historic district is seventeen blocks of 1790 to 1930, mostly well-loved, and the people who own the good houses know what they own. Kirby Lane, though, is one street back from the water, on the less expensive side of Ann Street, and fourteen Kirby was the kind of house a person bought in 2018 thinking they would restore it as a second career. It was a bungalow, low and wide, with a front porch and a gable above it, heart-pine siding that had been painted a very tasteful sage, and a brick pier foundation you could see daylight through if you crouched. The roof was new. The landscaping was somebody trying.
Anita was on the porch with her clipboard and a thermos. She was wearing the pale grey suit she wears when she intends to close. "The current owner is meeting us here in twenty," she said. "Mr. Lindeman. Wife is not coming. I thought you'd want a minute first."
"I do. Thank you."
"Anything I need to tell you."
I took a slow breath through my nose on the top step. The house smelled, faintly, of lavender and of something under the lavender. Not bad. Not the way a bad house smells. But aware. "Someone's home," I said. "Upstairs. Not the owner."
"Is it — "
"It's fine. Go sit in your car. Finish your coffee."
She went, because she's worked with me for eleven years and she knows what's helpful. I set my bag down on the porch boards and stood with my hand on the doorknob for a slow count of ten before I opened it, which is a thing I do, a courtesy really, the way you might knock at the door of a neighbour whose car is in the drive. The door was unlocked. The foyer was cool and dim and smelled of old plaster and of the lavender sachets somebody had hung on the stair rail, and when I stepped inside and said, aloud and conversationally, "Hello, my name's Marcelline
🤖 The author declared this story as written with the help of AI.