666 Gable Way

by Dani Lamia

  Am I attracted to a woman? I didn’t even know that about myself, but what triggered this dream? More than just stress, Phoebe discussed with herself.

  Over coffee and breakfast cereal, Hester instructed Phoebe to strip the beds of the master bedroom and those of Dzolali, Mr. Onenspek, and Mr. Holgrave. Glendarah, she was told, was not feeling well and was still in bed. She was not to be disturbed.

  “Oh, before I forget,” Hester said as she moved to leave the kitchen. “Please remove that thing you have parked in front of this house.”

  Oh, fuck right the hell off, Phoebe thought, but said, “No problem.”

  “I don’t want clients seeing it and thinking we’re the auto wrecker’s yard,” Hester added, quite unnecessarily. “Park it around the side if you can get it running.” With that last spoken over her shoulder, she left Phoebe to her coffee.

  Phoebe mocked her aunt’s words and mannerisms in exaggerated but accurate aplomb. “Get this running, bitch,” she said lowly and displayed her middle finger to the still flapping kitchen door.

  Phoebe finished breakfast and headed for the staircase, intending to get started right away. She stopped at the foot, however, hearing not a soul in the house. The entire place, at that very instant, felt empty. Breaking the silence was the sound of a car starting and the motor humming awake. Phoebe casually walked to the front door and opened the inner one. She stood behind the screen door and watched Hester’s antique Cadillac drive past, heading for the main road. Phoebe was surprised it ran, given the age of the deep red beast. The tinted windows kept her from seeing who was inside, though she simply assumed it was Hester and that she was alone.

  As was her habit, Phoebe kept her keys in the pocket of whatever she was wearing, so she decided to take the time to move her Caprice right then. Despite Hester’s crude hint, it did start, and she pulled it around to the side of the house, parking it alongside one that had been in the same place since her arrival. Phoebe didn’t know her cars, but she was sure it was old, though not nearly as old as Hester’s Coupe De Ville and likely newer than her Caprice. It was a deep blue sedan—and an attractive one at that. Walking past it, she recognized the emblem of Mercedes in the center of the trunk lid.

  Phoebe returned to the porch and was greeted by the abrupt call of the raven again. She hadn’t realized the cage was there, as the bird had been quiet when Phoebe had gone out. Cussing through clenched teeth and fists, Phoebe pushed on, swinging the screen door out of her way.

  She closed the inner door as Hester had done and stood still for a moment, listening. There was nothing. The living room was empty, and she reminded herself that a good dusting was in order.

  Phoebe turned and looked at the closed parlor doors, and when she tried the knob, it was unlocked. This struck Phoebe as odd, but her curiosity crushed her caution. She pushed the door in and went inside. The room was sunlit, so she left the lights off and looked around. The neon ‘Psychic’ sign was lit, though in the day, it was hardly noticeable from outside. Phoebe was tempted to turn it off but decided it wasn’t her place.

  In the middle of the room was, as she’d expected, a round, wooden table with a pentagram-splattered tablecloth. A crystal ball was set in the center.

  “Oh, boy,” Phoebe groaned, shaking her head at the cliché.

  A large chair facing the doors, clearly meant for Hester, was of finely carved dark wood with a high back. It was thickly cushioned and covered with red velvet. The rest of the chairs were comfortable-looking, wood-framed ones with thick, yellow cushions.

  Behind the big chair was what appeared to be an antique liquor cabinet. It was lacquered in black, and yet another pentagram was on the front, crudely spray-painted in white.

  There were candles aplenty, both on the cabinet, a side table, the desk by the window, and the shelf beneath the wall-mounted mirror. Beneath the shelf was set an old couch of red upholstery. The walls were made of a gorgeous wood paneling that went halfway up the walls. The upper half was done in red wallpaper, featuring a repeating pattern of gold flowers.

  She was about to leave when she noticed something on the floor on Hester’s side of the round table. A black line stood out from the maroon carpet. At first, Phoebe simply thought that it was a split, but when she looked more closely, she discovered that it was a wire.

  Phoebe bent and tugged the tablecloth up and found a small, loose plank of wood, lying in between the feet of the round table. On the plank were wide plastic buttons, each shaped differently. She could see more wires coming from the plank. Some went up the table, others passed out of sight through a slit in the carpet.

  Never fearful of buttons, Phoebe pressed one, then another, and another. Nothing happened. She looked up at the chandelier-styled light fixture. It was off, but the neon sign was on. She went to the button and pressed it. The little electric faux candles came on. She went back to the table to try the other buttons again, but there was still nothing.

  With the room illuminated to its fullest, she looked again at the wall to her right, the same one sharing the mirror and the couch. There she found a line running the length of the wood paneling, invisible to anyone on the client’s side of the room.

  “Oh, Great-Auntie Hester,” Phoebe said to herself, “you’re such a phony!”

  Giggling with a sleuth’s delight, Phoebe dashed to the line in the wall and passed her hands up and down, all over the wallpapered section, then down to the wood paneling. She expected to find a handle or something, but when she pressed both hands against the wall, it swung inward. It was heavy enough that she needed to put her weight into it.

  Phoebe’s heart pounded, not necessarily in fear, but in excitement. Her exhaustion forgotten, she boldly entered the hidden room. A dim glow was centered on the wall at her left, leading her to the discovery that the mirror was a one-way deal. She could see the parlor on the other side.

  She let go of the secret door and it swung shut, its hinges were spring-loaded. Under the phony mirror was a desk, and behind the desk, a simple, inexpensive office chair. On the desk was a rectangular box with an angled top, upon which were set buttons and slide controls. It looked to Phoebe like some sort of tiny broadcaster’s controls, the ones used to set the levels on microphones and tape players.

  Phoebe looked all over for a light switch but found none. She supposed it didn’t do for the person in the little side room to be backlit. She inspected the little control box and flipped the toggle switch labeled “Master Power.” A low hum began, and tiny red lights appeared at her right. Looking closer, she found another box, this one black with the name of a manufacturer of home electronics ensconced on the upper left.

  Phoebe looked at the first box again and found that one of the slide controls had been labeled “Ball.” She slid it halfway up. The crystal ball glowed white. Phoebe laughed and clapped her hands like a child on Christmas morning.

  Daringly, she tried out some of the other switches and controls, but she could manipulate nothing beyond the light levels of the crystal ball and the chandelier. There was obviously a sound system, from the presence of the amplifier on the right, she had found a small microphone, but she could discern the functionality of nothing else.

  Phoebe decided that enough was enough. She had pressed her luck plenty that morning. She set the slide controls to where they’d been when she’d come in and turned off the box. The hum quieted, so she pulled the door handle and reentered the psychic reading room. On her way out, she turned off the chandelier.

  Feeling empowered and reenergized by her discoveries, Phoebe bounded up the noisy stairs to get to her chores. She started with Hester’s big room. She removed the pillowcases and bedsheets, leaving the great comforter curled up at the foot. She gave the place a long look while she worked, curious to see if there were any surprises here. Like the parlor, candles were everywhere, on the fireplace mantel, the floor around it, and the furniture, and the air was
thick with their mixed scents. Phoebe walked on the black pentagram rug as she moved to the other side of the bed and heard the squish beneath her pull-on sneakers. Checking the rug with her palm, she found it soaked.

  The wet rug and the thick air were all the excuses she needed to open the double doors to the balcony. The sun shone through the sparse white clouds, bathing her light skin. The breeze was cool, almost enough to make her shiver.

  Phoebe draped the goofy rug over the railing to dry in the sun and was just turning away when she saw movement along the dirt road below. It was a car.

  A red and blue light bar tucked inside at the top of the windshield, the driver’s side spotlight, and the antennae on the trunk gave the vehicle away. Phoebe assumed that the officer had come for her about the state of her old apartment.

  Oh, shit. It was just some old furniture and junk for fuck’s sake!

  Her eyes followed the unmarked cruiser, which parked in front of the house in the very spot Phoebe had parked her Caprice the previous day. It was then that Phoebe looked down at her feet and was startled enough by what she saw on the stone tile that she took a short hop backward.

  Footprints. Two together, then staggered as they led through the balcony doors. Feet? No, not feet. Four toed and gigantic, whatever had planted them must have been big. Now receiving direct sunlight, they were drying and soon would be gone.

  Some kind of gag, like the crap in the reading room downstairs, Phoebe assumed. Though why Hester would bother, she didn’t know.

  Phoebe went down to meet the police. There was no point in running away from her old life any longer. It was most likely going to end in a charge for littering, or illegal dumping, or something like that.

  “Community service,” Phoebe said aloud as she strode to the front door. The silhouette of two figures could be seen through the front door glass. “Six months. I’ll get six months’ community service. At the most.”

  Phoebe pasted on a pleasant smile and opened the door. She was assailed with a woman’s high-pitched whine before the door had traveled halfway.

  “Hester Pyncheon?!” the as-yet-unseen woman cried. “Where is she?!”

  Phoebe’s smile disappeared, replaced by a grimace. The woman’s vocal range and power were incredible, but her wavering pitch guaranteed she’d never have a singing career. With the door wide open, Phoebe set eyes on the auditory offender, standing next to a towering man in a blue suit.

  It was the woman that Phoebe had seen leaving the parlor the previous day, Mrs. Carp. Without waiting for the blonde and blue-haired young lady to respond, Mrs. Carp repeated her demand in like tones but at a higher volume.

  This time, the raven responded with a powerful squawk.

  “She’s not here,” Phoebe said.

  The policeman calmed Mrs. Carp. “Now, Darla, just hold it down a moment, okay?”

  Darla Carp, her hair in misdirected black strands and runny makeup about her eyes, burst out in tears for what was obviously not the first time that day. She impatiently nodded at the policeman’s request and pulled a handkerchief from her purse, using it to dab her nose and eyes.

  “You say Hester isn’t here?” the detective asked.

  “I’m pretty sure she isn’t,” Phoebe restated. “I saw her car pull out of here a while ago. I honestly can’t say for certain she was driving it.”

  “I know the car,” the detective said and showed his badge and identification. His name was Clive Backstrom and his rank, lieutenant. “I understand. When do you think you saw it leave?”

  Phoebe thought about the time she spent in the reading room, discovering the hoaxy toys inside, and then the time spent stripping Aunt Hester’s bed. “Not even an hour,” Phoebe decided.

  “I don’t believe you!” Darla Carp howled, making both people wince and the bird squawk again. The frantic woman stepped into the doorway and pushed against Phoebe. The detective restrained her. “Get her out here! Hester!”

  “Mrs. Carp,” Backstrom said warningly, “this isn’t helping.”

  “What’s happened?” Phoebe asked sympathetically.

  “We’re not entirely—” he started.

  “That witch killed my son-in-law!” Carp screamed.

  Oh, my God, Phoebe thought and placed a hand on her heart. She watched helplessly as the pro-wrestler-sized detective guided Carp away from the door and into the back seat of his cruiser. A moment later, he returned to Phoebe.

  “Here’s my card,” he said and retrieved one from his jacket pocket.

  Phoebe accepted the card and was about to say that she’d have Hester call him immediately, when the rumbling of a V-8 engine came to them on the stiff breeze.

  “You know, I think—” Phoebe began and pointed up the dirt road.

  “Yeah, I’d know that sound anywhere. I’ve pulled Ms. Pyncheon over a few times when I was working patrol.”

  Phoebe gave the detective a smile and pocketed the card. She watched as the Coupe De Ville pulled up and parked behind the police vehicle. The engine quieted and Hester got out, greeting Backstrom with a puzzled expression.

  As the two shook hands, Dzolali appeared, having come out of the car from the passenger side. Phoebe felt her heart flutter slightly, and she blushed when she realized she was staring at the woman. Dzolali’s hair was done in a fishtail-style ponytail, and she wore a black, off-the-shoulder, short-sleeved dress that came down to just above her knees. Her legs looked bare, but Phoebe couldn’t be sure. She looked at them long and hard.

  Dzolali noticed Phoebe standing at the screen, smiled, and waved. Phoebe returned it without a thought, then forced herself to stop when she realized Dzolali had turned her attention back to the detective and whatever was being said.

  Phoebe felt like slapping herself in the face from embarrassment. What is going on with me?

  Phoebe caught Mrs. Carp thrashing about in the back of the unmarked squad. Her mouth was moving like she was screaming. Backstrom approached the car and talked to the woman through the closed window.

  Hester and Dzolali looked at each other and, to Phoebe’s utter confusion, they actually shared smiles of intense enjoyment, though they turned them off the second Backstrom returned.

  There was something very wrong with that reaction to Carp’s tragedy. The two of them sharing joy at such a time bothered Phoebe immensely, so she decided she would find out more about what had happened to Darla Carp’s son-in-law another time, perhaps at dinner that night.

  Disappointed in her great-aunt Hester and in Dzolali, though she was yet a stranger, Phoebe returned to the third floor and continued her chores.

  ***

  Hester and Dzolali waited by the Coupe De Ville as Backstrom spoke through his police car’s window, trying to calm Darla Carp. The woman was hysterical, calling Hester a murderer, a witch, a charlatan—only the last of which did Hester Pyncheon take offense to.

  “Hey!” Hester called out in the direction of the police car, feigning a wound by insult.

  Dzolali giggled and watched Mrs. Carp’s breakdown. It was by no means a small entertainment for the two witches, who stood with arms crossed as they tried to look bored.

  Backstrom returned to the two women, leaving his complainant in the car to scream insults. The icing on the cake for Hester was that Lt. Backstrom appeared apologetic over the outburst. He was taller than she, one of the few in town that required Hester to crank her neck upward to keep eye contact.

  “Just what in the world is wrong with Darla?” Hester asked, dripping on the extra notes of concern.

  “Ms. Pyncheon,” Clive Backstrom began, locking eyes with the old woman, “May I ask where you two are returning from?”

  “We had paintings to take to the gallery and get them on display,” Hester informed him. “Our resident, Ned Onenspek, is a fastidious artist and a genius.” This she declared and punctuated by pointing her i
ndex finger skyward.

  “Okay,” Backstrom said with mild distaste, familiar as he was with the man’s work. “Mrs. Carp’s son-in-law was attacked and killed just before sunup this morning.”

  Dzolali gasped and slapped her hands over her mouth, displaying a passable expression of shock.

  “That’s terrible!” the eldest Pyncheon exclaimed. “Attacked? Attacked by whom, Clive?” She had known the policeman for over a decade, and she always made a point of ignoring his police rank and title. It promoted familiarity while belittling his role in the community.

  “Well, ma’am, there’s conversation about that at the station,” Backstrom said, looking into Hester’s eyes steadily. “Are you keeping any wild animals—”

  “Squawk!” protested the raven from his cage on the porch.

  “—other than that?” the detective conceded.

  “It’s a him,” Dzolali corrected.

  “Him, then,” Backstrom finished with a quick eye roll.

  Hester smiled. She loved it when she noted frustration in others. “We only have the bird, Clive. Why do you ask?”

  “Mr. Hillsborough seems to have been attacked by a wolf, or a large feral dog, perhaps a pack. We’re not sure,” Backstrom explained.

  Hester Pyncheon, ever the expert actress, cleared her throat and put on her best mask of confusion. She narrowed her eyelids and shifted her eyes left and right quickly as she tilted her head to one side. “And . . . you think that we have this—or rather—these animals, Clive?”

  “Well, Ms. Pyncheon—”

  “And what is Darla accusing me of? Is she telling you I have a zoo here?”

  “Um, well, she says that you put a hex on her son-in-law, and she paid you to do that yesterday,” Clive finally got out.

  “Yes? And?” Hester said but held her stance.

  “So you admit that?”

  “Certainly. Why not? What does that have to do with an animal attack?”