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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