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.
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