Dying for a Change

DYING FOR A CHANGE

By KATHLEEN DELANEY

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

This is a work of fiction.

Copyright May 1, 2002, by Kathleen Delaney

This book is dedicated to my mother, Winifred Delaney. Her suggestions and support in this, as in all things in my life, have been invaluable. Thanks, Mom.

The key went in, but refused to work. I could feel tumblers move, but the door stubbornly stayed locked. I felt something else. Rain. It had been teasing all day and chose now, as I stood on the unprotected front porch, to let go. Water descended on my hair, slid under my collar and down the small of my back.

“
Damn,” I said, and viciously poked the doorbell, more from frustration than hope. The house was unoccupied. The first clients in my one-week real estate career were due momentarily, and I couldn’t get in.

“
Why are you doing this to me?” I shouted at the closed door. I grabbed the knob and rattled it.

It opened.

One leap and I was in the entryway, shuddering, shivering, and shaking like a dog. Of course! The door hadn’t been locked in the first place. I found a rumpled tissue in my jacket pocket, used it to mop my hair and looked around. The blackening sky outside dimmed the entry and made shadows of the doorways. Lights. I needed lights. Was there electricity? The doorbell had chimed. A good sign. I found a switch and flicked it. Immediately the overhead chandelier bathed the tile floor with light and chased away the darkness that had hidden the living room.

That’s better, I thought, letting hope return. Maybe there were other lights that worked. Maybe I’d actually be able to show this large, new house, and maybe the couple that called into the office only an hour ago would brave the rain and show up. If they didn’t, I’d never find them again. Unfortunately, in the excitement of making my first appointment, I’d forgotten to get their name and phone number. Tom Chambers, one of the agents training me at Harper’s Land Sales, had all but rolled on the floor with laughter. His wife, Nicole, had been more tactful.

“
It’s all right, Ellen,” she’d said. “You can get all that when you meet with them. Here.” She handed me a file filled with papers. “In case they want to make an offer. You do know how to fill these out?”

“
Of course,” I’d lied.

Nicole looked doubtful, but I’d taken the folder and fled.

I stood in the living room window, clutching my folder tightly, and looked down the street. Would they want to make an offer? Both real estate school and Sharon Harper, owner of the office where I now worked, had shown me how to fill out an offer form, but everything I’d learned seemed to have disappeared. Could I put them off until tomorrow? Meet them in the office, with Sharon safely beside me? But maybe they wouldn’t like this house, and would want to see others. I tried to think of all the houses I’d seen this past week. I couldn’t remember one of them. I’m panicking. Have to relax. It’s only because it’s the first time, it’ll get easier after this. I took a deep breath, made my fingers quit crunching the folder, and looked at my watch.

I was to meet them at four. It was only one minute past. Fourteen minutes to go before I could reasonably conclude they weren’t going to show, another five before I could leave, relief and dejection equally mixed.

The unrelenting rain rapidly turned the unplanted front yard into a muddy lake. It turned the dust on the empty truck parked by the side of the house into brown streaks...Truck? Where had that come from? Where was the driver? I thought about the unlocked front door and froze. Maybe I wasn’t alone.

I held my breath and listened. Stepping away from the window, I heard a creak, and froze again. It took a second to realize it was my foot on the uncarpeted floorboards. Fear propelled me into the living room — there, a light switch. Ah — light. For a second I stood, hoping to hear the sound of a car. Nothing but the steady beat of rain. Another glance at my watch, only three minutes past four. All right. I’d have to wait, but not in the dark. Flicking each switch, I felt more confident as I blazed the down stairs rooms with light.

At the base of the stairs, I stopped.

Real estate school had stressed, among other things, that female agents should never, ever, meet clients any place but in the office. Here I was, meeting someone whose name I didn’t know, waiting in an empty house where a strange truck stood outside the front door, it’s driver nowhere to be seen. Was the driver waiting for me? Lurking somewhere, ready to pounce...

“
Ellen McKenzie,” I told myself, “you’ve lost it. You don’t live in the city any more. This is little old Santa Louisa. Nothing has ever happened here, and never will!”

Right. Sure. I’d been gone from Santa Louisa for over twenty years, and things had changed. Not that my tiny hometown was experiencing a crime wave. However...maybe I’d just check the street for my clients.

The downpour had eased into gentle rain, making it easy to see no car was in sight. This time my watch said ten after four, and I was out of excuses. Turning back to the staircase, I took a deep breath and headed up.

Work on the house hadn’t quite finished. The toilet sat in the hallway, waiting to be installed in the tile-floored bathroom. A bucket of paint sat beside some left over pieces of crown molding leaning against the wall in the master bedroom. A scattering of bricks lay next to the fireplace. It looked as though someone had pushed over the pile. Probably not. Just leftovers, carelessly stacked. I admired the federal mantel, tried to see the street from the French doors, flooded the master bath with a soft florescent glow and spent a moment envying some lucky person the luxurious bathtub. Ah, the walk in closet. Everyone in the office had talked about how spacious it was, how convenient, how...occupied. A man lay on what should have been an empty closet floor. A bloody, bashed, and very dead man.

Nothing moved as I stared at the body. My heart didn’t beat, my blood didn’t flow, and my lungs didn’t pump air.

Then everything worked at once, and I screamed. The sound echoed around the closet and bounced out at me, vibrating in my head. Legs and feet still held me up, and I propelled myself out of the bedroom, into the hallway, and down the stairs.

“
Omph,” I exclaimed. I’d run into a large, rather soft chest, covered by damp warm up jacket.

“
Hey,” the man said.

He stood on the step below me, his round face level with mine.

“
Hey,” he repeated, and reached for my arm. “What’s….”

“
Oh, no,” I screamed in his face, then pushed hard at him and tried to retreat back up the stairs. A dead body in a closet, the murderer on the stairs, and me in the middle. Real estate was turning out to be harder than I expected.

The man clutched my arm and grabbed the banister to steady himself as I struggled to get away.

“
What’s the matter? What’s going on here? Hey, quit screaming,” he shouted in my ear.

I stopped and took a better look at this man who had me by the arm. Middle-aged, overweight, round blue eyes that peered from under the brim of a shapeless rain hat, he seemed more alarmed than menacing.

“
What is it, Harvey? What’s the matter?”

The timid voice came from the bottom of the stairs. It belonged to a small woman wrapped in a large brown raincoat, wearing another dripping rain hat.

“
I don’t know, Bernice. That’s what I’m trying to find out. Now!” He gave my arm, which he still held, a little shake. “What’s going on here?”

“
Who are you?” I blurted out.

“
I came to look at this house,” he snapped. “It’s for sale, you know. Will you please tell me what’s going on?”

“
There’s a body upstairs. In the bedroom closet.”

He let me go and stared, first at me, then up the stairs.

“
What did you say? A body? Of a person?”

I bit back the remark that almost escaped and nodded. His thoughts weren’t hard to follow as he looked back at me, took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. A man about to take charge.

“
Here, you go on down and stay with Bernice, my wife. I’ll be right back.”

A little more shoulder squaring and he disappeared up the stairs. I was more than willing to follow orders, for the moment, and joined the softly moaning Bernice.

“
Oh, oh my God, a dead person, oh my,” she kept repeating between sniffles. There was another tissue in my pocket and I offered it to her, hoping Harvey would hurry. It didn’t take him long. He came down the stairs, one hand on the banister, the other over his mouth, his face the color of vanilla pudding.

“
She’s right,” he told his wife, “there’s a dead man in the closet. He’s covered in blood.”

“
Who is he?” she whispered from behind her wadded up tissue.

“
How would I know?” he retorted, then turned to me. “Who is he?”

“
I don’t know,” I said. “I found him when I was turning on lights for...are you the people who called Harper’s Land Sales?”

Harvey nodded.

“
I’m your real estate agent,” I said.

Harvey didn’t look reassured at that announcement. Bernice sniffled again.

“
We have to do something, get the police,” Harvey told us. “Someone had better stay here though. You,” he pointed at me, “you and Bernice go find a phone. I’ll stay.”

Bernice didn’t think much of that idea. She shied away from me and clung to Harvey, turning her moaning up a notch.

“
Oh, Harvey, I don’t think...I just couldn’t drive...my nerves...”

“
Bernice, pull yourself together. This young lady’ll drive. Won’t you?”

He propped Bernice up by grabbing her elbow, then looked at me hopefully. She winced, frowned, and then sagged against him a little more.

“
You go call,” I said. “Take Bernice with you. I’ll stay here.” Staying in that house couldn’t be worse than going with Bernice.

“
You sure?” He looked doubtful for a second and Bernice sagged some more. He tightened his grip on her elbow and pushed her out the front door.

“
We won’t be long,” he called.

I watched them race toward their car and roar off down the street. Maybe he was afraid I’d change my mind.

The house was filled with silence, making me a lot more nervous than I’d wanted to let on to Harvey. The rain had stopped for a moment, and, out the living room window, I could clearly see the truck. Did it belong to the man upstairs? What was he doing here? There was a logo on the truck door, which seemed familiar. I strained to make out the letters, but it was too far away.

I thought about the man. Was he who I suspected? Should I find out?

“
Absolutely not!” My words sounded too loud in the still room, and they didn’t have much effect. I knew what I was going to do.

Once more up the stairs, slowly, trying this time to make each step silent. There was no one to hear me coming, but noise somehow seemed wrong. I tiptoed to the bedroom, stood in the open door, and forced myself to walk to the closet and look in. Harvey hadn’t turned off the light, and I knew I was going to get a full view. Finally, one deep breath, one large step, and I was in front of it.