Lullaby

Chapter 5

The front door swings open, and inside is a woman holding a cell phone to her ear, smiling at me and talking to somebody else.

«Mona,» she says into the phone, «you'll have to make this quick. Mr. Streator's just arrived.»

She shows me the back of her free hand, the tiny sparkling watch on her wrist, and says, «He's a few minutes early.» Her other hand, her long pink fingernails with the tips painted white, with her little black cell phone, these are almost lost in the shining pink cloud of her hair.

Smiling, she says, «Relax, Mona,» and her eyes go up and down me. «Brown sport coat,» she says, «brown slacks, white shirt.» She frowns and winces, «And a blue tie.»

The woman tells the phone, «Middle-aged. Five-ten, maybe one hundred seventy pounds. Caucasian. Brown, green.» She winks at me and says, «His hair's a little messy and he didn't shave today, but he looks harmless enough.»

She leans forward a little and mouths, My secretary.

Into the phone, she says, «What?»

She steps aside and waves me in the door with her free hand. She rolls her eyes until they come around to meet mine and says, «Thank you for your concern, Mona, but I don't think Mr. Streator is here to rape me.»

Where we're at is the Gartoller Estate on Walker Ridge Drive, a Georgian-style eight-bedroom house with seven bathrooms, four fireplaces, a breakfast room, a formal dining room, and a fifteen-hundred-square-foot ballroom on the fourth floor. It has a separate six-car garage and a guesthouse. It has an in-ground swimming pool and a fire and intruder alarm system.

Walker Ridge Drive is the kind of neighborhood where they pick up the garbage five days a week. These are the kind of people who appreciate the threat of a good lawsuit, and when you stop by to introduce yourself, they smile and agree.

The Gartoller Estate is beautiful.

These neighbors won't ask you to come inside. They'll stand in their half-open front doors and smile. They'll tell you they really don't know anything about the history of the Gartoller house. It's a house.

If you ask any more, people will glance over your shoulder at the empty street. Then they'll smile again and say, «I can't help you. You really need to call the Realtor.»

The sign at 3465 Walker Ridge Drive says Boyle Realty. Shown by appointment only.

At another house, a woman in a maid's uniform answered the door with a little five- or six-year-old girl looking out from behind the maid's black skirt. The maid shook her head, saying she didn't know anything. «You'll have to call the listing agent,» she said, «Helen Boyle. It's on the sign.»

And the little girl said, «She's a witch.»

And the maid closed the door.

Now inside the Gartoller house, Helen Hoover Boyle walks through the echoing, white empty rooms. She's still on her phone as she walks. Her cloud of pink hair, her fitted pink suit, her legs in white stockings, her feet in pink, medium heels. Her lips are gummy with pink lipstick. Her arms sparkle and rattle with gold and pink bracelets, gold chains, charms, and coins.

Enough ornaments for a Christmas tree. Pearls big enough to choke a horse.

Into the phone, she says, «Did you call the people in the Exeter House? They should've run screaming out of there two weeks ago.»

She walks through tall double doors, into the next room, then the next.

«Uh-huh,» she says. «What do you mean, they're not living there?»

Tall arched windows look out onto a stone terrace. Beyond that is a lawn striped with lawn mower tracks, beyond that a swimming pool.

Into the phone, she says, «You don't spend a million-two on a house and then not live there.» Her voice is loud and sharp in these rooms without furniture or carpets.

A small pink and white purse hangs from a long gold chain looped over her shoulder.

Five foot six. A hundred and eighteen pounds. It would be hard to peg her age. She's so thin she must be either dying or rich. Her suit's some kind of nubby sofa fabric, edged with white braid. It's pink, but not shrimp pink. It's more the color of shrimp pâté served on a water cracker with a sprig of parsley and a dollop of caviar. The jacket is tailored tight at her pinched waist and padded square at her shoulders. The skirt is short and snug. The gold buttons, huge.

She's wearing doll clothes.

«No,» she says, «Mr. Streator is right here.» She lifts her penciled eyebrows and looks at me. «Am I wasting his time?» she says. «I hope not.»

Smiling, she tells the phone, «Good. He's shaking his head no.»

I have to wonder what about me made her say middle-aged.

To tell the truth, I say, I'm not really in the market for a house.

With two pink fingernails over the cell phone, she leans toward me and mouths, Just one more minute.

The truth is, I say, I got her name off some records at the county coroner's office. The truth is, I've pored over the forensic records for every local crib death within the past twenty-five years.

And still listening to the phone, without looking at me, she puts the pink fingernails of her free hand against my lapel and keeps them there, pushing just a little. Into the phone, she says, «So what's the problem? Why aren't they living there?»

Judging from her hand, this close-up, she must be in her late thirties or early forties. Still this taxidermied look that passes for beauty above a certain age and income, it's too old for her. Her skin already looks exfoliated, plucked, scruffed, moisturized, and made up until she could be a piece of refinished furniture. Reupholstered in pink. A restoration. Renovated.

Into her cell phone, she shouts, «You're joking! Yes, of course I know what a teardown is!» She says, «That's a historic house!»

Her shoulders draw up, tight against each side of her neck, and then drop. Turning her face away from the phone, she sighs with her eyes closed.

She listens, standing there with her pink shoes and white legs mirrored upside down in the dark wood floor. Reflected deep in the wood, you can see the shadows inside her skirt.

With her free hand cupped over her forehead, she says, «Mona.» She says, «We cannot afford to lose that listing. If they replace that house, chances are it will be off the market for good.»

Then she's quiet again, listening.

And I have to wonder, since when can't you wear a blue tie with a brown coat?

I duck my head to meet her eyes, saying, Mrs. Boyle? I needed to see her someplace private, outside her office. It's about a story I'm researching.

But she waves her fingers between us. In another second, she walks over to a fireplace and leans into it, bracing her free hand against the mantel, whispering, «When the wrecking ball swings, the neighbors will probably stand and cheer.»

A wide doorway opens from this room into another white room with wood floors and a complicated carved ceiling painted white. In the other direction, a doorway opens on a room lined with empty white bookshelves.

«Maybe we could start a protest,» she says. «We could write some letters to the newspaper.»

And I say, I'm from the newspaper.

Her perfume is the smell of leather car seats and old wilted roses and cedar chest lining.

And Helen Hoover Boyle says, «Mona, hold on.»

And walking back to me, she says, «What were you saying, Mr. Streator?» Her eyelashes blink once, twice, fast. Waiting. Her eyes are blue.

I'm a reporter from the newspaper.

«The Exeter House is a lovely, historic house some people want to tear down,» she says, with one hand cupped over her phone. «Seven bedrooms, six thousand square feet. All cherry paneling throughout the first floor.»

The empty room is so quiet you can hear a tiny voice on the telephone saying, «Helen?»

Closing her eyes, she says, «It was built in 1935,» and she tilts her head back. «It has radiant steam heat, two point eight acres, a tile roof—»

And the tiny voice says, «Helen?»

«—a game room,» she says, «a wet bar, a home gym room—»

The problem is, I don't have this much time. All I need to know, I say, is did you ever have a child?

«—a butler's pantry,» she says, «a walk-in refrigerator—»

I say, did her son die of crib death about twenty years ago?

Her eyelashes blink once, twice, and she says, «Pardon me?»

I need to know if she read out loud to her son. His name was Patrick. I want to find all existing copies of a certain book.

Holding her phone between her ear and the padded shoulder of her jacket, Helen Boyle snaps open her pink and white purse and takes out a pair of white gloves. Flexing her fingers into each glove, she says, «Mona?»

I need to know if she might still have a copy of this particular book. I'm sorry, but I can't tell her why.

She says, «I'm afraid Mr. Streator will be of no use to us.»

I need to know if they did an autopsy on her son.

To me, she smiles. Then she mouths the words Get out.

And I raise both my hands, spread open toward her, and start backing away.

I just need to make sure every copy of this book is destroyed.

And she says, «Mona, please call the police.»