Jewels in the Juniper - Dale Mayer Page 0,1

rest of the way, pudge.”

Mugs barked at Goliath, then ran a short way forward before slowing down, dropping his big nose on the path and sniffing.

She stopped and spied some new boards stacked on the ground by her house. She frowned and headed around the side of the house closest to her neighbor, Richard de Genaro. Everything was still here—all the big cinder blocks and the beams she and Mack had stacked there—but now a bunch of two-by-fours had been added.

As she carried on to the front of the house, she heard another big clattering noise. It was Arnold, the older cop Doreen had met on her first day here, delivering the two-by-fours. “Hey, Arnold. You got those to spare?”

“Sure do. My wife has been on me about cleaning out that shed,” he said. “I don’t know how many of these at this length you can use, but Mack said to bring it all, and he’d take care of getting rid of what you don’t need afterward.” He grinned at her. “Best deal yet. I can save myself ten bucks not taking it to the dump.”

“Right,” Doreen said, as she looked at the wood. “And hopefully we’ll have a use for them all.”

Then he brought out two very long and fat boards.

“Wow, what are those for?”

“They’re perfect for stair stringers,” he said, “depending on how many steps you’ll cut in.”

She nodded as if she knew what that meant, though it made no sense to her. Why would you have string and stair in the same sentence? Surely steps should be made from something solid. But then, as she studied the boards, they looked like they were pretty solid, at one and a half or maybe two inches thick. And they were really long. She didn’t know what length for sure. Still, she was happy to have them. “Do you know how long they are?”

“They’re about four and a half feet each,” he said, “and I’ve got four of them.”

“What were you doing with them?”

“I was supposed to put steps off the deck, but then my wife changed her mind and wanted railing all around the top.”

Then Doreen understood. “Got it. That’s what these are for, the steps off my deck.”

“It will cost you a little bit more money,” he said, “but, if you can get some more spare pieces, you’ll be doing fine.”

“I sure hope so,” she said. “I’m still trying to figure out what to put on the surface.”

“Well, if you get that forever stuff, you won’t have to maintain it or repaint every ten years. But wood decking is much nicer. We put wood on, then figure we can paint it once. After that it’ll be somebody else’s problem,” Arnold said with a hoarse laugh.

She smiled. “I think wood is just fine for now.” She didn’t know why he’d bring her bad wood though. The beams were, … well, … green. Were they supposed to be?

“And, of course, we pretty much used up all the railings we had,” he said. “I might have a few of the metal rails but not likely too many.”

“I can talk to Mack and see what he thinks.”

As Arnold dropped the last beam on the ground, he said, “Tell you what. I’ll talk to him when I go back to the office next.”

“You’re not working today?”

“Nope. I took the day off. The wife’s planning on having the family come around this weekend,” he said with a grimace. “Wanted me to clean up all this stuff first.”

Doreen grinned at that. “Don’t you just love honey-do lists?”

He glared at her. “Nope, I don’t.” And, with that, he walked to the end of his truck and snapped his tailgate closed, then gave her a partial wave and hopped into his truck and drove off.

Delighted, Doreen raced back around to the stack of supplies; it was so much bigger. Not only that but boards she hadn’t seen delivered lay stacked in front of her. Someone else’s contribution. She pulled out her phone and started talking the moment Mack answered. “Arnold was just here, delivering stair stringers and some two-by-fours.”

“Perfect,” he said. “How does the wood look?”

She hesitated. “Like wood? Only green. I don’t understand why you would bring in bad wood.”

“Bad wood?”

“It’s green,” she said, as if that should have been explanation enough. He sputtered with laughter at the other end of the phone. She glared at it. “You’re doing it again,” she warned.

“What?” he asked between the chuckles.

“You’re laughing at me.”

“Laughing with you,” he said.

“Except I