The Demon Killer

An escaped murderer insists he’s killing demons. After one close call, Tom Jurgen’s search for the killer’s girlfriend turns deadly. 

The Demon Killer, Part One

(I took a break from writing Jurgen Report stories to work on a vampire novel. Then I took a break from my vampire novel to write a Jurgen Report story. That’s how it goes. I hope you enjoy this, and I hope you enjoy my vampire novel if it ever sees the dark of night. -JC)

The woman who answered my knock looked me over suspiciously. She was in her 70s, with short gray hair and too much makeup on her face. She wore a faded yellow T-shirt and baggy sweatpants, and she looked as if I’d woken her up from an afternoon nap. “Yes?”

            I didn’t blame her for being suspicious. “My name’s Tom Jurgen. I'm a private detective. I'm trying to locate your neighbor, Stacey Benedict? I'm working for her mother. She’s very worried.”

            The woman looked at my business card. Then she looked at my phone, and its picture of Stacey Benedict. Young, blond, in a Northwestern University sweatshirt. I clicked through to more pictures, and she waved a hand for me to put the phone away. “I haven’t seen her lately. She’s nice, though. She helped me with my groceries one day.” Then she leaned forward, whispering. “Is it true about her boyfriend?”

            I nodded. Stacey’s boyfriend, Kurt Reeding, had somehow escaped police custody after being arrested for murdering his mother and sister. He’d told the cops they were demons and he had to kill them, and they were transferring him to psych when he managed to overpower his guards, unlock his handcuffs, and run into the night. 

            His girlfriend’s mother had hired me because she hadn’t heard from Stacey since the escape. The thought of possibly running into an insane killer while searching for his girlfriend didn’t make me eager to take the case, but Stacey’s mother was frantic, the police weren’t helping her, and I have a cable bill to pay. Plus, I have some experience with demons. Maybe they weren’t real and Kurt Reeding was just an ordinary psycho, but I seem to run into the supernatural more than I’d like.

            Rachel also wasn’t happy about the case, but she rarely tries to talk me out of stuff like this. We’ve been together for a long time, and the only thing she really tries to talk me out of is eating meat. She’s a vegetarian. She’s also psychic, a little. Plus, she’s hot. When I called to tell her where I was going, she only sighed. “Take Donald, maybe.” Donald is our handgun—we named it Donald Duck. But I didn’t expect to actually run into Kurt, so I’d left it locked up at home.

            The old woman shuddered. “I saw him once or twice. He had bad vibes. You know?”

            “That’s what they say.” I set my card on a table next to the door. “If you do see her, could you call me? Or give her my card and ask her to contact me?”

“I will,” she promised. “I pray she’s all right.”

“Me too.”

She closed the door. 

As I checked off the apartment in my notebook I heard a door open down the hall. It closed again before I could turn and look. The hallway was still empty, except for me. 

I’d started by calling all of Stacey’s friends that her mother knew about, and anybody I could find on her social media, and now I was talking to Stacey’s neighbors. The old woman was the last one, but the door that had opened and closed was right next to Stacey’s apartment, and they hadn’t answered my knock before.

So I went back and knocked again.

I had a card in one hand and my phone in the other looking for Stacey’s picture again, so I didn’t pay enough attention when the door opened and the person inside reached forward and grabbed the collar of my jacket. Then I was paying all my attention to the fact that he was pulling me through the doorway. He punched me in the stomach before I got a look at his face, and then he shoved me to the floor before my mind could process what was going on. 

After I blinked once or twice, I was looking up at an unshaven face with bloodshot eyes. He wore a dirty T-shirt and jeans, and he had a handgun in his fist. A shiny weapon, pointed directly at my face. I blinked again and my stomach lurched as I recognized him from the picture my client had shared with me. 

Kurt Reedling. Escaped murderer.

Oh hell.

 

Rachel had been right, of course. I’d tell her that when I got the chance. Maybe during a séance. If I survived this, she was probably going to kill me anyway.

Kurt slammed and locked the door, breathing hard. “Who are you?” His voice was raspy, out of breath, as if he’d just run a mile in the small apartment.

            “T-Tom Jurgen,” I managed to answer, my heart pounding. “I'm a, a private detective. I'm unarmed. I'm harmless, I'm not going to hurt you. You don’t have to shoot me.”

            It wasn’t the first time in my life someone had pointed a gun at me. Or a knife, or any other kind of weapon. But it’s never a pleasant feeling. I bit my lip and tried not to throw up. 

            Kurt’s handgun looked smaller than the one I’d left at home, but just as deadly with its bright metal shaking in front of me. This wasn’t the time for comparing our manhood, with Kurt staring at me as if I was speaking a foreign language he needed to decipher in his head. “What are you doing here? Why are you—where’s Stacey? Is she here?”

            The part of me that wasn’t gripped by terror realized this was good—if Kurt didn’t know where Stacey was, he hadn’t found her either, which meant she was still alive. Hiding from him. The rest of me struggled to think of an answer that would keep him from killing me. “She’s not here. I don’t know. Her mother is worried about her.”

            Kurt lowered his weapon. “I thought she’d come back. I thought if I waited . . .” His voice trailed away. 

            I felt something tickling my head. An itch on my scalp. But I didn’t dare move. Not even when Kurt took a step back and sagged into a dusty armchair. I started to say something, to reassure him again that I wasn’t going to hurt him, that he didn’t need to shoot me, but then I saw the body on the floor behind him.

            A man. Middle-aged, Black. In a shirt and necktie, dried blood staining the floor in front of him. His eyes were wide open, as if fixed on something far away that no one else could see. 

            Kurt followed my eyes top look the dead man over. “That was, uh, a mistake. He wasn’t one of them. But I couldn’t let him leave. You know?” He swung his face back at me. “She’s not coming back, is she? Shit.” He was talking to himself. “It’s been three days. Three days? I don’t know, I don’t know—” He stood up.

            I felt the itch on my scalp again, and this time I couldn’t stop my hand from reaching up to scratch it. Kurt saw me and then his gun was in my face again, and I froze, expecting my next frenzied heartbeat to be my last one. What would a bullet in my brain feel like? Would I see the white light? Would Rachel get married again?

            Then his arm dropped. He ran a hand over his sweaty forehead, and turned for the door. “Stay away from her,” he told me. He fumbled with the lock, and then he was gone. 

I sat on the floor, gasping, amazed that I hadn’t vomited pr soiled myself. I don’t know how long I stayed there, telling myself over and over, I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die, as I tried to catch my breath and make my heart slow down. Eventually I stretched out my legs and took a deep breath. I managed not to look at the dead guy as I dug out my phone to call the police.

The Demon Killer, Part Two

Rachel came out of her office when I got home, hugged me, then punched my arm. “You idiot.”

            “Yeah.” I patted her shoulder. “Does this get me out of making dinner at least?”

            “The freezer is yours.” She kissed my cheek. “If you can eat. My appetite went to hell the minute you called me.”

            I’d been talking to the police for three hours. Kurt had gotten away, and I couldn’t help them at all, but they kept asking questions until we all got bored with each other. A paramedic checked me out and said I was good to go. Driving home took me more than an hour because I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting Kurt to be hiding in my backseat.

Now I opened a cabinet and found the whiskey bottle we’d bought when we closed on our condo three months ago. We hadn’t opened it yet, so I unwrapped the cap and poured myself a stiff one. “You?”

            Rachel shook her head and took a beer from the refrigerator. “You okay?”

            “Maybe.” We went into the living room.

            We’d bought the condo three months ago. Sharing an office in a two-bedroom apartment wasn’t working anymore, with Rachel doing more of her counseling work from home while I talked on the phone to clients and sources, so we pooled our resources for a down payment on a three-bedroom condo. Now we each had our own office, more space, and bigger payments, but business was good for both of us, assuming neither one of us got murdered. Which was more of a possibility for me than her.

            Rachel sat next to me with her beer. She’s got red hair with a little gray now, and hazelnut eyes, but her psychic powers hadn’t faded with time. Now she ran a finger through my own graying hair. “You want to talk?”

            “Will you charge me?”

            She punched my arm. “It’s going to cost you one way or another.”

            I sat back and closed my eyes. “It was—you know. Vampires and killer plants and ghosts and Lovecraftian monsters, but a psycho with a gun is worse than all of them. You’re lucky I didn’t need to change my underwear the minute I walked in the door.” I took a sip of whiskey. “I know, I do this to myself. But not this. This came from outside.”

            “But there were demons. That’s what they said.”

            “I didn’t think they were real demons. Just garden-variety schizophrenia. But—” I rubbed my head, remembering the itch when I was with Kurt.

            “What?”

            “I don’t know.” I looked at Rachel. “You getting anything from me?”

            She put a hand on my head and closed her eyes. “I'm not sure. There’s so much rattling around inside there after all these years I can’t tell what’s new and what’s just repressed trauma from those giant killer chickens that one time. Wait a minute—” She punched my arm again. “Are you horny?”

            “Always when I'm next to you.” I smiled. “Don’t worry. I need dinner more than anything. Almost being killed brings out all kinds of primal appetites.” I finished my whiskey. “I’ll search the freezer.”

            Rachel pushed me down. “I’ve got it. You just want another drink.”

            “Gee, you really are psychic.” I sat back and let her take my glass. 

            “You are going to quit the case, aren’t you?” She came back with my glass and the whiskey bottle.

            “First thing tomorrow,” I promised.

            She handed me the bottle. “Don’t get too drunk.” She leaned down to kiss me, then headed back to the kitchen to look for dinner.

 

The next morning I called my client to tell her I was off the case.

            Jane Benedict took it well. “I guess I can’t blame you,” she said with a sigh. “I only thought—I’m just so scared for Stacey. But I suppose you don’t have a choice.”

            I felt like crap. P.I.s are supposed to be brave, and tough, and heroic. But it was less than 12 hours since Kurt had pointed his gun in my face, and I my stomach still hadn’t fully unclenched. “I'm sorry,” I said for the third time. “I can recommend some other private detectives who might be able to help you—”

            “Maybe,” she cut in. “I have to think about it. Just—send me your bill, I guess?”

            I apologized again, and we hung up. I was working on her invoice when my phone buzzed again. The number looked familiar, so I answered it.

            “Mr. Jurgen? This is, uh, Meredith Freeman. Are you still looking for Stacey? Did you find her?”

            This was one of Stacey’s friends I’d talked to yesterday. Before my encounter with Kurt. I hesitated, and before I could say, “Not really,” she went on: “I just thought of someone who might know where she is. I don’t have her number, but she works at Planet Fitness on Halsted. Her name’s Jess, Jess Kinder.”

            I swallowed. “Okay. Is this a friend of Stacey?”

            “They used to be roommates. It took me a while to remember her name. I used to go there to work out sometimes.”

            She was trying to be helpful. I’d feel guilty telling her I was off the case. So I thanked her, and sat there in front of my computer for 15 minutes. And then I called Jane Benedict.

            “I have one more lead I can check out,” I told her. “I’ll do that, and then I'm done. It shouldn’t take too long, and then I’ll report back. Is that all right?”

            She took a long time to answer. “Well, if you want to. After yesterday I understand you’d want to stay away. But—yes, if you can do that, I’d appreciate it.”

            “Okay.” She thanked me again, and we hung up.

            Rachel was working from the counseling center today. That meant I wouldn’t have to watch her glare at me, which helped make my next call easier. A little.

            She wasn’t happy. “If you get killed I am going to marry the first man I meet. I’m going to take his last name. I'm going to have his babies. I'm going to—” She stopped to take a breath. “Jerk. Just don’t get killed. Okay?”

            “I won’t.” I told her. 

            “Take Donald.” Her voice was an icy order. “Use him if you have to. Got that?”

“Got it.”

“Just make sure you come home tonight.”

            “I will.” I hoped I could keep my promise.

 

I had the Glock in the trunk of my Prius as I parked down the block from Planet Fitness on Halsted. I have a concealed carry permit for it, but I figured I wouldn’t need it inside a gym. Of course I didn’t think yesterday that I’d need it, but today was a new day, right?

            Inside the front door a man in a black T-shirt with the logo of the place stood at the check-in desk. He smiled, probably sizing up my need for a membership and a workout, and asked what he could do for me today.

            “I'm looking for Jess Kinder? There’s no trouble, I'm just asking after a friend.”

            He seemed puzzled, but he tapped his computer. “I just paged her. Just a second.”

            It took two minutes, but a young blond woman in tights and a pink tank top over a sleeveless T-shirt walked out from the gym area. The guy behind the desk nodded to me, then crossed his arms, keeping his eyes on me in case I turned out to be a stalker.

Jess Kinder looked confused. “Can I help you?”

“I got your name from Meredith Freeman,” I told her, trying to look as harmless as possible. “I'm a private detective. Tom Jurgen.” I showed her my card. “Meredith thought you might have any idea of where Stacey Benedict is.”

“Oh.” Jess stared at my card and then looked at me, maybe trying to fit me into her idea of what a P.I. should look like. “Okay. Come on.”

            She led me past rows of treadmills, stationary bicycles and stairmasters to a corner of the gym with a few tables and chairs and a small juice bar. No one was behind the counter. 

            We sat down. “We shared an apartment for a year,” Jess said. “We’re not really close friends, but we have friends in common so I saw her sometimes after she moved out. At parties and stuff. I met her—that boyfriend once or twice.” She grimaced. “Even without—all that, I could tell something was off with him. Anyway . . .” She ran her fingers through her hair. “This is probably what Meredith is thinking of. I remember her aunt came to visit this one time, one afternoon. With this older guy. He wasn’t her uncle. You could tell they weren’t related. Just, like, a family friend of her aunt, you know?”

            “Do you know their names?”

            Her eyes scrunched up. “Aunt . . . Patricia. Patricia Coles, yeah. I remember Stacey introducing us. The guy?” Jess looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t know. Like, Charles? Or Joseph? Something kind of older, old-fashioned, right? But he was nice. Quiet. I didn’t hear him talk much. I was in the kitchen and then I was in my room watching TV. They were out in the living room all afternoon. Anyway—” She shook her head. “Sorry. I just remember, when they left, Aunt Patricia said something like, If you ever need a place to go, you can come up to Grayslake. I remember that. This was a little before she got her own place. I don’t know if she meant hiding out or just getting out of the city, but when I heard about Kurt, and I was talking to Meredith and she mentioned you . . .” She shrugged. “Does that help?”

            “Maybe.” Grayslake is north of Chicago, about 60 miles away. Stacey owned a car. It wasn’t a bad lead, which meant I had to follow up on it. Damn it. 

            We spent few minutes talking about possible spellings of Coles, and then I thanked her for her help. Then I went out to my car and spent five minutes working up my nerve to call Rachel again.

            She was silent for a moment after I told her about Grayslake. Then she sighed. “You know, I always tried not to be the girlfriend in the movies who’s always trying to talk her boyfriend into not being a P.I. or a spy or a soldier of fortune, because those chicks are usually so annoying. But you’re making it hard.”

            “I could have been an accountant like my father. But then we never would have met.”

            “And my life would be infinitely more boring.”

            “You’re too hot for that.”

            “Yeah, there’s that.” She groaned softly. “Sometimes I just miss riding along with you. Even into the jaws of the valley of the shadow of death, or whatever.”

            “I miss that too. Couldn’t you do counseling while I drive?”

            Rachel snorted. “I’ll ask my supervisor. Okay. Go. Don’t get killed. I mean it—shoot whoever you have to, just be home for dinner.”

            “Wouldn’t miss it.”

            “Just don’t miss the bad guy.”

            I felt a little better as we hung up. Then I called my client.

            “Patricia . . .” she murmured. “She’s my husband’s sister. He died eight, ten years ago, and I haven’t talked to her in years. I didn’t know Stacey was in touch with her at all. She’s—well, she takes her religion pretty seriously. But I never had a problem with her.”

            “Do you know her address?”

            She spent a few minutes looking it up. “Unless she moved. I don’t think I got a Christmas card from her the last few years.”

            “Do you know anything about the other man?”

            “No. Patricia never got married. I don’t think—I don’t want to say anything, but she never seemed interested in that. I don’t know.”

            “All right. I’ll be in touch.”

            Probably Kurt wouldn’t be waiting for me in Grayslake. Probably. Had his girlfriend ever talked about her Aunt Patricia? Probably not. I kept telling myself that, over and over.

            But I couldn’t shake the feeling of Kurt Reedling staring at me out of my mind. Not just his gun—okay, mostly his gun—but his eyes. Distant and detached, as if he was seeing things I could never see, hearing things beyond my ears. 

            He wasn’t one of them, he said about the dead man on the floor. That was a mistake. What did that mean?

            I rubbed my scalp. I remembered the itch I’d felt, sitting on the floor, wondering if he was going to kill me. Not exactly an itch, though, but something else. More like a mosquito or a bug, trying to bite me. Or trying to burrow inside my head . . .

            For a moment I wished Rachel had been there, to get a reading on Kurt, to see what was inside his head. I pushed the thought away immediately. I was glad she was far away. 

The Demon Killer, Part Three

The house lay at the end of a long, woodsy street, with evergreens and ash trees on either side as I looked for the address. A small blue Subaru was parked in the driveway. Stacey’s car. 

            I didn’t see any other cars parked along the street. I tried to peer between the trees, looking for Kurt, but saw only birds and squirrels hopping between the branches. Finally I parked my Prius in front of the house and got out.

            I hesitated, but eventually I went to open the trunk. The metal box was there, locked, with my shoulder holster lying across it. I took off my jacket, struggled into the holster, and then unlocked the box for the Glock. 

            I zipped up my jacket, hoping the handgun wouldn’t show. I didn’t want Aunt Patricia to think I was a hitman. Then I made my way up the walk to the door.

            It opened about 20 seconds after I rang. The woman who looked out was short and heavyset, her hair streaked with gray. She wore round glasses, and her blue eyes were sharp. “Hello?”

            “Patricia Coles?” I showed her my card. “My name is Tom Jurgen, and I'm a private detective trying to locate your niece, Stacey Benedict. I was hired by her mother.” 

            A man came up behind her. Taller than Patricia, and taller than me, balding, with bushy gray eyebrows and deep brown eyes. “What’s going on?”

            Patricia held up the card. “He’s here after Stacey.”

            “Just to talk to her,” I said quickly. “Her mother hasn’t heard from her in days. She just wants to know her daughter’s safe.”

            The man frowned. “A private detective?”

            Patricia looked over my shoulder, around the yard. “I think it’s okay.”

            They moved back, and I entered the house. Patricia locked the door. The man stayed close to her, protectively. “I’m Samuel Holtz. Reverend Holtz. I’m a friend.” He wore a vest under his shirt, and gray pants that looked freshly pressed.

            “Close friend. For 15 years.” She pointed into another room. “Right here. Stacey?”

            The living room had dark wood paneling and a high ceiling, very rustic. Stacey Benedict lay at the end of a long blue sofa, looking up at me as we entered. Twenty-three, her mother had said. She was barefoot, in jeans and a T-shirt that looked as if she’d slept in it for a few days, and her blond hair was tied back in a tight ponytail. 

She looked up at me, suspicion mixing with hope. “You’re—you said something about my mom?”

            Patricia came around me and showed her my card. Stacey read it slowly. “How did you find me?”

            “Your aunt visited when you were living with Jess Kinder. She remembered your name. And she offered you a place to stay if you needed it.”

            “Did you get my address from Jane?” Patricia put her hands on her hips. 

            “Yes. Look, she’s just worried. A phone call would probably be enough if you don’t want to go home—”

            “I can’t.” Stacey dropped my card on the floor. “Not until he’s locked up again. I can’t.”

            “I don’t blame you. I ran into Kurt yesterday.”

            Her eyes went wide. “W-what? Where?”

            “He was hiding out in an apartment down the hall from you. Apparently waiting for you to come home.” I decided not to mention right now that he’d murdered her neighbor. And almost murdered me. I wasn’t sure either of us could handle it.

            “That’s why I can’t go back!” Stacey was sitting up now, shivering as if a blast of cold air was rushing through. “Not until he’s back in jail! Or—or dead! I don’t want him dead, but I can’t let him get to me like—like he did. To them.” She sank back and rubbed her eyes, trying not to cry.

            “What do you mean?” I asked.

            She didn’t answer. No one spoke for a long minute.

            “Would you like some coffee?” Patricia asked.

            “Wait a minute, Patty.” Holtz looked at me as if sizing up whether I was a saint or a sinner. “Now that you’re here, do you have to stay? Can’t you just tell Jane that Stacey is safe?”

            “I could. It would be better if Stacey calls her mother herself. You don’t have to say where you are—”

            “No.” Stacey shook her head. “She’ll know I'm here now. If Kurt goes after her—God, what if he goes after her? That’s what I'm afraid of. God, this is a nightmare.” 

            “She’s safe here,” Patricia said. “She was.” She glared at me.

            “We’re trying to help her.” Holtz put a hand on Patricia’s arm, trying to keep her calm. “There’s something—more to it. You wouldn’t understand.”

            I remembered the itch in the back of my head when Kurt was with me. Then something clicked inside my brain. 

            “Stacey—” I wished Rachel was here, but I had to do this by myself. “Is Kurt—are the demons coming from inside him?”

            She stared at me, her eyes wide. Scared. “Y-Yeah. I think so.”

            “Wait—” Holtz looked shocked. “How did you—do you know?”

            “I’ve seen a lot of things you wouldn’t believe.” I perched on a chair next to the sofa. “Stacey, what happened?”

            Stacey brought her legs up, hugging her knees. “He said we had to go to his mom’s house for dinner. That was kind of weird, we hardly ever did that. And when we got there, nothing was ready. They weren’t really expecting us, but his mother started something in the oven, and his sister was making a salad. But then he told them to stop and sit down, so we were all there in the kitchen, and he was staring at us, and his face was all red, and he started—talking.” 

            She looked at Holtz. “I told you—it was like, uh, speaking in tongues? I don’t know. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he kept talking, and getting all worked up. They were staring at him, and then they were doing it too, his sister and his mother, and his sister was waving the knife around she was using to chop stuff for the salad—” 

Stacey stopped. “And I sort of started doing it too. I don’t know why. I just started kind of moaning, and everything around me was sort of spinning. I got up, and Kurt’s mom was standing up and shouting, and I ran out of there. I was in the living room, on the floor, I don’t know how long, but I got up and went into the kitchen again—”

            Stacey closed her eyes. “He had the knife, and there was all this blood, and his mother and sister were still doing their weird talk, but he was stabbing them, first one of them and then the other, over and over and not stopping while he was talking like that too. Then he looked at me and—” She opened her eyes to catch her breath. “I ran outside and called 911. But I could still hear them. I could hear it in my head. I can still hear it now, the words, the nonsense words, going on and on.” She looked at Holtz again. “That’s why I came here.”

            “You’re trying to do an exorcism?” I asked. Holtz was a minister, not a Catholic priest. Still, it wasn’t impossible, despite what the church said. I actually pulled it off once, but I was lucky that time, and I paid a price. I wasn’t eager to try it again. 

            Holtz grimaced. “I don’t know about that. I’m just trying to provide some spiritual comfort. I'm not sure I believe any of this, but I’ll do what I can.”

            “I know it sounds crazy,” Stacey said, tired. “But it’s what I saw. And I can still feel it. Inside me. Around me.”

            “I still don’t understand—” Patricia sat down next to her. “I don’t mean this as being critical, honey, I really don’t, I just don’t understand how you got involved with this—this guy in the first place.”

            Stacey gave her a sad smile. “Same way as usual, you know? You match with a guy, go out a few times, he’s not so bad, no fireworks but no red flags at first. I kind of just drifted into it. At first things were fine. Then he started watching these videos, on YouTube? Weird stuff. I watched one or two, and they were about Satan and the end times, and we argued about it. I should have left then.” 

            She rubbed her eyes. “He started that—that talking, but I thought he was just drunk. We weren’t—we never lived together, so I didn’t see him every single day, and when he told me to come to dinner with his mother I was surprised, but it wasn’t completely strange. I’d met them once or twice. They seemed—okay. His mother liked to quote the Bible. His sister looked like she was on drugs, but she was quiet most of the time. But when we got there, they looked—scared. And then, then . . .” She shook her head. “I think I'm going crazy.”

            “You’re not.” Patricia put her arms around her. “You’re safe.”

            I wished Rachel was here. She could have read Stacey’s aura, or something, and seen whether a demon was trying to get inside her. Or me, for that matter. Plus, I always wish Rachel was nearby. Except when there’s danger.

            “I think the only thing to do,” said Holtz, “is to stay here until they catch him again. They have to find him eventually, right? Soon?” He looked at me.

            I nodded. “He didn’t strike me as very smart. Or rational. I don’t think he could hide—”

            Suddenly Stacey jerked back, shaking. Her mouth dropped open, and she started grunting, like an animal. Her aunt stared at her in shock, and then her eyes rolled back and she started pounding her fists on her legs, babbling incoherently.

            I opened my mouth to ask what was wrong, but nothing came out. My throat seemed to freeze up. I tried to stand, then dropped back into my chair.

            Holtz was the only one who didn’t seem affected by whatever was going on. He wasn’t looking at me, though. His eyes were on Patricia, and he looked stunned, confused, as she started to rock back and forth, wailing and moaning. Stacey was writhing next to her, sweat streaming down her face, her lips twisting in words that didn’t look like any language I’d ever heard.

            Something crashed in the hallway beyond the living room. Holtz swung around, alarmed. He shouted something, and then a boom ripped the air. 

Holtz staggered back, doubled over. Blood streamed down his vest as he stumbled on the edge of a coffee table, and then he went down, gasping and groaning. He bit his lip as his eyes flickered, and then his eyes closed tight.

            Kurt was standing there, his handgun clutched in his fist. His eyes twitched and darted around the room, sparkling like fireflies until he found Stacey. If he noticed me or even recognized me, he didn’t focus on me. He just smiled at Stacey, ignoring Patricia, and he started to laugh as he looked at her and licked his lips.

            Stacey was staring back at Kurt, trying to fight the shuddering in her body as she twisted and squirmed. Her lips were chanting in a meaningless rhythm, spit dribbling down her chin as she gazed up at him, her eyes trembling in terror.

            I was trying to move, but something seemed to be pressing down on my body. My arms and legs were paralyzed, and my throat was closing up. I choked, fighting for air as cloudy darkness descended around me. 

My head was pounding, as if something was battering on my skull. Through the roaring in my ears as I struggled to breathe I could hear singing from far away, in ancient words I could almost recognize, words for hell and damnation and torment. 

            I bit my lip, and tasted blood. I’ve been possessed before, and I knew what it was like, but this was different. Maybe every possession was different, like every demon. But I knew I had to resist. Somehow. 

            The singing was louder now, closer, pounding at my eardrums, and my body felt as if it were being crushed under a wine press. I bit my lip harder and tried to focus on the pain, just for an instant, just for one moment. I needed something to zero in on, something to hold onto, because if I got lost the demon would take me, and Kurt would kill me after he killed Stacey and her aunt, the way he’d killed Holtz and the man in the apartment and his family, and I’d be dead, and maybe I wouldn’t care by then, but—but—but—

Rachel would be so mad at me—

            Rachel. 

            I clenched my eyes and tried to picture her. She was angry. Furious. Screaming at me. Rachel never screams in real life, she hardly ever raises her voice. When she’s mad, she gets quiet. It’s worse. 

But picturing her angry gave me something to focus on. I felt myself leaning into it, letting her anger sting me out of my stupor. The black clouds drifted. I could see light glowing behind them. Then I saw Kurt, laughing, his pistol shaking in his hand. Stacey, her head jerking back and forth as gibberish and saliva poured out of her mouth. Patricia, paralyzed, her eyes frozen in shock.

I gasped suddenly, and for a moment I could breathe and think and move again. Kurt wasn’t watching me. His eyes were on Stacey. His lips were curled in a demonic smile. His arm was shaking as he tried to steady the handgun in his fist, watching Stacey, waiting for something. A message from Hell? An order from the demon inside his own head? Whatever it was, I had to act while I could.

I slide my hand toward the zipper of my jacket, keeping my eyes fixed on Kurt. He was breathing hard, licking his lips, rocking on his legs  as he leaned toward Stacey, the handgun pointed at her—

            I reached inside my jacket and slipped the Glock from my holster. 

Kurt saw me move. He saw my weapon, and his eyes flashed with surprise, but I had my hands together and the safety off, and I remembered to squeeze the trigger when I fired. 

            The first bullet hit him in the shoulder, and he looked more surprised by the roar of the gunshot than any pain. I fired again, hitting his leg, and he staggered backward. His face was twisted with rage, and he spat toward me as he tried to bring his gun up.

            My third shot went straight to the chest, and Kurt toppled to the floor. He let out a long shriek of anger that faded after two or three seconds until he was just whimpering with pain. His arms and legs shuddered, but his gun slipped out of his fingers, and I forced myself to stand up and kick it into a corner. 

            Patricia had collapsed on the sofa, breathing shallowly. Next to her, Stacey’s voice faded to a whisper before she stopped. 

            As I watched her, a shadow seemed to rise from the top of her head. It rose up, swirling around like a cloud of dust, and after a moment it burst into a thousand shards that vanished in the air.

            “Oh my God.” Stacey leaned forward, holding her head. “What was that? What—” She sat up and saw her aunt lying next to her. “Aunt Patty? Aunt—” Then she saw Kurt on the floor. 

“Shit.” She looked at me. “Is he—did you—”

            “Yeah.” I took out my phone, wobbling on my feet. “Are you okay?”

            “I—I think so.” She shook her head to clear it, and rubbed her throat as if it hurt from all her chanting. 

Patricia sat up suddenly, as if startled from deep nap. She looked at Stacey, then me, and then she saw Kurt. She looked back at me again, confused and frightened. “What—what happened? Where’s Sam?”

            “I’ll tell you later.” I sat down again. I kept the Glock in my lap, keeping one eye on Kurt. He looked like he was still breathing, but he wasn’t moving. But I’ve seen—and lived—too many horror movies to trust that the monster was going to stay dead. “I have to call—” The police, I thought. Then Stacey’s mother. Then Rachel. 

            Screw it. I called Rachel first.

 

Rachel hugged me for a long time, then punched my arm. “Jerk. Are you all right?”

            “Yeah. I'm fine.” We made our way to the couch, and I sank into it, exhausted.

            “You hungry? Want a beer? Whiskey?” She looked me over. “You look like hell.”

            “Thanks. Beer.” I closed my eyes until she sat down next to me with beer for both of us.

            Rachel put a hand on my leg while I drank. “So tell me about it,” she said gently.

            I’d already spent five hours telling the cops everything. They discounted all the stuff about demons, of course, but they didn’t need any convincing that Kurt Reedling was a murderer and I’d shot him in self-defense. They kept my gun, of course, but told me I’d get it back in a few days. 

Jane Benedict had driven up to the local police station for her daughter, and thanked me over and over again, in between apologies for almost getting me killed. Again.

            I didn’t see Aunt Patricia. She’d collapsed in shock before the police and paramedics showed up. Stacey’s mom promised to call me with an update.

            When I finished Rachel brought me another beer. “Now tell me how you’re really doing.”

            I sighed. “I didn’t have a choice. He killed Sam Holtz. He was right in front of me. He killed that guy in the apartment. He was going to kill all of us. So I had to do it. Right now? I just feel—numb.”

            “That will probably change,” Rachel told me quietly. 

            “I know. Flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks.” I sighed and sipped my beer. “Right now, I'm just glad to be home.”

            “I'm glad he’s—” She squeezed my arm. “I probably shouldn’t say dead, but I'm glad you shot him. And that you’re home.”

            “Yeah.” We sat back and held each other for a long time.

            “How did you fight it?” she asked after a while. “The demon?”

            I closed my eyes. “You,” I told her. “I pictured you. Yelling at me.”

            Rachel laughed and punched my arm gently. “Good. For that I’ll make you dinner.”

            I smiled. “Good to be home.”

 

# # #

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.”