His eyebrows were raised as he poured coffee into his mug. “8x15? You know the exact measurements?”
I positioned the strainer in the sink and filled it with hot water. “You know what I mean.”
“I know, I know. Maybe his inspection was limited to fifty pages or something. Like we’d reached our maximum with everything else he’d already found. Or maybe after he nearly died in the attic, he just decided to call it quits for the day.”
“He sprained his ankle, Jake.” I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t like he got electrocuted or something.”
“Oh, right,” he said, nodding. “That’s what happened to me when I changed a lightbulb.”
I squirted dish soap in the sink. “You did not get electrocuted. You got…shocked.”
His mouth twisted into a frown. “I couldn’t feel my arm for a week.”
“Shocked,” I repeated.
He sighed. “I gotta get to work.”
“I was hoping you might stay home until lunch.”
He shook his head. “I can’t. I need to work. So we can put some heating ducts downstairs.” He set his coffee down and reached for his boots. “Into our murder pit.”
“I thought we weren’t going to call it that.”
He grabbed his jacket and planted a quick kiss on my cheek. “I call it like I see it. Our money pit is a murder pit. No doubt about either one.”
SIXTEEN
“How long are we gonna be here, Mom?” Grace asked as she ripped off her seat belt.
“Probably an hour or so,” I said. “Make sure you get your name on three classes. All of you.”
All three of them mumbled something about agreeing to do so as they climbed out of the car.
We were back at the 4-H church but not for a meeting and not for church. It was sign-up day for the newest session of our homeschool co-op. We didn’t do traditional school, but for the previous couple of years, we’d participated in a once a week co-op, where parents offered up different classes for the kids in a half-day, semi school-like environment. The church was kind enough to let us use the Sunday school classrooms tucked away in their basement and this was the day where families perused the course offerings and signed up for classes they were interested in.
And I was teaching again. Which I liked. It could be a pain at times, but for the most part, I liked teaching things that I thought were of interest to the kids. Not rote subjects like math and history, but fun things like Medieval Times and How To Visit All 50 States Before You Turn 21. We all tried to make the classes relevant and fun. Some parents succeeded and some failed. I was pretty sure I fell in the success camp since my classes were usually wait-listed by the end of the sign-up period.
However, as I walked around the foyer of the church, surveying the sign-up sheets taped to the tabletops, I realized that something was wrong.
The sign-up sheet for my writing class – Write A Novel Based On Your Parents’ Life – was completely bare. There wasn’t a single name on the list.
I set my bag down next to the table and looked around the room. I saw all of the usual faces, the kids I normally saw in my classes. They were milling around, checking out the offerings and giggling with the other kids.
Maybe it was just early and they hadn’t gotten to my table yet.
So I walked around and did the same thing they were doing, investigating what was going to be offered this session. I had a general idea, since the moms had gotten together a few weeks before to brainstorm class ideas. A kitchen chemistry class. Learn how to knit. Car mechanics for dummies. The history of Chinese Dynasties. Classical music. None of them sounded like classes my kids would want to take. There was an art class being offered that I knew they’d like and a Legos-based architecture class but, beyond that, the pickings seemed to be slim.
So when I returned to my table and saw the mostly blank sign-up sheet, I was surprised. Shocked, actually. Because the only names on the list were Will, Sophie and Grace.
My own kids.
I looked around the room, frowning. Carol Vinford was sitting at a corner table and I made my way over to her.
She looked up and the smile took a fraction longer than it should’ve to reach her face. “Hi, Daisy.”
“Hi,” I said, mustering a smile. I glanced around the room. “Lots of kids. That’s good.”
She nodded. “Absolutely. We’ve got several new families and I think everyone from last session is returning, too.”
“Yeah, I saw that,” I said. I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jeans. “Which makes it even weirder that no one is signed up for my class.”
Carol’s smile flickered. “No one?”
I shook my head. “No one but my own kids.”
“Well, that’s nice that they want to be with you,” she said, her voice flavored with a little too much enthusiasm.
I pulled my hands out of my pockets and folded my arms across my chest. “What’s going on, Carol?”
“Going on?”
“Spill it. You should’ve already been asking me to teach another class by now, begging me to take a second hour,” I said. “The last time that didn’t happen was never.”
The pen in her right hand tapped against the table. “Well, um, maybe the class just isn’t, um, of interest this time around…”
I stared down at her. “Carol. What’s going on?”
The pen tapped quicker against the table top and Carol glanced to her left, then her right before leaning forward of the table. “People are afraid, Daisy.”
“Afraid their parents will be mad?” I asked, not understanding. It wasn’t like I was going to teach the kids how to write tabloid articles. We were going to write stories based on their parents’ lives growing up. They’d learn interview skills, how to write a basic narrative, and hopefully understand how important it was to maintain a connection the past…and record it.
“No,” she said, lowering her voice. “They’re afraid of the Olaf thing.”
I tilted my head, not sure I heard her correctly. “What?”
“They’re all freaked out,” she said. “They know about…the thing…at your house.”
“You mean the body?” I asked dryly. It wasn’t like everyone didn’t already know exactly what ‘thing’ had been recovered from the coal chute. “What the hell does that have to do with taking my class?”
She wrinkled her nose at my choice of words and glanced toward the ceiling, as if the Lord himself might be frowning down on us. “I don’t know. I just know that’s what I’m hearing.”
“From who?” I looked around the room. If people knew what we were discussing, they didn’t indicate it. In fact, no one was even looking in our direction. Which just made everything weirder. I knew I didn’t have a ton of real friends, but most of the moms in the co-op were surface-nice, always ready with a smile or some polite, trivial conversation.
I tried again. “Who did you hear that from?”
Her face colored. “Well, you know, just…everyone. It’s just out there. I know. It’s silly. But you know how people are.”
I set my hands on my hips. “Your kids didn’t sign up.”
The red in her cheeks flushed brighter. “Well, um, they aren’t really writers.”
“You asked me to teach the class,” I reminded her. “And Megan sells her homemade comic books at the fair.”
Her cheeks went to DefCon Red. “I, uh, well, I guess I was wrong about it being popular. And Megan’s more interested in graphic novels.The drawing part.”
I wanted to point out that I’d seen her graphic novels and that the ratio of writing to drawings was about equal. I knew that kid. She liked to write almost as much as she liked to read.
“What exactly do you all think is going to happen?” I asked, resting my hands on the table, more to steady myself than for any other reason. “That I’m going to bring the body in for show and tell? Somehow incorporate a murder into everyone’s story?”