He nodded, received none in return, and headed my way.
“Hi,” I said, smiling brightly. “Do you work for the county?”
After a pointed look at the door of his pickup, he said, “Yes, I do. Ron Driskell, building official and mechanical inspector for Tonedagana County.”
“Is there a problem with the house?” I asked. To explain, I hurried on with, “I’m considering building and I’m trying to learn what to avoid.”
He made a rude noise. “I’d say avoid getting your place built by Dale Lacombe, but since he’s dead, that won’t be a problem.”
I wanted to say, Gee, tell me what you really think, but instead asked, “Do you mean his houses weren’t built well? Or was he just hard to deal with?”
“Both.” Driskell spat on the ground. “Lacombe didn’t build a single house that didn’t have some sort of permitting issue. It was either the foundation or the electrical or the plumbing or”—he turned and gave the house a hard glance— “mechanical. The guy just couldn’t see it was easier to do it right the first time and save us all a lot of grief.”
“Is that why he was so difficult, because his houses weren’t built well?”
Driskell snorted. “He was hard to work with because he was a class A jerk. I’m no huge fan of that politically correct crap, but it’s wrong to laugh at a guy in a wheelchair when he says he can’t reach the bathroom faucet on the custom cabinet you built him.”
I blinked and couldn’t think of a thing to say.
“Piece of advice.” Driskell opened the door of his truck. “Buy a house. Don’t build one. It’ll take five years off your life and make you wish you’d never been born.” He climbed into his truck, shut the door hard, and started the engine with a roar.
Hmm, I thought as I watched him go. Driskell didn’t appear to have a solid grasp on his temper. Could he and Dale have had a confrontation? One that had turned Driskell’s temper into murderous anger?
Dale’s workers, after incurious glances at me, piled into their own vehicles and trundled out the driveway, leaving me standing there, wondering.
As I drove Eddie back to the houseboat, I gave Leese a call and asked about the clients of her father’s that we’d dug out the other day.
“Hang on,” she said, and I heard the clicking of a computer keyboard. “I sent an e-mail to Detective Inwood . . . okay, here.” She read off the names, Daphne Raab and Gail and Ray Boggs.
“Are they local?” I asked, not remembering the details.
“Daphne Raab lives here year round, out on Dawkins Road. I think the Boggses are seasonal. I’m not sure where their winter place is. Why?”
I hesitated, then said, “I know that Detective Inwood and Ash must be talking to them, but as a private citizen, I might get some different responses. You never know what might turn up.”
“Minnie, I appreciate that you’re trying to help, but you don’t have to do this.”
“It’s Saturday,” I said, “and my boyfriend is starting a twelve-hour shift in two hours. It’s either this or start wondering if I’ve made a dreadful mistake with my life choices.”
Leese laughed. “Well, since you put it that way, I’m glad of your help. It makes me feel a little less like I’m just sitting around waiting to go bankrupt.” She laughed again, though this time it sounded forced. “I’d come with you, but considering my last name, I’d probably be a hindrance.”
She was right, but the idea saddened me. “I’ll let you know everything I find out,” I promised, having full intentions on keeping that promise. However, half an hour later, when I was standing on a front porch that was sagging at one corner, I knew I wouldn’t be telling even half of what I was hearing.
“Dale Lacombe?” Daphne Raab’s face, which had up until that moment been one of polite curiosity about the stranger at her door, screwed up into a furious grimace. “I was raised not to speak ill of the dead, but there wasn’t anyone more deserving of murder than that . . . that . . .”
“Jerk?” I supplied.
“Too mild,” she said, staring at me fiercely. “I suppose I’m sorry for his kids, but that’s as far as I’ll go.”
“His oldest daughter, Leese, is a friend of mine.”
Daphne nodded. “My younger sister went to school with her. Nice enough, in spite of her dad.”
I’d introduced myself as I had to Rob Driskell, saying that I was considering having a house built, and that I’d been told she’d had some troubles with her construction. It was an odd introduction, but it wasn’t too far outside the realm of possibility.
“She’s trying to start a law practice up here,” I said.
“Another lawyer,” Daphne muttered. “Just what we need.”
“This is a little different,” I told her. “She’s specializing in cases for the elderly. Elder law, they call it.”
Daphne sniffed. “Putting a fancy label on an attorney just means they charge more.”
Ever so slowly, I was cottoning on to the fact that Daphne Raab was not a person filled with positive energy and general goodwill toward her fellow human beings. Moving away from the attorney issue, I said, “Is there anything you can tell me about Dale Lacombe that would help me make a decision about building?”
“Not much point now in telling you not to hire him,” she said, almost smirking, “but that’s what I would have said if you’d asked me a couple of weeks ago.”
Maybe Leese’s father hadn’t been an exemplary person, but enjoying the fact of his death was out of line. I tucked my irritation into a dark corner because, after all, I was the one who’d come to her. “He was murdered,” I reminded her. “Have you thought about who might have killed him?”
“No idea.” She laughed. “The police are going to have a heckuva time sorting this one out. It’ll be easier for them to go at it from the other way around, to figure out who didn’t want that . . . who didn’t want him dead.” She barked a short laugh. “Bet it was the wife. I don’t see how anyone could have put up with him for more than half an hour without wanting to smack the living daylights out of him.”
Her expression changed to polite blandness. “Really, though, I shouldn’t say anything. I don’t want to be the kind of person who says horrible things about people behind their backs.”
Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything, but she had, and had appeared to be enjoying herself immensely up until the last two sentences. Passive aggressive, thy name is Daphne Raab. “You know Carmen Lacombe?” I asked.
Daphne shrugged. “I know who she is. It wasn’t long ago they were separated. I heard she was going to ask him for a divorce. At least she doesn’t have to do that now.”
I asked a few more questions about the construction of her house then thanked her for her help and drove away, my mind whirling with the new information.
Carmen and Dale had been separated? Why hadn’t anyone told me that particular piece of very critical information?
Which led to an even more uncomfortable question: What else hadn’t I been told?
• • •
“That’s just not true,” Carmen said. “I don’t know how that story got around and it’s just so annoying that Daphne Raab of all people—Daphne Raab!—thinks she knows anything about my marriage. I can’t believe she would say that to you! No wonder Dale had to sue her to get paid for that job. Do you know what she said about him in the deposition?”
I did not, actually, not in the least, but Carmen was in full spate and there was no stopping her. On the plus side, we were talking on the phone and I was back home in the houseboat with Eddie on my lap, so at least I had some comforting purrs to soften Carmen’s ranting.
“That woman,” Carmen practically spat, “said my husband had the morals of a snake and the ethics of pond scum. Pond scum! The next time I saw her, you can believe that I told her exactly what I thought of her.”