Little Girls(7)

They went to the laundry room off the kitchen and Dora showed her where the detergents and fabric softeners were kept. “The lint trap in the dryer builds up very quickly. Mind you, keep an eye on it. It’s a fire hazard, you know.”

“Ours is the same way at home.” Laurie could care less about the dryer. “I’m sorry if this sounds rude,” she went on quickly, “but I can’t help but wonder if you’ve got a place to go.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was a fulltime job being my father’s caretaker for the last couple of years. Now that he’s dead, I hope you’ve got other work.” She laughed nervously. “I feel like I’m firing you.”

“Don’t be silly.” Dora pulled the lint trap out, showed Laurie that the screen had recently been purged of lint, and then snapped it back into place.

“I could tell the dementia had gotten much worse the last time I called him,” Laurie confessed. “That was maybe six months ago. Was the dementia really bad toward the end?”

“Wasn’t the dementia that killed him, of course. Not directly, anyway.”

“Of course,” Laurie said. Mr. Claiborne had told her what had killed him. Her father’s lawyer had told her as well. She wondered if she would be able to summon enough courage to go up into the belvedere. Despite her lack of empathy for her dead father, she found thinking about it disturbing nonetheless.

“I’ve readied the bedrooms for you and your family, Mrs. Genarro, and it’s up to you if you want to stay here or someplace else. I suppose I’d understand if you wanted to stay away from the house, given what happened. No hard feelings.”

“I appreciate all your work,” Laurie said. “Were you here when it happened?”

Once again, Dora Lorton’s steely eyes settled on Laurie. The question had just found its way out of Laurie’s mouth—she hadn’t even realized she’d meant to speak it. The heartbeat of silence that resonated now in its wake was as profound as a gunshot.

“No, I wasn’t,” Dora said evenly. “It happened in the evening, while poor Ms. Larosche was on shift. She didn’t know anything had happened until she began one of her periodic checks on Mr. Brashear, only to find the door leading up to that strange little room standing open. The room at the top of the house.”

“My father called it the belvedere,” Laurie said.

“The door was usually locked, but it wasn’t on this night for some reason,” Dora went on as if Laurie hadn’t said a word. “When Ms. Larosche went up, she found the room . . . the belvedere . . . empty, but then she spotted him on the ground below. His neck was broken and his death had been instantaneous.”

“It must have been awful for her. I’m so sorry.”

Perhaps Dora Lorton was uncomfortable being the sounding board for Laurie’s continual apologies, for she actively ignored the comment with a discomfort that was quite palpable. “There are no television sets and no radios in the house, as I’ve mentioned,” she went on. “There are no computers, either. With the exception of the telephone, contact with the outside world, you will find, is quite limited.”

“We’ve got our cell phones. My husband brought his laptop, too, and we can watch TV shows and movies on that. He’s a playwright. He’s working on a theatrical adaptation of a John Fish novel at the moment. Have you read any work by him?”

Dora looked unimpressed. “Your husband?”

“No, I meant John Fish, the author. Are you familiar with his books? He writes these sweeping epic dramas. He’s quite popular.”

“I only read nonfiction,” Dora said. “What is it you do, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Well, I’m a stay-at-home mom at the moment,” Laurie said, feeling a distant chill, “though I used to teach classes at the college by our house. I’m also a painter.”

“A house painter or an artist painter?”

“An artist painter, I suppose.”

“Do you make money doing it?”

It seemed a rather intrusive question. Nevertheless, Laurie said, “Sometimes. I used to have paintings for sale in some bookstores and art galleries in Hartford, and once I even had a painting in a gallery in Manhattan. But I haven’t painted anything new in a long time.”

“Well, maybe you’re in need of inspiration,” Dora said. “With no televisions or radios, you’ll find it hard to be pestered by distraction.”

“Well, there’s always my daughter.” And husband, she considered adding, and probably would have had Dora Lorton been a more accessible person, but she decided against it in the end.

“Yes, I’m sure she keeps you quite busy.” Dora cleared her throat and said, “You’ll also notice that some of the floors have been disturbed.”

“What do you mean?”

“Gouges in the flooring in places, some carpeting pulled up in some of the rooms, molding stripped away from the walls. Mr. Brashear never made it as far as to actually pry up the floorboards, though I suspect that was on his agenda.”

Laurie recalled the damaged look of the floor in the foyer, the gouges and scrapes in the hardwood. “I don’t understand. Why would he do that?”

“Wasn’t my business to ask him. It wouldn’t have done any good near the end, anyway. Mr. Brashear was quite troubled by the end. I just wanted to set the record straight so you know it was your father who did that to the floors and not me or Ms. Larosche. Things may need to be repaired before you can sell the place, and I wouldn’t want you to think we had been irresponsible.”