Page 31 of Concealed in Death

Alma came back, sat on the arm of his chair, handed him a beer.

“Painted a few, but I didn’t charge for that. Mostly they painted themselves, save the cost, you know? I did what I could with the plumbing. Rewired some stuff. I’m going to tell you I wasn’t licensed to do the plumbing and electrical back then, but they couldn’t afford someone who was. And I knew what I was doing.”

“He can do anything,” Alma said. “God’s truth.”

“So can you, that’s why I married you.”

“I’m not worried about code violations or licenses,” Eve told them. “When’s the last time you were in the building?”

“Oh, man, let me think.” His hand went to his hair again. “It was right after they got the new one, and were still moving stuff out. They asked me to do a walk-through, just see if there was anything in there that would get them in dutch once the bank came through. I patched a couple more things, just in case. Alma was with me. Remember? We were dating.”

“Half-ass dating.”

“I got you, didn’t I? Anyway, that was it. I started doing handiwork on the building they’re in now. Sweet property that one. Good shape, solid bones. Nothing like that poor old dump. Somebody ought to gut it out, take it down to the bones and save it. I’d do it myself if I could. It’s a damn shame to see it just die the way it is.”

“But you said you haven’t been in it recently?”

“Haven’t, but I’ve seen it from the outside. We did a job in that area about six months ago. Heartbreaking, if you ask me, and just plain wrong. Boarded windows, all broken up, tagged all over. Roof probably won’t last another year from the look of it. Anyway, not my business.”

“If Brodie had the scratch,” his wife said, “he’d save all the buildings in all the world.”

“We’d start with New York.”

“You had a helper at some point, who did some work with you on the building.”

“Oh, yeah. Clip,” he said to his wife who expressed her opinion by casting her eyes to the ceiling. “Jon Clipperton. I toss him work now and then, but I don’t keep him on the crew.”

“Because?”

“He’s a good worker, when he’s sober. Even when he’s half sober.”

“Which is the second Tuesday of every other month,” Alma put in.

“He’s not that bad. But close,” Brodie admitted. “I used him more when I was first getting started. The drinking wasn’t as bad, and I couldn’t afford much better. But he only worked for me at The Sanctuary two or three times. Because...” he said when Eve just looked at him. “Well, because he showed up a little less than half sober and...” Brodie shifted as if he’d sat on a pile of rocks. “Well, he could be kind of a dick when he’d had a few.”

“Brodie, he’s a dick when he breathes. He’s a total asshole when he’s had a few.”

“You stopped taking him to work at The Sanctuary because he came to work drunk, and acted like a dick. Why don’t you describe the dickishness?”

Brodie winced at Eve. “It’s just, you know, a couple of guys on a job might make some comment about a good-looking woman walking by. Maybe you could say a sort of crude comment sometimes.”

“Please.” Alma punched him in the shoulder, laughed. “We all do it. Depending which side of the fence you’re on, some icy type comes in view, you remark.” She shrugged. “Time-honored tradition of the trade.”

“Yeah, well, the thing is, Clip remarked, but we’re talking kids, you know? Okay, we were younger then, but old enough not to make... remarks about girls that age. I told him to knock it off. It was, you know, inappropriate. He mostly did, but I’d catch him giving them looks, or talking to some of them a little too... close, I guess, when he was supposed to be on break. It just didn’t sit right with me, so I pulled him off there, gave him some other work.”

“What kind of remarks?”

“I don’t remember exactly, honest to God,” he told Eve. “I just remember I didn’t like it, and didn’t like the idea he was sort of hitting on teenagers.”

“He hit on me,” Alma announced, and had her husband’s jaw dropping.

“What? What? When?”

“Back then a couple times, a couple times since.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“You think I can’t handle myself, babe?”