Read Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 05 - Trouble on the Doorstep for Free Online

damage?” I asked.
    She nodded. “Indoors.”
    I’m no fixit guru, but being an appraiser teaches you a little about the cost of home repair. Every person who’s made improvements on their house wants to tell you how much they spent for the new bathroom or flooring, hoping you’ll make the appraisal higher so they get their asking price.
    “I suppose contractors are at a premium right now.” I had a number in my head, but didn’t care to say it. There were so many factors. Maybe a contractor would not be able to match the carpet color and they’d have to recarpet the entire room. I shook my head. “I really can’t guess. What did they tell you?”
    She told me and I gaped at her. The dollar amount was easily double what I had anticipated.
    “What? Is there mold to clean or something? More damage behind the walls?” I asked.
    She shook her head firmly. “This is it. And I used a bleach and detergent mix myself and rented a dehumidifier. No mold.”
    “That’s good,” I murmured as I walked into the kitchen. “Do you have the actual estimate?”
    She nodded and pulled it out of a kitchen drawer and handed it to me. “It’s not final, according to the powers that be.”
    I didn’t ask who that was, but assumed it was the Silver Times management. As I started to read the estimate there was a loud knock at her front door, and I heard several people talking. She left to answer it.
    I skimmed the two-page estimate. A note at the bottom said “preliminary estimate for use in developing a contractor’s estimate.” I was not sure exactly what that meant, but thought maybe they had to assess some of the damage so they could show a contractor the work to bid on.
    I wondered if Silver Times showed this preliminary estimate to the contractors who wanted to bid, or if it was done as a basis of comparison for what came in. Though the materials seemed expensive — several hundred dollars for wall board and molding? — most of the cost was labor. I should make so much an hour.
    “Jolie’s here?” It was Scoobie’s voice. I figured he had seen my car.
    “Yes. What do you want?” Elmira asked.
    “We have the teen volunteer group,” he said, “I think you put in a request to have the tree dug up in your front yard?”
    “I did not,” Elmira said, stiffly. “I don’t have a tree.”
    “True,” Scoobie said. “You have a matchstick sticking up from the ground where you used to have a tree…” The front door slammed.
    Elmira’s footfalls sounded like a storm trooper’s from Star Wars. When she walked into the kitchen her fists were clenched and her face was in full frown. “I don’t want that man on my property!”
    I stared at her for a moment, picked up my purse, and started to leave.
    “Oh dear, oh dear. I don’t mean you, Jolie,” she said.
    “You know very well that Scoobie is my best friend. No Scoobie, no me.” I ignored her request that I stay and shut the front door firmly behind me.
    Scoobie was taking a couple of shovels out of the back of Reverend Jamison’s car, which he had obviously borrowed to transport his crew of three boys and a girl. He looked up. “I thought maybe you’d had a brain injury,” he said.
    “She looks okay to me,” said the girl.
    Scoobie flashed her a smile and looked back at me. “I never thought I’d see you with Elmira.”
    “Are we going to dig it up anyway?” asked the shortest of the boys.
    “Yep,” Scoobie said. “It needs to come out. That lady just didn’t want to talk to me.”
    I leaned against my car as Scoobie instructed the teens on what to do and told them to keep the dirt in one spot so they didn’t ruin the grass. I glanced at the house and saw Elmira peeking from behind a curtain. She must have decided not to make a scene. Unusual for her.
    The door to the other half of the duplex opened and a man of about seventy, whose jet black hair was surely dyed, walked out. He took in the teens and Scoobie, and gave me a nod and began to