Skeleton in a Dead Space (A Kelly O'Connell Mystery)

  Skeleton in a Dead Space

  by

  Judy Alter

  A Kelly O’Connell Mystery

  Turquoise Morning, LLC

  P.O. Box 43958

  Louisville, KY 40253-0958

  Skeleton in a Dead Space

  Copyright © 2011, Judy Alter

  Print ISBN: 9781937389253

  Digital ISBN: 9781937389260

  Editor, Ayla O’Donovan

  Cover Art Design by Kim Jacobs

  Trade Paperback release, August 2011

  Digital release, August 2011

  www.turquoisemorningpress.com

  Warning: All rights reserved. The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work, in whole or part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, is illegal and forbidden, without the written permission of the publisher, Turquoise Morning Press.

  This is a work of fiction. Characters, settings, names, and occurrences are a product of the author's imagination and bear no resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, places or settings, and/or occurrences. Any incidences of resemblance are purely coincidental.

  This edition is published by agreement with Turquoise Morning Press, a division of Turquoise Morning, LLC.

  Dedication

  To Fred Erisman, who always said I could write a mystery and helped me do it.

  With thanks to….

  I owe so much gratitude to so many people for their interest in my writing and my career, but for this novel I specifically want to thank a few:

  —First, my two oldest granddaughters. With some changes, Madison, now thirteen, and Eden, now eight, are Maggie and Em. I wrote the first draft of this novel so long ago that they were then the ages of my fictional girls, and I had them in mind as I crafted Maggie and Em. I hope Maddie and Edie know how much I love them.

  —All my children and grandchildren for showing me often how proud they are of me and how much they love me: Colin and Lisa, Morgan, Kegan; Megan and Brandon, Sawyer, Ford; Jamie and Melanie, Maddie, Edie; Jordan and Christian, Jacob.

  —Fred Erisman, years ago my major professor in graduate school, still my friend, advisor, and mentor; Fred read this manuscript until I’m sure he knows it by heart, and he counseled me about it over many enjoyable lunches.

  —Peter, owner of the Old Neighborhood Grill, for once signing permission to use his restaurant in the book on an imaginary piece of paper in the air and then suggesting the Grill, mentioned often in the book, as a perfect site for book signings. He serves the best breakfast in town and a pretty mean meatloaf at night.

  —Donatella Trotti, for allowing me to mention, always with praise, her wonderful small country Italian restaurant, Nonna Tata.

  Praise for Skeleton in a Dead Space

  An endearing sleuth, a skeleton behind the spice cupboard, and a fistful of subplots that will keep you guessing. A nicely done debut by an author to watch.

  —Susan Wittig Albert, author of the China Bayles mysteries

  Award-winning historical novelist makes a fine debut in the mystery field with Skeleton in a Dead Space. Alter gives readers a twisty plot, excellent use of setting, and a very likable protagonist. I hope this is just the first of many novels about realtor/detective Kelly O'Connell!

  —Livia J. Washburn

  author of the Fresh Baked Mystery series and

  the Literary Tour Mystery series

  Skeleton in a Dead Space is a must-read for cozy fans. Kelly O’Connell is an engaging realtor with adorable daughters and a talent for trouble. Alter’s mystery debut stands on a lasting foundation of sinister clients and suspect houses. Location, location, location—for murder!

  —Charlotte Hinger, author of Deadly Descent and Lethal Lineage.

  Skeleton in a Dead Space

  Kelly O’Connell never thought real estate was a dangerous profession, until she stumbled over a skeleton in a dead space in an early-twentieth-century Craftsman house she was transforming into a coveted modern home in an older urban neighborhood in Fort Worth, Texas.

  From that moment, she runs into teenage gang members, a manipulative ex-husband, a needy and single pregnant friend, a cold-blooded murderer, and a policeman who wants to be more than her protector. As free-spirited as the chocolate-peanut-jalapeño candy she craves, Kelly barges through life trying to keep from angering her policeman-boyfriend, protect her two young daughters, pacify her worried mother a thousand miles away, and keep her real estate business afloat. Too often she puts herself in danger, and sometimes it’s the girls, not Mike, who come to Kelly’s rescue.

  Chapter One

  I am passionate about a few things—my daughters, old houses, the neighborhood I live and work in, white wine, and chocolate. But certainly not skeletons. I could have lived my life without ever seeing a skeleton. And yet that’s just what I saw one fall morning after I answered the phone at my real estate office. I had no idea of the twisted and scary road that skeleton would lead me down.

  I reached for the phone hoping, maybe, for a new real estate listing or a buyer panting after one of the Craftsman houses I had redone. But not something dead, something dead a long time. It was an October day, with North Texas at its best—sunny, temperature in the 70s, a light breeze, and trees that were beginning to turn because we had a cold snap. The girls—Maggie, seven, and Em, four—had been laughingly happy when I took them to school. I was finalizing the details of a contract—a nice real estate sale that would boost my firm’s income for the year, so when the phone rang, it was an intrusion.

  “O’Connell and Spencer Realtors,” I answered automatically, my tone somewhat terse. I admit I don’t handle interruptions well, but I can’t bear to let a phone ring unanswered.

  “Miss Kelly, you come right now. Mother of God!” Anthony Dimitrios, the carpenter and jack-of-all-trades who renovates houses for me, yelled into the phone. He is volatile, given to outbursts of various emotions, from anger to joy, and I don’t take any of that seriously. But this was different. This was panic.

  “I’m on my way,” I said, even as I heard the phone click dead. No chance to ask him what was the matter. Slipping my feet back into shoes and grabbing my purse and keys, I headed out the door. Where was Keisha? My office manager had disappeared. She’s probably gone to get lunch. I locked the office, my thoughts tumbling. Whatever was the matter with Anthony, I had a bad feeling about it in the pit of my stomach.

  ****

  I am the O’Connell part of O’Connell & Spencer—Kelly O’Connell—and my ex-husband, Tim Spencer, was the Spencer part. It’s a small firm in the Fairmount neighborhood of Fort Worth. Though Tim left over three years ago, I hadn’t changed the name. O’Connell Realtors sounded ordinary to me. I liked having the business to myself—well, most of the time. Tim was smart about real estate, but he wasn’t so smart about people, and I found I got along with clients better than he did.

  Anthony was working on a house on Fairmount Avenue, a wonderful red brick with a wide, roofed front porch held in by a three-foot solid brick wall and evenly placed round pillars reaching from the low wall to the roof line. The house had leaded glass bay windows, hardwood floors, and solid oak woodwork, once painted white but now painstakingly being restored to the original varnished state. It was a two-bedroom, or I’d have thought about moving the girls and myself into it.

  Anthony stood on the front porch, wiping his forehead with a big handkerchief and running his hand through his hair, a nervous gesture. He was a big burly man of about sixty with dark curly hair just touched with bits of gray and usually laughing eyes His eyes weren’t laughing now. He’s standing there so
it can’t be that bad. “Anthony, what’s the matter?”

  “Wait till you see,” he said, leading me into the house, through the living room and dining room and into the kitchen.

  The kitchen was once redone, maybe not too long ago. It was now a galley kitchen, which didn’t match the house at all. In the name of frugality, we decided against trying to puzzle out the original configuration, but one thing bothered both of us. On the left wall there was a deep cabinet—we decided to put pull-out drawers on rollers, so that the back space could be easily reached. Next to that, though, was a shallow cabinet with shelves no more than three or four inches deep, enough for spices or one row of canned goods but nothing more. Beyond that the oven and microwave extended much farther back. What was behind the spice cabinet? We laughed about that dead space, and then Anthony suggested we make the spice shelves swing out like a false door, so that the occupants of the house could utilize the space behind. I thought it was a terrific idea.

  Today, he’d pulled out the spice shelves and the sheet of wood that held them, all in one piece. It leaned against the counter on the other side of the kitchen. But when I entered the kitchen, he pointed to the space behind where they’d been, and then he wiped his brow again. The space looked like an empty cabinet with nothing put into it. Whatever, I wondered, could be wrong with him? I looked inside the dead space, but it was too dark to make out much except a wooden box, sort of like an old orange crate only larger. “Pull that out,” I said to him.

  “Mother of God, no, not me.”

  “Well, give me your flashlight.” I shined the light inside the box. A skeleton, a human form, was curled in a fetal position inside the box. I gasped and pulled back. Anthony was no help. Some instinct told me not to move the skeleton. What had I read in all those mysteries? Don’t mess with a crime scene.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Kelly.” He always calls me Miss Kelly, which irritates me a bit. I don’t call him Mr. Anthony. “I wanted to warn you, but...” His large shoulders shrugged.

  “Nothing to be sorry about, Anthony. You didn’t put it here.” My heart was pounding.

  He held up his hands, palms out, denying any knowledge.

  I wasn’t sure what I felt—shock, surprise, fear. A skeleton was once a living human being. How had this person died, stuffed in a box? The horror of it made me clasp my hand to my mouth, afraid I was going to be sick. And a bit of me—not the better part, I admit—felt repulsion. A skeleton is gross. I was also apprehensive, dreading that this discovery would only lead to something worse.

  Holding my breath, I looked closer. Mummified bits of skin around the mouth pulled it back into a grotesque grin. Bits of hair, faded now so that no color was discernible, clung to the skull, and scraps of fabric clung to the bones. It was impossible to tell without touching—and I didn’t want to anyway—but I thought the fabric was lightweight, maybe once even floral. Now it was dirty gray. A woman, I decided, and, from the size, a young woman. But for all I knew, it could have been a young boy.

  Digging in my purse, I handed Anthony my cell phone and ordered, “Call 911.”

  He took the phone and went to the front porch. I stood by the box, as though the poor creature needed someone to watch over her—or him. Within minutes, I heard the wail of sirens, and it dawned on me that Anthony didn’t tell them it wasn’t a fresh body.

  Two police officers rushed in, not quite with guns drawn but looking on the ready, checking out the situation. One was an officer I knew—Mike Shandy, who was assigned to the Fairmount neighborhood. I sometimes ran into him at neighborhood meetings and at the Old Neighborhood Grill on Park Place, where locals went for food and gossip. His wholesome, ex-Marine look—dark blonde crew cut, really blue eyes, and a nice grin—was appealing. I told myself I didn’t notice such things, especially when I was standing over a skeleton.

  “Hey, Kelly,” Officer Mike Shandy said. “Didn’t expect to see you.”

  “Hey, Mike,” I replied. “We own this house. But there’s no need to hurry. This one’s been here a long time.”

  Shandy peered into the box and let out a loud, “Oh, my God!”

  The other officer paled.

  “What do you know?” Shandy asked.

  “Not a thing, except that Anthony found this just now when he took out those shelves.” I pointed to the shelves leaning against the counter. “We wondered what was on the other side of them.” My voice was shaky at first, but as I talked it gained some strength.

  “How long have you owned this house? Previous owners?”

  “I bought it about four months ago from a young couple who’d lived here two years. I don’t think they were ready to be urban pioneers once they found out they were going to be parents.” Urban pioneers was what Fairmount residents often called themselves, living in a neighborhood where an updated home was likely to stand next to a run-down, paint-peeling, porch-sagging structure with a refrigerator on the front porch and cars parked in the front yard.

  Things went along like all the police procedurals I’d ever watched on late-night TV, when sleep wouldn’t come. The evidence team arrived, photographed everything, dusted for fingerprints—a huge waste of time, to my mind, since they’d find Anthony’s and not much else, maybe mine. Then the medical people arrived. They quickly decided to take box and all to the morgue—transferring the fragile contents to a gurney presented insurmountable problems. I hung around because I felt I ought to… and because I was curious.

  When all the technical people began to leave, Mike looked at me, and said, “Don’t leave town.” But he said it with a wry grin that I liked, the kind of grin that might be a slight bit of flirting. Then it hit me again—flirting over a skeleton, even if it was now gone out of the house? Couldn’t be.

  “Of course not, but I’m glad we found this instead of some new owner. Tell me, how does a living, breathing person end up a skeleton in a dead space in an old house?” I thought a minute and then added, “I think it’s a she.”

  “So do I,” he said. “But we’ll get a medical report. It takes longer with skeletal remains.”

  “Can they tell how long it’s been here?”

  “From what I understand, that’s the hardest part. They can tell age, weight, previous injuries—all that sort of stuff—but how long is pretty much a guessing game. If we had a clue who she—or it—was, we might try for dental records. But that’s a long shot until we identify the, uh, body. When was the house built?”

  “1916.”

  He whistled. “Wow. Almost a hundred years. Theoretically, we’d have to look through newspapers, missing person’s reports, and all that since 1916. No telling how long it takes a body to get in that condition—if it was someplace really cold or really dry, you’d have a mummy. But not in Texas. Varmints had something to do with turning the body into a skeleton. They can get into places we think are sealed tight.”

  There were rats and mice all over Fairmont, and I knew that, but the idea still gave me the creeps. I wondered if the body smelled at one point—enough to alert neighbors that something was wrong. Sure, skeletons don’t smell—but dead bodies do after a few days, and from all the TV shows I’ve watched, the smell is pretty powerful and pretty awful. Didn’t anyone notice? And who lived in the house at the time?

  Mike Shandy was businesslike. “I’ll let you know what forensics turns up. But it won’t be quick.” And then he added, “We’ll have to tape off the house for a few days. Guess you’ll have to stop work.”

  Swell. I want Anthony to finish this house so I can sell it, and now he has to stop work. Anthony sat perched on the wide, concrete top of the porch wall, smoking a cigar which he usually never did around me.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I should have told you not to hang around. You want to take a couple of days off? They’re going to put crime scene tape around the house, and nobody’s supposed to go in or out.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, I’d like that. I’ll take my boys fishing in the river. I need to get away from this place fo
r a bit. That…it spooked me.” Anthony’s much younger wife died of cancer a couple of years earlier, leaving him with three children to raise. Emil, I thought, was about seven by now, and Stefan was twelve. The oldest, Theresa, was seventeen. She sometimes babysat for me, and I worried about her because she was saddled with the care of the family.

  “I’ll go home now and tell them they can play hooky tomorrow,” Anthony said, walking down the stairs.

  I didn’t remind him that the school system’s attitude toward playing hooky, even with parental approval, was strict. Instead, I asked, “What about Theresa?” I asked.

  He frowned. “She won’t fish. She’ll have to go to school.”

  Something struck me as wrong about that, but it wasn’t my business.

  ****

  When I finally left the Fairmount house, I intended to go back to the office and finish up that contract—until I glanced at my watch. I was already late to pick up the girls, a situation that was too chronic with me and always made me feel like a bad mother. I made a conscious decision not to tell the girls about the skeleton. It would just scare them, and I was still hoping that it would amount to nothing in our lives.

  I went first to the day-care center where four-year-old Em wiles away the time until she is old enough for kindergarten.

  “Hi, Mom,” she said, reaching up for a kiss. “How was your day?”

  It was such a solemn, caring question that I almost cried.

  “It was okay, sweetie. How was yours?”