Three Bedrooms, One Corpse(18)

“You certainly got branded in public,” Sally said dryly.

“Huh?” I had my face turned down to my plate. “ ‘Property of Martin Bartell. Do Not Touch.’ ” “Sally, I don’t want to look like we’re talking about him,” I hissed. I looked at her sternly. “Just talk about something else for a while.”

“Okay,” she said agreeably. “Is he going to ask you to the prom?”

“Sally!”

“Oh, all right. Donnie left in a snit as soon as Idella emerged from the women’s room and hot-footed it out

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the door. Donnie looked right sullen. What did she tell you?”

“That Donnie thought . . . oh, Sally!”

“Just curious, just curious! Since when are you and Martin Bartell an item?”

“Very recently.” Like last night.

“Well, isn’t life on the up-and-up for us? I get mar- ried, and you get a sweetie.”

I rolled my eyes. Thinking of Martin as a “sweetie” was like thinking of a Great Dane as a precious bundle of fur.

“He was in Vietnam, wasn’t he?” Sally asked. “Yes.”

“I think he brought home some medals. He wouldn’t talk about it to Jack, but one of the other Pan-Am Agra execs told Jack that Bartell came out of the war with a bit of glory.”

“When was the story in the paper?” I hadn’t seen it. “Soon after he arrived, at least six weeks ago.” “Can you send me a copy, Sally?”

“Sure. I’ll track it down when I go to the office to- morrow.”

We computed tips and gathered our purses. My shoulder blades itched, and I looked behind me. Mar- tin, surrounded by his employees, was sitting at one of the larger round tables, watching me, smiling a little. He looked hungry.

I floated out to my car.





Chapter Eight

A

had agreed to meet Eileen at the office, and it was Iclose enough to the time for me to head that way. There were several cars parked outside; Sunday was of- ten a busy day at Select Realty.

The first person I saw was Idella, who said “Hi, Roe!” as brightly as if I hadn’t seen her boo-hooing in the women’s room at a restaurant not forty-five min- utes before.

“Hello, Idella,” I said obligingly.

“I just got an offer on your house on Honor. Mrs. Kaye is offering three thousand less than your asking price, plus she wants the microwave and the appliances to stay.”

We went to Idella’s little office, decorated exclu- sively with pictures of her two children, together and separate, the boy about ten and very heavyset, the girl perhaps seven and thin, with lank blond hair. I ~ 110 ~

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sat in one of her client chairs and considered for a moment.

“Tell her—her offer needs to be up by a thousand, and she can have everything but the washer and dryer.” Mine came with the townhouse, and I’d need a set when I moved.

“What about the freezer in the carport toolshed?” Idella asked. “It’s not spelled out here whether she is including that under appliances or not.” “I don’t really care that much about the freezer. If she wants it, she can have it.”

“Okay. I’ll take your counteroffer over to her aunt’s house right now.”

Idella was obviously determined not to refer to the scene at Beef ’N More. Of course, I wanted to know what it was about, but in all decency I would have to wait until she felt like confiding in me. “I’m really pleased about this offer,” I told her, and she smiled.

“It was an easy sell, the right person at the right time,” she said dismissively. “She needs a small decent house in good shape, you have a small decent house in good shape; the dead-end street location and the price are right.”

The phone rang while Idella gathered papers. She picked up with one hand while her other kept busy. “Idella Yates speaking,” she said pleasantly. The first words of her caller changed Idella’s demeanor dramati- cally. Her free hand stilled, she sat up straighter, the smile vanished from her face. “I’ll have to talk later,” she said swiftly. “Yes, I have to see you . . . well . . .” She closed her eyes in thought. “Okay,” she said finally. She hung

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up and sat very still for a moment. The cheer, the bustle, had seeped right out of her. I didn’t know whether to say anything or not, so I settled for looking concerned, as I certainly was.

Idella decided to stonewall. “I think I’ve got every- thing here,” she said in a dreadful simulation of her previous cheerful efficiency.

“If you need help, you know you can count on me and my mother,” I told her, and left her office for Eileen’s. Just as Eileen got up to go, she received an unex- pected call from an out-of-town client who’d decided to make an offer on a house he’d seen the week before. The house was listed with Today’s Homes, but the client had been referred to Eileen personally, so she had shown it along with a lot of Select Realty listings. It took Eileen some time to hammer out the client’s offer, assure the client that she’d call Today’s Homes that very second, then hang up and immediately lift the phone to dial. I had fished my book out of my purse several minutes before and was reading contentedly. “Franklin? Eileen. Listen, that Mr. and Mrs. Mc- Cann I showed the Nordstrom house to last week, they just called . . . Yep, they want to make an offer . . . I know, I know, but here it is . . .” As Eileen relayed the offer to Franklin, I became immersed in my book. I was almost through with the Catherine Aird. Finally Eileen was ready to set out. I told her the good news about the probable sale of my own house as we got into her car.

“Does Idella seem okay to you?” I asked cautiously. “Lately, no.”

“I think something’s wrong.”

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“What? Anything we can do something about?” “Well—no.”

“If we don’t know, and she doesn’t ask for help, seems like we aren’t wanted,” Eileen said, giving me a straight look.

I nodded glumly.

At the first house, the owners were on their way out as we pulled up to the curb. Eileen had cleared the showing with them first, of course, and she went up to talk to them while I surveyed the yard, which badly needed raking.

“How are the two of you?” Eileen said in her boom- ing voice. “Ben, you ready to go out with me yet?” “The minute Leda lets me off the rope,” the man an- swered with equally heavy good humor. “You better get out your dancing shoes.”

“Haven’t you found Mr. Right yet, Eileen?” the woman asked.

“No, honey, I still haven’t found anyone who’s man enough for me!”

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

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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 for- mal 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 conversa- tion 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

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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 sep- arate 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.