Every Dead Thing

Isobel Barton lived in the secluded house her late husband had built in the seventies on Todt Hill, an admirable if unsuccessful attempt to replicate the antebellum houses of his native Georgia in an East Coast setting and on a smaller scale. Old Jack Barton, an amiable soul by all accounts, had apparently made up with money and determination for what he lacked in good taste.

The gate to the drive was open as I arrived, and the exhaust fumes of another car hung in the air. The cab turned in just as the electronic gates were about to rumble closed, and we followed the lead car, a white BMW 320i with tinted windows, to the small courtyard in front of the house. The cab looked out of place in that setting, although how the Barton household might have felt about my own battered Mustang, currently undergoing repairs, I wasn’t so sure.

As I pulled up, a slim woman dressed conservatively in a gray suit emerged from the BMW and watched me curiously as I paid the cabdriver. Her gray hair was tied back in a bun that did nothing to soften her severe features. A large black man wearing a chauffeur’s uniform appeared at the door of the house and moved quickly to intercept me as I walked from the departing cab.

“Parker. I believe I’m expected.”

The chauffeur gave me a look that told me, if I was lying, he’d make me wish I’d stayed in bed. He told me to wait, before turning back to the woman in gray. She glanced at me briefly but nastily before exchanging a few words with the chauffeur, who moved off to the back of the house as she approached me.

“Mr. Parker, I’m Ms. Christie, Mrs. Barton’s personal assistant. You should have stayed at the gate until we were sure who you were.” In a window above the door, a curtain twitched slightly and then was still.

“If you have a staff entrance I’ll use that in future.” I got the impression from Ms. Christie that she hoped that eventuality wouldn’t arise. She eyed me coldly for a moment, then turned on her heel.

“If you’ll come with me, please,” she said over her shoulder as she moved toward the door. The gray suit was thread-bare at the edges. I wondered if Mrs. Barton would haggle over my rates.

If Isobel Barton was short of cash she could simply have sold off some of the antiques that furnished the house, because the interior was an auctioneer’s wet dream. Two large rooms opened out at either side of a hallway, filled with furniture that looked like it was used only when presidents died. A wide staircase curved up to the right; a closed door lay straight ahead while another nestled under the stairs. I followed Ms. Christie through the latter and into a small but surprisingly bright and modern office with a computer in a corner and a TV and video unit built into the bookshelves. Maybe Mrs. Barton wouldn’t haggle about the rates after all.

Ms. Christie sat down behind a pine desk, removed some papers from her valise, and shuffled through them in obvious irritation before finding what she wanted.

“This is a standard confidentiality agreement drawn up by the trust’s legal advisers,” she began, pushing it toward me with one hand while clicking a pen simultaneously with the other. “It is an undertaking on your behalf to keep all communication relating to the matter in hand between Mrs. Barton, myself, and yourself.” She used the pen to point to the relevant sections on the agreement, like an insurance salesman trying to slip a bum contract past a sucker. “I’d like you to sign it before we proceed any further,” she concluded.

It seemed like nobody involved with the Barton Trust had a particularly trusting nature. “I don’t think so,” I said. “If you’re concerned about possible breaches of confidentiality, then hire a priest to do your work. Otherwise you’ll have to take my word that what passes between us will go no further.” Perhaps I should have felt guilty about lying to her. I didn’t. I was a good liar. It’s one of the gifts God gives alcoholics.

“That’s not acceptable. I am already unconvinced about the necessity of hiring you and I certainly feel it is inappropriate to do so without-”

She was interrupted by the sound of the office door opening. I turned to see a tall, attractive woman enter, her age indeterminable through a combination of the gentleness of nature and the magic of cosmetics. At a glance I would have guessed she was in her late forties, but if this was Isobel Barton, then I knew she was closer to fifty-five, maybe older. She wore a pale blue dress that was too subtly simple to be anything but expensive and displayed a figure that was either surgically enhanced or extremely well preserved.