I shook my head at them both and did some stomping of my own on the way back to my office. But even before I sat down in my chair, I knew I’d have to do something about the situation to make sure it didn’t take a festering turn into a permanent rift. It wasn’t likely to, but a little reassurance never hurt.
Thinking fast, I typed an e-mail message to them both. Sorry I was cranky just now. I didn’t get much sleep and I’d like to blame Eddie. Would that be okay?
After I hit the Send button, I opened up the bookmobile’s summer stop schedule, but before I could start working on it, I heard the ding of an incoming e-mail.
It was from Holly: That darn Eddie. I’m okay blaming him if Josh is.
Ten seconds later, there was another ding. This one was from Josh. He’s a pretty big cat, so yeah, I bet he can take the blame.
And just as I finished reading that e-mail, a second one came in from Josh. But it was really the new video game I bought yesterday. I was up half the night figuring it out. Sorry.
And then came the final one from Holly: And Wilson has an earache, so I’m sorry, too.
Smiling, I went back to my spreadsheet, a little surprised at how happy their e-mails made me. Reassurances, apparently, were a good thing.
• • •
By lunchtime, I decided that if I could add another reassurance or two to my life, it could only be a better thing. My conversation with Kristen the night before about families and siblings had combined with my lack of sleep to trigger a question that needed answering by two different people.
My previous research had given me the phone numbers I needed, and as I walked out the library door, I thumbed on my cell and pushed the proper buttons for calling person number one.
“Good morning, Denver Fire Investigation Unit.”
“Hi,” I said. “Can I speak to Dennis Gill, please?”
“Is Captain Gill expecting your call?”
I blinked at the title but remained undaunted. “No, but it’s about his father’s estate.” Sort of.
“One moment, please.”
The phone went silent. I was just starting to assume that I’d be dumped into voice mail when the silence ended. “This is Dennis Gill. How can I help you?”
I introduced myself the same way I’d done with his older brother, said that I’d been a friend of his father’s, was sorry for his loss, and that I was calling because I’d heard a developer was trying to convince them to sell the property.
There was a chance that Mike had told his brothers about my phone call, but it had sounded as if they didn’t talk often, so there wasn’t much risk I’d get called on it. Besides, I could always say that I’d heard more rumors about the property being sold and just wanted to double-check.
This was all because I’d realized, at three in the morning, that taking the word of a complete stranger about what could be a very lucrative development deal might not have given me an accurate picture of reality.
“Sell Mom and Dad’s place?” Dennis asked. “That’s the furthest thing from our minds. Yeah, we could probably make a bundle selling it to Stanton, but with Dad gone, we’ve decided we need to make a real effort to get together. It’s too easy to let the years go by, you know?”
I murmured that keeping up the house might be an expensive endeavor, and that property taxes didn’t usually go down.
“Sure,” Dennis said, “but Dad left behind some decent assets. With some investment luck, the income will pay for everything and maybe even a little more.”
“That sounds great.” I paused, then said, “I think your dad would have been very pleased to hear all this.”
He gusted out a sigh. “I hope so. He was hard to figure out sometimes. Not a big talker, even when Mom was still alive.”
I smiled, thinking of Henry’s typical communication-by-grunt. “No, but he was a master at getting his point across in one syllable or less. Best ever, if you ask me.”
Dennis laughed. “Thanks for calling, Minnie. And let me know if you hear more rumors about the property being sold. I’d like to know where they’re coming from.”
I promised I would and ended the call. One down, one to go, and I was only halfway to downtown. Plenty of time for another. I thumbed the phone again.
“Northeast Networks, how may I direct your call?”
“Kevin Gill, please.”
“One moment.”
I got an earful of a techno version of “You Are My Sunshine” and was on the verge of deciding to call back later when the music broke off and a man said, “This is Kevin.”
Two minutes later, Kevin Gill was laughing. “Sell Mom and Dad’s place? Not a chance. Mike and Dennis and I practically made a blood oath that condos won’t go on that property in our lifetimes.”
I smiled. “What about your children?”
“You know, we talked about that,” he said. “I have a buddy who’s an attorney and he says if we really want to lock up the property we should think about adding deed restrictions. We just might do it, too,” he added thoughtfully. “And if we tie up Dad’s money in a trust, make all the money go to the maintenance and taxes for the place, we can guarantee it’ll stay in the family.”
I wondered how that might work a few generations down the line, when there might be dozens of Gills, but there are only so many things anyone needed to think about, even me, so I thanked Kevin and let the thought go.
With the second reassurance of the day complete, I was ready for lunch. And since by this time I was all the way downtown and right in front of Shomin’s Deli—how serendipitous!—I opened the door.
Inside, the brick-walled, wooden-floored, and tin-ceilinged restaurant was a relatively busy place. Relatively, because with almost half the tables occupied and three people in line, it was very busy for April. In summer, “busy” would mean a line out the door and strangers would be sharing tables, which could sometimes be a lot of fun, but I was fine with the April emptiness.
Of the three people in line in front of the glass display cases, one was a library patron whose name I couldn’t remember, one was a minister from Aunt Frances’s church, and the third was Felix Stanton. It had taken me a second to recognize him, since he was wearing a tweed blazer over brown pants and dress shoes instead of a canvas coat and hiking boots, but I made the connection before the blank look on my face became too fixed.
I nodded at the first two and said hello to Felix.
“Minnie, right?” he asked. “Good to see you.”
I had a quick internal debate. Resolved: that it is best to share all information at all times. Since the winner of the debate was the part of me who thought that open sharing couldn’t possibly be a good thing when a killer might be wandering around, I kept my chats with the Gill brothers to myself.
“How are things going?” I asked. “Any new projects for the summer?”
He smiled affably and rocked back a little on his heels. “Have a number of things on the back burner,” he said. “Just working on which one to bring up front first.”
“Anything you can talk about?”
“Too early to say.” He smiled down at me. “But if you’re looking for a nice piece of property, just stop by the office and we’ll hook you up with something quality.”
At this point in my life, my financial priority was paying off the last of my student loans, not saddling myself with a mortgage, but I smiled at Felix. “I’ll keep that mind.” Then, before he could turn away, I said, “After I saw you the other day at Henry’s place, I ran into a neighbor of Henry’s, Cole Duvall.”
“And how is Cole?” Felix asked. “I haven’t seen him or his wife in some time.”
“Well, here’s the thing,” I said. “Cole said you’d been talking to Henry for months about developing his property, but you told me that you’d only recently approached Henry’s sons.” In the time it had taken me to speak those two or three phrases, Felix’s face had gone bright red. I hoped the man didn’t have a heart condition and kept going. “So either Cole has it wrong or I do, and I was just wondering which—”