Chapter 5: Open House

The open house began at eleven on Saturday, and by eleven-ten I knew I had made a tactical error.

I had told the three of them to stay out of the way.

I had not told them how.

"Why are there crab pots in the front hall?" the agent asked.

She wore a green blazer and a smile that was starting to crack.

"They're drying," Jussi said, from the stairs.

"In the house?"

"It's a very damp house," said Jussi, and gave her the full hazel-eyed beam of his innocence.

I moved the pots myself.

Two couples came through the front door while I was dragging the last pot onto the porch.

They looked at me, and at the pot, and at one another.

I smiled harder.

Henrik took the first couple down to the basement.

He had not been asked.

He stood under the bare bulb with his hands in his pockets.

He showed them the sill beam, which was soft at one end and had been soft for forty years.

"The river moves it," he said.

"Every winter. A little more."

They did not stay for the kitchen.

The agent looked at me with real despair.

"Is he the contractor?"

"He's a tenant," I said.

"All of them are tenants."

"Oh. Of course," said the agent. "The tenants."

Gunnar stood in the parlor doorway in his pilot's jacket, with his arms folded, saying good morning to everyone who came in.

He had come straight off the station and had not bothered to change.

A woman in a white coat looked him up and down and asked whether the house came with him.

"No, ma'am," Gunnar said gravely.

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