Not that I had my checkbook with me. And you couldn’t just withdraw $11,000 from an ATM. But these were details I would sort out as soon as I spoke to Peter.
“Yeah, our address is on the invoice.” The younger man took a full step closer. We were only inches apart now. I was taller than him, and I could hold my own in a fight, but the rage in his eyes was extremely unsettling. “If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow morning, I’ll be back.” Now he looked past me to my friends. “And none of you will like what happens.”
“Hey,” Finch called from the living room. “Maybe he didn’t pay you because y’all are shitty contractors. You ever consider that?”
Finch sounded drunk, but almost certainly was not. Finch was always pretending something.
I held up a hand. “Seriously, Finch. I’m handling it.”
“Man, if you left all those uncovered boards and shit on my grass, I sure as hell wouldn’t pay,” he went on. Because when had a polite request ever stopped Finch? “I’ve worked construction. You pick. Shit. Up. That’s 101. The grass underneath those boards has got to be all fucked. You’re the ones who probably owe them money.”
“And who the fuck are you?” The young guy stepped to the side so he could address Finch directly.
“Finch,” he called back and took another sip of his drink. “That’s who the fuck I am, and I’ll tell you what— that mess of wood you set up out there looks to me like you’re planning on lighting the house on fire or some shit. Add a little gasoline and boom. Lift off. Maybe it just scares the shit out of everyone sleeping here with some smoke. Maybe it jumps to the house and does a whole lot fucking worse.” Finch got up and sauntered closer, leaned back against the wall. He was enjoying this. “Is that the plan? Set the house on fire maybe and make it look like some drugged-out degenerates did it?”
The younger man smirked and shook his head.
“Come on, Luke,” the old man said. “We’ve said our piece.”
Luke pinned me again with his alarming blue eyes. “You’ve got until tomorrow.”
And with that, they turned and headed down the steps and toward their car. Stephanie nudged me out of the open doorway.
“It’s freezing.” She slammed the door and deadbolted it. Then she leaned in close and whispered, “What the fuck is going on here, Jonathan?”
But what was I going to say? Especially to Stephanie, of all people. The best-case scenario was that Peter had made an honest error, trying to execute a very simple task. Worst case? He was siphoning off our renovation budget. I did know that was possible.
“Actually, Peter mentioned he was having an issue with the contractors. I completely forgot until they were standing right there.”
“Uh-huh,” Stephanie said, eyeing me skeptically.
“He’s withholding a payment until they fix some shoddy work,” I went on, more quietly. “They probably saw the cars, knew it was me and not Peter, and decided to try and shake me down. It’s nothing. I’ll deal with it. I just didn’t want to get into it right then.”
Stephanie looked a tiny bit hurt that I wasn’t coming clean. Once upon a time, I told her all my secrets.
“Okay, whatever you say.” She was letting me off the hook. Stephanie could be harsh, but she always knew exactly how much you could take. She turned to the group, smiled, and clapped her hands together like a camp counselor. “Who’s hungry? Because I, for one, am starving.”
DETECTIVE JULIA SCUTT
SUNDAY, 5:32 A.M.
It’s pouring as I drive toward the scene, roads empty, houses all quiet. Almost dawn, the sky is breaking a pale gray at the edges. I try to take a deep breath, but my lungs feel stiff.
Is it helpful that Ace Construction is involved, even peripherally? I mean, not especially.
According to Maeve, there are issues between Jonathan and Ace Construction, some dispute over money that Jonathan conveniently neglected to share. Maeve only mentioned it offhand at the very end of our brief interview. After that call from Dan, I’d been mainly focused on wrapping things up so I could get down to the scene.
“You think this conflict with Ace Construction is related to what happened, Ms. Travis?” I asked Maeve.
“Oh, I don’t know.” She looked taken aback at the suggestion, though what had been the point of bringing it up otherwise? “But they did seem very angry. The younger one especially. Luke, I think his name was. It was him and an older guy.”