Fire Sale

The road had a few discreet lamps so that the families could find their way in the dark; even with such dim light, I could tell that the houses were monstrous, as if everyone needed enough space to house a cruise ship-should one crash on the lake.

Midway around the lake, more or less directly across from the guard station, stood Buffalo Bill’s mansion. I pulled up a circular drive, lit by a row of carriage lamps. A Hummer and two sports cars were parked on the verge; I pulled in behind them, and walked up a shallow step to ring the front doorbell.

A butler in a tailcoat answered the door. “The family are drinking coffee in the lounge. I will a

He led me down a long hall at a pace decorous enough for me to stare at the surroundings. The hall seemed to bisect the house, with salons, a conservatory, a music room, and who knows what all lying on either side. The same soft golds that I’d seen at the headquarters building dominated the decorating scheme here. We’re rich, the embroidered silk wall coverings proclaimed, everything we touch turns to gold.

Mr. William strode up the hall to meet me. My efforts at small talk, admiring the music room, the Dutch masters on one wall, the time it must take him to commute from here to South Chicago, only made him tighten his lips so much they looked like little circular pickles.

“You should take up the trumpet,” I said. “The way you purse up your lips all the time, those muscles will give you a really strong embouchure. Or maybe you already play, one of those nice twenty-dollar By-Smart trumpets, with lessons available on CD.”

“Yes, all the reports we’ve had done on you say you think you’re fu

“Gosh, you’ve spent good By-Smart money having reports done on me? That makes me feel superimportant.” I could hear my voice going up half a register, my cheerleader chirp.

Before our witty exchange could escalate, the Buffalo ’s personal assistant, Mildred, came clicking down the hall toward us on high alligator heels. So she really never left Buffalo Bill’s side. What did Mrs. Bysen think about her husband’s personal assistant living with him at home as well as at work?

“Mr. Bysen and Mr. William will talk to this person in Mr. Bysen’s study, Sneedham,” she said to the butler, avoiding my face.

Mrs. Bysen popped out of a side room to appear next to Mildred. Her gray curls were as tightly combed and groomed as they had been in church on Sunday, her green shantung dress as smooth as if invisible hands ironed it every time she sat down. But inside this formal attire, her face showed the benignity I’d observed on Sunday-except that in her home she had an assurance she’d lacked at the Mt. Ararat service.

“Thank you, Mildred, but if Bill is going to talk to a detective about my grandson I want to be there. A

“Bill didn’t tell me he was working with any lady detectives, but maybe a woman will have more understanding of my grandson than those corporate people who came through here yesterday. Do you have news of Billy?” She looked at me firmly-she might be benign, but she knew her own mind and how to express it.

“I’m afraid I don’t have news, ma’am, or only of a negative kind: I know he’s not with Pastor Andrés, or with Josie Dorrado’s best friend, and I know Josie’s family is racked with anguish-they have no idea where the two may be. Maybe you could help me understand why Billy ran away in the first place. If I could get a handle on that, it might help me find him.”

She nodded. “Sneedham, I think we’ll want A

I said coffee would be fine, and Sneedham went off to herd the designated sheep into the fold. I followed Mrs. Bysen down the hall to where it ended in a room with a sunken floor, carpeted in a thick gold pile. Massive furniture, suitable to a medieval castle and upholstered in heavy brocades, weighted down the room. Stiff drapes, in a matching brocade, were pulled across the windows.

Mildred busied herself with moving a couple of chairs close together-no small job, considering their size, and the thickness of the carpet. William made no move to help her: she wasn’t really a family member, just the most loyal of all the retainers.

While we waited on the rest of the family, Mrs. Bysen asked how well I knew Billy. I answered her honestly-her face seemed to demand honesty, at least from me-that I’d only met him several times, that he appeared to be a decent, fundamentally serious and idealistic young man, and that he often mentioned her as his most important teacher. She looked pleased but didn’t add anything.

After a few minutes, Jacqui entered; she’d changed out of her fluttery taupe skirt into a floor-length, belted black dress. It wasn’t a formal gown, just a tasteful cashmere at-home dress.

Another woman stumbled in behind Jacqui. She had Billy’s freckles, or he had hers. The auburn curls he cropped close to his head stood out around hers, like the hair of an ungroomed poodle. So this was A

I knew from my database that Billy’s mother was forty-eight, but she appeared more like a schoolgirl, with her uncertain, almost coltlike gait. She looked around with a puzzled face as if she didn’t know why she was on the planet, let alone this particular bit of it. When I moved across the room to greet her, her husband immediately went to her side as if to forestall her talking to me. He took her elbow and almost pushed her to an armchair as remote as possible from the middle of the room.

When everyone else was seated, and Sneedham had served weak coffee, Buffalo Bill stumped in, using his silver-topped walking stick like a ski pole to push himself through the high pile. He went to the heavier of the armchairs Mildred had moved; she took the one to his left. Mrs. Bysen sat on a couch and patted the cushion next to her for me.

“Well, young woman? Well? You’ve been trespassing on my warehouse, spying on me, so you’d better have a good explanation of what you’re up to.” Buffalo Bill glared at me and blew so heavily that his cheeks pouched out.

I leaned back against the thick cushions, although the couch was so deep it wasn’t very comfortable. “We do have a lot to talk about. Let’s start with Billy. Something happened at the company that upset him so badly he didn’t think he could talk to anyone in the family about it. What was that?”

“It was the other way around, Detective,” Mr. William said. “You were present the day Billy brought that ridiculous preacher up to our offices. We spent days trying to smooth over-”

“Yes, yes, we know all that,” Buffalo Bill cut his son off with his usual impatience. “Did you say something to him, William, to make him run away?”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Father, you act as though Billy were as delicate as one of Mother’s roses. He takes everything too hard, but he knows how we run our business; after five months in the warehouse, he’d seen everything. It’s only been since he came under the thumb of this preacher that he started behaving so strangely.”

“It’s that Mexican girl, really,” Aunt Jacqui said. She was sitting on an embroidered hassock, her legs crossed, the skirt of her long dress falling open just above her knees. “He’s in love, or thinks he is, and it’s making him imagine he understands the world from her perspective.”