Selling Murder House

Chapter 2

The sun was shining when Winnie and I exited the office. Uptown was bustling with posh people, milling along the sidewalks wearing trench coats and sunglasses and toting paper coffee cups. Those going to work walked quickly, looking serious and determined. Those meeting friends for breakfast mimosas laughed boisterously and dallied in groups.

We walked back the way we came, toward Saddlebrook. I got a confirmation text from the furniture store that my shipments had arrived at the house I would be staging that day, so I had the time (and the peace of mind) to stroll and enjoy the scenery of the neighborhood. I would drop Winnie off at the apartment, then grab my car and drive to the site -- it was a little ways out, perfect for the woodsier brand of rich people.

It was past 10 a.m., and the neighborhood was livelier than before. Cars emerged from hidden garages, cars that looked sleek and expensive in an imperceptible, non-flashy kind of way, and I spotted a few people working in the vast lawns, riding tractor mowers and tending gardens. It dawned on me that they were all hired help, people paid to take care of the greenery, maybe people even being paid to drive the homeowners to work or wherever they needed to be at 10 a.m.

It was strange that people could live like this, while others lived so differently just one block away. I wasn't sure if it fascinated or disgusted me.

I fished my earbuds out of my purse. I had an overwhelming urge to drown out the sound of the lawn mowers. I turned on a playlist called Moody Instrumentals, which mostly consisted of dramatic film scores, and I laughed quietly at myself. This was a private joke I had. Sometimes, when I walked through Saddlebrook and pretended to live there, I would listen to this playlist and pretend I was in a movie that was just getting started, pretending that at any moment I'd be held at gunpoint or run into the love of my life, or save a small child's life -- something dramatic. I didn't get too caught up in the specifics.

The song that was playing was slow and sad, and I watched Winnie stop to squat. I searched through my purse for the little roll of poop bags I kept there, but I couldn't find it. Suddenly, the song started increasing in tempo, and as the poop bags continued to evade me, I found the song increasingly irritating. Winnie left his little steaming pile and was walking off without me, stretching his leash toward home. I clicked the handle of his leash to lock it in place.

I wasn't about to leave a pile of shit in the grass in a neighborhood like this. I wouldn't be surprised if one or more of the imaginary window watchers called the cops to report me for littering or public indecency or something.

Frustrated, I set my bag down on the sidewalk and put the handle of the leash between my squatted thighs so I could search through with both hands. It was dawning on me that I didn't have any poop bags. I pulled out a used tissue and inspected it, weighing how desperate I was, but there was already an old, hard wad of gum at its center and there was no way it'd be big enough for this job.

I sighed and stood up, resigning to walking off and taking my chances with the imaginary watchers and the imaginary police.

"Shit," I whispered under my breath.

Someone was walking up the street, directly toward me. There was no way they would walk past me without noticing. I could smell the fresh shit, clear as day.

But the person walking toward me had stopped, was standing just a little ways down the road, and they were just standing there. It was a woman, older by the slope of her back and the way she shuffled. She wasn't looking at me, I'm not even sure she noticed me. She was staring down the road where it forked, toward the Madsen House.

The woman groaned, a small but profound sound in the distance, and she swayed a little on her feet, like she was going to collapse. Winnie barked at her.

"Are you alright?" I called.

The woman didn't answer. She didn't even turn her head. Winnie barked again and I shushed him.

"Ma'am, are you alright?" I called again, this time moving closer so she might hear me better.

She glanced up at me as I approached, but she still didn't speak. Up close, I felt more confident she wasn't having a stroke or a fainting spell or something. She turned her gaze back up the street and I followed it. There was the Madsen House, looking just as dreary in the sunlight as it had in the fog of the morning. A news van was parked outside, decaled in flashy red and blue. In the grass in front of the house, I could see two people, one in a red blazer and pencil skirt holding a thick microphone, the other in a nondescript sweatshirt standing behind a camera.

I wondered what had happened today to warrant a live news story. There didn't seem to be anything happening at the scene. I felt a stupid instinct to move closer, to hear what the reporter was saying, to maybe be asked to comment, to see my face on TV. Ma'am, are you a resident? She would say. No, I just pretend to be sometimes.

The woman beside me said something. I had nearly forgotten she was there, she was so silent.

"I'm sorry, what did you say?" I asked.

She was staring at the house with watery, unblinking eyes.

"Came to get my paycheck," she repeated. Her voice was far away.

"Oh, did you . . ." I started to ask.

"Worked there nearly 30 years," she said. "Couldn't pay me to go back."

I nodded, because I didn't know what to say to that. Her voice was so distant, so quiet, I wasn't even certain she was really talking to me.

"Wouldn't step foot inside, I said. Called and told him that. Just get my check and never come back," she said.

The reporter was certainly getting in the way of that. I could understand her inconvenience, but this was something else. The look in her eye, the way she swayed on her feet . . . I couldn't tell if she was drunk or high or--

"She treated them all like her dolls," she spat, shaking her head. I noticed her fist was clenching and unclenching at her side.

She was angry. She was afraid.

"Who?" I said, but she was already speaking over me. Again I got the feeling the woman wasn't really talking to me, that I was just standing close enough to hear her stream of consciousness.

"Treated us all like dolls," she said, it was a furious whisper.

I felt goosebumps rise on my arms. Winnie pulled at his leash again, hard, and this time I let him drag me away. I muttered some kind of goodbye to the strange woman, "good luck" or maybe "I'm sorry," I can't remember. I just remember needing to get out of there.