S Is for Silence

my mental energy, I was sifting through the miscellany I’d collected over the past two days. I wasn’t much wiser but at least I was getting all the players sorted out.
    I reached the Ottweiler property at 11:15. Tannie’s contractor had arrived early, and he pulled into the driveway the same time I did. She introduced him as Bill Boynton, one of the two Padgett had suggested the night before. I told her about the sandwiches I’d brought and then left her alone to chat with him while I took the opportunity to tour the interior of the house. From the porch, I could see two guys working at the edge of the property, cutting heavy brush as she had. A swath had now been cleared from the foundation to the depth of the yard. The ground looked naked and apologetic without all the high weeds, brambles, and old shrubs.
    Even at first glance, I found myself agreeing with Padgett, who considered the place beyond redemption. No wonder her brother was urging her to sell. The first floor had all the charm of an inner-city tenement. I could see touches of former splendor—ten-inch crown molding, beautifully plastered ceilings with ornate medallions and cornices as delicate as cake icing—but in most rooms, decades of leakage and neglect had taken their tolls.
    When I reached the stairs, I began to pick up the acrid scent of charred wood, and I knew that the floors above would be damaged not only by the fire, but by the water from the firemen’s hoses. I went up, following a once beautiful oak banister that was now dingy with soot and age. A fine layer of broken glass crunched underfoot, making my progress audible. Fixtures had been stripped. In the largest of the bedrooms at the front of the house, I was momentarily startled by what appeared to be a vagrant curled up in one corner. When I moved closer, I could see that the “body” was an old sleeping bag, probably left by a drifter taking shelter uninvited. In the large walk-in linen closet, I could still see labels written in pencil on the edges of the shelves— SINGLE SHEETS, DOUBLE SHEETS, PILLOW CASES —where the maids had been directed to place the freshly laundered linens.
    The third floor was inaccessible. Yellow CAUTION tape had been stretched across what was left of the stairs. Gaping holes in the stairwell traced the course of the fire as it ate its way through the rooms above. There was something unbearably creepy about the ruin everywhere. I returned to the second floor and made a circuit, pausing at many of the windows to take in the view. Aside from the field across the road, there wasn’t much to see. One field over, a new crop of some kind was sprouting through layers of plastic sheeting that served to keep the weeds down. The illusion was of ice. Closer to the house, Tannie’s battle with the brush had uncovered meandering brick paths and a truck garden now choked with weeds. During the summer, a volunteer tomato plant had resurrected itself, and it sprawled over a wooden bench, cherry tomatoes in evidence like little red ornaments on a Christmas tree. I could see the outlines of former flower beds and trees stunted by lack of sun for all the overgrowth.
    To the left, at an angle, I gazed down at an ill-defined depression that might have been a sunken pool, or the remnant of an old septic system. There wouldn’t have been sewer lines in place in the early 1900s when the house was built. A mound of newly cleared snowball bushes was visible along one edge. The uprooted plants boasted once bright blue blossoms as big as heads of cabbage. I felt bad at the sacrifice of bushes that had grown so impossibly grand.
    In the side yard of the lot where our trailer had sat, my aunt had planted hydrangeas much the same color, though not quite so lush as these had been. The neighbor’s hydrangeas were a washed-out pink, and Aunt Gin took delight in her superior blooms. The secret, said she, was burying nails in the soil, which somehow encouraged the shift from pink to the rich blue shade.
    Afterward I felt I’d been incredibly dense, taking as long as I had to add that particular two plus two. I stared down at the cracked and slightly sunken oblong of soil and felt a flash, the sudden gelling of facts that hadn’t seemed connected before. This was where Winston had last seen the car. Amid dirt mounds, heavy equipment, and orange plastic cones, he’d said. A temporary road barrier had been erected, denying access to through traffic. No sign of Violet, no sound