Laura Lippman - Baltimore Noir

“I wonder what the walls in Ivan’s room would say.” Hodder changed his voice to a sly, light chirp. “Welcome, little big man! We’d like to teach you how to bowl!”

Jeannie put down her fork, because the truth was, she’d sometimes thought she heard a rolling sound when she was in the kitchen. “Why did you mention bowling?”

“Didn’t I ever tell you? That series of rooms in the basement-the au pair suite, if you ever get one-used to be a bowling alley. The first family had it installed for their entertainment.”

“You mean underneath the kitchen?”

Hodder cocked his head to one side, as if he was tracing the house’s floor plan in his mind. “Yes. Right underneath.” Jeannie nodded and went back to eating. “Interesting.”

“Will you put it back to its original use?” Hodder’s eyes gleamed. “You might be able to get a tax credit for that, through the Maryland Historic Trust.”

“No, the last thing I need in my life is a bowling alley.” Jeannie laughed weakly. The whole thing seemed preposterous, given that she’d grown up in a working class town where the bowling alley was where you went on dates as a teenager. To think that the people in Goodwood Gardens bowled in private-it made her mind spin.

“Hmm. It seems that you do have the energy to go after minute weeds that nobody would ever notice under all that old boxwood.”

“Come on, little weeds grow into trees! How do you think the boxwood got that big?” Jeannie felt suddenly defensive.

“Is everything okay?” Hodder’s voice softened. “I recall how, when you were looking at the house with Charlie, he was a little more gung ho than you were. But I honestly thought you loved the house. I would never have agreed to sell it to you if I thought anything different.”

Emboldened by the champagne, Jeannie sputtered, “Come on, do you mean to make me believe that you would turn down two million in cash because you thought one of the partners wasn’t quite there?”

“Touché! I didn’t know you had such fire in you.” Hodder sighed. “You’re right. Who am I to say I didn’t want to make the deal? But now you’re making me feel like a bastard.”

“I know it’s a great house.” Jeannie looked at Ivan, who was pulling at the tablecloth as if he was having as bad a time as his mother. “Still, my gut says that it’s just a bit too… over-the-top. For me, anyway.”

“Just like you, my dear, are over-the-top,” Hodder said, taking an undisguised, lingering glance at Jeannie’s bosom before sliding his hand over hers. “But in the words of the Romantics song-that’s what I like about you.”

Was this how he did it? Jeannie wondered wretchedly, hours later, as she rinsed the dinner dishes while Charlie tucked Ivanhoe into bed in the nursery on the floor above. Was this why all those people moved out within a year or two of buying because Hodder preyed on the sexual insecurity of the wives and made them want to leave their husbands? Jeannie didn’t want to leave Charlie. Her husband was devoted o Ivanhoe, an excellent provider, a considerate lover-so what if he never read books? He knew lots of SAT words, a definite sign of intelligence. And though Hodder was certainly handsome, Jeannie believed from his manner and dress that he was gay, or at the very least bisexual, and what girl wanted to deal with that in this day and age?

What had really given Jeannie chills, she decided, hadn’t been Hodder’s fingers lightly stroking the back of her hand before she’d belatedly pulled it away. It was what he’d said a few minutes earlier about the bowling alley. She’d heard the rolling sound, usually late, when she’d come downstairs to put her cocoa cup in the dishwasher.

During those times, Jeannie had never opened the basement door. She’d always loathed the actresses in horror movies who heard the omens of their upcoming death, yet still went down to investigate. Jeannie wasn’t going into that basement no matter how many track lights were on.

On Saturday evening, Jeannie arranged for Fernanda, her neighbor’s housekeeper, to stay with Ivan, because Charlie had bought a table at a gala for the Maryland Historical Society, and he needed her there. Charlie had summoned a salesclerk from Octavia over to Goodwood Gardens with an armload of potential evening dresses, so Jeannie would have no excuse about not having the right kind of dress for an October function in Baltimore. The perfect dress proved to be a floor-length hunter-green silk charmeuse, cut on the bias and decorated with elaborate crystal beading. It had a high halter neckline and Jeannie hadn’t thought the gown was that provocative, but knew she was wrong when Hodder Reeves passed the two of them and ran his fingers down her bare back while he greeted the couple.

“What was he doing to your back?” Charlie demanded, sotto voce, after Hodder was gone.

“I didn’t ask for it,” Jeannie said under her breath, as they were mercifully interrupted by an elegant white-haired dowager already sitting at the table.

“What a pretty dress. I see everyone’s admiring it, including that crazy Hodder Reeves. I’m Hortense Underwood, by the way.”

“Charles and Jeannie Connelly,” Charlie said, reaching out a hand to her and slipping back into his happy, social personality. “We’re new in town, and this is our first time at the Historical Society gala. How about you?”

“Oh, I’ve been coming for about a million years. Can’t you tell?” Hortense said dryly.

“We just moved here,” Jeannie said. “Hodder is our real estate agent. That’s why he stopped to say hello.”

“Oh, so you moved here to buy a house! How exciting. Where is it?”

“Roland Park. On Goodwood Gardens,” Charlie added. “Not the German Embassy? I heard sometime back that a young family had bought it.”

“I can’t believe anyone really calls it the German Embassy, because my own private name for it is the Austrian Embassy.” Jeannie smiled at the woman, who was turning out to be a rescuer.

“The house was built for a furniture tycoon whose lineage was German. In those days, houses went to children, so there were two generations there, and I knew all the Erdmanns. During the war, you can imagine how hard it was for them. They spent all their time at home; nobody would receive them.”

Jeannie knew the name: Erdmann & Sons was a company famous for building reproduction furniture from 1900 through the 1960s that cost almost as much as eighteenth-century Maryland antiques. Charlie had seen a picture of an Erdmann sideboard in an auction catalog and been on the hunt for one ever since. Maybe it was fated that they were in the house. But still, Jeannie was unsettled. She said, “I heard they had a bowling alley in the basement.”

“Oh yes! I grew up on Edgevale Road and I played with the daughter while we were at Roland Park School-the public primary school,” she added. “I was invited to bowl at her home a few times during the ’30s. I heard the alley was taken out by some of the later owners. Heaven knows what’s there now.”

“An au pair suite. As if there aren’t enough bedrooms in the house already.”

“Yes, but that goes with the territory, my dear.” A wry smile cut new creases in Hortense’s worn, intelligent face. “So, how is the embassy changing under your command?”

Jeannie glanced at Charlie, who, from his spot across the table, was watching her. It was a loaded issue, because he’d asked her to hire a decorator and she hadn’t done so yet.

“Not much,” Jeannie admitted. “I’m doing a little bit of weeding, trying to keep up appearances-”

“You do your own gardening?” Hortense Underwood raised her almost nonexistent white eyebrows.