Aurora 03 - Three Bedrooms, One Corpse (13 page)

They chuckled their way through some more faintly bawdy dialogue, and then the couple pulled off in their car while Eileen unlocked the front door.

“What?” Eileen said sharply.

I hadn’t known anything was showing on my face.

“Why do you do that, Eileen?” I asked as neutrally as I could. “Is that really you?”

“No, of course not,” she said crisply. “But how many houses am I going to sell in this small town if Terry and I go out in public holding hands, Roe? How would we make a living here? It’s a bit easier for Terry in some ways .. . Franklin actually wanted someone working for him who was immune to his charm. He didn’t want to fall into bedding an employee. But still, if everyone knew .. . and the people who do know have to be able to pretend not to.”

I could see her point, though it was depressing.

“So here is the Mays’ house,” Eileen said, resuming her realtor’s mantle with a warning rattle. “We have—three bedrooms, two baths, a family room, a small formal living room .. .

mmmm ... a walk-in closet off the master bedroom ...”

And we strolled through the Mays’ house, which was dark and gloomy, even in the kitchen. I could tell within two minutes I would never buy this house, but this seemed to be a day for pretense. I was pretending I might, Eileen was pretending the preceding conversation hadn’t taken place. Idella had been pretending she wasn’t upset by the phone call in her office.

My lack of sleep began to catch up with me by the hall bathroom, which I viewed dutifully, opening the linen closet and yawning into it, noting the hideous towels the Mays had wisely put away.

“Are you with me today, Roe?”

“What? Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t sleep too well last night.”

“Do you even want to go see this other house?”

“Yes, I promise I’ll pay attention. I just don’t like this one, Eileen.”

“Just say so. There’s no point in our spending time in a house you don’t want.”

I nodded obediently.

We were short on conversation and long on silence as we drove to our next destination. Lost in daydreams, I barely noticed when Eileen began to leave town.

Just a mile east out of Lawrenceton, we came to a house almost in the middle of a field. It had a long gravel driveway. It was a two-story brick house, and the brick had been painted white to set off the green shutters and a green front door. There was a screened-in porch. The second story was smaller than the first. There was a separate wide two-car garage to the left rear, with a covered walk from a door in the side of the garage to the house. There was a second story to the garage, with a flight of stairs also covered, leading up to it.

The sun was beginning to set over the fields. It was much later than I’d thought.

“Eileen,” I said in amazement, “isn’t this—”

“The Julius house,” she finished.

“It’s for sale?”

“Has been for years.”

“And you’re showing it to me?”

She smiled. “You might like it.”

I took a deep breath and got out of the car. The fields around the house were bare for the winter, and the yard was bleached and dead. The huge evergreen bushes that lined the property were still deep green, and the holly around the foundation needed trimming.

“The heirs have kept it going all this time,” I said in amazement.

“Just one heir. Mrs. Julius’s mother. She wanted to turn the electricity off, of course, but the house would just have rotted. There’s been surprisingly little vandalism, for the reputation it has.”

“Well. Let’s go in.”

This was turning out to be an unexpectedly interesting day. Eileen led the way, keys in hand, up the four front steps with their wrought-iron railing painted black, badly needing a touch-up now. We went in the screen door and crossed the porch to the front door.

“How old is it, Eileen?”

“Forty years,” she said. “At least. But before the Juliuses disappeared, they had the whole house rewired ... they had a new roof put on ... a new furnace installed. That was ... let me check the sheet. .. yes, six years ago.”

“And they had the extra story put on the garage?”

“Yes, it was a mother-in-law apartment. Mrs. Julius’s mother lived there. But of course you remember.”

The disappearance of the Julius family had been the sensation of the decade in Lawrenceton.

Though they had some family in town, few other people had had a chance to get to know them, so almost everyone had been able to enjoy the unmitigated thrill of the mystery and drama of their vanishing. T. C. and Hope Julius, both in their early forties, and Charity Julius, fifteen, had been gone when Mrs. Julius’s mother came over for breakfast, as was her invariable habit, one Saturday morning. After calling for a while, the older woman had searched through the house.

After she’d waited uneasily for an hour, and finally checked to see that their vehicles were still there, she’d called the police. Who of course had at first been skeptical.

But as the day progressed, and the family car and pickup truck remained parked in the garage, and no member of the Julius family called or returned, the police became as uneasy as Mrs.

Julius’s mother. The family hadn’t gone bike riding, or hiking, hadn’t accepted an invitation from another family.

They never came back, and no one ever found them.

Eileen pushed open the front door, and I stepped in.

I don’t know what I’d expected, but there was nothing eerie about the house. The cold sunshine poured through the windows, and instead of sensing ghostly presences of the unfound Julius family, I felt peace.

“There’s one bedroom downstairs,” Eileen read, “and two upstairs, plus a room up there used for an office or a sewing room ... of course, that could be a bedroom, too. And there’s an attic, with a boarded floor. Very small. Access through a trapdoor in the upstairs hall.”

We were in the family room, a large room with many windows. The pale carpet smelled mildewy. The double doors into the dining room were glass-paned. The dining room had a wood floor and a built-in hutch and a big window with a view of the side yard and the garage. After that came the kitchen, which had an eat-in area and many, many cabinets. Lots of counter space.

The linoleum was a sort of burnished orange, and the wallpaper was cream with a tiny pattern of the same color. The kitchen curtains were cream with a ruffle of the burnished orange. There was a walk-in pantry that had apparently been converted into a washer-dryer closet.

I loved it.

The downstairs bathroom needed work. New tile, recaulking, a new mirror.

The downstairs bedroom would make a great library.

The stairs were steep but not terrifying. The banister seemed quite solid.

The largest bedroom upstairs was very nice. I didn’t like the wallpaper too much, but that was easily changed. Again, the upstairs bath, which opened into the hall, needed some work. The other bedroom needed painting. The small room, usable as a storeroom or sewing room, also needed painting.

I could do that. Or better yet, I could have it done.

“You look pretty happy,” Eileen observed.

I had forgotten anyone else was there.

“You are actually considering buying this house,” she said slowly.

“It’s a wonderful house,” I said in a daze.

“A little isolated.”

“Quiet.”

“A little desolate.”

“Peaceful.”

“Hmmm. Well, as far as price goes, it’s a bargain ... and of course, there’s the little apartment over the garage that you can rent to whomever . .. that’ll help with the isolation, too.”

“Let’s see the apartment.”

So down the stairs and out the kitchen door we trooped. The flight of stairs up to the little second floor seemed sturdy enough; of course, this addition was only six years old. I followed Eileen up, and she unlocked the glass-paned door.

It was really one large open area, the only sealed-off part being a bathroom at one end. The bathroom had a shower, no tub. The kitchen was just enough for one person to heat up a few things from time to time; the mother had gone over to the house for most of her meals. Some nice open shelves had been built in, and there were two closets. There was a window air conditioner, but no hint of how it had been heated.

“A kerosene space heater is my guess,” Eileen said. “There shouldn’t be any problem in an area this size.”

Perhaps I could rent this to a student at Lawrenceton’s little Bible college or to a single schoolteacher. Someone quiet and respectable.

“I really like this,” I told Eileen unnecessarily.

“I can tell.”

“But I need to think about it, of course.”

“Of course.”

“I can afford it, and the repairs, and pay for it outright. But it is stuck out of town, and I need to decide if that would make me nervous. On the other hand, I can practically see Mother’s house from here. And if you could find out who owns this field, I’d appreciate it. I wouldn’t want to buy out here and then discover someone was putting up a discount mall. Or a chicken farm.”

Eileen scribbled a note to herself.

I told myself silently that if any of these variables didn’t work out, I would hire an architect and have a house very similar to this one built from scratch.

“And I’ll keep looking, too,” I told Eileen. “I just don’t want to see anything cramped.”

“Okay, you’re the boss,” Eileen said agreeably. It had grown dark enough for her to switch on the car lights as she turned around on the apron to the side of the garage to negotiate the long driveway.

We went back to town in silence, Eileen obviously trying not to give me some good advice, I in deep thought.
I really liked that house.

“Wait a minute,” Eileen said, her voice sharp.

I snapped out of my reverie.

“Look, that’s Idella’s car. But she’s not showing the Westley house today. My God, look at the time! I’m showing it in an hour to a couple who work different shifts all week. I’m going to need that key.”

Eileen was seriously miffed. If I’d been just any client, she would have waited until she got me back to the office and then returned to or called the listing, but since I was part of the realtor family, she felt free to vent in front of me. Eileen pulled into the driveway and swung out of her car with practiced ease. I got out, too. Maybe Idella would know if Emily Kaye had already responded to my counteroffer.

There was no client car parked by Idella’s.

“The Westleys moved last week,” Eileen said, and opened the front door without knocking.

“Idella!” she hooted. “I’m going to need this key in an hour, woman!”

Nothing. All within was dark. We went in slowly.

For once, Eileen seemed disconcerted.

Eileen called again, but with less expectation that she would be answered. The blinds and curtains were all open, letting in some light from the streetlamp one lot away. Eileen tried to flip on a light, but the electricity had been turned off.

The house was very cold, and I pulled my coat tighter around me.

“We should leave and call the police,” I said finally.

“What if she’s hurt?”

“Oh, Eileen! You know ...” I couldn’t finish the sentence. “All right,” I said, bowing to the inevitable. “Do you have a flashlight in your car?”

“Yes, I do. I don’t know where my head is!” Eileen exclaimed, thoroughly angry with herself.

She fetched the flashlight and swept its broad beam around the family room. Nothing but dust on the carpet. I followed her and her flashlight into the kitchen . . . nothing there. So, back past the front door and down the hall to the bedrooms. Nothing in the first one to the left. Nothing in the bathroom. By now, tears were running down Eileen’s face and I could actually hear her teeth chattering.

Nothing in the second bedroom.

Nothing in the hall linen closet.

Idella was in the last bedroom. The flashlight caught her pale hair, and the beam reluctantly went back to her and stayed.

She was crumpled in a corner like a discarded bedspread. Tonia Lee had been arranged, but Idella had just been dumped. No living person could have been lying that way.

I made myself step forward and touch Idella’s wrist. It was faintly warm. There was no pulse.

I held my hand in front of her nostrils. No breath. I touched the base of her thin neck. Nothing.

You never know about people. I heard a slithery sound, and the flashlight beam played wildly over the walls as tough Eileen Norris slid to the floor in a dead faint.

Of course, there wasn’t a phone in the Westley house. I had the sudden feeling I was on an island in the middle of a populous stream. I hated to leave Eileen alone in the dark and silence with Idella’s corpse, but I had to get help. There was a car at the house to the right of the Westleys‘, the helpful flashlight revealed, and I knocked on the screen door.

A toddler answered, in a red-checked shirt and overalls. I couldn’t tell if it was a little boy or a little girl. “Could I speak to your mommy?” I said. The child nodded and left, and after a moment a young woman with a towel around her hair came to the door.

“I’m sorry, I’ve told Jeffrey not to answer the door, but if I don’t hear the doorbell in time, he zooms to it,” she said, making it clear she thought that very clever of Jeffrey. “Can I help you?”

“I’m Aurora Teagarden,” I began, and her face twitched before the polite lines reasserted themselves. “I need you to call the police for me. There’s been a—an accident next door at the Westley house.”

“You’re really serious,” she said doubtfully. “No one should be in that house, it’s for sale.”

“I promise you I am serious. Please call the police.”

“All right, I will. Are you okay, yourself?” she asked, terrified I would ask to be let into her home.