Sink Trap (4 page)

She didn’t wait for my answer. She didn’t need to. We’d been best friends for years, and she knew I’d be there. Besides, maybe she could tell me something about the brooch.

Still, the dogs really did need to get out.

I stowed the phone back in my pocket, grabbed the leashes, and hurried out the front door. Sue, despite her fifteen minute promise, would be at least thirty. She always was.

The dogs, on the other hand, were past the point of ready, and well into their version of frenzied.

We all needed that walk.

chapter 3

Sue, in typical Sue fashion, showed up more than half an hour later. The dogs had sniffed their way through the quiet neighborhood, done their doggie duty, and were settled in their beds.

I’d stashed the morning’s dishes in the nearly full dishwasher, suppressing an instant of guilt. Sandra Neverall would never allow dishes to sit overnight. But I wasn’t Sandra Neverall. I shrugged off my mother’s nagging voice in the back of my head and wiped down the kitchen table before setting out the pizza.

I’d unlearned a lot of household guilt working hundred-hour weeks in high tech, and I didn’t see any reason to change now.

Daisy and Buddha jumped from their beds and ran to the front door before the bell actually rang. I swear, those two can
smell
a sucker from a mile away.

Sue didn’t disappoint them. Before I could tell her I already gave them treats, she tossed each of them a small green chew.

“You spoil them,” I said.

“I spoil all the dogs,” Sue answered, kicking off her sneakers and settling into a kitchen chair. “It makes my work a lot easier.”

She helped herself to a slice.

“So,” she mumbled around a mouthful of pizza. “Tell me about your nondate.”

“You called me, remember? You go first.”

Sue shook her head and swallowed. “I can listen and eat. You talk first.” She took another bite, as though that settled the matter. Which it did.

Besides, watching Sue eat was just boring.

“There really isn’t anything to tell, like I said before. I got caught in traffic and called him and canceled. I ordered a pizza. End of story.”

She raised one eyebrow. Why can everyone but me do that? It isn’t fair! “Nothing else?”

“Nothing.” I crossed my arms over my chest and waited.

“What is it with you, Neverall? You were warm for his form forever, and now you’re standing him up?”

“I didn’t stand him up. I worked late, and traffic was horrid. And I had a crush on him for a few months, a long time ago, back in high school.”

“Okay, so it’s been a little while. So what?” She caught my eye, and I looked away.

“I get it!” she crowed. “Mother approves.”

“Hey, Peter Pan, high school was more than a little while ago. Try close to twenty years.” I’d argue time with her, but I wasn’t going near the mother comment.

“Not even fifteen,” she countered. “You’d think someone with a fancy engineering degree would be better at math.”

“Don’t go there,” I answered, laughing. “Do you remember who said marrying an accountant would be a good plan because you wouldn’t have to do your own book-keeping?”

“It
is
a good plan.”

“And how many accountants do you know?” I settled in the chair across from her and snagged a piece of pizza. The melted cheese stretched out in long strings, until I finally had to pinch them off. It smelled heavenly.

“Well . . .” Sue hesitated, trying to find an answer, but I had her. The only accountant either of us knew was Wade.

“So stop stalling, and tell me why you called.”

Sue grabbed another slice, and sighed with contentment. “Actually, I was going to suggest an early breakfast so I could get the lowdown on the big date. But . . .” She shrugged. “Then you said pizza, my stomach took over, and the next thing I know, I’m sitting here eating.” She wiped her mouth with a paper napkin. “Which, by the way, is excellent. My compliments to the chef.”

We both knew the best thing I made for dinner was reservations, though takeout was a close second.

“I actually would have taken you up on an early breakfast.”

She shrugged. “This is better, Georgie. And you’ll have leftovers for morning. Isn’t cold pizza the usual breakfast of programmers?”

“I’m not a code monkey. Never was. I was the CEO of a computer security company.”

“And now you’re a plumber.”

“By choice. I
like
what I’m doing.” I quickly changed the subject. No one in Pine Ridge knew much about the demise of Samurai Security, and I wanted to keep it that way. I had learned some painful lessons about business and trust, and I wasn’t ready to discuss them with anyone yet.

Not even my best friend.

“Besides, I had something I wanted to show you. Wait right here.”

I heard the refrigerator open as I headed for the bedroom. My microbrew was safe, though. Sue wouldn’t have so much as a sip if she was driving.

She was back at the table with a glass of water when I returned.

I set the brooch next to her glass and waited for her reaction.

chapter 4

“That’s just weird. Where did you get it?” She picked up the brooch, turning it over in her hands and examining it.

“Do you recognize it?” I asked.

“Maybe. It looks a lot like the one Miss Tepper wore.” She stared at the jewelry for a minute, then put it back on the table.

The delicate cameo was something out of another century, the kind of piece handed down from one generation to the next, and I wondered where it had come from. Intricate silver scrollwork surrounded the onyx base, its dark patina adding another shade to the color palette.

“Couldn’t be, though. She never went anywhere without it.” She shoved the brooch back toward me.

“You really don’t treat him very well, you know.” Sue had taken another abrupt conversational turn, and my tired brain struggled to follow.

“Miss Tepper?” I asked, befuddled. Miss Tepper definitely wasn’t a “he.”

“Wade,” she said, as though she had made perfect sense. “I meant Wade. Duh!”

“Last I knew, we were talking about Miss Tepper’s brooch.”

“Miss Tepper isn’t a ‘he,’ is she? Keep up here, Neverall.”

I shook my head. “Too tired. Long day, and another long one tomorrow.” I gave her a condensed version of events, including my mother’s visit, and ending with the discovery of the brooch. “I’m going to talk to Paula Ciccone tomorrow. I want to make sure this really is Miss Tepper’s brooch. Paula would know—I’m just guessing here.”

“Me, too,” Sue said.

“If it is her brooch, I’ll get Miss Tepper’s new address so I can send it to her,” I said. “I know she’s missing it, if this is the piece I remember.”

Talking about the brooch had brought back the feeling of impending doom I’d had since I first saw the gleam in the sink pipe. “But I’m starting to think maybe I ought to call the police, too.”

Sue shook her head. “And report what? That you fished a piece of jewelry out of a pipe? Why would they care?”

“Well, when you put it that way . . .” I hesitated. “But I tried Miss Tepper’s old number while I was waiting for the pizza guy, and it isn’t even disconnected. I was hoping to get a forwarding number, and instead I got endless ringing. Don’t you think that’s kind of strange?”

“The phone—maybe she didn’t want to get it cut off until the house was sold. I can see that. She could handle all the utilities at once that way. As for the brooch, things fall in sinks all the time,” she answered. “You’re a plumber now. You should know that.” Typical Sue. Right to the heart of things. “You’re always telling me about the strange stuff you fish out of pipes.”

Sue was saying exactly the same thing Barry had, and I knew they were probably right. I was overreacting. Some days I made a specialty of it.

It took me another twenty minutes to get Sue out the door. I was exhausted. Besides, she kept coming back to the subject of Wade, and I didn’t want to discuss my relationship with Wade, or my mother, with Sue.

She knew me too well.

After she left, I picked up the brooch and dropped it in my jacket pocket, deciding not to think about it anymore. I’d take it over to the library at lunch tomorrow, and let Paula have a look at it. She’d know what to do.

 

 

At least that was my plan. Other people had different ideas.

Not that I blame Barry. All he wanted to do was get through the Tepper house, make an estimate of the time it would take to fix it up, and move on.

But I hadn’t counted on Sandra, aka Mother, dogging our steps as we made our assessment.

We were in the basement when I heard the ominous tapping of stiletto heels across the kitchen floor overhead.

Sure enough, a minute later the elegant pumps of Sandra Neverall appeared at the top of the stairs. Again with the identifying people by their shoes. And this time I wasn’t even under a sink!

“Hello?” she called from the top of the stairs. “Anyone down there?”

“Right here, ma’am,” Barry answered. “We’re checking out the bathroom drains. But it’s kind of a mess down here, so you might want to wait for us. We’ll be up in just a minute.”

He only exaggerated a little. We were surrounded by stacks of neatly labeled boxes and rows of sealed trunks. A large wardrobe stood at one end of the space, its doors tightly closed, as though to hold off any interested intruders. Discarded furniture was jumbled at the other end, but the pile was confined to a single corner. Even though the basement was well organized, it was tiny. There was barely room for the two of us.

The last thing we needed down here was my mother. Her personality was so intense she could make a ballroom feel small.

We continued our inspection, with Barry scribbling in the pocket-sized spiral notebook he carried.

His entire business seemed to be in that notebook, and heaven help us if he ever misplaced it. I had tried to convince him to use a palmtop and upload everything to the computer. He said he could lose a tiny computer as easily as a notebook, and the notebook only cost seventy-nine cents. I’d tried to explain about Wi-Fi uploads, but his eyes glazed over. Barry was not quite ready for the twenty-first century.

Sandra, on the other hand, was already there. When we got back upstairs, she was standing in the kitchen, one hip canted against the old linoleum-covered countertop. She had a Bluetooth receiver in her ear, a PDA in one hand, and she was furiously thumbing the keys while she talked.

“I’m sending you the notes on Clackamas Commons. Please be sure Gre—Mr. Whitlock gets a copy of them immediately. And tell Gracie I’ll need her to start on the agreement for the Tepper properties as soon as I get the figures from the contractors.”

She glanced over at Barry. “We will have some preliminary numbers on this place today, won’t we?”

Barry nodded, and she went back to giving orders.

I tuned her out. It was a skill I had honed as a teenager, like most of my peers. Over the years, my mother had become very good at giving orders. I, on the other hand, had never been any good at taking them, and had stopped listening. I figured if it was really important, she’d repeat herself.

Which she did. A lot.

I followed Barry down the hall to the single bathroom.

The house was tidy and organized, just as I remembered it. The dining room had a heavy table that easily seated a dozen people, and a tall china hutch crowded with antique serving pieces and the cup-and-saucer collection
Miss Tepper had inherited from her mother. There was a single bed in the main bedroom, still covered with an old-fashioned chenille bedspread. The closet door was ajar and the tiny closet was empty. Another wardrobe, similar to the one in the basement, stood open, a single bare wire hanger on the otherwise empty rod.

The other rooms, what I had glimpsed of them, were also full of furniture and knickknacks. I wondered if Miss Tepper planned to come back and pack up her things, or just have them shipped.