“I’m Detective Priscilla Hanborn,” she said, her voice thick and raspy, as if the collected smoke of years of smoking cigarettes had settled permanently in her throat. I couldn’t imagine anyone looking and sounding less like a Priscilla. “From the county offices.”
Jake smiled and motioned her inside.
Her eyes darted between the two of us, a sour expression on her face. “You’re the homeowners.”
“We are,” Jake said. “I’m Jake Gardener. This is my wife, Daisy.”
She didn’t offer her hand, just dipped her chin as a curt hello to each of us. She adjusted her belt, hitching up her pants beneath a khaki jacket that looked two sizes too big for her. “Hear we got a body?”
“Uh, yes,” Jake said, clearing his throat. “We were in the crawlspace downstairs…”
“Who found it?” Detective Hanborn asked sharply.
Jake and I looked at each other.
“I guess I did,” I said. I stowed the mop back in the closet and wiped my hands down the front of my jeans. They came away covered in wet dust and I bit back a sigh. “I lifted up the door to the chute and…”
“Why?” she asked, fixing me with a hard stare. “Why did you open the door?”
“Because we didn’t…we didn’t know there was a door,” I explained. I didn’t want to say that I’d heard the house had been built by the owners of the first bank of Moose River and that part of me had thought maybe, just maybe, we might find a secret tunnel leading to some long-forgotten vault. “The pipe was frozen and it was the first time we’d ever gone into the space. So we hadn’t seen it before.”
She started to say something, but something caught her eye in the living room. The kids. She stared again for a long moment, as if each one of them were a suspect. “Those your kids?”
“Yes,” I said, a little defensively. “All four of them.”
“Four?” she asked incredulously. “You lose a bet or something?”
Jake shot me a warning look and I took a deep breath. “No. We…we like kids.”
“Well, I like cats, too. But I’ve got three of ‘em and that’s one too many,” she said, shaking her head. “Can’t imagine feeding and taking care of four.”
I wasn’t clear on whether or not she thought our kids actually were cats or what she was getting at.
She refocused. “Did you know the deceased?”
“We haven’t even seen the…deceased,” I said. “Other than his shoes.”
“So you did not put the body down there?”
“No,” I said, bristling at the idea. “We did not.”
“I was asking just you, ma’am,” Hanborn said, raising an eyebrow.
“No,” I repeated. I folded my arms across my chest. “I did not.”
“Hmm. Okay. We’ll see about that, then.” Her voice told me everything I needed to know. She didn’t believe a word I’d said. “Gonna go outside now and help them pull the body out,” she said. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“It’s our house,” Jake pointed out. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“Right,” the detective said. She glanced into the living room again. “Four. Wow. Just…wow.”
She turned on her heel and headed back outside, pulling the door closed behind her.
“I’m gonna buy a massive litter box,” Jake said. “Should cut down on the need for the toilet for them. Since we only have one.”
“Pretty sure litter is more expensive than toilet paper.”
He chuckled. “Maybe. But we could always try.”
I peered out the kitchen window. Priscilla Hanborn joined the group of officers who’d gathered in our backyard. She said something to them, then stomped toward the back door, the officers trailing behind her.
“She was…interesting.” I chose my words carefully, trying to be diplomatic.
“She seems…intense. And slightly insane,” Jake said, standing behind me to get a look outside, as well. “I’m glad you did not put that body down there.”
“Be careful or they’ll come back and find yours.”
He chuckled and I slipped away. I opened one of the whitewashed cupboards, pulling a mug out for myself. I poured coffee and added a generous splash of creamer and brought the steaming cup to my lips.
“Please,” Jake said. “Who would unfreeze your pipes if you killed me?”
“According to you, no one.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Damn right. We’ve had this conversation. But I was talking about your other pipes. The ones under the sink.”
I glanced at the offending appliance. It was decidedly newer than the house but the stainless steel sink and cupboard combination still dated from the 1950s. It was a little rusted and one of the doors didn’t latch properly but I didn’t care. Like so many of the the other quirky features in the house, I loved it completely.
“Ohhhh.” I grinned. “Good point. You do have some value.”
He shot me a look and I bit back a smile. He was pretty good at unfreezing all my pipes and he knew it.
I cradled my cup of coffee and we both watched as Detective Hanborn pointed fingers and barked instructions to the crowd gathered in our snow-filled backyard. There was a team of police officers as well as a small group of people in plain clothes—I couldn’t tell if they were detectives or people from the coroner’s office or what. A couple of them bounced on their heels, their arms wrapped around themselves, trying to stay warm in the subzero temperatures. After about ten minutes, the entire herd of them backed up. I looked away just as I saw several men come around the side of the house carrying a long, sheet-covered board with tennis shoes sticking out of it.
“I don’t want to see,” I said, whirling around and staring at the doorway that led into the dining room. The kids had scattered; from their vantage point, they couldn’t see much of anything and had probably gotten bored. Or scared.
Jake smiled. “Well, he’s mostly covered by a sheet, so you’re in luck. You won’t really see anything.”
“You’re morbid.”
“Yep.” He turned back around so he was facing the window.
I craned my neck just a little. “Can you?”
“Can I what?”
“See anything?”
“I see the body under the sheet.”
“You’re not very helpful.”
“Unless I’m unfreezing a pipe,” he reminded me.
Another knock on the door caused me to jump. Jake chuckled and opened it to find another officer asking us if we’d mind stepping outside for a moment, per Detective Hanborn’s request. We pulled on our jackets and boots and waded out into the cold.
Hanborn stood in ankle-deep snow, her arms folded across her chest and a frown on her wide face.
“I’d like you both to take a look here,” she said, her eyes flitting between each of us. “Just let us know if you might recognize or know the deceased.”
My stomach lurched at the idea of looking at a dead body but I didn’t think we had a choice.
We followed Hanborn to what looked like an ambulance. She gestured at the two guys in the ambulance near the opposite end of the sheet. They pulled it back gently.
It was definitely a man. Brown eyes, early forties, a well-trimmed beard. His skin was close to white around the beard and his mouth was half open, like he’d been caught by surprise.
I leaned in closer and my mouth dropped open, mirroring the dead man’s expression.
“Never seen him,” Jake said, shaking his head.
Hanborn nodded slowly, then looked at me. “And you, ma’am?”
I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I took a deep breath and swallowed, trying as much to find my voice as to steady my nerves. My heart hammered out of control and my stomach tightened into a coil of knots.
“Mrs. Gardner?” Detective’s Hanborn was like razors.
“Savage,” Jake corrected. “Daisy Savage. She didn’t take my last name.”
I blinked a couple of times and looked at both of them like I was seeing them for the first time.
“Do you recognize him?” Hanborn asked again, her tone cold and deliberate.