Somebody Else's Music(50)

“I know.” Daisy Houseman nodded. “He has been telling me all about you, Mr. Demarkian. And I must admit that I’ve been looking for somebody to talk to. Although not on my front walk for the whole of the town to hear.”

“She thinks I talk too loud,” Kyle said.

“Come in,” Daisy Houseman said.

She retreated through her front door, and Gregor and Kyle followed her. The door opened directly into the living room, which was high-ceilinged but small and undergirded with wall-to-wall carpeting. The carpeting was relatively new, and it had been vacuumed recently. The furniture had been dusted. Gregor recognized it. It was the “country” set sold by a well-known national chain of discount furniture stores—sofa, love seat, chair and ottoman, all upholstered in the same “country” print, for $799 the set. The coffee table had come from the same source. The television was very old, but very well kept, and encased in a polished wood console that made it look like a piece of furniture itself. On top of it was a doily, and across the doily were a whole set of framed photographs of what looked like high school yearbook pictures, three of boys and one of a girl with her hair held back in a stiff blue headband.

“I have three children besides Michael,” Daisy Houseman said, seeing Gregor looking at the pictures. “Two other boys and a girl. They all went to UP-Johnstown and came back to live in town, or near it. My daughter is Caroline Houseman Bray. She teaches at the high school.”

“Mrs. Houseman here used to teach at the high school, too,” Kyle said. “I had her for sophomore English. She gave me a D.”

“You deserved an F,” Daisy Houseman said. “I quit the year after Michael died. I hadn’t intended to. My other children are all younger, and I’d meant to stay for them. And we needed the money, of course, because we’re not wealthy people. My husband was a foreman at the Caravesh plant. They make steel casings, or used to. I guess steel’s pretty much dead in this part of Pennsylvania, these days. Can I get you two some coffee? Tea? I know Kyle will take a Coke.”

“There’s no need to put yourself to any trouble,” Gregor said.

“It’s no trouble. It’s just a matter of putting the kettle on. My daughter bought me a coffee grinder and a percolator for Christmas the year before last, but I still haven’t the faintest idea how to work them. I’m a Philistine when it comes to coffee, I’m afraid. I can’t taste the difference between fresh ground Colombian and Taster’s Choice.”

Daisy Houseman left the living room. Gregor walked over to the television set and looked at the pictures on it.

“Is one of these Michael Houseman?” Gregor asked Kyle.

Kyle tapped the one at the very back. “That one. She used to keep it in the front, but maybe the other kids complained. Michael, Steve, Bobby, and Caroline.”

Gregor picked up Michael’s picture. The boy who stared back at him was nice enough looking, but not particularly handsome. He had regular features and hair that was still more short than not. Gregor put the portrait down.

“Like I said,” Kyle told him. “Nice kid. Played decent sports.”

“And didn’t stand out in any way,” Daisy Houseman said, coming back into the living room with a round wooden tray. The tray had a tall glass of Coke and two coffee cups, plus a sugar bowl, a small cream pitcher, two spoons, and the kettle, which was as small as everything else in this house and still steaming. She put the tray down on the coffee table. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It won’t offend me. He was special to me, of course, but he wasn’t the kind of boy who really stood out among his peers. There are always a few of those, even in small towns like this, the ones you know will go on to good colleges and the kinds of careers most of us can only dream of. And then there are the other ones, the ones who have their fifteen minutes of fame at their senior proms. Michael wasn’t one of those, either.”

“He looks like a very nice boy,” Gregor said.

“He was. Nice and steady and reliable. Oh, I know there were things. He drank beer sometimes, not often, but he couldn’t really fool me when he did. And that last year before they all went off to college—or didn’t—there was a fair amount of marijuana in town. Michael was very disapproving. It upset him. Our principal then was an old fool named Deckart Crabbe. He came close to having a nervous breakdown over that marijuana. These days, they’d probably bring in the state police and send a lot of silly teenagers to prison for five years just for carrying a joint. Excuse me, Mr. Demarkian. I don’t much approve of the drug war. You haven’t sat down.”