Sink Trap Read Online Free PDF Page A

to think maybe I ought to call the police, too.”
    Sue shook her head. “And report what? That you fished a piece of jewelry out of a pipe? Why would they care?”
    “Well, when you put it that way . . .” I hesitated. “But I tried Miss Tepper’s old number while I was waiting for the pizza guy, and it isn’t even disconnected. I was hoping to get a forwarding number, and instead I got endless ringing. Don’t you think that’s kind of strange?”
    “The phone—maybe she didn’t want to get it cut off until the house was sold. I can see that. She could handle all the utilities at once that way. As for the brooch, things fall in sinks all the time,” she answered. “You’re a plumber now. You should know that.” Typical Sue. Right to the heart of things. “You’re always telling me about the strange stuff you fish out of pipes.”
    Sue was saying exactly the same thing Barry had, and I knew they were probably right. I was overreacting. Some days I made a specialty of it.

    It took me another twenty minutes to get Sue out the door. I was exhausted. Besides, she kept coming back to the subject of Wade, and I didn’t want to discuss my relationship with Wade, or my mother, with Sue.
    She knew me too well.
    After she left, I picked up the brooch and dropped it in my jacket pocket, deciding not to think about it anymore. I’d take it over to the library at lunch tomorrow, and let Paula have a look at it. She’d know what to do.
     
     
    At least that was my plan. Other people had different ideas.
    Not that I blame Barry. All he wanted to do was get through the Tepper house, make an estimate of the time it would take to fix it up, and move on.
    But I hadn’t counted on Sandra, aka Mother, dogging our steps as we made our assessment.
    We were in the basement when I heard the ominous tapping of stiletto heels across the kitchen floor overhead.
    Sure enough, a minute later the elegant pumps of Sandra Neverall appeared at the top of the stairs. Again with the identifying people by their shoes. And this time I wasn’t even under a sink!
    “Hello?” she called from the top of the stairs. “Anyone down there?”
    “Right here, ma’am,” Barry answered. “We’re checking out the bathroom drains. But it’s kind of a mess down here, so you might want to wait for us. We’ll be up in just a minute.”
    He only exaggerated a little. We were surrounded by stacks of neatly labeled boxes and rows of sealed trunks. A large wardrobe stood at one end of the space, its doors tightly closed, as though to hold off any interested intruders. Discarded furniture was jumbled at the other end, but the pile was confined to a single corner. Even though the basement was well organized, it was tiny. There was barely room for the two of us.

    The last thing we needed down here was my mother. Her personality was so intense she could make a ballroom feel small.
    We continued our inspection, with Barry scribbling in the pocket-sized spiral notebook he carried.
    His entire business seemed to be in that notebook, and heaven help us if he ever misplaced it. I had tried to convince him to use a palmtop and upload everything to the computer. He said he could lose a tiny computer as easily as a notebook, and the notebook only cost seventy-nine cents. I’d tried to explain about Wi-Fi uploads, but his eyes glazed over. Barry was not quite ready for the twenty-first century.
    Sandra, on the other hand, was already there. When we got back upstairs, she was standing in the kitchen, one hip canted against the old linoleum-covered countertop. She had a Bluetooth receiver in her ear, a PDA in one hand, and she was furiously thumbing the keys while she talked.
    “I’m sending you the notes on Clackamas Commons. Please be sure Gre—Mr. Whitlock gets a copy of them immediately. And tell Gracie I’ll need her to start on the agreement for the Tepper properties as soon as I get the figures from the contractors.”
    She glanced over at Barry. “We