House for Sale (Haunted)

The past comes back to haunt Tom Jurgen in more ways than one when his ex-wife hires him to find the truth about a cursed house.

House for Sale (Haunted), Part One

Most private eyes on TV do their business in fast, fancy cars. I do mine mostly on the computer and the phone. I have a lot of numbers in my phone—friends, clients, former clients, doctors, cops, vampires, exorcists, and others. And Rachel, of course. Periodically I do delete anything that’s a year old or more, but I tend to keep people for longer than I really need to. Call it nostalgia. Or laziness.

            And as a P.I. I always pick up the phone even when I don’t recognize the number. It might be a telemarketer, but you never know when it could be a break in the case. Or a new client. 

Or your ex-wife.

            My phone buzzed at 9:23 on a Tuesday morning. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”

            “Hello, Tom.”

            It took me a minute, because I hadn’t heard that voice in 20 years. Except in dreams, sometimes. Not good dreams. “Hello, Susan.” 

            “It’s been a long time,” she said.

            The first four years or so of marriage had been great, but by the end we were communicating mostly through lawyers. Since then we’d had no reason to talk to each other. No desire, either. At least we’d never made the mistake of having children, hoping it would “fix” things somehow. The marriage went bad long before we got there.

            “What can I do for you?” I asked.

            She took a breath. “I need—your help.” It felt like an effort to admit.

            Huh? “What kind of help?” 

            She sighed. “The kind of stuff you know about. The stuff I didn’t want to hear about. I want to—to hire you.”

            Supernatural stuff. Ghosts and phantom killers and vampires. The stuff that got me fired because I insisted on trying to report on it for the newspapers. “What kind of stuff is it?”

            “Can we—meet somewhere?” She sounded as if she was making an appointment for root canal surgery. 

            Talking to Susan was awkward enough on the phone. Meeting in person wasn’t likely to be any easier. But she was a prospective client. I couldn’t turn her down. “What did you have in mind?”

            She gave me the name of a coffee shop not far from my apartment in Lincoln Park. “An hour?”

            “I can be there. I may—”

            “Okay.” She hung up before I could finish, as if she’d had enough of my voice as she could stand.

            I sighed, drank some coffee, and got up to walk around the partition Rachel had put up in our shared office. Rachel is my wife. Second wife, and hopefully the only one going forward. She’s a mental health therapist, and does a lot of work talking with patients from our home when she doesn’t have to go to her office. She’s always tolerated my phone calls, but in the end she had to do something to preserve confidentiality for her people.

            I peeked around the partition. Rachel was doing paperwork, not on the phone or Zoom. “I have an appointment.”

            She didn’t look up. “Client? Cop? Ducking out on a bill collector?”

            I took a deep breath for courage. “Actually, it’s my ex-wife.”

            That made her turn around. Rachel has red hair, hazelnut eyes, and mildly psychic powers, but they apparently hadn’t warned her about this. “Susan?”

            “She wants to hire me.”

            “For what?” Rachel’s eyes grew narrow.

            “I don’t know. It has something to do with my, uh, specialty in the supernatural.”

            Now she got even more suspicious. “I thought she didn’t believe in any that. She thought you were crazy.”

            “More for not shutting up about it than believing what I saw. But—yeah. This is a shocker.”

            Rachel shrugged. “Okay.”

            “You want to come?”

            She leaned back, unnerved. “Why?”

            “I don’t know. To make sure I don’t say anything stupid. Or so I can prove that I managed to have a pretty good life without her.”

            Rachel rolled her eyes. “You can do stupid on your own. And I think I can trust you to be alone with your ex at this point in our lives.”

            I nodded. “Okay. Can I show her pictures of you?”

            She snorted. “Whatever. Just remember it’s your turn to make dinner. And no mac and cheese from a box again.”

            “I’ll stop at the store on the way back,” I promised.

 

The coffee shop was more of a wine bar that served a little coffee to draw some morning business. Ferns hung from the ceiling and paintings from Paris and Spain hung on the walls. Susan was waiting, an espresso in front of her and a frown on her face, as if she just wanted to get this meeting over with. 

            I sat across from her at the small table. “Hi, Susan.”

            She nodded. “Tom.”

            She had short blond hair, the same length as when we’d been married, with some streaks of gray. Sapphire blue eyes. High cheekbones and a sharp nose. She wore a gray pantsuit that reminded me of the slacks and blouses she used to wear when we went out to dinner or a play.  An espresso sat on the table in front of her.

            She looked me over too. I’ve gained some weight—I need to work out more—and my hair is grayer too. I was about to sit down when she pointed past me. “You have to get your coffee at the counter.” 

            I returned a minute later with a large mug. “So—how have you been?” 

            She blinked, as if the question made no sense. “I only wanted to—” Then she stopped and looked at me. “Okay. Married two times. Not counting you. Three kids, two girls and a boy. No husband right now. I’m doing real estate. You?”

            “I’m married. My wife Rachel’s a therapist.” I restrained the urge to pull out my phone and show her off. “So what’s going on?”

            Susan frowned, annoyed. “I’m trying to sell a house.”

            “We’re not in a position to buy, thanks for—”

            “It’s haunted.” She said it as if repeating a swear word. “You deal with that kind of thing, right?”

            I stared at her, trying to keep long repressed emotions still buried. “You never believed me.”  

            “What was I supposed to believe?” Her voice was acid. “Vampires? Ghost stories? Flying monsters kidnapping children? And you were the only one seeing them? Nobody else? And you wouldn’t keep your mouth shut even to keep your job while I was working 12-hour days at an ad agency where sexual harassment was part of the benefits package? Yeah, I was the irrational bitch, and you were the voice of reason.”

            This is what I remembered from the last days. The anger, the resentment, the accusations. Yeah, I wasn’t very understanding. I was younger then, and drinking too much, and way too self-righteous, convinced of the justice of my crusade and the invincibility of “the truth.” I’m not proud of who I was then.

            We were happy at first, of course. We were young and horny and had completely unrealistic expectations about life, and each other. When reality started to crack, we tried to force it back into place, which only made the cracks wider and deeper. We argued, we went silent, we cheated—both of us. I’m not sure if I did first or Susan, but as the marriage fell apart we spent more time trying to hurt each other than trying to repair what was broken, or even figure out why it broke in the first place. 

            It was a long time before I trusted myself to be in a relationship again. Not because I didn’t trust Rachel, but I didn’t trust my own instincts. Rachel had some issues of her own, things progressed slowly—first just admitting we were a couple, then moving in together, and finally deciding after almost 10 years to get married. It had helped that we’d both encountered the supernatural before we met—me on the job, and Rachel from leading a support group for survivors of vampire attacks. We clicked right away. 

            I sighed. “Yeah. I was an asshole. I treated you very badly. No excuses.” I looked at her. “I’m sorry.”

            Susan was surprised. “All right,” she said slowly, as if ready for a trap. “Thank you, I guess.”

            “So tell me about this house.”

            She opened a laptop. “It’s in Ravenswood Manor.” A neighborhood north and west of us. “Nice house, two stories and an attic, attached garage, lawn and garden. The previous owner is anxious to sell, so it’s a good price.” She showed me the online listing. 

            “Anxious to sell? Because it’s haunted?”

            “He lived there about eight months. Just him and his pregnant wife. They moved right before her due date. They’re angry, but the previous owner did warn them about strange things happening, and they lived there for eight years. I think things got worse.”

            “What kind of things?”

            Susan sighed. “Knocking sounds, doors and cabinets opening and slamming. Then—whispering in the walls. Sometimes screams in the middle of the night. Plates getting shoved off tables. A fire in the kitchen. I don’t blame them for getting out., But now I’m stuck with it.” She rubbed her eyes. They were blue, and not as bright as they used to be. Not like Rachel’s. “I suppose you want to see it?”

            I nodded. “I need Rachel.”

            Susan scowled. “You’re afraid to be alone with me?”

            Yes, I thought. But I said, “She’s psychic.”

            Susan laughed. “Of course you’d marry a psychic.” She sat back. “Fine. Bring her. The more the merrier.”

            “Let me call her.” I stood up and walked over to a spot near the restrooms. Rachel picked up. “How’s the ex?”

            “Just as I remembered her. You want to go see a haunted house?”

            “Will she be there?”

            I looked over at Susan, glaring at her espresso. “Yeah.”

            “Oh, good. Well, I’ve got sessions, but let me see—Three thirty?”

            I walked back to the table. “Can we do 3:30?” I asked Susan with Rachel listening.

            She shrugged without looking at me. “Fine.”

            “Okay. I’ll be home in a few minutes.” I hung up.

            Susan smirked. “No ‘I love you’?”

            I shrugged. “She’s psychic. She knows.”

 

The house had a small front yard with a big tree, a covered porch with a bench next to the door, and a “For Sale” sign with Susan’s picture jammed into the grass. We parked. I looked at Rachel. “I’ll let her know.”

“Yeah.” Rachel smiled. “Give her a little warning.”

I texted Susan. She texted back right away: I’m inside. Wave for the Ring camera. “Okay.” I took a breath. “She’s already here.”

Rachel patted my arm. “Don’t be nervous. I’ll protect you from the big bad ex.”

“Great, but who’s going to protect me when she tells you all my long-forgotten crimes of the heart?”

She snorted. “They can’t be any worse than the ones I know about. Come on.”

Susan opened the door as we stepped up onto the porch. “Hi.” She looked past me. “I’m Susan Moore.”

“Rachel Dunne.” They shook hands across the doorway.

The living room inside was almost bare. One sofa, a table, and a chair looked through the big window onto the front yard. Hardwood floors with a rug, and built-in bookshelves held a few hardcovers and a framed photo of the Chicago beachfront with the John Hancock building in the background.

“So.” Susan looked Rachel over. “You’re psychic?”

“Don’t worry, I can’t read your mind.” Rachel looked her over. “Unless you want me to.”

“No thanks.” She looked Rachel over. “You kept your name?”

She nodded. “I like my name. “

“Yeah.” Susan glanced at me. “I had to change mine back. Twice. Third time I just kept it and I didn’t have to do anything later.” Another look at Rachel. “You’re a shrink?”

“A therapist, yeah.”

“Comes in handy with him, I bet.” Another glance my way, then she crossed her arms. “So what about the house?”

Rachel sighed and closed her eyes. Susan watched her, skeptical. I stood back from both of them, wishing I was anywhere else.

Something thumped in the other room. Susan groaned and turned. I followed her down a short hall into the kitchen, where a plate had shattered on the floor next to a small table set for a family of four. 

“Damn it.” She yanked on a closet door next to a cupboard. “Third one I’ve had to clean up this week. I’d use plastic but it looks cheap. You want a place to look like somebody could really live here without making it look like you’re kicking somebody out.” She reached into the closet.

A broom shot out and hit her in the face. Susan yelped and jumped back. A dustpan fell from the closet at her feet, as if demanding she clean up the mess.

“You okay?” I picked up the broom as Susan rubbed her face. “Does that happen a lot?”

“It’s the first time anything hit me.” She glared at the broom in my face. “One of the books in the living room fell on my foot—”

Then a scream interrupted her.

I raced for the living room. I knew it wasn’t Rachel. It wasn’t her voice, and she never screams, but she might be in trouble.

Instead she was still standing in the middle of the room with her eyes closed, but the room itself seemed to shudder as the screaming rose and then dropped off—first into silence, and then thread of whispers drifted in the air.

Susan was behind me. “This is what the owners talked about. Screaming and whispers.”

“Rach?” I asked. “What’s going on?”

Rachel opened her eyes. “Something bad happened here.”

“Oh, really?” Susan said sarcastically. “Like what? A beheading? Cats drowning? What?”

“I can’t tell,” Rachel snapped. “There’s too much noise! There are too many voices!” I can’t—” She stopped herself, took a deep breath, and swallowed whatever she’d been about to say. “Let’s get out of here.”

We went down to my car, with Susan in the front and Rachel behind her in the back seat. “What do we do?” Susan demanded.  “I can’t show the house like this! Do we call a priest? Did that work in Amityville Horror?”

“No,” I told her. “And that’s been debunked. Don’t believe every supernatural story you hear.”

Susan’s eyes got wide. “Coming from you, that’s a shocker.”

“Believe it,” Rachel said. “But this is real. We need to know more about what happened here. Then we can figure out how to get the ghosts gone.”

“Susan, get me the last couple of owners,” I said. “Find out everything else you can about the history of the house, and I’ll look into it too. Once we have some idea about what happened, we can figure out if we need an exorcist, or a witch doctor, or maybe a demolitions expert.”

“I’m pretty sure blowing up a house would lower the property value,” Rachel said. “But I’ll let Susan handle that one.”

Susan pushed her door open. “Just call me when you’ve got something.” She slammed it and stalked back to her car.

“She’s paying us, right?” Rachel asked.

“I got a retainer.” I looked in the rearview mirror. “You want to switch?”

“No, let’s pretend you’re the chauffer and I’m the rich heiress.” She sat back. “Home, James.”

House for Sale (Haunted), Part Two

Rachel was at her office the next day, so I was alone with my coffee. Susan emailed me contact information for the house’s previous two owners. Before that a bank had owned the house for eight years, and I’d already figured out why.

            As much as I didn’t want to talk to Susan, I didn’t want to email this to her. “I think we just found who the ghosts are,” I told her when I got her on the phone.

“Who?”

“About 10 years ago, the owner of the house, Oswald Franken, shot his wife, two daughters, and then himself. I can send you some articles if you want.”

            “Oh God.” Susan was silent a moment. “W-why?”

            “There was no motive the police could figure out.” I was looking at some of the media reports. “There was no note, no reports from the wife about abuse, no complaints from the neighbors, no social media clues—he just snapped, apparently. Or maybe he was possessed by a homicidal demon.”

            “Oh, come on, you can’t—” Then she remembered she ass talking to me. “A demon? Is that for real?”

            “I’ve seen them. Too often.”

            A long silence. “You have a strange life.” 

            “And you could have shared it with me all these years, but you bailed.”  Yeah, it was a cheap shot. I just couldn’t resist.

            “We both bailed. I just got to my lawyer first. “

            “You’re right, you’re right. Sorry.” I took a breath. I might need to see my therapist when this was over. “Doesn’t your company include stuff like this for agents?”

            “It’s supposed to. I’ll talk to the district office.” I heard her swallow some coffee. Or maybe some morning vodka? No, I had to stop thinking like that. “And I’m sorry too, Tom. It was—I’m not exactly proud of who I was back then.”

            That was unexpected. “I’ve accepted that it was mostly my fault. Rachel’s fond of pointing out when I’m being a jerk.”

            “Then there’s at least one thing we have in common.” She went on quickly: “Can you talk to the two other owners?”

            “That’s next on my list. I’ll let you know.” I hung up before our delicate truce collapsed again.

            I called Philip Chavez, the house’s most recent owner. He was friendly and willing to talk, as if he needed somebody to take him seriously. “Yeah, we couldn’t take it anymore. At first it was just stuff falling over. We thought there was mice in the walls, but the exterminator couldn’t find anything. A bookcase fell over one night for no reason, and then there was a fire out of nowhere. My wife was pregnant! I don’t believe in ghosts, but there’s something wrong with that house.”

            “Is your wife all right now?”   

            “Yeah, we had our boy last month. He’s fine, she’s fine. But we’ve got to do something! We’re renting and it’s okay, but I don’t want that place hanging over our heads. You’re working for the agent?”

            “That’s right. Was there anything else? Did you hear anything specific?”

            “No, it was just whispers. A few screams. That scared the shit out of us. There was one—” He stopped.

            “One what?”

            Chavez hesitated. “I saw a guy looking at the house a couple of times. Not enough that I wanted to call the cops, maybe just two or three times around the last couple of months. He was a young guy, about 25? I don’t know. White, not too tall. Blond hair. Casual clothes, I guess. I jacket. That’s all. He might have been nobody.”

            I thanked him, and wished his son and his wife well. “Thanks,” he said. “Tell that agent—I don’t know. We’ve just got to sell that house.”

            We hung up, and I called the next name on my list—the prior owner, David Towers. I had to go through a secretary, but he was willing to talk. Just not over the phone. I arranged to meet him in his office downtown in an hour.

            So sixty minutes later I was waiting in the office of a small financial firm near the Board of Trade. The secretary, a young black woman. offered me a cup of coffee and explained that Mr. Towers would be with me as soon as he got off the phone with New York. I suspected an effort to impress and/or intimidate me by making me wait, but he opened his door five minutes later with a smile on his face. “Mr. Jurgen? Tom? Come on in.”

            Towers was heavyset, in his 50s, hairline receding, waistline fighting expansion. His handshake was firm. The office was small, no windows, and his desk was strewn with paperwork surrounding a computer monitor.

            “Uh, that house, right?” He shook his head. “Christ, that was crazy.”

            “What happened while you were living there?”

            He smiled. “Well, at first, it wasn’t much. Noises around the house. I thought it was raccoons or squirrels, you know? One night I heard a scream and I called the cops, but they couldn’t find anything.” He shrugged. “We kind of got used to it. Made jokes about ghosts. It only got really bad in the last year. Things started falling over more. Bigger things, like a bookcase in one of the bedrooms, and our dresser one day when no one was home. The dining room table one time. Then the screaming—” 

He shook his head. “We had to move out, but by then I lost my job and we were already looking to sell the place and move.” He lifted an arm and pointed toward the corner of the office. “This is me, starting over.”

            “Was there anything that changed? When things started getting worse?”

            His eyes flickered as he thought. “The only thing I can think of is my wife said some kid came to the door one day. He said he used to live there. She didn’t let him in, she got a weird feeling from him, but they talked for a few minutes. Then he said he used to live in the neighborhood, not the house, and he was sorry to bother her, and he left. She was a little creeped out.”

            I thought about Chavez. “What did he look like?”

            “I didn’t see him. She just said young, 20-something. Blond hair”

            Same guy? “And the weirdness got worse after that?”

            Towers looked up at the ceiling. “I guess. I don’t really know, I can’t put a date on it or anything. But I think so.”

            That was interesting. I didn’t know if it meant anything, but I thanked Towers for his time and wished him good luck. He sighed. “It’s tough these days. But I’ll get there.”

            I envied him his optimism.

            Back home I doublechecked the media reports of the murders. Oswald Franken, 42; wife Nicole, 39; two daughters, eight and 12—Melissa and Carmen. No son, no male child living with them. So who was this visitor? 

            I tried calling the police detective quoted in one of the articles. It turned out he’d retired. The police don’t usually like talking to me very much, but I persisted until I got someone willing to share a key piece of information: The murders had been discovered by a 14-year-old boy from the neighborhood. They’d left that out for his privacy and safety. She wouldn’t give me his name, even after I pointed out that he’d be an adult now. I was trying to think of another argument when she hung up. 

            It wasn’t much, but maybe it was something to work with. I spent most of the afternoon searching public real estate information on the internet for anything I could find about families in the neighborhood, and then I tried connecting the names I found to the Franken family. 

            By 4:30 I had two candidates: Eric Gracen, 23, who’d lived three blocks away from the Franken house until eight years ago, but as far as I could tell he was in college in California. Still, he fit the general description of the young man Chavez and Towers had described.

            Then there was David Stillman, 20 or 21, who’d lived down the street. He’d apparently gone to the local high school, because I found his name in a few pieces about the track team, along with a picture of him with the team. Again, he sort of fit the description, such as it was. 

            Now what? I thought that over as I started making enchiladas for dinner, since it was my night to cook. I didn’t exactly want to track the kids down and ask, “By the way, did you happen to walk into a family murder scene 10 years ago?” I always hated stuff like that as a reporter, calling families to get their reactions to tragic news. Susan would call me a vulture when I did, and my boss would call me a coward if I didn’t.

            Thinking about Susan sparked a thought. Not a sour, spiteful thought either. Something constructive. I checked my texts from yesterday. There it was: Wave for the Ring camera. 

            Nuts. Now I had to call her.

            “There’s a camera in front of the house?” I asked.

            “Yeah, we put them up whenever we list a house. Keeping an eye out for burglars, vandals. Sometimes there’s a delivery even if the place is vacant. But it doesn’t track anything inside—”

            I told her about the young man Chavez and Towers had seen. “Can you send me everything you have?”

            She hesitated. “I’m not supposed to. Company policy.” 

“It could help us figure out what’s going on. And help you get that house sold.”

Suddenly she was angry. “Is this the best you’ve got? Some kid lurking around the house from years ago? Do you really think this kid has something to do with the ghosts?”

            For a moment I was back in that small apartment, with Susan yelling at me to stop seeing things that weren’t there and me yelling that she never believed me, that I saw what I saw, and if she couldn’t believe what I was telling her then why was I talking to her? 

That wasn’t the moment that had blown us apart. That came later. But it was part of the tick-tick-tick that had eventually shattered our marriage. 

            I took a deep breath. “Maybe nothing. I won’t know until I can check it out. But if you can’t do it, I’ll think of something else.”

            The irritation faded from her voice. “Well—it’ll only be a problem if they find out at corporate. Keep it to yourself, all right?”

            “I will.”

            We hung up. I checked my phone a few minutes later and found the file.

            With the enchiladas ready for the oven, I chopped some vegetables, set the table, and went back to my office. Rachel would be home soon, but I had time to watch some video.

            The camera was motion-activated, so at least I didn’t have to fast-forward through the past week, which was all the device was set to record. Lots of squirrels turned the camera on. The mail carrier at least once every few days, delivering junk mail. Susan came twice. One Amazon driver dropped off a package. 

            I found my target first in the background, as the mail carrier came up the porch steps. Across the street, standing still. I tried expanding the picture until it got too blurry to view, but he did have sandy blond hair and looked to be in his 20s. I saw him again the next day when the Amazon delivery came, but he stayed on the far side of the street. 

Then two days later—just three days before Susan called me—he came up onto the porch and I got a decent look at him. Not a kid, probably 25, he wore a baggy sweatshirt and jeans. He walked to one side of the camera—looking in the windows?—and then I watched him walk away. 

I went back for a screenshot of his face. Then I compared it to my two candidates. The visitor was David Stillman.

Rachel came home then, so I didn’t have to think of my next step right away. She went to change clothes and I started the oven. Then we had a beer in the kitchen while I filled her in and showed her the video.

She frowned. “You really think this kid has something to do with the ghosts?”

I had to remind myself that Rachel wasn’t Susan. “I don’t know. Maybe not. It’s all I’ve got to go on right now.” 

            Rachel patted my arm as the oven timer dinged from the kitchen. “Your instincts are usually pretty good.”

            “Tell that to my ex-wife.”

            Then she slugged me, but lightly. “Let’s go eat dinner.”

House for Sale (Haunted), Part Three

The next morning I sent Susan an email with a progress report and started looking for David Stillman. 

            P.I. work can be tedious sometimes, and this was one of the times. I started with the high school website, since that was my only source of information on him. The site had an alumni directory, but David Stillman wasn’t listed. I sent an email to the alumni association, and then I found four of his teammates from the track team photo in the directory and sent messages to them. 

            Then I started on the public real estate records for the neighborhood around the Franken house. It took a while, but I found a house a block away owned by Richard and Wendy Stillman at the time of the murders. They’d sold it a year later, and when trying to track them down I found a divorce decree a year after that. Custody of their son David, 16 at the time, was shared between the two of them.

            I found Richard Stillman pretty easily. He was a lawyer, so he showed up in lots of professional associations. Wendy had been a high school principal, but she’d retired in 2023. I got myself some more coffee, took a deep breath, and started with Richard.

            I got his assistant and left a message. Wendy was going to be harder to track down, and it was close to lunchtime, so I went to the kitchen to make a sandwich. I was talking to Rachel on her lunch break when Stillman called me back, of course, so I told Rachel I loved her and switched over. “Tom Jurgen here.”

“Mr. Jurgen? This is Richard Stillman, returning your call. Something about David?”

“Yes, I’m trying to contact him. It’s about a, a real restate matter. I’m a private detective.” All true statements.

“Real estate? Is he buying a house?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s a matter I’m handling for a real estate agent.” I was trying to avoid saying—

“The Franken house? Is that it?” It wasn’t an explosion. Yet. But that was coming.

“He’s been seen around the house, yes. I only wanted to ask him—"

“I don’t know where David is. I haven’t seen him in years. Ask his mother.”

“Can you give me any contact information—” But he’d already hung up.

Okay. Things like that happened. Obviously the Franken house was a touchy family issue. I finished my sandwich and went back to work.

Wendy Stillman had changed her name back to Wendy Perera, I eventually found out, and that made finding her somewhat easier. Eventually I found her social media, although it didn’t look like she posted much or responded to messages there. But she was listed as a volunteer tutor on for a nonprofit agency that helped inner city kids. I sent her a message there, and spent a half hour looking around for other points of contact, but found nothing that looked promising. She was apparently trying to stay under the internet radar, and I didn’t want to push it. Yet.

I had some paperwork for other cases I was working on, so I tackled those. Rachel texted to tell me she was on her way home, and I reminded her that it was her turn to make dinner. She responded with a rude emoji. 

I was playing some Minecraft when my phone buzzed. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”

“This is Wendy Perera. What do you want with my son?”

Her voice was quiet but tense, ready to erupt. I chose my words carefully. “I just have some questions about a real estate matter in your former neighborhood—”

“Richard called me. My ex-husband. Please tell me what’s going on?”

I looked up at the ceiling. “He’s been seen hanging around the Franken house. I wanted to ask him why.” Then I waited. 

I expected her to yell at me to leave her alone, or hang up. Instead she said, “I haven’t talked to him in a few days. Let me call him and see if he’ll talk to you.”

I would have preferred to call him myself, but I could tell there was no way I’d get his number from her. “That’s fine, Ms. Perera. Thank you.”

She hung up without a goodbye. I’m used to that.

Rachel got home 15 minutes later. “I’m making tortellini, is that okay?” She was already unbuttoning her blouse.

“Sounds great.” My phone buzzed just as this was getting interesting. “Hang on.” 

She smirked and left as I answered.

“Mr., uh, Jurgen? My name is Katie Shoresby. I’m, uh, I live with David Stillman. I just talked to his mother. The thing is, I haven’t seen David in two days. He hasn’t been home. I don’t know where he is.”

            I frowned. “Is that typical for him?”

            “No. Sometimes. He always comes home. I’m sure he’s okay.” She did not sound sure.

            “All right.” Maybe it was nothing, and I was on the wrong trail. Maybe not. But this didn’t feel like the time to push. “Please ask him to call me when you hear from him.”

            “I will,” she said unconvincingly. 

            We hung up, and I headed for the bedroom to see if I could help Rachel with anything while she changed.

 

Susan called me the next morning while I was still eating my cereal. “He was just there.” She sounded out of breath. “I’ve been watching the feed. He was in the front yard five minutes ago.”

            “Is he still there?”

            “No. He just stood there, watching the place, and then he walked away. It was kind of creepy. Should I call the cops?”

            “Not yet.” I wanted to talk to him, and that would be harder if he was mad at me for getting him arrested. “Let me see if I have any better luck getting to him today.”

            “All right.” She was skeptical. “Damn it. Does he really have anything to do with the ghosts? Can’t your psychic wife tell you anything?”

            Rachel walked into the kitchen right then, still in her T-shirt from sleeping, and I was tempted to shove the phone at her to talk to Susan. But I said, “Let me get back to you,” and hung up.

            Rachel stared at my phone. “Your lovely ex?”

            “Gee, you really are psychic.” I picked up my spoon. “And I’m not sure ‘lovely’ is the word I’d use anymore.”

            She kissed the top of my head and turned to the cupboard. “You must have thought so once.”

            “A long time ago.”

            Rachel got her cereal and coffee and sat down. She folded her hands on the table. “I’m going to play therapist for a little, okay?”

            “Is this role-playing? Am I the patient with shameful fantasies?”

            “No.” She glared at me. “Just work with me for a minute, okay?”

            I sighed. “Fine. What have you got?”

            She thought for a minute, and finally said, “You know, when I first met you? I could tell you were scared.”

            “Of you? A little.”

            She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I could tell you liked me. I didn’t even have to be psychic for that. And I could tell you’d believe me, and that went a long way.” She stirred her cereal. “Most men are afraid of being vulnerable, but that wasn’t it. It wasn’t that you were afraid of getting hurt. You were afraid of screwing up. The way—” 

            “The way I screwed up my marriage?”

“The way you’re afraid of letting down a client. Not because you won’t get paid, but because they’re trusting you with something important, and it’s your job to get it done no matter what.”

            “You could tell all that right away, huh?” I sipped my coffee.

            “Well, I had my own issues.” Rachel ate a spoonful of cereal. “But I could kind of tell you weren’t going to get halfway into anything, and that made you nervous about getting involved with me. You kept asking me out, and we kept sleeping together, but you were scared taking it further. It took us a long time to get anywhere. Partly because of my issues too, I know, but it was complicated.”

            I nodded. “I was—well, I was an asshole back when I was married. I told you that.”

            “Many times. In detail.” 

            I winced. “I just didn’t want to go through that again. And talking to her now—it just reminds me of how much an asshole I can really be.”

            “You’re not an asshole. Sometimes you’re a jerk.” She shrugged. “And sometimes I’m a bitch.”

            I shook my head. “Never.”

            “Liar.” She patted my hand. “We’re neither of us perfect. But I guess we found each other.”

            “Just in time.” I finished my cereal. “More coffee?”

            “Yeah. What’s next on the case of the haunted house for sale?”

            I grimaced. “Got to call some people.”

            

In the office I started with the girlfriend, Katie. She hadn’t seen or heard from David since I’d talked to her yesterday. ”Okay,” I said. “Do you know anything about his interest in a house near where he grew up? He’s been seen there several times.” I waited.

            She sounded nervous. “I don’t—he doesn’t like to talk about it. His childhood. I’ve never even met his parents.”

            I didn’t want to be responsible for derailing their relationship, unless I absolutely had to. So I let it go and thanked her. Then I called the father.

            Richard Stillman was still annoyed. “We don’t talk. I haven’t heard from him. Like I said yesterday, why don’t you ask his mother?”

            “I have, and I’ll call her again, but I have to ask this question: Is there any reason you can think of for why your son would be hanging around that house after all these years?”

            “My son.” His tone was bitter. “You don’t get it, do you?”

            Maybe I was starting to. “What are you saying?”

            “Ask his mother.” Stillman hung up.

            Great. Rachel walked into the office then, in jeans, carrying coffee in her Supergirl mug. “How’s crimefighting today, Batman?”

            “Well, I just found out that David Stillman may not be his father’s son. Wait, I mean—”

            “I think I get it.” She set down her coffee and started moving the privacy partitions we got so she could talk to patients on the phone. “What does it mean?”

            “I don’t know.” I picked up my phone to call the mother. “This is going to be a fun conversation.”

            Wendy Perera’s breathing was ragged. Had Richard just called to warn her? “I haven’t heard from David. I don’t know where he is now. I’m getting worried.”

            “Why would your son be hanging around the Franken house now? Do you know why?”

            “No! I have no idea. After he—found them, he wouldn’t talk for a week. Didn’t eat anything. He just sat in his room, no music, nothing. Just sitting in the darkness . . .” Her voice trailed away.

            “Why did he go over there in the first place? Did he know the Frankens?”

            No answer.

            “Ms. Perera, something your ex-husband said makes me wonder something about David—”

            “No, David is not Richard’s son,” she blurted. “There, I told you. Are you happy now? It was Oswald. Ozzie Franken. We met—it doesn’t matter. There was a party. It doesn’t matter. What does this have to do with anything?”

            “There’s something happening at the house. I think it’s connected to the murders, and maybe it’s connected to your son’s presence there.”

            “Ozzie’s house? I thought it was empty. After the—after what happened. Who would want to live there?” 

            “It’s had two owners in the last few years. Why would your son go there?”

“I don’t know!” She was breathing fast now. Maybe too fast. “Look, after it happened, after David—found them—well, he had some problems. Like I told you. It’s what you’d expect, isn’t it? I did my best, but the divorce made things worse. I thought it would be better for him, but Richard—he was just unreasonable. He didn’t care about David at all. And Ozzie—he threatened me. If I ever let it out, he had a gun in his garage, he said. I don’t know if he meant me, or him, or his family, but in the end—I guess he couldn’t take it. Bastard.”

Her breathing slowed. “And David—for a while I thought he was doing better. He finished high school. He didn’t care about college. He was fine, just—aimless. Then he— he tried to burn down his father’s house. Richard’s house. So I had to send him away.”

“Away where?”

            “It was, it was—okay, it was a mental health facility, all right? David was suicidal. It was for his safety.” Now she was crying softly.

            “When did he come back?” I asked as gently as I could. 

            “Two years ago.”

            “It sounds like you did the right thing.” I was doing the math in my head. Two years ago was about the time things started escalating in the house when Towers lived there. 

            “I tried to. It was—I don’t know. I ruined his life. I ruined all our lives. Every day I think about it.” She took a breath. “Is that what you want, Mr. Jurgen? Are you done with me now?”

            She was ready to hang up. I couldn’t blame her. But I had one more question: “What was he doing there that day? Did David know about—everything?”

            “Oh, he knew. It all came out one weekend, and he heard everything. I mean, Richard and I tried to keep it together, for his sake, but when David was 17 Richard decided he couldn’t take it anymore. Especially after it—the killing.”

            “So David knew Oswald Franken was his father?”

            “Yes! And he kept wanting to see him! That’s what made Richard crazy, that his own son—he thought his own son—was rejecting him. And it was all my fault. Goddamn it—goddamn you. Go to hell.” She hung up.

            I set the phone down. I’d gotten what I wanted from her, but I felt like crap. Leaning back, I rubbed my eyes and took a few seconds to compose myself. I could hear Rachel’s voice over the partition, speaking softly to one of her patients. I couldn’t make out anything she was saying, but I got up anyway to get more coffee.

            So it seemed that David’s presence had triggered the ghosts to get more active. His connection to the murders agitated them. I needed to talk to him. But nobody knew where he was. And I wasn’t going to get any more cooperation from his family.

            I thought about staking out the house. David would probably show up again at some point, but how long would I have to wait? Hours or even days sitting in the car added up for the client with no guarantee of results. Even if Susan and I had a bad history, I didn’t want to jack up her fee on a long shot. Plus I don’t like sitting in a car for a long time with only a bottle for, uh, relief. 

            But at this point it might be our best option. So I went back to the office and started composing a lengthy email to my client. It took longer than it should have because I kept stopping to make sure I wasn’t using any language that might sound hostile. Rachel finished her call and I could hear her typing notes, and then my phone buzzed. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”

            “Mr. Jurgen?” Unknown number, and I didn’t recognize the voice.

            “Speaking,” I repeated.

            “This is David Stillman. My mom says you’re looking for me.”

            Sometimes I get lucky. “Thanks for calling me. Where are you now?”

            “It doesn’t matter. What do you want?” He sounded young, scared, and impatient. 

            “Can we meet?” 

            “What for? Why are you bothering my mom and my girlfriend?” His voice rose, almost whining now.

            “Why are you hanging out at the Franken house?” I asked.

            That silenced him. I heard Rachel’s chair squeak as she pushed it back, and a moment later her face peered around the partition.

            “Okay. We can talk. Where do you want to meet?”

            I muted my phone. “Do you have any free hours today?”

            “After two,” she told me. “Is that—”

            “Yeah.” Unmute. “Two thirty. At the house.”

            I listened to him breathing for three seconds. “Why the house?”

            “I thought you wanted to be there. To see it. Go inside. Why are you there?”

            Another few seconds. “Okay. All right. Two thirty.”

            “Good. See you then.”

            He hung up.

            Rachel crossed her arms. “David Stillman?”

            “Yeah. I want to see how the ghosts react.” I scrolled through my contacts. “I want Susan to be there too.”

            She grimaced. “Sounds like a fun afternoon.”

            “Sorry.”

            She punched me. “All part of the joy that is being married to you.” And she headed to the kitchen.

House for Sale (Haunted), Part Four

At 2:35 we were sitting in the car in front of the Franken house. Susan’s car was behind us, and after five minutes she got out and opened our rear door to get inside behind Rachel. “Where is he?”

            “He said he’d be here. That’s all I know.”

            She sighed loudly. I saw Rachel roll her eyes. 

            Susan leaned back, watching the house out her window. “How long you guys been married?”

            “About a year,” I said. 

            “We’ve been together for 10 years,” Rachel added. 

            She was silent a moment. “Are you happy?”

            “Yes,” Rachel said firmly before I could answer.

            “That’s good, I guess.” Susan sighed. “Three divorces. Three kids. None of them Tom’s, don’t worry.” She chuckled. “I’m better as a mom than a wife, I guess.”

            Maybe she wanted me to say she hadn’t been that bad as a wife. I certainly had a rotten husband to her. But there was no way I was going near that line of conversation with Rachel’s elbow in striking range. 

            Fortunately a car pulled up across the street and doors opened. A young man came out of the passenger side, and a woman popped up from the driver’s seat.

            The man was obviously David Stillman. Sandy blond hair in a crewcut, his face needing a shave, in jeans and a windbreaker. He crossed the street and leaned down as I opened my window. “You Tom Jurgen?”

            “That’s me.” I opened my door and David stepped back. “Who’s this?”

            “Katie.  My girlfriend. She has a car.” He gestured her toward us. Katie Shoresby—thin, with long hair like cornsilk, in slacks and a Northwestern sweatshirt.

            “Hello.” I smiled at her. “We talked yesterday.”

            She nodded tentatively, as if afraid to admit it. “Yeah.”

            “Who are they?” David pointed at Rachel and Susan, standing outside of the car.

            “That’s Rachel. She’s my wife.” 

Rachel waved a hand. “Hi.”

“And that’s Susan Moore. She’s a real estate agent selling the house.” Susan cocked her head at me, irritated.

            “Why are they here?” David looked from Rachel to Susan and back.

            “Ms. Moore is my client.” I decided not to mention she was also my ex-wife. This was already awkward enough. “And Rachel’s a psychic. The house is haunted.”

            I watched for his reaction, but he just nodded, impatient. “All right. What do you want?”

            I looked at Susan. “Let’s go inside.”

            The house was quiet. Katie looked around, as if matching the living room with what David had told her about it. David stood in the middle of the room, in front of the sofa, arms at his sides, staring at the wall.

            I looked at Rachel. She shrugged.

            “Well?” Susan demanded. “What now?”

            Rachel held up a hand. “Give it a minute.”

            “Why were you here that day?” I asked David.

            David blinked, looking at me as if he’d forgotten anyone was there. He glanced at his girlfriend, then led her to the sofa, where they sat down.

            “When I found out . . .” He looked at the floor. “My parents didn’t get divorced right away. I wish they did. Instead they yelled. Or they just didn’t talk, and that was worse.” 

            I heard a murmur from inside the walls. Susan looked around, hearing it too.

            David ignored it and went on. “When I found out, I wanted to see the guy.  My mom brought me over and we sat in the car, and after a while he came out and he was mowing the lawn. I just watched him.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I hated him. I hated him for what he did to my mom. I hated him because my family was blowing up and it was all his fault.” He sniffled, running a hand under his nose. Katie put an arm around his shoulder.

            A scream tore through the house. Katie jumped. Rachel stepped close to me. “Angry,” she whispered.

            “Yeah, I figured.” I checked Susan. She was looking nervous, but mostly she watched David as the screaming rose and fell around us.

            David didn’t seem to hear any of it. “We went home. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. About him. About him killing my family. About him and my—about mom. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t sleep. So one day about a week later I came back.”

            Another loud shout made the walls shake. The light flickered, and the drapes over the windows rustled even though the windows were closed. Outside the sky was dark, as if the black clouds of a thunderstorm had surged in over us.

            “I knocked on the door, and he answered it.” David’s voice was a whisper, but he could still hear him. “He asked who I was, and I told him, and he got mad. He told me to go away. He tried to close the door on me.” He looked toward the front door. “But I had—mom told me—he had a gun in the garage. She said he told her one time about it, trying to scare her. I went and found it and he ran away, but then he came back and told me to get out, get out, get out—”

            The screams seemed to swirl around us. Rachel was trembling, her eyes closed. Susan staggered back to lean against one of the built-in bookcases, staring at me in shock.

            I took a step toward the sofa. “Did you kill him?” My voice was barely loud enough to rise over the scream.

            David nodded. “Yeah.”

            The room went silent, as if we’d all been struck deaf. Then a single high-pitched shriek echoed through the house.

            “And then she came in—” David looked up. “She was right there, and—and—I don’t really remember after that. I don’t. It’s all just blurry and I can’t . . .”

            “Tom!” It was Susan. I turned. 

A woman was standing in the doorway to the hall. She wore slacks and a blouse, and her blouse had a red splotch across the chest, but her face was in shadow. 

Rachel nudged me. I looked down. A body lay at my feet, eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling, arms stretched out, blood across his shirt.

I jumped back. David was bent forward, crying. Katie’s arms were around him, but the expression on her face was a mixture of fear and doubt.

Then the only sound was David crying. I turned, and standing in front of the woman in the doorway now were two girls, their T-shirts stained with blood, tears dripping down their cheeks.

“Oh my God . . .” Katie murmured. “David? David, what—what happened.”

“I did it,” he said quietly in the sudden silence around us. “I don’t remember, but—I did it.” He sat up, gritting his teeth. “I did it, all right?” he shouted. He leaped to his feet. “Yes! I shot all of them, I killed tall of them, even the—even the little girls! I did it because of you!”

He kicked out at the body on the floor, but it didn’t connect. His foot just slid through the man’s arm as if he was kicking the air, and he staggered back, breathing hard.

Then the screaming started again. Worse this time, worse than anything I’d ever heard before. It shook the walls, the floor, the lights. It  seared my ears and seemed to drive a spike into my head. 

I grabbed for Rachel and she held onto me, and I looked for Susan. She was trying to get to the front door, her hands over her ears, but the floor was shaking and she stumbled, falling to her knees. She looked over her shoulder at me, glaring, as if this was all my fault.

David pushed Katie away and lurched toward the woman and her children, waving his arms wildly. She only stared at him, silent, and the girls looked up with expressionless eyes. He looked as if he wanted to strangle the mother and slap the girls, but his whole body was shaking, his legs unsteady, and after as moment he stepped back and turned around, looking for Katie.

She looked back at him and bit her lip, uncertain. Then, slowly, she held out a hand.

David collapsed, tumbling to the floor with a thud. 

The ghosts vanished. The house stopped shaking. The air was calm. 

My heart was still pounding.

I let go of Rachel. “You okay?”

She nodded, catching her breath. “Yeah. You better help your ex-wife.”

Susan was on her hands and knees, gasping. She took my hand and held it as she climbed to her feet. “Th-thanks.” She looked around the room—the ceiling, the corners, the doorway. “Are they gone?”

I looked at Rachel. She sighed and closed her eyes. After a moment she shrugged. “Yes. They—got whatever they wanted from him.”

“At least they didn’t kill him,” I said quietly.

David lay on the floor, Katie crouched over him. For a moment I thought he was dead, that the ghosts had killed him, but then I saw his chest rise and fall. He groaned softly.

Katie murmured to him, rubbing his arm. David’s eyelids flickered once, then closed, as if he didn’t want to face us. Or anything. 

Katie looked up and glared at us. “What are you going to do now? Call the police? Get him arrested for—for what? Confessing to ghosts?”

It was a good question. The cops I knew wouldn’t touch this, even if David made a full confession and signed it in front of them. Any half decent lawyer would have it thrown out on mental competence grounds the minute David decided he didn’t want to go to jail. 

I shook my head. “The best thing would probably be treatment. But that’s up to him. Take him home.”

She looked around the bare living room. “All this—just so you could sell a house?”

“To give them some rest,” I told her. “Give them some peace.”

“How did you know?” Susan asked.

So you believe me now after all these years? I thought. But this was no occasion to gloat. “I didn’t for sure. At first I just thought he could tell us more about what happened, because he was the first one here. But then it seemed like the activity started only after he started hanging out outside, watching the place. And his mother told me he’d been institutionalized and only got out about two years ago. So, yeah, I started to wonder if the real story was different. But I didn’t know for sure until the ghosts started shaking the walls.”

Katie had David on his feet. “I’m taking him home,” she told us. “Just—stay away from him, okay?” She had a hand under his arm. “Come on, David.”

We watched them leave. Rachel grimaced. “She’s in for a rough time.”

“Psychic powers?” Susan asked.

“Girl powers,” she answered, and Susan nodded.

“Let’s go,” I said to Rachel. “Unless you need anything more?”

“No, we’re fine. Send me your bill.” Susan hesitated. “I’m—well, I’m glad you’re doing okay, Tom.” She held out a hand to Rachel. “It was nice meeting you, Rachel.”

“Same.” They shook. 

Out in the car Rachel said, “I don’t like her,” as she buckled her belt.

“I was young and stupid.” I started the car. “But I got smarter.”

She punched my arm, then smiled. “Yeah, you did.”

 

Susan called me three weeks later. “I sold the house,” she said in a triumphant tone. “Now I can afford to pay your invoice.”

            “I’ll cancel the legbreakers,” I told her. “Good price?”

            “Decent. The sellers are just happy to be out of there. How’s business?”

            I looked at the notes on my screen. “Just your basic demonic possession. That’s all I can say. Confidentiality, you know.”

            “There was a time . . .” She paused. “Well, that was a long time ago. Take care of yourself.”

            “You too.” We hung up.

            I spent a minute—just a minute—thinking about the beginning. When we were young, and in love, and everything seemed possible. Before it had all gone to hell. But somehow it had all worked out in the end for us.

            Then I went back to work. That demon wasn’t going to exorcise itself. 

 

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