Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 02 - Rekindling Motives (3 page)

“Wasn’t that during Prohibition?” I asked.

“They weren’t after the people who had it for weddings. The press would have made police look like fools if they raided weddings. Anyway, Richard was halfway down the stairs with Audrey when he stepped on her dress and she fell forward and then missed a step. He caught her elbow, she wasn’t hurt. But supposedly she was mad as a hornet, and so was the groom.”

I tried to feign interest.
This sounded pretty dull so far. “Doesn’t sound like a story for the paper.”

“
Stop interrupting. The ceremony went fine, but about halfway through the reception, Audrey’s husband, what was his name?”

“Fisher?” I said.

“I meant his first name. Peter, that’s it. Peter Fisher had had enough to drink that he went over to Richard Tillotson and started accusing him of stepping on Audrey’s dress on purpose, to make her look bad, because Richard was mad that Audrey was getting married and leaving him in the house with their mother and the two younger children when he, Richard that is, wanted to move out on his own.”

I didn’t realize I’d been tapping my foot until Aunt Madge glanced under the table.
I stopped.

“Audrey’s mother and someone else pulled Richard out of the room because he was ready to hit Peter Fisher.
Oh, did I say he’d already thrown his drink on him?”

“You left out that gory detail,” I said.

She ignored me. “So that was it, but two days later Richard was gone. Just gone.”

“Gone as in he never came back?”

“That’s right. After a few weeks, Audrey and her husband moved into the house. They had rented an apartment, but Audrey’s mother was supposed to have a ‘weak constitution,’ and she really needed another adult in the house. I’m not sure why, the two younger children were close to their teens, I think.”

“That’s it?”

She stood up and picked up both of our empty tea mugs. “Not every story has an exciting ending. I just thought you’d like some local history.”

“It’s very interesting,” I said quickly.

Aunt Madge shrugged. “I suppose not.” She glanced at the door. “Would you let the dogs in?”

Mister Rogers and Miss Piggy are Aunt Madge’s two shelter-adopted mutts.
Both have enough retriever in them to be incurably exuberant, and they have a fondness for prunes, which Aunt Madge now keeps on the top shelf of her pantry in plastic containers. When Mister Rogers saw he had achieved his goal of getting attention he lowered his head to his front paws and, butt sticking in the air, wagged his tail so fast it was hard to keep track of it.

I slid open the sliding glass door and he and Miss Piggy bounded into Aunt Madge’s large sitting room, as she calls
her open living area.

Mister Rogers ran around the couch several times, Miss Piggy in pursuit.
It was unusual enough behavior for them that I watched for several laps until I realized that Mr. Rogers had something in his mouth. I knelt down and clapped a couple of times. “Here, boy.”

Aunt Madge was onto them now, too.
“Sit!” she said, sternly, and they both skidded to a stop, Miss Piggy landing on Mr. Rogers’ rump. That caught him by surprise, and he opened his mouth to give a small yelp. As he did so, a tiny chipmunk sailed out, landed on the throw rug in front of him, and made a beeline for the tiny space under a nearby bookcase. It didn’t look any the worse for wear. Mr. Rogers had probably held it between his tongue and the roof of his mouth rather than between his teeth.

I laughed, and my cat Jazz sailed off the back of the couch and stuck a paw under the bookcase.
This stopped Mr. Rogers from doing the same, as Jazz tends to terrorize him by jumping on his back for a ride from time to time.

For a couple of seconds we looked at Jazz and listened to the chipmunk chatter at her paw.
“No, Jazz.” I picked her up, still laughing.

“Bad dogs,” Aunt Madge said, which had no effect on them.
Instead, they went to her, tails wagging, as if they expected a treat. She glanced at me. “I forgot to tell you. They must have found a nest of ground squirrels, because he had one yesterday. I’ve no idea where it is now.”

This stopped my laughing.
That and the fact that Jazz was trying to claw her way back to the floor. “You mean it’s still in the house?”

“Yes.
I just hope they don’t make it to a guest room.” She opened the sliding glass door, and the dogs went back out. “Can you imagine if one of them found it in a bathroom at night?”

“Can you imagine if I did?”

“Nonsense. At least you’d be expecting it.”

CHAPTER TWO

Harry Steele called about nine o’clock the next morning to say that Gracie Allen had specifically requested that I appraise her late grandparents’ house. “I told her,” he continued, “that her buyer could well end up paying for a second appraisal if the house doesn’t sell quickly. She said that was fine.”

“I think Lester Argrow is trying to get her to price it too high and she wants a second opinion.”

There was a beat of silence before he said, “That’s all we need. I heard that at a Board of Realtors’ meeting last week he said I wouldn’t know the true value of real estate in Ocean Alley if someone wrote it on a stone tablet for me.”

“You know everyone thinks he’s a bag of wind.”
Lester, who often meets clients in Burger King because his office is so small, is not a force to be reckoned with in the local economy.

“True,” he said.
“Even so, it won’t be an easy one to appraise. The Tillotson family built it and I bet there hasn’t been a mortgage on it for decades. Not too many comparables, either.”

I knew that comparables, houses that are similar and can thus be used as a basis of comparison when I try to figure what a house is worth, would be hard to find for a single-family home that large and that old.
Lester wants Harry to compare four-bedroom homes to a two-bedroom home Lester is selling, or something equally ridiculous, which is why Harry’s appraisals are lower than Lester would like. Despite his efforts to get us to appraise a house higher so he can get a better commission, I like him. He’s funny.

I told Harry I’d stop by the courthouse to see what I could find in the way of comps and he said Gracie wanted to meet me at the house at eleven.
Great
. Her presence would add an hour to the time it would take me to go through the place. It’s not like I get paid by the hour. I get half of what Harry charges per appraisal. When I was a commercial realtor I made substantially more than that. But, since I’m in Ocean Alley to decompress, I’m happy with what I make.

AS I STOOD OUTSIDE the old Tillotson
-Fisher home I counted the windows – nineteen – and looked for indications of wood rot. All in all it was in decent shape, with each window having both of its fairly new shutters and the paint barely peeling. It was a two-story with a cupola on top, and probably a good-sized attic. While few houses in Ocean Alley have basements, it did appear to have a crawl space, which helps prevent moisture from seeping into the house.

Whoever had last painted it had chosen a light grey and used a deep burgundy for trim.
If Gracie was willing to spend a pretty penny to get it painted I figured she could add quite a bit more to the sales price. I walked onto the porch and ran my hand along the railing, shaking it lightly every few feet. Solid in most places. I peered in the front window, through a crack where the shade did not meet the window ledge, and was surprised to find the front room empty. That would make my job easier.

As I stood up a car pulled up to the curb.
I raised a hand, expecting to see Gracie, and was surprised when Reverend Jamison, Aunt Madge’s minister, got out of the car.

“Good morning, Jolie. Thinking of moving in?” He started up the walk toward the house.

“
No, I’m waiting for Gracie so I can do an appraisal.” I barely know him; in fact, I knew I had not impressed him because Harry Steele had told me I was the first young person Reverend Jamison had met and not invited to come to First Presbyterian Church.

His usually serious expression relaxed into a smile.
“Madge told me you’d be over here. I stopped by the house.”

“Uh. Great.
Can I help you with something?”

He leaned against the railing, facing me.
“As you know, I no longer have anyone to run the food pantry at the church.”

Uh oh
. “Don’t you have a committee for that, or something?”

“Yes, but a committee needs a leader.”
He sighed and looked toward the street. “They are a good group of folks, but a lot of them are very senior citizens, and most of them are involved in other church committees. Watching you the last month, I gather you’re fearless, which never hurts when you have to ask people for donations. So,” he turned to face me, “how about running the food pantry for me?”

“Me?”
My voice was unnaturally high, and I consciously lowered it to a normal tone. “I don’t…I can’t imagine…”

“You know a lot of people through your work and your high school friends.
If you’re half as well organized as your aunt you could do it with one hand tied behind your back.”

The honking of Gracie’s horn as she pulled up to the house caused me to jump, and I stammered.
“I have a hard time managing myself most of the time. I wouldn’t know what to do,” my voice trailed off.

“Your friend Scoobie helps out occasionally, I suppose as a thank you for getting food sometimes.”
I detected a glint in his eye. “He could show you the ropes.”

“Am I late?
I thought I was early.” Gracie hurried up the walk, a blue knit cape over her shoulders and a bright red duffle bag in one hand. “Hi Reverend, remember me?”

“I do, Mrs. Allen.
You sang a beautiful solo at your grandmother’s funeral.”

“You’ve lost all credibility, Rev.
I was so nervous my voice cracked on every other note.” Gracie joined us on the porch.

Reverend Jamison smiled genially.
“Beauty is not always in the tone.” He pointed his index finger at me. “Think about it. We need the help, and your schedule is flexible.”

With that, he walked lightly down the steps.
“Good luck selling the house.”

We watched him drive off, and Gracie turned to me.
“What are you supposed to think about?”

“He wants me to run the food pantry at First Prez.”

“Ha!” Gracie pulled keys from her duffle bag and turned to the door. “That’s what you get for having your picture in the paper with bags of leftover food.”

I stifled the urge to say something rude about
George Winters and followed her into the large foyer. Once inside, the professional appraiser in me took over and I pulled my tape measure out of my bag as I looked around. The twelve-foot ceilings had beautiful crown molding that had been stained in a light cherry. It was fortunate they had never been painted.

“This is where my grandmother put the Christmas tree,” Gracie said, standing in front of the largest window in the living room.
“You could see it from almost a block away.” She looked around almost dreamily.

“I can imagine,” I said, leaning over to place my tape measure on the floor at the far end of the room.

“Oh, I can help.” She dropped her duffle back and walked over and put her foot on the end of the tape measure. “You can just pull it over there.”

I was tempted to say something about having done this a few times, but didn’t.
She was, after all, trying to help. I had to tune her out half the time so I could write down the measurements and look under the kitchen sink for any sign of water damage.

“And then my husband got a job in
Phoenix and we were there for two years. When he got transferred back East I told him I would never move to such a hot climate again. Not even if he got a big enough raise for a 5,000 square foot house.”

I realized I must not have been listening for some time, because last I remembered she had been in
Memphis. At this point, we were in the upstairs hallway and I was trying to figure out how to reach the short rope that hung from the trap door that led to the attic. “Is there a step ladder or something?”

When Gracie didn’t reply I glanced at her and received a brief, cold stare.
With a small degree of guilt I realized I had interrupted her mid-sentence.
Can I help it if she talks incessantly?

“There’s one in the far back bedroom,” she said, indicating the direction with her head.
“My husband brought it up so he could replace light bulbs.”

“I’ll grab it,” I said, anxious to get away from her for a moment.
It was no wonder I couldn’t remember her from high school. I’d probably blocked her out.

Of course it was wooden, not aluminum, so I dragged the stepladder back to the hallway where Gracie stood, careful not to scratch the well preserved hardwood floor.
“If you’ll steady it, I’ll climb up.”

“Sure,” she said, in what could only be described as a frosty tone.
“My mother said there are a few things up there, she didn’t think I’d have any problem getting them down. That’s why I brought the duffel bag.”

I climbed up a couple of rungs, reached the rope and gave a sharp tug.
The built-in attic ladder pulled halfway down easily, so I climbed off the step ladder and Gracie pulled it aside. I finished opening the stair-step ladder to the attic. “Here I go,” I said, in a falsely bright voice.

As I got to the top of the ladder I pulled the small flashlight from my fanny pack and shone it around the attic.
In contrast to the two lower floors it was crammed with stuff, much of it covered in old sheets. It looked like a ghost convention. I sneezed.

“Bless you,” Gracie said.

“Did you know how much stuff is up here?”

“I thought there wasn’t that much.”
She paused. “I was here a couple of months ago to arrange to have grandmother’s personal stuff and a few pieces of furniture moved out before the auctioneer came, but my mother said she told him not to go up there.”

I shrugged in her direction.
“You better come up and look. Some of the things not covered in sheets looks better than rummage sale stuff.” I shone the light toward a small octagonal window at one end of the large room. If we brushed dust off it there would be some natural light. “Maybe you’ll find a pile of antique silver or something.”

I heard her start to climb the ladder, and there was bitterness in her laugh.
“I think my mother carted off all of that a long time ago.”

I hauled myself into the attic, dusted off my jeans, and pulled out my tape measure.
This is going to be a real bear.
There was way too much stuff to pull the tape measure in a straight line.

I moved out of the way so Gracie could get into the attic and almost knocked over a dress form shrouded in a sheet. “Excuse me.”
It was involuntary, and Gracie and I both laughed.

She stood, hands on hips, and surveyed the contents.
“Damn her. This is going to take a lot of work,” she said.

“Maybe you can sell it with the stuff in it.
Or maybe an antique dealer would haul it out.”

She sighed.
“I’ll still have to go through it. Actually,” she moved away from me, “there was a bunch of quilts grandmother made that I never found.” She turned a full circle and gave a deep sigh. “I don’t know why I didn’t think to look up here. As ticked as I am that my mother left me to handle this, maybe it’s a good thing she told the auctioneer not to come up here.”

I walked over to the window and brushed away cobwebs and grunge, which let in more light than I had expected.
I wiped my hand on my jeans and extended the tape to measure the window. At the sound of metal striking metal, I turned to see Gracie opening the latch on a large trunk. “That old trunk’s probably worth a lot by itself,” I said.

“Could be.” She fumbled in it and drew out a stack of old magazines.
“Gawd.” She peered at them. “These are
Life
magazines from the 1950s!”

“Who says there aren’t treasure troves in attics?”
I continued working, checking the ceiling for obvious signs of leaks (there were none) and then shining my light on the floor. Solid, probably pine.

There was a loud ‘plop’ and I saw that Gracie had just thrown a pile of stuff down to the floor below.

“Bunch of old blankets and clothes,” she said, and shrugged.
“Have to start somewhere.”

I nodded.
“You want to go below and I’ll throw you down some of the lightweight stuff?” I figured I could make up a bit for not listening to her babble.

“That would be great.”
She looked around. “I’ll toss a few more things and then go down before the pile down there gets too big.”

“Sure.”
I had the tape measure on the floor and was trying to measure the width of the attic in small bits.

After a few minutes, she started down the ladder.
“When you get over this way, why don’t you open that wardrobe and throw me down some of the clothes that are in there?”

“Sure thing.”
As she descended, I studied the room more carefully. It looked as though the oldest items were in the far corners. I could see what looked like a treadle sewing machine and a couple of other dress forms, and a rusty shovel. Next to the shovel was a large rocker with the woven seat in tatters.
That would be hard to fix, but it would bring a pretty penny if you did.

I made my way back to the trap door and looked down.
Gracie had shoved most of what she had tossed down to one side. “Holler when you’re ready.”