Little Girls(33)

Laurie popped the piece of waffle in her mouth. “Tell you what,” Laurie said. “Why don’t you two go to Annapolis together for the day and I’ll stay here and wade through the stuff in the basement. If anything needs to be thrown away down there, I’ll make a list for you guys and you can take care of it for me when you get back.”

“That’s silly. Let us help you.”

“How can you help? It’s my father’s stuff. It’ll be easier for all of us this way.”

“Are you sure, hon?”

“Positive. And you guys can pick up some groceries for me, too. I’d like some fresh vegetables and fruit.”

“Okay,” said Ted. He turned to Susan. “What do you think? You want to go back downtown for the day?”

“Can we go see if the drawbridge will open?” There was a drawbridge that connected Eastport with historic Annapolis, which they had seen on their previous trip downtown. They had waited for nearly ten minutes to see if the bridge would open but it hadn’t, and Susan had been sorely disappointed.

“Sure thing,” Ted said. “If we get there early enough, maybe some of the sailboats will be going out to the bay.”

Upstairs, Laurie took a hot shower. The water made her ankle feel better, and much of the swelling had gone down. She went over the incident from last night and while she didn’t think she had acted unreasonably toward Susan, she was too emotionally exhausted to maintain any level of irritation over the matter. Besides, both Ted and Susan had made their peace with her. Perhaps today would be a better day.

After the shower, she dressed in a white halter top and a pair of old jeans. Beyond the bedroom windows, the day was bright and there looked to be a nice breeze running through the tops of the trees from off the water. Downstairs, she found the Volvo gone and a note on the kitchen counter written in Susan’s decisive print:



I took daddy to Annapolis

We will buy fruit and veggies for you

I love you

Susan!!!





It brought a smile to Laurie’s face.





The basement was an unfinished concrete crypt beneath the earth. The barren cinderblock walls would have looked more at home in a prison. Exposed beams and electrical wiring crisscrossed the low ceiling. Every few yards, naked bulbs were suspended like calcium deposits from the rafters overhead. Like the rest of the house, there wasn’t much down here. Some old sheets of plywood leaned against the hot water heater. Above the plywood, hung on wall-mounted brackets, was a retractable aluminum ladder. There were some tools hanging from a pegboard beneath the stairwell. Nailed to one of the struts was a dusty plastic bag that appeared to contain paperwork for the various household appliances. A metal tool chest sat on the floor. A few other items—saws, boxes of lightbulbs, coils of extension cords, several cans of paint—lay scattered around. There was the Persian rug rolled up like a burrito and propped in one gloomy corner. It was heavy, but she was able to drag it out of the corner and drop it onto the floor with little difficulty. She unrolled it and then backed away to examine it. As she stared down at the dull rust-colored stain in the center of the rug, Dora Lorton’s voice rose up in her head like vapors: On the night of Mr. Brashear’s death, the rug had been . . . damaged . . . I suppose you could say.

The old man had evacuated his bowels onto the carpet before throwing himself out the window to his death. She remembered standing in the yard and seeing one of the windows in the belvedere blocked by something. She also remembered the lawyer mentioning a police report.

When she went back upstairs, she found a number of men in T-shirts and jeans collecting the bags containing her father’s clothing off the front porch. They loaded the bags into the back of a paneled truck with the Salvation Army shield on its side. It felt like she was ridding the house of her father’s lingering presence, and she was grateful each time a bag was hoisted off the porch and tossed into the back of the truck.

From somewhere upstairs, a door slammed.

Laurie jumped. She cast her eyes up the stairwell and could see that all the doors were closed. She called out Ted’s and Susan’s names, and although she hadn’t expected a response, she grew slightly more unnerved when none came. Gripping the banister, she ascended the steps with her head cocked, listening for any more noises. Had it been a door slamming? Had that been what she’d heard? She found she couldn’t be sure.

There was no one upstairs. She checked the bedrooms, the bathroom, the hall closet. Of course, the belvedere door was still padlocked shut. Again, the urge to drop to her hands and knees and peer underneath the door accosted her, but this time she was able to fight it off and not give in to it.

She went back downstairs.

In the kitchen, she called information and got the phone number to the non-emergency dispatch for the local police department. The call went through and the man who answered identified himself as Sergeant Martinez.

“Hello, my name is Laurie Genarro. I was trying to locate a copy of a police report.”

“What’s the name of the reporting officer?” Martinez asked.

“I don’t know.”

“What’s the incident?”

She told him of her father’s suicide. Martinez asked her to hold, then came back on the line about a minute or so later. When he spoke, it sounded like he was reading from a teleprompter. “That would be Officer Caprisi. He’s not in, but I can send you a copy of the report. Do you have a fax machine?”