House, Part Three

Back home we ate sandwiches at our desks while we caught up on work. I wrote up a report and sent it to my client. Rachel worked on a website redesign for her client. She was in a good mood, despite our encounter with whatever force had tried to possess me at the house. Maybe having a plan for the future was what she needed. Maybe I could use one, too.

            I started looking up Evey Coulter. Which reminded me—”By the way, thanks for asking about the wife. I would have forgotten it.”

            She snorted without looking at me. “Men.”

            My phone buzzed a few minutes later. Ashley Jeffords. “Thanks. Uh, what was the part about the white circle trying to pull you in?” 

Yeah, I’d described that, For better or worse, I make a point of including everything in my reports, however crazy it sounds.

            “I know it sounds odd. It was just a feeling. I do tend to run into, well, unusual phenomena sometimes.”

            She sounded like she was starting to regret picking my name up off the internet.“Unusual like—what?”

            I hesitated. “Well, ghosts. Demonic possession. I saw Bigfoot once.” I didn’t want to mention the giant killer chickens.

            “Oh.” I could almost hear her thinking she’d picked the wrong P.I.

            “Do you want me to keep checking into it?” She had every right to let me go, now that she knew her husband wasn’t having an affair. And that I might be crazy.

            She hesitated. “Yeah, I think so. Even if he’s not banging some other woman, I want to know what’s going on.”

            I nodded. “Very good. I’ll be in touch.”

            “How’s the client?” Rachel asked from her side of the office.

            I turned back to my computer. “Still wants me on the case. She’s a little confused about my sanity, though.”

            She smirked. “Join the club.”

            I started on a quest to find out more about Vantek and his wife. Maybe they had some connection to Andy Jeffords? 

            I started with Vantek. Like Kiley had told me, he’d been arrested several times, pled guilty to a few counts to get probation or short sentences, and gotten some cases dismissed on others. He’d been delinquent on his property taxes twice. His parents were dead, but I found a sister living in Elgin. I decided not to call her. Yet. 

            He’d grown up near Wheaton, gotten a community college degree, worked as a trucker for a few years, then married Evey Coulter and settled down and taken a job at a small local manufacturing plant in Glen Ellyn. The plant had closed down some 10 years ago—two years before the murders—and it looked as if he didn’t work after that. 

            I got most of that from newspaper articles after the murders. The rest came from different sites I use for employee background checks. There wasn’t as much to find about Evey Vantek, nee Coulter. Full name, Evelina. Born in Gary, like Kiley had said. Went to nursing school and worked at a local hospital, but quit shortly after getting married and moving to Illinois with her husband. She’d worked part-time in and around Wheaton up until her second child was born. Nine years later, she’d been murdered.

            Local and even some national news outlets covered the murders, but without a long trial or a live villain to crucify, the shock faded and the story disappeared in a week, replaced by a new tragedy. Circle of life. And death.

            Her mother was still alive, still in Gary. Again, I had no desire to call.

            I searched for anything that might be related, hoping for more to work with, some clue about what kind of demon or supernatural force might have triggered the killings. First locally, then farther across the country. The problem was there were too many similar tragedies—parents killing spouses, children, neighbors, and strangers for no reason. Maybe some were demonic, but more likely most of them they were all the work of non-possessed people who, for some reason or another, just snapped. Drugs, mental health problems—yeah, most people don’t become mass murderers no matter what problems they struggle with. But evil just seems to consume people, wherever it comes from.

            Depressed, I went on to other work. I was out of leads to run down for now, and I wasn’t sure this was even worth my time or Ashley Jeffords’ money. I spent the afternoon on background checks and phone calls for different cases.

            It was my turn to make dinner. After homemade cheese ravioli with grilled vegetables—What? I can cook—we lounged in the living room. Rachel wanted to watch Stranger Things, but it reminded me too much of my life, so I dived into a biography of Napoleon I’d found on the laundry room bookshelf.

            The Stranger Things kids were doing some kind of experiment when my phone buzzed. Rachel jabbed me with her elbow. “Shush!” I dropped my book and checked my phone.

            Unknown number. Probably a telemarketing scam. But I’m a detective. I like to live dangerously. I went into the office and shut the door. “Tom Jurgen speaking.”

            “Tom Jurgen. This—this’s Mimi. Mimi Turner. You were out at my house today?”

            “Yes, Ms. Turner. What’s going on?” She sounded drunk. 

            “I shaw—saw that red car again. At the house.”

            I sat down. “When?”

            “‘Bout 20 minutes ago. I was comin’ back from town.” Not driving, I hoped. “I got the license plate. I got a picture.”

            Sober enough for that, at least. “So how do we do this? PayPal? Venmo? I don’t do crypto.”

            We agreed on $50. I made the payment, and three minutes later I had the photo. The plate number was clear. “Thank you.”

            “Stop by anytime. Yeah, here, Roscoe, good boy!” She hung up, possibly without realizing it. 

            Now what? It would take more than an hour to get out to the house. If the car was gone, I’d be wasting my Friday night. If the car was there—what would I do? I didn’t want to go back inside that house. Not alone. Not at night. 

            So I sighed, turned to my computer, and went to work.

License plate numbers aren’t public information, but I have some resources that most people don’t have—not entirely legal, but safe enough for my purposes. In a few minutes I had a name and address: Edwin Tanner, Merrillville, Indiana. The car was a Chevy Malibu, three years old. Merrillville is a little south of Gary, where Evey Coulter Vantek had grown up. 

I couldn’t find an obvious connection between them, so I sent an email to Ashley Jeffords and then headed to the kitchen for a beer. I sat back down next to Rachel reading until her episode ended.

“Wow,” she said, staring at the credits. Then she paused the TV and looked at me. “So what was that?”

I told her about the car. “Did you find any connection?” she asked.

“I didn’t look that hard. I will tomorrow. It’s Friday. You watching another episode?” I picked up my book.

“Just one. GIve me a minute.” She stood up and went into the bedroom. 

I read for five minutes until she returned, in a red silk bathrobe and a short, sheer black nightgown that showed off her legs nicely.

I looked her over as she sat down next to me and shoved my book away. “Just one.” She kissed me.

I chuckled and put an arm around her. “Whatever you say.”

 

The next morning we, uh, slept late. After breakfast we went grocery shopping. I was fixing crackers and cheese for a snack when my phone buzzed. Ashley Jeffords.

            “He’s playing golf,” she told me. “I mean, really playing golf, I checked.” She laughed. “Anyway, That name doesn’t ring any bells—Edwin Tanner? But the car—I looked it up online, the model, in red. I’m sure I’ve seen one around the neighborhood. Maybe it’s a different car, I know. That’s all I can think of.”

            I looked over at Rachel, putting vegetables in the fridge, wearing her shorts, and stifled a groan at what I was about to suggest. “I could come out and drive around looking for it.”

            After a second she sighed, to my relief. “I don’t think it’s worth it. I mean, I could do that too. I’m not really sure what to do, except maybe burn that house down. I don’t mean that. I’m just worried about Andy. It was one thing when I thought he was cheating. Now . . . I don’t know what to think.” She took a deep breath. “You said something about—demonic possession?”

            “Just that I’ve run into that. Among other things. I don’t know if that’s what’s going on, but it does seem as if some, uh, supernatural force is living in that house.”

            “Yeah.” She sighed again. “Okay. Maybe you can do a little more research?”

            “Sure. After lunch.”

            We ate cheese and crackers in front of the TV, watching the baseball game—the Cubs were losing—and then Rachel went to a yoga class, leaving me to work. 

            I spent a long time asking myself questions. Why was Amdy Jeffords being pulled to the house? Did he have any connection to Arthur Vantek or Evey? What made him start visiting it? Who was driving the red car—someone else the house wanted for a victim? What did the house want?

            The house was at the center. I decided to dig into its past.

            Built in 1986 for a family named Evans—Raymond Evans, his wife Roxane, and their daughter. They lived there for 16 years, then sold it to another family who only stayed for two years. After that no one had lived there for more than a couple of years at a time until Vantek moved in. Vacant since the murders, the land and the house it was on were currently held by a local bank. The property was listed on a few real estate sites, but the posts had been up for years, so apparently it wasn’t getting a lot of viewings.

            The bank was closed for the day, but real estate people work weekends, so I called the office that had handled the sale to Vantek. After a few minutes of explaining what I wanted, and a few more minutes on hold, I got connected to a woman named Claire. “Claire Baskin, how can I help you find the house of your dreams?”

            I smiled. “I’m not actually in the market for a house, sorry. I’m interested in the property on Scout Road that you sold to Arthur Vantek.”

            Silence. I thought she’d hung up until she asked, her voice tense, “Are you a reporter?”

            Not anymore. “I’m a private detective. There’s been some unusual activity around the house recently. I’m just wondering if the previous owners ever mentioned anything like that.”

            “What kind of unusual activity?”

            Here we go. “I’ve been in the house. There’s a strange, uh, energy in the place. Especially in the room where Arthur Vantek killed himself.” I wondered if she’d hang up.

            Silence. Then: “I only went inside once. The place was empty. I’m never going back.”

            “What happened?”

            “The family—it was a mother and father and two daughters—started hearing voices. In their sleep. Nightmares. They never told me what they were.” She paused for breath. “They moved out and called me afterward. I went to take a look at it. It was empty, but . . .” Another long pause. “Yeah. There was something in there. I listed it, but I never pushed it. Then Arthur Vantek wanted it, and I was so happy to get rid of it I never—I shouldn’t have—I sold it to him. And then I tried to forget about it.”

            She seemed out of breath, her voice shaking. I waited until she sounded calm again, then asked, “What about the previous owners? The house moved around a lot before them.”

            “I don’t know. I wasn’t selling before then. There’s someone—wait, I don’t know how much I should be telling you about this. I don’t know you at all.”

            “I’m not trying to make any trouble.” I used my most reassuring, calm tone. “I don’t really know what’s going on, but the house seems dangerous somehow. I’m just trying to figure out what makes it so strange.”

            Another long silence. I could hear her drinking something. Then she said, “Try the Historical Center. Ask for Harvey Gaines. I think he’s working today. It’s open till six.” Then Claire hung up.

            Puzzled, but hopeful, I went for a Coke and then came back to the office and looked up the Wheaton Historical Center. It was indeed open until 6 p.m. on Saturday. I called the number and asked for Harvey Gaines.

            After 10 seconds on hold, a raspy voice picked up. “Harvey Gaines.”

            I introduced myself, and dropped Claire’s name. He grunted. “What can I do for you? I work with town records, newspaper preservation, and stuff like that. What are you looking for?”

            “It’s about the house on Scout Road,” I said, and let it hang there.

            Gaines knew what I meant right away. “Yeah. It’s got a bad history.”

            “Why is it still there? You’d think the bank would have torn it down years ago.”

            “There’s a family member on the bank board. He won’t let them. At least that’s what I hear.”

            “Who’s the member?”

            “Elias Tanner. His father was one of the founders there at the bank.”

            Tanner. “Is there an Edwin Tanner? I’ve, uh, run across that name lately.” The owner of the red car.

“Elias’s son. Lives in Chicago.”

“And his family built the house? I thought the family was named Evans.”

            “That’s right. You’ve done some homework, huh? That was Franklin Tanner—Elias’s father—his son in law, Ray Evans, married to his daughter Roxanne. They lived there for a long time, had kids. He was an architect here in town and she taught school, substitute.”

            “What happened to them?”

            “That’s the thing. Nobody knows. They just disappeared one day. Elias hired people to find them, but they never showed up. The house just sat empty, getting run down for years, until the bank leaned on Elias to do something. So he moved everything out and put it on the market.”

            “So what happened to them?” There had to be a reason Claire had sent me to this guy—something she didn’t want to talk about. 

            Gaines hesitated a long time. Just like Claire had. Finally he said, “There were stories, rumors. Parties. Some people said sex parties, orgies. You know, driving by on the road, they saw lights, fires, heard loud music. Other people heard, well, screams. Not sex screams. Screams like—people. Maybe animals.”

            “They never found anything? After the family disappeared?”

            “Not that I heard. But it could have been all covered up. Elias had a lot of influence in those days.”

            “So what do you think it was?”

            “I have no idea. I put it down to Satanic panic. You know? All those stories about covens and witches and child sacrifice and all that, It turned out to be a lot of nothing. Could be they just got sick of the town and moved away without telling anybody. Stuff like that happens.”

            “Yeah.” I just didn’t think it was in this case.