At the site where Dale Lacombe’s crew had been working, the grounds had been littered with the detritus that came with construction: bits of cardboard and insulation, short snippets of wire, and stockpiles of dirt and stone. The workers’ trucks had been parked higgledy-piggledy, and the trucks themselves had been coated with various combinations of rust, dirt, and dents.
This site was different. Here, there was no litter or debris of any kind. There was bare dirt, but it was raked smooth and looked ready to accept plants. The trucks were parked in an orderly fashion at the side of the house and every vehicle looked, if not new, at least clean and tidy.
By the time I walked halfway to the front porch, I’d already chosen Howard Upton as my future builder—assuming I won the lottery, of course, which wasn’t likely to happen because I never played—and was toying with the location for my fantasy home when a woman who looked to be a few years older than myself walked out the front door and onto the porch.
My first assumption, that she was the owner, went by the wayside when I noted her work boots, tool belt, and nylon jacket, which was the same color as one of the trucks next to the house—the truck with an Upton Builders logo emblazoned on the driver’s side door.
“Afternoon,” she said cheerfully. “Looking for someone?”
Upton was definitely going to build my imaginary house. A contractor who hired personable help, female personable help at that, had to be something special. “Hi,” I said, walking forward. “I was hoping to talk to Howard Upton, if he has a minute.”
She laughed, making her brown ponytail bounce up and down. “Howie hasn’t had a spare minute since 2011, but I’m sure he won’t mind talking to you. Go on in.” She tipped her head in an ushering motion. “Tell him Nan sent you in,” she said, trotting down the porch steps. “And tell him I’ll be right back with that corner piece,” she called as she climbed into one of the trucks.
As her engine started, I turned to the front door and frowned. Though the opening was for a door with an arched top, the door in place was rectangular with a piece of plywood filling in the gap. Odd, I thought, but opened it and went in.
From outside, the noise had been a dull roar. Inside, my ears felt assaulted by a cacophony of noises, ranging from the whine of a circular saw to the whunk whunk of a firing nail gun to the metallic screech of ductwork being assembled. I counted five men and one woman hard at work, and from the sounds of the footsteps above my head, there were at least two more people upstairs.
I stood near the door, not wanting to get in anyone’s way, and waited for someone to note my presence. Soon enough, one of the men, a guy wearing sawdust-covered jeans and a Ferris State University sweatshirt, glanced up. He nodded at me, put down the drill he’d been using, and motioned me outside.
Back on the front porch, he asked, “Can I help you?”
“Sorry to barge in when you’re so obviously busy,” I said, “but I was hoping to talk to Howard Upton if he has a couple of minutes.”
“That’s me.” He took off a work glove, held out his hand, and we shook.
I was a little surprised by his age; I’d expected someone with such a stellar reputation to be in his fifties, but this guy couldn’t be that much older than I was. I introduced myself, and before I could say anything else, he gave me a solid slap on the shoulder.
“You’re Frances Pixley’s niece,” he said, grinning. “It’s thanks to her that I got into construction. Before she started at the community college, she taught high school wood shop, remember? In two years I went from a kid who’d never touched a power tool in his life to a kid who won first place in the state woodworking competition with an inlaid dining table. She’s a great teacher and it’s a crying shame the high school dropped their industrial arts classes.”
“She says the same thing.” And she did, often. It was understandable why Chilson and so many other schools had done so—they were expensive to run and difficult to staff—but it was still a shame because the benefits were so obvious. I smiled at Howard Upton. “I’ll tell her you said hello.”
“Please do.” He tipped his head at the house. “What do you think? Are we going to finish by Thanksgiving?”
It seemed unlikely, but what did I know? “You have lots of activity going on in there,” I said. “It’s like an ant hill that’s been stepped on.”
Upton laughed. “Sounds about right. Frantic, but with a method.”
I’d been thinking more along the purely frantic lines, but I let him keep his version of the simile.
“So how can I help you?” he asked.
Instead of the thinking-about-building-a-house story, I said, “I was hoping to talk to you about Ron Driskell.”
He studied me. “Why?”
“Sorry, it’s just . . .” I sighed. “Dale’s daughter, Leese, is a friend of mine. She just started a new business but she’s losing clients left and right because of her dad’s murder. I want to help, that’s all.”
A loud crash echoed inside the house, followed by shouts and laughter. Upton rolled his eyes. “Leave the room for one minute and what happens?” But he was smiling as he spoke and made no move to investigate. “Okay,” he said. “I understand you want to help. What I don’t see is why you’re talking to me.”
“Sorry.” And I was, because I’d asked the wrong question. Nicely done, Minnie. “What I should have asked was, what do you think about Ron Driskell?”
“Our beloved building official?” He smiled, but this time it had a distinct sardonic cast.
I began to scent a clue. “Mr. Driskell has a reputation?”
Upton shrugged. “He won’t let builders cut any corners. He’s black and white, no gray allowed.”
“I don’t see the problem. Isn’t that what building inspectors are supposed to do?”
Another shrug. “Not for me, but for some guys, yeah.”
“Because you don’t cut corners?”
Upton grinned. “Let’s go with that.”
I suspected that I’d simply spoken the truth and that he hadn’t wanted to do what might have been interpreted as bragging. My mental list of builders for my fantasy house went from a penciled listing with him at the top to a list of one with his name in permanent marker.
“Does Mr. Driskell have a temper?” I asked.
“Sure, if you poke at him with a stick.”
“A stick?”
“Metaphorically speaking,” Upton said. “Take last summer, for instance. There was this builder who needed a foundation inspection. Driskell’s office said it would be three days before an inspector could get out there. The builder decided he couldn’t wait and started laying the floor joists anyway.”
“That’s bad?”
“Very. When Driskell finally showed up, he went ballistic. Kicked at a pile of blocks and broke a toe.” I expected Upton to laugh, but he shook his head. “That kind of thing doesn’t do the construction trade any good. Sure, the builder shouldn’t have started without the foundation permit, but Driskell shouldn’t have lost his temper.”
Hmm. “Was that an isolated incident, or are there other stories like that?”
Upton launched into a complicated tale about low-flow toilets being replaced by toilets from Canada. Though I lost the story’s thread less than halfway through, I understood the ending of that and the three other incidents Upton told me about before heading back to work.
The ending, the conclusion being: Ron Driskell had a horrific temper that had, more than once, ended in an outburst of violence.
• • •
Thoughtfully, I drove back to Chilson. The sun was just starting to slide down below the trees when I parked in the boardinghouse driveway and went in through the front door.