The electrician walked off the job after inspecting the attic wiring, claiming he’d go bankrupt if they stuck to their bid. The HVAC contractor stepped on a rusted nail protruding up through the subfloor that no one had noticed the day before and had to be rushed to the ER. One of the apprentice carpenters sawed through his ring finger during the third week, claiming he’d seen something lurking in the back hallway.
And then there were the problems with the lights. The bulbs on the third floor would be burning at seven a.m. despite everyone’s claims they’d been turned off. Faulty switches, they said, although no one seemed to believe it. One morning, Max had stood in the attic servants’ quarters frowning at a small set of footprints through the construction dust. Small enough to be a child’s. He studied them for over a minute before scuffing them out with his work boot and snapping off the bathroom light.
Rumors circulated among the workers, spurred on by the accidents and the graffiti they hadn’t removed yet.
Murder House?
A murder happened here.
Really?
Yeah. I heard it was like fifty years ago.
Nah, man. Just some kids OD’d a few years back.
Friend of mine lives on the next block. Told me all about the last owner—said he died of a heart attack right here. Like something scared him to death.
A month into the work, Max stomped up the highfalutin stairs to the second floor, where a very disgruntled plumber was packing up his tools.
“This is bullshit, Max!” the plumber grumbled in his thick eastern European accent. “I clear my whole schedule this week to be here.”
“I know it, Yanni. I’ll make it up to you. We should get this cleared up in a day or two.” Max lit another cigarette and offered one to the older man.
Yanni waved it away with a tremoring hand and tried to straighten the crook in his back, permanently bent from years of crouching over pipes. “Forget it. I withdraw my bid. You’d be smart to do the same. This place.” He opened his arthritic arms toward the ceiling and shook his head. “It’s a money pit. How much you bid on this?”
“I’ll be alright.” Max grinned through the smoke as if to say he’d raked the owners over the coals. He didn’t mention any of his heated phone calls with his home office. Who the fuck only figured in a ten percent contingency? You get that painter on the phone, Lois. I want crack repair included. I’m not paying unit cost on that . . . Tell Phil if he’s got a problem with that, he can kiss the Salinger project goodbye! . . . Good. And throw in a pair of the Indians tickets.
They were over two weeks behind schedule, and the Spielmans had to move in by July 13. Three weeks away. A jackhammer started back up at the other end of the hall. Max startled at the sound but immediately recovered himself. They were chipping up the tile floor in the old master bathroom. Moving the plumbing was costing a mint, but the owners didn’t seem to care. The vibrations of the hammer hummed under their feet as the house quaked. A popping sound burst somewhere beneath their feet. More plaster letting go.
Max sucked on his cigarette and followed Yanni down the staircase and out the front door. In the quiet of the front stoop, he turned to the plumber. “Yanni, I need you back here tomorrow. I can’t trust any of the young guys to handle a house like this. You’re my man. So what’s it gonna take?”
Yanni stared hard at him, then turned toward Lee Road rushing past on the other side of the towering trees. He made a small gesture with his hands, and Max promptly produced a cigarette. After five long puffs, Yanni turned back to him and said, “Twenty-five.”
“Twenty, and you got a deal.”
Yanni chuckled. “This is not a negotiation, Maxwell. Twenty-five. And you must bring in a friend of mine to do a smudging. This house! It wants us out.”
A laugh shook Max’s swollen gut. “A what?”
“Smudging. To calm the wood. There is a bad vibration here, my friend. They feel it.” Yanni motioned to the three men huddled around the hitch of a pickup truck in the driveway, smoking and drinking coffee from Styrofoam cups.
“And what? This friend of yours is going to fix that?”
“It’s a hundred bucks, Maxwell.” Yanni patted the fat man on the cheek. “You think you can afford to not?”
6
The next morning, Yanni’s friend arrived on foot, walking up from the south where the bus and light-rail stations stood on the corner of Lee Road and Van Aken. Max met her on the sidewalk, shook her hand, and handed her an envelope. The woman slid her payment into her large crocheted bag and motioned him away.
She stood in the front yard for ten solid minutes studying the face of the house, not saying a word. The sun hadn’t peeked over the trees yet. A light was burning in one of the third floor windows as usual. The workmen kept their distance, laughing uncomfortably in the driveway, drinking their coffee. A white cat crouched in the hydrangea bush next to the portico. The old woman considered it a moment.
After she’d seen her fill of the outside, she approached the front door. The white cat darted away into the neighbor’s yard.
“May I come in?” she whispered to the wood. She pressed her ear to the doorframe and waited for an answer. The cherub-faced knocker watched her with dead eyes as she stood there listening. The name Rawlingswood could hardly be read on the plate. She traced what was left of the letters with a gnarled thumb.
Satisfied, she opened the door and stepped into the foyer. Red rosin paper covered the oak floorboards. Plastic hung torn from the entrances to the living room on her left and the dining room on her right. She glanced into each room, inspecting the dust, the condition of the walls and ceiling. Walking under the grand staircase into the center hall beyond, her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the old butler’s pantry and breakfast room. Gutted. Demolished. Riddled with holes. The wreckage stood like an open wound in the heart of the house.
“What have they done to you?” she whispered up through the holes in the ceiling. Her quiet voice drifted down the hallway and through the open doors above. “I’m so sorry.” She placed a warm hand on one of the bare timbers for a moment.
From her bag she pulled a tightly packed bundle of dried herbs. She carefully lit one end on fire. A floorboard somewhere far above her shifted.
“No need to worry,” she said softly and blew the flame out, leaving lit embers and a billowing smoke that smelled sweetly of fall and Thanksgiving dinners. She waved the smoldering bundle around the gutted expanse until the reek of men, motor oil, cigarettes, and sawdust was all but gone.
The woman walked the smoke all the way around the stripped pantry and kitchen, weaving the warm, motherly smell like a blanket. Then she carried it back to the front stairs, pausing at a window next to the front door to confirm that the men were staying in their places in the driveway.
Up on the second floor, the bedrooms stood empty and open, molested by men with hammers and snaking wires. Naked and cold. She warmed them each up with the herbs and her soft voice. “Shhh . . .”
A young boy had lived in this one. A lonely girl in that one. A soft song played over and over in the memory of the third. A lullaby. So many sleeping dreams. I’m here, baby. Hush. In the master bedroom at the far end, the walls ached with a sadness that gave the old woman pause. What happened here?