At the water, she sat down on the grass carefully, groaning as her butt hit the softer ground, and yet it still wasn’t soft enough. As she looked up at the clouds, she decided none of the clouds would be soft enough either. Who knew her butt could hurt like this? It must have been all the bending and crouching that she’d done, taxing her glutes. Maybe her temporary steps that forced her into those deeper movements with her legs. At least that sounded plausible. She sat here quietly in a half doze, her eyes drifting shut, sipping away at her coffee. When her phone rang, she looked to see it was Mack. “Good morning, Mack,” she said, trying hard to eject some energy into her voice.
But he was distracted. “Change of plans,” he said abruptly.
“Oh, what change?” she asked, shifting to look around at her nonexistent deck in progress.
“We found another body,” he said.
“Another gray-haired lady?” She bounced to her feet, spilling the last of her coffee on the ground. She groaned.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I’m down at the creek,” she said, “and I accidentally spilled my coffee.”
His voice lightened at that. “I wish I had coffee,” he said. “None of us will arrive anytime soon.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well then.”
“Sorry,” he said, “but, in this case, we’re all hands on deck. Although a couple guys might show up. You’ll have to explain to them what’s going on.”
“Sure,” she said. “I guess no finished deck till next weekend then, huh?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m afraid not.”
And she heard true regret in his voice. She stood with a smile, although the disappointment was crushing. “That’s all right,” she said. “It is what it is.”
“Maybe, but it’s hard to say if anybody will come this afternoon. I’ll be here for hours, then forensics will step in, and I can get away for a little bit,” he said. “I’ll stop by when and if I can and see if anybody is there.”
“But the only people who would be here are ones who weren’t called in, right?”
“Right,” he said. “But I think Tony might have been coming anyway.”
“Which one is Tony?” she asked.
“He’s the one who brought the last of the boards and is the concrete guy.”
“Wow,” she said. “Nothing he can do, is there?”
“Not likely,” Mack said, “but you could always talk to him about what you want and the cost involved.”
“I can do that,” she said. “Is everything measured out so Tony knows where the stairs stop? If we did want to frame up for the concrete patio?”
“Yep,” Mack said. “We already did that stuff yesterday and talked to him about it.”
“Wasn’t he seeing what he had at home?”
“Yeah, but then his mom fell,” Mack said. He stopped and said, “Didn’t I tell you that?”
“No,” she said. “You didn’t. I’m sorry to hear that. I hope she’s okay.”
“She was already at the hospital when she fell, so at least she was getting the care she needed on the spot.”
“How did she fall then?”
“She was walking down the hall and caught her foot in her walker apparently,” he said. But, once again, Mack’s tone was distracted.
“Sounds terrible,” she said. “If I see him, I’ll talk to him. Otherwise I’ll see you when you get here.”
“Good enough,” he said, and he hung up.
She looked down at Mugs. “Well, it’s not exactly what we had hoped for,” she said. “But, considering we got what we did already, maybe it’s not the worst thing that could have happened.” She knew a lot more than just decking boards had to go down. She wasn’t sure exactly what though. And it was well beyond her to make those decisions. And then, as she walked back and took a closer look, she noted that the decking boards weren’t screwed down. They’d only been laid in place for people to take a look. She nodded. “Right. So, another day. Another whole day. Particularly if we were doing railings.” She groaned and made her way around to the garage, but it was locked from the inside, and she couldn’t get in that way.
With difficulty, her butt screaming, she managed to get into the kitchen. And, for the animals, it was even harder. Well, Mugs tried and fell, so she had to get back outside and lift him up into the kitchen. Goliath managed with no trouble, and Thaddeus looked at it with that poor me look, so she picked him up also. “Just for a little while,” she said to him gently.
He clicked several times and laid his head against hers. She smiled. “At least we get a slower morning.”
In the kitchen, she remembered the leftover pizza. She opened the fridge to see the last three pieces from yesterday. Not even Chester finished it. When Mack had handed her those, he had said, “There you go. Breakfast.”
As she stared at them, she wanted all three. All to herself, all three, right now.
Chuckling, she put them in the microwave to warm them up, knowing that Mack would tell her to put them in the little toaster oven because it warmed the crust better. With her pizza and a second cup of coffee, she went out the front door and sat on the steps there. She ate slowly, giving Mugs a couple small bites. Goliath took one sniff and ran off, as if offended. Thaddeus, on the other hand, eyed the green peppers with an overzealous look. She pulled one off the top and gave it to him. He ate about half and left it.
“That good, huh?”
He gave a weird shake of his head as if agreeing with her. She got up when she was done and went in, then cleaned up her kitchen, which hardly had anything dirty, considering the pizza was in a box. But she took that out to the recycling to see the other six
