House of Strangers

McSparren Carolyn

“Probably happy to have you.” She checked her watch. “Oops. Buddy’ll kill me if I don’t get back to work.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’ve covered the mural in the dining room so it won’t collect any more dust, and I’ve started stripping the overmantel in the music room. The goo should be just about ready to remove. Want to see what’s under the layers?”

“Certainly.”

“Okay. Come on.”

As he followed her down the stairs, he asked, “Do you know what sort of chandelier hung up there?” He pointed to the elaborate boss surrounding the hanging lightbulb.

“Sure. A big old brass thing that originally used gas—the first house in Rossiter to have it, by the way.”

“You wouldn’t know who bought it, would you?”

“No clue, but if I know Trey Delaney, he’s got meticulous records on every purchase from the estate sale, even piddly little stuff like the things I bought.”

Excellent. The perfect entr'ee to introduce himself to Trey Delaney.

He watched Ann’s heavily gloved hands meticulously remove layers of black varnish from the relief on the over-mantel. She used what looked like dental instruments to get into the cracks and crevices.

He was definitely in the way.

Even Buddy in his trips from basement to Dumpster hardly did more than nod at him. He finally sat on the fourth step of the staircase and merely watched.

He’d about decided to leave when a tall, slim woman in jeans, cowboy boots and a turtleneck sweater strode in the front door. Her hair was short and snow-white, her face nut-brown with crinkles at the edge of her eyes. One glance at her hands told him she must be in her sixties, but she moved like a teenager.

“Hey,” she said as she came forward and extended her hand. “You must be Mr. Bouvet. I’m Sarah Pulliam. I’m a terrible busybody. Couldn’t stay away any longer. Had to see what was happening to the old place.”

Her handshake was brief but firm.

She glanced around at the organized chaos and then at him. “Welcome to Rossiter, although why in God’s green earth you’d want to move to a little town like this is more than I can see.” Without waiting for his answer, she strode off through the living room. “You tore down those godawful drapes, thank God. I told Maribelle when she hung them that they were heavy enough to suffocate any small child that got caught up in them. Ugly, to boot. For a woman with strong tastes, Maribelle never did take much to color in her decorating.”

He trailed this dynamo without speaking. He had no idea who she was, but she obviously knew the Delaneys well. He had no intention of interrupting the flow of her talk.

“There you are, Ann,” she said. “Goodness, I had no idea that was golden oak.”

“Neither did anybody else until I started stripping it.” Ann smiled at the woman who offered a cheek to be kissed. “I guess you introduced yourself, didn’t you?”

“Sure did.”

“Did you tell him who you were?”

“Huh?”

“Paul, this is my grandmother, Sarah Pulliam. She and Maribelle and Addy were sisters.”

“I was the youngest and the only one who wasn’t half-crazy,” Sara said with a touch of smugness.

“Crazy how?” Paul asked. Maybe his father’s gene pool had been tainted by schizophrenia or manic depression.

“Maribelle had a terrible temper, but she managed to get what she wanted when she wanted it. I suppose that’s not really crazy, except that she had tunnel vision about her own needs. And poor Addy probably didn’t start out crazy, but she sure wound up that way. Toward the end Esther—the woman who looked after her—said she used to wander around in her nightgown wringing her hands like Lady MacBeth and mumbling stuff that made no sense whatsoever.” Sarah shook her head sadly. “She had every reason in this world to hate Maribelle, but they still managed to live in the same house together, God knows how.”

“And did you like them?” In New Jersey, Paul would never have considered asking a bald question like that. But these people seemed to delight in a new audience to tell a good story to.

Ann gave him a sharp glance, but if Sarah noticed the rudeness of the question, it certainly didn’t bother her.

“Actually, I was devoted to Addy. Only men loved Maribelle. Women saw through her. Men never catch on to that sort of selfishness and greed.”

“Sarah, where’d you come from?” Wiping the perspiration from his face with a white towel that said Golf and Country Club on it, Buddy Jenkins walked into the library and came over to kiss Sarah’s cheek.

“Had to pick up some laying mash for the chickens, so I thought I’d stop by, maybe take you all to lunch. How about it, Mr. Bouvet? You eaten at the Wolf River Caf'e yet?”

“Indeed I have. Thank you, Mrs. Pulliam, but I wouldn’t want to intrude.”

“Intrude? Buying this house sort of makes you a member of the Delaney clan—which we sort of are. You look like you could use a good country fried steak.”

He allowed himself to be persuaded. This woman was a fount of information. He prayed he could keep her talking.

AT LUNCH Paul couldn’t steer the conversation back to Paul Delaney, Sr., without seeming too nosy even for these people. He contented himself with listening to Sarah banter with Buddy and her granddaughter.

He had never been around a family whose generations kidded and laughed together. His tante had been a strict disciplinarian who spoke formally always. He’d never seen her smile.

For a man who had done very little since morning, he felt awfully tired. Not physical exhaustion, but the weariness that came from always being on the alert for some tidbit of information about this family of his, about his father.

And from being on guard against revealing that he knew or cared more than he should about the Delaneys. One of his friends from the Air Force Academy, Jack Sabrinski, who had grown up speaking Serbo-Croat and Bulgarian with equal facility in English, had done some spy missions. He told Paul that the two months he spent spying in Bosnia took more out of him than five years of a bad marriage and a nasty divorce.

Paul could believe him. Since meeting Ann last night, another element had been added to the mix. Until yesterday these people had been strangers without faces, without personalities. Faceless entities he felt justified in using.