by Ava Barry
Last of all, I picked up Theo’s satchel. I took down the photo of Theo and the mysterious Connie from my bulletin board and studied it once more. The strip of numbers on the back were still a jumbled bit of nonsense to me, and they offered me nothing new at that moment, either. Instead of putting it back in the satchel, I put the photograph in my pocket and started packing up my bulletin board.
Eventually, four o’clock rolled around, and I packed what I would need for the evening. Since I was a massive nerd and a true-crime junkie, I had prepared for the evening by spending hours on the Internet, digging up Reddit posts by crime scene techs and coming up with a way to find old bloodstains. It turned out that blood doesn’t glow underneath a black light: that’s a bit of creative fiction endorsed by decades of television. The only way it would glow was if you sprayed the site with Luminol, a compound that would also assist in highlighting particularly old samples. I had supplemented my research by purchasing a small black light from the hardware store, and a vial of Luminol off Amazon. It had been a lot more simple than I anticipated, and I couldn’t help feeling like a rock star as I left the house.
In addition to the black light and Luminol, I had purchased a skeleton outfit. Since the entire street was going to be cordoned off for the pre-Halloween festivities, I needed to blend in, and there was no better way to do that than by wearing a costume. I would be able to disappear among the happy trick-or-treaters and parents, and even if someone did see me, they wouldn’t be able to see my face. Before heading over to Benedict Canyon, I changed into the getup, then tucked my mask and black light into my backpack. I knew that the entire neighborhood would be under scrutiny, and that parking would also be a nightmare, so I left my car in an all-night parking lot off the Sunset Strip, then took a cab back toward Beverly Hills.
Theo’s neighborhood was decked out in fine style. Children dressed up as demons, princesses, and goblins wandered through the streets, holding the hands of their parents. One of Theo’s neighbors had filled their entire yard with elaborately carved jack-o’-lanterns, and the next yard boasted a very realistic-looking cemetery. Children ran among the gravestones, and a fog machine set the ambience.
It was almost sunset, which meant that I still had some time to kill. I stood in front of a house down the street from Windhall and admired the decorations. A group of people dressed as zombies were playing music in front of the house, much to the delight of the gathered audience. A few private security officers mingled among the crowds, keeping a wary eye on things, and I spotted a pair of cops on horseback.
I let myself get carried down the street by the current of people. There were hundreds of people that night, which meant that I would easily disappear among them, and as long as I didn’t do anything too crazy, I wouldn’t call attention to myself. Windhall came into view, but it was submerged in darkness, not a single light illuminated in the windows. It carried the same kind of resolute stature as a dying tree in the middle of a garden; while everything else blooms and flourishes, the wood slowly shrinks into itself before disappearing into the ground.
As the crowd of merrymakers flowed around me, I slowly moved toward the wall surrounding Windhall. The sunlight was slowly dying, and the shapes on the street began to merge. I waited to be sure that nobody was paying attention to me, then shrank into the vines growing over the wall. A few minutes passed, and then I started climbing up the vine limbs, and then reached the top of the wall and swung a leg over.
This time I was careful to lower myself down until I was in a position to drop without hurting myself. The sounds of children laughing and shouting were muted by the wall that was now between us. I listened closely to make sure nobody had seen me climb over. After satisfying myself that my ascent had gone undetected, I stood up and made my way toward the house.
Windhall was eerily silent against the backdrop of dark hills and the ragged lawn. The sounds and lights of the neighborhood party beyond the gate only served to emphasize the juxtaposition, and once more, I felt that I had stepped back in time to visit. The house was lifeless and more bereft than I had witnessed it in the past, and for one brief, stark moment, I wondered if Theo had packed up and fled Los Angeles once more.
I didn’t let the thought deter me from moving forward. Even if Theo had departed, there was still a chance for me to prove what had happened. I hadn’t come to any conclusions about whether Theo was truly innocent in Eleanor’s death, but whether or not he had had a hand in what had happened, I needed to know the truth. Heather might still sue the Lens. I was still unemployed and was probably going to end up writing captions for a crappy real estate company, never to use my journalism degree again. I had nothing to lose.
I walked around the side of the house, past the swimming pool and the rotten gazebo, and made my way through the ruined citrus grove. The black windows of Windhall looked down on me, and I kept waiting for a light to come on inside Theo’s bedroom, but there was still no sign of life. The second-story window of the boarded-up room was above the rose garden. I took a deep breath and steeled my nerves.
The door to the back porch was locked, but it only took a few tries with my credit card to get it open. I let myself in and stood for a moment, listening. The house was just as quiet as it had been when Madeleine and I had paid Windhall a visit. That had only been a few weeks before, but it felt like an entire century had passed since then.
I was more familiar with the layout of the house now, but not so familiar that I knew which boards would creak if I stepped on them the wrong way, and I still hadn’t abandoned the possibility that Theo was somewhere in the house, waiting for me to make a wrong move. I reached the empty ballroom, where the Venetian floorboards retained their luster despite the years. There was an understated beauty about the place. For one heartbreaking moment, I pictured how things might have turned out differently for Theo and Eleanor if things hadn’t gone so badly: a trio of children growing up among the oranges, growing old and inheriting the house, wearing down the tradition and allowing the ghosts to fade into the woodwork. Instead, the ghosts had the run of the house.
I made my way through the west stair hall, past the library and through the grand foyer, and then up the stairs. My heart was in my throat with every wind shudder, every jump and creak of the house. I reached the top step, and the hallway yawned before me, the open doors standing like sentries along a sinking ship.
The upstairs guest room hadn’t changed since my second visit with Theo. I stood in the doorway, perplexed. The fact that Theo hadn’t changed anything felt like pretty damning evidence that I had been wrong about the whole thing—if there really was a hidden room with critical evidence, Theo most certainly would have tried to cover it up, or to destroy the evidence.
Conscious of time, I donned my headlamp and then turned around and locked the door of the guest bedroom. I didn’t think that anyone would come, but I didn’t want to take any chances. I crossed the room to the armoire that was standing in front of the door to the maid’s room and gently grasped it with both hands. It took quite a bit of maneuvering, but eventually I was able to move it enough to see the edge of the doorframe. Bolstered by this, I took a small rest, and then used the last of my strength to shove with my shoulder.
For one dizzy moment, I could see what was going to happen, but I still thought that I might have enough time to prevent it. The weight of the armoire stood unevenly, and I had pushed it too hard. I reached out to try to grab it, but it was too late, and the entire thing toppled forward, and then, with a terrible, jarring noise, went crashing through the window.
The reverberations of the sound went through the whole house—or at least, that’s the way it seemed to me. The armoire was much too big to fit through the entire gabled window, so half of the piece of furniture remained in the room. I could feel my blood shooting through my veins as I waited for the eventual aftermath, the police and security guards, the footsteps pounding up the stairs and grabbing me, the arrest. But there was nothing.
&nbs
p; When I had finally caught my breath, I turned my attention back to the edge of the maid’s room door. Now that the armoire was out of the way, I saw what I was dealing with: the edge of the door was visible beneath peeling wallpaper, but there were pieces of plaster and wooden boards covering the door itself. The room had clearly been boarded up and covered in a layer of plaster, and when that had dried, someone had slapped wallpaper over it.
I took hold of one of the pieces of wood that was blocking the door. It had been nailed down, but after wrangling with it for a minute, I managed to pry it loose. The rest of the pieces of wood came away with a similar amount of struggle. I piled them carefully on the floor, then dusted my hands off and stood facing the door. It was a traditional Victorian door, two squares of inlaid wood painted white; a brass handle. I reached for the handle.
I heard voices. It wasn’t the children on the street or snatches of laughter; these voices were closer. I edged toward the window and peered out over the toppled armoire. Four flashlight beams coming across the grounds of Windhall. Someone was inside the grounds.
As I stood there, a beam shot up and illuminated the upstairs guest bedroom, dazzling me. I ducked backward so quickly that I stumbled and fell, but it wasn’t quick enough. I knew that I had been seen.
My mind churned through all the possibilities. There was the possibility of someone else who had decided to break in, but I knew that was unlikely. The festivities of the Halloween party were still in full swing, and I didn’t think that four people would be able to slip into the grounds undetected. They had to be police, or worse, people who worked for Heather.
I didn’t have much time. I tried the doorknob of the maid’s room, but it was either locked or completely rusted shut. After a moment of hesitation, I shoved my shoulder against it. The door didn’t budge; it was much heavier than it looked. I lifted my foot and kicked the doorknob, which took a few tries, but the door finally yielded.
I stumbled into the maid’s room, coughing as waves of dust rose up. My light illuminated billows of dust and sediment, and then, as the dust settled, the room itself came into focus.
The wallpaper was different here. A pattern of tiny flowers drifted against a cream background, the perfect, quaint design typical of old-fashioned nurseries. The room was empty, but the walls bore evidence of furniture long gone: ghost patches where sunlight had never penetrated, the faint shape of a pair of twin beds and a dresser.
The window was hung with tattered curtains, silk organza gone to seed. A snatch of moonlight filtered in through the gaps, illuminating the floor. I could hear the voices more clearly now and knew that they must have reached the house. Men’s voices, I could hear that much, though I couldn’t distinguish anything they were saying.
Adrenaline had gotten me this far, but now I was convinced that it was a foolish venture, fruitless and pointless. I had given up everything to be here, but I wasn’t sure what I was doing, and I was almost convinced that I was going to be arrested before I found anything.
Still, I pulled out the black light, which revealed pirouettes of dust, ghostly columns in the air. Nothing. And then, just as I was beginning to lose hope, a faint shimmer of blue.
There were noises downstairs. I could hear them coming through the house. And then, two voices I recognized: I could hear Ben and Leland.
“I know where he is,” said Ben. “He’s up in the guest bedroom.”
“This way, gents,” Leland said. The group was coming up the stairs.
My heart pounding in my chest, I went over to the window and sprayed the area with Luminol, then turned on the black light. The patches of blue glowed faintly under the window, and I could see that the wallpaper had been peeled away here, but it looked like an old wound. The patches of wood and glowing blue marks showed underneath this. I dropped to my knees and started to peel away the wallpaper, then took out my knife and scraped away at the wood.
They were in the hallway now. I could hear their footsteps marching toward the guest room, but with the house’s strange acoustics, it seemed that they were all around me.
I was almost done. I picked away until I had a piece of wood about the size of my thumb, which glowed faintly blue under the black light. I wrapped it up in a plastic bag, and then wrapped that up in a second bag. There was only one option, and it wasn’t appealing, but I knew that I didn’t have a choice.
* * *
I had left the maid’s room and was waiting in the adjoining guest bedroom when they found me. Leland opened the door of the bedroom with a key, then stepped inside and glanced around. He took in the armoire and then saw me sitting on the bed. He almost looked disappointed.
“I told you to stay away from Windhall,” he said. “Why didn’t you listen?”
Ben didn’t say anything, but when he met my eye, he looked sad. He was followed into the room by two policemen, a man and a woman.
“Are you aware that this is a private residence?” This was from the woman.
“He’s aware,” Leland said.
“And you’re aware that breaking and entering is an offense?”
“Yes, yes, he’s aware,” Leland said. “Search him. He came here to steal something.”
The male cop came over and frisked me. He turned over the black light.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a black light.”
“I can see that,” he said. “And the liquid?”
There was no point in lying; any idiot detective would put it together eventually.
“Luminol.”
“What are you doing with it?”
Ben cleared his throat. “You don’t have to answer that, Hailey,” he said. “I don’t think you should say anything at all.”
Leland made a hand gesture to the cop. “Anything else?”
The cop continued to frisk me. “He’s got a mask,” he said. “Creepy skeleton. Keys, both car and house, a wallet.” He opened it and looked through my cards. “No driver’s license.”
“We know who he is. Anything else?”
“That’s it.”
“All right, let’s go,” Leland said. “Take him to the station.”
TWENTY
It made a great finale. The officers frog-marched me down the driveway of Windhall and made a big show of unlocking the gates, then escorted me toward their waiting car. Children looked on in shock and delight as I was pushed into the cruiser. I have to admit that I must have made quite a sight; I was still dressed as a skeleton, other than the mask, and now I was covered in dust.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” I announced, but nobody listened to me.
Before the officers put me into their car, Ben put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t say anything,” he said. I was confused that he was being so nice to me. Weren’t we on opposite sides of the equation? “Wait for your lawyer.”
It had been a while since I had been booked, but I remembered the routine. Once we got to the station, I had to sign some paperwork, and then the two cops took me into a room and jogged me for details about what I was doing at Windhall. I politely told them that I wasn’t willing to talk until I had a lawyer. Jail isn’t really like what they show on television; it feels more like a bad hospital with really shitty nurses.
They kept me in the room for three hours, leaving me to doze at one point, until a different officer appeared.
“You Max Hailey?”
“That’s me.”
“You’re free to go.”
I blinked and rubbed my eyes. I was so exhausted that I was delirious, and I wasn’t feeling very perceptive. “And then what?”
“Then what, what? Then nothing. You’re done.”
“That’s it?”
“No charges filed. We need this space for the next shithead who gets a brilliant idea.”
I followed him down the hallway and emerged into the booking room. Petra and Thierry were standing there, waiting for me.
“All right, asshole,” Thierry said. “What kind of mess did you get
yourself into this time?”
“I’d love to fill you guys in,” I said. “Let’s get out of here, though.”
“Let’s get breakfast or something,” Petra suggested.
“You okay?”
“There’s something I need to tell you,” she said. “It’s about Rebecca Lewis, Ben’s mother. Not here, though. Let’s wait until we’re somewhere else.”
* * *
Thierry refused to stop at any of the cafés in Beverly Hills, and he made me wait until we’d reached Venice. “You know I hate Beverly Hills, Hailey, don’t test my patience.” He stopped at a hole-in-the-wall Mexican joint, populated by salty surf bums and grizzled beachcombers. I ran to the restroom while Petra and Thierry sat down and ordered. I was gone for about fifteen minutes, and by the time I got back, Thierry had finished his breakfast burrito.
“Your coffee’s cold,” he announced. “What, they don’t let you use the bathroom in jail?”
“I didn’t want to go there,” I said. “It was of a rather sensitive nature.”
“What, you some kind of princess now? Can’t shit with an audience?”
I turned to Petra. “You said you found something out about Rebecca Lewis?”
She glanced around and then lowered her voice. “I’ve been looking into her a lot,” she said. “Trying to figure out when Theo could have been with her. Trying to figure out if Theo could be Ben’s father, if he and Rebecca had an illegitimate child together. Also, Hailey, you mentioned that the second set of footprints in the garden might have belonged to her.”
“What footprints?” Thierry leaned back against the booth and drank his coffee. “This shit’s way over my head. I thought we were here to talk about how you ended up in jail again.”