Three Bedrooms, One Corpse - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,38

to be an unexpectedly interesting day. Eileen led the way, keys in hand, up the four front steps with their wrought-iron railing painted black, badly needing a touch-up now. We went in the screen door and crossed the porch to the front door.

“How old is it, Eileen?”

“Forty years,” she said. “At least. But before the Juliuses disappeared, they had the whole house rewired ... they had a new roof put on ... a new furnace installed. That was ... let me check the sheet. .. yes, six years ago.”

“And they had the extra story put on the garage?”

“Yes, it was a mother-in-law apartment. Mrs. Julius’s mother lived there. But of course you remember.”

The disappearance of the Julius family had been the sensation of the decade in Lawrenceton. Though they had some family in town, few other people had had a chance to get to know them, so almost everyone had been able to enjoy the unmitigated thrill of the mystery and drama of their vanishing. T. C. and Hope Julius, both in their early forties, and Charity Julius, fifteen, had been gone when Mrs. Julius’s mother came over for breakfast, as was her invariable habit, one Saturday morning. After calling for a while, the older woman had searched through the house. After she’d waited uneasily for an hour, and finally checked to see that their vehicles were still there, she’d called the police. Who of course had at first been skeptical.

But as the day progressed, and the family car and pickup truck remained parked in the garage, and no member of the Julius family called or returned, the police became as uneasy as Mrs. Julius’s mother. The family hadn’t gone bike riding, or hiking, hadn’t accepted an invitation from another family.

They never came back, and no one ever found them.

Eileen pushed open the front door, and I stepped in.

I don’t know what I’d expected, but there was nothing eerie about the house. The cold sunshine poured through the windows, and instead of sensing ghostly presences of the unfound Julius family, I felt peace.

“There’s one bedroom downstairs,” Eileen read, “and two upstairs, plus a room up there used for an office or a sewing room ... of course, that could be a bedroom, too. And there’s an attic, with a boarded floor. Very small. Access through a trapdoor in the upstairs hall.”

We were in the family room, a large room with many windows. The pale carpet smelled mildewy. The double doors into the dining room were glass-paned. The dining room had a wood floor and a built-in hutch and a big window with a view of the side yard and the garage. After that came the kitchen, which had an eat-in area and many, many cabinets. Lots of counter space. The linoleum was a sort of burnished orange, and the wallpaper was cream with a tiny pattern of the same color. The kitchen curtains were cream with a ruffle of the burnished orange. There was a walk-in pantry that had apparently been converted into a washer-dryer closet.

I loved it.

The downstairs bathroom needed work. New tile, recaulking, a new mirror.

The downstairs bedroom would make a great library.

The stairs were steep but not terrifying. The banister seemed quite solid.

The largest bedroom upstairs was very nice. I didn’t like the wallpaper too much, but that was easily changed. Again, the upstairs bath, which opened into the hall, needed some work. The other bedroom needed painting. The small room, usable as a storeroom or sewing room, also needed painting.

I could do that. Or better yet, I could have it done.

“You look pretty happy,” Eileen observed.

I had forgotten anyone else was there.

“You are actually considering buying this house,” she said slowly.

“It’s a wonderful house,” I said in a daze.

“A little isolated.”

“Quiet.”

“A little desolate.”

“Peaceful.”

“Hmmm. Well, as far as price goes, it’s a bargain ... and of course, there’s the little apartment over the garage that you can rent to whomever . .. that’ll help with the isolation, too.”

“Let’s see the apartment.”

So down the stairs and out the kitchen door we trooped. The flight of stairs up to the little second floor seemed sturdy enough; of course, this addition was only six years old. I followed Eileen up, and she unlocked the glass-paned door.

It was really one large open area, the only sealed-off part being a bathroom at one end. The bathroom had a shower, no tub. The kitchen was just enough for one person to heat up a few things from time to time; the mother had