Homebody

4

Inspection

Cindy had driven by the Bellamy house on her way back from the library, but she hadn't had time to stop. Now as she drove up, she tried to see it the way a man like Don Lark would. He'd ignore the shaggy yard. The peeling paint and boarded-up windows and clumsy graffiti would mean nothing to him. Beyond that, the house actually looked pretty good. Nothing sagged. The trim was mostly intact. The roof was old but not a ruin. Don Lark had an eye that could see a good house beneath a faded exterior. A middle-aged divorced woman could get naked with a man like Don Lark.

Don't think like that, she told herself sternly.

By the time she got out of her car, Don was already talking to a man on the front lawn.

"Cindy Claybourne, this is Jay Placer. He's an engineer who looks over houses for me."

Cindy smiled and shook Jay's hand. He was a little younger than Don, and his soft hands and body showed that he had an indoor job and didn't do anything in his free time that would toughen him up. That was fine—Cindy kept a clear distinction in her mind between men who were tough because they had real jobs and men who were tough because they had the money and the ego need to spend many hours doing expensive manly activities. Cindy's father was a fireman who hung wallpaper on his free days. She respected a man like Don whose rough hands were earned by hard work. She also respected a man like Jay, whose soft body also came from hard work at a different kind of job. Respected him, but unfortunately was never attracted to his type. It was the tragedy underlying the Dilbert cartoons, which made it so she couldn't really enjoy them. She always wanted to scream at Dilbert: Get out of the office and pour some concrete somewhere!

Cindy led the way to the front door. The lock-box wasn't too rusted—a surprise, considering how many years the thing had been out in Greensboro's weather, which ranged from intense rain to oppressive humidity, but always involved corrosive amounts of moisture. And the key she found went right into the lockbox and opened it.

"Well," she said. "Success."

From the lockbox she took the key that hung there and then discovered that it didn't fit the heavy Yale padlock that hung from a hasp on the front door. She was baffled.

Don reached for the key. She handed it to him. He bent and inserted it into the deadbolt keyhole on the door itself. It fit perfectly and the lock clicked open. Unfortunately, that did nothing for the massive padlock.

"I can't believe they'd put the key to the door in the lockbox but not the key to that padlock."

"Seems obvious the padlock went on after people stopped using that lockbox," said Jay. "Probably the owner had it put up to keep vagrants and vandals out."

Don was already heading for his truck. He came back with a wicked-looking wrecking bar, whose bladed end he slipped under the edge of the hasp on the door. He rocked it back once and got one side up; he slid the blade farther under the hasp and levered it off in one move. The screws tore chunks of wood out of the door coming out.

"So much for the locksmith," said Cindy.

"I'll fix it whether I buy the place or not," said Don. "Wasn't a very secure lock anyway."

He put his hand on the door and pushed it open easily.

"Is that the same technique you use with women, Don?" asked Jay. "Show 'em the wrecking bar and they open right up?"

So Jay was the kind of man who felt the need to make macho dirty comments in front of women. Too bad for you, Dilbert, thought Cindy. Not that Cindy was actually that bothered by the joke, but in this era of political correctness a man who talked like that in front of women was either deliberately trying to give offense or so oblivious to the culture around him that he should be checked for brain activity.

The entry hall was dingy, with a door on either side leading into the two ground-floor apartments. The whole back of the entry hall was filled with a wide stairway, forbiddingly high, that swept straight upward to the second story. The carpet on the stairway was worn to the underlying fabric in the middle.

Jay turned around and around, sizing up the layout. He patted the wall on the right of the stairway, the north side. "With the door off-center the way it is, this has to be the load-bearing wall cause it runs close to the center of the house. The other one was added in to divide off the other apartment, probably back in the thirties, judging from the transom over the door."

"Original stairs?" asked Don.

"Got to be," said Jay. He jumped up onto the first step, the second step, the third step, landing hard each time. "No way would some cheapjack landlord put in a stairway this wide or this solid. The thing's still like a rock! Somebody knew how to build back when this house went up."

"Dr. Bellamy was an amateur architect," said Cindy.

"Who?" asked Jay.

"Calhoun Bellamy, the man who built the house. He designed the place himself for his new bride. It was ready just in time for him to carry her across the threshold in 1874. I imagine he kept a close eye on the contractors as they built the place."

"If he had to," said Jay. "Back then people took pride in their work. Didn't have to watch 'em all the time to keep them from cheating or skimping. A man would be ashamed to put up a staircase that creaked or sagged."

"Still had to put the money in it," said Don. "What do you think, three carriages or four?"

"My money's on four," said Jay. "Or three really thick ones. Nowadays you put up a stairway that heavy, you get accused of gouging the customer by putting in needlessly expensive materials. So you put in a light one and they complain that the stairway bounces when they run up and down it. Go figure."

The apartment doors were not locked, and the apartments behind them were just what Cindy had expected. Ancient shabby furniture that had obviously been used by vagrants or small animals—or both—probably leading to the installation of the padlock on the front door. Faded rectangles on the walls showed where paintings or posters had been. The paint had been lazily applied over wallpaper, which had been applied over even older wallpaper, all of it put up with overlapping edges so that ugly seams ran up the walls under the ugly paint.

"Was this place remodeled by a blind person?" asked Cindy.

"Paint wasn't this color when it first went up," said Don. "It's cheap stuff that fades so fast you have to finish painting it in one day or you can see the dividing line."

"What color was it when it was first painted?" she asked.

"Even uglier," said Jay. "I'm betting it was painted in the seventies. We're just lucky the owner was too cheap to recarpet, or we'd be looking at green or orange shag."

"Is that mildew I smell or a dead animal?" asked Cindy.

"Just the smell of bad taste liberally applied," said Jay.

So maybe he wasn't a macho pig. Maybe he was just a guy who liked making jokes.

They were in the north apartment, which Jay decided must have been the original parlor, while the front room on the other side might have been a consulting office or a library or a study or even a groundfloor bedroom if there was a mother-in-law or a nephew or something. Don led the way through the door leading into a dark, cramped hallway. Small narrow bedrooms opened off the hall.

"The hall and the bedrooms aren't original, of course," said Jay. "This must have been the dining room. Kind of a grand one, too—four windows, no less!" And at the back of the apartment, a large old-fashioned kitchen with a massive table dominating the center of it. A bathroom had been carved out of the back inside corner of it, and beside the bathroom was the stairway leading down into the cellar. Don and Jay started down the stairs immediately.

"Don't you want to look at the kitchen cabinets?" asked Cindy.

"They're all cheap ones anyway," said Don. "I'll be building nice ones when the time comes."

Well now. That sounded like a man who had already decided to buy. Cindy refrained from comment as she followed them into the dark cellar.

Naturally, both Jay and Don had tiny flashlights with them. No doubt they could come up with any tool or small appliance by searching in one pocket or another. Her grandfather had been like that, and Cindy always thought of a working-man's pockets as a kind of treasure hunt. You never knew what you might stumble across. They trained their flashlights on the unfinished ceiling of the cellar. Here was where the house would reveal its secrets.

The wiring was ancient knob-and-tube, and Jay chipped away the insulation from some of it with his fingernails. "Don't run power through this, not even temporarily," said Jay.

"Don't have to tell me twice on that one," said Don.

"Miracle this place didn't catch fire and burn down when it was still occupied." Jay looked at Cindy. "When did it go vacant?"

"It was last occupied in the spring of '86," she told him. "It was rented by students, so I guess it was a miracle there wasn't a fire. What with hair dryers and curling irons left plugged in."

They found the fusebox. Jay gave a little laugh and closed the door immediately. "Give this one to a museum," he said. "A toy museum."

The plumbing, though, was surprisingly good. Jay and Don went on and on about how the cast-iron drainpipes and copper supply pipes were the golden age of plumbing and the workmen who installed it had done a decent job. Only the pipes leading to a couple of the added-on bathrooms were galvanized steel. Jay shone his tiny flashlight on a large patch of rust on the outside of one of the pipes. "Don't touch it," he said. "It's only rust holding it together." Jay sighed. "I guess we'd better figure out where these pipes lead."

"Doesn't matter much," said Don. "Half the bathrooms were added when the house was cut up into apartments, so I'll have to relocate everything anyway."

"Aren't some of these pipes the original plumbing?" asked Cindy.

They looked at her like she was insane. "This place was built in 1874," Don said finally. "The original plumbing was a hole in the backyard."

"And this copper pipe didn't even come into use till the 1930s," added Jay.

"Oh," said Cindy, feeling as though she had failed a test. Or, worse yet, passed one.

Upstairs, in the fading light from the evening windows, the dismalness of the abandoned house became sad and wistful. "This place used to be so beautiful," said Cindy. "Look at the crown moldings, the base moldings."

"Even a picture molding," said Jay. "Took a lot of care with the place. But it's a real fixer-upper now."

They were doing a bathroom-by-bathroom check for old leaks and fixture damage. Soon they were upstairs in the bathroom at the front of the house. "Well, the toilet here is dead," said Don. "But there's a shower and it even has a curtain, if you can believe it."

"The only watertight toilet is that one on the main floor," said Jay. "And the other two bathrooms have those rustomatic pipes, so I guess you'll have to shower up here and use the toilet down there."

"Convenient," said Don.

"You're going to live here?" asked Cindy.

"It's what he does," said Jay. "Lives in the house while he's working on it."

"You're going to move in here before it's renovated?"

"Saves on rent," said Don. "And that's if I take the place."

"Of course," said Cindy. But she knew he was going to offer on the house.

"Time for the acid test," said Jay. "On to the attic."

If you could call it an attic. True, there was a lumber room with unfinished walls, but the other rooms were all finished, with interesting sloping ceilings and large windows bringing in plenty of light. Jay and Don seemed to go over every inch of the ceiling, looking for stains. "I can't believe it," said Jay, over and over. "This place has been empty for a decade and the roof hasn't leaked anywhere."

"Still got to replace it," said Don. "Nobody's going to take the place if I can't tell them it's got a new roof."

Again, the assumption that he was going to be selling the place later. And since she controlled the purchase price, it was going to work. Why, then, did she feel more anxiety than ever? It wasn't about the sale. It was Don Lark. Something about him. And not just the fact that he was her type. Her type usually ended up drinking beer and running to the john to pee every few minutes. She didn't really like her type that much. Nor did she find anything romantic about a guy who had no phone and lived out of his truck when he was between jobs. She was flat-out puzzled about why she couldn't take her eyes off him.

In the lumber room, Jay looked at the exposed joists and whistled. "Man, they knew how to build in those days. This is one strong house."

Cindy tried to see what was so unusual about the joists. "Is it just that they're thicker?"

"And closer together," said Don.

"So everything is stronger," said Cindy.

"Stronger but heavier," said Don. "A lot of weight up here, with this roof. Attic floor's bound to be extra heavy, too. The bearing walls on the first floor and the lally columns in the cellar are under an unusual amount of strain."

"It's kind of circular," Jay added. "The stronger you make it, the stronger you have to make it. Add strength up here, you have to add more strength down below to hold it up. After a while, it gets so the ground can't support it."

"Really?" asked Cindy.

Don shook his head. "We're talking skyscraper levels of weight now. You'll never find a house too heavy for the ground here."

"He says that because he's not an engineer," said Jay. "I could tell you stories."

"He could but don't let him," said Don. "Unless you have a sleep disorder."

Jay went into a lame Groucho imitation. "I like to consider myself a sleep disorder." He leered at Cindy.

Backing toward the door of the lumber room, Cindy stumbled over a trunk. It must have been empty, because it moved easily across the floor, raising a cloud of dust. Immediately she began sneezing.

"Are you all right?" asked Don.

"Bless you. Bless you. Bless you," said Jay. Cindy hated that custom. Maybe after somebody threw up a "bless you" might be appropriate, but to invoke the powers of the universe because of a sneeze?

"Excuse me but I'd better get downstairs," said Cindy.

The first step she took informed her that she had twisted her ankle a little when she stumbled. She winced and limped.

"You hurt yourself," said Don.

"Nothing, a twist, I'll walk it off."

"Let me give you a hand."

Cindy had such contempt for women who flirted by leaning on men at every opportunity that now, when she would have liked very much to have a hand getting downstairs—especially his hand—she found herself refusing him by reflex. "Really, finish up here and join me when you're ready, I'll be fine."

Don took her at her word, dammit. But in fact she was right—by the time she got out onto the porch, her ankle was working fine again. No pain. But also no Don. His arm must be muscled like iron under that sleeve. He could toss me in the air like a baby.

It didn't take long for the men to get downstairs. Don wasted no time. He did ask if her ankle was all right, but as soon as she assured him that she was fine, he came straight to the point. "If the price is right, then it's worth the work to me. House is solid but I've got to strip out almost everything and start from scratch. So I have to hold on to enough capital to do that."

"If you need time to make an estimate," she began.

"Don't need time," he said. "I already walked the outside of the house and counted the floors and multiplied the square footage. Before I called you. The price has to come in under fifty."

She raised an eyebrow. "Am I to take that as an offer?"

"I don't dicker," said Don.

"That's the truth," said Jay. "He can't play poker because he doesn't even bluff. If he bids on a hand, fold, because he doesn't bid unless he's got a sure thing."

"I don't play poker," said Cindy. "I just sell houses."

"What I'm saying," said Don, "is that I'm not saying under fifty so you'll come back with seventy-five and then we'll settle on sixty-two."

"I know," she said. "You're saying under fifty because if it goes over fifty you aren't taking it."

"If it goes over fifty I have to go to the bank for part of the money and then pay interest the whole time I'm working on it. And I'll be working on this one for most of a year. Biggest house I've ever tackled. So I can't afford to borrow. Cash or nothing."

"You have fifty thousand in cash?"

"I said under fifty."

"I hear a mistake being made," said Jay.

Cindy looked at him in surprise. "You mean the house isn't sound?"

"Sound as a dollar," said Jay. "Or a yen, or whatever. I just don't think he's going to make back what he's putting into it. Not in this neighborhood, not this year."

"If he's putting in less than fifty thousand—"

"But he's putting in twice that by the time he's done," said Jay. "Plus a year of a highly skilled carpenter's time. Call it a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. And I'll bet nothing in this neighborhood sells for more than a hundred."

Cindy smiled her killer smile at Jay. He was out of his expertise now and into hers, and she was going to enjoy showing off a little. "Actually, most things around here have lately been going in the one-ten to one-twenty range. And part of what's keeping them that low is this house—runs down the whole neighborhood. Besides which, this house is something special. Look around. The house next door is the carriagehouse to this one, for heaven's sake—and it's the second-nicest house on the street. So when this one comes on the market, it'll sell for at least thirty above the rest of the neighborhood. If you find the right buyer."

"Which is where you come in, no doubt," said Jay. His cynicism infuriated her.

"Yes, Jay, that's where I come in. Because I am to real estate what you are to engineering, except that I can do it without making little dirty references to members of the opposite sex. So when it's time to sell this house, I won't even offer it to anyone looking for a bargain. I'll offer it to someone looking for a jewel and willing to pay top dollar for it. And if Mr. Lark is as good as you seem to think he is, I'll bet you right now that the selling price for this house is within five thousand dollars of two hundred thou."

"You'll bet?" asked Jay.

"Stop this," said Don. "I don't use agents to sell my houses. Can't afford the commission."

"If I don't meet that price," said Cindy, "then I won't take a commission."

"That wouldn't be right," said Don. "Your work is worth the price. So I won't have you doing the job unless I pay you for it."

"I've made a bet," said Cindy. "Are you men or what?"

"I'll take the bet," said Jay.

"You've got nothing at stake," said Cindy.

"My reputation as a judge of real estate values."

"You don't have a reputation," said Cindy, "or I would have heard of you."

Don laughed out loud. More of a bark, really, a couple of barks. Almost a warning. I'm amused, but stand back because I'm still ready to bite at any moment. But Cindy liked the laugh. Or at least her hormones liked it. Angry at herself, she realized he could probably take his shoes off right now and she'd probably get all excited by the smell of his socks. Get a grip on yourself, girl.

"Won't take the bet," said Don. "I'm not a betting man. But I will think about giving you a shot at it. Not till after you see my finished work, though. Right now you're buying a pig in a poke."

"She's not buying anything," said Jay. "Realtors take houses on consignment."

"On commission," said Cindy. "If you don't know the difference—"

"Let's not fight," said Jay. "Let's just agree that we don't like each other but we both love Don so we have to get along for his sake."

What did he mean by that? Immediately she put on her business face. "I'll tell my client your offer is forty-six five. You may not like to dicker, but he does. When he settles for forty-nine I'll call you to set up a closing."

"You think he will?" asked Don, looking surprised.

"I know he will," said Cindy. Then she gave Jay her fullcourt smile, which she knew would almost blind him with the dazzling sarcasm of it.

Jay ignored her and turned to Don. "It's your money and your life, Don. If you call it a life."

"I don't," said Don. "But it's the only life I've got." He turned back to Cindy. "When should I call you?"

"Tomorrow at five and we'll set up an appointment for the closing."

"Are you really that sure?" said Don. "It could change the kind of fix I do on that front door."

"Fix?" It took her a moment for her to remember that he had broken into the house with a wrecking bar.

"I mean put up a new hasp, only fastened with a slotless head and inlaid so it can't be pried out the way I did. Or just put on a new frame and door, which is what I'll do if I'm actually buying it."

"Put up the new door," said Cindy.

"And what happens when the owner says no?" asked Jay.

"If the owner says no," said Cindy, "I'll pay for the door."

"Thanks for your help, Cindy," said Don. "Sounded to me like you went to some trouble doing research on the place."

He noticed! "I did."

"Maybe at the closing you can tell me more about Dr. What's-his-name—"

"Dr. Calhoun Bellamy." She couldn't help sounding cold; she didn't like being patronized.

"I'm not doing a restoration here, just a renovation. I'm not trying to get the house back the way he first built it."

"I didn't think you were."

"I'm fixing it up so I can sell it at a profit. But as long as you understand that, then I'd like it if you told me about him."

"I'll do that," said Cindy.

Don brought his fingers to his forehead as if to touch the brim of a nonexistent hat. Then he walked briskly back to his truck and drove away.

For a moment Cindy was annoyed when she realized she had been left alone with Jay. But what was he going to do, really? And he knew Don. He could answer questions.

"How many houses has he done this with?" she asked.

Jay shrugged. "About one every four months for—I don't remember now—however long it's been since his wife died. Two and a half years?"

"Four months. Is he that fast?"

"The other houses were smaller."

Only then did the reference to Don's wife register with her. "He really misses his wife?"

Jay shook his head. "I should have said his ex-wife, complete with ugly court battles over custody of their baby daughter. She claimed Nellie—that's the little girl—she claimed Nellie wasn't his. He said she was a drug-pumping drunk."

"Nasty."

"Yeah, but he was right on all counts. The baby was definitely his. And the wife was high on about five different drugs when she piled the car into a bridge abutment. The little girl—she was almost two by then—the mother had her in her safety seat."

"But it didn't help?"

"Might have, except that the safety seat wasn't attached to the car. You can't expect a mother to think of everything."

"My Lord," said Cindy. "He must have been crazy with grief."

"Rage is more like it. We thought at first he might kill himself. Then we were afraid he might go out and kill the judges and lawyers and social workers who decided a baby needs its mother and they shouldn't be judgmental about lifestyle differences when the drug use hadn't, after all, been proved in the criminal courts."

"A baby does need its mother," Cindy said softly.

"A baby needs good parents, both of them," said Jay. "Don't get me started."

"What if I just want to get you stopped?"

Jay looked at her, a bit nonplussed. "You were the one asking about Don."

Cindy looked back at the house. "He does these fix-ups to be alone?"

"Oh, he wanted to be alone. Some of us were clinging to him so tight that he finally told us to leave him alone, he promised not to kill anybody, including himself, if we'd just give him room to breathe."

"Good to have friends, though," she said.

"Yeah, well, friends aren't replacements for a lost child, I can tell you that. And there was Don, bankrupt from the expense of fighting to get Nellie back. He barely had enough to bury her. Lost his contracting business. So he borrows to buy a rundown house out in the county, a two-bedroom ranch that wasn't quite as good quality as a mobile home. But Don's good at what he does so... here he is now, no debts, cash in the bank, and this is the house he's going to fix up."

"So he turns his loneliness and grief into the restoration of beautiful old houses."

"The ones he started with weren't all that beautiful. You make it sound romantic."

"Not romantic, but maybe a little heroic. Don't you think?" asked Cindy.

"I think Don figures that as long as he can't be dead, he might as well do this."

With that, Jay gave her one last cheesy smile and headed back to his minivan. Cindy went for her car, too, not caring that the house was left unlocked behind her. Don would be back to put on a new door. It was his house now. She'd make sure of that.

It was already almost dark. The wind had picked up and there were clouds coming in over the trees to the west. Autumn coming at last. Real autumn, not just turning leaves but cold weather, too. Cold rain. She hated the cold but she also looked forward to it. A change. The end of the old year. Christmas coming. Memories. People she missed. Melancholy. Yes, that was it, melancholy. That's what autumn was good for.

But a man like Don, it was always autumn for him, wasn't it? To lose a child and know that if only a judge had decided differently, if only the law was different, your daughter would be alive.

At least he knew that he had spent everything he had to try to get her back. But would that be consolation to him? Cindy doubted it. She thought of her father. A peaceable, law-abiding man. But he worked with his body, his muscled, powerful body. And there were times when she could see that it took all his strength not to hit somebody. She never saw him hit anybody, but she saw him want to, and in a way that was almost more frightening, because she knew that if he ever did, it would be the most terrible blow.

If Don Lark really was anything like her father, it must eat him alive inside, always wondering if he shouldn't have just said screw the law and kidnapped his daughter and gone underground. Even if he got caught, even if he went to jail for it and she got killed anyway, he could live with it better if he knew he had done everything to try to save her. Men think like that, Cindy knew. Some men anyway. Take upon themselves the burden of the world. Have to save everybody, help everybody, provide for everybody. And when they can't do it, they can't think of any other reason to live. Was that Don Lark? Probably. A man who had forgotten, not how to live, but why.