Whatever Happened to Kelly Kilcher?

Part 7: Off the Record

“Call me Shumway,” he says, grinning ear to ear. “The guys started calling me that in high school and it just kind of stuck.”

“Sure,” I tell him—though the concept is foreign to me. High school isn’t something I   ever want to be reminded of.

I’m sitting across from Brian Shumway, the guy who laid the foundation for the Fable house back in 1994. We’re in the office of his concrete company. “My parents started the business,” he says, “but I’m the one who put it on the map. A1 Concrete? That was my idea. Puts us first in the Yellow Pages.”

Nathan thinks I should have gone straight to the police, but I need to be absolutely sure. I can’t just walk into the police station and tell them Kelly Kilcher’s body is buried in someone’s basement unless I have proof. But why else would the house be falling apart after only thirty years? Something is buried down there, and whatever it is, it’s disturbing the integrity of the entire foundation.

“Cement is the most important discovery of the twentieth century,” Shumway insists, pausing until he sees me write it down. He thinks I’m working on a report for my master’s degree in chemical engineering. “Think about it, everywhere you go… concrete. Under your feet. Over your head. It holds the world together. Civilization wouldn’t exist without it.”

I’m surprised by how young Shumway is—my age, in fact. He was in my biology class freshman year of college. The doofus skater punk who always argued about his wrong answers on a quiz. He would’ve been nineteen when he laid the foundation for the Fable house. A deep dive into his Facebook page reveals that he’s twice divorced, has a mad obsession with the mob (named his daughter Capone), and doesn’t believe we actually landed on the moon. 

“Tell me about cement,” I say. “Walk me through the process of making it.”

“Well, first you’ve got your limestone and clay. Limestone provides calcium carbonate. Clay provides silica and alumina—those are chemical compounds.”

“I’m aware,” I say flatly, picturing Nathan’s inevitable eye roll if he were sitting here next to me.

“Grind it up, mix it, heat it real good. Now you got clinker, the base that will become cement.”

“So it’s not cement yet?”

“Nope,” he says. “Not yet. You gotta add gypsum—calcium sulfate dihydrate—another chemical. That helps it set just right. Now it’s cement. For a good strong foundation, we mix the cement with water, sand, and gravel. That’s what makes concrete.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“That’s exactly right. It sounds easy, but you sure as shit better know what you’re doing. The water to cement ratio is crucial for strength and durability.”

“My neighbor used to water his cement every night. Is that important? Should we all be doing that?”

“Fuck no. I don’t know where people get this stuff. Once it’s hard, it’s hard. Water won’t do shit.”

“What happens if the water to cement ratio is off?”

“Won’t set right. Might be weak. Could crack or buckle. Which brings me to another important point. The water must be clean. So pure you could drink it.”

“So any kind of contamination—or foreign material—would be a problem?”

“Yeah.”

“And if we’re talking about the foundation of a house… could it, say, shift or sink?”

“Depends how bad the mix is.”

“Or what’s contaminating it.”

“Right. Or what’s contaminating it.”

I ruffle through my papers to make it look like I have a list of topics that need to be covered for my report. “Tell me about the client services aspect of your business.”

“The what?”

“Working with the public.”

“Oh, right. I knew that.”

“What kind of jobs do you focus on?”

“Houses mostly… foundations. Small businesses. Parking lots. I’ve done a couple roads, just to see. But I had to rent a shitload of special equipment, and it just wasn’t financially worth it, if you know what I mean.”

As we talk, the sky opens and it begins to pour. Raindrops on the metal roof sound like nails hitting glass. “Supposed to rain for the next three days,” Shumway says. “Which is fine by me. I could use the time off.”

“Which jobs are most lucrative?”

“The small ones, honestly. Way lower overhead. Patio slabs, garage floors. Stuff I could do in my sleep.”

“That makes sense.”

 “Wanna hear a neat little trick?”

“Sure. Should I write this down?”

“No. Just listen,” he says, smiling like a Cheshire cat. “When somebody leaves you a message, you know what you do?”

“What?”

“Don’t call them back.”

“Don’t call them back?”

“Wait till they call again. Make them think you’re swamped. Tell ‘em the soonest you can fit them in is six weeks—but feel free to look for someone who can do it sooner. Now you got them hooked. They’ll pay anything. Want me to bump you up in my schedule? Sure honey, no problem. That’ll be an extra thou, or two—depending on their zip code.”

Shumway laughs so hard his chair nearly tips over. When he finally stops, he asks if I want some tea and grabs two cans of Arizona from the office fridge that’s wheezing in the corner. “It all comes down to relationships,” he says, handing me a can. “Repeat customers. Get in good with a contractor. Be the guy that does all his driveways and patios. That’s your bread and butter. Everything else is icing on the cake.”

“So you’re that guy?”

“I’m that guy.”

“You actually did my aunt’s house,” I tell him. “That’s where I got your name. She still remembers you.”

Shumway smiles. “Who’s your aunt?”

“Jean Fable,” I say, sipping my tea.

“Fable.” He raises his eyebrows. “Sweet couple.”

“I’m sure you’ve met thousands of people over the past thirty years.”

“Yeah, but I remember them.” Shumway smiles uncomfortably. “Don and Jean.”

“Don passed away ten years ago. Jean’s got dementia now.”

“Does she now,” Shumway says, his smile growing wide. “That’s tough.”

“She’s been saying some crazy stuff.”

“Yeah?” His voice cracks. “What’s she been saying?”

I chuckle. “She thinks there’s a body buried in her basement.”

Shumway forces a laugh. “Where they come up with this shit?”

“I have no idea,” I say. “She always had an imagination, but this is unsettling, as you can imagine. The family is worried about her.”

“My grandma was convinced she had an original painting of Abe Lincoln hidden in her attic, and people were trying to break in at night to steal it.”

“But someone in your family went up to the attic and looked around, right? Just in case?”

“Yeah,” Shumway chuckles. “Nothing but a bunch of old gas station lithographs of dead celebrities.”

“So there was a kernel of truth.”

“I wouldn’t call it a kernel.” Shumway swallows hard. “A speck, maybe.”

“Are you aware of anything unusual happening… while you were working on my aunt’s house? Did you notice anything peculiar?”

Shumway pretends to think.

“I know Uncle Don was having an affair.”

“Listen, I’m a big believer that family secrets should stay family secrets…” Shumway trails off, sipping his tea and taking a long, exaggerated look out the window.

“It was so long ago, I’m sure it doesn’t matter anymore,” I goad him. I want to know the truth. I want to hear him say it.

“Just stay out of that basement, alright? Don’t even go back in that house. It’s not safe.”

“Is there a body down there?”

“I don’t know what’s down there,” he mumbles.

“That house is falling apart,” I say. “Like it was built on quicksand.”

“That is not my fault.” Shumway becomes defensive.

“So tell me what you know. What family secrets need to be protected?”

“Off the record?”

“Sure,” I agree, though I don’t know what that means. I’m not a reporter, and I’m not a cop. “Off the record.”

“We had the basement dug out. We started laying out plumbing, electrical… but nowhere close to being finished. Some rebar was down. Then one night at two in the morning, I get this call from Don. He’s frantic. Says the concrete needs to be poured by seven in the morning. He’s adamant. Says he’ll ruin me if I don’t make it happen. I was nineteen. My parents were in the Bahamas. I made it happen and I didn’t ask why. I showed up with my guys. Don’s car was already there. Something had been thrown into the pit, but I couldn’t tell what it was. It was wrapped in a sheet or something. He stayed and watched as the concrete poured out of the truck. He stayed until we were done.”

“Did he seem upset? Disheveled?”

“Cool as a cucumber. His churly wife on the other hand…”

“His wife was there?” Jean told me she didn’t find out about the affair until years later.

“He tried to make her stay in the car, but she kept getting out. She was like a caged rat in there. And she couldn’t keep her trap shut to save her life. Screaming about this and that. Some bitch with whore makeup. Hard to make sense of it. We had to go back in and retroactively fit the gas, plumbing, electrical, sewage. Parts of that basement have no rebar.”

“So the foundation is weak.”

“That house is not representative of my work,” Shumway insists. “I’d run into Don every few years and ask him if he got it fixed yet. I told him it wasn’t gonna hold. But he never did. I don’t think he wanted anybody messing around in that house.”

“Sounds like there really is a body buried in that basement,” I state, for the record.

Shumway is a smart guy. I’m sure he put two and two together. He knows what a body wrapped in a sheet looks like. For him, this is all about the house and the integrity of his work—but Kelly deserves better. She was a good person with a kind heart. She saw me at a time when I couldn’t see myself, and she accepted me for who I was. When she asked me to go to California, she was begging me to see her. I let her down then, but I won’t let her down now.

“Listen,” Shumway sighs. “Don’s dead. Your aunt’s an old lady with dementia. What good does dredging up the past do?” He pauses to straighten the files on his desk. “You’re not gonna turn her in, are you?”

When he puts it like that, of course not. That would be cruel. And pointless.

But Jean Fable doesn’t actually have dementia. And she isn’t my aunt.

© Scott Thomas Henry, 2025. All rights reserved.