Floating Staircase(42)

“I’m assuming the two houses would have been yours and the Dentmans’?” It was a logical deduction: all the other houses were on the opposite side of the street, each one a cookie-cutter replica of the next. Our house and the Steins’ were the only ones with any individuality.

“That’s back when they built good, solid houses. Not like this clapboard stuff they put up today.” He lowered his voice and addressed me like someone with whom he’d been planning a bank robbery. “You and I have got more acreage between our two properties than the rest of the folks on this street combined. Just look at them. They’re wedged in there, for Christ’s sake! You can’t take a shit in any of those houses without your neighbor balking at the stink.”

“Ira,” Nancy said, having once again materialized behind us. “Lord.” She shook her head and moved into what I assumed, based on the sounds of pot and pans clanking, was the kitchen.

“It’s the truth, anyway,” he concluded, more conscious now of the volume of his voice. Then it shot up again: “Nan, get the album! Nan!”

“You don’t have to shout,” she shouted back. “What is it?”

“The boy wants to know about the history of the town. Where’s the album?”

“Really,” I began. “It’s not necessary.”

“It’s inside the ottoman,” Nancy said.

“There we go.” Ira pulled himself out of his chair and went over to the ottoman where good little Fauntleroy was catching up on his beauty rest. “Up!” Ira shouted at the dog, clapping.

“Don’t yell at the dog.”

“Up!”

Disgusted, the Maltese looked at Ira Stein with more emotion in his muddy little eyes than I would have thought capable of a dog and hopped down onto the carpet. He wasted no time curling up into a ball directly in front of the fire.

Ira opened the ottoman, shifted around inside, and produced a vinyl photo album that he dropped unceremoniously onto my lap before sitting back down.

“What’s this?” I said, opening the cover. The plastic on the pages stuck together.

“Old photos from when we first moved in.”

I turned the pages and desperately feigned interest, as many of them weren’t of Westlake at all but Ira and Nancy in their younger years, as well as a slew of complete strangers who must have been friends or relatives.

“We’ve been lucky, though, even with the new developments,” Ira said. “We’re still pretty underdeveloped, which is fine by me.” Then he made a sour face. “Why in the world would you want to write a book about Westlake?”

“I guess I’m fascinated by its secrets.”

“What secrets are those?”

“Whatever secrets it has.” I leaned forward in my chair, balancing the photo album on one thigh while cradling the wineglass between my knees. “How well did you know the Dentmans?”

“Not very well.”

“When did they move into town?”

“Lord knows.” He finished his wine, pushed himself out of his chair, and strode over to the bar. “They were here long before us.”

“So the Dentmans were the first family to move into the neighborhood?”

“Depends on your definition of family. It was just the old man and his daughter. Bernard, his name was. The son—he was a bit older than the girl, maybe sixteen or seventeen back then—came and went. The girl couldn’t have been older than thirteen when Nan and I first moved here.”

“What happened to the kids’ mother?”

Ira returned to his chair. He sat down while simultaneously expelling a great burst of air, as if the whole process had exhausted him. “Never knew of any mother.”

“What kind of man was Bernard Dentman?”

“He was a hermit. Lived in that house until he died last year, and I don’t think he’d been outside more than a dozen times in all those years. Isn’t that right, Nan?”

I turned around to find Ira’s wife standing in the doorway again, cradling a mug of something hot and steaming in her hands. She looked infinitely bored. “What my mother would have called a haunted soul,” she said, and the phrase triggered a shiver of queasiness through me.

“What about the children?” I asked. “David and Veronica?”

If Ira was surprised by my knowledge of their names, he did not let it show. “Like I said, the boy came and went. Maybe he was going to school somewhere.”

“Or off getting into trouble,” Nancy added.

Ira executed a hesitant shrug, which conveyed he didn’t completely disagree with his wife’s assessment.

“And the girl?”

“An odd duck,” opined Nancy. She had a voice like an out-of-tune violin, and each time she spoke I felt my skin prickle. “Pale as a ghost, too. Hardly ever came out of the house, except to go to school, but even that stopped after a while. She was teased horribly from what I understand.”

“So the kids grew up and moved out,” I said, trying to keep them on track.

“Well,” Nancy said, holding a hand to her throat. “The boy came back for a while, remember, Ira? Stayed at the house. I assumed he returned to help his father raise the sister.”

“And after that?” I prompted.