I Still Dream About You

briefcase. “Did you know that eight out of ten of the houses that sold last year were Babs’s listings?”

“I’m not surprised,” said Maggie.

“How does she do it? She’s like a shark: eat and swim, eat and swim.”

As Brenda was busy getting all the papers in order, Maggie happened to glance over her shoulder at the oil portrait hanging above the fireplace. She had seen it several times before, but this was the first time she realized that the man in the portrait was dressed in the same formal Scottish kilt as the skeleton.

“Oh, my God! Brenda, look.”

Brenda looked up. “What?”

“Just turn around; look. Is that what I think it is?”

Brenda looked.

Brenda said nothing, but she stood up and went over and peered more closely. “It’s the same outfit, all right.”

“Are you sure?”

“Oh, yes. Right down to the buckle on the sash.” Brenda turned to Maggie with wide eyes. “Honey, we’ve got Mr. Edward Crocker himself over in storage.”

“But it can’t be him. Mrs. Dalton said he had been lost at sea; they never found him.”

“Well, I can’t help that; the gold plaque right here says ‘Edward Crocker,’ and I don’t know about you, but I’ve got to get out of here. Bones is one thing, but looking at that man when he was alive is another!”

Maggie followed Brenda out of the room, still wondering how a man said to be lost at sea could wind up in a trunk. What next?

Later that afternoon, after Brenda left, Maggie went back into the library and looked at the portrait again. The man in the portrait, who appeared to be at least in his forties, had clear blue eyes, rosy cheeks, and sandy-colored hair and was standing by a tree, with a golf club, in a stiff formal pose. Although he was gazing off into the distance, as she looked closer at the face, she saw something about his expression that intrigued her, a slight softness around the eyes. All she knew about Edward Crocker was what Mrs. Dalton had told her and the things she had read about him in school: that he had been a rich and powerful iron, coal, and steel man and had done a lot for the city. Of course, she couldn’t be a hundred percent sure the skeleton in the trunk was Edward Crocker, but still, there was something in his eyes that made her want to know more about him. “Who was he?” she wondered.

Edward Crocker Begins

1884

FROM THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH, NURSE LETTIE ROSS NEVER LEFT young Edward Crocker’s side. Although she was still very young and pretty, she had no time for suitors. She was on call twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and slept in his room at night. Angus Crocker was terrified of kidnappers. There were ruffians down in the valley that would do anything for money.

As a consequence of his father’s mistrust of strangers, Edward played no games with other boys and mostly stayed indoors. Edward took after his mother’s side and was delicate and prone to colds and fevers, but even so, Angus refused to let Nurse Lettie call in a doctor. He no longer trusted doctors. He had come through many childhood illnesses; so would Edward.

But Lettie, being a trained nurse, did believe in doctors. Her own brother back home in Scotland was studying to become a physician. What Angus didn’t know was that Lettie Ross, passing the child off as her daughter, had dressed little Edward as a girl, and they had visited many a doctor in Birmingham over the years. She would take no chances while typhoid and yellow fever ran so rampant. She had made a secret vow to God that nothing would ever harm this child in her care, and if the child needed medicine, Angus Crocker be damned, the child would have medicine. But other than those occasional visits to doctors and carefully supervised outings to visit the Crocker-Sperry mines and steel mills, Lettie and Edward seldom left the grounds of Crestview. It wasn’t too uncommon. In the rarefied world of the wealthy, in the days of private tutors and private nannies, everything was brought up the mountain to Edward. Private barbers cut his hair; clothes were brought to the home and picked out for him by Nurse Ross. His schooling was conducted at home. He had everything a boy could want, except friends his own age and a loving father. The only real interest Angus seemed to have in Edward was to teach him the business so he would be prepared to take over one day. With no friends and a father who was absent most of the time, Edward’s entire world revolved around Lettie Ross. And for Lettie, who was still young enough to miss her brothers and sisters, Edward was her only companion. They played together, made up games, and had fun together. But then one day, when Edward came of a certain age, they suddenly grew even closer. Edward and Lettie Ross had a sexual secret, a secret that must never be told.

A Hard Sale

Mid-November 2008

MAGGIE SPENT THE NEXT WEEK STUDYING THE MARKET AND thinking about what the asking price for Crestview should be. It was tricky. You couldn’t ask too little or it would be an insult to the house and the neighborhood, and asking too much might cause the house to linger on the market too long. Of course, to her, the house was priceless; nevertheless, she had to put a price on it, and so it officially went on the market at just under $3 million, at $2,800,000-much lower than it would have listed at in a good market, but it was still a fair price. And to Maggie, considering what the brand-new fake Tudor homes out in the new gated communities were going for, it was a bargain; more than a bargain. Crestview was the real thing, not some cheap imitation. To her, the house was a work of art.

But Maggie was afraid that as much as she loved Crestview, it would be a hard sell. These days, everybody wanted the exact same thing: a large family room and kitchen combined, with granite countertops and cherrywood cabinets; every house had to have a home office, walk-in closets, snap-off mullions on the windows for easy cleaning, a jetted tub, a sound system, an outdoor eating area with a built-in grill, a three- or four-car garage, and be near a good school and a shopping mall.

Crestview would have been perfect for Maggie. She didn’t need to be close to a school, and she preferred a separate kitchen. As bad as she was at cooking, the last thing in the world she wanted was someone hanging around and talking to her while she tried to prepare a meal. And she didn’t want to entertain at a breakfast bar; she wanted a real dining table that she could set beautifully with lovely folded napkins. She didn’t want an outdoor grill. Eating outside on paper plates was not her idea of gracious living. But she was obviously in the minority.

Maggie knew that it was also extremely important to market the house correctly. Crestview was not a house where you could just stick up a For Sale sign in the yard. She thought she’d begin by quietly and discreetly making the right people aware that it was available. Maggie decided to forgo the usual realtors’ open house. It would be a waste of time and money, considering that only a handful of agents dealt with high-end listings. But mostly, she didn’t want to have to face Babs Bingington.

Late Tuesday afternoon, after Brenda and Ethel had gone home, Maggie sat down and typed out the brochure to be sent to her “over the mountain” client list. She would try that first.

FIRST TIME ON THE MARKET