The Family Plot (5 page)

The staircase, oh, that was entirely original. Like everything else, it was coated in a thick gray fluff of cobwebs, dust, and the sawdust of insect damage, but the chestnut bones were amazing, and when Dahlia put her hand on the rail, it held without the slightest wiggle.

The sawdust idly worried her. Termites? Carpenter bees? Ants? Could be anything, but she hoped it was nothing. It didn't matter, anyway, as long as the bugs had left the wainscoting and baseboards alone. Those bits looked solid enough, and they didn't budge when she pushed her fingers or toes against them.

She looked up past the pendant light, and around the ceiling. The whole thing was plaster, cracked with Rorschach lines radiating from both the southern corner and the light's elaborate scrolled medallion. She knew without checking that the trim would be plaster, too. Unfortunately—it was beautifully shaped, but it'd crumble at the first touch of a pry bar. Oh well.

“Can't save it all,” she murmured. “Lord knows, I wish it were different.”

Dahlia stopped at the foot of the stairs and mentally mapped the place. She stood at the edge of a formal common area. Beyond it was the foyer and front door. To her right was a large parlor with a worn, round rug as its only furnishing; but she spied a set of bay windows that might be sturdy enough to come out in one piece. There was a fireplace in there, certainly. Probably one with a marble surround, since it was a room where company would wait. She couldn't see it from where she was taking her survey, but it must be on the far wall.

To her left, she noted a formal dining room. It was offset by an opening that held a pair of pocket doors, or so she hoped. It had one pocket door, at least—half extended, partially blocking the thoroughfare. The door had a wood frame, with glass panels and brass inlay details. If the other door was present and intact, and if she could extract them both, along with their rails and wheels, then Dad could probably ask …

 … but no, she was doing it again, assigning price tags before it was time. It felt sacrilegious somehow, almost like auctioning off human organs before the donor has passed. Chuck had once accused her of being morbid when she told him that. He said you couldn't compare a house to a living, breathing person—it wasn't the same thing. In her sentiment,
that
was the sacrilege, right there.

Standing there in the Withrow house, she felt a deep sorrow anyway. It was an acute thing, a sense of grieving that the great old structure surely warranted. And maybe it was only a silly, blasphemous notion, but the mansion was such a
lost
thing. A sad thing, a tragic thing that deserved a better fate than the one it had coming.

An angry thing.

A chill ran from the back of her neck to her knees.

Angry?

Dahlia spent a lot of time angry these days, but the houses themselves were never anything but mournful. Had she called the word to mind, or had she heard it? Now she heard nothing, only that weird, white silence of a place that's been so long closed up and unloved.

Unloved.

The word echoed between her ears, another odd intrusion. She shook her head, but it rang very faintly, a tinnitus-pitched hum that might mean a migraine was coming, or might only mean that her allergies were flaring up. She chose to believe it was the dust, because she didn't have time for a headache. She carried medicine in her satchel for those unexpected just-in-case times of outrageous pain or congestion; but she'd left her bag in the truck.

It'd come back to her soon enough, along with the cooler in the back, stuffed with water, Gatorade, and Monster Energy drinks. Great for refreshment and popping pills alike.

In the meantime, there was plenty of house to see, and nothing she could do about the cotton-candy stuffiness that crept in through her nostrils and clouded her head.

She let go of the staircase rail, swayed, found her feet, and strolled over to the dining room, hoping for pretty built-in cabinetry. Pretty built-in cabinetry could distract her from a ringing in her ears and the uncanny sense that she had heard a voice say things like “angry” and “unloved,” because that was ridiculous. In all the years she'd been talking to houses, the houses had never talked back.

Except her own house, maybe—the one she'd lost to Andy being a vindictive dick, taking it away just because he knew she loved it. When
that
house had spoken, it'd said warm things, hopeful things that made her feel like all her decisions had been good ones, and that she was home—right where she was meant to be.

But that meant that houses must be wrong sometimes, because look how
that
had turned out.

Even though she'd done all the work herself, on her own time, at her own expense … and even though she'd saved up the whole down payment and gotten the mortgage herself, rather than going back to school for two more years and having something to show for those student loans …

It didn't matter. According to the state, Andy had as much right to the house as she did.

Or that's what his lawyer told her. Everybody already knows that lawyers lie—it's part of the job. So maybe it wasn't true, but she couldn't afford to fight it. It was either take half the sale price, or let Andy have the whole house, and walk away.

Dahlia pushed her own house out of her mind. She had work to do. She concentrated on the clean-stamped footprints she'd left in the dust—little trails from the front door, through the foyer, to the staircase, then back across the sitting room to the dining room where, yes, there were pretty built-in cabinets. A whole wall of them, thank God.

She went to the nearest one and leaned her forehead and palm against it, touching it like she'd reached first base, and now she was safe.

“Safe from what?” she muttered. “Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me?”

Deep breath. There you go: pretty built-in cabinets. Push the fog away; it's only dust from plaster and pollen. It's only an antihistamine away from being solved. Concentrate. Ignore it, and you can beat it. Talk through it.

“We can save these. Some of them.” She didn't speculate how many, or what they would cost. “That chandelier—oh, God, look at it. Original, I bet. Somebody wired it, somewhere along the way—but whoever he was, he did a nice job. I'll be super careful when I take that out. And this table…” Solid and heavy. Quartersawn oak—with too many layers of varnish, but that was easy enough to fix. It was old, but not as old as the house. “Maybe I'll keep this for myself. I'll find some chairs to go with it, and put it in my new place. My home is not as nice as this, but better than letting anybody throw it away.”

She went on speaking to the house, instead of to herself.

She found her bearings again, and the strain behind her forehead retreated to a dull nuisance. A good sneeze might banish it altogether, but her nose only rustled up a dull leak. She wiped it away with her sleeve.

Onward, to the kitchen. She found it on the other side of a door—a Dutch door, which was kind of odd for an interior feature, but you couldn't let anything in an old house surprise you. “People love Dutch doors,” she said, checking the fastener and seeing that yes, it worked just fine. It would open in one piece, or just the top half alone. “We get asked for them all the time. People want them for back doors, and porches … they want to keep pets and kids inside.”

The more she spoke, the calmer she sounded, and the calmer she felt. Back on solid ground, even though she was parting out the body before it was dead. It was awful, but it beat a migraine.

She kept talking, and the headache kept going away.

“The kitchen's tiny, but I could've guessed that. It was all redone … maybe in the sixties? Seventies? Most of this is garbage, and I don't expect you'll mind if we toss it, now will you?”

She paused, half afraid she might get an answer, since she'd asked the house so directly.

When nothing replied, she continued. “Anyway, I'll check the attic … or wherever some of the old appliances might be stashed, if anybody thought to keep them. I'd love to find an iron stove, or an icebox, or that sort of thing. Oh, I ought to check the carriage house,” she remembered suddenly. “Fingers crossed that the Withrows never threw anything away.”

Outside, she thought she heard the distant crunch of tires on turf. Time was running out. Soon, she'd switch into boss mode, business mode, whatever mode would get the job done. But for just a few more minutes, this wasn't a job. It was a sanctuary.

This sanctuary had a porch, and a pantry, and a door that likely hid a back staircase. Dahlia skipped those for now. She wanted to see the second floor, while she still had a moment of privacy.

Back to the grand entry with its swooping staircase. Each step Dahlia took added new prints in the dust. Up on the landing, there was a hall with a carpet runner that was a sad and total wreck; moths had gotten to it, so its pattern was lost to the fluffy gray mush the little winged devils left behind.

Now, how many bedrooms were up this way? She began to count, but was interrupted by a noise from outside.

Yes, definitely tires. Definitely trucks, coming past the metal bar slung between two poles, which served as a gate. Tick went the clock, and a flare of anger spiked between her eyes—but that wasn't fair. This wasn't her house. This was her job, and their job, too. But God, she wanted them to stay away just a little longer. No. A lot longer.

She hurried through her resentment.

First door, water closet. Added or renovated sometime in the late fifties, if she judged the Mamie pink and the fixtures correctly. Ugly as hell, but some people really liked that stuff. At least the sink was savable, and so was the tub. If they were careful with the tiles, and if there was time, they could keep those, too. Some hipster someplace would be fucking delighted.

Second door, bedroom. Bed inside—a big four-poster, no mattress. No other furniture, save a rolled-up rug that was almost certainly as tragic and bug-ruined as the runner in the hall. Third door, jammed shut—but she could open it later. Fourth door led to another room, not as large as the others so far; but something about it—some faint odor, or lingering sensibility—suggested a lady's boudoir. Maybe a dressing room, since the house was so big and (if Dahlia understood correctly) the Withrow family was not. If Augusta Withrow was the last, then either their fatality rate was appalling, or there were never very many of them to start with.

A truck door slammed outside. She shrugged it off and kept going.

Yet another bedroom. This last one was the master, unless there was an even bigger, or more nicely appointed one, someplace else. It didn't seem likely, given how grand this space was—and it had a bay window similar to the one in the parlor, but considerably bigger. The fireplace was one of the two with marble on it, and there were original fixtures left around the room. Antiques, too—regardless of what Augusta had told Dahlia's dad. The stuff in here wasn't junk, it wasn't cheap, and it included a king-sized bed, along with a matching wardrobe that looked like walnut. She also saw two lamps with reverse-painted glass shades, and a cedar hope chest that just
might
have saved its contents from the moths.

Only two additions took the edge off the nineteenth-century charm: At some point, someone had installed a ceiling fan, and a rusted-out window AC unit jutted precariously into the room. Knowing good and well what a Tennessee summer felt like, she was prepared to forgive the retrofit.

“Dibs,” she declared of the room in general, though there was no one but the house to hear her. The bed didn't have a mattress, but the bay window's double-wide seat was bigger than a twin-sized mattress. It'd suit her sleeping bag just fine.

On the far side of the bed was a door. It wouldn't be a closet, she didn't think, and upon inspection, she was correct. It was a bathroom, added around the same time as the pink horror in the hallway—circa World War II. When she turned the sink's handle, the faucet sputtered and coughed, eventually producing brownish-red water that went clear in a few seconds. She wouldn't want to drink anything from those pipes, but they'd be fine for bathing, hosing things down, or running the wet saw, if they needed it.

“
Definitely
dibs, so I can have my own bathroom. And good on ol' Augusta, for keeping the water and power on. Or for turning it back on, whatever.”

Of course they'd have to shut down the power toward the end, and use the generator in the back of her truck for all the equipment. When the real heavy work began, they'd be cutting into walls. Any live electrical system would be a hazard.

Another truck door slammed, harder and louder than was strictly necessary.

Now she heard voices, easily recognized. A window must be open somewhere, for her to catch them so clearly. It sounded like they were just outside the bedroom door.

She poked her head out into the corridor again.

Ah, there it was, down at the end: a window that wasn't open, but broken. It was a six-pane grid with two panes missing. No wonder the sound carried so easy.

Dahlia left her officially dibbed quarters and peered through the glass, down at the salvage trucks. They were parked so near to the house she might've dropped a penny on the nearest windshield. Beside the trucks, her cousin, his son, and Brad-who-was-no-relation were chattering about the house's exterior. The porch spindles were cool. Some of the gingerbread cutouts weren't rotted out completely. Nice front door.

She turned away. Her time was almost up, and it wouldn't do to waste it.

At the other end of the hall she found a second staircase, this one narrow and dark. She felt around on the wall for a switch, but didn't find one, so she climbed up anyway. She felt a string dangle across her cheek and shoulder. She tugged it, and an overhead bulb crackled to life, revealing dark paneling on one side, and floral paper on the other. A recessed spot on the wall suggested a gas lamp fixture. The fixture was missing, leaving only a shadow and a warm-looking stain.