In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.
―H.P. Lovecraft
The Call of Cthulhu
“I’m being stalked,” Amber Keenan told me.
Amber Keenan was in her 30s, blond, a marketing executive. We were in a coffee shop with her girlfriend, Kris Santos, also blond. An artist.
I opened my notebook. “Okay. Tell me everything you’ve got.”
The two women looked at each other. “He’s got blond hair,” Amber said. “Darker than Kris. Short. Older than us.”
“Sometimes he wears a baseball cap,” Kris said. “I can’t see what team. Sometimes he’s in a jacket, sometimes just a sweatshirt. Depending on the weather, I guess.”
“When did you start seeing him?”
Amber groaned. “Right around the time I inherited the house.”
I looked up. “What house?”
She ran her fingers through her hair. “I somehow inherited this house from an uncle I’ve barely heard of. I mean, both my parents are dead so I couldn’t ask them, but this lawyer showed me the will—the part of it I was in—and I found the name in some documents my mom had, so it’s legit. Now I’ve got this house near Benton Harbor in Michigan and I have no idea what to do with it, and—”
Amber paused for breath. Kris put a hand on her arm, smiling.
I wrote it all down, giving her a chance to recover. Yeah, I still write things in a notebook, not on my phone. I’m not even that old. I love technology, but a notebook and a pen are old habits from when I was a reporter.
“I noticed someone watching us the day we went to look at the house.” Amber took a sip of her iced coffee. “I didn’t think about it much, there are a few other houses along the street. Then I noticed a guy who looked like he was following me when I was at the grocery store. I didn’t really start worrying until I saw him a few days later on my way home from work. I work downtown, and I noticed him when I got off the bus.”
She glanced at Kris. “That time I recognized him, and I called Kris, and we went to a bar where the owner knows us so we could get out the back way. So he wouldn’t follow us home, you know? And I’ve seen him at least three times since then, over the last two weeks.”
“What’s the time frame? When did you see him first?”
“Four weeks ago.” That came from Kris. “That’s when we were at the house. I didn’t see him then. But I’ve seen him a few times since.”
“And yes, I called the police.” Amber said, anticipating the obvious question. “They couldn’t do anything without a name or a photo, or anything to identify him.”
“That figures.” I sat back and crossed my arms, looking at my notes and trying to think of what to tell them. “Did he follow you today? Here?”
They shook their heads. “I don’t think so,” Amber said.
“I didn’t see him,” Kris added.
“Okay.” I sat forward. “I can do a couple of things. One, I’ll follow you home from here. Or wherever you’re going after this. Do you live far away?”
“A couple of blocks,” Amber said. “Yeah, we’re going home. We’ve got laundry to do.” It was Saturday morning.
“I’ll follow and watch for him,” I said. “Then we’ll set up a time every day for a week where you can go out and I’ll look for him. If I spot him, I’ll try to follow him home, or wherever he goes. Then we can go from there.”
“All right,” Amber said, but Kris seemed uncertain.
“What if you don’t spot him?” she asked. “Or you lose him?”
A reasonable question. “I’ll be honest. I’m pretty good at tailing people, but I can’t guarantee anything. In the meantime, I can advise you on personal security. It’s not my speciality—I’m not a bodyguard, but I know a bit about it, and I know some good people I can recommend.”
“And what if you do spot him?” Kris asked. “What then?”
Another fair question. “That depends. If I can identify him by where he goes, we can go to the police. On the other hand, we could simply confront him directly. Ask him what he’s up to. That might scare him off. That’s not my favorite option—”
“Yeah, it could just make him mad.” Kris frowned. I was glad she hadn’t pointed out that I don’t have the most intimidating presence. She looked at Amber. “What do you think? I’ll go along with whatever you want.”
Amber sighed. “Yeah. Don’t get in his face. Just see if you can figure out who he is.” She shuddered. “I hardly go outside anymore anyway. God, this is driving me crazy.”
Kris put an arm around her. I went up to get more coffee and give them a few minutes together, and then I sat down to go through the details. We set up a schedule, talked about pepper spray, Tasers, and other self-defense options, and then Amber sent a retainer to my Venmo. I used the bathroom and left.
Outside I crossed the street and waited at a bus stop, watching the coffee shop door and scanning the area for signs of the stalker. I called Rachel, my girlfriend, to let her know what I was up to. She told me to be careful, and also to pick up some bread from the grocery store on my way home.
I’ve handled stalking cases before. They can be tricky. Restraining orders are fine when you can get them, but they don’t always stop someone who’s seriously obsessed—or just crazy. I hoped this guy turned out to be relatively normal. Capable of being scared, willing to listen to a cop or a lawyer.
Or at least nothing supernatural. I hoped.
I got home two hours later, after following Amber and Kris without spotting their stalker. I put away the groceries, checked my email, and turned on the TV. It was Saturday, after all.
Rachel got home for her class 15 minutes later. She’s working on a degree in psychology, and Saturday classes are part of the schedule. “I’ll be so glad when this is over,” she groaned, letting her backpack slide to the floor.
Rachel’s got red hair, hazelnut eyes, and psychic powers. She helps me out on cases when I need some insight into the supernatural, at least when she’s not studying psych or working at her gig as a graphic designer.
“How was class?” I asked.
“Actually pretty interesting. Sexual addiction.”
I sat up. “Tell me more.”
“Later, maybe. What’s the case?”
I shrugged. “Stalker.”
“Huh. I had a stalker once.”
I looked up from the TV. “Really? What happened?”
She smiled. “I scared him away.”
I grinned. “You can be pretty scary.”
She went to the bedroom. When she came back she was in a T-shirt and shorts, and she brought beers for us. We clinked glasses, and I handed the remote over.
“Who was your stalker?” I asked as she sped through the channels looking for a reality show she hadn’t seen yet.
“Oh, it was—a long time ago. Right after college. I had three roommates in this tiny apartment.” She paused on a channel. “Oh, good, Real Housewives of Reykajik! I haven’t seen this in ages. Anyway . . .” She sipped on her beer.
“I started getting notes left on the front door. Post-Its, then letters. First it was just, ‘Have a sexy day,’ and then the letters started getting creepy. I figured it had to be someone in the building, but the landlord was no use. So I set a trap.”
“What kind of trap?”
“Shut up, I want to watch this . . . Okay, I got this stuff that was invisible, but it would glow if you put it under a black light, and I left some outside the door. It took a few days, but eventually I could track the guy back to his apartment from his footprints.”
“Very Doc Savage of you. Color me impressed.”
She nodded. “I thought it was pretty clever. And it worked.”
“What happened?”
“I knocked on his door and told him to piss off.”
“And that was it? I mean, not that you’re not scary in your own way, but—”
“I had a dog with me. It belonged to my roommate’s boyfriend, but he didn’t know that. He growled. The guy denied everything, but I could tell it was him.” She tapped her forehead. “He tried to argue, the dog picked up on my feelings and lunged at him, and, well, I may or may not have hit him with a blast of pepper spray.” She sipped her beer. “Case closed.”
I patted her leg. “I’ll bring you along if this case gets complicated.”
“Great. Now shut up and let me watch the show.”
The next day I followed Amber and Kris on a quick walk to the park with a stop at the grocery store, but didn’t see the guy. On Monday, though, I followed Amber home from work and caught him as she got on her bus on LaSalle. He was already aboard, holding a strap in the aisle. I managed to keep my eye on him without being obvious.
Like Amber said, he had blond hair in a baseball cap, and he wore jeans and a leather jacket. Not too tall, kind of skinny, with thick hands and sharp eyes. I couldn’t manage a photo, but I kept my eyes on him, trying not to let him notice me as the bus rolled in its stop-and-start pattern up the street.
I texted her so she’d know I was there. We all got off the bus near her apartment building, and he waited outside when she stopped at the grocery store. Once she got home, he stood on the nearest corner for 15 minutes, then walked north for three blocks to an el stop. I lost him a few minutes later, but it was a start.
He didn’t follow her home the next day, but he was back on Wednesday. I stayed with him longer, tailing him off the train and down the street past electronics stores, Mexican restaurants, and shoe stores until he went into a bar. I went in and had a beer, watching him until he went to the restroom, but he didn’t come back. I found a back door to the alley, but it was too late. He was gone.
On Thursday I called her to check in. I’d been sending Amber daily emails, but I had some other information to share.
“No, I get that tailing people is hard,” Amber said after I apologized for losing the stalker again. “It feels better knowing there’s someone there, you know? I know I can’t hire someone full-time, but I sorta wish I could.”
“Do you want me to keep at it?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “At least until next week. Then maybe if you don’t know where he lives, we can just try to talk to him on the street.”
I wondered what had happened to Rachel’s roommate’s dog. But at least I had plenty of pepper spray, and my Taser. “There’s something else you might want to know,” I said. “I was looking into the history of the house you inherited.”
“Oh. Yeah, Kris keeps telling me we’ve got to do something about that. I’ve just been all over the place with this guy—” She paused to breathe. “Okay. What do you know?”
“Your uncle, Jacob Holroyd, was your mother’s half-brother, correct?”
“Y-yeah. I think that’s it. She didn’t talk about him much. Grandpa’s first wife—I think she left him. Grandpa was an alcoholic. Mom didn’t—well, she tried to maintain some kind of relationship with him, but he wasn’t easy, and so they didn’t keep up together.”
“Right.” I’d gotten some of this from property records, and some from the lawyer handling the estate, such as it was. Jake Holroyd’s mother had married a man named Quinn Powell, who adopted Holroyd. They apparently never had any other children.
I told this to Amber, and then I got to the hard part: “There’s another thing. Jake’s parents, uh, committed suicide. In that house.”
“Oh my God.” Amber gulped. “In the house?”
“Yeah. Jake found them. They hung themselves in the attic—”
“I don’t think I want to know. Jesus Christ! Just a second.” I heard her take a gulp of water. Or whatever she had handy at her desk.
“This was 20 years ago or so. Jake continued to live there until he died this year. The lawyer, James Crowley, obviously wasn’t able to track down any other relatives—”
“Yeah, he said he only met my uncle twice, about five years ago and then last year. Christ. I mean, I got some money, too, but—”
“Did he leave the house to you specifically? In his will?”
“No. It was just to be divided among any living relatives. He had to do some kind of search to find me.”
I wondered how thorough he’d been for a client he barely knew. I’d have to do some searching of my own.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll follow you tonight—”
“I’m going out for drinks. With work people. Not for long, but an hour or so.” A bar downtown. I noted the name and promised to stay with her.
Rachel was working on her side of the office. “Stalker case?”
“Yeah. I’m tailing her again tonight.”
“Is she cute?” Rachel sometimes gets territorial when I’m around another woman.
I shrugged. “Reasonably. She has a girlfriend, though, so I’m probably not her type.”
“You never know. Just be careful.”
I figured she wasn’t just talking about Amber. “Don’t worry. I don’t have a dog, but I’m a Jedi with my pepper spray.”
“Use it wisely, young padawan.” We both went back to work.
So at six p.m. I was outside a downtown bar called O’Riley’s, with an office building on one side and an alley on the other. Amber was inside, with three women and one man from her office, sitting around a table drinking beer and wine. A light rain was beginning to fall. Fortunately I had a jacket and a hat. I just hoped it wouldn’t turn into a downpour.
I hadn’t spotted the stalker as they were walking over. I stood in front of the office building next door with a good view of the bar’s entrance, pretending to talk on my phone as I watched. Every few minutes I put my phone away, paced, then pretended to get another call so I’d be doing something normal.
I was getting tired and wet, so I was thinking about going in to see if somehow he’d snuck into the bar when I saw him. Across the street, hands in his pockets, just watching. I looked away quickly, and tried keeping an eye on him in the reflection of the office building’s windows, but that didn’t work as well as it does in detective novels. I had to keep turning back, aware that he could slip away in an instant if I took my eyes off him.
He didn’t seem to notice me. I managed a few pictures with my phone, then texted Amber that he was outside.
She texted back a minute later: I’m getting a cab home.
The stalker stayed where he was as Amber pushed her way through the revolving doors of the bar with two co-workers. She glanced around, as they hugged, chatting good-bye, and then she turned to the curb and lifted a hand, looking for a cab.
The rain was heavier now, and the street was busy. Amber’s friends headed for the subway stairs, and she stayed, her eyes darting nervously around as she looked for an open cab.
The stalker, on the far side of the street, suddenly moved forward. He dodged a car, waited for another one that slowed and honked, and then stood in the middle of the street, looking both ways for a safe moment to finish crossing.
A cab flashed its lights, and Amber took a step to the curb. Then a woman I hadn’t noticed before darted out from the shadow of the alley next to the bar and skidded behind her, shoving Amber in the back.
Amber stumbled. The cab hit its brakes, and the driver twisted his wheel to veer away from her as he forced it to a stop on the wet pavement.
The woman, in a long green coat, boots, and a skirt, stood on the sidewalk, watching Amber as if deciding whether to try pushing her further into the traffic.
Then the stalker was making his way across the rain-streaked street, and she turned and ran away without looking back, ducking in front of two guys in business suits to duck into the subway.
Amber caught her balance and looked around, confused. She pulled the cab’s door open and slid in. and the cab drove away into the rain.
The stalker stood motionless, peering up and down the street. For a moment our eyes met. Then he turned and walked back across the street, his arms swinging back and forth as if he was in a hurry.
I crossed, but I lost him in half a block. By now I was soaked by the rain, frustrated with my shadowing skills, and puzzled by the woman in the green coat. But there was no point in getting more wet. I got a cab of my own and headed home.
Amber called me as I was taking off my damp socks in the bedroom. “What happened? Did that—it felt like someone tried to shove me in front of my cab!”
“Yeah.” I’d been rerunning the scene through my mind on the ride home. “I’m not 100% sure, but—yeah, that’s what it looked like.”
“What about the guy? What happened to him?”
“I lost him again. It looked like he was trying to get to you when that woman came up.”
“Damn it.” I could hear Kris behind her, trying to keep her calm. “What the hell is going on?”
“I think I have to confront him.” I didn’t like the idea, but I tried to keep my nerves under control. “Before this—escalates any further.”
“Yeah. I guess. I don’t know.” She sniffed. “Sorry. I’m going to work from home tomorrow. I’m scared to go out now. Even the cab driver thought that woman was trying to push me.”
“That’s good. Stay home and safe. I’ll swing by your building tomorrow morning to see if I can spot him. If that doesn’t work . . .” My voice trailed off as I thought about the next step.
“What?”
I had one idea. “How would you feel about going out to the house this Saturday?”
No comments:
Post a Comment