“Shit! God Damn it!” Randall Jackson dabbed wildly at his lap with the worn cloth handkerchief he kept safely concealed in his back pocket. The coffee that had only moments before burned his tongue was now scalding his crotch. For a second he saw Cheryl’s face poking around the frame of his office door, mock concern etching her face.
“Randall, you’ve always been such a klutz.”
She laughed playfully and then she was gone, her image wavering briefly before winking out for good. He cursed himself silently for stirring up old memories. Cheryl had left, and she wasn’t coming back. Randall stood up and watched helplessly as coffee dripped from his white Dockers and splattered on the leather of his office chair before pooling into a small brown puddle.
Normally he wore his sheriff uniform but today was Sunday, the one day his badge took a back seat to his realtor’s license. Cheryl had encouraged him to get into real estate, always wanting for a little more than his modest sheriff salary could afford. She wasn’t greedy, far from it; she just couldn’t stop dreaming of a better life, a life without credit card debt and the constant worry over whether or not there was enough money left for groceries after the monthly bills had been paid. It was a life Randall never could give her and deep in his heart he didn’t blame her for leaving. He chuckled to himself in spite of the painful memory, Cheryl certainly wasn’t missing much.
These days houses were selling like candy corn the day after Halloween. The once a week breaks were good for him though he supposed, not that sheriff of a town like Saltar’s Point was a stressful endeavor, about the only crimes that occurred around here were the occasional DUI or the local high school kids letting off a little steam with a game of mailbox baseball. Still, it was nice to get out of the station once in a while. He didn’t worry about leaving his post anymore, confident that Denny could handle his deputy duties, and if anything ever came up he had his radio nearby. Life in Saltar’s Point had become routine, almost too routine, and in the back of his mind Randall Jackson couldn’t help but wish for a little excitement. He had no idea how exciting his life was about to become.
“Looks like you had yourself a little accident.” Jack Darrow said as he stepped into Randall Jackson’s office. The screen door slammed shut behind him, announcing his presence with a startling clang.
TWO
They drove separately. Darrow insisted that he had to be somewhere shortly and would leave right from the Manor. Randall received an odd feeling that he was not being entirely truthful, but shrugged it off. Perhaps the man wasn’t fond of strangers or small talk. Perhaps he just liked to be by himself; no crime in that.
Randall checked his rearview mirror and assured himself that the van was still behind him, trailing distantly. The van itself gave Randall pause. It wasn’t the sort of vehicle you would expect someone to drive who was willing to shell out over half a million dollars for a house the size of a small shopping mall. Randall cursed himself quietly for his stereotyping. He didn’t want to loose a possible deal based on rash judgments. When they had spoken on the phone earlier Randall had told him the details of the estate including the asking price and Darrow’s voice hadn’t flinched a bit when he said “that sounds fine.” The man was a bit eccentric was all there was to it, and he probably liked his old van. Randall let the thoughts drop from his mind as he turned up the gravel driveway.
The Porter Place seemed to rise from the horizon, the wind-damaged wooden shingling appearing first and pulling with it the rest of the manor as Randall drove closer. Long tendrils of shadow grew outward from the manor enveloping his Jeep. He began to shake involuntarily. A wave of nausea ran through him. His heart hammered at his ribs.
Calm Randall. Calm.
He had stepped foot inside the manor only once before and the overwhelming feeling of dread hung over him like a heavy blanket, suffocating. Randall stretched his lungs with a deep breath. The anxiety he felt subsided a bit and he felt foolish. Still, he hated the Porter place, despised it really. It held such vulgar memories. It was the last place he had seen his mother, well not his mother really but the cold dead slab of a thing that had once been his mother, fake rosy red patches on her cheeks. He visualized his mother laying there, an empty husk, this earthly vessel that was no longer his mother but a painted up jezebel with blushing rouge and overdone makeup. His proud mother never would have worn her makeup like that when she was alive but the mortician had said: “the dead lack color; this is what makes them look best.” But his mother was full of color, so full of life! And as he bent over her he could almost hear her pleading. “Randall please! What am I doing here? I don’t belong here. Get me out of here Randall please!”
He had watched friends and relatives walk by to pay their last respects. Stoic and somber they appeared in a barrage of black. To Randall it seemed like disrespect, the indignity suffered at the end of one’s life, laid bare for all to see with nothing to hide, no secrets kept for one’s self.
Randall rubbed his hand across his brow. The Porter place was nothing but a house to be sold, a residence in need of owners and the sooner he sold it the sooner he could be rid of it. But oh, did it have a sordid history! And Randall knew it all. He had researched it. He knew it better than he would admit, and as he thought about it the memories flooded through him.
Rupert Porter had served as town mortician for just shy of twenty-eight years, until the large crematorium and funeral home in Bremerton a mere forty miles away undercut his modest fees, drying up his business and forcing him into early retirement. People didn’t bury their friends and loved ones anymore they merely discarded them, cowing to the death merchants peddling discounted one-way tickets to the world just beyond this one. It wasn’t more than eighteen months after his retirement that Rupert Porter bought his own one-way ticket, his heart stopping quietly while he slept. Now the kindly man with the caring eyes and soft-spoken English accent who had brought so much peace to grieving families was finally at peace himself. There was a morbid irony about it. Porter left behind no surviving relatives. Who was to bury the man who was supposed to bury them all?
The Porter place had sat vacant since last spring. Erected in 1902 it was originally called Talcott Manor after the man who built it. George C. Talcott a well renowned amateur archeologist and wealthy businessman headed out west from Missouri with a desire to line his already ample pockets with gold spun from the timber industry. Construction of the manor had taken a little over a year with two dozen men working around the clock.
On the outside it resembled a large Victorian mansion. Four large columns spanned from the roof to the porch below. Painted brilliant white, the many windows were adorned with black shutters that created a simple yet striking contrast. There was an air of sophistication about it despite several obvious flaws. Paint had begun to fleck around the edges of the shutters and hard edges. The once beautiful garden was overcome with weeds and creeping ivy. A gilded iron fence guarded the house on three sides but the gates had long since rusted off their hinges, leaving the manor exposed to the road. Despite all that, it maintained a demure and humble appearance from the outside.
The inside however, was a labyrinth of rooms and hallways that seemed to meld into one another without much rhyme or reason to their madness, creating an architectural theater of the absurd and reflecting Talcott’s penchant for the flamboyant. Just a few months after its completion Talcott fell ill with pneumonia and died, leaving a mountain of unpaid debt and dozens of angry contractors. The house was put up for auction and sold to an anonymous bidder for a fraction of the construction costs.
Over the years the house had changed hands several times. In the early ‘50s a young entrepreneur named James Hirsch purchased the mansion and converted it into a bed and breakfast, but in 1957 a fire broke out causing considerable damage to the top two floors. Six people perished in the fire, among them a family with two small children. The cause of the fire was determined to be an accident when one of the guests admitted to falling asleep while smoking a
cigarette. Rumors about the source of the fire spread faster than the fire itself, many of the locals contending that Hirsch -a well known gambler- deliberately started the blaze in an effort to make good on his insurance policy. An investigation followed and although Hirsch had run up a considerable debt among local bookies, no charges were filed when it was noted that Hirsch had let his policy lapse and had not collected a single penny. Hirsch filed for bankruptcy and fled the state, abandoning the Talcott mansion altogether.
It was scheduled for demolition but then in 1959 the Washington State Historical Preservation Society purchased the estate and rebuilt the top floors in exact accordance with the original blueprints. It then served as a historical museum for three years before budget cuts forced the Talcott mansion once again to be put up for sale.
Rupert Porter along with his wife Katrina purchased the house in 1969 spending their life savings and leveraging themselves to the hilt in debt. Now with Porter’s passing, the Talcott mansion sat patiently awaiting its next proprietor. With three full stories and a basement, it spanned just over 15,000 square feet and was much more house than any of the residents of Saltar’s Point needed. Those who did express interest couldn’t get past the macabre feelings the one-time funeral home generated at the base of their spines, and so it had sat empty and abandoned, collecting dust on the hardwood and cobwebs in the rafters.
The manor’s sordid history drew Darrow to it like a moth to flame. He wanted a place with a presence, an air of history to brood about in. And yes, a place to hide from the prying eyes of society. The fact that so many people had spent their last days above ground in the basement of the mansion didn’t seem to bother Jack Darrow one bit. In fact he relished it. Abby’s parents had left her a sizeable inheritance and Jack Darrow was intent on spending every last penny of it.
Jack and Randall stood in the entryway beneath the high vaulted ceilings just across from the grand staircase that led to the bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs. An old Otis Elevator prototype sat just to the left of the stairs and adjacent to a cozy reading room tucked away in its own little nook in the southwest corner of the house. Affixed to the front of the elevator was a tarnished brass gate that folded in on itself when opened and creaked in squeaky protest whenever pulled shut. The elevator traveled only from the main floor to the basement. A steel lever jutted out from the elevator floor, when pulled it kick-started the electric motor causing the lights to dim briefly before the gears lowered the single wire cable an inch at a time. There were no stairs leading to the basement, another one of Talcott’s eccentric visions. In reality the house was the stuff of nightmares, a horror movie come to life, but Jack Darrow had big dreams for the house at 1529 Baker St., big dreams indeed.
“Looks like this place was run over by a dump truck.” Darrow spoke from the side of his mouth. It gave Randall an instant dislike for the man.
“It could use a bit of fixing up, but for the price you won’t find a better bargain in all of Saltar’s Point, or more house for that matter.” Randall paused a second, when Darrow didn’t respond he continued. “I’m sorry, I don’t recall what it is you said you did.”
“I didn’t.” He waltzed over to the banister by the grand staircase and rapped on it with his knuckles, producing a reverberating sound. “Oak?”
“Of course,” Randall said. “Plumbing’s been redone. Hardwoods refinished, new appliances…”
“I could give a rat’s ass about that. You said when we spoke on the phone that there was a basement?”
“Over there.” Randall pointed to the Otis. “But I haven’t been down there; it might not be cleaned up.”
“No matter, I’d like to look around,” Darrow said as he started for the elevator. Randall began to follow until Darrow’s glare pierced through the musty air and caught him mid-stride. “Alone.” The tone in Darrow’s voice left no room for argument.
“Suit yourself. I’m going to use the little boy’s room. Call me when you’re done.”
Inside the bathroom Randall could hear the elevator roar to life. The creaking gears and rusted cable rang loud through the pipes and filled the air with a rabid humming. A peculiar fellow to say the least Randall thought to himself as he released the pressure from his bladder. When he was finished he washed his hands and splattered cold water on his face. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror almost by accident and sighed.
These days he didn’t care much for the man staring back at him. Every time he looked he seemed to have a few more wrinkles and a lot less hair. Things weren’t always like this. Twenty years ago his life was a series of open doors laid out before him. Nowadays, Randal couldn’t help but think that he had chosen to walk through the wrong one. It hadn’t been a terrible life, not in the least. He still had his health and all of his teeth, which was a rare commodity around these parts, but he couldn’t help but wonder if life would have been different had he played all his cards right.
He had met Cheryl in high school and their relationship had started out in a fairy tale fashion. He was captain of the football team and she the ravishing cheerleader on the sidelines. They wed shortly after graduation, their hopes fueled by the idealism of their youth, and eager to start their new lives together. Their marriage lasted eighteen years, even surviving the tumultuous period when Randall was away at college and Cheryl had stayed behind to help run her family business. By the time Randall was thirty he had a burning desire to start a family but Cheryl had never developed the maternal instinct and their relationship took a downward spiral. Seven years later Cheryl filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences.
Now quickly approaching middle age Randall wondered if he would ever find love again and if so would he do it right this time. He supposed that he still had a lot to offer the opposite sex, after all some women seemed to like a man in uniform. His hair though receding was still black as midnight without even the slightest hint of gray and he still had his light blue eyes and wide shoulders that complimented his six foot tall frame. He’d thrown on a few extra pounds around the middle but it wasn’t anything a few sit-ups couldn’t take care of. His fortieth birthday was fast approaching and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was wasting the few good years he had left here in Saltar’s Point. After all Denny was fully capable of handling the sheriff duties now and he hadn’t sold a house in almost six months. Worst of all he couldn’t shake the nagging feeling deep inside that no one in Saltar’s Point would miss him if he left. A banging on the bathroom door jolted him back to reality.
“Hey man you dead in there or what?” Darrow’s voice echoed through the oak door and off the bathroom tiles. “Look man I know this is a convenient place to die and all, but I’d appreciate if you’d sign all the papers first. I’ve decided to buy this house.”
Randall smiled in spite of himself; perhaps his luck was looking up after all.
About the time Randall Jackson was closing his deal Ellie Kennebeck was opening the hood of her Ford Bronco. A mixture of smoke and steam erupted from the engine block causing her to jump back with a start. She placed the scalded fingers of her right hand in her mouth and quietly cursed herself for forgetting to add oil when she stopped for fuel three hours earlier. She knew better, these days the Bronco burnt Valvoline quicker than it did gasoline. A quick glance into the back seat reassured her that Aiden was still fast asleep, buckled into his car seat. He wouldn’t stay that way for long she knew, the temperature was nearing ninety degrees and the late August sun was beating down with relentless ferocity. Ellie cursed herself again as she pulled out her cell phone. Why the hell did she run the air conditioner so long? She dialed awkwardly with the fingers of her left hand something she was not accustomed to doing. Her reception had been spotty at best. The radio waves struggled to find a path through the Olympic Mountains causing the signal strength bars on her phone to flicker and dance.
“Come on ring damn you,” Ellie muttered to herself still nursing the tender fingers on her right hand. “Come on damn you Ring!
”
The phone came to life with buzz and a crackle.
“Oh thank you Jesus. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she prayed quietly to herself.
“4-1-1 inform---, how ma-, I –elp you?” The voice on the end was distant and filled with static.
“Yes, hello. I need the number for a tow truck. I’m just outside…”
“I’m sor-- --am, I can bar-- -ear you. Pl--- speak up.
Desperation crept into Ellie’s voice. “I need the number for a tow truck. My car broke down and it’s very hot and I have my four year old son in the back…”
“I’m so--- ma’am. I ca— hear –ou. Please ca-- --ack later.”
The phone went dead.
“Mommy,” Aiden cried from the backseat. “I’m hot!”
“I know baby, just sit tight while mommy fixes the car, okay?”
“I want a drink of water.”
The words stung Ellie’s ears and elevated her panic. “I know honey, just be patient and we‘ll get you some water very soon.”
She opened the back door and unbuckled Aiden’s car seat.
“Are we there yet?” Aiden rubbed his eyes, still groggy from his nap.
“We’re close baby.”
“And then we get to see grandpa?”
“Then we’ll see grandpa.”
She managed to get the last strap free despite her sore hand and lifted Aiden from the car. Holding him close she looked around and debated her options. It was too far to walk and Aiden was getting heavier by the minute. Off into the distance she thought she could make out a car coming over the hill. Squinting in the bright glare she checked to make sure her eyes were not playing tricks on her. As the car neared she began to make out the distinctive lights of a police cruiser. Immeasurable relief ran through her body.
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