Good. That means they’re both home. This was not the first time she had been here, but she appraised it with the eye of the daughter of a successful real-estate agent, with a view to assessing the mental state of those within it. The house was just like every other house in this neighborhood; which rather annoyed her, truth be told. A house should have character; these had none. Clearly built in the late seventies or early eighties, it was a split-level, with the requisite stone-and-cedar exterior, recessed front door, attached garage, six-foot cedar privacy fence. The backyard was probably short-shorn grass with a tiny bordering of garden and a few hanging plants on the patio; the manicured front lawn, with two evergreens and two maple trees, was just like the neighbor’s. Every house here had an energy-wasting cathedral ceiling in the living room to give it an air of spaciousness—yet the attic would be all but useless and the three bedrooms barely big enough for a bed and a little furniture. Jennifer appraised it with a knowing eye. At the time it had been built, during the oil boom, it probably had sold for between $120,000 and $150,000. Now—if the Ambersons could find a buyer with so many companies laying off middle-management or moving their personnel elsewhere—it might sell for as little as half that. There was no sign on the front lawn, but that did not mean they had not tried to sell in the near past. The depreciation of their dreamhome would have come as a dreadful surprise.

If they have any brains, they’ll get the place reassessed and have the property taxes refigured on that basis, she thought to herself. It was advice her mother had given many a potential client trying desperately to unload a house that he could no longer afford. At least lowering the property taxes a little gave a feeling of illusory relief.