Interstitial

Thanksgiving 1954 Washington, D.C.

Briarwood House remembers the moment Grace March dabbed that first painted flower on the green wall of Apartment 4B. There now , she’d asked, don’t you feel pretty? No one had asked the house a question in such a long time. It had taken a rusty moment to shake off the decades of inattention, stretch a bit through long-settled foundations, squint at that attic wall which had been bilious green since 1900 when those same foundations had been poured, but which no one—not one person in all the decades since—had ever tried to decorate.

Yes , the house had thought in some wonder, examining the wall vine. Yes, I do feel pretty. And had made a point of paying attention ever since, whenever it felt the friendly tickle of that paintbrush in Grace’s hand.

That was the moment at which, you might say, the house began to wake up. Just like people, houses go to sleep if bored, and things had been boring at Briarwood House for so long—nothing for the last decade but bleach and the stale smell of Campbell’s soup and the trudge of dispirited feet, and what house worth its baseboards and chimney bricks is going to stay invested in that ? But things had started getting interesting again, sounding interesting, smelling interesting. The house hadn’t realized how much it missed smells , proper smells like Swedish meatballs and peanut butter cookies. You can’t call yourself a proper home without the regular smell of good food...

The smell currently making its way through Briarwood House is blood. The house isn’t entirely displeased by that—a dash of blood on the floorboards adds a certain je ne sais quoi , as those snippy French chateaux across the water would say, those castle-y types who boasted a few centuries under their foundations, not to mention the odd siege or revolution to add spice. No one can say Briarwood is boring anymore , the house thinks with a certain flip of its curtains as the police prepare at last to move the body from the crime scene.

In the kitchen below, seventeen people look up at the ceiling as a series of thumps and creaks announces the corpse’s progress, carried down three endless flights of stairs. Seventeen faces, many with blood on them—that green-walled apartment is so small, the arterial spray from the murder had gone everywhere . The house knows every one of those faces by now, and it certainly knows which are hiding guilt, but the detective doesn’t. He’s all eager eyes, watching to see who looks sickened or nonchalant or trapped as the murder victim leaves Briarwood House forever.

“Which one of them do you like for it?” the detective’s partner asks, and the house settles in to hear the answer.

“One of the men,” the detective replies. “Victim’s throat was slashed from the front. Killer’s eyes and victim’s eyes locked together at the moment of death, that’s a certain kind of murderer. That kind of throat-slitting—most women don’t got it in ’em.”

Whenever a house laughed the lights flickered, just an instant’s twinkle in the bulbs as the prisms in the dining room chandelier gave a momentary crystal dance. Briarwood House is laughing so hard now, it has to calm the light bulbs and chandelier down or else people will think there’s a poltergeist. A few of the Briarwood women look up, sharp-eared, but the detective is too busy evaluating the few men in the room. Eyes lingering longest on the stocky dark-haired man leaning against the sink, the only person watching the detective back.

The things I could tell you about that one , the house thinks. Since you aren’t interested in hearing what the ladies are capable of.

“You know who he is, right?” the detective’s partner mumbles.

The stocky dark-haired man lights up a Lucky Strike, still not removing his calm gaze from the two policemen. The detective lowers his voice to a whisper. “How long has someone like that been coming here?”

First time? The house thinks, sending a chime through the dining room chandelier again. Four years ago, end of ’50. And wasn’t that a night to remember!