Page 37 of The Shape of Night

When I step into Branca Property Sales and Management, I find Donna at her desk and talking on the telephone as usual. She gives me anI’ll be right with youwave and I sit down in the waiting area to peruse the photos of properties displayed on the wall. Farmhouses surrounded by verdant fields. Seaside cottages. A village Victorian with gingerbread trim. Did any of them come with resident ghosts or secret rooms furnished for scandalous pleasures?

“Everything okay up at the house, Ava?” Donna has hung up the phone and now sits with hands primly folded on her desk, the ever-polished businesswoman in a blue blazer.

“It’s all going great,” I answer.

“I just received Ned’s final bill for the carpentry work. I guess he and Billy are finished with the repairs.”

“They did a wonderful job. The turret looks beautiful.”

“And now you have the house all to yourself.”

Not exactly.For a moment I’m silent, trying to formulate a question that doesn’t sound completely bizarre. “I, um, wanted to get in touch with the woman who lived in the house before me. You said her name was Charlotte? I don’t know her last name.”

“Charlotte Nielson. Why do you need to reach her?”

“The cookbook isn’t the only thing she left behind in the house. I found a silk scarf in the bedroom closet. It’s very expensive, Hermès, and I’m sure she’d want it back. I have a FedEx account and I’d be happy to send it to her, if you’ll just give me her address. And her email, too.”

“Of course, but I’m afraid Charlotte hasn’t been answering her emails lately. I wrote her days ago about that cookbook, and she still hasn’t responded.” Donna swivels around to check her computer. “Here’s her address in Boston: 4318 Commonwealth Ave, Apartment 314,” she reads aloud and I jot it down on a scrap of paper. “It must be a pretty serious crisis.”

I look up. “Excuse me?”

“After she left, she sent me a note that there was a family crisis, and she apologized for breaking the lease. She’d already paid the rent through the end of August, so the owner let it go. Still, it was abrupt. And a little strange.”

“She didn’t tell you what her crisis was?”

“No. All I got was the note in the mail. When I drove up to check on the house, she’d already packed up and left. Must have been in quite a hurry.” Donna gives me her cheery Realtor smile. “But on the bright side, the house was available for you to rent.”

I find this story of a tenant abruptly fleeing Brodie’s Watch more than merely odd; I find it alarming, but I don’t tell her this as I stand up to leave.

I’m at the door when Donna says: “I didn’t realize you already had connections in town.”

I turn back to her. “Connections?”

“You and Ben Gordon. You’re friends, aren’t you? I saw you together in the café.”

“Oh, that.” I shrug. “I got a little dizzy in the heat that day, and he was worried I’d faint. He seems like a nice man.”

“He is. He’s nice to everyone,” she adds and the subtext is obvious:Don’t think you’re special.Judging by the chilly look she gives me, Dr. Ben Gordon is a subject best avoided between us in the future.

Once again she reaches for her phone; she’s already dialing as I walk out the door.

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I pull the silk scarf from my bedroom closet and once again admire the summery pattern of roses printed on silk. It’s a scarf meant for a garden party, a scarf to flirt in, sip champagne in. It would be the perfect accessory to brighten up one of my boring black city dresses and I’m briefly tempted to keep it. After all, Charlotte hasn’t asked about it, so how anxious can she be to have it returned? But this is her scarf, not mine, and if I hope to ask her about the ghost in the turret, this scarf could be the best way to open the conversation.

Downstairs, I fold the scarf in a layer of tissue paper and slip it, along with the cookbook, into a FedEx envelope. I include a note.

Charlotte, I’m the new tenant in Brodie’s Watch. You left your cookbook and this gorgeous scarf in the house, and I’m sure you want them back.

I’m a writer and I’d love to chat with you about this house and your experience living here. It may be useful information for the new book I’m writing. Is there any way we can talk by phone? Please call me. Or I can call you.

I add my phone number and email address and seal the envelope. Off it will go tomorrow.

That afternoon I putter away cleaning the stove, feeding Hannibal (again), and writing a new chapter of the book, this one about fish pies. As the clock ticks toward evening, that package for Charlotte keeps distracting me. I think of the various items she left behind. The bottles of whiskey (which I’ve long since finished drinking, thank you very much). The scarf. The stray flip-flop. The copy ofJoy of Cookingwith her name inscribed in it. That last item I find most puzzling of all. The grease-spattered cookbook was clearly a faithful friend in the kitchen, and I can’t imagine ever leaving behind one of my treasured cookbooks.

I close the laptop and realize I haven’t spared a thought for dinner. Will this be yet another long night hoping thathewill appear? I imagine myself ten, twenty years from now, still sitting alone in this house, hoping for a glimpse of the man whom only I have seen. How many nights, how many years, will I be waiting here with only a succession of cats to keep me company?

I glance up at the clock and see that it’s already seven. At this moment in the Seaglass Gallery downtown, people are drinking wine and admiring art. They are talking not to the dead, but to the living.

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