Mid-Century Monster, page 4
part #3 of Solstice Properties Mystery Series
“Sure.” She hurried over to him and pulled it out. The number looked like the police station. She swiped to answer. “Chad’s phone.”
“Hi, Cin, this is Helen at the front desk. Chad asked me to check for recent calls in the area of the house you guys are working on.”
“Oh, Hi, Helen.” Slipping her mask down so her voice wouldn’t be muffled, Cin smiled and stepped back out of the way of the dust. “Did you find anything interesting?”
“Can’t really say it was interesting. Nothing really unusual, a few domestic disturbances going back a couple of years. Calls out in the middle of the night for strange noises and barking dogs. A slightly higher-than normal calls for missing pets, but nothing to say we’ve got a budding serial killer in the area or anything.”
Cin frowned. “You guys track that sort of thing?”
“Not exactly. We’ve got a database we enter them into and it goes to a federal system where people run algorithms to keep track. If we start getting too many, and don’t have situations like a boom in coyotes, it triggers warnings, and if investigators are bored they come in and take a look. We’ve never had anything like that here in Cottonwood, but I heard of a case in LA where they managed to find a budding killer and stop him before he took out anything human and got him into therapy. It’s a good program that was just an idea a few years ago.” Helen sounded excited about the idea of helping stop killers. It was the kind of dedication that even a receptionist member of the police force needed.
“Cool. I guess that’s something Chad either never knew about or didn’t mention.”
Chad turned as he pried another sheet free and raised a questioning eyebrow. The noisy nails must’ve blocked her comment from his sensitive ears.
Cin waved him away and mouthed. “later” “I’ll let Chad know what you said. He’s right here but up to his elbows in demo.”
“Oh, those guys on TV make demolition look like a lot of fun.”
“TV makes a lot of things look a lot more fun than they are in real life. Hopefully this one won’t take too long.” Although Cin loved most of the reno shows, sometimes she really wondered why they made things like demo look fun and easy. Maybe they did things a little differently, but she got tired of trying to save as many fixtures as possible. She felt good taking things to the restore building supply store so they could be sold to people who wanted something nice and couldn’t afford it. The fact that the store was run by a great non-profit was an added bonus, and she never failed to get a receipt for her donations and made sure to get those receipts to their accountant.
RJ came down the hallway with a couple of men trailing after him. “Our crew’s here. Where do we want to deploy them?”
Chad turned from the wall. “Kitchen. Let’s get the cupboards pulled out. Try to keep them usable. Same with the sink. The appliances can all just go. I think they’re too old to be useable.”
“Okay.” RJ turned the guys around and headed away.
Cin picked up the sledge hammer and handed it to Marzie. “You know how to use one of these?”
“Heft and hit?” Marzie took the hammer and frowned.
“Basically.” Chad grinned. “Just don’t drop it.”
“You know this would be better if we just pounded through the wall,” Cin suggested.
Chad shook his head and pointed his pry bar at her. “And you’ll have a fit if there’s some incredible fixtures or artwork and we destroy it.”
Cin wanted to get through the wall and see what was beyond it. Chad had a point. She pursed her lips and stared at him. “If you break something, I won’t blame you.” She giggled and pointed at Marzie. “I’ll blame her.”
“Ah, no,——” Marzie dropped the sledge with a heavy thud. “I don’t want to be blamed for breaking something I shouldn’t.”
Laughing, Cin shook her head. “No, no, don’t worry about it. You’re learning so I can be forgiving on some things. Plus, I want to see what’s behind this wall.”
“Okay.” Marzie picked up the sledge. “Look out.” She hauled off and swung the hammer hard. The plywood cracked, but didn’t shatter.
“This is fairly new.” Chad tapped the plywood with his pry bar. “Well, it could just be well-preserved.”
“Yeah.” Cin nodded. “Keep at it Marzie.”
A few more hits and the crack was stretching across the lower section of the board.
“Here.” Chad offered to take the sledge.
Marzie cocked her head and glared. “You really don’t want to do the strong man thing here, do you?”
“She’s got you there, hon.” Cin bit back a laugh.
Chad raised his hands in defeat and stepped out of the way.
Marzie went back to banging on the wall. The way she hit it, she looked to be working out some personal issues.
After a few more swings, the board flapped inward. Dust and reek rolled out of the space beyond.
“Phone.” Chad held his hand out for his phone.
Reflexively, Cin handed it to him.
He took a couple of steps toward Marzie. “Let me in there. Better to look around before we break something valuable.”
Cin didn’t feel any magic lashing out at him, but she still held her breath slightly as Chad pushed the board and managed to get more of it to fall away before turning his phone light toward the space and sticking his head into the hole in the wall.
After a minute, he pulled back. “Okay, so there’s a space back here, and it looked like it drops down along the subfloor.” He frowned. “I thought this place was pier and beam.”
Someone outside started shouting, then it sounded like more of the demo crew were shouting.
“Hold that thought.” Cim hurried through the house.
The kitchen was coming along nicely as she rushed toward the open door where two men stood staring out into the backyard.
In the middle of the yard, one of the crew stood pointing over the fence shouting, “El Demonio!”
She didn’t need a translator to understand he thought he’d just seen something unworldly. Over the years, she’d learned there were a lot of things in the world, but Cin had never encountered a demon before. There had to be an explanation for it, and she wasn’t sure she was going to like it. They’d disturbed something living in the house, and it had run. Without Chad shifting and blowing his cover they had no way of tracking it down in the daylight. Maybe it would come back, or maybe having a werewolf stick his head into its home had scared the thing off for good. She hoped it was going to be the only thing they scared out of Jackson’s old house.
7
As she opened the front door of the project house, Cin stared at Marzie standing there with a cup carrier and four cups of coffee. She hadn’t actually expected her to stop and pick up drinks for everyone.
“Do I get to come in, or was I supposed to bring donuts too?” Marzie grinned. “They’re in the car by the way.”
“No.” Stepping aside, Cin laughed. “You didn’t need to stop for donuts. I think RJ will eat them, but Chad and I are still watching our carbs.”
Marzie handed the cup holder to Cin. “I hope I got everything right. I wasn’t totally sure how RJ liked his coffee, but I seem to remember you getting him black yesterday.”
“Yeah.” Cin inhaled the lovely fragrance drifting up from the cups. “That’s him, strong and black. Thank you.”
“No worries.” Marzie turned and headed back toward her car. “I’ll be right back with the donuts RJ and I can enjoy while taunting you and Chad.”
“I bet some of the crew will enjoy them.” Cin pointed the drink holder toward the truck that had just pulled up in front of the house, tucking in behind RJ’s blue Dodge.
“Good.” Marzie giggled. “Less I end up with on my hips.”
Cin was happy with the way Marzie was approaching the rehab of the house. If things stayed that way, she might manage to turn into a first-rate flipper. There were a lot of things that could come up while bringing an old house into the modern era, and having a positive attitude helped ride out the harder things. She walked toward the middle of the house where Chad and RJ were working on removing more of the strange walls that led under the house.
“Marzie brought coffee.” She held up the carried. “She’s gone back to the car for donuts.”
RJ closed his eyes and grinned. “Don’t tell AJ. We’re supposed to be working on losing weight, and I doubt donuts are on his list of acceptable foods.”
Chad accepted his latte. “I guess I can see AJ as a list guy. But I know you’re a list guy, so that must make things easier. I can’t get Cin to make lists of anything.”
“Hey, I’m right here.” Cin fussed, even as she smiled. “Not having lists makes shopping that much more interesting. I can find a lot of new stuff that I wouldn’t if all I did was go and get the things you write down.”
Marzie came down the short hallway carrying a flat, yellow cardboard box. “The crew got most of the donuts. I hope you don’t mind.” She offered the box to RJ. “Cin said she and Chad won’t be helping us.”
“No worries.” RJ reached in and pulled out a donut with no obvious hole that must’ve been cream-filled. “These look great.”
“So, one of the guys on the crew was asking if we’d seen one of the other guys.” Marzie set the box on the top of the ladder sitting near the partially removed wall. “Seems he didn’t make it home last night, and nobody’s seen him.”
Cin shook her head. “I don’t think there was anyone here before we pulled up. Let’s go talk to them.” She liked the crew they had. The men were fairly reliable as well as being polite when she was on the site. She’d heard tales from other female managers about them having issues with working crews not properly respecting women.
“Want us to come?” Chad offered.
“Nah.” Cin shook her head. “You guys finish your snacks and keep working on these walls.” Cin wrinkled her nose. “I wish we could figure out what the smell is.” She couldn’t put her finger on the odor that seemed to still be centered on the small, strange area they were working in. It faded the farther away they went. If they couldn’t figure out what it was, it might give them fits getting it to go away.
Chad frowned. “Still no clue. It’s almost a feces and urine combo, but there’s nothing that looks like anything more than dirt down here.”
“Well, keep your eyes and noses open in-case you stumble over something interesting.” Cin pulled her cup from the carrier and turned toward the kitchen area where the sounds of the crew setting to work made her smile. They hadn’t finished the previous day, and knew where to start. Even shorthanded, they were getting to work without her, Chad, or RJ telling them what needed to be done. She did like their crew.
Four men with crowbars in their hands looked up as Cin and Marzie entered the kitchen.
“Mrs. Cin,—” Phillip, the one who’d been with them the longest started, “—have you seen Juan? He never came home last night.”
Cin knew the man he was talking about. He was the one who’d seen the demon in the back yard the previous day. She shook her head. “Haven’t seen him since yesterday afternoon.”
Phillip frowned and set his tool on the cabinet they’d been about to pull off the wall. “He came back here to get his cup. He’d left it outside the last time we took our break.”
Pointing toward the door, Cin started toward the yard. “Let’s see if his cup is there.”
“It isn’t.” Phillip sighed and followed her. “I already checked for it.”
“Then he must’ve made it here and gotten it.” Cin opened the door and stepped out into the warming morning. Fall in Cottonwood was a rollercoaster of weather. During the day it could get downright hot, then frigid at night, and the day-to-day changes were enough to give the residents whiplash. “Let’s look around and see if there’s anything here.”
The weird smell hit her as she walked across the small patio where the crew had set up an old, battered card table and couple of folding chairs. There were a few mugs and cups on the table, along with a jug of sun tea and two gallons of water.
“So, none of these are his?” Cin pointed at the cups. If one of them was, she might be able to cast a finding spell on it and locate Juan.
Pursing his lips, Phillip shook his head. “No, ma’am. I guess he made it here, but where did he go after? If he’d gone back to Albuquerque, he’d have told me.”
“Albuquerque?” Cin raised her eyebrow. “Why would he have gone there?”
“Family. His mother called yesterday, left a message with my wife, but I don’t think Juan ever got it.” Phillip spread his hands in a much suffering gesture. “My Sophia, she’s not always good at telling us when someone calls. But if Juan needed to go, he’d have taken his car, and that’s still at my house. He needs gas, so he’d have asked me for money, unless he asked you for an advance.”
Cin shook her head as she started to pick up one of the mugs, then stopped herself, trying to respect her workers’ property. She wanted to try to get a magical reading off something, but didn’t want to do it there with Phillip and Marzie looking on.
“Do you guys often ask for advances?” Marzie frowned as she looked from Phillip to Cin.
Phillip shook his head. “No, Ms. Marzie. Only when things are very desperate. Mrs. Cin and Chad pay us very well, and we rarely need help from them.”
“And thanks for that, Phillip.” Cin turned from the table and glanced around the yard. It was so overgrown that she’d have to have the landscapers come in fairly soon and knock it down. If she wasn’t going to be trying to flip the place, she’d wait until spring and give the local wildlife the chance to make use of the overgrown grass and weeds during the winter, but buyers would be turned off by the unkempt appearance of it.
Cin paused as her gaze landed on the rickety wooden fence. “Wait a minute. Wasn’t Juan the one who saw whatever it was that came out from under the house yesterday?”
“Yes.” Phillip crossed himself then shoved his hands into his jeans’ pockets. “Juan saw El Demonio. I hope it didn’t come back when Juan did and eat him.”
A heavy murmur rose from the couple of men standing just outside the door watching them. They both crossed themselves and looked to the heavens.
Cin didn’t believe they’d scared a demon from under the house, but she wouldn’t poo-poo the workers’ beliefs. The smells said there were something there, but they couldn’t be sure what it was until they caught it, or at least managed to get a picture of it. She needed to get RJ to come and put some game cameras around the place.
“What’s that?” Marzie pointed to something near the fence.
Frowning, Cin could only see a glint of silver in the tall, browning grass. “Let’s see.”
A chill went through her as she reached the stainless steel mug that lay there. It didn’t have much dust on it, so the odds were, it hadn’t been there long. Nearly everything in Cottonwood gained a layer of dust in a matter of days, depending on the ever-changing weather.
She bent over and picked up the mug, then turned toward Phillip who was about halfway across the yard, coming toward her. “Is this Juan’s?”
“Yes, Mrs. Cin.” Phillip took the last few steps toward her faster than he’d been walking. He accepted the mug as she handed it to him. “How did it get out here? It should be on the table with the others.”
Cin looked at the grass and weeds. They’d been crunched down in a few places, but nothing that looked like anyone other than them had walked through the dried foliage. The fence was in sad shape, but nothing appeared completely broken. How had the mug gotten across the yard from the porch and near the fence? It was too heavy to have been blown over there, particularly with the weeds between the table and the fence. Something or someone had to have carried it.
“I bet it was a raccoon,” Marzie suggested. “We’ve got a couple in our neighborhood that play with or steal anything that’s not nailed down.”
Having dealt with a few herself over the years of living in Cottonwood, Cin nodded. “Good call, Marzie. I bet that’s what happened. Juan never made it here, and a raccoon tried to steal his mug.” Even as she said it, the knot in her gut told her that wasn’t the case. Something, whatever was attached to the smells coming from under the house, was somehow responsible for Juan’s mug being moved, but that didn’t answer the question of where Juan had gotten off to. If he hadn’t known about needing to go to Albuquerque, then where was he? Maybe she needed Chad to come out and sniff around. It couldn’t hurt.
8
Cin sat in one of the folding chairs at the old card table. She was nearly done with her latte as Chad slowly walked a back and forth pattern in the yard. When Marzie had asked about it, she’d said she was getting Chad to use a bit of his police training to check the yard for any other clues to Juan’s disappearance. It was easier to explain than he was trying to give the place a good going over with his nose, in case there was something Cin and Marzie had missed. If they’d waited until evening to come back when Marzie and the demo crew were gone, Chad could’ve shifted and done a better job, but they had plans, and coming back wouldn’t work.
Chad shrugged as he turned toward her. “I’ve got nothing. That smell from under the house is too strong. It’s almost like a skunk was out here. You don’t think that’s what Juan saw yesterday, do you?”
“I doubt he’d have called it El Demonio, if it had just been a skunk.” Cin crumpled her empty cup and dropped it in the garbage can near the table. “We’re missing something here.”
“I think you’re right.” Chad nodded, then paused. “Wait a minute.” He took a deep breath.
Cin stood and stared at him. “What?” Her heart pounded, feeling a wave of excitement roll off him.
“Something’s dead nearby.” Chad quivered as he hurried to the gate and jerked it open.
“Wait for me.” Cin trotted through the yard after him as he disappeared through the faded wooden opening and into the alley behind the yard.
