“I agree.” I sipped my latte. “I didn’t have much hope of either of them being viable suspects, but we had to start somewhere.”
“Well, hold on, now,” Lizzie said, wearing a smug smile. “Ned did manage to throw his son under the bus, to some extent.”
“What?” I set my latte down. “Tell me everything.”
“Okay.” She scooted her chair around to get closer so she could whisper. “Ned said that a few months ago, he was showing Stephen around town because he wanted him to move here.”
“Yeah, that’s what he said.”
“So they stopped at Jesse’s house to say hi. Stephen had been there before and fell in love with the place. He asked for the full tour and Jesse told him it wasn’t for sale. He said it nicely, but it was a definite no on giving him a tour. Stephen asked two more times and finally Jesse freaked out, according to Ned. Told him he didn’t show off his house to anyone and to stop asking. Stephen hinted that maybe he’d sneak in sometime and take a look around. Jesse was really pissed off about that, and it didn’t help when Stephen suggested that he must have something to hide.”
I scowled. “I think I’d want to kick him out of my house at that point.”
“Me, too. Now, all along, Ned is insisting that Stephen was only teasing Jesse with that comment, but Jesse wasn’t taking it. Ned had to calm Jesse down and convince him that it was all a big joke on Stephen’s part. But it wasn’t, of course.”
“Jesse didn’t think it was a joke.”
“Nope.”
Lizzie shook her head, looking baffled. “Why would Stephen keep insisting after being told no? He sounds like my kids when I won’t let them stay up late to watch TV.”
“It does sound immature.” I finished my latte and tossed the cup into the nearby trash receptacle. “I spent some time talking to Stephen, who really is kind of boring, by the way.”
“Oh no,” Lizzie groaned. “Poor Jane. She doesn’t need a guy like that. Immature and boring, what a combination.” She stared into her latte. “At least my kids aren’t boring.”
I chuckled. “No, they aren’t. Anyway, Stephen told me that Jesse used to come over for barbecues and parties and things. He made it seem like they were practically family.”
Lizzie frowned. “Doesn’t sound like Jesse considered Stephen part of his family.”
“No.”
I considered what she’d told me. “So I guess you got all the info from Ned and I got what I could from Bob.”
Lizzie thought about it. “It’s probably better that we split it up that way, so neither man would be suspicious if both of us asked the same questions.”
“Probably so.”
We sat in silence for a minute and then I grinned. “Good detective work, miss.”
“I know, right? That was fun.”
After Lizzie went back to the store, I digested what she had told me. It was anecdotal and probably didn’t mean anything in terms of proving that Stephen was a cold-blooded killer or a thief or anything else. But it was something to add to the list of interesting coincidences.
I spent the next four hours at home doing paperwork and following up on supplies and orders for my jobsites. For dinner, I baked a whole chicken and ate a portion of it with tortillas and salsa. Afterward I watched a little television with Robbie and Tiger and went to bed early. Surprisingly I slept well, even knowing I had to deal with a ghost in the morning.
*
I hadn’t been back to Emily’s since the walk-through, so Monday morning I drove across town to see how the renovation was going.
As I opened the front door, I heard a loud thud. And walked into chaos.
A gallon of rich forest green paint had been thrown against the wall at the far end of the dining room. Thick rivulets streamed down, puddling on the floor. I was relieved to see there was a tarp to catch a lot of it. And none of the paint had hit the breakfront or the beautiful tile work surrounding the fireplace. I considered that a stroke of luck.
Emily had bought several cans of paint in different shades to start experimenting with room colors. Anything that didn’t work could be primed again and repainted.
“What’s going on?” I asked Wade, who was crouched on the floor by the big tool chest in the far corner. He was clutching a hammer. Sean must’ve run from the room, because he was now peeking around the kitchen door.
“Where’s Douglas?” I asked.
“He ran outside,” Sean said. “Total chicken.”
“As opposed to a partial chicken?” I wondered.
Sean scraped his fingers through his hair as he walked back into the room. “Yeah, well, you would’ve run, too, boss, if you’d seen what we just saw.”
I was getting a bad feeling. “Are you going to tell me a ghost did that?”
“Well, it wasn’t one of us,” Wade groused.
“I didn’t think it was,” I said mildly. “But do you know why it happened? What were you guys doing just before it happened?”
“We weren’t doing anything,” Sean insisted.
Wade snorted.