House Wrecking Read online

  Claire and Brian were due back in Connecticut at Jeff’s new house in Milford around dinner time and would stay for the weekend. Jeff had moved a week earlier into the house partially funded with his half of the bootleg money. The kids were excited to see their rooms in Jeff’s new house and Lauren vowed to say nothing negative, but her resolve to maintain good behavior faulted slightly when she drove down Ocean Avenue in Milford and caught a startling view of the long Island sound looming in front of her at the end of Jeff’s street. She pulled herself together and gathered the kid’s bags from the minivan trailing them up the front walkway. A self-satisfied smile crept over her face when they stepped inside and she realized what a fixer-upper the sparsely furnished house was. She felt a little badly when she realized that it would likely stay this way unless he found a young lady with domestic skills. She kissed the kids goodbye and headed home.

  Exhausted from her day in the city, Lauren fell asleep after two glasses of wine and awoke early the next morning. She’d a big day and a bigger night ahead of her. While she’d heard the idiom many times before, she got out of bed convinced that today was the first day of the rest of her life. She didn’t bother showering. It was going to be a dirty job, but one that needed to be done. The movers were coming at nine o’clock and she’d better get it together. She threw on a pair of jeans, a sweatshirt and sneakers. She’d lost ten pounds over the past six months with her worry over the lawsuit and the divorce. She added an additional five pounds to the total lost when she began to fall in love with Ben, and the jeans and sweatshirt hung off her tall, bony frame with room to spare. She gathered her thick mane of dark hair into a pony tail, washed her face and headed down to the basement; stopping on the way to make a pot of coffee.

  The first thing Lauren did after crossing through the office and turning on the basement lights was to open up the spidery bulkhead which bathed the basement in the fresh fall air and natural light. She opened the heavy door to the old stone steps and used her flashlight to guide her into the hidden room, turning on the two lamps left there. She got to work immediately, rolling up the oriental runner which ran between the two rows of stacked furniture and repositioning it upstairs in the hallway between her dining room and bath. She made two piles of the remaining furniture. The two Chippendale chairs and the chess set went in her pile for the movers to bring upstairs and settle in the tower surrounded by the five windows. She had a perfect Fichus tree to position behind them and added a few other miscellaneous tables and chairs she envisioned would fill in the few remaining nooks and crannies of the house. In the other pile, she added the remaining pieces of furniture she would ask the movers to load into the minivan for her to bring over to Jeff’s for his new house.

  At eight thirty, Lauren stepped back and examined the two piles of furniture. She returned to the hidden room and tried to drag the hope chest out into the open space to examine its contents, but it was stuck. Between the legs was a rolled rug that was preventing the hope chest from moving forward. She cleared the space to the right of the hope chest and dragged the carpet a few inches in that direction. It was heavier than expected and she had to use all her strength to free it from the confined space. In the center of the room, the light of the lamps fully illuminated the carpet, revealing four skeletal fingers grasping the edge.

  Lauren stood back, her heart racing. She forced herself to take three deep breaths, inhaling the full pungency of the smell that had lingered in the basement in the previous months and knowing that beyond those fingers, lay the body of the boy who had been missing since the turn of the century. She took a step closer and examined the fingers. The head of the missing knight from the chess set was just visible beneath the thin bones.

  She ran upstairs to phone the police, and then quickly returned, strangely nervous to leave him alone. When the two officers took one look at the skeleton fingers and the bulkiness of the rug, they called for back-up. Within thirty minutes, the cellar was swarming with four more uniformed officers and a plain clothes female detective named Margaret Deen. She suggested that they speak upstairs while the body was removed to the medical examiner’s office. Confident that the boy was in good hands, she gladly led Margaret to the second floor living room and offered her coffee.

  “Can you tell me how you found the skeleton,” Margaret asked.

  “I was cleaning out the room, which we just found a few weeks ago….”

  “Wait, what do you mean you just found the room a few weeks ago?”

  “I think it was intended as a secret room when the house was built. I found a strange latch and my friend; Ben - he’s a mason - used some tools to release it. Turns out that the latch released a door to this secret room.

  “Okay…”

  “It had a lot of art and stuff, which is at the Yale Art Museum now and some money. We didn’t notice the rug when we first found the room. I was cleaning out the rest of the room today, but when I tried to move the hope chest, it was stuck on the rug. So I pulled it out and that’s when I saw the fingers.

  “I see. How long have you lived here?”

  “Just since last summer.” Lauren handed Margaret the newspaper clipping. “I found this when I moved in. It may help explain things.”

  After exchanging contact information, the police left. She’d forgotten all about the movers she’d arranged until they arrived promptly at one and she supervised the removal of the hope chest into their truck. They helped her load up the other pieces into her minivan and followed her to Beverly’s house in Seymour. After the movers carefully positioned the chest in a spot she’d cleared on the far wall of the dining room, she tipped them and sent them on their way. Before Lauren left, she penned a note to Beverly and left it on the chest.

  Hi Mom,

  I hope this note finds you home from a relaxing and reflective trip abroad. I know you didn’t want anything from the secret room, but I felt you should have this. I’m not sure which of “our” relatives collected the contents of this chest; maybe there are clues inside. Since it’s all we have left, I thought you should have it.

  I love you always,

  Lauren

  Retrieving Beverly

  On Monday, March 16, 1946, Steven and Emily set out together to open the store at eight o’clock. Elizabeth attended school and usually worked only Saturdays. But when Emily called her yesterday, she said she would be glad for the extra hours and would be in at nine. When they arrived, Steven wondered around, touching the various items behind the counter.

  “Not much has changed in the last few years,” he said.

  “I haven’t had much time to change things. It needs a lot of work. Folks don’t want the same things they used to. They go to the larger markets now. They keep asking for stuff we don’t carry.” Emily taped the apartment for rent sign to the front window.

  “Like what?”

  “Nails, garden supplies, things to set up a home.”

  “Hum.”

  When Elizabeth arrived, she eyed Steven quizzically. Emily didn’t bother introducing him. They donned their coats and dashed out the door, Emily leading the way toward East Rock.

  They practically skipped down Whalley Avenue. It was a cool and Sunny day. Patches of leftover snow remained on the lawns, but most had melted and spring was in the air. They talked about what they would do as a family – vacation on Martha’s Vineyard. They would share time at the store, leaving someone to always care for Mary. If need be, they would bring her and she could play in the room in the back. They should buy toys for the store - perhaps blocks and dolls. They’d need more toys for home. Emily hoped Mary might come with a few things from Dorothy’s house. What would they do for clothes? Emily questioned. Of course Mary had clothes to bring with her until they went shopping, Steven reassured her.

  Their pace picked up when they turned onto Nash Street. Emily hesitated, trying to remember which house it was. She’d been there once before, but it had been dark. The rows of houses all appeared similar.

  “Sure
ly, one must look familiar,” Steven said.

  “Give me a minute, I’m trying to remember.”

  When a young mother approached with her daughter, Emily asked if she knew which house belonged to Dorothy.

  “It’s that one.” the young woman pointed to a gray shingled row house with a sagging front porch. “But you won’t find them there,” she tossed over her shoulder. “Packed up and moved out on Saturday – the whole lot of em.”

  Dorothy and Steven glanced at each other and started up the stairs. The front door was locked and they could see through the windows - the rooms were bare. Not a toy or sock remained in the front parlor or the dining area behind. They dashed to the other side of the porch. The children’s bedroom was also swept clean.

  “Where could they have gone?” Emily asked, her voice shaking.

  “I don’t know. Let’s ring the bell and see if one of the neighbors knows.”

  After five minutes of incessant ringing, a voice called out from the porch above.

  “What do you want?”

  They stepped off the porch to see a middle-aged woman in hair curlers and house coat leaning over the second floor rail.

  “We’re looking for Dorothy Packer and her family,” Emily said.

  “They moved on Saturday.”

  “Yes, we can see that. Do you know where they might have gone?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Is there someone else around here whom she might have told where she was going?"

  “How should I know?” the woman responded before heading back into her apartment.

  Emily and Steven rang every other bell on the street. Most produced no response. The few people they spoke with offered no information. When they left Nash Street hours later, the sky had begun to cloud over and rain threatened.

  First Date

  It took Lauren most of the day to clean and appoint the remaining pieces of odd furniture throughout her house. When she finally glanced at the clock on the stove in the kitchen, she realized she better get in the shower - it was time to get ready for her date. Given the earlier activities of the day, she considered cancelling her date, but she’d waited so long to have this night with Ben. The thought of prolonging her anticipation, even for one more evening, was more than she could stand.

  She took a long, hot shower and shaved every part of her body, including her under arms and her long dark legs. She tidied the mass of hair between her legs, chastising herself for her vanity, but knowing she’d be glad later that she’d attended to it later. She shampooed and conditioned her long, dark hair and towel dried it. She thought it dried best naturally, but this process usually took over an hour. She smoothed foundation into her face, applied a long-lasting lip stain and expanded her already blue eyes with a coat of mascara which she’d dug out from an old basket in the linen closet. With frequent checks to make sure her hair was drying appropriately, she pulled on a black, lace thong, a new black lace camisole, a long black silk skirt and a thin, crocheted sweater that tied in front. She slipped on her new, short black boots and sat at the window with a glass of wine waiting for Ben to arrive, getting up frequently to check her hair and make-up. By the time he rang the bell promptly at seven o’clock, her hair was thankfully dry and hung in loose ringlets down her shoulders and back.

  Lauren had been hesitant to go out on a date with Ben until she was appropriately situated. She decided appropriate could not possibly occur until the divorce was final. Due mostly to Jeff’s inability to complete the paperwork, the divorce wasn’t finalized until last week. Since the day they’d met, three months earlier in July, Ben and Lauren had been talking on the phone regularly – two or three times a week, for hours at a time. Those months seemed like a lifetime to Lauren.

  With the kids at Jeff’s every other weekend, Lauren permitted herself to go over to Ben’s apartment one night a few weeks earlier. She was so attracted to him by this interval in their relationship, she refused the wine he offered for fear she would lose her inhibition and rip off his clothes. With a sparkling water in hand, they chatted for hours. Tonight, she was divorced; there would be wine.

  They were both separately invited by Crystal to attend the opening of the new nineteenth century art exhibit at the Yale museum. Lauren was hesitant to go because she knew Baxter’s parents would be there to say a few words in the name of their late son. Lauren had never met Baxter’s parents, as the whole transaction had been negotiated between and among their attorneys. Ben didn’t want to go because he generally avoided his ex-wife unless absolutely necessary. After much discussion between the two of them, they decided to “drop in” briefly before they went out for dinner at Sage.

  Lauren caught Ben up on the her basement findings on their way to the Museum. When they arrived seeing the paintings displayed among other works of the time amplified their beauty, and she was distracted and gratified to witness the crowd of people admiring them, as if the loss of the boy had gained a purpose. Their anonymity was uncovered briefly by Crystal who sought them out, kissing them both on the cheek and thanking them again, before she worked the rest of the room. Baxter’s parent’s strutted around proudly like peacocks. They’d obviously invited many friends and relatives to the opening of their “collection.” When Baxter’s father began boasting their bequest in the name of his wonderful son, who he didn’t mention was institutionalized for most of his life, Lauren and Ben escaped.

  They ordered a bottle of wine and Ben found Lauren’s thigh under the table. They rushed through the rest of their meal, and skipped dessert. When they reached the car, Ben pressed up against Lauren, pinning her between him and the door of the car. It was there they had their first kiss, and it was a good one.

  They drove back to Ben’s apartment and went straight to the bedroom. Ben closed the door and lit one candle on the far side of the bed. He began to undress Lauren, untying the sweater and lifting the black silk camisole over her head. She kicked off her boots and unbuttoned his shirt, pulling it down his arms and exposing the chest she’d fantasized over. He slipped her skirt over her slender hips. The intensity of his attention forced her to swallow her vulnerability as she stood in the candlelight in her black, lace thong. He kept his eye on her as he removed his pants – like he was admiring a fine painting.

  “You’re so beautiful,” he said.

  Lauren didn’t know what to say. In all their years together, she couldn’t recall Jeff ever saying this to her. “Thank you,” she replied.

  He smiled and stepped closer. Resting one hand on her back and another around her waist, he kissed her and lowered her onto the edge of the bed. They laid kissing, while he lightly ran his hand over every part of her, touching her feet and calves, her knees and thighs. He lingered over the prominent bones of her hip. While she thought he would go immediately to the space between her legs, or at least her breasts, he avoided these area, as if he needed every part of him to mix with her, before he had the right to go further.

  He settled his hand in the hollow of her stomach, moving his thumb across the skin while they continued to kiss. She drank in the smell of him. Why wasn’t he already inside her? Was he worried about birth control? “I’m on the pill,” she said.

  He didn’t appear to notice or care and kept kissing and touching her. She was falling off the bed, and tried to shimmy towards the pillows.

  He stopped kissing her and said. “Wrap your arms around me, I’ll move us.” With her entire weight in one arm, he scooped her up and lifted her onto the pillows. No one had ever carried Lauren before and Ben did it so easily, as if it the most natural thing for him to do. When he eventually entered her, she wanted him to stay inside her forever.

  ***

  A week later Lauren called Margaret.

  “Hi Margaret, It’s Lauren Serra. The woman who found the skeleton in the basement....”

  “Of course. Lauren, I’m so sorry, I’ve been meaning to call you. I have the results of the medical examiner’s report. Looks like an adolescent male
, around the age of 14 at the time of death. The cause was likely a skull fracture.

  “Oh no.”

  “Actually, the medical examiner doesn’t look like it was it was perpetrated through foul play – maybe a a fall or other bad bump on the head.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “The age of corpse since death was consistent with your newspaper report, which I verified. Actually, my grandfather was the policie officer who investigated the case. the case. He passed away a few years ago, but my father said he never stopped looking for the boy. Used to drag my dad all over the city to follow-up on leads provided by Thomas’s sister.”

  “Your grandfather investigated the case” That’s amazing and strangely coincidental.”

  “That’s what I was thinking too. I believe he’s looking down on me now, happy to finally close the case.”

  “Is that what happens now?

  Given that he was found in his own home, that’s it. We’re gonna close the case.”

  Lauren hung up the phone, happy to close the case in her own mind as well.