House of Strangers

McSparren Carolyn

Paul’s feet slid out from under him, and he landed flat on his back, barely managing to keep his head from cracking against the bare floor.

He managed a couple of gasps before the black object reached out a long, maroon tongue and licked him straight across the face.

“Get off me!” Paul didn’t think attack dogs were trained to lick their quarry, so he felt relatively safe shoving this one off his chest.

“Dante!”

Footsteps pelted down the back stairs. A moment later he saw a figure silhouetted in the shadowy doorway. “What are you doing here?”

“I might ask you the same thing,” he said. “Call off your moose.”

“Dante, get off him. Down.”

Dante gave Paul one last quick swipe with his tongue, then sank to the floor beside him and stared with beseeching eyes.

“What kind of dog is this, anyway? I’ve never seen one like it.”

“He’s a Neopolitan mastiff.”

Paul rolled to a sitting position and found himself nose to nose with the mastiff. “He makes bloodhounds look cheerful.”

“He’s really a happy dog. It’s just his woebegone expression and all those wrinkles that make him look miserable. Listen, I’m awfully sorry. He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“Just my dignity, Miss…uh?”

“Ann Corrigan.” She offered a hand, and when he took it with his left, she helped him back to his feet.

“Ah—you’re the Ann Buddy was talking about.”

“You have to be Mr. Bouvet. Do you need to sit down or anything?”

“Not quite that decrepit, thank you.”

“I didn’t mean…I guess you heard the piano. Buddy swore you wouldn’t be back this afternoon, so I borrowed his key to start taking pictures of the inside of the house. When I saw the piano, I couldn’t resist.”

“You play well.”

“No, I don’t.” Ann laughed. “I play one tempo—slow. And one style—easy with lots of mistakes—although I spent every Tuesday afternoon for years on that piano bench. I took lessons from Miss Addy.”

“The lady who owned the house.”

“Only for the last few years. It belonged to the Delaneys. When Mrs. Delaney died, she left it to her sister for her lifetime. Miss Addy must have taught most of the kids in the county to play the piano.”

“You sounded good.”

“I was not one of her star pupils. When I wasn’t in school I was either out with the hunt or pitching for the softball team. I hated to practice. Scales, yuck. Now I wish I’d worked harder.”

“I attempted to play the tuba in my high-school band. It was a grave error. I lasted less than six weeks. Football was easier, except that I wasn’t big enough for a college scholarship.”

Dante had not moved from his position but followed the conversation like a tennis spectator, turning his head from one to the other.

Ann lifted her hand, palm up, and Dante hauled himself to his feet and went to stand beside her. He had no tail, so his entire rear end wagged.

“Look, we don’t have to stand here in the middle of an empty room,” Ann said. “Let’s sit on the window seat in the conservatory—if you don’t mind getting dirty.”

Paul followed her through the archway at the left and into the conservatory. She perched on one of the cushions. “It’s pretty dusty.”

“I’m already dirty.” He sat far enough along the curve of the windows so that he had a good view of her. “Does Dante always greet people so enthusiastically?” he asked.

“I’m sorry about that. I spend a lot of time in empty, isolated old buildings by myself. When I’m really doing good work, I sometimes keep going all night. There are never any curtains at the windows, so it’s like I’m standing on stage under a spotlight while the rest of the world outside is in darkness. I’d feel like a sitting duck without Dante as my early-warning system and my guardian.”

On hearing his name, the dog laid his head on Ann’s lap. She scratched his small, pointed ears.

“Not much of a guardian, although he looks scary enough,” Paul said.

“He’d never bite a living soul, but just having all 180 pounds of him land on you and lick your face would scare most bad guys into cardiac arrest.”

“Almost worked with me.”

“He doesn’t usually go looking for trouble. I guess he decided that since this was an empty house, I must be working. Sometimes he’s a bear of very little brain.”

“Has he ever had to launch into action before?”

“A couple of times in D.C. he barked and may have scared off the bad guys, but not since I’ve moved back down here. I didn’t even hear you from upstairs. He decided to investigate on his own.”

“Buddy says you know this house well.”

“I ought to. Miss Addy was not only my piano teacher, she was my great-aunt.”

Paul froze. Ann Corrigan was a Delaney? “I thought her sister owned the house and that the other lady only had life tenancy.”

“Her older sister, Aunt Maribelle, was the one who married into the Delaneys and inherited the house when her husband died. But Aunt Addy lived with her forever, and Aunt Maribelle didn’t want her to have to move.”

“So Mrs. Maribelle Delaney was also your great-aunt?”

Ann nodded. “My grandmother was the youngest of the three girls.”

“Is she still—”

“Alive?” Ann grinned. “Is she ever.”

“So your father…”

“Gram is my mother’s mother.”

“So you really are a Delaney?”

“More of a kissing cousin by marriage. Practically everybody in this area is kin to everybody else.”

Paul looked at her closely for the first time, trying to discern something in her face that might show her relationship to the Delaneys.

A moment later he decided she was worth exploring for herself. She was of average height, average weight and average coloring. Her medium-brown hair was fairly long and tied back tightly by a red scarf. She had a nicely rounded body with long legs and a generous bosom.