Chief Rose walked Dylan down the porch stairs. Despite the cold, a bead of sweat drew across the biologist’s face as he stumbled on the last step.
“Watch your footing,” the chief of police barked. She used the barrel of her gun to point to the middle of the lawn. “He claims he’s your landlord.”
I cleared my throat. “He is.”
Dylan wore short sleeves and began to shiver. “See, I told you.” He wrapped his arms around his torso.
She watched him, her expression stern. “I don’t want to hear anything out of you.”
“Dylan, what were you doing inside my house when no one was there?” I buried my hands deep inside my pockets.
“Fixing the window in your bedroom. The one that is painted shut.”
“Timothy will fix it when he has time,” I said.
Dylan’s glasses slipped down his long nose. “I know, but like I told you and Becky yesterday, I plan to renovate the house. I don’t have any afternoon classes on Mondays, so I thought this would be the perfect time to get started.”
“How did you get in?” I asked.
He reached into his jeans pocket. “I used my key.”
“No sudden movements,” Chief Rose ordered.
Dylan’s hand froze in midair. “Please ask her to lower the gun.”
I glanced at her. “Chief . . .”
Chief Rose holstered her gun. “Fine.”
My face grew hot. “You may be my landlord, but you can’t go into my house whenever you like.” He said he was fixing the window, but what else could he have been doing while he was in there?
“She’s right, you know,” Chief Rose crossed her arms. “You need to notify tenants at least twenty-four hours before entering their home. I can get you copy of the Ohio Revised Code if you want to see it.”
Dylan turned to me. “I told you I planned to work on the house yesterday.”
I folded my arms. “I know that, but you didn’t say you’d be here today.”
Dylan pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I’m so sorry. Truly, I didn’t mean any harm. I let my enthusiasm for the house run away with me.”
Chief Rose eyed Dylan. “I can still take him in. Run him through the paces.”
I wasn’t entirely sure what “run him through the paces” meant, but it didn’t sound pleasant. “No,” I insisted. “You don’t have to arrest him.”
Dylan gave me a small smile. “Let me go in and grab my coat and tools, and I will be out of your way.” He dashed back into the house before we could argue.
“The good news is it wasn’t Curt or Brock.” Chief Rose’s radio crackled, but she ignored it.
“What’s the bad news?”
“Your landlord is a nut.”
Dylan reappeared, wearing his winter coat and a stocking cap. He carried a red metal toolbox in his hand. “I didn’t finish fixing the window. I’ll come back another time to finish the job.”
“I’m sure Timothy would be happy to do it. He has lots of experience.”
The strange look crossed the professor’s face again. “I don’t need his help. He’s Amish and doesn’t understand what I’m trying to do.”
I pulled back.
Chief Rose placed her aviator sunglasses on the top her head. “Do you have a problem with the Amish?”
“N-no. However, their carpentry techniques aren’t appropriate for this centennial home. It’s paramount that the work and fixtures on this home are in keeping with the house’s original plans and design.”
Chief Rose appeared unconvinced. I’m sure I looked much the same.
“I’m sorry.” He shifted his toolbox into his other hand. “I’m still a little shaken up from being held at gunpoint.”
Chief Rose refrained from comment but stayed with me until Dylan climbed into his beige sedan, parked two houses down, and drove away.
After the chief left, I stepped into the house, Gigabyte yowled at me. His typically short fur stood on end. I stroked his back and smoothed his coat down. “That upset you, didn’t it, buddy.”
He yowled and wove in and around my legs.
“It upset me too.”
Inside my bedroom, everything looked how I left it that morning. Everything except the second window. The edges of the windowpane were scraped where Dylan had chipped away the paint. Flecks of light blue paint lay on the windowsill. I hoped that it wasn’t lead paint but judging from the age of the house it could be. I made a mental note to ask Timothy to take a look at it no matter what Dylan may want. The latch lay in pieces under the window.
I tried to open the window, and it rose easily. With the latch in bits on the floor, the window couldn’t lock. My bedroom was on the second floor and there were no trees near this end of the house, so no one less than Spiderman could scale the house’s siding and enter through my window. But the unlocked window made me uneasy. Curt and Brock were free, and now, I had renovation-happy Dylan Tanner to worry about too.
I checked my cell phone. I would have to worry about this later. It was about time for me to leave and pick up Becky at Young’s.
After I parked my new car—a VW Bug I purchased a month after my car was totaled in Becky’s buggy-auto accident—I got out and poked my head inside the kitchen. A waitress in a navy blue plain dress and white apron, the uniform for the women who worked at Young’s, smiled at me. I stopped. “Is Becky here? She called me and said she needed a ride.”
They were in the middle of the dinner rush. Waitresses and busboys flew in and out of the bustling kitchen trading empty plates for freshly made meals. The waitress picked up a tray loaded with soft drinks and mugs of coffee. “Becky said she was going to the pavilions to wait with her brother until you got here. She knew if she hung around the kitchen too long, Ellie’d put her back to work.”
I thanked her and slipped back outside. The only lights to guide me to the pavilions were the lampposts scattered around the parking lot and the ambient light from the restaurant’s windows. I stepped carefully as I made my way to the second pavilion, taking Timothy’s warning from the day before seriously. I didn’t want to step on a stray nail.
The job site was quiet. I bit my lip. If Timothy had to work late, why would it be so quiet? Shouldn’t I be hearing hammering, sawing . . . something?
Since the waitress said Becky waited with Timothy, I figured they were in the second pavilion, the one Timothy showed me the afternoon before. I stepped through the clear tarp. Orange extension cords snaked along the cement floor. Gingerly, I moved around them.
One of the extension cords tangled around a wooden sawhorse. I sidestepped it, and my foot bumped into a work boot. I blinked several times. The person wearing the boot was prostrate on the ground. A gasp escaped me. Ezekiel Young lay on his stomach, his neck twisted. His glasses and shorn beard lay next to him on the sawdust-covered floor. The handle of peculiar-looking shears stuck out of his back.
I stumbled backward and tripped over the legs of the sawhorse and a nest of extension cords, landing flat on my back. Breath whooshed out of my lungs. My head had connected with the cement floor, and stars danced in my eyes. I lay there for half a second, scrambled to my feet, and ran.
I burst into the restaurant’s kitchen, clutching the back of my head. The mouths of the Amish women working there fell open. The kitchen’s fluorescent lighting blinded me, and I held up a hand to block the light.
I pointed behind me. “Pa-pavilion.”
The women whispered in Pennsylvanian Dutch.
“He’s in the pavilion.” My legs felt weak. I grabbed at the prep counter to steady myself and knocked a tray of mashed potatoes to the floor. The ceramic dish shattered. Potatoes flew everywhere, and I passed out.