I stared at the photo and user name.
The photo was of his mid-section only. A ripped, tanned abdomen encircled by a tool belt. I rolled my eyes and stifled a giggle. It instantly brought back memories of all the cheesy photos I’d seen scroll through my recommendations when I’d been on the site.
I bit back another laugh when I saw his name.
Sexy. His name was Sexy. Nothing more. He signed his emails with a simple ‘S.’
I searched for him in the profile section, hoping there might be more info, but I couldn’t find him. That wasn’t out of the norm. You could hide your profile if you wanted to once you started dating someone or if you just wanted to lay low. It wasn’t a total shock that I couldn’t find him but it was disappointing.
I read through their email exchanges again. He seemed nice, non-threatening, and he seemed to genuinely have had a good time on their first date. Helen’s responses indicated that she was excited that he was interested in her. He was sympathetic about her divorce but never said anything negative about Olaf…mostly because, for some reason, Helen had decided not to complain about him. Maybe she’d learned her lesson from her previous exchanges with men on the site. Or maybe she’d stopped caring because she’d finally found someone she liked. I didn’t know.
But one thing was becoming crystal clear. There was nothing in her private emails on the site that indicated she’d had a hand in her ex-husband’s death.
I sighed and closed the laptop and glanced at the clock. It was almost noon. The girls had a pile of miniature bracelets and necklaces on the dining room table, a rainbow of colors. Will was still upstairs, probably immersed in a Minecraft battle. The kids would need lunch soon and both girls needed showers. I needed to wash the sheets we needed to head to the pet store at some point to get a more permanent home for the hamster.
The last thing I needed to be spending time on was trying to play amateur detective. Looking through those messages had done more than raise my guilt level; it had left me feeling decidedly out of my league. And foolish. I’d bribed my son. Participated in hacking into a commercial web site. Reading through private emails. All in some desperate attempt to figure out why a guy I’d known for approximately three hours had ended up in my coal cute.
There was a lot wrong with that. I wondered if maybe it was time to start listening to Jake and to let it go and leave the investigation to the professionals.
I stood up and stretched and glanced down at the laptop. Let it go, I reminded myself. Get on with the day. I nodded in agreement at my inner monologue.
But I couldn’t help looking at the closed laptop one more time.
Because I really, really wanted to know who Sexy was.
THIRTY SEVEN
I was finishing up with the lunch dishes when a knock at the backdoor sent the kids scattering to their hiding places. I toweled off my hands and waved at Rex the inspector through the window.
“Hey Daisy,” he said when I opened the door. “Jake called me this morning about the pipe thing. I told him I could stop by to get some measurements so you can get the HVAC guy out here to install the ducting. Is now an okay time?”
“Sure,” I said, stepping out of the way so he could come in. “No problem.”
He clutched his travel mug of coffee in his hand and stomped his feet on the mat, shaking the snow loose from his boots. “Just figured since I was driving by and Jake and I had just talked, I’d get it done now. Get those pipes warmed up for good.”
It seemed like forever since Jake and I had gone down there to unfreeze the pipe and had found the unpleasant surprise in the coal chute.
“Yeah, of course,” I said. “Let’s go downstairs.”
He followed me down into the basement and I hit the lights for the low-ceilinged room.
“Things starting to calm down?” Rex asked as we reached the bottom of the stairs. “With, you know, the thing and all?”
“Oh, I guess,” I told him. I wrapped my arms around myself. It was as cool as a cave in the below-ground basement. “Still lots of questions and what not.”
He nodded. “Ran into Olga at the grocery store the other day,” he said. He walked over to the heating unit and set his mug down on an old card table we’d set up. “Said you two have been talking.”
“We got off on the wrong foot.” I thought back to our wrestling match in the snow. “But I think we’re friends now.”
“Nothing but nice things to say about you,” he said as he pulled a tape measure from his pocket. “For what that’s worth.” He laid the tape to the side of the unit. “Guess Helen’s been giving her some trouble about all of it.”
I nodded. “Helen seems to have a way of stirring up a little trouble.”
Rex chuckled and punched some measurements into his phone. “I suppose. Think everyone’s on edge, though. Kind of strange having a dead body in Moose River.”
That was an understatement.
“Can’t recall the last time that’s happened.” He held the tape up again to the opening near the crawl space. He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Police give you any clue as to what they think happened?”
I shook my head. “The only thing that detective has said to me is to mind my own business.”
He chuckled again. “Ol’ Priscilla. She’s a tough cookie. Means well, but a little short on the courtesy gene.”
That was one way of putting it.
He punched more measurements into his phone. “Yeah, I’d expect she’d want to clear everyone away from it. But that makes sense. Just trying to do her job without anyone or anything getting in the way.”
“I guess.”
He looked at the pipes, reached up and touched one, then tapped on his phone again. “I’d imagine they’re giving Helen a pretty good grilling about it.”
“You think?” I asked, my hands on my hips.
He eyed me. “You met her before?”
I nodded.
“She’s a tough cookie, too,” he said, still tapping away. “Bit of an odd bird.” He shook his head. “Be a sad thing if she was the one that did it to Olaf.”
I told myself not to engage, to not ask questions. But my radar was on high alert.
“You think she did?” I asked.
He shrugged and held the tape measure up to the wall. “I don’t want to speculate. But I guess if I were Priscilla, that’s where I’d start looking.”
At least I wasn’t the only one on that track of thinking. “I just don’t get how he ended up here.”
His mouth twisted and his bushy mustached bounced a little. “Well, I’d expect she knew about you and Olaf.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He snapped the tape measure closed and stuck it in his pocket. “I think everyone knew you two went on at least one date. Big mouths in a small town and all that.”
I blushed.
“So I’d expect she knew,” he said. “So if she did do it…well, you might’ve been an easy target for her.”
I shook my head. It all seemed too bizarre for me. But at least I knew I wasn’t alone in my thinking. Rex and I were on the same page. I smiled, grateful that he had come to some of the same conclusions I had.
“Was she dating anyone?” I asked. “Here in Moose River?”
He grabbed his coffee and took a long swallow, then shrugged. “Not really sure. Why do you ask?”
“I’ve just heard some things.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That right?”
“Just that she might’ve been dating someone,” I said. “I know she was on a dating website and she claimed she was involved with someone. But I can’t find who it was.” I smiled sheepishly. “And that’s just me being too nosy and doing things I shouldn’t be doing.”
“Right, right,” he said, running a finger over his mustache. He took another drink of his coffee. “Well, I know she went out with that Cornelius fellow. The taxidermist.”