House, Part Two

The next morning I did some research on the Scout Road house Jeffords had visited. What I found was—disturbing. 

So I got another cup of coffee and put off the call for half an hour. I was finally calling her as Rachel walked into our office with her Supergirl mug. I waved to her as Ashley answered. “I, uh, checked out the history on that house,” I told her. “Is it safe to talk?”

            “Yeah, he’s still asleep. He drank a lot last night.” She sighed. “What did you find out?”

            “The house was, well—the site of a murder eight years ago.”

            She gasped. “Oh my God. What happened?”

            It got worse. “A man killed his wife, three children, and then hung himself.”

            “What—” For a moment she sounded like she was fighting the urge to vomit. “Jesus Christ. What would my husband be doing there?”

            “The man’s name was Arthur Jason Vantek. Does that ring any bells?”

            “Arthur—no. I’ve never heard of him before. I don’t understand. Why would Andy be out there?”

            I had no answer to that question. Yet. “I was thinking I could go out and take a look inside the house. I didn’t have a chance yesterday.”

            “Y-yeah. Okay.” She cleared her throat. “What do you think is out there?”

            “I have no idea. Maybe there’ll be something that makes sense, but maybe not. I won’t know until I look.”

“Okay. Do that. Let me know what you find out.” She hung up.

I swung around to Rachel. “You want to go check out an old house with multiple murders?”

“I thought you’d never ask.” I hadn’t put the call on speaker, but she’d heard my side of the conversation. “Road trip to a murder house? I’m in.” 

I grinned. “Give me a few minutes. Maybe pack a few snacks while I finish up some emails.”

“What am I, your snack girl? Just for that, no Chex Mix.” She headed to the kitchen.

Fifteen minutes later we were in the Prius, driving back out to the hinterlands. Rachel looked up psych degrees on her phone—the big ones, like Northwestern and the University of Illinois, but also some mid-sized places. I listened as she searched. “Yeah, my friend Brenda went to this place, she lives in San Diego now. Ooh, this other place has karaoke nights . . .”

I listened, watching the road, offering supportive grunts every now and then. On the one hand, I was definitely worried about the money. We weren’t living in poverty, but freelance work like ours is precarious. You can’t always count on a steady stream of clients to pay the cable bill. 

But Rachel and I have been through a lot together, good times and tough stretches. Sex, arguments, bad TV shows, sex, vegetarian dinner disasters, and more sex. She yelled at me, punched me, told me I was being an idiot—which I frequently am—but she’d always had my back when I needed it. 

I hoped I wouldn’t need it today. But with my luck, I wouldn’t have bet on it.

“We’re getting close.” I slowed the Prius, watching the side of the road. I spotted the pickup. The dog I’d seen yesterday was sleeping next to its rear tires. 

Rachel put her phone away. “Okay, chief. What are we looking for once we get there?”

“I hope we’ll recognize it when we see it.” I saw the house up ahead, slowed, and turned onto what was left of the driveway. 

Weeds sprouted up through the gravel that crunched under my tires. Grass and more weeds grew knee-high around us. The house was the same—fallen chimney, empty windows, roof mostly bare of shingles, porch steps precarious. 

We got out. I pulled flashlights from the trunk. It echoed in the still, silent air when I slammed it down. 

Rachel took a flashlight and looked at the house. “Looks homey. A real fixer-upper.”

I took the lead. “Let’s check it out.”

“I love when you get all commanding and stuff.” She punched my arm and followed me up to the porch.

We managed to mount the steps without falling through any rotted wood. I pushed cautiously on the door, still dangling from its upper hinge, and bent my head to duck inside.

            I scanned the front room, darting my flashlight through dense shadows and dusty spiderwebs. The air smelled stale and moldy, even with the windows mostly clear of glass and a faint breeze drifting through. The floor creaked with my first few steps.

            A couch sat in front of a brick fireplace, its fabric ripped and covered with foul-looking stains. A small table lay on its side, one leg missing, the others gnawed and twisted. Some of the floorboards were broken, exposing darkness from the ground below. 

The couch rustled, and two rats scampered out and into the darkness. 

            “Yikes,” Rachel said behind me, but she wasn’t scared. “Pets included.”

            “Yeah.” I poked the flashlight through a doorway—the kitchen, once, now wrecked. A cracked sink with no faucet, a boarded up window, cabinets without doors, a few shards of broken plates and bowls strewn across the shelves that hadn’t been ripped out. A long-abandoned bird’s nest sat on the top of an ancient, doorless refrigerator next to a back door that had been boarded and nailed shut.

I turned back to Rachel. “Anything?”

She was standing in the middle of the front room, arms at her sides, eyes closed. She nodded slowly, cocking her head as if hearing something faint and far away. 

Then she opened her eyes and took a step back, her legs shaky. “It was bad. What happened here.”

“Are you okay?” 

Rachel shuddered, and looked over her shoulder at the door, as if she wanted to flee if the path was clear. But she took a deep breath and steadied her feet. “I’m fine.”

“You felt the murders?”

“It’s more than that.” She turned in a circle, staring into the darkness with her flashlight off. “It’s still here.”

“Still—here?”

“Whatever made him do it.”

I flicked my flashlight up at the ceiling, then down at the hardwood floor. “Where?”

She shrugged. “Everywhere.”

Great. I turned from the kitchen and pointed my flashlight down a hallway. “Let’s see.”

Rachel followed me through the hallway, past a large empty room that might have been home to a dining room for family dinners years ago. Now only piles of plaster from the ceiling dotted the floor, along with deposits of rat droppings and clumps of dried grass and leaves. A skeleton that looked like a squirrel lay next to one wall, half underneath a torn shred of faded wallpaper.

Just beyond the dining room a narrow staircase pointed up. I climbed slowly, testing each step before putting any weight on it. The railing had broken off long ago. Rachel stepped softly behind me, as if listening for ghosts inside the walls.

The second floor had three bedrooms. One of them held a mattress that had been slashed and scorched with fire. More rats skittered away when I flicked the light over it. The second bedroom was bare, the wall gouged and dented in a dozen places and spattered with spray paint and other fluids—possibly blood—that I didn’t want to examine closely.

The third bedroom was twice as large as the other two. A rusted metal bed frame leaned against one wall. Light from the cracked window created strange, awkward shadows across the walls. A frayed rope dangled from one of the rafters in the ceiling.

Someone had painted a circle in the center of the floor with white paint, faded and cracked now. Some of the floorboards had been yanked up and tossed away, but the circle remained, almost perfect in its shape. 

I took a step forward. Rachel grabbed my arm. “Don’t.”

I looked down at the floor. Maybe she was right. I stepped back. “Is it here? Whatever it is?”

“It’s a focal point, I think.” She backed away. “I don’t like it.”

I looked at her, then back at the circle again. What the hell—I stepped toward it.

“Don’t!” She grabbed both my arms and pulled me back.

“All right, all right!” I shook my arms free. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Right.” She turned to the door, shining her light back toward the staircase.

I started to follow her. Then I looked back. I really should check that out, I thought, and walked back into the bedroom.

“Tom!” Rachel wrapped her arms around me. I dropped my flashlight and lost my balance as she hauled me back, and we both hit the hard floor. “Damn it!” Rachel yelped.

I rolled over, away from her, my head swimming. Where the hell were we? Oh, yeah. The house. Andy Jeffords. The murders.

I turned my head. My flashlight lay on the floor, shining on the circle. I got to my knees—

“I swear I will hit you over the head!” Rachel raised her flashlight, ready to swing.

Something flared inside my brain. Pain, fear, like an oncoming migraine severe enough to kill me. But also the strong impulse to stand up, pace forward, and step inside the circle. 

Something wanted me in there. 

I let Rachel pull me to the stairs. We stumbled down, a little too fast for safety. On the ground floor I leaned against the wall, fighting the urge to throw up. The throbbing inside my skull was fading, though, and after a moment I straightened up. “Thanks.” 

“Jerk.” She punched my shoulder. “It was trying to get you.”

“Yeah.” I rubbed my temples. “I kept thinking I should back off, and then I kept thinking no, I should take a closer look, I should step inside the circle—” I looked at her. “Oh, God, did it do anything to you?”

“I could feel it, but I was further back.” She rubbed my arm. “You okay?”

“Fine.” I sighed. “I wonder what it wants with Jeffords.”

“I wonder how we’re going to explain this to his wife.”

I suddenly needed coffee. “Let’s get out of here.”

 

I stopped at the house with the pickup truck on the way back up the road. The dog jumped up and growled as I opened the door. Rachel stayed inside.

            After a moment a woman stepped through the doorway of the small house. In her sixties, tall and broad as a bear, she wore denim overalls and a white T-shirt, her feet bare. With a hard, flat face, she looked us over suspiciously as the dog ran to her, barking loud. “Hello? Down, Roscoe. Who are you?”

            I stayed near the car. “My name’s Tom Jurgen.”

“Mimi. Mimi Taylor. This’s Roscoe.” She nudged the dog with her bare foot.

“I was wondering about that old house down the road?”

            Her eyes narrowed skeptically. “You wanna buy it?”

            I shook my head. “Just curious. We went inside—that’s my girlfriend, Rachel, in the car—” Rachel waved. “Just got a strange vibe from the place.”

            She laughed. “Yeah. Guy killed his family down there. Some nights you can hear them screaming. Or maybe it’s just owls. Roscoe won’t go near the place, will you, boy?” She reached down to scratch him behind one ear. “It’s creepy.”

            “Ever see anyone else going inside?”

            She crossed her arms. “Week ago I saw a car parked in front. I was getting groceries.”

            “Black Lexus?”

            She squinted, thinking. “I don’t know cars. But this one was red. Small. Just off the road. I didn’t see anybody.”

            “What day?”

            The woman sighed, growing bored. “I think—no, it was Tuesday. I always do shopping on Tuesdays. My husband works part-time in town, so I go over on his day off. Tuesday.” She looked down at Roscoe. “He’s at work right now. Roscoe keeps me company.”

            It sounded like a veiled threat, although Roscoe didn’t look very menacing. Still, I’d learned more than I expected. “Thanks.” I gave her my card, with a $20 bill folded around it. “For groceries. Can you give me a call if you see the car again?”

Surprised, she stuffed the bill in a back pocket. “I suppose. Don’t know if I ever will.”

“That’s fine. Have a good day.”

She nodded. “Drive safe.”

            On the road again I asked Rachel, “Did you get that?”

            “Red car, yeah. Kind of interesting.” She was on her phone again, checking out colleges. “Cute dog.”

            “I want to make a stop at the local police station. Do you need to get back?”

            “Huh?” She looked up. “Oh. Whatever. Do you think I should go to in-person classes or do everything on Zoom?

‘           “At least some in-person. You need personal contact.”

            “Yeah. I’ve been remote so long I forget what interacting with other people is like. Just you.”

            “And I’m not exactly normal.”

            “You got that right.” But she patted my knee. “Sexy, though.”

            I grinned. 

            At the police station in Wheaton I talked to a desk clerk, and after waiting 15 minutes a uniformed detective carrying a laptop came out and motioned me into a conference room. Rachel put her phone away while I introduced us.

            Detective Kiley was young, heavy shouldered like a linebacker, and wore wire-rimmed glasses over piercing blue eyes. “What can do for you, Mr., uh, Jurgen, is it?”

            “Tom Jurgen. And my associate, Rachel Dunn.” I dropped my card on the desk. “We’re curious about a family murder-suicide on Scout Road eight years ago.”

            “Vantek.” Kiley opened his laptop and started tapping keys. “I remember the case.Let me draw it up here . . . Why are you interested in it?”

            I try to tell cops the truth—if not always the full truth. “My client asked me to tail her husband. Yesterday he drove out to the house, looked around, and left. I’m trying to figure out what he was looking for.”

            “Huh.” He glanced at Rachel. She smiled at him. He quickly went back to his laptop. “Not sure how I can help you. The father, Arthur Vantek, shot his children and stabbed his wife to death, then hung himself in his bedroom. I didn’t see the crime scene myself, but the photos are—well, I can’t show them to you anyway, but you probably don’t want to see them. Right?” The question was for Rachel.

            She cocked her head. “You might be surprised.”

            “That’s okay,” I said. Sometimes Rachel can pick up things from photos, but I didn’t want to see them unless I had to. “There was a white circle in the floor of the bedroom. Any idea who drew it?”

            Kiley blinked at me. “You went inside?”

            “There wasn’t any crime scene tape. After 10 years.”

            He blinked. After a look at his screen he said, “Yeah, I can see it. Let me—” He scrolled around. “There was no note. No sign of any struggle. The knife was on the floor next to his wife, the handgun was in the daughter’s room. Looks like he did the two boys first, then her, then his wife. Nailed the rope into the rafters and jumped off the bed.” He looked up to check on Rachel, but she was perfectly calm. Thanks to me, she’s heard and seen worse. Lots worse.

            “That’s pretty much all I can tell you.” He looked at me. “Anything else?”

            “Is there anything in the house that someone would be looking for?” Jeffords, and whoever owned the red car.

            Kiley blinked again. “Like what? Buried drug cash?”

            “Maybe.”

            He checked his screen again. “Vantek had a couple arrests. Drunk and disorderly. Public urination. Marijuana possession, twice. Nothing that suggests he’d have a stash of money hidden away.”

            “Maybe something else.” I remembered the pull of the white circle, and Rachel yanking me back.

            “Like what?”

            “I don’t know.” I looked at Rachel. “Anything else?”

            “What about his wife?” She leaned forward. “What was her name? The kids?”

            “Oh.” Like me, he’d focused on the man. “The wife—Evey Vantek. Kids, Simon and Bobby, 12 and 10, daughter Teresa, eight.”

            “What’s her maiden name?” I asked.

            “Let me run a check—Okay, Coulter. Evelyn Coulter. Born in Gary, Indiana. A couple of shoplifting arrests, before getting married. One public drunkenness citation after that. Nothing else.”

            I made some notes—I still carry a notebook with me instead of relying on my phone—and stood up. “Thanks for your time.”

            He held the door for us. “Good luck with—whatever you’re looking for.”

            “Thanks.” We headed out to the car.