Crawlspace

Crime Fiction by By John Bukowski

Colleen donned her brightest smile, adding a little extra dimple. “Just let me grab my gear and I’ll check it out for you darlin.”

The petite thirty-year-old wore coveralls that hugged her trim figure like a second skin. Her silky blond hair was scrunched into a ponytail. As always, she’d applied just enough makeup to emphasize her full lips and high cheek bones, yet not enough to look out of place on a working gal who scrambled under houses for a living. And what a living it was.

She’d hooked up with Roy five years ago. Theirs was a match made in heaven. Colleen liked money and Roy knew how to make it. Her husband had turned a mediocre contractor business into The Crawl-Space Doctor, a thriving concern worth millions. He did it with charm, expertise, plenty of pseudo-technical jargon, and a touch of larceny. He’d taught his secret of high-pressure salesmanship to Colleen, who took to it like white on rice, adding a new and very profitable dimension to the business.

They plied their trade in the Smokies, where people retired to escape the hustle of Atlanta, Nashville, or Detroit. It took money to have a mountain view, which spelled dollar signs for Roy and Colleen. While her handsome husband charmed the ladies, Colleen took on the old coots. She’d watch them leer at her as she skipped up the drive in her sculpted curves and pretty smile. She’d hand out a few complements, explain about the services they provided, then scamper under the house for a look see. Her inspections were certain to find structural problems and mold issues that would turn mild odor complaints into tens of thousands in foundation repair, total encapsulation, and dehumidification. When the CSD crew finished, the anxious homeowner gladly opened their checkbooks, usually thanking her for saving them from structural collapse and chronic health problems. The chumps never suspected that it was all bullshit to begin with.

Colleen popped the hatch on her Explorer and bent down to get her stuff. From the corner of her eye, she spied Johnson give her ass an appraising eye. She shimmied her hips as she buckled on the tool belt that held her flashlight, hygrometer, laser measure, and rubber mallet. Then she grabbed her tacklebox from the back of the SUV.

Inside the box there were more gadgets, including a wood-moisture meter, a hand-held magnifier, and her SporeVac. The SporeVac sucked air across a sticky slide, providing homeowners with visual evidence of airborne mold spores. This method couldn’t distinguish between live and dead mold, nor was the mere presence of airborne spores directly connected to health problems. But the homeowners didn’t know that. Dazzle them with science was Roy’s motto. Colleen was happy to oblige, adding a killer smile and shapely butt to the dazzle.

When she closed the hatchback, she saw Johnson still watching her appreciatively. She smiled and waved.

Johnson cupped his hand over his mouth and hollered, “Maybe I should go down on you…I mean with you. Into the crawl space I mean.”

Colleen bit her lip to keep from laughing. “No need. I’m used to going down. Not my first rodeo.” She winked.

Johnson’s eyes remained glued on her as she walked away from the car, a sly smile on the old guy’s face. She estimated him as early-sixties, with a bit of a belly and pattern baldness. Behind his birth-control glasses lay a lazy left eye that wandered off even as the right one undressed her. Colleen suppressed a shudder.

Lazy eyes had disturbed her ever since her dad’s late-night reading of Edgar Allen Poe to sweet, ten-year-old Colleen. She was at first excited when pop read his favorite author to her; it was their little secret. But as The Gold Bug moved on to Cask of Amontillado, she’d become nervous. At Telltale Heart, her nervousness changed to terror. When he got to the description of the malevolent eye, she pleaded, ‘No daddy. please stop. That’s enough.’ But her father didn’t stop. He seemed to take pleasure in her fear. Just as he took pleasure in her appeals of ‘No. Please. I’ll be good’ when he’d visited her bed a few years later. He’d come late at night, after mom had gone to sleep. It had been their little secret.

When Colleen got to be fourteen, her mom sent her off to boarding school. Her dad passed away during her sophomore year at University of Kentucky. But the memories remained, leaving young Colleen with nightmares featuring sexual assault by monsters with out-of-kilter eyes.

Colleen shook off the feeling and doubled her smile. That was water under a very old bridge. She was a kid then and those were only dreams. Now she was a grown woman with dreams of making money…and making lecherous old men pay.

Johnson squinted as the sun poked from behind a cloud. The old guy probably doesn’t get out much, she thought. Probably hasn’t gotten laid in years, maybe ever. Colleen stretched, then rubbed her hands on her ass. Johnson’s good eye never left her, the other rolling away like an outcast. Dr. Jeckyl and Mister Hyde, she thought with another shiver.

Johnson smiled. “Be careful down there.”

Colleen gave a thumbs up before angling toward the crawlspace. Johnson’s dominant eye studied her until she rounded the corner.

Johnson’s place was a log home of mid-seventies vintage. It had a stone foundation dug into a gentle slope. It looked to be in good shape with no signs of sagging. She’d need to be extra diligent to find some flaws that could be profitably exploited.

Colleen had been the first one in the office that morning. Her eyes had lit up when she saw Johnson’s request in the company’s overnight emails. A retiree living out in the middle of nowhere asking for an encapsulation quote. Usually people wanted something cheaper, a simple vapor barrier or maybe mold clean up. Total encapsulation was a big-ticket item with a huge markup. And that was before you factored in remediation of structural problems that didn’t exist. She and Roy should clear ten-grand profit on this one, maybe fifteen.

Colleen had scheduled the visit and was off. She didn’t even take time to log the call. It would be a nice surprise for Roy when she landed the fat contract.

The door to the crawl space was padlocked, so she used the key Johnson had given her. She expected the lock to be rusted shut, but it was clean and bright. It clicked easily when she turned the key.

Colleen took a deep breath before opening the door. This part was always an adventure. No matter what the customers told you, you never knew what to expect. Would she need to snake around through spider webs and termite mounds? Would there be standing water? Would the air be foul from dead animals. She’d seen it all and experienced her share of nastiness. She smiled. Big profits made up for a lot. After her childhood, she could handle anything. She opened the door and was pleasantly surprised.

Colleen was met by a bit of musty odor but nothing like the rank smell of mold and putrefaction that infested the nether regions of many older houses. She’d inspected one in Walland that was rife with the stench of cat pee, which was only natural since feral cats were living down there.

She swept her flashlight as she stepped inside. It was quite spacious. The floor joists were a good foot above her head at the entrance, with only about a third of the space necked down to four feet. She’d be able to inspect most of it standing up. There were no cobwebs to speak of, no dead bugs, no debris or stored boxes to slink over. The surface was covered by an intact vapor barrier that was taped down where it overlapped.

“Why does he want this encapsulated?” She shrugged and started the inspection.

Colleen preferred poured concrete or cinder-block foundations. There were always settling cracks that looked bad even though they were structural non-issues. Stone that was properly laid and mortared was tougher. When the job was done right, these foundations lasted for hundreds of years. As she played her flash beam around the stones, she could see that this foundation was done right.

First things first. Hygrometer readings ranged from sixty-four to sixty-five percent humidity. Not bad, but above the sixty percent that permitted mold growth. She made a note on a pad and moved on. The floor joists looked solid and straight, no signs of termite damage or rot. This was going to be harder than she thought. Her wood-moisture meter gave readings of fourteen to fifteen percent, all within the normal range. She put those tools away and continued to sweep her flash beam over the foundation.

She found a bit of dead mold but otherwise the structure was sound. She wrote the word MOLD on the contaminated stone with her finger, then took a few pictures. The dead mold could be used to justify the encapsulation Johnson wanted, maybe even mold remediation, but it would be hard to sell him on foundation repair or increased structural support. Fortunately, Colleen wasn’t a gal who was easily discouraged.

As she continued moving around the perimeter, her light beam lit on a narrow settling crack that ran from floor to ceiling along the west wall. She smiled. “Paydirt.” She could easily play on the old guy’s fears, escalating this non-issue into ten grand of structural repair.

As Colleen moved closer to take a picture, she tripped on sheeting that hadn’t been taped down well enough. Her boot caught the seam, sending the plastic fluttering upward. As she landed on her belly, her face inches from the exposed dirt, she detected a faint stink of death. The smell was barely noticeable, and even someone with Colleen’s experience would have missed it if she hadn’t disturbed the vapor barrier. Her spirits rose.

Colleen eagerly pulled back the plastic and the odor increased. She drew a gas detector from her inspection kit and drove it into the soil. She smiled again. Something was definitely decomposing down there. No doubt it was a dead rat or mole that had tunneled in, but that’s not what she’d tell Johnson. He’d be instructed on the horrors of rat infestation and the need for a perimeter shield to keep critters out. More dollar signs lit her avaricious eyes.

Colleen pulled a hand spade from her kit and dug deeper. With luck she could find the animal and show Johnson a picture. Pictures were great convincers. If not, she could get higher decomposition readings deeper down; higher readings always impressed rubes like Johnson.

She’d dug down over a foot when her spade met resistance. She stopped digging and probed the area with her gloved fingers. At first, she uncovered only a white powder. She held her glove to her nose and detected the sharp odor of quick lime. “What the hell?” she muttered as she used loose soil to clean the chemical from her gloves.

Colleen retrieved a brush from her tackle box and gently cleared away dirt from the bottom of the hole she’d dug. In the beam of her maglight, the lime powder gave way to something jagged and whitish pink. As she continued brushing, as eager as an archeologist with a new find, the line of pink and white extended. Colleen gasped when a new color glinted into view. It was a gold band. Colleen pulled off her glove and looked at the similar band around the third finger of her own left hand.

“It’s a wedding ring,” she whispered. “On a hand.” Her jaw dropped.

Colleen brushed frantically, revealing a second finger, remnants of red polish still adorning the nail. She tossed aside the brush and played the powerful light beam over the hand.

The ring sat loosely on the rotted digit, bone showing underneath where the quick lime had eroded the flesh. The other finger was likewise in an early stage of putrefaction, the lime only beginning to eat away the meat. Her nose caught the cloying odor of decay, causing her stomach to flip and jerk.

Colleen sat back on her heels; the light beam still directed at the hand in the hole. “It’s a woman,” she muttered aloud. “And she hasn’t been here that long.” The full implications of the find finally hit her. “But how did she get here?”

“I put her there.”

Colleen was suddenly enveloped by a powerful beam of light. She shut her eyes and raised her hands to her face. “Who’s, who’s there?”

“It’s me.”

The light left her, and she looked toward the voice. At first, she only saw blue dots, but gradually she was able to make out Johnson’s faced revealed by the beam of his own flash. In the unholy light, his features were drawn and skull-like. He’d removed his glasses, so there was nothing between Colleen and the evil eye that bopped to the side as if trying to escape.

“I see you found my latest,” Johnson said.

Colleen gulped. “Latest?”

Johnson nodded. “There have been quite a few over the years.” He smiled. “In fact, it’s getting crowded down here, which is why I’m thinking of encapsulating.” His smile widened. “Permanent entombment before I find someplace with more breathing room. No pun intended.”

Colleen continued to kneel and stare. She wanted to say something, but her mind went blank.

“When you got out of your car, I knew I wanted you as well. That’s why I let you come down alone. I figured you might find them.” He swept the beam around the room. “So that you could join them.” He nodded slowly. “It’s a bit crowded…but room for one more, as they say.”

Terror rose in Colleen’s brain, finally freeing her to speak. As befitted her nature, a lie was all that came to mind. “They know I’m here. I logged the call. They’ll come looking for me.”

Johnson slowly shook his head, still smiling, always smiling. “I’ll tell them that I spoke with you on the phone, but you never showed. They might find your car on the old sawmill road.” He held up one finger. “If they find it at all.”

Colleen watched as the light dipped below Johnson’s face, revealing a tube-shaped blackjack drooping from his right hand. The light gleamed off the leather bludgeon, then the powerful beam was once again directed at her.

Frozen in fright, Colleen was unable to even lift her arms or close her lids. It was like staring directly into the sun. Tears streamed her cheeks. A warmth spread across her crotch as her educated nose caught the sharp odor of fresh urine. The light moved closer, but she could not look away as the brightness burned into her brain. She was reduced to infantile horror, every nightmare from yesteryear coming true.

“No,” she whimpered. “Please. I’ll be good.”

The beam again swung up to Johnson’s face, now close enough for her to smell the sausage he had for breakfast. Her terror focused on the lazy left eye that looked away as if it didn’t want to see what would happen next.

“Please. I won’t tell,” she whispered.

Johnson continued to smile. “I know you won’t.”

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Bio: Award-winning author Dr. John Bukowski is a former veterinary practitioner, health researcher, and medical writer who now writes short fiction and award-winning, fast-paced novels, including ProjectSuicide,CheckoutTime, Bad Pennies (a sequel to Project Suicide), and The Peeper. John has authored twenty-two published short stories and a variety of consumer materials, including handbooks, website content, and radio scripts. His soon-to-be published short fiction collection, Shadows and Dust, was a finalist for both the 2025 Claymore awards and the 2026 CIBAs. He has extensive public speaking experience on theatrical stage, radio, television, podcasts, workshops, and seminars. He’s been a workshop leader and panelist at Killer Nashville 2025 and 2026, and at Imaginarium 2023 2024, and 2025.  John is a Detroit native who currently resides in Southern Ohio with his wife and a dysfunctional Labradoodle named Webster.

You can find him on Amazon, His Website, Facebook, X, and WebPage,

Cover Photo by: pexels/Edited by The Yard.

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