Home Inspection

It had been a long time since Greg had gotten any real satisfaction from robbing houses. Lately, it just felt like he was evening the score, like pulling out an old, dusty eraser and wiping the slate clean. Well, as clean as it could get with a dusty eraser.

He knew what to look for, which neighborhoods to hit. When he had first started out, those dark and desperate days back in Houston, he hadn't liked anyplace with more than one floor. But now he sought out the two-story houses, sometimes three. He needed the challenge as much as he needed the money that Zachary would give him for whatever he brought back with him.

Greg had his target: a two-story corner brick home on Levy and Bowerwood. He had watched it for a few days, more than enough time to figure out the old woman who lived there didn't move fast. A trip to the mailbox took her over a minute, which meant a trip to the supermarket or beauty shop would give him at least an hour.

That would have been the easy route, safe. But it was too easy for Greg's taste. That's why he decided to play dress up and steal from her while she was home.

"Morning, ma'am," he said to the old woman standing at her front door. He had found the coveralls he wore and the clipboard at a thrift store he'd visited the previous day. The baseball cap with the Buchanan Gas and Electric Company logo was his, custom-made. Mrs. Buchanan was a teacher from high school that Greg had especially hated.

"What d'ya want?" the old woman squawked. She was fully dressed in an old-fashioned and ill-fitted pants suit, looking as though she expected to preside over the world's most depressing boardroom meeting later that day. The wrinkles on her face tripled under the weight of the scowl she presented Greg.

That's perfectly alright, he thought as the difficulty meter in his head shot from a 4 to a 6, maybe a 6.5. Make this uncomfortable for both of us, you old sack.

"Ma'am, we're doing inspections on your block this morning, checking pipelines for a natural gas purge that we'll be running next week."

Carol Louten's glare judged the tool bag laying at his feet, more props in the grand bid for authenticity. She looked like she literally wanted to kick both the bag and Greg off of her porch. "Gas purge? Nobody told me about that."

Greg's mouth dropped open as his eyes searched for answers. This expression was second nature to him, higher than a genuine smile on his face's list of greatest hits.

"Ma'am, you haven't seen the notices that we've been posting?" He flipped through the papers on his clipboard and held up an inspection notice with the Buchanan logo clearly displayed. "This is just one of three. Did you get a letter from my company in your mailbox?"

"No. I don't think so. No." Carol Louten held her footing firm as Greg's confusion became real. He had dropped the BGE notice in her mailbox himself just two days prior. He had even made sure to misspell her last name so that he could have a conversation about a new girl at the home office who was lousy at her job, one of many deflections he relied on in his line of work.

"Well, I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm required to check this home's excess flow valves, circuit breaker switch panel, the arc-fault ground connection point, and-" Greg flipped to the last page on his board. "And your second floor polarized receptacles."

"My what?"

"Electrical outlets." And off her look. "They're what the plugs plug in, ma'am."

Carol stared at Greg for a moment, lips pursed and eyes squeezed into fury. With a grunt, she pulled the door fully open. He nodded and smiled, exhaling as he crossed the threshold. The hardest part was over.

"According to the floor plan, your kitchen is back this way, correct?" he said, pointing to the left entryway from the small foyer they stood in. The woman quickly sighed and nodded. Greg opened his bag and pulled out an old radar detector that he had found at a flea market and later modified. He switched it on.

"What's that for," Carol asked. "Some kind of gas detector?"

"That's exactly what it is, ma'am." He gave her a grateful look as though she could teach him a thing or two. She closed her eyes and shrugged. He continued. "It measures carbon monoxide, which is a very deadly gas. One of your neighbors...do you know the Stensons?"

"Oh, yeah. 'Cross the street."

"That's them. Well, the Stensons had a small CO leak, hardly even worth the trouble of repairing. However, the gas purge next week very well might cause a rupture in the active pipe, which would be catastrophic for the Stensons. Well, it would have had we not caught it when we did." His tone straightened its tie and got serious. "And I don't think that I need to tell you what I mean by 'catastrophic'."

She grimly nodded as Greg sat his bag by the front door. He could see that Carol was picturing the Stensons' young girl going to sleep one night and never waking up. It was the exact image Greg needed Carol to have in her head for the next hour.

Greg began to walk through the house, Carol following closely behind. He made his way into a dark living room and darker hallway. Greg, ever the detective, wasn't surprised to not see a single family picture displayed on tables or hanging on any walls. "No family" was very attractive to Greg, but he was beginning to think that was where the romance ended. Outside, the house was neat and modern; even its lawn was cared for by a professional crew. But the inside was drab: bookshelves lined with dusty books, side tables covered with doilies, analog clocks sitting next to digital ones.

Old people stuff. Great. 

He walked into the kitchen and saw that Carol didn't even have a microwave. He couldn't help but roll his eyes. Even though his back was to the old woman, she must have sensed it.

"Is there a problem?"

Not yet, Carol. Don't jump the gun. That's later.

"No ma'am. I was just looking for the circuit breaker. The kitchen is usually the-" He walked to it. "Oh, here we go." He opened the panel and pretended to inspect it. He was about to tell Carol that the unit may need to be replaced when he heard a loud thump above him, coming from the second floor. He had no idea what it was, but it didn't sound like a dog hopping off a bed - not that he thought Carol had one.

"I'm sorry," he said, turning to the old woman. "Am I taking you away from company?"

Carol looked insulted. "What's that supposed to mean?" she asked.

"It's just...I thought I heard something. Upstairs."

"Nothing up there except three bedrooms, two closets full of old sheets, and an empty bathroom." She smiled a bit. "Oh, and all those polarizing resuscitators for plugs."

Greg returned the smile, in his way. "Okay. I just need to check the stove hookup and then I'll ask that you show me the backyard."

He glanced behind the stove and scribbled a few random letters on a random page. Carol craned her neck to see what he wrote, but she was slow and Greg jerked the clipboard nonchalantly to his side.

"Okay, now to the backyard, please. After you."

She guided him through a sun room, the darkest he'd ever seen. There appeared to be a futon set up in the corner, but Carol hurried him through to get into the backyard and sweet daylight. To Greg, it was like stepping out of the Addams Family house into the real world. The day was bright and birds were chirping. He didn't realize it before, but his sinuses had been stuffed up the entire time he'd been inside.

Probably all that dust. This is hardly worth my-

Greg saw something move from inside the house, somewhere in one of the second story windows. His peripheral vision had picked it up, maybe a curtain pulled to the side or a figure somewhere watching him. Whatever it was, it was gone. Everything was still.

"What in the heck are you looking at?" Carol asked. She had her hands on her hips in a way that reminded Greg of that old cow Mrs. Buchanan. He wished that he could pick Carol up and throw her over the fence.

"I was...," he looked over the perfectly-manicured lawn. "I was just noticing that this style of house doesn't have an arc-fault ground connection point. My mistake. We can go back inside. Do you have a basement?"

The basement held no more valuables than Greg had seen elsewhere in the house, but it would serve other purposes. He lifted the phony CO detector around the dirty room. He pushed a button that he had installed and the device emitted a series of quick beeps.

"What was that?" Carol shrieked, just the right reaction to Greg's ears. "Was that that carbon diocide?"

"Dioxide. Yes, but I wouldn't be alarmed. A pocket of CO gas here and there is perfectly normal. But I'm going to need scan every room, just to be on the safe side."

She nodded. "Yes, okay." Greg hoped that he hadn't calmed her down too much. There were so many fine lines in his work.

"Now, are there any rooms on the first floor that we didn't pass through?"

"Yeah, one."

Carol slowly climbed the basement stairs and led Greg to an office study on the first floor. As she swung open the door, Greg had to keep himself from laughing. A large floor safe, likely a TL-30 or -40, sat squarely behind an oak Riverside Executive desk. His back twinged with old hurt from memory of such previous hauls.

Even if the safe's contents don't pay off, I can get a solid grand for the desk. I'll just have to back the van right up to the front door.

"I don't go in here much," Carol said. "This was Henry's room. He didn't like me going in here, and after a while I stopped wanting to."

"Is that right?"

Thump, thump from overhead. Greg looked up at the ceiling, then to the old woman. Her face was calm, bored even.

"Yes, that's right," she said.

"I think it's time I checked out the second floor," Greg told her. "See about those outlets."

"Don't you want to check this room for gas?"

Greg quickly waved the radar detector around from where he stood.

"It's fine. Let's go."

Carol led him to the staircase, just right of the foyer. Greg waited for her to begin the slow, arduous journey up the steps, but she just gestured for him to go up.

"Are you not coming upstairs?" he asked.

"No. I never go up there." The words hung for a moment, ominous. Then she smiled at Greg. "My knees, you know. I almost had to ask you to carry me up from the basement. It's too much trouble, so I just stay down here. Sleep in the backroom. Got everything I need down here."

"Oh. Well, that's fine," Greg said as he turned away and climbed the stairs, a rare smirk forming.

As dark as it was downstairs, it was even darker upstairs. He carefully went from room to room, checking for the source of the thumping. The last thing Greg needed was a hero barging in on the job. Especially if the hero was an underage relative that he had somehow missed during a stakeout over the past two weeks. He didn't find anybody, and it looked like there was nothing to take either. The rooms were mostly empty, the decorations more suitable for a life-sized dollhouse than a home. To Greg, this felt like a waste of space and a good reason why the rich needed less riches.

He peered out a window, wishing he could open it. His sinuses had flared up again. As he thought about it, the lack of upstairs loot was almost a relief to Greg. Carrying anything as large or heavy as the study desk down the staircase would risk personal injury. Still, he went about his quiet search for jewelry and any artwork that might pull in a few extra bucks.

Movement outside caught his eye, maybe a lawn maintenance worker. Greg quickly backed away from the window.

Home stretch now, kid. Not a good time to be seen.

A bit shaken, Greg decided to end the search. He removed the radar detector from his jacket pocket, ready to send beeps down the stairs for Carol to hear. It was time for the second hardest part: getting the mark out of the house.

He pushed the button, but nothing happened. Silence. This was not good. Carol was sold on the gimmick and the gimmick needed to be convincing. He hit the side of the device. Nothing. He knew that the batteries were new, but he took them out and put them back in anyway. Nothing. Greg had been using the detector for years and had never had an issue. He stood in the dark of the second story hallway, could only stare at the dim light coming from first floor, by the staircase where Carol stood below.

Greg thought of the backup plan, of the ropes and the gag laying in the bag he had placed by the front door. It was a shitty thing to do, but he was already in a hole with Zachary financially, and there wasn't another tactic that he could see to get Carol out of the house. He took a deep breath and began to walk toward the staircase.

His footsteps suddenly sounded sickeningly familiar. Thump.

Greg had been caught during a job once before, had served time for it. He had bought some access codes to an office building and was using them to search for petty cash and whatever equipment he could carry out with him. A security guard had wandered in and busted him, trapped Greg like a rat with no more than a can of pepper spray, which was more than Greg carried. The moment when the guard yelled "freeze," he actually felt the word take form. It was as though his neck was blasted by a cold breeze and the chill spread down his spine and across his shoulders.

If his shoulders were frosty then, they were twin blocks of ice now.

Thump. This one behind him, impossibly.

He slowly turned toward the bedroom at the end of the hall. He had closed the door when he had walked out of it earlier, but it was open again now. In the doorway, a pale woman stood in front of a boy around seven or eight years old. Her hand, bruised and bloody, was on his shoulder. They looked like a mother and son portrait, only one occupying the physical world and all of its gruesome dimensions. They looked as though they had been dead for some time. Their skin was grey, their eye sockets hollow. But they could still see Greg; he knew that they could.

The floor melted under his feet, causing him to slip until the ground's firm, hot grip took hold of his ankles. Greg steadied himself by pushing against the walls of the hallways, but he was still sliding down into the floor. As if in burning quicksand, he turned away from mother and child. As he did, he found himself face to face with an old man, half naked, his skin torn with lacerations. The old man was hunched over and sneering at Greg. He grabbed one of Greg's arms. With his free hand, Greg pounded on the floor, suddenly solid.

Thump.

Muffled from below, Greg heard his own voice. "Am I taking you away from company?"

Greg pounded on the floor again, trying to warn himself.

Thump, thump.

The old man pushed Greg's head down and he sank lower into the floor, his energy draining faster than his mind could try to save himself. Greg was powerless and he knew that it was almost over. He took a deep breath and opened his eyes for what might be the final time before he went under.

The old man was gone, mother and child too. Greg looked down and saw that he was kneeling on the hallway floor, his arms still stretched to the walls on either side of him. Slowly, he tried to push himself up, only to fall to his knees again.

Thump.

"Is everything alright up there?" It was Carol, calling up from the first floor. Greg realized that he had been whimpering. He looked at the doorway to the bedroom. It was empty, but his mind could still place mother and child there, too easily. "Hello?" Carol again.

Without answering, he stood up and walked back down the staircase. He made no effort to disguise any expression that he might have been wearing now, but that didn't stop Carol from smiling at him.

"Everything check out okay?" she asked. Greg reached the bottom of the stairs and stood face to face with Carol.

Greg tried to answer her. Stopped. Couldn't. From a far off place, he realized that he had dropped the fake detector upstairs. He instantly knew that it didn't matter, that nobody would find it up there. It wasn't a place where people went.

And knowing that - especially in the way that he now knew it - made Greg want to dent the old woman's face in with a crowbar.

Just like Mrs. Buchanan. Always with a lesson to teach.

"Yeah, I got what I needed," Greg said, picking up his bag, a saccharine smile plastered on his face. "Big time, ma'am. Everything is perfectly fine here."

"Oh, good!" she said, beaming. Carol Louten opened the front door, allowing Greg to stumble back into the warm Thursday morning again.