatened me with Tyrannosaurs Rex, so I had to come up with something,” he said, grinning.

The knot in my stomach grew tighter. Maybe it was just a coincidence. But I was so tired of coincidence supposedly having played a role in all this.

“When you did the initial inspection for us,” I asked, trying to stall for time and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. “You found the opening? Up in the crawl space?”

He hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure I noted it on the paperwork.”

That might’ve been true, but our inspection report had been so long that our eyes had sort of glazed over at about the halfway mark. Our real estate agent covered the highlights—or  lowlights, as Jake had called them—and that was it. We didn’t do a line by line reading of the thing.

“
And did you also not find the coal chute?” I asked.

He set the cup down on the table and licked his lips. He glanced into the crawl space and seemed unsure of himself. “Well, I, uh…”

“I mean, I can’t believe you could’ve found the opening, but not the chute,” I said. “I know you said you didn’t. But the door is pretty obvious. I noticed immediately when I got up there to look at the frozen—”

“
I’m sure I saw it,” he said, cutting me off. “I’m sure I did. And I’m sure I noted it in the report.”

I looked at the crawl space. “So you knew. About both. But you told us the other day you didn’t know about the door to the chute.”

He set his coffee down and folded his arms across his chest. “What are you getting at, Daisy?”

I was alone in my home with a man I thought was a murderer. I was being stupid, confronting him. Maybe Crazy Daisy was more appropriate.

“No one else knew about either of those things,” I said. “Not Jake, not me, not anyone else. You were the only one.”

The pipes crackled above our heads along the ceiling. Car engines whispered into the basement from the opening as they drove past. Dust flicked in the light that cut through the crawl space.

“And Helen told everyone you were sexy,” I said.

Now, I was going out on a limb. I realized that. I was putting two and two together because I was pretty sure it added up to four. I wasn’t entirely positive, but I was fairly certain. If he’d looked at me like I was insane, I would’ve felt stupid and probably started tripping over myself to apologize to him.

But he didn’t. He took his index finger and ran it over his bushy mustache. His mouth twitched. He stared at me.

“
Yes, she did,” he finally said.

FORTY SIX

Rex set his feet apart and put his hands on his hips. “Helen and I dated for a couple weeks. Then she dumped me.”

I was acutely aware that we were the only two people in the house, that I was barefoot and without my cellphone. And that he was standing between me and the stairs, something his posture seemed to indicate he was aware of, too.

“She just couldn’t get over, Olaf,” he said, his mouth twitching again. “Everything she did, she just expected him to come running back to her. Which he was never gonna do. Everyone saw that but Helen.”

“
Including you?” I asked, looking to buy more time rather than to find out more of the story.

“
Including me,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “I tried to tell her that, but she blew me off. I told her he wasn’t coming back and that she needed a real man to take care of her. But she wouldn’t listen. Olaf this, Olaf that.” He made a retching sound. “She couldn’t stop talking about him.” Now he looked like he was going to retch. “It got so old.”

I was looking around for something to defend myself with if I needed to. But I didn’t see anything within arm’s reach.

“So, me being me,” Rex said, annoyance all over his face, “I went to talk to him. To tell him that she was still in love with him and he should give her another chance.” He tapped  his index finger against his own chest. “Because’s that’s how much I care about Helen.”

I nodded. “Sure. Of course.”

“So I go to talk to the idiot,” he said, shaking his head. “And he just won’t listen. He’s telling me I’m wasting my time, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, that he’s just trying to move on.” He grimaced. “He had no idea what kind of woman he had in Helen.”

I saw a screwdriver but it was on the other side of the room by the washer.

“He asks me to leave,” Rex continued. “I tell him I’m not leaving until he actually listens to me because he clearly wasn’t. He tells me he’s gonna call the cops if I don’t leave. I tell him that’s fine. We both stand there. And then he grabs me and tries to push me out of his house.” He rubbed at his chin. “Well, Olaf shoulda known I’m stronger than I look.”

I nodded, only half-listening. I knew there was a hammer but it was up in the crawl space. I’d never be able to reach it if he came after me.

“We wrestled a bit and I finally took him to the ground,” Rex explained. “But he whacked his head on the coffee table on the way down to the floor. I knew it was bad.” He stared at me for a long moment. “But it was truly an accident.”

“
That’s what it sounds like,” I said, trying to make it sound like I was on his side. “An accident.”

He nodded. “It was. It was.”

“So I’m sure if you just told the police—”

“
I knew people wouldn’t see it that way,” he said, ignoring me. “I knew they’d think I’d done it on purpose, on account of how I feel about Helen. No one knew we were dating but it was only just a matter of time. And I knew they’d make me out to be the bad guy.” He stroked his mustache again. “So I had to figure something out.”

I glanced toward the crawl space. Towels. A broom. The cords. Nothing that looked weapon-like.

“So what?” I asked, still stalling for time. “You picked my house?”

His mouth curved upward into an ugly smile. “Well, it wasn’t that easy. But Helen mentioned to me at some point that you and Olaf had dated
—”

Jake’s words came back to me.
Easy target
.

“
We didn’t date!” I said.

“
—and I remembered inspecting your house and I just figured that if they ever found his body in the chute, they’d look at you as the suspect.” His smile grew. “Which they did.”

Which they did.

“So I brought Olaf over here in the middle of the night,” he said. “The night of the accident. Because it was an accident.”

“
I believe you,” I said, unsure of whether I did or not.

“
I had him in and down there in about twenty minutes time,” he said. “Pitch black and quiet as a mouse. I knew we were due for snow later that night. Six inches would easily cover my tracks. Easy as pie.”

The thought of Rex or anyone else sneaking into our house in the middle of the night gave me goosebumps. I was going to want an alarm system and iron bars and an armed guard from now on.

If I made it out alive.

“
And then you found him,” he said, frowning. “Honestly, I didn’t think you would. That chute has been sealed up for years. Would have made a good crypt if you hadn’t gone nosing around. Olaf could have rested peacefully for years…for eternity, really. But, no. And here we are.”

“
Look, Rex,” I said quickly. “I believe you that it was an accident. I believe you. And I’m sure the police will, too. If we just tell them—”

He held up a hand cutting me off.. “Daisy. Please. You and I both know that at this point, there’s no turning back. I hid his body whether it was an accident or not. I’m guilty.” He paused. “But I’m not going to jail.”

I swallowed. Hard. “No?”

He shook his head. “No. Because people will think what they’ve been saying since the day they found his body. When they find you, they’ll just assume you did it and were guilty all along.”

When they find you.

“
I saw Helen here earlier,” he said. “I think it’ll be an easy connection for the authorities to make, that you and she had some sort of an argument. Especially when I tell them that I drove by on my way to the hardware store and saw her here. I’m sure I can be a very persuasive witness.”

I thought he was underestimating Detective Hanborn, but that did nothing to calm the panic that was seeping into every vein in my body.

“I’m very sorry, Daisy,” he said, shaking his head. “I like you. I like Jake. But I’m not going to jail. If it’s me or you…then it’s going to be you.”

“
Rex, please,” I said, my heart pounding like a jackhammer, my eyes flitting around the space near me, looking desperately for anything that might serve as a weapon. “We can work this out. We can—”

“
No!” he yelled, his eyes flaring with anger. “No we can’t! There’s nothing to work out! Helen was too stupid to realize what she had in me. Olaf’s dead and she’ll never forgive me for killing him if she finds out. I have a chance with her now, dammit! So I’m going to make everyone think you did it. That’s what’s going to happen. That’s the only thing that
can
happen.”

Finally, I spotted something. On the shelf next to the crawl space. A long barrel, barely visible in the filtered light. But could I get to it in time?

Rex saw my eyes dart toward the crawl space and he lunged at me. I screamed and jumped toward the shelf and grabbed my weapon. I turned and swung as hard as I could at his head.

The hair dryer—the hair dryer that had gotten me into the crawl space in the first place—smashed into his jaw. It disintegrated into about fifty pieces as Rex crashed to the ground with a thud, the bits of plastic and ceramic falling onto his back like puzzle pieces.

I stood there for a moment, my hand shaking, holding onto what was left of the hair dryer.

I looked down.

Rex was out cold at my feet.

FORTY SEVEN

“Why are we having pizza again?” Will asked, grabbing a slice from the box in the middle of the table. “Is this cause Mom beat up that creepy inspector guy today?”

I held up the bottle of beer and tilted it in his direction. “Yes. That’s exactly right.”

I couldn’t believe that just a couple of hours earlier, I’d jumped over Rex’s unconscious body and sprinted up the stairs. I’d locked the basement door behind me and, with shaking hands and eyes blurred from unshed tears, grabbed my cell and called the police. I’d called Jake next and  he’d gotten to the house three minutes later, before the police arrived. He’d gone downstairs to stand guard over Rex and I’d stood on the back porch to wait for Detective Hanborn to arrive.

Jake put his around me and raised his own beer bottle. “Your mother handled herself quite nicely today. She was very brave.”

“Yeah, but we need a new hair dryer,” Emily said. “I have to take a shower and dry my hair tonight..”

Grace slapped the table. “You can use one of the Barbie ones in the playroom!”

Emily shot her a disgusted look before turning her eyes back to me. “We can go to the store tonight, right? And get a new one?”

“
Sure,” I said. She could have asked me to buy her twenty hair dryers and I probably would have said yes.

“
Or I could just not worry about my hair and skip school tomorrow,” Emily said, reaching for another slice of pizza. The cheese slid off and she dangled it above her mouth, dropping it in. “All I’m going to hear about is how my mom beat up the murderer.”

“
Better than your mom being the murderer,” Jake said.

I elbowed him in the ribs and he laughed.

“Yes, you’re going to school,” I said. “Life is back to normal. You won’t be poison anymore.”

Jake started rapping the Bell Biv Devoe song and Emily shot him a disgusted look. “Oh my God. What are you singing?”

He rocked back and forth in his chair, folding his hands rapper-style across his chest. “Bell Biv Devoe. One of the most awesomely bad rap groups ever.”

She rolled her eyes. “Just stop.”

Jake turned to look at me. “I really think you should do a music appreciation class. All of the one-hit wonders and bad bands of the 80s and 90s.”

“
Great idea,” I said, taking a sip of my beer.

“
Yeah, well, I’m not homeschooled anymore,” Emily pointed out.

“
We’ll make sure we do this class on the weekends, when you’re home,” Jake said.

She made a face, but I could see the smile in her eyes.

“See?” Jake said to me, clinking his bottle of beer against mine. “Everything is back to normal.”

He leaned over and kissed me and Will groaned. “He’s right. Everything is back to normal. Including your gross kissing.”

I smiled. I wasn’t one hundred percent convinced about the normal part. I was still rattled about both what Rex had done and what he had tried to do to me. I saw a few sleepless nights in my future, as well as some consultations with a security company for the house. It was going to be hard to shake the image of someone sneaking into our home in the middle of the night without our knowing.

But it was evident, sitting around the kitchen table, bantering with the kids and feeling a sense of calm wash over me, that some of the normalcy had already returned.

“Can we have cookies for dinner?” Sophie asked hopefully.

“
Cookies?” Emily raised her eyebrows. “You had time to make cookies while all of this was happening?”

“
No,” I said. “Carol brought them by.”

After Detective Hanborn had led a dazed and slightly bloody Rex out of our basement and into a waiting squad car, Carol Vinford had shown up at the door, a plate of cookies in hand. Her husband had been listening to the police scanner and she’d come scurrying over, telling me she’d planned to stop by anyway to let me know that we were welcome back at the co-op with no restrictions. She babbled on about how the mothers had met and had decided that they needed me and they’d do whatever it took to get me back. I didn’t know what was truth and what was fiction and I was still reeling from what had happened in the basement. I wasn’t in the mood to agree to anything at that moment, but I took the plate of cookies and told her I’d be in touch. I knew we’d go back because the kids would want to, but I didn’t mind making her squirm just a little before I gave her the news.

So
that
normalcy was back.

We finished the pizza, the kids discussing how maybe now that the crime was solved that Olaf would decide not to haunt our house. We were a one-ghost household, Grace proclaimed and all the kids, Emily excluded, agreed that Lolly was the only ghost we wanted.

Yep. Back to normal.

A knock at the backdoor froze all conversation.

“No one’s running?” Jake asked. “Wow. This is progress.”

“
You and Mom are here to fight off the robbers,” Will said, leaning to the side to get a better look at the window. “And now we know Mom can actually fight, so that’s cool.”

“
Yes,” I said, standing and heading for the door. “I’m a crime-fighting machine.”

I peered through the kitchen door and smiled.

“Am I bothering you?” Olga asked, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry to stop by after the day you’ve had.”

I waved her into the kitchen. “Not at all. Come in.”

She stepped inside and unzipped her coat, revealing a purple and yellow paisley sweater. “I heard about what happened. Are you alright?”

The pattern on her sweater was making me dizzy. “Fine.”

“He didn’t hurt you?” She eyed me. “You don’t seem fine. You seem…rattled.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m fine. Really.”

She studied me for a minute. “That’s good,” she finally said. She wrung her gloved hands. “And he said he did it? To Olaf?”

I recounted what Rex told me. She listened closely, nodding her head. She winced when I mentioned the part where they’d fought, her eyes pooling with tears. She rubbed at them and let out a long, slow breath when I finished.

“Okay,” she said. “At least I know now.”

“
I’m sorry,” I said, feeling at a loss to offer her something better.

“
Me, too,” she said. “But at least I know. Not knowing was the hardest. And I guess it’s better that I know it wasn’t Helen.” Her mouth twisted into a knot for a moment. “Even if it was partly her fault.”

I doubted she’d ever not blame Helen for losing her brother. I wasn’t sure where I stood on that, after witnessing Helen’s apology and guilt. But that was for them to work out and for me to stay out of.

“So I guess I just wanted to say thank you,” Olga said. “For figuring it out.”

“
I didn’t really figure it out,” I told her. “I’m not sure I really did anything.”

She brushed at her hair with her gloved hand. “Well, you went out with him. And you were nice to him. And you cared that someone killed him.” She paused. “I’d say that’s plenty.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“
Anyway, I’ll let you get back to your family,” she said, glancing into the dining room. “I just wanted to say thank you. And remember if you need a clown for a party or something—”

“
Right, right,” I said hurriedly before Jake came out of his seat and threw her out for uttering the c-word in our home.

We said goodbye and I closed the door behind her, cutting off the icy air before it trickled into the house.

I stood there for a moment. I really hoped finding out what happened gave Olga some closure. She deserved it. I wanted her to be okay.

I wanted everyone to be okay.

“How come you guys didn’t wrestle this time?” Will called out from the dining room table.

Jake laughed loudly and the younger girls giggled. I looked around the table at my husband and kids, trying to look irritated but not succeeding. A smile broke out across my face.

Jake had said it the night before.

We were okay.

And maybe we lived in a nutty little town and maybe someone had tried to frame me for murder and maybe I’d gotten into a fight with a woman on the street and maybe my intuition had been a little off base.

But, in the end, he was right.

We were okay.

THE END