* * *
“You have an amazing wife,” Byron Sanderson said as we roamed the house together, the two kids in our arms. “Donna usually takes zero shit from me or anyone else, but especially anyone ordering her about like a puppy. Amazing wife, old man. Oh. Sorry. She’s not your wife.”
I rearranged Nathan in the crook of my arm. “I don’t know. I’m beginning to warm to the idea. The really amazing thing, though, is this house of yours.”
“Turn left here. It could be amazing, maybe, if I ever finish it. Now it’s just a tuckered out old Queen Anne Victorian a zillion generations behind her time. I doubt Norman Shaw would be impressed. But tell that to my realtor.”
“Afraid, Mr. Sanderson, I don’t know Norman Shaw any better than your realtor.”
Sanderson smiled, stuck a Camel in his mouth—immediately withdrew it and dropped it back in his Arrow shirt pocket.
“Trying to quit?”
“Keep forgetting, but I’ve got to at home, around the kids. Actually, I think they’re helping me give up the nasty things.”
I looked around as we came through the bar: big, like everything else in the house. One whole side of the room was dedicated to a Jack London-age mahogany bar with what looked like original brass fittings and lamps, and both walls were covered with a blaze of neon liquor and beer signs of every shape, color and size.
“Shaw and a few other architects came to New York with the new fad for housing for the New York and School of Industry about 1878. He’s credited with bringing the whole Victorian look with him, formulated originally in Britain. You know, gabled and domestically friendly homes of warm, soft brick enclosing some square terracotta panels, an arched side passage leading to an inner court, detailing largely confined to picturesquely-disposed windows with small-paned upper sashes, all that rot.” He lifted the beautifully glossy bar gate, slipped in and gestured me toward a stool. “What are you drinking?”
I sat on a gleaming chrome stool, balancing Nathaniel (abruptly quiet and hypnotized by all the neon) on one knee, and waved Byron off. “Katie says I’ve had enough today.”
“I know, that’s why I’m asking what you want.”
“Bourbon, straight.”
“Got it.”
I followed the child’s marveling eyes around the winking, blinking and sometimes flowing carnival colors. “Hamm’s Beer,” I smiled, “the old man used to drink that. How do they make the water flow on the sign?”
“Cheap optics and a ten dollar motor.”
I shook my head, enjoying myself. “’From the land of sky blue waters!’”
“Lofty balsams!” Byron grinned, pouring for us.
“’Comes the beer refreshing!’” He winked and we clicked glasses, chuckling.
“Byron old man, I think this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful friendship! I may even consider moving in!”
Byron knocked back his drink, smacked his lips. “Not until you’ve seen the movie room!”
I didn’t expect to be impressed; I’d seen a few good home theaters in my time in Los Angeles back in my screenwriting days, even subscribed to Widescreen magazine and Sight and Sound before I realized I couldn’t possibly afford even their smallest overhead projectors on a teacher’s salary. Byron’s ‘home theater” had none of this.
There was the requisite 100 inch screen and plush, raked movie seating, of course, but the walls held no framed one-sheet movie posters or lobby cards from the good old days. I recognized the walls immediately from the snapshots Byron had taken and Katie had shown Rita and me in her kitchen: shelf after shelf of cameras, all sizes, all versions, nearly all antiques. Both theater walls were fifty feet long with twenty foot high ceilings, and each was crammed with shelf upon shelf of cameras, both still and movie, 8mm, 16mm, 35mm, even one massive 70mm Panavision Hollywood camera.
The strangest sight of all, however, was a four foot upright pine box, lustrously polished and standing all alone under a special overhead light. Byron caught me singling it out, grinned broadly, proudly.
“What is it?”
Byron patted the polished wood reverently. “An Edison Kinetoscope. Arguably the world’s first movie projector.”
I came over for a closer look. “No kidding. Thought I read somewhere the French developed the first projectors.”
Byron nodded patience. “You’re thinking of the Lumiere brothers. There’s an ongoing historical debate to this day whether the French or the Americans invented the movie projector. The records are pretty messy, maybe intentionally. Current wisdom holds Edison’s Kinetoscope here as the real pioneer, though some argue if it was even a true projector. It was more like a peep show, could only be viewed by one person at a time through this top viewer, though it does seem to be the first gadget to use a moving film strip passed before an intense beam of light. Edison supposedly conceptualized the thing, announcing it in 1888, while his employee William Dickson largely developed it between 1889 and 1892.”
It looked like a 1920’s console radio without dials.
“Interesting. So where do the French come in?”
Byron grinned wider, coaxed me to the next machine over, basically a small wooden box on a tripod with a hand crank. “Meet the Cinematograph. Both a film projector and a camera, purportedly invented by the Frenchman Leon Bouly on February 12, 1892. Bouly was not able to come up with the dough for a patent, however, and the device was bought by the Lumiere brothers: engineers. Popular thought, however, dictates that Louis Lumiere was the first to conceptualize the contraption. The brothers shared the patent and made their first film, Sortie de l’usine Lumiere de Lyon in 1894—uh, pardon my French. The film was first shown publicly at the L’Eden, the world’s first cinema theater, in September of 1895.”
“Huh. So Edison was maybe the first to invent the projector, but the French were the first to show film commercially.”
Byron laughed. I could tell he was enjoying this, having an audience all his own to share his priceless collection with. “It gets more confusing! Have a look at this…”
He directed me to a small table not far from the other inventions, which contained an even smaller gizmo that looked something like a cotton gin with a flywheel. “And this would be…”
“The Phantoscope. Created by Charles Francis Jenkins in the early 1890’s. It was he who supposedly projected the first motion picture before an audience in his hometown of Richmond, Indiana, on June 6, 1894!”
“Good God, was the whole world inventing movies at the same time?”
Byron took on a thoughtful look. “Seems that way, doesn’t it? Not the first time disparate inventors all get the same idea at once…like it gets in the air or something.”
“Amazing.”
“Yes, similar ideas but not all the same. Jenkin’s little Phantoscope, for instance, was the first projector to allow each still frame of film to be illuminated long enough before advancing to the next frame sequence. Edison’s Kinetoscope, which simply ran a loop of film with successive images through the camera shutter, gave the image a bothersome blur. Jenkin’s projector, by pausing long enough on each frame for the brain to register a clear single picture, but replacing each frame in the sequence faster than a tenth of a second, produced a smooth and true moving picture. It was from Jenkin’s concept that the entire motion picture industry grew.”
Byron placed a careful hand atop the little machine. “Only one working model was ever built by Jenkins, and it was stolen a few months later from his home…”
I was aghast. “Holy—you own the first movie projector in the entire world?”
Byron shook his head. “I wish.” He winked. “It’s just a copy, Elliot. But a nice one, don’t you think?”
He ran a careful palm over the object as if petting a small dog. “And who remembers poor Charles Francis Jenkins today?”
I hadn’t been aware that both children had fallen asleep in our arms long ago…
* * *
There was a lot more to see.
<
br /> Byron’s collection of classic antique pedal cars in the detached carriage house cum garage, for instance.
But as we passed Donna’s work station again, Katie still in her swivel chair with Donna scooted close to her, Katie called out to me without even looking up. “Hey!”
“I only had one drink. A little one.”
She stared fixedly at the computer screen, motioned impatiently to me.
Byron and I came over, crowded around the computer.
Katie was tapping keys rapidly, more rapidly than I’ve ever seen her tap. Expertly. But that was Katie, a fast learner.
“Okay. Everybody here? Settled? Here we go.”
She sat back from the screen a moment, took a deep breath. “I haven’t tested this completely yet but—“
“She’s gotten something off the old hard drive!” Donna squealed excitedly to her husband. “Something the camera took in the nursery that night!”
Katie touched her shoulder, mothering. “Let’s hope I got something. I’m not exactly a member of the Geek Squad. Okay, everybody…feel free to either cheer or boo…”
She reached forward and tapped a key.
Blank screen.
Donna sighed. “Oh, dear…”
“Give it a second, sweetie,” from my noticeably exhausted partner, blouse pits ringed with sweat, tangle of hair in her face.
Blank screen.
I took a slow, hopefully unnoticed breath.
Blank screen.
Byron coughed softly, shuffled his feet.
Blank screen.
Donna’s shoulders slumped as she sat back in her chair.
Blank screen. Some starting. Some rolling. The nursery appeared.
“She did it!” and Donna hugged Katie’s shoulder.
Byron and I edged closer to the monitor. On it, the Sanderson children slept peacefully.
A full minute of this.
Katie cranked the speakers until we heard Nathaniel’s gentle snoring, a sleepy rustle of blankets from Natalie’s crib.
Then a sound.
Maybe a voice, maybe something else. But deep. Disconcerting.
Then the screen turned to static.
Three seconds.
And the view of the nursery bloomed again…minus Nathaniel.
Byron started to say something but Katie’s hand shot up, shushing him. She leaned in, cranked the speaker all the way up. Had there been a secondary rustle from Natalie’s crib? Or was it the far off sibilant sound of a voice?
Donna jumped, yelping at the sudden thunder of footfalls from the speakers, growing steadily loud and louder. Then she gasped as she watched herself run into the room, look about the nursery anxiously, spy her son’s empty bed.
“Nathan!”
And again: blank screen.
* * *
Katie sat silently before Donna’s work station monitor as if hoping the view of the nursery would appear again, though in her heart, I felt, she really didn’t expect it to.
After a full ten minutes of continuous snowy screen I finally said, “Katie--?”
She looked up at me standing there beside her as if she hadn’t seen me in months.
“That seems to be all there is, partner.”
Katie stared at me an unsettling moment, then looked back at the monitor, nodding once.
“She was amazing to get even that much!” from a still-excited Donna, leaning to hug Katie’s solemn cheek. “I didn’t even know you could pull stuff like that off a hard drive! You’re a wonder, Katie! This is the most sane I’ve felt in weeks!”
Katie just stared at the static-filled screen, mind clearly elsewhere.
“Thank-you, Ms. Bracken,” from a genuinely grateful Byron (grateful to have a little more of his old wife back, I think.) “I didn’t realize a paranormal diploma included expertise in computing hardware!”
Katie stared at the screen. Transfixed?
I was beginning to worry until she finally murmured, “No diploma, actually. As for the computer…I was sort of making it up as I went along…”
“Well, whatever you were doing,” Donna beamed, “you accomplished in a couple of hours what an entire police lab couldn’t do in a week!”
Katie looked up again. “The lab looked at your computer too? Not just the drive?”
Donna gave that quick nod. Katie went back to looking at the snowy screen silently.
Donna stood and clasped her hands victoriously. “Well! We’re off and running! Who’s ready for lunch? We’ll take you anywhere, right Byron?”
“Absolutely. You two just name it.”
“It’s really not necessary,” I assured them.
Donna waved me off. “We insist. What do you feel like, Chinese? Katie--?”
Katie stared at the screen. “No, I’m fine.”
“But we know the best places!” Donna grinned.
“I’m not leaving the house,” Katie said flatly.
Awkward moment of silence.
“Oh,” from Donna, glancing from her husband to me.
Another awkward moment of silence.
“Uh…” I rocked on the balls of my feet, “maybe we could order in?”
Donna was staring at Katie. “Sure. Sure! Chinese? Pizza? Greek? Katie—“
Katie nodded absently. “That’s fine…”
* * *
We ate--mostly in silence—around the living room coffee table: Domino’s Pizza and Cokes. Mostly in silence because it was hard to keep up a three-way conversation with Katie sitting quietly munching crust with continuous glances back toward the work station.
After one slice she stood and announced she wanted to see the rest of the house.
“Right this way—“ Donna started.
But Katie turned away, raising a hand. “I’d prefer to go alone.”
Something lanced right through my stomach when she said that and it had little to do with my partner’s curtness. Suddenly I was very ill-at-ease with Katie walking the halls of the mansion on any floor. And especially nervous about the nursery.
I almost started from my chair. But what could I say? I don’t want you alone in this house! with the homeowners sitting right there? The morning had been tense enough.
So I sat back down, leaned into my chair, and ate my pizza. It was suddenly tasteless.
By 6 p.m. sitting on the living room divan with the Sandersons watching Wolf Blitzer on their 70-inch screen, I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever see my beloved partner again.
When I heard footsteps on the main staircase and saw a figure from the corner of my eyes, I sat back against the cushion and breathed relief.
“Finally!” I murmured aloud. “You poor people must think we’re taking over your house.”
Donna smiled, punched my arm, poured me more coffee. “Don’t be silly. We couldn’t be happier you two are here! Why ‘finally’ though?”
I turned to her. “Sorry--?”
“You muttered ‘finally’ a second ago. “’Finally’ what?”
“Katie’s here,” I said jerking my thumb behind me at the stairs.
I felt that cold stab again at Donna’s expression looking past my shoulder.
I whipped around.
The staircase was empty.
I started, spilling coffee. “Shit!”
“That’s all right, it’s just a glass table. Is something wrong, Elliot?”
I put down my cup, stood, edged around for a better look at the staircase: empty, ascending to second floor darkness.
“Elliot? Did you hear something?”
“Thought…I heard someone on the stairs…”
Byron craned to us casually. “It’s a late century Victorian, old man, lots of creaks and groans. You’ll get used to them.”
I nodded. “Sure.” Thinking: no I won’t. Not now, not tomorrow. I’d really like to go find our motel now, check in and get some sleep.
When I turned around Katie was standing about twenty feet in front of me, half in shadow.
“Je
sus, Katie!”
The Sandersons followed my eyes, my cup and saucer rattling in Donna’s hand.
Katie was saying something to us but I couldn’t quite make it out. She came out of the shadows and I saw the cell phone to her ear.
“…ten o’clock, then. That will be fine. Thank-you.”
She flipped the lid closed and smiled at us. “Ten o’clock! Tomorrow morning!”
Donna poured her coffee as Katie came before the divan, glancing quickly askance at me.
“Ten tomorrow morning what?” I asked.
“My crew from L.A. will be here.”
Byron turned to me. “Crew?”
I stared at Katie. “Crew?”
Katie smiled at a confused Donna, accepted the cup from her. “Best in the state! Maybe even the nation! But they can only stay for the weekend!”
I stood as Katie sat, crossed my arms emphatically, addressed her patiently. “Mind filling your partner in on what you’re talking about?”
Katie bit into a chocolate chip cookie, looked up innocently. “The crew, Elliot! The equipment! Didn’t I…oh, no…I didn’t forget to tell you--?”
“Apparently,” I nodded.
“Equipment?” Byron asked cautiously.
Katie nodded above her cup. “Stuff to watch the house with. Observe phenomena. You know, to look for things we might not detect with the naked eye.”
“What kind of equipment?” from a dubious Donna.
“Well, there’s the quadrant electrometer, of course, the astatic galvanometer, mirror galvanometer, Crookes balance, manometer, smoke absorber, contact clock, electroscope, infrared lights, hygroscope, sthenometer, sulfide screen…” she paused, looked among us. “You’ve no idea what I’m talking about, right?”
“Sure,” I said, having no idea, “stuff to watch the house with!”
Katie smiled, took a sip.
“Why don’t I recall using any of this stuff in Louisiana?”
“Because Louisiana was not a localized environment, Elliot. Anyway, it sounds like more stuff than it is and it’s just a four-man crew. Be in tomorrow, Saturday, and out again by Sunday night. Unless…”
NIGHT CHILLS: A Bracken and Bledsoe Paranormal Mystery Page 5