Laura Lippman - Baltimore Noir

“You have reached Hodder Reeves’s answering service. Leave a message, and I will personally return your call as soon as possible. Have a super day.”

Jeannie had been calling Reeves every day for a week, but she kept getting the same recorded message; and he hadn’t called her back, not once, which seemed peculiar given all the special attention he’d lavished on her so recently. Maybe he was closing a deal with other clients. Or maybe he was worried that Jeannie had figured out he’d sold her a haunted house.

Now Jeannie understood why seven people had owned the house in ten years. Nobody could stand to keep living with the sound of German-American bowlers, night after night. Ivanhoe had dreamt about the boy in the bib again. He wanted to sleep in their room, which Charlie sternly forbade. Adding to the stress in the house, Charlie’s sexual appetite had increased-something Jeannie felt sure was connected to his witnessing Hodder touch her at the gala.

Jeannie’s men were exhausting her. If she wasn’t servicing Charlie at night, she was spending extra hours at nursery school because Ivanhoe had started to have separation anxiety. During the afternoons, when he was home, he tucked himself into the cabinet next to the stove, hugging himself while Jeannie cooked massive starchy meals she hoped would send everyone to sleep after bed.

In the few hours she had to herself, Jeannie read: three books about the paranormal and a history of Maryland furniture makers that mentioned the decline of Erdmann & Sons due to the death of the heir apparent, Martin Erdmann, after a bout of tuberculosis. The only surviving siblings were girls; and girls, in those days, did not become furniture builders.

Jeannie thought things over during the night, when she would customarily make one trip downstairs to check for the rolling sound, which seemed to be happening sometimes, but sometimes not. After too many sleepless nights, she finally opened her copy of the Blue Book and discovered the phone number for Hortense Underwood, who was not listed in the regular telephone directory. When she said she needed to talk, Hortense promptly invited her to come for a visit to Edgevale Road with Ivan.

“I’ll come when he’s in school,” Jeannie said. She was trying to help him forget what had happened in his room, not engrain it any further on his troubled mind. “I do have one favor to ask, if it isn’t too much trouble. Do you still have photo albums and school yearbooks, anything with pictures of the Erdmanns? I’m interested in Martin Erdmann, in particular.”

There was a long pause. “Martin was a few classes ahead of me at school, but there’s a chance. I’ll see what I can find for you.”

Over strong cups of Eddie’s Breakfast Blend served in bone-thin Limoge cups, Jeannie and Hortense examined an ancient, falling-apart literary anthology of student work. There was no yearbook per se, but mixed in with childish poetry were a few cloudy black-and-white photographs of boys and girls lined up on a step, wearing sailor suits.

“This is my class,” Hortense said, pointing to a small girl with braids, who looked into the camera with a slightly accusatory gaze. “And yours truly. The girl on the far end is Agatha Erdmann.”

“You said Martin was a few years older?” Jeannie stared at Agatha, as if her appearance might spark some recognition.

“Yes. I thought there might be photos of him here, but… he must have already died. It was very sad.” Hortense shook her head.

“What did he look like? Can you remember?”

“Red hair, freckles, skinny. Oh, and I guess the thing I remember is how the Erdmanns dressed. They were always dressed like diplomatic children, even at a neighborhood public school.”

“Do you mean in fancy clothes?” Jeannie pictured a Fauntleroy suit, the kind of costume Charlie had suggested Ivanhoe wear for the family portrait.

“No, I mean a sailor suit, like Agatha’s wearing in the photograph. The children always wore sailor suits, had to wear them well into their teens, much to their chagrin.”

A sailor suit. What Ivan had talked about-a boy with a bib-sounded like it could have been a boy wearing a sailor suit. A chill settled over Jeannie, and she told Hortense she hadn’t realized how time had flown, that it was time to get Ivanhoe from St. David’s and take him home for lunch. Lunch, followed by a pre-nap story, which, for that afternoon, she chose Babar, the Elephant Emperor whose children all wore sailor suits. And as Jeannie had expected, when Ivan saw the illustration of Pom, Flora, and Alexander, he squealed and pointed, “That one like boy at night-night time!”

Jeannie had no more questions.

That night, she told Charlie she’d be waiting for him in the bedroom after he put Ivanhoe to sleep. Charlie did the bedtime routine in record time-thirty-five minutes-and was halfway undressed by the time he got in the room.

“So, you must be feeling better today,” he said happily, grabbing her around her hips and pressing her tightly against him. “What did you do, get some advice on how to relax from that wonderful woman of a certain age?”

“Actually, Charlie, I brought up some of the whiskey.” She removed his hands from her body, then pointed to the cut-glass decanter she’d set on the table by the window. “I think we could both use a drink, because there’s something serious I have to discuss.”

She told him everything. About the sailor suit, the bowling sounds, the long gone household of German-American children shunned by the neighborhood. He listened carefully, and to her amazement, his first words were, “It’s incredible. But believable.”

“I don’t believe in haunted houses,” Jeannie said, surprised that there was no fight. “I never did, and I don’t wan to. But something’s going on. No wonder all the young families buy and quickly leave, and Hodder Reeves keeps on reselling the house.”

“You keep calling Hodder.” Charlie sipped the whiskey, keeping his eyes on her.

“What do you mean?” Jeannie flushed.

“I saw the record of your outgoing cell phone calls.”

“It’s because-it’s because I’m trying to find out about the house! I’ve called him repeatedly this week, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. In the meantime, I’ve researched more about the family that owned the house.” Jeannie told Charlie what she’d learned from Hortense Underwood and saw the jealousy in his eyes slowly replaced by a look she remembered from long ago-the dreaming, about-to-imagine-a-brilliant-idea look.

“It’s creepy all right,” Charlie said slowly. “If we tweaked the story a little, it’d make a great computer game, maybe one that involves learning the German language.”

“Charlie! Is everything a game to you?” Jeannie was distracted, because she could hear Ivanhoe whimpering in his sleep.

“No, it’s not,” Charlie said sharply. “And don’t go to him. If you keep running to Ivanhoe, he’ll never sleep through the night.”

“I don’t know what to do.” Jeannie put her face in her hands, hiding her tears.

“Do you think we should do what the others have done-just cut our losses and run?”

“Our gains,” Jeannie said. “Hodder said we’ll make at least ten percent profit if we sell. But how can we sell a haunted house?”

“Others have done it,” Charlie said. “And before we make any big decisions, let’s see if anything else happens. The best games have their roots in reality. Let’s learn the untold story of this boy in a sailor suit.”

“And how do you propose we do that?”

Charlie thought a moment, then said, “Let’s hold a séance. See if you can line up that neighborhood woman and Hodder Reeves. And I’ll bring in our new games concept guy, Walter, to record the whole thing.”