TWENTY-SIX
“IT LOOKS LIKE IT COULD USE A BIT OF CARETAKING,” KATHLEEN said.
“It looks like it could star in an old Alfred Hitchcock movie,” Susan replied, getting out of the car without taking her eyes off the house standing before them.
“This family invests in some incredible real estate, doesn’t it?”
“I’ll say.”
“Windswept. Woodwinds. Maybe they’re just collecting mansions with similar names.” Kathleen was walking up the pebble drive toward the house.
Susan followed her, still trying to absorb the sight in front of them. Built in the shingle style so popular on the Connecticut and Long Island coasts in the early twentieth century, the house was immense and gloomy, rising out of the land without benefit of landscaping. A four-car garage sat off to one side and, as Kathleen made her way up onto the deep porch that encircled the house’s first floor, Susan wandered over to take a closer look. Windows on the floor above the car ells were curtained and she suspected this was the caretaker’s apartment that Donald had mentioned. Piles of plastic flowerpots leaned against the side of the building and she went over to rummage around for the house key.
Spiders fled and a mouse scared her almost as much as she scared it, but she didn’t find the key and was giving up her search when she heard Kathleen calling her name.
“It’s open! Susan, it’s open!” she was saying. Susan stood up and realized that her friend was standing in the doorway of the mansion. She ran over to join her. “How did you get the door open?”
“Turned the knob. Did you try the door out there?”
“It never even occurred to me.” Susan walked into the house. “It’s got to be ten degrees colder in here than it is outside.”
“Probably feels wonderful in the middle of summer,” Kathleen said, pulling her jacket closed.
“Yeah, I guess. Let’s look around.”
“Do you think Mike could have stayed here?”
“I suppose anyone could have.” Despite the bedraggled grandeur of the outside of the house, the interior had been decorated in the fashion of many vacation homes with hand-me-downs and cheap upholstered pieces. Dust bunnies hugged the corners and mouse droppings dotted the worn area rugs. Susan and Kathleen had a wonderful time looking around. The kitchen pantry was bare except for a few cans of tomato soup and a musty box of Triscuits, but there were sheets on beds in two of the nine bedrooms upstairs and one had obviously been slept in. The electricity worked although space heaters seemed to be the only source of warmth.
“He might have stayed here for a bit,” Susan said as she and Kathleen wandered into the last bedroom on the floor.
“Yeah, I guess.” Kathleen walked over to the window. “You know, we may be on the highest spot on the island. The view is incredible from here.”
Susan joined her. “You’re right. Look, there’s the Perry Island Care Center.”
“Where?”
Susan pointed.
“Wow! That is some location. Right on that thin peninsula out on the Sound. Amazing!”
Susan stared out the window. “You’re right. I didn’t realize it when I was inside the building.” She stood a while longer considering the scene before her and then turned to her friend. “I don’t think there’s anything else to be seen here. Obviously Mike Armstrong could have stayed here, but I don’t see what that proves. Let’s go out to Perry Island Care Center. Maybe we’ll come up with something there.”
Susan glanced down at her watch. “We still have about half an hour before we’re expected there.”
“Do you have another idea?”
“Yes. I’d like to see the real estate office where Blaine Baines got her start. It must be downtown.”
“Are you just curious or are you thinking of buying a second home?” Kathleen asked as they made their way downstairs.
“I’m just curious, but that’s not the story I’m going to tell anyone who asks.” She looked around as Kathleen closed the door behind them. “I wonder just how much a place like this costs.”
“Well, we’re going to the right place to find out.”
“You know, we’ve been in a lot of real estate offices in the past week, but this is the first one without the Baines name on the door,” Kathleen said, as they paused outside Perry Island Realty.
“It’s also the first one that didn’t promise exclusive or executive homes,” Susan pointed out.
“No, in fact, some of these homes seem to be anything but executive,” Kathleen said, squinting at one of the photographs displayed on a wooden board outside of the office. “This one’s not much more than a shack!”
“It’s a rental property. Most seem to be.”
“Maybe the sale listings are inside,” Kathleen said.
“If you women are looking for something to buy on the island, you’re not gonna have an easy time of it. Not much for sale this time of year.”
Kathleen and Susan realized they had been joined by a short, elderly man with a florid complexion and brilliant blue eyes. He was beaming at them. “We’re getting ready for a big summer rental season though, so if you’re in the market for a nice quiet house on the beach, you’ve come to the right place.”
“That’s exactly what we’re looking for,” Kathleen lied.
“Although we were thinking of buying sometime in the future,” Susan added, trying to cover all bases.
“Why don’t you both come right in and I’ll see if I can help you find everything you’re looking for.” He pulled a key chain from his pocket and unlocked the front door. “My name is Walter Heckman. Most people call me Walt,” he added, as though this was an unusual idea. “We’re pretty casual here on the island.”
“Is this your agency?” Susan asked. She and Kathleen followed him into his modest office.
“I don’t own it, but I run it and I’m the only agent here during the off-season. We don’t get enough business to make it worthwhile employing anyone else most of the year. Of course, we’re the only agency on the island and, in the summer, I’m swamped and I hire extra help.
“Just sit yourselves down on that couch right there and I’ll bring our listing books over.” He picked up two large loose-leaf folders from a cluttered desk in the back of the room. “Let’s see. You said rental and sales, right?”
“Yes,” Susan answered.
“Houses for sale or undeveloped property or both?”
“Uh… both. I’m interested in buying and my friend is thinking of renting for the summer,” Susan said.
“Someplace suitable for young children,” Kathleen added, getting into the spirit of the charade.
“I’m sure I have what you’re looking for right here then.” Walter put a stuffed loose-leaf folder down on the coffee table before Kathleen. “And these are for you,” he said, giving Susan two loose leafs with barely a dozen listings in each.
“That’s quite a difference,” Susan commented, opening the top folder.
“There was a time that we had a lot of properties for sale on the island, but things have changed a lot in the past few years.”
“Really.” Susan flipped through the sheets, remembering that Donald was supposed to have bought many properties on the island.
“Yes, I suspect it will be easier to help you find something to rent,” Walter Heckman said to Kathleen, pulling a chair across the room and placing it across from the two women. Susan noticed that he had placed himself slightly closer to Kathleen and he immediately reached out and began to flip through the notebook, describing some of the properties and when they would be available. Susan silently studied the material he had given her.
There were twelve houses for sale. They seemed to be arranged in descending order according to price. Susan perused each one, from the large turn-of-the-century stone mansion built on a seawall overlooking the Atlantic to a tiny fifties ranch huddled in the woods, looking for anything that might be significant but finding nothing. She then turned to the undeveloped properties, but, with only black-and-white photographs and having little idea of what acres of land actually meant, she found herself listening in on Kathleen’s conversation and wondering if her friend might actually be planning a summer vacation on Perry Island.