In Plain Sight

by Lorena McCourtney

  “My last housekeeper had excellent references. References can be deceiving. I’ve decided to trust my instincts. I have confidence that a person who beats rugs will do a thorough job in other areas of housekeeping.”

  “I see.”

  “You’re rather older than I had in mind …”

  She looked me up and down, as if I were a used refrigerator with a bad dent in the door. But if she thought I was going to supply my age, she was mistaken. Once I arrived at Social Security eligibility, I’d decided further details were unnecessary.

  “But it isn’t heavy work,” she went on. “A cleaning company does the windows.”

  I stood there holding my broom like a grounded witch, rather astonished that I found myself actually considering accepting Leslie Marcone’s unlikely offer. The thought of looking for a job hadn’t even occurred to me. A retired librarian is not a hot item in the employment market. Also, given Sandy’s view of her and what I’d seen already, I wasn’t convinced Leslie Marcone would be an ideal employer.

  But there were several good reasons to seriously consider the job. The top one, of course, was the extra money. I am not on easy street with Social Security and a limited amount of CD interest. I did a quick calculation and came up with the fact that I could earn over three hundred per week for what I did all the time anyway. I had extra time on my hands, and if I didn’t do something I might find myself trapped into quilting.

  But I may as well admit the number one reason I was really considering the job. Plain old curiosity. Rampant curiosity, to be honest.

  This was, however, the woman who had argued with DeeAnn over a two-dollar charge on her bill. Did I want to put up with that nitpicking? I tossed out a challenge. “Fourteen dollars an hour.”

  She split the difference as if she were cutting a diamond. “Twelve-fifty.”

  At the moment I was making $00.00, and I saw visions of healthy donations to several missionary groups I try to help out occasionally, and maybe a trip to visit DeeAnn and Mike in Hawaii. “Okay. I’ll do it.”

  “I’ll be out of town tomorrow. Be at my place at 9:00 on Thursday. Wear quiet shoes. It’s that one.” She pointed to the white-columned mansion across the lake. “The address is 2742 Vintage Road. I’m Leslie Marcone.” She didn’t offer to shake hands.

  I noted that she also didn’t inquire about my transportation or how I planned to handle the matter of leaving my “employer” on such short notice. Not her problem.

  But I was, it seemed, now gainfully employed.

  With Sandy gone, I didn’t have anyone with whom to share my news. On impulse I dug out Dix and Haley’s email address and sent them a message through the computer. I doubted the Braxtons could hack into email, but I wasn’t sure, which was why I hadn’t emailed Dix and Haley before this. I also didn’t tell them where I was, just that I was fine and had taken a job. I asked them to pass the message along to my Madison Street neighbors, Magnolia and Geoff, who were computer-less.

  That night I had a scare. I woke from a sound sleep to hear a strange moaning, a rustle and whisper. If I believed in ghosts, I might think one had just moved in. I didn’t believe in ghosts, of course, but I did believe in Braxtons.

  A rasping or scraping. Perhaps even a grating. And there, wasn’t that a thud? Grating, scraping, thudding Braxtons? It occurred to me that I’d again forgotten to set the security system for the night.

  Sgt. Yates came to mind, but there was no phone on the second floor. I eased out of bed and grabbed the first item I came to on top of the chest of drawers to use for protection until I could reach the phone. I crept out the door and down the hallway toward the sounds, weapon in hand. Rasp. Whisper. Scrape. Then I bumped into one of the mattresses Sandy puts down in the hallway for gymnastics practice, and it fell with a gigantic whoosh.

  I held my breath, waiting for a reaction.

  Another scrape. A softer sound. Breathing? I could feel air coming under the closed door to an unused bedroom. An open window? It would take a long extension ladder, but the Braxtons were nothing if not inventive, so access to a second-story window wasn’t impossible. Cautiously I opened the door. Faint light filtered through the window from the yard light, revealing a tangle of discarded furniture. An old chimney from before the house was remodeled went through the wall here. The wind was blowing, I realized now. Waving branches flickered shadows outside the window.

  I stopped and sorted out the sounds. Vines growing on the back side of the house rustling and scraping against the wall. Wind moaning through the old chimney and slipping around the loose window. A branch whapping against the roof.

  No intruders, just the old house making windy-night noises. And me, wandering on the outskirts of Paranoidville again.

  I went back to my bedroom, stopping along the way to wrestle the mattress upright. I turned on the light, embarrassed to see that I’d grabbed a curling iron as my weapon of defense. What would I have done if I’d actually met an intruder? Curled him into submission? Probably not. But perhaps I could have scared him into flight with threat of a beehive hairdo.

  The following morning, with the windstorm passed over and sunshine blazing, I rummaged around in the shed attached to the garage and found a pair of hand clippers. I attacked the bushes Sgt. Yates had said should be trimmed. A very satisfying job, watching bits of shrubbery fly. No Braxtons were going to hide here!

  Standing back to appraise my work when I finished the last bush just before lunch, I realized I may have overdone it a bit with the clippers. These bushes now had a buzz cut worthy of the Marine Corps. But certainly they’d offer no concealment for Braxtons.

  Then I was really annoyed with myself. Enough with the Braxtons! I’d let them disturb my sleep last night. I’d let them color my attitude toward every stranger. Because of them, I’d scalped these poor shrubs down to baseball size.

  Yes, I was hiding out here, but I was not going to let the Braxtons monopolize my life. Braxtons, be gone!

  After a fruit and yogurt lunch, during which I contemplated Leslie Marcone’s remark that she would be away for the day, I came up with a perfectly sensible reason to take a jaunt over to Vintage Road. I wouldn’t want to get lost tomorrow morning and be late for my first day of work, would I?

  Vintage Road was paved and turned out to be easy to find—the specific number, 2742, less so. Most of the estates had imaginative and impressive address markings. Numbers burned in rustic wood, etched in bronze on a plaque across a wagon wheel, printed on a heart-shaped sign held aloft by a fiberglass bear. Some places had names: Hickory Acres. Barringer House. Digby’s Retreat. But the only identification on 2742 consisted of tiny white numbers painted on a black mailbox by a wrought iron gate—no name. Just beyond that was a glossy No Trespassing, Violators Will Be Prosecuted sign.

  Now I understood why, if the man with binoculars was trying to get a look at Leslie Marcone’s place, he’d done it from across the lake. From here, all that was visible of the house were some indistinct splotches of white through a tangle of trees and vines and brush, apparently native growth left in place when the house was built.

  Across the road a man wearing a protective white mask was attacking vegetation along the road ditch with a noisy weed eater. I uneasily wondered if this was the ill-tempered gate rammer, but his back was to me, and I didn’t have to pass him to turn in at the asphalt driveway on Leslie’s place. So, hopefully, he wouldn’t notice me. A stand of pretty spring flowers disappeared under the roaring machine as I watched.

  A gate barred the driveway, and, confirming what Sgt. Yates had said, it looked new. At least eight feet high, spiked on top, and anchored by impressive brick gateposts, it appeared to have a system where you had to either punch proper numbers for entry into a pad or speak into an intercom box so someone inside could release an electronic lock. The long driveway went straight down toward the water, apparently to the disputed boat landing. A ribbon of asphalt curved off to the right, circling the house. I already knew the house faced the
lake.

  The gate appeared to be more precautionary than high security, however, designed primarily to keep unwelcome vehicles out. The white boards of the fence angling away from the gate would be easy enough to crawl through.

  I was strongly tempted to do that. After all, this was my new place of employment, and the no trespassing surely didn’t apply to me. Shouldn’t I become familiar with the grounds? While I was still considering that, however, a mechanical apparition suddenly appeared at my window. I jumped so hard the seat belt almost cut off my breathing.

  I touched my throat when the apparition, which I now realized was the working end of a weed eater, was replaced by a florid face with sour lines that sagged into heavy jowls. The protective mask now dangled on an elastic cord around the man’s neck.

  Warily I rolled down the window a few inches.

  “You the lawyer from Little Rock?” he demanded through the narrow opening.

  If he hadn’t just scared the wits out of me, I might have been less tart with him. As it was, I snapped, “Do I look like a lawyer from Little Rock?”

  “Well, no,” he acknowledged. He also apparently hadn’t noticed my Missouri license plates. “But that Marcone woman said she was hiring a woman lawyer who was gonna sue the shirt off my back.”

  The shirt off his back hardly looked worth suing for. It was grass-stained denim, his equally grass-stained work pants held up by a length of dirty cord. However, assuming he owned property here in Vintage Estates, even if it wasn’t one of the pricier waterfront places, he must be better fixed financially than the clothing would indicate.

  Just to be certain who he was, I said, “And you are … ?”

  “A neighbor. Milo Eagan. Been here for thirty years, long before all these people with more money than sense moved in.

  The owner here and I have had some … ah … differences.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “I’ve already paid for her new gate.” He shot the offending metal barrier a baleful glance. “But she says I caused her mental anguish and stress and all that baloney.”

  “I see. Well, I hope everything works out satisfactorily.” I wanted to maintain a neutral status. If he’d attack a gate with a pickup, maybe he’d take on a Thunderbird with a weed eater.

  “I don’t know who you are, lady, but whatever dealings you got with this barracuda, watch out,” he growled.

  “I’m the new housekeeper. I was just … locating the address today.”

  “Maybe you oughta find out what happened to the last housekeeper,” he suggested darkly.

  I changed my mind about an excursion beyond the gate and put the car in gear. “It’s been nice meeting you,” I said brightly.

  “Shyster lawyers aren’t the only way to settle things,” he muttered and strode away, weed eater roaring to life again when he reached the far side of Vintage Road. Another stand of purple flowers bit the dust.

  And I drove home, wondering, What did happen to the last housekeeper?

  7

  I wasn’t certain what Leslie Marcone meant about “quiet shoes,” but my brown oxfords had never made any impertinent remarks, so I hoped they would be satisfactory.

  I allowed myself plenty of time and arrived at 2742 Vintage Road at 8:50. I waited seven minutes before getting out and approaching the intercom box. Instinct told me Leslie Marcone would rank lateness down there with slothfulness, but for all I knew perhaps she would find earliness equally objectionable. I was relieved that Milo Eagan and his formidable weed eater did not jump out of the bushes at me.

  I spoke into the box and identified myself. The box didn’t answer, but after a few moments the gate swung open. I drove through. The gate closed behind me. I squelched the uneasy image of a dungeon gate clanging shut.

  The long driveway wasn’t steep, except for a sharp dip at the bottom near the water, but a careless or disoriented driver might easily barrel directly into the lake. Especially with that boathouse, which looked uncannily like a shrunken-head version of the main house. I took the loop that went around the house, parked in back under a dark pine, and rang a bell. A fairly long interval passed before Leslie Marcone opened the door. Here at home she was in a blue cable-knit sweater that almost shouted an expensive price tag, but her faded, baggy jeans and scruffy slippers looked more like Goodwill discards.

  “If this arrangement proves satisfactory, I’ll provide you with a remote control for the gate, and you may enter the house by this door without ringing the bell so as not to disturb me. I’ll have it unlocked for you.”

  She led the way into the kitchen, which, in contrast to the untended jungle between the house and road, was almost surgically sterile. Spotless white cabinets with the narrowest of gold trim, gray granite countertops, an enormous central work island surrounded by a pale hardwood floor. No colorful decorations, no bright curtains at the windows, not a live green plant in sight. Not even a phony plant, for that matter.

  I wasn’t certain I could operate the enormous kitchen stove. It looked as if it might require an engineering degree. I wondered where the refrigerator was located, since I couldn’t see one. Leslie opened a side door into what I’d call a pantry, although architects may give it some more upscale name now. The shelves were almost bare. Leslie Marcone obviously was not a worried survivalist stocking up for coming disasters.

  She led me farther into the house while outlining my duties. I would daily vacuum the areas of the house in regular use; once a week would suffice for the unused rooms. She waved a hand toward a grandly curved staircase, the only part of the interior of the house that truly seemed to go with the Southern-plantation exterior. Apparently the unused rooms were up there somewhere.

  “You are not, under any circumstances, to answer the phone,” she said sternly. “If it rings and I don’t answer it, just let it ring.”

  A bit peculiar, but none of my business. I also didn’t see any proliferation of phones to ring.

  The floors were all bare hardwood, not even a throw rug. I now saw the point of quiet, non-squeaking shoes. Those hardwood floors were to be waxed every two weeks, kitchen floor waxed at least twice a week, equipment for waxing purposes in a utility room off the kitchen. The living room furniture was mostly white leather, the draperies a pale peach. No bright throw pillows. A huge, sterile-looking fireplace was also white. A few paintings, which appeared to have been chosen mostly for their size and wall-covering capability rather than their generic landscape content, decorated the walls. An enormous chandelier made of dangling spears of crystal hung over a bleached oak dining table with matching chairs for twelve. A railed balcony overhung the living room. The ceiling was so far away I wanted to cup a hand around my mouth and call “Yoo-hoo, anyone up there?”

  The far side of the lake was visible through the expanse of windows, but I couldn’t pick out DeeAnn’s house. Its earthy coloring and shake roof did not stand out from the woodsy setting like the plantation white of this house did from the other side of the lake.

  The master bedroom did have carpet. White, of course. A quilted satin bedspread in ice blue covered the king-sized bed. The bed was unmade, although its unmussed state suggested that Leslie didn’t churn around in her sleep the way I did. I wondered if the sheets were also satin. I’d soon find out, because Leslie informed me that the sheets should be changed twice a week, starting today. The walk-in closet would make roomy quarters for a dozen homeless people. And the white-and-gold, marble-floored bathroom with whirlpool tub would do nicely for communal bathing and showering.

  “I bought the place already furnished and decorated,” Leslie said with a small furrowing of brow, and I couldn’t tell if she was apologizing or congratulating herself. I was also coming to the conclusion that she wasn’t really familiar with household staff and their duties. Her attitude was definitely imperial, but there was also a certain defiance in it, something that said “This may not be the way you’ve seen it done in other rich households, but this is how I want it done.”


  I thought about inquiring about the former housekeeper, but I decided that was probably none of my business and confined my questions to work duties. I didn’t see any braided rugs that needed beating, so it seemed my talents in that area were superfluous.

  One room surprised me. Here, dramatic hunter green drapes decorated the windows, and dark shelves lined the walls. A library, obviously. The shelves were bare, but dozens of boxes of books were stacked around the room and on the dark mahogany, library-style table. I wondered if Leslie had done what I understand some people who have more money than literary preferences do: buy books by the yard to fill up their shelves.

  “My father’s library,” she said, relieving me of that unkind suspicion. “I inherited it a couple of years ago. Books were his passion.”

  Something in her tone gave me an unexpected vision of a lonely child ignored by a father who preferred books to little girls.

  In a rare moment of uncertainty she frowned and added, “I haven’t decided exactly what to do with the books or how they should be organized and shelved. There’s a master list of the titles and authors around here somewhere. Some of them are trash, but a few are worth a fair amount of money.”

  “Perhaps I can help.” I surreptitiously peered at a title visible in an open box. Jack London’s White Fang. Very old looking. Maybe even a first edition! I felt a surge of excitement. “I was a librarian up in Missouri for some thirty years before my retirement.”

  “Oh? Well, we’ll see. Your housekeeping duties come first.”

  I caught the translation: don’t waste time in here with books when the toilet bowl needs cleaning.

  “Did I mention that you may take a fifteen-minute break at midmorning?”

  “Thank you. Do you like to read?”

  “I read some useful nonfiction occasionally, but I’ve never been the reader my father was. I consider novels a waste of time. And these paperbacks certainly aren’t worth bothering with.”

  She picked a John Grisham out of a box of paperbacks and flicked through the pages with disdainful scorn. She tossed the book back in the box. Obviously we wouldn’t be discussing my favorite mystery authors. We moved on.