A Wrench in the Works Read online

  “Don’t you want to look inside the other compartments?” he asked.

  “I don’t have to,” I said, feeling sick to my stomach as I stared up at him. “The crowbar only fits in the top section. It’s not there.”

  * * *

  • • •

  On the way back to the house, Eric ran ahead to talk to Leo and his officers while I walked more slowly with Chloe and Mac.

  I glanced at Chloe. “Did you see the crowbar on the porch when you climbed the steps earlier?”

  She winced. “Not exactly.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Her face was a mask of anguish and it almost broke me.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  She sighed. “The crowbar wasn’t on the porch, Shannon. It was . . . it was stuck in Richie’s neck.”

  “Oh, the joy,” I muttered, feeling even sicker than I did a minute ago. Given the amount of blood that had soaked into Eric’s white cloth, I had to assume that Richie’s killer had managed to sever one of the carotid arteries in his neck with the curved, double-tongued sharp end of the crowbar.

  “How could this have happened?” Chloe whispered.

  “If you remember putting the crowbar back in the toolbox,” Mac reasoned, “then someone obviously stole it sometime after that.”

  “Right,” I said. “But who? And when? And how did it wind up getting stuck in Richie’s neck?” And how did the cops decide it had to be mine? I wondered. Maybe there were still flecks of wood stuck to the metal. Who knew?

  “There must’ve been a hundred people watching us this afternoon,” Chloe said. “Including the cops who were there for crowd control. They all saw you working with the crowbar and many of them probably saw you put it away in your toolbox.”

  Mac nodded. “So how do we whittle that number down to the number one or two most likely suspects?”

  We were silent for a moment, all wrapped up in our own troubled thoughts. Sadly, none of us were coming up with answers.

  “Who had it in for Richie?” Mac asked finally.

  “Me,” Chloe admitted.

  “And me,” I said.

  He gazed from Chloe to me. “Did anyone else on the crew even know this guy? Besides you two, I mean.”

  “He probably wasn’t familiar to the crew or production staff, but lots of Lighthouse Cove people knew him,” I said. “Richie grew up here. There must be plenty of people in the crowd who’ve done business with him.”

  “And don’t forget he knew Bree,” Chloe said.

  “Don’t remind me,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Oh, and Suzanne.”

  “Suzanne?”

  “Yeah, I saw the two of them talking together. They looked awfully friendly.”

  “That’s weird. But Suzanne would never hurt anyone.”

  I shrugged, then remembered more possibilities. “What about the Wagners?”

  “That’s right,” Chloe said. “They had that big fight early yesterday morning.”

  I looked at Mac. “Rolly Wagner attacked Richie Rich.”

  “How did I miss all the excitement?” Mac lamented.

  I patted Mac’s back sympathetically. “You were stuck inside the trailer with Blake.”

  “Yeah.” He scowled. “So tell me everything that happened.”

  “Apparently Richie sold the Wagners their house and then promised them that the house would be featured on the show. When it didn’t happen, the Wagners showed up looking mad enough to kill. As soon as they saw Richie, Rolly punched him out.”

  “Amazing,” Mac said, and I knew he was regretting that he’d missed the whole scene.

  “There was definitely no love lost there,” Chloe said, then added, “He almost punched out Tommy, too.”

  “That’s right.” I pictured the scene. “And then Eric slapped a pair of handcuffs on Rolly Wagner and sent him down to the station for questioning. And Mrs. Wagner was whining and moaning the whole time.”

  “I’m really sorry I missed it.” Mac flashed a wicked grin. “But it sounds like we’ve got ourselves a first-class suspect.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The next morning, despite four hours of sleep, Chloe and I woke up and showered and made it back to the Bloom house in time to start work. Thanks to our lack of sleep, we didn’t look like the most dewy-eyed starlets in the reality show galaxy, but we made up for it in sheer perseverance. Despite Richie’s murder hanging over us like an ax.

  The entire front porch had been cordoned off with bright yellow police crime scene tape. A uniformed officer stood guard at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hi, Mindy,” I said.

  “Hey, Shannon.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “Sorry about this, but it’s Chief’s orders.”

  Of course Eric had closed off the latest crime scene. I should have expected it. “Is the rest of the outside of the house closed off, too?”

  Mindy shook her head. “Nope. Just the front porch and the inside.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I turned to Chloe. “What are we supposed to do now?”

  Chloe’s shoulders dropped. “I was hoping and praying they’d be finished with the porch area, but I guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

  “And they probably aren’t finished inside the house yet, either.” I gazed up at the gables and then walked around the side of the house. And almost ran into Blake.

  He grabbed my shoulders, chuckling. “Sorry about that. Good morning.”

  “Good morning, Blake.”

  “I was just checking out the back of the house. Figure we’ll be stuck working outside for another day or two.”

  “I was doing the same.” I took a deep breath and forged ahead. “Hey, where were you last night? Chloe said she came looking for you but couldn’t find you.”

  “Oh, I went and stayed at the bed-and-breakfast.” He shook his head. “Couldn’t face another night in that trailer.”

  “I don’t blame you. The Hennessey House is so nice.”

  “Beautiful. Jane tells me you did a lot of the repair work and I’ve got to say, it’s stunning.”

  “Thank you. Coming from you, that’s a great compliment.” I leaned one shoulder against the house. “So anyway, Chloe told me that she missed talking to you so she stopped by hoping to catch you in the trailer.”

  “Yeah. I talked to her a few minutes ago and heard all about how she found that guy’s body. I’m sorry I wasn’t here for her. Sounds pretty gruesome.”

  “It was.”

  Just then Chloe came jogging around the corner. “There you are. What’s up?”

  I pointed up toward the roof. “I was thinking that if I can get the boom lift delivered in the next hour or so, we could do some stuff up in that gable.”

  Blake raised an eyebrow. “You’ve got a connection to a boom lift?”

  “It belongs to my company, but we rent it out. I’ll have to make a few calls.”

  “Do it. We can definitely use it all over this place.”

  “I will.”

  “Sounds good.” Blake gave a salute and walked off toward the catering table. I caught a glimpse of Chelsea standing by the donuts and her face lit up at the sight of Blake approaching.

  I sighed and got back to business. “So what do you think?”

  Chloe stared up at the third floor where the roof peaked. “We’d definitely need a boom lift because we can’t possibly get up that high with scaffolding.”

  “No way.” I’d found that scaffolding was good for going maybe twenty feet up a wall, but after that, it was too big a risk. For one thing, we wouldn’t be able to attach it to the house securely enough, and for another, we’d still need twenty or more feet to reach that gable.

  “Wow,” Chloe said, straining her neck to get a look at the wood carvings that decorated the frame of the gable. “I never took a g
ood look at those panels. From a distance they look so distinctive.”

  I looked up, too. “Yeah, but up close they’re sort of washed out and gray.”

  “Are those spoon carvings?” she asked.

  “Yes.” We shared a knowing smile. My sister and I had been trained by the best—our dad—to appreciate the intricacies of lost carpentry. “Aren’t they cool?”

  “Fantastic.”

  “But even from down here, I can tell that they’re caked with old paint and dirt. It’ll take a lot of work to get them looking pretty again.”

  The designs in the wood panels were called spoon carvings because they looked as if they might’ve been carved by a sharp spoonlike tool. The tools used were actually curved whittling knives whose original purpose was to make—you guessed it—spoons. These knives came in various rounded shapes and sizes, and the unique crescent-shaped designs they produced in wood furniture and in the panels of many Victorian homes came to be known as spoon carvings.

  Chloe considered the task before us. “We might have to use a heat gun to clean the paint out of those crevices.”

  “Ah, I love my heat gun.”

  “That just sounds weird,” she said, laughing as she looked over at me. “And how sad is it that I completely understand your feelings? But since you probably use one a lot more than me, you’ll be in charge when we start that project.”

  “Yes, boss. And once we clean out the old paint, we’ll probably need ten gallons of wood filler to smooth out all the cracks and gaps.”

  She continued to stare up. “It looks like those panels were once painted white, but the color is just gone. It’s like it’s disintegrated or something.”

  “I don’t think the exterior of this house has ever been repainted.” I looked over the façade with an inner sigh. I hated to see glorious old homes completely neglected. “Which means it’s been sun-baked and weather-beaten for over a century.”

  She sighed, too, but with a sense of coming satisfaction. “It’s going to look beautiful when we’re finished.”

  “Absolutely.”

  She pointed up. “Those scalloped cedar shingles covering the third-floor exterior are peeling and falling apart.”

  “We can’t fix them,” I said. “They’ll have to be removed and replaced. We’ll need the boom lift for that, too.”

  “Yeah.”

  She studied the cedar shingles, then gave me a skeptical look. “That peak has got to be at least forty feet high. Will the boom lift arm reach that far?”

  “It’ll go more than fifty feet up.”

  “Yay!” she said, and did a quick little feet shuffling happy dance. “Let’s get it over here.”

  “You sound psyched. I’m glad.”

  “I really am psyched about the boom lift. Is that a reasonable thing? Or will I need a ride to the loony bin?”

  “In our family, completely reasonable. And I think you’re fine, anyway. Just a little sleep-deprived.”

  “For sure.”

  We walked back and forth along the side of the house and stopped when we got to the bay window. “We could do something with this.”

  Chloe nodded. “Viewers love bay windows.”

  I took a closer look at the structure. “These window frames need to be rebuilt.”

  “Definitely. And look, some of the glass is cracked along the edges. We’ll add double-paned windows.”

  “And this weird copper awning above it will have to go.” I studied it for another few seconds and shrugged. “It was obviously added to keep the rain from getting inside the windows.”

  She considered that for a moment and nodded. “Yes, it has a purpose, but it was an awkward choice. It doesn’t suit the rest of the exterior.”

  From where we were standing, I turned and looked at the thick copse of trees along the property line. “This is a beautiful view from this window.”

  “And remember? Inside it’s got that archway leading to this bay window that makes it feel like a little alcove.” She smiled. “We could fashion it into a cozy reading nook.”

  “That sounds wonderful.”

  “Oh, Shannon. We could build a window bench.”

  “I love it,” I said. “We can check it out once we’re allowed to go back in the house.”

  “Okay,” Chloe said. “You call and get the boom lift over here and I’ll go talk to Blake and Diego.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The filmed segments worked so well, it was like we’d all been doing this our whole lives. I enjoyed watching the camaraderie among Chloe and her co-stars. They treated me like one of the gang, too, which I appreciated.

  The only snag was that I couldn’t get hold of the boom lift until sometime tomorrow, so we dedicated a big portion of the afternoon to working on the bay window. Blake explained how to reframe a window and then Diego showed some techniques for adding extra decorative molding or replacing any molding that was damaged or decayed for any reason.

  “And . . . cut,” the stage manager shouted as Suzanne approached. She grinned at Diego, who was still slapping wood filler on the piece of molding he was working on. “Dude, I said cut. Save it for the camera. Take a break.”

  We all laughed.

  “Hey,” he said with a manly shrug. “I’m dedicated to my work.”

  “You’re just showing off,” Chloe said, grinning.

  Blake smiled when Josie the makeup girl stopped and ran a tissue across his forehead followed by a soft, dry makeup brush. “It’s getting a little warm out here. Guess I worked up a sweat.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” she said.

  “Hey, Suzanne,” Chloe said. “I can’t find my rundown. What’s up next?”

  The tall woman flipped a page. “You’re up on the extension ladder, removing that awning thing from above the bay window.”

  “Oh, good. I hate that ugly thing.” Chloe frowned at it. “It just doesn’t look like it goes there at all.”

  Suzanne glanced at me. “Shannon, you mind holding the ladder?”

  “Not at all.” Actually, with all the weird stuff going on around here, I felt better taking charge of my sister’s ladder. “Should I do any talking?”

  “Yes. Chloe can explain why she’s removing the awning and then you can wing it. Maybe tell a story or whatever. Or hey, talk about ladder safety.”

  “Ladder safety. I love it.”

  “We’ll be on a wide shot, so don’t worry about whether the camera can see you.”

  I really wasn’t worried, but I said, “Okay, thanks.”

  Ten minutes later, Blake and Diego carried the extension ladder over and set it up along the side of the bay window. Chloe and Diego and I stood next to it.

  Suzanne motioned to the stage manager, who pointed to Chloe and said, “And . . . action.”

  Chloe looked into the camera. “Right now we’re about to remove that ugly green copper awning that the owners placed over the bay window. We think it was meant to keep the rain from coming in the window, but it’s about a hundred years old and falling apart. And once we replace these windows, the rain won’t seep in like it used to.”

  She climbed up eight rungs while Diego and I held each side of the ladder.

  I watched and waited until Suzanne pointed at me and that’s when I started to talk. “Most homeowners have an extension ladder in their garage, even if they just use it for putting up Christmas decorations once a year. There are a few safety rules to follow when using an extension ladder. First, see these things at the bottom?” I knelt down and patted the base of the ladder. “These are called ‘shoes’ or ‘feet’ and they often have a nonskid surface on the bottom so that wherever you set your ladder, it won’t slip or slide. So always make sure that they’re flat on the ground.”

  I stood
up. “Another thing to remember when you’re climbing the ladder: it’s good to have three points of connection. So for instance, if your hand is moving up to the next rung, make sure your other hand and both feet are connected.”

  Standing at the foot of the ladder, I demonstrated the movement.

  “It helps if you can get someone to hold the ladder for you,” I continued, smiling at Diego. “And always make sure that you hear those rung locks click into place.” I pointed to the locks. “That will ensure that the ladder won’t collapse with you on it. Nobody wants that.” I glanced up at Chloe. “How’s it looking up there?”

  “This awning has been here for so many years that the screws holding it in place are completely rusted.” She turned to the camera. “I might have to get some rust spray to remove the rust if I can’t get my power drill to connect to the head.”

  “That’s a pretty common problem with these old houses,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Chloe said, clutching the power drill. “I’m going to—”

  All of a sudden it felt like an earthquake had hit. The ladder shook. Chloe lost her balance and screamed.

  I jolted as the ladder collapsed on itself.

  “Chloe,” I cried, looking up to see her arms whirling around as she plummeted down. Before I could reach out to her, Diego took one step forward and caught her in his arms.

  “Oh my God,” I cried. “Are you all right?”

  She couldn’t catch her breath. Diego held her tightly, staring wide-eyed. We all froze for what felt like an hour, but was only a few seconds. What had happened?

  Diego swallowed nervously. “Can you stand up?”

  Chloe nodded, still breathing heavily.

  He set her down gently and her legs wobbled, but she managed to stand on her own.

  Blake ran over to Chloe. “What the hell happened?”

  “The ladder broke,” I said, then thought, Duh. But how? I wondered.

  Chloe managed to speak. “It happened just as I was reaching out to try to get the drill bit to fit the screw head. I was off balance and couldn’t catch myself.”