Although I routinely scanned the tour reports published on the MLS website for Newbury's brokers' and agents' open houses, I never expected much. The places I show either come exclusively to me or, if they haven't, from listing agents who figure I have a lock on weird clients.
Speaking of weird, here was a listing so weird that I read it out loud: “Builder's own manor.”
It took me a moment to recognize the latest twist on the old “Builder's own home” mystique, where the customer was encouraged to hope that a builder's personal residence had to be superior to those he built for the average slob. Ignoring the reality that he was only living in it until he could sell the turkey.
Fred Gleason was showing it, which surprised me because Fred had never been the sort to allow comically pretentious language in his ads. On the other hand, he had just sold his agency to a national franchise. I read on, to see which builder was unloading the turkey Fred had dubbed a manor.
“Jesus H! That was fast.”
Fred was selling Billy Tiller's house less than two weeks after he was killed.
***
Ten o'clock in the morning, I was the first to knock on the ugly front door.
The only car in the driveway was Fred's, a magnificent silver Phaeton.
From the outside, this house was so awful that I had taken to driving out of my way not to look at it. Spurning New England materials like stone, wood shingles, or clapboard, Billy had located a railcar full of glazed yellow brick somewhere, and put it in charge of a Florida architect who had apprenticed on self-storage units.
“Fred,” I said, when he answered the door, an amalgam of wood, steel, and stained glass. “I do not envy you.”
Fred, a jolly fifty-year-old optimist in a checked jacket and sprightly yellow bowtie, said, “All I need is one tasteless fool with a checkbook.”
I pretended to admire the entryway, from which one could see wide-screen TVs in three directions and a living room fire-place made out of what looked like burnt sauce pans, but which Fred assured me was an “art material.”
“How did this come on so fast? What about probate? Did he have a will?” As I had suggested to Ira Roth, it would be interesting to learn what heir gained from Billy's untimely demise.
“First thing I asked. Turns out Billy didn't own it. Total Land RapeâScapeâowns it. Apparently he didn't keep private accounts.”
Nobody gained? Nobody inherited? “Do you mean the company owned Billy's own house? Who owns the company?”
“Partners, I guess. Or investors. Or Billy's estate.”
“How can they liquidate assets if they haven't read the will?”
“The company doesn't need permission to sell company assets. The powder room is solid nickel. Want to see it?”
My old friend was pumping himself to excite his visitors, so I said, “But of course,” even as I wondered who was getting the money. We admired it and moved on to the kitchen, which Fred's handout described as “A showcase of timeless beauty.”
“Who hired you?”
“Total's lawyer. With promises.”
“Of what?”
“The condos. If they get it approved.”
“Condos in Newbury?”
“There's a need. Older people want to unload the big old place, but stay in town. Total Landscape might pull off a zoning change.”
“Somebody should shoot those sons of bitches.”
Fred shrugged. “Everybody's got to make a living somehow.”
The doorbell rang and the door opened and a pack of women agents came in calling, “Yoo hoo. Fred. Are you here?”
“Look around, Ben. I've gottaâ”
“Go. Go. I'm fine.” He hurried to the door. I waved to the women, all of whom I knew, and wandered into what Fred's handout called “A master suite fit for Kings and Queens.” God knew what Kings and Queens went for these days, but Billy had gone first and foremost for size. There were his and hers dressing rooms, of course, a bathroom big enough to play half-court basketball, and a workout room fitted with a some very serious machines. One whole wall was curtain, and I found a switch to make it magically pull open and saw immediately why Fred had closed it. It covered a glass wall that looked onto a courtyard garden overgrown by several seasons of weedsâtall ones brown from last year, fresh green ones shooting for the sky.
The phrase “poor lonely bastard” skipped through my mind. It looked like the kind of project a guy living alone would get an idea to do, only to get overwhelmed by it. I was surprised that Total Landscape employees hadn't been drafted to keep it up. One of the pleasures of owning a construction company had to be the free labor standing by. But did he actually own it? I had to run this by Ira.
“Hey, Ben.”
“Sherry!”
We hugged. Sherry Carter was married to my childhood friend Bill Carter, a one-house-at-a-time builder. She sold real estate, when she wasn't helping Bill, and was one of my favorite competitors. She looked like a gazelle, a very attractive gazelle, a very attractive flirtatious gazelle. A mutually ego pleasing (brief) grope at a beer picnic a while back had cemented our friendship.
“What is that?”
“Used to be a garden.”
“Pull the drapes before you knock fifty thousand off the price.”
As they slid shut again Sherry said, “Billy should have put the pool in there instead of those weeds. It would be really cool all walled in like that. Instead of where he put it. You could swim naked and no one could see.”
“Maybe he was designing for exhibitionists.”
Sherry, who was one, and knew it, grinned, rose up on her toes and stretched her long arms so we could both imagine her morning dive.
“I'm surprised to see you here,” she said.
“I try to keep up with the latest and hottest.”
“But you don't know anybody who wants a house like this.”
“Not offhand.”
“Somebody'll love it. How much is Fred asking?”
I consulted the handout. She rested a pleasant hand on my shoulder as she leaned close to look at the price.
“Jesus H,” I said.
“Oh, Fred'll get itâ So how've you been, Ben?”
“Ummmm. Okay. I'm tangled up in the Billy bulldozer thing.”
“That horrible ELF kid.”
“He's not a bad kid. Or at least he doesn't seem like one.”
“Not a bad kid? He killed Billy Tiller, not my favorite person, butâ”
“Except maybe he didn't kill him.”
“If they're going after builders any of us could be next.”
“They?”
“The ELF nuts.”
“Nuts they are, but they don't kill people.”
“I heard you were kind of obsessed about this.”
“From whom?”
“I don't know. People were saying you're obsessing on the kid who did it.”
“Because I don't think he did it.”
“Ben.” She took my hands and looked in my eyes.
“What?”
“Maybe you ought to take a little time to re-think what you're doing?”
“I'm not hurting anybody, I'm just helping his lawyer establish his defense.”
“What if you're hurting yourself? Come on, if you saw me doing something like what you're doing, wouldn't you say, âHey, Sherry, what's going on? What's wrong.' You know?”
“No, I don't know.”
She grabbed both my hands in hers. “I'm talking to you like a friend, Ben.”
I said, “I'm touched by how sincere you sound. And how much you care.”
“Don't be touched. Just listen.”
One of our competitors, a woman new to town who had arrived with the national that bought Fred Gleason, walked in, saw us holding hands and said, “Oh, excuse me.”
Sherry released me with a final squeeze. Then, smiling very little, she said to the woman, “If I hear a silly rumor I'll know where it started.”
Quietly, I said to Sherry, “Thank you. I know what you're saying. I appreciate you saying it. I'm just going to run this whole thing through my head a couple of more times and that's it.”
“Good. Thank you. Come to dinner Saturday.”
“What can I bring?”
“A smile.”
She gave me a very nice kiss and sashayed out to the living room, where I heard her saying, “Great house, Fred. I've got a couple of clients who will love it.”
***
Homeowners huddled on metal folding chairs in a low-ceiling room in the basement of Town Hall, waiting for the bi-monthly Planning and Zoning hearing to begin. Some clutched papers; others, notes for speeches; Penelope Collins, horse breeder, set up an easel and spread out a colorful hand-drawn map of her neighborhood that depicted density, traffic patterns, watercourses.
Most sat in gloomy silence; a few gathered in quiet conference with neighbors drawn into alliance against development of woods and fields they had cherished all their lives. One group even had a lawyer, Tim Hall. But whether they were upset, indignant, angry, determined, or frightened, all looked as unhopeful as cows trudging up a ramp into a dark building marked Beef.
The P&Z commissioners met on first and third Tuesdays to hear builders explain how their proposed developments adhered to Newbury's building and zoning regulations or, if they didn't, why the regulations should be modified in their case. People whose property would be affected by the proposed developments were invited to speak in support or against the projects, which pitted homeowners against builders. Nearly everyone was against the builders. But those against were hoeing a tough row. The ninety-nine percent of the population not trained in public speaking were further flummoxed by a P&Z hearing rule that allowed the presenter for the builder to rebut the protestor, while the protestor's sole means of rebuttal was to look aggrieved.
Among the one percent of the population who did know how to hold an audience or sway the P&Z commissioners, all were employed by the builders. Of that elite, the best was E. Eddie Edwards, who coupled an engineer's precision logic to a lawyer's dislike of facts that did not advance his cause.
He was nicknamed “Evil Engineer” Edwards by the hardworking volunteers of the Newbury Open Space Conservancy. Rumor had it he was a drunk. But I never saw him drunk and he didn't look drunk tonight. Tall, broad-shouldered, reasonably good looking, and well-dressed in a natty tweed jacket that said, “I'm not a lawyer, just a simple engineer,” he soon was wrapping the commissioners around his practiced finger and smoothly puncturing the complaints of the homeowners who rose trembling to speak in public for the first time since they failed Show and Tell in fourth grade.
I attended P&Z hearings religiously. It behooved my business to keep up with the latest projects. And it behooved my spirit, if not my soul, to voice complaint when I thought a project begged to be complained about. Tonight I had a third reason: I wanted a close look at the dead Billy's colleague. I'd seen Evil Engineer in action before, of course, but only from the perspective of a townsman obliged to protest pillage that masqueraded as homebuilding. Tonight I was hoping to learn something about their relationship that might prove useful to Ira Roth's doubt campaign.
Edwards was defending a project that everyone had hoped had died with Billy Tiller. But, as Fred Gleason had hinted this morning, the corporate entity Total Landscapeânicknamed Total Land Rape by the Conversancy witsâwas moving ahead with it, Edwards reported. I recalled Jimmy Butler complaining that Billy was grabbing his balls from the grave.
Chairman Rick Bowlandâa volunteer, like all the board members, who gave up a ton of free time for the dubious pleasure of refereeing cat fightsâinquired, “Who's running Total Landscape now that Billy's gone?”
A lawyer recently moved to town introduced himself as Owen Woodward and said that he had been engaged to represent the company which was re-organizing management.
Was the company financially capable of posting the road-building and fire-fighting tanks performance bonds the town required, Ted Barrett, a commissioner, asked.
No problem, said Attorney Woodward. They had plenty of cash on hand, excellent credit, and “Mr. Tiller” had smoothed the transition with astute, even perspicacious estate planning. The lawyer bowed his head as if suggesting a moment of mournful appreciation, which no one seemed inclined to join.
With those distractions out of the way, Evil Engineer Edwards resumed pitching Billy's plan to build condo apartments in a neighborhood zoned for houses on two acres. It was a typical Billy Tiller move against a neighborhood of mostly smaller, older houses, inhabited by people who couldn't afford a fight. (A similar proposal in one of Newbury's estate sections would have pitted Total Landscape against litigators awaiting presidential nomination to the Supreme Court.)
A good but not excellent case could be made defending the town's half-century precedent of two-, three-, and four-acre zoning regulationsâwhich my grandfather had written when he was first selectman. Not excellent because Billy's people were proposing that some of the condos be reserved for the elderly, and some for low-income people, and some courts had ruled that towns had to support a variety of housing stock for a variety of types of people. So while the density question was one way to resist the intrusion, the best-case argument against Tiller Town Estate Houses was flooding.
Fred Franklin, whose hayfield had been turned into a lake by Tiller Heights, a development contiguous to the proposed Tiller Town Estates Houses, asked about flood effects. E. Eddie Edwards claimed that wasn't germane to this separate application. Fred Franklin, turning red in the face, said that it was seeing as how he had lost a tractor in quicksand while attempting to mow his fields, which had been high and dry before “some big city judge from Stamford” allowed Tiller Heights to flood him out. The Chairman asked Engineer Edwards to give assurances that diverting the same streams, again, wouldn't cause more flooding. Eddie Edwards replied that he could not recall the circumstances without going back to his office to review his files.