Page 5 of A Murderous Crow
Hal didn’t like it, I could tell, but I pressed on with my bubbly routine of hyping up all the positives about the place. He was warming to parts of it. Even if he wasn’t sold on this particularproperty, I was taking notes and getting a sense of what he was after.
We stood in the kitchen, and I marked things on my legal pad, scribbling notes for myself as we discussed and he described more of what he had in mind.
One thing about real estate was that it wasn’t for the faint of heart. Clients you thought would be a dream could turn into a nightmare, and the ones you fully expected to be trouble could turn on a dime and be your dream client in disguise.
I was having trouble getting a read on Hal Lindstrom. At times, he was pleasant, but at others, he was cold and very nearly unreadable. By the end of this showing, I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was about him, but my woman’s intuition was subtly and cautiously peeking through with alarm in her eyes.
I ignored her, made it through the upstairs, and onto the top porch where I leaned a hip against the railing in the deepening gloom and asked, “So, final verdict… what do you think?”
“It is not what I am seeking,” he said and looked chagrined at having to make the rebuff.
I put my hand on his arm and said, “That’s alright, that’s alright! What did you like about it?” I asked, prepared to take as many notes as it took to get things right.
Too modern, is what it boiled down to. Too much paint. He wanted more wood trim and classic elegance. All things that I could and would work with.
For now, it was back to the drawing board, as they say.
We parted ways. I locked up, and once I was seated in my purring vintage Jag, I started to feel much better.
I headed home, which wasn’t likely what anyone would expect from me. As I was pulling into the small, detached garage on the property, my phone lit up and started to singCabaretat me. That could only be one person.
“Fabian,” I said warmly, dropping all pretense and fake accent.
“You alive, Savvy?” he asked me, and I chuckled.
“Oh, I’m alive, and as suspected, the Habersham property was an absolute no-go.”
“Lemme guess, Mr. Lindy has a real hard-on for the classic, antique-filled elegance a la the movies?”
I sighed and said, “Either hold on, or let me call you back. I just got home.”
“Girl, call me back when you’re comfy. You know I’ve got all night,” he declared, and I barked a laugh.
“Okay, gimme five,” I told him.
“Take ten,” he ordered.
I tsked and said, “You’re getting soft, you old Queen.”
He chuckled, and it was very contrived and mirthless. “I’ll get you later for that one.”
“Talk soon,” I said.
“Byyyyeee!”
I hit the red button to end the call and retrieved my phone from the magnetic mount it was stuck to.
I got out of the car and went to the back of the garage, pulling down the overhead door and pressing it until it latched.
The house I was at was a grand old Victorian outside of the city, near the river, but I didn’t live in the big house. No, I lived in the tired, old, worn-down carriage house next to the garage. It looked like a shed, really, and was a far cry from the expensive and lush properties that I hawked all day long. But I wasn’t here for any other reason than it wascheap– allowing every last red cent of commission I earned to go right back into what I truly loved back home.
I went around and unlocked the door under the sagging roof of the old porch that had seen better days.
It was a world of difference on the inside versus the outside. While the teal-green paint on the clapboard siding, which sagged with rot on the outside, peeled and bubbled, the inside of this place was a pristine oasis.
I pulled my sensible kitten heels off and opened the closet door by the front door, putting them on the rack inside.
I set my keys in the bowl on the entry table across from the closet and took my phone and my folio with its notes and such with me into the first doorway on the right that led to my little kitchenette.
