On Turpentine Lane(54)

“Why don’t you go back down?” my mother asked Nick.

I said, “My turn.” I took the stairs even more carefully than usual, hand over hand on the railing. The usually dimly lit cellar was now illuminated by spotlights that looked movie set–ish and, indeed, a whole crew was bustling around. Brian, seated and supervising from the bottom step, rose to let me pass.

I asked if I could talk to him for a minute.

“How about when we finish up here?”

I asked, “Can you tell me whose blood you’re looking for?”

“No.”

“No you don’t know yet, or no you can’t tell me?”

“Faith? How would we know? We need to test it and find a relative or most likely exhume a body or bodies to even make a match.”

“Exhume . . . like here?”

“No. From their graves. If they were buried, that is.”

“Ugh. Exhuming a dead body always struck me as the creepiest thing imaginable, and the creepiest job! The poor guy who has to open the coffin—”

“That would be me,” said a heretofore silent member of what Brian was calling the unit.

I said, “Oh, sorry. I’m sure you’re used to it.” The two were methodically crowbarring their way under and across my plywood floor. I asked, “Wouldn’t there be a logical place to find blood? I mean, if someone died falling downstairs, wouldn’t they have bled here?” I pointed to my own feet, a yard from the bottom of the stairs.

“Depends,” Brian said. “Rick over there”—the man waved—“is a blood-splatter expert . . . Guys, it’s five forty-five. Sean has basketball tonight, and I can’t miss another game.”

Excuse me. Blood-splatter expert? Was that not a phrase that stopped any conversation cold? “If you find blood, then what?” I asked. “Are you looking for one person’s blood or several persons’?”

“Faith! Could we just leave it that someone might’ve died here, not accidentally?”

I said, “Okay, fine.” I watched for a minute or two. More patches being photographed and videographed. Samples being bagged and tagged. I asked if they’d found something.

“Maybe.”

I said, “In big cities, or at least on cop shows about big cities, they use a chemical that shows blood even after it’s washed away. They can tell if a washing machine was used to cover up the murderer’s bloody clothes. Even when the cycle is finished.”

“Is that right?” Brian asked. “Imagine that.” He made a little show of tiptoeing to my washing machine, lifting its lid, and peering in. “Just as I thought,” he said. “Let’s read her her rights.”

His partners laughed. I said, “Very droll. Are you going to fix my floor when this is all done?”

“We’ll submit your request to the district attorney,” Brian said.

I addressed the videographer, in case a future jury would be weighing in on my guilt by real estate association. “I just bought this house four months ago. I wasn’t even born when the previous owner might’ve killed someone.”

Brian said, “Very nice. Did everybody hear that?”

Nods.

“It’s almost six,” Brian repeated. “Let’s call it a day.” And to me: “I’m sure I don’t have to ask you not to disturb anything. Don’t even go near it.”

“Who’d want to after knowing what I know?” I said.

“Ten, fifteen more minutes and we’re done,” one of the men said.

I asked if they could drive away without attracting any more attention than they already had. And would it violate protocol if they left through the bulkhead door instead of the scandal-inducing way they came in?





34





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MY BROTHER FORWARDED our mother’s follow-up e-mail: WHY DID YOU TELL ME THAT FAITH’S ROOMMATE IS GAY BECAUSE HE’S NOT IN THE LEAST!!! I SUPPOSE IT WAS YOUR IDEA OF A JOKE, CAN YOU DO DINNER THIS WEEK? LUV, MOM.

She also left a message on my father’s cell phone, no details, just “Call me. It’s about Faith”—alarming him and resulting in a 7:45 a.m. fact-check. Was I okay? Joel? The house, the car, the job?

Even though his call woke me, I answered with a lilt in my voice, rather coyly, Nick asleep next to me, “I’m fine, Dad. More than fine . . .”

Wouldn’t anyone, especially a relieved father, say, “You sound unusually happy, honey. Tell me more.” But his only follow-up was a return to a stickier “You weren’t so fine when I last saw you.”

I slipped out of bed with my phone, grabbed my bathrobe, and crossed the hall to what was now our spare bedroom. “Would that be the lunch where you told me you were in mad love, would be shacking up with a much younger woman and her two brats?” I demanded.

“Sarcasm noted . . . But I gather you’re okay?”

“I’m very okay! My basement, on the other hand, was apparently the scene of a murder or two, which may have been the reason for Mom’s news bulletin.”

“When? Since you closed?”

“No! The previous owner.”

“Murdered?”

“Not the victim—the perp! She had a couple of husbands who died in falls down the cellar steps.”