BOOK ONE: DECEPTIONS
Chapters One to Twenty Six
Vignettes 1 - 140

BOOK TWO: YESTERDAY ECHOES
Chapters 27 to
Vignettes 141 -

Monday, February 28, 2011

Vignette #161: Sniffing Around

Jesse and Reese were sitting by the pool watching the workman unload. Jesse was all a jitter. He wanted this work done and the worker’s gone. He had waited a whole week for the pool to be drained and sanitized, then refilled. Tonight he could use it, and damn it wouldn’t you know that’s the day the insurance company scheduled the men to come and fix the windows and the railings.

Reese was just a sad puppy. He had flown Billy home two days ago. They had spent almost every waking hour together, and he missed him so badly. He knew that Billy had to go home, but he also knew that sooner or later either he was going there or Billy was moving here.

He’d heard nothing from him, only an email saying that his plane had arrived and his sister had picked him up at the airport. Reese knew that his family probably had lots of questions and when Billy gave way to the details it probably wouldn’t be pretty. Billy knew that he was there for him, but it was hard to be a shoulder to cry on when you were on opposite ends of the country.

“Good morning gentlemen.” Tippy stood before them, hands on her hips, and smile on her face. “I’m Tippy Shores; you all can introduce yourselves later. These are my boys, Reese and Jesse. We live next door, but Mr. Justyn wanted us to make sure that you were properly taken care of, since you’ll be taking care of his place. Now, Mr. Justyn insisted upon supplying you all with anything you might need.”

One of the tall ones said, “We thank you ma’am, but we brought everything that we need.”

“We’re not offering hammers and nails, honey. We will be sitting up a table, you tell us where out of your way and out of the sun, and we’re gonna keep it well supplied with lemonade, coffee and soft drinks, and of course I’ll be serving you lunch as well.”

“Oh, wow! We need more gigs like this!” One of the others said.

“Now, two things boys…first off I’ll need to know how everyone likes their steaks…”

“Steaks?” the one who could still speak managed to utter.

“Mr. Justyn and the Shores don’t screw around with lunch meat boys. And finally when the work is completed…to my satisfaction…I’ve got several cases of Dos Equis chilling…how does that sound?”

“Can we work for you guys forever?”

Tippy laughed. “Now we got some things to do here as well, so let us know if we are in your way…”

And the work began. Tippy and the boys began to hose down and scrub the patio, Tippy just wasn’t happy with the work the first clean up crew had done, and of course the pool people “had made a mess”. The work crew tore down the plywood that had been nailed up and took down the last of the police tape.

Jesse was standing beneath the under hang watching one of the guys strip off his shirt and wipe his face with it, then pick up some wood and hauled it off. He leaned against the house.

“Jesse, get your head out of the clouds and get your ass in gear” Reese commanded.

Dutifully he went back to work. As he squatted to clean a splatter of something off the wall, he shifted the weight on his foot heard a crunch. “Damn, there must still be some broken glass down here.” He said to no one in particular.

He pushed the bar back and unveiled a mass of shattered glass that had either never been found or just been swept under the bar by the first clean up crew. He walked over to where his mother had leaned a broom and a dustpan.

As he bent over to pick up the dustpan, another of the workers whizzed by. Jesse had to duck out of the way or get smacked by a two by four. He lost his balance and bonked his head against the wall. He felt the wall give.

“Shit…” Jesse said, rubbing the knot on his head.

When he looked up he noticed that the panel was drifting open. “The police must have left this unlocked…” he said to himself, and stuck his figure in the fake panel knot and pulled it toward him until he heard the click. He made a mental note to go in the garage and make sure that side was locked as well.

Mr. Herman hadn’t been buried long when Miss Elizabeth told him that she was having the place renovated. Jesse had assumed that all the passageways had been either taken out or closed off. The house looked completely different, but Jesse had found that one hidden entrance from the patio to still be in tact. He wasn’t sure if Miss Elizabeth had just forgotten about it, but he always made sure that it was locked and he knew the only other one was in the garage.

It was the only way now into the basement, so he never worried about it. With all the strangeness that had gone on the past couple of weeks; he didn’t want to take any chances. Jesse went back to cleaning up the broken glass.

Kellen had arrived by ten and enlisted the boy’s help in setting up the surveillance system. It was a series of wires and cameras, tripped by movement. Kellen had one and the Shores had one. The cameras were linked to main frames that were checked supposedly by a central system for unusual circumstances.

It wasn’t complicated and once it was hooked up anything could be recorded or reported with the touch of several buttons from anywhere in the house. Had this system been in place before hand, if nothing else, there would have been some footage of Blue Richards entering the house and maybe at least a few more questions could have been answered. Hopefully someone at the main frame would have alerted the police and all of the mess could have been avoided.

As they hung some of the wires Kellen laughed. “You know, I have one of these, too…you’d think I could at least catch on tape how my damn dog keeps getting out of the house…” Jesse and Reese looked in the direction Kellen was and sure enough Ralphie had joined the party, tail wagging and gleefully sniffing at the workers.

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