“And you’re checking up on the children while their mama’s away?”
There was also no doubt Eileen wasn’t happy with the idea of the boss’s daughter “checking up.”
“Just wanted to see that the building was still standing,” I said lightly. “But I do have a realty question to ask.”
Mackie Knight, a young black realtor Mother had just taken on, came in just then with clients, a pair of newlyweds I recognized since their picture had been in the paper the same day Mother and John’s had been. The couple looked a little dazed, and were arguing in a weary way between a house on Macree and a house on Littleton. Safely ahead of them, Mackie rolled his eyes at us as they passed through.
“He’s working out good,” Eileen said absently. “The younger couples don’t mind having a black realtor, and the black clients love it. Now, you said you had a realty question?”
“Yes, I do. What are houses in the area right around the junior high selling for?”
Patty and Eileen snapped to attention. This was Business.
“How many bedrooms?”
“Ah-two.”
“Square footage?”
“Maybe fourteen hundred.”
“A house on Honor in that area just sold,” Eileen said promptly. “Just a minute and I’ll look that up.”
She marched back to her desk, her high heels making little thumps on the carpet. I followed her through the unobtrusively attractive gray and blue halls to her office, second in size only to Mother’s. It had probably been the second best bedroom. Mother had what had been the master bedroom, and the kitchen had the copying machine and a little snack area. The other rooms were much smaller and occupied by Mother’s lesser minions. Eileen’s desk was aggressively busy, papers everywhere, but they were in separate stacks, and she doubtless was capable of juggling many balls at a time.
“Honor, Honor,” she muttered. She must have been looking up the price of the little house Arthur and Lynn had bought. Her ringed fingers flipped expertly through a stack of listings. “Here we go,” she murmured. “Fifty-three,” she said more loudly. “Are you interested in buying or selling?”
I could tell Eileen was no longer concerned with my blue jeans and messy braid.
“Maybe selling. I inherited the house right across the street from that house you’re looking at now.” I nodded at the listing sheet.
“Really,” Eileen said, staring. “You? Inherited?”
“Yes.”
“And you may want to sell the house instead of living in it?”
“Yes.”
“Is the house paid for by the previous owner? The owner doesn’t owe any money on it, I mean?”
“No, it’s paid for.” I thought I remembered Bubba Sewell telling me that. Yes, I did. Jane had been paying on the house until her mother died, when she’d had the cash to complete buying it in one whack.
“You have a completely free house and you don’t want it? I would’ve thought a two bedroom was just the right size for you. Not that I wouldn’t love to list it for you,” Eileen said, recalled to her senses.
A frail, pretty woman in her late thirties stuck her head in. “Eileen, I’m off to show the Youngman house, if you’ve got the key handy,” she said with a teasing smile.
“Idella! I can’t believe I did it again!” Eileen hit her forehead with the heel of her hand, but very lightly so as not to smear her makeup.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had company,” the woman continued.
“Idella, this is Aurora Teagarden, Aida’s daughter,” Eileen said, rummaging through her purse. “Aurora, you may not know Idella Yates yet? She came in with us earlier this year.”
While Idella and I exchanged nice-to-meet-you’s, Eileen kept up with her search. Finally she unearthed a key with a large label attached. “Idella, I’m sorry,” Eileen boomed. “I don’t know why I don’t remember to put the keys back on the keyboard. That seems to be one thing I cannot remember. We’re supposed to put them back on the main keyboard, that Patty watches, every time we use a key to show a house,” Eileen explained to me. “But for some reason, I just cannot get it through my head.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Idella said sweetly, and with a nod to me she left to go show the house. She did glance at her watch rather pointedly as she left, letting Eileen know that, if she was late to meet her client, Eileen was the one to blame.
Eileen sat staring after Idella with a curiously uneasy look on her face. Eileen’s face was only used to positive emotions, emerging full-blown. Something like “uneasy” sat very oddly on her strong features.
“There’s something funny about that woman,” Eileen said abruptly and dismissively. Her face fell back into more familiar lines. “Now, about that house-do you know things like how old the roof is, whether it’s on city water, how old the house itself is? Though I think all the houses in that area were built about nineteen fifty-five or so. Maybe some in the early sixties.”
“If I make up my mind definitely, I’ll get all that information,” I promised, wondering how on earth I’d find out about the roof. I might have to go through every one of Jane’s receipts, unless perhaps one of her neighbors might remember the roofing crew. Roofing crews usually made their presence felt. A vagrant thought crossed my mind. What if one of the houses was older than it appeared, or had been built on the site of a much older home? Maybe there was a basement or a tunnel under one of the houses where the body had been until it had been tossed into the weeds at the end of the street?
Admittedly this was a pretty stupid idea, and when I asked Eileen about it she dismissed it as it deserved. “Oh, no,” she said briskly, beginning to shake her head before I even finished my sentence. “What a strange notion, Roe. That area is much too low for basements, and there wasn’t anything there before the junior high was built. It was timberland.”
Eileen insisted on walking me out of the office. I decided it was because I was a potential client, rather than because I was Aurora Teagarden. Eileen was not a toady.
“Now, when is your mother coming back?” she asked.
“Oh, soon, sometime this week. She wasn’t definite. She just didn’t want to call in to the office; maybe she was scared if she talked to one of you she’d just get to talking about work. She was just using me as a messenger to you all.” All of the other offices that I passed were busy or showed signs of work in progress. Phones were ringing, papers were being copied, briefcases were being packed with paperwork.
For the first time in my life, I wondered how much money my mother had. Now that I didn’t need it anymore, I was finally curious. Money was something we never talked about. She had enough for her, and did her kind of thing-expensive clothes, a very luxurious car (she said it impressed clients), and some good jewelry. She didn’t play any sport; for exercise she had installed a treadmill in one of the bedrooms of her house. But she sold a lot of real estate, and I assumed she got a percentage from the sales of the realtors she employed. I was very fuzzy on how that worked, because I’d just never thought it was my business. In a moment I was not too proud of, I wondered if she’d made a new will now that John and she had married. I frowned at myself in the rearview mirror as I sat at a stoplight.
Of course, John already had plenty of money of his own, and he had two sons…
I shook my head impatiently, trying to shake those bad thoughts loose. I tried to excuse myself by reasoning that it was really no wonder that I was will- and death-conscious lately, or for that matter that I was more than usually interested in money matters. But I wasn’t happy with myself, so I was quicker to be displeased when I pulled into the driveway of the house on Honor to find Bubba Sewell waiting for me.
It was as if I’d conjured him up by thinking about him.
“Hello,” I said cautiously as I got out of the car. He got out of his and strode over to me.
“I took a chance on finding you here. I called the library and found out you were off today.”
“Yes, I don’t work every day,” I said unnecessarily. “I came to check on the kittens.”
“Kittens.” His heavy eyebrows flew up behind his glasses.
“Madeleine came back. She had kittens in the closet in Jane’s room.”
“Have Parnell and Leah been over here?” he asked. “Have they given you much trouble?”
“I think Parnell feels we’re even now that I have four kittens to find homes for,” I said.
Bubba laughed, but he didn’t sound like he meant it.
“Listen,” he began, “the county bar association dinner-dance is next weekend and I wondered if you would go
